by Warren Adler
Alice had finally been able to get to her house without trouble. The day-school buses were back on their regular routine, and Ben was able to get to school.
By then she had reached the child saturation stage and was getting decidedly claustrophobic. She had spent the morning preparing a welcome-home meal for Orson, something he really adored, paella, which required some preparation but could be left on low heat for the rest of the day. She had decided to surprise Orson by picking him up at Dulles. The Concorde sailed in at 3:00 P.M. She figured he would pass through customs by 3:30 at the latest, giving her time for a leisurely two-hour lunch with Margo.
Vivien had met Margo when their husbands were up-and-coming government lawyers. Although they didn't see each other as often since Ben was born, they somehow managed to retain an intimacy which revived mysteriously each time they saw each other. With full-time live-in help and two children already attending elementary school, Margo had considerably more freedom than Vivien allowed herself. More importantly, Margo was Vivien's window to the outside world and all its titillating gossip and activity.
A Southern girl with a Junior League wave that fell softly over one side of her face, Margo drawled out gossip and personal confessions and dispensed Washington wisdom with remarkable authority. She usually got bombed on her first martini, with often shocking results. Vivien liked her, as long as she was able to properly space the visits. Being with Margo sometimes made Vivien feel tacky and dull. It was, she supposed, the price one paid, for the entertainment value.
"You look lovely, darlin'," Margo said, lifting her face to receive Vivien's kiss. She had already completed one-half of her martini and played with the olive on its toothpick.
"I hope so. I'm picking Orson up at Dulles. He's coming in on the Concorde."
"Lucky him," Margo said, motioning to the waiter. He came over, and Vivien frowned with indecision. She never could make up her mind about drinks. Margo's eyes drifted toward the window.
"What the hell," she said. "Bring me another." Darker clouds had closed in, muting the promise of a sunnier day. She turned her gaze to Vivien. "You should, too. Warm you up for Orson."
Vivien nodded assent and followed Margo's gaze out the window.
"You can see the crane from here," Margo said.
"What crane?"
"From the crash."
"Wasn't that awful?" Vivien said. On television the crash provided a drumbeat of horror. She had watched the reports for the first two days, then finally shut it out of her life.
"Hard to believe," Margo continued. "All those bodies still under the river—right there—while we sit comfortably watching."
"It's so morbid," Vivien said. "Let's talk about happy things."
"My golf handicap is down to eight."
"Now that's boring."
Margo looked up at Vivien, sipped the dregs of her first martini, and smiled, flashing an envied dimple and good white teeth.
"Most things are boring, Viv."
"Not my life."
"Yours especially."
"I can see that this is not going to be upbeat," Vivien said, laughing and lifting her glass for the first sip.
"You don't play golf, you don't play tennis, you don't play cards, you don't even play around."
Vivien blushed crimson.
"It's a sport, kid. I'm not talking about anything heavy." Margo sighed. "You'd be surprised how soothing it can be. You should try it sometime."
"Don't be ridiculous," Vivien said.
Margo clucked her tongue.
"You are a phenomenon, Viv. The whole scene just passed you by. I'm not talking about breaking up your marriage. Just a little fun, a little romance, a little sex."
"I couldn't," Vivien said with embarrassment.
"Faithful Viv," Margo said. "The good sister." It had happened only once before Orson. Tom Perkins, when she was a junior in college. As in most first times, she supposed, it was a disappointment. But at least it had taken her out of the category of "hopeless virgin."
"Not my style, that's all," Vivien said. "People are different."
"Do you good," Margo said, taking a deep sip of her martini.
"I doubt that."
"Does wonders for sheer boredom."
"But I'm not bored."
"I am. I wish I weren't bored, but I can't help it. Unlike you, I have a very exciting husband. At least everybody tells me he is exciting. Sometimes he really is, but rarely. Lately he has been so damned critical." Again her eyes turned toward the window.
"It's not going to be one of those, is it?" Vivien asked.
