Patty checked her watch. Time to slow down.
Perhaps she’d better not have coffee at breakfast today, not with her nervous stomach. She didn’t want to feel ill at the party. She’d scrap her afternoon reading session with Stephen and meditate instead. Immediately she felt guilty but pushed the thought aside, because tonight it was important that she behave like the perfect president’s wife. And by God, when her time came she’d do a better job than that snotty, standoffish Silvana. Just because she’d been brought up in a palazzo, that woman could hardly bring herself to talk to ordinary mortals! Sure, she managed a word or two, and a gracious smile from the receiving line, but Silvana didn’t really care about Nexus. Patty intended to make it clear that she was concerned about the company. She wasn’t going to interfere, of course—but she’d certainly be one hundred percent supportive. Charley needed someone to talk to when he came home, someone who was rooting for him, who understood the stresses of his job but was also interested in the job itself, someone who would help him carry that huge responsibility but nevertheless keep it in perspective. Because Charley must never forget that his first responsibility was toward their son. They shared that responsibility (Doctor Beck had warned her never to call it guilt).
Patty checked her heart rate, which was a bit higher than usual. She’d continue slow.
Well, her gown might not be anything to write postcards about, but her figure was better than Silvana’s. Served her right for eating all that pasta! Probably the reason why Silvana was faithful to that lecherous Arthur was because she didn’t dare let a lover see her naked. Even at her own pool parties, Silvana was never seen in a swimsuit. She had an endless wardrobe of shapeless silk muumuus from Hawaii. By God, Patty thought, if I had a cook … when I have a cook … She’d take advantage of it. Having a cook was the one sure, long-term way to get it off and keep it off. All the First Ladies lost weight as soon as they stepped into the White House. Apparently the current chef still had Jacqueline Kennedy’s menus. Orange juice, poached egg, bacon and black coffee for her breakfast, total 240 calories; for lunch a cup of consommé, a small bowl of salad with French dressing and a grilled hamburger (without the bun), total 250 calories; a cup of tea with a slice of lemon at five o’clock left Jackie 500 calories in hand for the evening. She could manage a good meal and a glass of red wine on 500 calories. For instance, artichokes Provençale, leg of lamb marinated with coriander, cucumber salad and peaches in wine. Of course, Jackie only ate a teaspoon of any sauce, but look at all the years she’d kept to that diet and how it paid off. Oh, it was easy enough to be disciplined if you had somebody else to measure the food out and put it on a plate in front of you.
Patty jogged past the elegant Corinthian columns of the next house. It was only half past six, but already two of Annie’s huge, jock sons were throwing a football around the front lawn. Patty just wouldn’t bother having windows in a house with four of those hulks inside it. Annie never disciplined them, so they all followed that noisy, extrovert Duke’s example. In the eight years she’d known Annie, Patty had watched them treat her as a short-order cook and errand runner—but that was just as much Annie’s fault as theirs. She behaved like a doormat, so it wasn’t surprising that they walked all over her. No self-image, that was Annie’s problem. She was perennially apologetic, a professional worrier. DID I TURN THE LIGHTS OFF? would be carved on Annie’s tombstone. Although Patty had to admit that being “just a housewife,” as Annie always described herself, was probably a full-time survival job in that family.
Patty reached her halfway point and turned back toward home. As she ran, now with a medium pace, she passed other joggers, and few of them could resist throwing her a sideways look. She was as near perfect a human specimen as you were likely to find. Her tall, lean, athletic figure had a natural grace that most plodding joggers lack, her profile had the nervous tension of a greyhound waiting for the trap gates to open, her white-blond straight hair was cut like a boy’s, with a side part, and her blond eyebrows were a straight line above a narrow, elegant nose. The short upper lip and wide mouth with chiseled outer edge to it might have been sculpted by Michelangelo.
