by Warren Adler
"I could ask you the same question," she said gently, showing some embarrassment.
He felt a hot blush rise on his cheeks.
"I'm no bargain," he muttered. He was not being modest or self-effacing; after all, his self-esteem had taken a terrible blow. "I've always been a realist about myself. Actually, I felt lucky to have her. Some luck." He sighed.
"Margo"—she showed good teeth in a half-smile—"a friend of mine—only the other day at lunch she said I was dull."
"Some friend."
"Actually, I agreed with her. Maybe that was it. Maybe Orson did find me dull."
"Well, it's not apparent to me."
"Now you're being kind."
"What's wrong with kindness?"
It worried him that she might think he was patronizing her, a perception that he felt needed correcting.
"I've often thought I was too, well, self-absorbed," he said. "Maybe it made me unexciting. Not to myself, mind you. To her. We were so busy, so involved in work, in its demands. Often I would get these twinges, a kind of guilt, as if I were being neglectful." He grew thoughtful for a moment. "But she was busy, too. We both had careers. She was doing very well."
"I was just a housewife and mother, the lowest form of womanhood in today's world ... for my generation. The keeper of the nest." She sighed. "Maybe Cosmo is right."
"Talk about broken egos."
"I'm sorry," she said, lost in her own thoughts. "The fact is, I used to defend the concept. You know, a growing family needs a woman in the home. Like my mom. The rock." She shrugged. "I deluded myself. A rock is inanimate, stationary, immobile." She released a low, joyless chuckle. "While he was a rolling stone."
"That's all beside the point." He hadn't meant it to be a dismissal of her point, and before she could respond, he continued: "What I mean is that however we define ourselves, or them, is irrelevant. The fact is that they concocted a modus operandi for deliberately, maliciously, and systematically betraying us ... as though they were moles in some crazy intelligence setup, pretending to be other people. Right under our noses." Feelings of anger and humiliation rose again, stirring rage. "How did they get away with it?"
"And why didn't we see it? Are we so ... so thickheaded and unperceptive? So blind? How could we not know?" She tapped her forehead with her knuckles. "It pulls the rug out from under all our perceptions about ourselves, about who we are, what we see, how we feel." She leaned over the table, drawing herself closer until he actually felt her proximity, as if she had taken possession of the space around him.
"Two sides of the same coin," he said.
"Unless we know about them, how can we know about us?"
They exchanged glances of silent confirmation, and he felt the stirrings of—was it alliance, camaraderie?
"At least we've got a purpose, a point of view and"—he felt a sudden wave of embarrassment—"a team effort," he said stupidly. She nodded.
"Although finding the place where they met will be like looking for a needle in a haystack," he said.
"At least we have a starting point. That's something."
"It has to tell us something. Provide some sort of clue."
"More than I learned from investigating my own home. It told me nothing, as if that other life didn't exist."
"They were crafty bastards."
"That's the way we'll have to be ourselves. Think like them. Get into their heads."
"But we didn't know them," he said. "As we have discovered." His mind was beginning to lock into the problem. "We'll have to make assumptions about them. Re-create them. Come up with theories."
"All right. Toss one out."
He watched her as she stroked her chin and sucked briefly on her lower lip. The waiter came and took away their plates. They hadn't eaten much.
"Not good?" the waiter asked.
"Us. Not the food," Edward said. The waiter shrugged. "Not that we're not good," he said foolishly, looking at her. "We're not hungry."
"We're good." She nodded, and he saw her nostrils flare.
"Let's hold on to that."
"Damned straight," he agreed, feeling the strength of her support. He could tell she was feeling the strength of his.
"Let's start with this theory: simple boredom. They were bored with us, for whatever reasons," Vivien began.
"But that implies we were a party to it."
"Maybe we were."
"Can anyone be responsible for another person's boredom? Were we supposed to be entertainers?"
"Perhaps Orson wasn't even conscious of his boredom." She looked at him. "I can only re-create him from previous observations. His life had a certain sameness—the way he dressed, the way he spoke and acted. He was a very controlled man. Almost rigid. Our lives together were on a track. Tranquil. I thought he wanted it that way."
"A fair assumption," Edward said.
"Before Ben came, things were different."
"How so?"
"We had only each other to think about." She thought for a moment. "No. I had only him to think about. He had his work."
"What kind of a man was he?" Edward asked, knowing the question was impossible to answer, especially now.
She stared into space, looking at the ceiling, a gesture of her concentration. He, too, had a special gesture. He looked at his fingernails, palms up, joints of four fingers bent. When Lily mentioned it, he realized that it was a good excuse not to confront a person's eyes. Finding the memory in the ceiling, her eyes drifted downward.
"He was interested in moral issues. The right and wrong of things. It bothered him sometimes to take cases just for money. I liked that in him. It reminded me of my father."
"So there you were, living with a moral man." He had not intended the heavy sarcasm, but when it emerged, he felt good about it. Damned hypocrite, he thought, remembering Lily who detested the mask of politics. "Holmes is full of shit," she had told him more than once.
