Close Relations

by Susan Isaacs

  “What’s happening is that we’re seeing a lot of each other.”

  “I know that. He told Philip that.”

  “What else did he tell Philip?”

  “Well, he implied that the two of you are quite serious.”

  “We are and we aren’t.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I care about him very, very much. He’s the finest person I’ve ever known.”

  “So? What’s holding you back?” I didn’t answer her. She leaned forward and mouthed, Sex? Then she said, “Stop laughing. How am I supposed to know what’s going on with you two?”

  “Look, without going into detail, everything is fine. He’s wonderful. He’s bright and he’s charming and—”

  “Then what in the world is wrong?”

  “I don’t know. Everything is happening so fast. I feel very pressured: by David, by your mother, by the fact that I’m thirty-five.”

  “But if you’re so happy with him, why not relax and enjoy it?”

  “I’m trying to. But everyone keeps talking marriage and—”

  “Marcia!” she said, putting down her glass. “Has he actually proposed?”

  “If you tell anyone, Barbara, and I mean anyone …”

  “I swear. Oh, my God, this is fabulous.”

  “I don’t know that it’s fabulous. I don’t want to get swallowed up.”

  “What are you doing, involving yourself in some Kierkegaardian snit over marriage? Do it!”

  “No, I can’t just do it. I don’t know if I could handle the whole package, being a lawyer’s wife, dealing with a whole different class of people, with his children—”

  “They’re adorable.”

  “They may be. Everything about David is terrific, so why not his children? But I don’t want to become his wife just because there’s no reason not to. Do you understand me?”

  “I understand that you’re frightened.”

  “I’m cautious.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “I don’t know. I wish I could just say ‘whoopee’ and collapse in his arms. But I can’t. I know I love aspects of him. His intelligence, his decency, his polish. He’s so at ease all the time. He always does the right thing. Even when he’s angry or tired, he’s still courteous. But that’s unnerving too. He’s like a magnificently oiled machine that always works.”

  “I think you’re just a little intimidated by his background,” Barbara said. “May I ask you something? Do you love him—well, sexually? I don’t want you to think I’m a voyeur or anything.”

  “Sexually most of all.”

  “Imagine. David Hoffman. It just goes to show that you never really know your friends.”

  “But you know your cousin, so take my word for it. He makes my teeth curl. But is that enough to make a marriage?”

  “Well, added to his other qualities. Anyway, Mar, be a little selfish. Aren’t you tired of running from pillar to post? Wouldn’t you like to indulge yourself, to buy expensive clothes, travel …?”

  “Let’s order lunch. Paterno was acting more irrationally than usual this morning. There’s a meeting in his office at two thirty.”

  “You’re upset with me. You think I’m mercenary, don’t you?”

  “No.” The waitress came and took our order. Barbara described the salad she wanted in lush green detail, and even though it wasn’t on the menu, the woman promised Barbara she’d convince the chef to prepare it.

  “You do think I’m mercenary,” she insisted. “It’s because you think there’s something intrinsically wrong with letting a man pay for things.”

  “Barbara, come on.”

  “But on the other hand, you’d also like nothing more than a nice duplex on Central Park West and three in help.”

  “I’d rather have a penthouse on Park. I don’t like the West Side. It’s full of reformers and out-of-towners and old ladies who look like Grandma Yetta. Feh. Hey, Barb, remember the engagement party your mother made for the Drexlers, when Grandma took out her teeth and put them on the salad plate?”

  “God, I repressed that. I wanted to die.”

  “Remember your father-in-law? He didn’t even look away. He just acted as though it was the sort of thing that happened at most of the dinner parties he went to.”

  “He’s wonderful. And Philip is just like him. But the West Side. You know David and Lynn lived there?”

  “He told me.” I poured some more sangria. “Tell me about Lynn.”