Patty was a California baby and had grown up in Tiburon, the little peninsula with a fine view of Alcatraz, that jutted out into San Francisco Bay. She had started jogging when she was at Stanford, where she used to race around those yucky pinkbrown, Spanish-style buildings every morning before school, when everyone else was still yawning or asleep. You had to be bright, not just rich, to get into Stanford. Patty had been a good student because she had a photographic memory, but she had been impatient and lacked concentration, so she was easily attracted by fast solutions; she’d been a natural for TM and est. Charley had refused to do est, and before Nexus functions he made Patty promise to keep quiet about her how-to-get-anything-done-in-ten-minutes philosophies. Apart from that enthusiasm, Charley adored Patty and could find no fault with her.
It was ironic that Patty, the perfect specimen, the bronzed health nut, should have given birth to a baby with spina bifida, for which there was no cure, and for which endless patience was required. There was nothing wrong with Stephen’s brain—in fact he had turned out to be an unusually bright child, which made his physical state all the more frustrating for him. Because of congenital malformation of his spinal cord, Stephen had been born with deformed limbs and would always be helpless and incontinent. Dr. Beck had told them that there was no reason why Stephen should not grow to manhood and lead a useful life, but he would never be normal.
Charley had been wonderful. They had clung to each other in that small, cheery, primrose hospital room and Charley had told Patty that there was no reason for either of them to feel that it was their fault. It wasn’t such a phenomenon, the incidence was 1.5 percent of births.
Clutching her baby, Patty refused to consider putting him in a home, even before Charley had been able to explain the advantages. Stephen was their child. His beautiful face looked up at Patty with soft, blue-eyed trust. The only home that Stephen would know, Patty had instantly decided, would be his parents’. They had formed him and brought him into the world as he was. To care for him themselves was the least they could do to make up for the terrible accident of his birth.
In the eight years since Stephen’s birth, Patty’s care had been constant and the medical bills had been endless. Because of the enormous expenses, it had been hard to start the trust fund, which had been set up to look after Stephen; he would need round-the-clock care for the rest of his life. It was unlikely, but possible, that Stephen might outlive Patty and Charley. Of course, both parents carried heavy life insurance, but they had set up the trust in case their son should need a large sum of money while they were still alive. And there were tax benefits.
The birth of Stephen delivered a blow to Patty’s self-confidence from which she was still reeling. She felt that, in some unknown way which she didn’t understand, she must have done something terrible to deserve such a punishment. She must be guilty of something, although she didn’t know what. So she punished herself, without realizing it.
Puffing slightly, Patty rounded the final corner, from where she could see Judy, the housekeeper, turning her car into their drive just as the night nurse was leaving. A few minutes later Patty could see her home, a Tudor-style farmhouse with diamond-paned windows and that huge over-scaled front door. She would just have time for a quick shower before it was time for Stephen’s breakfast.
She slowed to a walk over the gravel drive, then pulled her navy sweatband from her hair and checked her pulse. She had pushed it further today. Patty had no patience with women who let themselves get out of shape, then had hysterics and rushed to fat farms when they hit thirty. She intended to keep herself in good condition.
Patty didn’t need a new dress tonight to hide her body—although she had to admit that Suzy had a pretty good body, and Suzy never did one minute’s exercise, the bitch. Suzy would have a new dress tonight, Suzy always had a new dress. She ha
d nothing to spend her money and time on except herself. Personally, Patty couldn’t stand wasting an entire day at the hairdresser, the manicurist, the masseur, the suntan parlor and so on—but then, Suzy made a career of maintaining her appearance.
Patty stopped abruptly, struck by a sudden nasty thought. No, Charley would never look at another woman. But maybe she would have just one cup of coffee for breakfast. Without cream or sugar, of course …
2
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1984
“I’m sorry, Mr. Douglas, but Mrs. Douglas is in conference.”
The secretary’s voice sounded tinny over the telephone.