"He wallowed in integrity," Vivien continued. "I liked that, too. It gave our relationship a cerebral quality. I was always proud of Orson's intelligence. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. I was impressed by that. I also liked the way he spoke about things; he was articulate, balanced, never emotional." She tapped the table, then took another sip of her wine. "I was always afraid I would marry a man that wasn't smart. Not that I'm an intellectual or anything like that, but I liked it in him."
As she talked he tried to imagine their relationship, forming his own picture. Orson was a clever bastard, shrewd, a bamboozling Ivy League son of a bitch. He knew the type: superior, arrogant, self-confident. He thought for a moment. Was he jumping to conclusions? Hell, he hated the bastard for his own reasons and dreaded the moment when the focus would shift to himself and Lily.
"We bought this beautiful house in McLean," Vivien continued. "I spent lots of time putting it together just right. He wasn't overly interested in decorating, but I knew he liked the setting. He was very conservative. The house had a New England feel. He was such a reticent man. I assumed he loved it, loved our life, loved his work. A happy man. He seemed like a happy man. Shows you how much insight I have."
"You say he was reticent. Do you mean shy?"
"Oh, he was very shy. I was always the one that had to break the ice with people."
"That would be Lily," he murmured. A frown indicated her confusion. "That could be how they met," he explained. "She could have been the aggressor. I mean in the initial introduction. That's the way she met me." He did not want to tell her the story of their meeting. It seemed so prosaic. They had shared a cab going down Sixteenth Street on a rainy day. He would never have started the conversation. "It was one of the things I admired most about her. She wasn't afraid. She was easy with people. It came from that big Italian family, I suppose. Everybody used their mouths at once."
"So you think she made the first move?"
"From what you told me about him, I'd have to say yes."
"But where? They were from different circles. Wasn't
she in fashion?"
"At Woodies. She was a buyer of better dresses."
"He wasn't remotely interested in fashion. I could have worn a burlap sack for all he would notice. And he never went shopping, except for his own clothes. Brooks Brothers."
"Random selection then—a train, a bus, a plane. Something like that. Even a cocktail party."
"Orson hated cocktail parties, although he often went for his business. He detested them. He never used trains or buses."
"Lily went mostly to fashion shows and retail cocktail parties."
"Far afield for Orson."
His mind was racing now.
"All right, a plane. Lily was always shuttling up to New York."
"So was Orson."
"Score one," Edward said. "They sat next to each other on a plane. She probably asked him for half his newspaper. Then they spoke."
"She did this before, then?"
"Spoke to people? Strangers? Yes. I told you."
Her tone had been accusatory.
"Picked up men, I mean," Vivien said.
He was irritated, oddly defensive, and protective. He watched Vivien's face; she seemed pugnacious.
"I hope you're not implying that Orson was an innocent victim of a predator. I said Lily was friendly, open. I can't conceive of her picking up men, as you put it. She wasn't promiscuous."
"Are you sure?"
"Some things you know about people instinctively."
He began to perspire, and moisture appeared on his upper lip. He had to blot it with the napkin. He wished he could retract his last remark about instinct. It had struck a false note. If his instincts had been accurate, he would have known what was happening. He felt compelled to explain himself.
"It would be out of character," he said, clearing his throat. "She liked people. She liked to find out about them." He wanted to say that she wasn't overly sexual. She liked to be cuddled and hugged, but the sex part had always seemed obligatory. In college, she told him, she had gone steady with a guy who was her first. Maybe there were others in her single days. Except for the first one, they never discussed it, as if the subject were a little embarrassing for both of them. It seemed so intimate, even now. Especially now. He realized he was editing, but he could not bring himself to be more explicit.
"So you think they met on a plane?" Vivien said, nodding. "Now there's a powerful irony."
"Live by the sword, die by the sword," he blurted. The remark made him feel strange, as if he could not quite reconcile the idea of Lily's death with this revelation. "Fits with random selection."
"Also a sop to us. It means they weren't actively seeking."
"Not consciously," he corrected. "They had to be throwing out vibrations."
"Let's accept it, then," she said testily. Her discomfort was obvious, and she lengthened the physical distance between them.
He was aware of it instantly. "Maybe we should get out of here," he said.
The restaurant was crowded now, spoiling the intimacy.
"I'm ready," she said, getting up.
"We'll go to my place." The suggestion had a connotation he had not meant. "You said you'd help go through her things."
"Yes, and I will."
He paid the check and helped her on with her coat. As she struggled into it, he caught the scent of her, savoring it. In the process he had also felt her shoulders and the weight of her as she leaned against him inadvertently. It surprised him how sensitive he had become to her physical proximity.
They walked back to his apartment. The streets were slick from a light drizzle. It was still quite cold, and vapor poured from their mouths. He turned up the collar of his coat and nestled his chin against the fur lining. There were still pockets of ice and snow on the ground, and she slipped an arm under one of his for balance. He said nothing, although he was intensely aware of her.