  “Well, she was intelligent. She had a master’s in English from Harvard. She wasn’t particularly pretty—but very big on top.” She paused. “Frankly, I couldn’t stand her. So tedious. I mean, her family had as much money as David’s, so she should have had some flair. But you’d go to their house for dinner and the food would taste like hay. And they had a cook. But Lynn would say—after we choked down four horrid courses—’Can you believe that everything we served tonight was made from soy flour?’ And of course you could.”

  “What would have attracted David to her?”

  “I’m not sure. I think it was simply the fact that she was there. They got married very young, when they were about twenty. They’re distant cousins and I think childhood sweethearts. And he tried to make it work. I mean, he was loyal, considerate. He seemed genuinely proud of her intellectual attainments. And she was the mother of his children, and that counted a lot with David. He’s a fabulous father.” The waitress came with the salad and presented it to Barbara. “Aren’t you wonderful!” Barbara said to her. “Just what I wanted. Thank you.”

  “Do you always eat salads for lunch?” I asked.

  “Always. It’s my curse. Anyway, Lynn. She was studious, dull, and not very much at ease socially. I mean, David travels in pretty high-powered circles and there was Lynn, with those awful handmade leather sandals that wrapped around her legs. She got them at some halfway house for the mentally ill. I really don’t see how he stood her. She was always going around sprinkling wheat germ on the children or inviting socialists to dinner.”

  “Maybe she was all he had at the time.”

  “Maybe, but he’s such a catch. You don’t know how lucky you are.”

  “Your mother already told me.”

  “At length, I’m sure. Anyway, what about the other one? Don’t look blank. Jerry.”

  “What about him?”

  “How did he take it, your moving out?”

  “I didn’t move out.”

  “What? Are you insane? If David finds out—”

  “I’m just using the apartment a couple of nights a week. We hardly see each other. Even at work, we’re so busy that we don’t have time to talk. He thinks I’ve developed a sudden affection for my mother. And he goes out every night, comes in at all hours.”

  “Marcia, move out of there. Please. It’s not right.”

  “I will Really, Barb. I promise you. It’s over. It just died, and I never noticed its going.”

  I realized how dead it was that afternoon. I sat on a chair in Paterno’s office with the rest of the City Hall staff, about a foot away from Jerry. I stared at his profile, the clean cut of his jaw, his remarkable nose. I looked down at the hand draped casually in his lap. And I felt nothing except admiration for the God who had created such a man. And a little sadness.

  “Jerry,” I said, tapping his arm just before Paterno came into the room. “I’d like to talk. It’s—”

  But Paterno came barreling in. “You want to know what happened? I’ll tell you what happened. Goddamn it, Morrissey, let me do the talking. Seven this morning I’m home, having breakfast, and the phone rings. Hello. Who is it? Richard Black of the Daily News, and Richard Black wants to know what’s with my campaign coordinator, Mr. LoBello. And I say, he’s upstate, in Watertown, I think. Can I help you, Richard Black? Can Morrissey help you? What would make you happy? Well, he says, I just want to know what you think about LoBello’s going over to Larry Parker.” No one moved except Jerry, who had obviously he
ard the news before. He shifted around uneasily in his chair. “So I said to Richard Black, Well, we just weren’t happy with the results Mr. LoBello was getting. He’s not what he was cracked up to be, so we had to let him go.

  “Now listen, Black’s still working on the story, and it won’t be out until tomorrow. So before that, I want you all to go through your files, each one of you. Is there anything missing? Has that bastard stolen anything? I don’t want any nasty surprises.”

  Jerry rose. “It goes without saying that we tell everyone he was fired last Friday.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t have to say that, bottom line, this is all for the best. LoBello’s full of hot air; he’s perfect for a windbag like Parker. They’ll fizzle out together. All right, now. Any comments? Suggestions? Questions?” No one spoke. Jerry jerked his head around the room. He appeared more ill at ease than I’d ever seen him, hands stuffed deep in his pockets, his legs stiff as he paced the office. “Okay. Let’s get to work. We’re still in business.”

  Eileen raced out, as if late for a court appearance. Joe Cole and the economic affairs expert put their heads together and emitted the low grumble of male talk. As I walked toward Jerry, he joined them and hustled them out of the room. I turned to Paterno.