Margo shook her head vigorously. The alcohol had already begun to do its work.
"I wish something different would happen in my life," Margo said.
"I don't."
"No, I guess you wouldn't."
"There you go, making me sound boring."
"You're so damned contented. Like a cow."
"I have put on a little weight," Vivien said.
"I didn't mean that. You've got a great figure, Viv. I hope Orson takes full advantage of it."
Vivien blushed again.
Margo shook her head and smiled. "Actually, I shouldn't be bored. Allen will make more and more money. We'll take more elaborate vacations, meet more and more important people. Allen is very into powerful people. He collects them. The kids will grow up and leave school. My golf handicap will improve. I'll go every day to exercise class. Probably drink a bit more. And if I'm lucky, really lucky, I'll find an occasional golf or tennis pro to service the needs of my aging libido."
Vivien looked around to see if someone had heard.
"My God, Margo."
"Well, the fact is that Allen is so damned tired at night. Washington priorities. Ambition before sex. What's a girl to do?" Margo mused.
The waiter came and handed the menus. Margo opened hers and seemed to be reading it.
"Sometimes I think he's got some little chippie stashed away. That's where it must all go. Not much left for us." She winked at Vivien.
"I don't worry about that," Vivien said.
"No, you wouldn't."
Margo pursed her lips and smiled tightly.
"Dammit, Viv. Wouldn't it be great to fall in love with some delicious man? Some uninhibited Adonis? And he with you? All that wonderful anguish, the danger of it."
"Fantasies," Vivien said primly.
"Tell me," Margo exulted. "If I told you what I was thinking, you'd want to wash my mouth out with hard soap. I mean a mad passion where you do everything—everything. Something that takes control of you, something so overpowering that it changes everything inside you."
"I think you're reading too much romance fiction."
"I'm not reading it. I'm longing for it to happen to me."
"Danger stalks," Vivien said. "Better get some food inside."
"It won't happen. You can't will it to happen. It's just that ... nature is so unfair. Like"—she bent down very low next to Vivien's ear—"every time I think of things like this, I get horny. Sometimes when I feel like that I call Allen and tell him to rush right over. He always refuses."
"Then call one of your—" Vivien could not bring herself to finish the sentence, as if it were an obscenity.
Margo chuckled.
"You don't do that with a stranger. What if he rejects your offer? No. That kind of a suggestion is only for long-term husbands." She lifted her glass.
"It never occurs to me," Vivien said. In admitting it she felt no sense of inadequacy or moral superiority. Her orientation, she assured herself, was tolerance. Also, it was obvious that all of Margo's sexual angst wasn't contributing to her happiness.
"So I'm forced to find another outlet," Margo said, giggling suddenly.
Vivien's laugh reaction did not satisfy Margo's expectation.
"You're definitely not the person to discuss this with," she said, winking as if to take the sting out of her tremor of testiness.
"Once you stop reading Cosmopolitan, it a
ll goes away," Vivien said.
"I know you think this is all trivial."
"Not trivial," Vivien said pleasantly. "Irrelevant to me. I've put my faith and hope in one man, body and soul."
"Is that meant to be insulting or to be wise advice?"
"I'm not one to give advice." Vivien paused and laughed. "And I don't insult people I care about."
"That's you. Typical. Goody two-shoes. The great earth mother."
"I've been feeling like that. You should see the snowman I made with Ben."
They ordered. Margo had quiche Lorraine and a salad. Vivien had eggs Benedict and declined a second martini. Margo openly debated but finally declined a third. Would she become, Vivien speculated, one of those sad Washington types, the women who lingered too long over lunch, got sloshed, left only when it became too obvious that they were the last customers in the restaurant? She listened as Margo prattled on. The food seemed to perk up her spirits.
"You must think I'm awful, Viv."
"Maybe you just have too much time on your hands, Margo. Maybe you should get a job."