19
He emptied the contents of her drawers and scanned papers, mostly paycheck stubs and tear sheets from Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. He saw the large check-book of their joint account. When he found the time he did the balancing, but mostly he relied on her. He thumbed through the stubs. There were other items: her passport, stationery, pencils, cast-off bits of string, broken sunglasses, bric-a-brac of a past life. He felt no sentiment. They were merely things, inanimate, now worthless.
Vivien looked through Lily's bedroom closet.
"Nothing of consequence in the pockets. Just the usual female things." She grew contemplative. "She had a terrific wardrobe. Size eight."
"She got the clothes at a discount."
"So she was quite good-looking," Vivien mused vaguely.
He pointed to her passport.
"See for yourself."
She picked it up and studied it.
"A dark beauty."
"You can't really tell from that picture. She had the family nose, which you can't see from that full view. Aquiline, I think you're supposed to call it. But on her it looked good. Went with her eyes." Still proud, he thought, baffled.
Vivien studied the picture for a long time, then put the passport down, stole a glance at herself in the mirror, shifted, posed for a side view.
"Opposites. Maybe that was it," she said.
Vivien was fairer, taller, larger-boned, with a bigger bosom. In the mirror she saw him inspecting her and flushed. He came and stood beside her, offering the physical comparison.
"Orson was six foot three," she said to his reflection.
"Beat me by five inches. Probably in better shape, too." He patted his paunch, which had gone down in the past few days. "I used to be thinner."
"Orson was a jogger. Burned the calories off. He also watched himself at the table. More than I did."
So he was taller and surely better looking, certainly smarter.
"Sounds like I wasn't much competition."
"Nor I."
"You were different. She was more..."
"Delicate."
"She was quite strong. With lots of energy. I'd sag first."
"Me, too. I used to blame it on Ben. He really wore me out. Maybe that was part of it."
He did not answer, not wanting to go down that road again, but he continued to look at her in the mirror. She had a full-bodied, substantial attractiveness, a type that normally did not interest him. His gaze seemed to make her uncomfortable, and she turned away.
"I don't think I found anything," he said. It had felt eerie, both of them going through Lily's things, a violation of her privacy. Couldn't be helped, he thought. She had brought it on herself.
"There just has to be something," Vivien said, stroking her chin and looking about the room.
"There probably is. We just don't know what to look for. If they were being secretive and clever, the last thing they would leave lying around would be an address." Suddenly, Vivien's attention was arrested by a little digital clock that read out the time in green characters. She was totally lost in thought, and he watched her silently, noting the intensity of her absorption.
"Time," she said finally, as she swung to face him. "They had to allocate time"—the muscles in her neck pumped as she swallowed with difficulty, gulping the words—"for each other."
A flash of irritation intruded. The anger flared again. He pondered the disguises Lily had had to assume, the concoction of a false identity, false words. Lies! The growing rage jogged his memory. His mind reached back for clues in their routine, in their habits, and sorted through the confusion of old images. He knew he was searching for abrupt changes, uncommon actions, strange moments. An affair required physical interaction. When did they meet? How?
Edward always left the house early, before seven. It gave him a chance to get into the office and plan the day. It had become a habit. Lily was always still in bed, fogged with sleep. He had even developed a superstition about it, as if the day might be a disaster if he had not kissed her. Since she was asleep, she never reacted, and he had been very gentle, not wanting to wake her. How thoughtful, he mocked himsel
f.
Lily's working day began, when she wasn't traveling, at ten. She often told him how frenetic her day was. The retail business—it sucked you in. He worked late most nights. She did not. She, therefore, had ample opportunity to meet Orson while Edward worked. Except that the routine was not consistent, and their relationship implied consistency.
"Orson was an early bird," Vivien said.
"Not Lily."
"He used to jog in the mornings." She brushed a hand over her chin, again making the now familiar gesture of looking at the ceiling. "Then he stopped and began to jog in the evenings." She became animated, turning to face him. "But he continued to rise at six and leave for the office before seven. He claimed he could always get more done before people started to come in."
"He was right about that."
"He rarely stayed late at the office. He nearly always came home for dinner. First he'd jog for half an hour, then he'd shower. Then we'd eat together in the dining room. After dinner he'd go into his den and work."
"So they couldn't have met in the evenings."
"Considering Orson's routine, not on a regular basis."
"Lunchtime, then?" A frequent hour for meetings of this sort, he thought. Common knowledge.
"The law firm had a company dining room. Clients would come in."
"Days, then? Afternoons?"
Had they been so self-absorbed, so unobservant, so stupid?
"You don't know about lawyers. They keep accurate time books."
"He could have lied, written false data. Remember, we're dealing with shrewd, calculating people."
"Miss Sparks, his secretary, would have noticed. It was a discipline of the firm."
"Maybe she did but said nothing. Kept her mouth shut."
"Maybe."
"Weekends?" He stood up and began pacing the floor. "Saturday was a working day for both of us. Sundays we slept in. We were together on Sundays."
"Orson spent lots of time with Ben on weekends. You might say he was a devoted father."
"Aren't we only assuming that they met frequently? Maybe they met only sporadically. Once a week. Maybe once a month."