“Could you perhaps tiptoe into her office and ask whether I’m really needed at this party tonight? Something’s cropped up at my office.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t interrupt this meeting. But it’s Mr. Graham’s birthday party tonight, Mr. Douglas. I don’t think …”
Roddy sighed. “Okay, okay, I’ll dust off my dancing shoes. But maybe you should remind Mrs. Douglas that although she only has to walk three blocks, she’s going to be late for the party if she doesn’t get moving soon. She’s usually home by now.”
“Mrs. Douglas is never late, Mr. Douglas.”
The secretary was right. Isabel kept her watch ten minutes fast. Roddy put down the red telephone and looked from the penthouse window at the spectacular view of the river and the russet, tree-covered hills beyond. He glanced again at his watch. It was a steel Rolex Oyster, waterproof and automatic, with a steel expansion bracelet. It had been an eighteenth birthday present from his parents, in 1965, and although Isabel had offered to buy him an expensive gold watch, he refused to let her replace it.
Roddy poured himself a drink and headed for his bathroom. He was in the shower before realizing that his shampoo bottle was almost empty, so, dripping wet, he padded to the storeroom for a replacement.
Isabel had fixed adjustable shelves in one of the spare bedrooms to hold all supplies, from lipstick to Drano. She ordered by the dozen, and checked her lists four times a year. The shelves also held a dozen spare white shirts, underwear and socks for Roddy, together with Isabel’s travel bag, which was always repacked as soon as she returned from a trip. Isabel never took suitcases on business trips, because retrieving them wasted time at airports and the airlines often lost them, so she traveled only with hand luggage—a briefcase and a light seven-section zippered bag which held seven changes of underwear, seven blouses, three no-crush silk-jersey dresses, a white jumpsuit for visiting mines, nightwear, a bathing suit, a pair of pants to match her travel jacket, shoes, toiletries, small makeup bag (Isabel used only one lipstick) and a spare pair of prescription glasses. Her travel suits hung in the storeroom, ready to go. Isabel traveled in a soft wool suit of either black or scarlet, a black raincoat and a pair of sturdy black walking shoes. She could be out of the house and heading for the airport within ten minutes of a phone call.
After showering and dressing, Roddy poured himself another drink and picked up Publishers Weekly. He lay with his feet up on the sofa, flipping through the news about books.
He never heard his wife enter. Isabel stood in the doorway, thinking that Roddy really looked wonderful in a tuxedo, the Nexus bunch would look like penguins beside him. He might easily be some Italian film star—tall and lithe, with dark curly hair and friendly brown eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. He was in good shape, too. He’d won the Eastern Division squash championship in his age group last year. Isabel knew she was lucky that he was so protective and proud of her. A lot of men would feel threatened or resent the sort of success that she’d had. She had fought a hard and bitter battle for her job as VP Corporate Development of Nexus—that’s what it was called, but what she really did was look around for acquisitions, spin-offs and general expansion grabs. She’d come into Nexus on the marketing side, right after graduating from Harvard Business School, and after three years she’d moved over to Administrative Finance, then became assistant to the VP Corporate Development, who not long afterward was poached by RTZ. She didn’t kid herself that one of the reasons for her promotion had been because Nexus wanted a token woman on the Board, although this was always denied.
Within a month of her joining the company, Roddy realized that Isabel was determined to be president of Nexus. He’d never laughed at her, although he teased her gently about her lists, her note-taking and the pile of reports that was always stacked on her side of the bed. Isabel knew that she was lucky not to encounter resentment, because Roddy also loved his job, as district manager of a national bookstore chain.
Isabel walked toward Roddy on the sofa and said proudly, “We got a great deal today on the Columbus project. Now I can tell you all about it.” Her dark blue eyes glowed with triumph. She was small, with tiny bones and a mass of thick dark hair that was cut short. Four times a year her hairdresser came to the apartment to cut it.
Roddy looked up and blew her a theatrical kiss. “That’s terrific. No wonder you’re seven minutes late. I almost called the hospital.”
As she showered and dressed, Isabel told him about the Columbus deal, then she asked Roddy what sort of a day he’d had.