"Someday," Margo sighed. But her life seemed cast in cement: country clubs, tennis, golf, long lunches, lots of drinks, a roll in the hay with a nubile pro. And under it all, general malaise and vague unhappiness.
To be Margo's friend on any permanent basis required more intimacy than Vivien was willing to give. For some reason, Margo had dampened her spirits today. Perhaps it was the grizzly view. Or the expressed dissatisfactions. Sometimes Vivien thought that the world deliberately conspired to make many women dissatisfied, and she was determined to resist that conspiracy. Margo had been right. She was content. Margo had made the condition seem like a disease.
Over coffee her gaze drifted again to the river. She saw the crane and turned her eyes away. Considering the pain that life could hand out, Margo and she were quite lucky people.
"You shouldn't let yourself get so down, Margo," Vivien said.
"Well, then, give me the secret of your ups."
"I wish I had an answer."
Margo did not smile, leaving her with the distinct feeling that she had utterly failed as a confidante. They split the check, kissed each other good-bye in the parking lot, and Vivien headed for Dulles. The expectation of surprising Orson restored her cheerfulness.
8
When she arrived at Dulles, the Concorde from Paris had just landed, and she stood patiently in the waiting room, straining her neck to catch the view of the customs area each time the automatic doors slid open. Orson would be totally flabbergasted. She delighted in her little mischievousness, thinking suddenly of what Margo had said: I wish something different would happen in my life. She snickered to herself. It didn't have to be on a grand scale, something dangerous or cataclysmic. What she was doing had its own secret thrill, and Orson would be delighted. Wasn't it always wonderful to see a familiar loving face when one arrived at a destination?
Travelers began to come through the automatic doors, rolling their carts of luggage. The usual ceremony of greeting ensued, and slowly the waiting semicircle around the door thinned. She did not become apprehensive until someone asked a departing passenger whether he was coming from the TWA flight from London. The passenger nodded.
"Has the Concorde from Paris been fully unloaded?" she asked one of the porters, who shrugged.
"Might be some left. They're slow today."
She looked at her watch. It was nearly four. She wondered if she had missed him. Maybe he took an earlier, conventional flight. She waited another twenty minutes, then went to the Pan American counter and asked the agent about the Concorde.
"I'm sure everyone's gone by now," the agent replied.
"My husband must have taken another flight."
"What is his name?" Vivien told her, and she punched the computer keys. "Simpson?"
"Yes."
"I'm sorry. Are you sure he was on that flight?"
She felt a bit embarrassed. "I could have misunderstood."
"Would you like me to check tomorrow's passenger list?"
"No," Vivien said quickly, not knowing why. Perhaps she did not wish to raise the level of her anxiety. She was certain there was a perfectly logical explanation. After all, she hadn't told him she would be there. She slid into a telephone booth and dialed home. "Has Mr. Simpson arrived?" she asked Alice.
"Not yet, Mrs. Simpson. Was he supposed to come straight home?"
It seemed an odd question, but she ignored it, inquired about Ben, and then hung up. She felt disoriented. Surely she had gotten it all wrong. Or his plans had changed. There were any number of possibilities. If she had not come to meet him, she might have been spared the bother. A call or telegram would soon come, announcing a later flight. Finally, she called Orson's office and spoke to his secretary, Jane Sparks.
"What plane was Orson coming in on?" she asked casually. "I must have forgotten." Her relationship with Miss Sparks was strictly business. Secretly, though, she resented her and often felt patronized.
"I assume the Concorde," Miss Sparks said crisply.
"I'm here at Dulles. He's not on it."
"That's strange..." There was a long pause. "But then I didn't make the arrangements, so he could be on another flight."
"That's a relief," Vivien said, taking a deep breath. Then she asked pleasantly, "He hasn't called?"
"No. I haven't heard from him since early Monday morning." Vivien remembered that he had called the office before he left.
"He hasn't called any of the other partners?"
"I'm not sure about that. I'll be glad to ask around."