  “I’m sorry, Bill.”

  “Thanks.” The glow of fury had left his face and his skin looked ashen. “I appreciate it.”

  “I hesitated to say anything before, but…”

  “What?” he demanded.

  “LoBello might have Xeroxed a lot of our stuff. If he did, we won’t find anything missing.”

  “Oh, shit.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “Why didn’t I think of that? It’s so goddamn obvious. Sorry about the language,” he muttered.

  “Okay.”

  “Tell me what you think. Are we better off without him? Forget what Morrissey said. The truth.”

  “The truth is Appel’s spending it as fast as they can print it and Parker’s got the advantage of incumbency. Plus LoBello. Lyle’s an arrogant, ineffectual peacock ninety-five percent of the time, but the other five percent he can be dynamite. You know that. You can’t just forget about him. So, the truth is, I think you’re in trouble.”

  Paterno exhaled slowly. “I do too. Every day things get worse. I can feel it fading.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “Remember the beginning of the campaign, Marcia?” I nodded. “Things aren’t turning out the way we thought they would, are they?”

  Twenty

  The last week of August was almost unbearable. The temperature soared. The homicide rate actually decreased because people were too enervated to kill. Dogs whimpered as they walked on the searing pavement. On the fifth day of over one-hundred-degree weather, David came home from his office, his face flushed and damp, and knocked a spinach soufflé across the kitchen counter. “How can you expect me to eat anything hot?” he shouted. “How?”

  He apologized almost immediately. “I’m sorry. The heat got me. Just walking those few blocks.” He bent over and inhaled the soufflé. “It smells wonderful.”

  He smiled. David had been well trained. “You didn’t have to fuss with dinner. You’ve been working so hard.”

  “It’s okay,” I replied, arranging pieces of roast chicken on a platter.

  “I can’t get over the heat,” he said pleasantly. “Do you know, I just realized—walking home—that I’ve never been in the city in August before. I had no idea….”

  I had spent every August in either New York or Washington. “Is it cooler on the Riviera?” I screamed. “Go ahead! Leave! Go where it’s cool. You can talk French with your goddamn cool friends. You can eat cold food until you choke on it, for all I care. Good-bye. Have fun in Cannes.” I thought I had energy to shriek for another five minutes. Instead, I swooned. Feeling helpless and very foolish, I found myself slumping to the floor. David saw me and caught me in time. “I’m all right,” I said.

  “Are you sure?” He looked frightened.

  “My air conditioner broke down completely. And I couldn’t get the window open. Oh, David, it’s like working in Hell.”

  At headquarters, the stench of mildew grew so strong that I held my breath as I rushed through the corridor. The hotel management, aware of our short-term lease, claimed they could not stanch the march of the rot; it was a “structural problem,” they explained ominously. And they felt bad about the air conditioners, but the machines could not tolerate such humidity.

  One evening, when I was working late, rehearsing Paterno for his final debate, I glanced up from my notes to look at him. His face was glossy with perspiration. His nostrils were quivering and his teeth were clenched together, like a child trying hard not to cry.

  “What’s the matter, Bill?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on,” I insisted.

  “You know the Medicaid speech I was supposed to give in Hempstead, for the senior citizens? Well, you know who the audience was?”

  “Who?”

  “One senior citizen. I’m in this big hall, up on the stage with a podium and a microphone, and there’s only this one real old guy, sitting in the second row. So I ask Jill, the advance man—lady, woman, whatever—I ask her, ‘What’s wrong?’ And she looks blank, and the guy, my audience, says, ‘Who’d come out on a day like today to hear a politician?’ So I asked him, ‘How come you’re here?’ And he says, ‘I’m a reporter, Mister Paterno.’ Just like that, ‘Mister.’ And then he takes out a pad and pencil and kind of licks the point of the pencil and gives me this look, like it’s my fault it’s a hundred and three degrees and on account of me he’s risking a major stroke. So I gave the speech, standing right up there, and when I’m finished this guy just flips his pad shut and walks off.”

