A Perfect Wife and Mother

by Peter Israel

  “December,” I say.

  “And all’s well? With your wife?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Good. Then as far as tomorrow’s concerned, I think you should go with an open mind. Gamble, from what I know of him, is no fool. Maybe the panic has touched him too, I couldn’t say. But what’s interesting in your situation isn’t Gamble. Gamble’s going to do what he’s going to do, and from what you say, you have no control over it.” He pauses, as though giving me room to disagree. Then: “The interesting thing is you. You’ve been in the business how long? A decade?” I correct him. “God, is it that long already? Thirteen years. Thirteen years, in any case, of superb experience, and the rest of your working life in front of you? All I’m suggesting is that maybe the best thing that could happen to you right now is for Shaw Cross to cut the umbilical.”

  It’s the wrong message, for tonight anyway. I’m a doer, for Christ’s sake, not a crystal-ball gazer.

  Hey, I can’t afford to be!

  The thing is, though, I’ve been there before with Holbrook—twice. The same kind of airy conversation—what did I want? what were my objectives?—but both times, although he denied he’d had anything to do with it, lightning struck, in the form of job offers from Salomon, the second time from Merrill Lynch. The first got me a full commission out of The Cross—unprecedented—even though the sharks kicked and screamed. Then, after Gamble became Great White and pulled the plug on commissions—this was ’87, just when the bottom fell out of the market—I had Merrill Lynch in the wings and, from Shaw Cross, the managing directorship, the employment contract, the guaranteed minimum bonus.

  Somehow, though, it’s different this time. Hey, I’m thirty-five now! That’s old for a high-roller on the Street! All I really want to say is: I’m sorry, Frank, but I can’t see past the end of my nose tonight, I’m too goddamn shook. I need a bailout, a comfort zone.

  But that would be very wrong.

  Tough night.

  It gets worse.

  We finish up. I realize it’s almost eleven, that I’m going to have to fly to make the last train. Plus I haven’t called Georgie.

  He signs the check on the back. Then we have to shake hands with the chef, exchange comments. Great dinner, I say. Holbrook goes into more detail. Something, I gather from my prep-school French, about the sauce on the gigot. Finally, we’re outside, under the awning, where they have his Jag already parked and ready to go.

  No chauffeur tonight, I notice.

  “Are you okay?” he says. One of the maître d’s is holding the driver’s door open for him. “I wish I could drop you off, but we go in different directions, don’t we?”

  Yeah, St. George and Pound Ridge. Apples and oranges.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I’ve just got to run.”

  “Of course.” But still he holds me back. “I want you to think seriously about what we’ve said. Keep your eyes and ears open. Look for the opportunities. And, of course, keep me informed.”

  “I will, Frank. And thanks.”

  But again: “Call me in the afternoon. I’ll be at my desk.”

  “Fine, Frank.”

  I find a taxi. I tell him Thirty-second and Sixth—the PATH station. Then I realize I’ll never make it that way. I ask what he’ll charge to drive me to St. George. That way I’ll even beat the train, be home at eleven forty-five at the outside.

  St. George, where’s that? New Jersey, I say. He’s some Israeli or Arab, I can’t tell which. No New Jersey, he says.

  I bitch, plead with the bastard. Lots of luck. Finally we settle on the Hoboken station—just through the tunnel and back. I agree to double his meter.

  We rocket downtown, through the Holland Tunnel, across the dark back streets of Jersey City, Hoboken, to the terminal. I throw money at the driver and sprint for it. I miss the fucking train by inches, seconds. I can see the last car pulling out past the platform.

  Son of a gun. There’s another guy like me, suit and briefcase, no tie. We grin at each other in commiseration across the station. Better call Georgie, I think. I hesitate. Better see if there’s a taxi first.

  By the time I get back outside, there’s one lone taxi—some scavenger, waiting for a poor bastard like me—and the other guy who missed the train has beaten me to it. He’s just climbing in.

  “Hey, wait a minute!” I shout after him. “Where you going?”