"Thank you." But she didn't hang up. Something nagged at her. Miss Sparks made all his arrangements, especially for travel. "Isn't it unusual that you didn't make the arrangements, Miss Sparks?" That sounded accusatory. She tempered it with a nervous giggle.
"It was unusual, Mrs. Simpson, but..." Her hesitation was odd, longer than expected. "Sometimes he does things like that. I might have been busy on a brief or something. Apparently it was a new client. I really don't know much about it."
"A new client?"
"A possible new client, I think."
She had always assumed that Miss Sparks knew everything about Orson's life. It was the very reason she felt patronized.
Her continued hesitation was disturbing.
"Would you switch me to Mr. Martin?" she asked politely.
"Of course," Miss Sparks said crisply.
Dale Martin was one of the partners. Orson and he had both come to the firm together. Surely Dale would know.
"What is it, Viv?"
"I thought maybe you knew what plane Orson was coming in on."
There was another long pause. She felt the backwash of the eggs Benedict in her throat and behind it the sour aftertaste of the martini.
"Gee, I don't know. He said something about a new client in Paris."
"Yes. Miss Sparks said that."
"Well, what hotel was he booked into?" The question seemed directed at someone other than herself, probably Miss Sparks. She heard him say: "You don't know? He made it himself? Now that's strange." The words were spoken away from the mouthpiece, with an odd hesitancy. When he spoke directly into the mouthpiece, his voice was firm. "I'm sure it's no problem. We'll ask around the office. Where will you be?"
The question hung in the air. She was still disoriented, and it took her a few moments to gather her wits.
"Vivien?"
"Home, I guess," she said finally.
It was when she was heading toward McLean on the Dulles Access Highway that she came to grips with her anxiety. Admonishing herself for overreacting, she felt foolish. Nothing more gauche than a hysterical wife, especially one who seemed to be checking up on her husband. Credibility was always an important consideration for Orson, especially in terms of herself. What she had done was embarrass herself before her husband's partner and his secretary; she had made herself less than credible. Any wife worth her salt would know her husband
's itinerary, if only to reach him in case of emergencies.
By the time she reached home, she was calmer and her agitation was directed at herself. "Anyone call?" she asked Alice.
"Not Mr. Simpson."
Vivien felt the woman's eyes inspecting her. She felt miserable and foolish. Inadequate. She went through the motions of normality for the rest of the evening, fielding questions from Ben about Orson's coming home. She had told him that Orson would be home by the time he returned from school.
"Will Daddy be home tonight?"
"I'm not sure."
"If he comes home late, will you wake me?"
"Yes, if he comes home late."
"Did he buy me a toy?"
"I'm sure he did."
"Do you know what kind?"
"For God's sake, Ben..." She had to get herself under control. No sense going to pieces. She looked out the window and saw the outline of the large snowman that she and Ben had built. It reminded her of the day Orson had left, and she tried to remember all he had said. Had she missed something? She tried to reconstruct the conversation. Paris? The Concorde? Thursday? She hadn't used much of the three hundred dollars he had given her. "It's only for four days," she had told him. Well, the four days were past.
After dinner she planted Ben in front of the television set and went into Orson's study to search through papers for clues as to his whereabouts. Nothing seemed related to the trip. She felt utterly baffled and dialed Margo's number.
"He wasn't on the flight." These were the first words she blurted out.
"Probably stayed in Paris," Margo said lightly. "A casual affair."
"I'm serious, Margo, and a little frightened. Orson's not a person who wouldn't call if his plans changed."
Margo became instantly serious.
"What about his hotel?"
"I don't know it."
"Well, then, call the office, Viv. It slays me. You seem to get more helpless every time I see you. Surely his secretary knows. They always know everything."
"She doesn't."
"That's impossible."
"She just doesn't, and neither does his partner," Vivien said, her heart sinking. She was simply ashamed that she hadn't the faintest idea about what to do.