  “Bill, it must have been awful.”

  “Terrible. Then Jill starts crying, trying to explain it’s not her fault that half of Nassau County has dropped dead from prickly heat or something and the other half doesn’t have the energy to walk out the front door. I mean, they’re scheduling me for ten-twelve hours a day, Marcia. It’s killing. I go out to Suffolk County, to that shopping center in Huntington for a rally, and it’s a rally for eight people. Two thousand ‘Paterno can do it’ buttons and eight people. Do you know what that feels like?”

  The combination of heat and humidity finally wore out the building itself. Half the ceiling in Joe Cole’s office crumpled, and a chunk of plaster grazed his head. He refused to go to a doctor. “But you have a bump the size of an egg,” I said.

  “It’s a small egg.”

  “You really ought to have it checked.”

  “I ought to have my head examined for working here. Crazy place. Pigsty. It’s going to collapse before election day. You’ll see. We’ll all be buried.”

  “Better now than then,” I said.

  “Yeah. Did you see the last poll? Appel’s moving up again.”

  “Do you think he has a shot?”

  “Marcia, he’s buying so much TV time that they hardly have room for regular programs.”

  “But his ads are so slick.”

  “But they’re so good.” He rubbed a patch of scalp near the bump. “Well”—he sighed—“at least I don’t have to run out and buy a suit for a victory party.”

  I tried to seek refuge with Eileen. I stepped into her office and closed the door quietly behind me. “Oh. I didn’t hear you come in,” she said.

  She looked almost ill. Thin to begin with, Eileen had lost even more weight. In a sleeveless blue cotton dress, she looked like a tall frail child. The two bones of her forearm shone through her skin. Her hair seemed so pale it looked white.

  “Eileen, are you all right?” She nodded. “Are you sure? Have you been taking care of yourself?”

  “I’m okay,” she muttered.

  “Look, why don’t we go somewhere cool and get a drink,” I suggested. “It’s been ages. I’m sorry I haven’t had time to talk, but things have been happening so fast.”

  “I can’t talk now,”
she said, rising from her desk. She moved with her usual vigor, standing on tiptoe and searching through her bookshelves.

  “Hey, it’s been all summer. I know you’re busy. I’m busy. But it will do us both good to take a half-hour break. Anyway, I need your advice. It’s really important.”

  “I can’t talk. I have a brief due. And compliance papers for financial disclosure. Please.” She picked up a sheaf of papers from one of the shelves and leafed through them so rapidly I thought she would shred them. “Some other time,” she said, not looking up.

  “Maybe early next week. We’ll have a long lunch.”

  “No. I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  “Eileen, you’re putting too much pressure on yourself.”

  Her voice rose to a pitch higher than I had ever heard it. “I have meetings. Obligations. Please! I have to work!”

  The Friday before Labor Day weekend, I walked into Jerry’s office. “We should talk,” I said.

  “I’m busy now.” He collected the pencils and pens on his desk and put them into a coffee mug.

  “Please. There’s not that much to say. You know that as well as I do. It’s been so painful and awkward—”

  “I have to go. I’m having drinks with a guy from News-day.”

  “Jerry, why can’t we be honest? Come on, we were such—”

  “I’ll talk to you when there’s time. I’ve got to go now.” I watched as he stood. He took a deep breath to compose himself, hooked his jacket over his index finger, and—with the grace of a Barrymore moving upstage—strode out of his office.

  Two hours later he retained his matinee-idol stance as he slouched against the wall of his office, handing out small smiles to the volunteers as they trooped in to watch Lawrence Parker on television. The governor had called a news conference for six thirty in the evening; he would be carried live on almost every news show in the state.

  Paterno paced up and down the room. “I don’t get this,” he said to me. “What’s he doing?”

  I rubbed my hands together nervously. “I don’t know.”

  Jerry grinned at one of the college kids. She blushed.