  “The Fells,” he says.

  Not too bad. We make a deal—it’s fine with him, as long as we take him home first—and another deal with the driver. Those are the only deals I’ve made all day.

  It’s long after midnight when I get home. First I have to go to the St. George station to pick up my car. I’m sober as a judge. There’ll be hell to pay with Georgie, but when was I supposed to have called?

  I turn into our driveway. The house above me is lit up like a beacon, all three floors. From the outside, it looks like a ship at night on the crest of a wave.

  Georgie, I think. Scaring off the bogeymen.

  But then—what the fuck? The colored lights, slowly twirling?

  There are two cop cars under the portico. And shadow figures moving around on the porch, also inside the house. For Christ’s sake, the front door’s wide open!

  I get out of the car, almost fall, run. My heart fucking pounding.

  Up the front steps. A uniformed cop is just coming out through the front door, sticking his gun back in its holster.

  Georgie is in the angle of the front porch, only her nightgown over her belly. Bare feet, face white as a ghost, mouth ajar. Clutching Justie in her arms, and Justie is squawling his head off.

  I damn near lose it when I see them.

  “The house is secure,” the cop announces, the one in the doorway.

  It turns out to be nothing. Something, maybe an animal, set the alarm off, and that brought the cops. Even so, I spend one horrendous night dealing with my wife, fielding her accusations. The next morning, in the kitchen, I’m hanging on to the coffee mug with both hands when there’s Harriet at the front door, Justie’s baby-sitter, introducing herself to me—holy shit!—but then Georgie’s coming downstairs, ready to bite my head off all over again.

  It’s Bloody Wednesday.

  The sharks in a frenzy. The Aquarium roils, goes red.

  And it’s my turn.

  17 October

  “Yeah, I’m still in my office. You know what they’re calling it around here? Bloody Wednesday.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “What the fuck, do you think I like to see grown men cry? Days like today, I wish I was pumping gas in Iowa.”

  “That’s not what you’re paid for.”

  “I know, but I can always dream, can’t I?”

  “How did it go with him?”

  “Well, I made him an offer.”

  “And?”

  “Hard to tell. Of course I made it sound better than it really is, though he doesn’t know that. Well, he didn’t exactly jump at it, but he didn’t jump out the window either. Said he wants to think about it. I suggested he run some numbers. Has he called you about it?”

  “Yes. I’d say he’s intrigued.”

  “Jesus Christ. I hope to hell I haven’t let you talk me into one humongous mistake.”

  “Nobody has talked you into anything. It was your decision.”

  “Sure it was. I was for biting the bullet, you know that. Thanks to you and our friend, the attorney, now I’m gonna to have to tap-dance him for as long as it takes.”

  “I repeat: It was your decision.”

  “Sure. Well, maybe we’ll get lucky, maybe he’ll find another job.”

  “Maybe he will.”

  “Let us pray.”

  Georgia Levy Coffey

  16 November

  Some say it’s hormone swings, some say the third trimester blues.

  I have a feminist friend, Lynne Snyder, who tracks my horoscope and is worried about Pluto. (She also believes we’ve entered a Dark
Age and won’t come out of it until Gaia worship is reestablished on the planet.)

  My mother says it’s Larry.

  Craig, who’s paid to say it, says: “Why are you so convinced something’s wrong with you?”

  Because it is, Doctor. Believe me.

  But Dubin, my ob-gyn, upon hearing my litany—the constant lethargy after sleepless nights, the shortness of breath, the achy joints (Could it be arthritis? But aren’t I too young for arthritis?), the nauseating waves of a nameless but almost chemical anxiety that brings the taste of metal to my palate—nonetheless pronounces the baby fine; me too.

  Dubin tells me to relax, drink my milk, and listen to Mozart.

  But I never had this with Justin, did I? At least I don’t remember it.

  Someone said that’s what keeps the race going: that you forget how awful it was the last time.