“Checking our autumn order list. Listen to this.” Roddy leaned against the bedroom door and read aloud from the trade magazine. “‘From a man so rich that he never gets a full accounting, to a vicious vixen who vows to take a man’s head.’ Guess the title.”
“Something new by Harold Robbins?”
“No, it’s the Bible, entering a new era of hype. But then it’s still an expanding market, it did over a hundred and ten million dollars last year.”
Isabel laughed as she pulled on her cream silk-jersey dress. It had only one sleeve, leaving the other shoulder bare. She’d chosen cream rather than white because, unless it was cotton and could be washed, white was always a dry-cleaning headache.
“Roddy, would you mind fetching me some Perrier while I do my face?”
Roddy was walking toward the kitchen when the telephone rang. Isabel automatically answered the bedroom extension.
“Leonore who? … Talk of the Trade? … How do I feel about what? … Oh, delighted, of course … Yes, of course I’m delighted … I’ll get him.”
But Roddy had already picked up the phone in the kitchen. Isabel listened in and her quick mind immediately realized why Roddy hadn’t yet told her that he’d been promoted; because it would mean relocating to Minneapolis, that was why.
Roddy appeared in the doorway. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to tell you until we had a quiet moment. I can’t think how the hell Leonore found out so fast.”
“Honey, I’m thrilled. Of course, I’m sorry you didn’t discuss it with me before accepting, but at least we’ll both be in adjacent time zones.”
Roddy had been prepared for this, but he hadn’t expected her to attack within thirty seconds. He said lightly, “We’ll be in the same town, Isabel. It’s my turn now.”
“I can’t possibly leave Pittsburgh, and you know it! If you want to live in Minneapolis, then you can live in a hotel apartment and come back home on weekends.”
“I have never met anyone so selfish!”
“Don’t shout at me. What’s selfish about not wanting to give up my career?” But Isabel knew what was coming next.
“Cinderella, you’re thirty-seven years old, and time is running out. I want kids before I have to wear bifocals and see them close up.”
“When I agreed to stop work at thirty, we didn’t know that I was going to do so well.”
“I’m not doing too badly myself.”
They glared at each other.
Finally Isabel said, “Maybe just one. Maybe I could manage to take just a couple of months off.”
“We’ve been through that before. I want at least two kids and I want them to have a proper mother, not a boardroom organizer. I’ve seen other women try to juggle kids, a job and a husband and it can’t be done. You can only do two things properly. Most women—”
�
��Most women don’t realize that they have choices in life, until it’s too late and the opportunities are gone.”
“When we got married—”
“When we got married, the empty nest syndrome didn’t exist. I don’t want to give up an exciting job with great prospects to raise a couple of kids who’ll leave home at sixteen without a backward glance.”
“Plenty of other women rejoin the work force late.”
“Not at age fifty, and not at my level. You’re asking me to give up my life.” Isabel glared at him and then burst out with what she’d never said before. “Roddy, I don’t want to have kids. Once I thought I did, but now I don’t.”
“Well, I do. And you agreed, and I can’t have them for you.”
Isabel knew that they were going to be late for the party.
* * *
Carey had been kept at the office because the plans for the alterations to the Silverman lake house were needed for the following morning. Finishing a job properly, not losing interest, not even in the tiresome little details, was the hardest part of her job, but Carey knew it was the mark of a professional. Now she was belting her Volkswagen GTI too fast toward Upper St. Clair. She couldn’t help being late, but she really was sorry, because Ed had particularly asked her to be on time for gruesome Arthur’s party tonight.
Carey was an assistant architect in a small partnership that specialized in modern homes which blended the building with the landscape. Everyone in the office dreamed of one day building a house for themselves like Falling Water, the Frank Lloyd Wright place at Laurel Highlands; the sandstone house was poised over the tumbling falls, surrounded by laurels, rhododendrons and wildflowers, with the forest beyond it. It must be great to be lulled to sleep by the splash of … Oops! She had taken that bend a bit close. She’d better slow down. Ed wouldn’t want to take a corpse to Arthur’s party.
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