  Sleepless nights, punctuated by sudden, inexplicable stabbers in my uterus. I become convinced they’re not Braxton-Hicks but something else. Then, when I’m on the verge of getting Dubin out of bed, they stop. Beached whale, bathed in sweat, listening to the sound of my own pulse pounding in my ears.

  I date it from the night the alarm went off, over a month ago, when Larry didn’t come home. The next morning, after he’d left, I had the alarm people in, and they checked the system top to bottom. Everything, they insisted, was in good working order. They thought it must have been one of the casement windows in the living room, the one with the loose lock. When the wind blew hard, the lock gave and the window sprung open, triggering the siren.

  The St. George police thought the same thing.

  Fine.

  But they weren’t here, the night before, when I heard the noises downstairs. I was alone in the house, and Justin was asleep. Eleven-thirty had come and gone—the last train—and still no word from Larry. How did I know where he was? I was upstairs in the bedroom, on my chaise longue, my diary open on my lap, and Ted Koppel was signing off on “Nightline.” I remember clicking off the TV. Midnight, and wide awake, listening.

  I’ve never gotten used to the night sounds. At least in the city they’re human: sirens, trucks, screaming arguments, even gunshots. But sometimes, out here, there are little thuds overhead (squirrels? raccoons? a burglar on tiptoe?), and some nights it’s the wind.

  Even when there’s no wind, Victorians creak.

  In summer, it’s the din of crickets.

  This was none of the above. This was a dull and intermittent banging, not nearby.

  Maybe a loose shutter, I thought?

  I got up, moving heavily from one bedroom window to another. I could make out the swaying tops of our trees. Earlier, I’d turned on the outside floods—I feel safer that way—but suddenly, peering out over the overhang that covers the front porch, I realized that, to anyone hiding in the shadows, I was totally exposed.

  Suppose they’d counted cars in the driveway and knew Larry wasn’t there?

  I remember the sudden urge to brush my teeth because of the sickish metallic taste. Instead, I forced myself to go downstairs, in the dark. The banging continued, but even in the front hall I couldn’t locate where it was coming from.

  I’d just gone into the living room, in darkness, when suddenly—all around me—the alarm siren literally exploded in my ears.

  Probably I was shrieking too. I grabbed for a telephone, but the line was dead. How could that be? My second impulse—it’s still vivid, and I’m still ashamed of it—was to tear out the front door and run for my life. Instead, somehow, I got myself upstairs. I grabbed Justin, covers included, out of his bed, clambered down the back stairs (which I’d never used, pregnant, because they’re dangerously steep) to the kitchen. And out the back door, flying past the pool, tripping into the driveway, the dark road.

  I stood in the middle of the road, heaving, clutching my son in my arms, until the police came.

  Fine.

  The police came, Larry came. It was only the window in the living room.

  As for the phone, it has to go momentarily dead when the alarm goes off, because the emergency signal is being transmitted to the security service.

  I had people in to repair the loose lock that same day, also the shutter moorings outside. For good measure, I ordered another arc of floods to be embedded in the ground beyond the porte-cochère.

  But I also had a long talk with Harriet.

  I asked her to move in, at least until the baby came. I’d always been against live-ins, I admitted—a question of privacy—but now I needed her. I didn’t see how I could make it through without her. Obviously I couldn’t count on Larry, and I knew I couldn’t stay in the house alone another night.

  “I know it’s only been a few weeks,” I said, “but I’ve come to look on you practically as a member of the family. I think you’re wonderful. And I need you now—for me. I really do.”

  Of course, I added, there would be more money for her, too. And no expenses. She could save practically everything she earned.

  To my disappointment she hesitated, even when I took her up to the third floor to show her the living arrangements I had in mind. There are three lovely, sun-filled rooms up under the eaves, one with a skylight, plus a separate bath, and views all around including, on one side, a panorama of the New York skyline. I’d decorated them originally with myself in mind. More recently, I’d had the idea that, once the children were older, it would be for them. But now, I said, it would all be hers. If she wanted, but only if—for we both knew what he’d say—we could move Justin upstairs too.

  It was lovely, she agreed. But, hesitant, she’d have to see.

  Finally I wormed what it was out of her. The stepfather. She didn’t know if he would approve. Well, would it help if I talked to him? Oh no, that wouldn’t be necessary, not at all. He might not disapprove either, necessarily, she’d just have to see.

  By the next day, though, it was all fine. She moved in that same night, and we celebrated, Justin and I, by taking her out to a sumptuous lunch.

  Strange young woman, nevertheless.

  When I ask her about her past, she closes up like a bivalve. She says, “Georgia, please, let’s not. It’s pretty boring stuff, really. Besides, now is what counts, now that I’ve started over.”

  Of course I more than make up for her reticence. I tell her everything. When Justin’s not there—at Group, or asleep, or playing by himself—or sometimes even when he is, I confide in her, spelling out the words I don’t want him to hear, letting her attentive gaze, her soft, reassuring comments, wash over me. I’ve also used her shamelessly since she moved in—for driving me places (with Justin in the backseat); for back rubs; for standing by when I shower, lest I slip, and blow-drying my hair afterwards; for bringing me warmed milk on a tray, with honey, sometimes a plate of oatmeal cookies the two of them have just baked.

  (She even irons! Larry’s handkerchiefs. Says it relaxes her.)

  In some ways, she may be the younger sibling I never had. Yet try her on a Monday morning when she shows up from her weekend, all puffy-eyed and surly, then closets herself all day with Justin. No, “surly” isn’t fair, but moody, absolutely uncommunicative. Once she said she needs Mondays to “decompress.” (Decompress from what? The stepfather? Some boyfriend she hasn’t told me about?) I asked her, well in advance, about Thanksgiving, thinking she might want to go home to Minnesota where I think she still has some family, and that we’d offer to pay for her ticket. Oh no, she said, startled, she’d much rather stay east, with us. If that was all right? Fine, I said. But when I suggested inviting the stepfather to Thanksgiving dinner, Oh no (visibly disconcerted), he’d have other plans.

  Soit, as they say in French. So be it.

  Occasionally, when I catch her unawares, I find her gazing out a window, a far-off stare. Her legs are apart, and she’s rolled forward onto the balls of her feet, almost to tiptoe, fists propped on the windowsill, and on her face is such a grim and tight-lipped expression. Jaws set, chin jutting. Very unHarriet. Alt
hough I invariably back away, it’s occurred to me that she’s thinking about him then, Johnny, the broken love affair she told me about. But I’ve never, since that first day, gotten her to talk about it.

  Only once, an idle remark: “I’ve always had trouble with men.”

  I think of this as her French Lieutenant’s Woman look.

  It’s even occurred to me she might be gay.

  Larry, though, can’t keep his eyes off her.

  Neither can my son.

  As far as Justin Coffey’s concerned, I think he’d lay down his life for her, I really do.

  All fixed: alarm, shutters, Harriet.

  And then there’s Larry.

  Some fifty people were fired from Shaw Cross on “Bloody Wednesday” last month, but thank God, Lawrence Elgin Coffey wasn’t one of them. Apparently he thought he was going to be. At least that’s how he explained all the hush-hush with Holbrook the night before. Instead they made him an offer—“right off the dorsal fin, honey, totally unexpected”—and when I cornered him that night, in the den, he was still “running the numbers,” still trying to see if it would “fly.”

  I made us shrimp wok, took it in to him on one of our lacquered trays with a Bass Ale and chilled glass mug and a little vase of mums from the garden. He was sitting in the Stickley I gave him one Father’s Day, talking on the phone. One of its little desk arms was piled high with papers; the other held the phone, a tumbler of Scotch, a yellow legal pad with pages folded back, and his calculator with the printer.

  He was in his stocking feet, his shoes across the room under the desk. At this point, I knew nothing of what had happened, but I was all geared up. The minute he got off the phone, I announced that I couldn’t go on living as before, not seven months pregnant.

  Distractedly, he said he understood.