Against the Wind

by J. F. Freedman

  “We did our best.”

  “That’s small consolation,” I say.

  “Come on. It’s time to go.”

  She takes my hand.

  “Not yet,” I tell her. “I need space. Please.”

  She nods, slowly. “Are you going to handle the appeal?”

  “Yes.”

  “By yourself?”

  “I guess. It’s automatic anyway, at least this part.”

  “Do you want help?”

  I shrug. I’m lost.

  She straightens up, picks up her briefcase. “You know how to reach me if you want to,” she says. I nod.

  She starts to say something more, thinks better of it, turns and walks out, her high heels echoing in the empty chamber.

  It’s dark when I finally go outside. There’s no one around; to the victor goes the coverage. I get in my car and start home. Tonight is no time for celebration; more for mourning. Either way I’m going to get blasted until I don’t remember why.

  PART THREE

  I’M SITTING IN THE BAR of the Albuquerque Airport, waiting for my flight. In the background the radio’s playing a medley of my favorite Christmas hits: “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” Cheech and Chong’s “Santa Claus and His Old Lady,” “Jingle Bell Rock.” In half an hour I board a plane for Seattle, bearing gifts. Christmas in a strange town, with my daughter in her new digs.

  It’ll be my first time there. I could’ve had her for the holidays—that’s part of the agreement Patricia and I made—but it doesn’t seem right, Claudia’s traveling back and forth right out of the box, like a yo-yo. Let her be with both of us, get accustomed to her new surroundings. It’s got to be hard.

  I catch the bartender’s eye, cock my finger. Una más. José Cuervo, you are a friend of mine. Actually, it’s Johnnie Walker. Same difference.

  It’s been a shitty couple of months, to put it mildly. The Monday after the verdict came in I received the final divorce papers. Holly cleaned me out; the house, all the furniture, her car, most of the joint account, the works. What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine. Fuck it, I didn’t care, truth be known it’s a relief. The slate wiped clean, no reminders.

  I didn’t give her alimony; she works, art gallery management, good money. We didn’t have kids; she was ‘never ready.’ Thank God in retrospect, sharing one is tough enough. She took her own name back, plans on selling the house and moving to Taos. Fine with me—if I never see her again it’ll be too soon.

  A week after that, Andy and Fred lowered the boom. They’d decided a long time ago, probably the day they made me take the leave of absence. If I’d won the trial they might’ve reconsidered.

  But I lost.

  For the record it’s an amicable parting, conflicting directions philosophically about where each of us wanted to go with the practice. It cost them $200,000, but it’s spread out over four years, which won’t do much more than cover my office expenses.

  Some of my clients came with me. Fred made vague noises about restricting the exodus, but it was strictly the clients’ choices, I kept my mouth shut. Secretly, of course, I was pleased. Susan came with me, too.

  I won’t starve to death, and I’ll have enough work to keep my mind from turning inward, where the self-pitying sleeps.

  At least I suckered Holly. Not the way I wanted, but when you’re on a losing streak any victory tastes sweet, even if you have to eat a ton of shit to taste it. She won’t get a penny of the buyout; if they’d made their move two weeks earlier she’d have an extra hundred thousand in her account. She’ll feel cheated and put-upon when she hears about it. Isn’t that too fucking bad. Like I said, I’ll take a victory any way I can get it.

  Fred wanted to trip the door, knowing my timetable on the divorce. Andy wouldn’t let him. Someday I’ll have to thank him for that, once I get over hating their chickenshit guts.

  Actually, I am already over it. It was finished months ago, the first day they called me out, cut me adrift. This merely formalized it. I don’t wish them ill; we had a lot of good times together, on the way up.

  Mary Lou called me when she heard the news. She was distraught, genuinely upset. It’s a terrible injustice, she’d said, kicking you like that when you’re down. Like it doesn’t happen all the time. If you’re not down they can’t kick you, right?

  We got together for a drink so she could see first-hand I was all right. What she wanted was to take me home and take care of me. As politely and gently as possible, I turned her down.

  Simple reason: if I’d gone home with her I wouldn’t have been able to leave. It would’ve been all lovey-dovey and I’d have wound up moving out of my shitbox and in with her. We’d eat breakfast together and dinner together, terrific meals she’d just whip up after a hard day at the office, or romantic twosomes in quiet little restaurants.

  We’d fall in love, for real. And I can’t do that. I’m too damn low to get into any new entanglements. I need space; not that I want it, but I need the discipline. I feel like everybody’s looking at me, feeling sorry for me, which I’m sure they are. I don’t want to bring that into a new relationship. And there’s a sublimated pool of feeling, a small attic in the back of my brain where I keep my bad feelings wrapped up like bundles of old newspapers, that’s down on all women now because of Holly and what she cost me; I loved her once, too. Mary Lou shouldn’t have to carry that burden. When it’s gone, and it will be in time, then I’ll think about a relationship.

  Maybe.

  If it was just fucking, that would be all right. But it couldn’t be just fucking with her. I tried to explain that. She fought it, said if that’s all it can be now, fine.

  Neither of us believed it. That’s why we went home separately.

  Since then I haven’t called her. When I get up the guts, she’ll be with someone else.

  Shakespeare says “when sorrows come they come not single spies but in battalions.” No shit. The worst came last. Patricia moved a month ago, the weekend after Thanksgiving. They left on a Saturday morning, in her car.

  Claudia had spent the last few days with me, our own private Thanksgiving. We shopped together for an organic turkey, which I cooked with the trimmings. She made a pumpkin pie, all by herself, I didn’t have to help her a bit. We hiked in the mountains, fished, played catch with her Dan Marino-autographed football. Everything but talk about her leave-taking.

  We saved that for Friday night, sitting on her bed surrounded by her old stuffed toys. Beyond the ‘I’ll miss you’s’ and ‘I’ll call you’s’ and ‘we’ll see lots of each other’ stuff we didn’t really know what to say. It’s uncharted territory, we’ve been separated almost from her birth but we’ve never been separated for real.

  I stood outside Patricia’s house and watched as they drove away. Claudia climbed over into the back seat on top of the books and records and pressed her face against the rear window, watching me recede in the distance. I waved to her. It was cold out; we’d had an early snowfall the week before and there were still scattered patchy remnants of ice and snow. I could feel my face stinging from the wind as it blew against my wet cheeks.

  The Johnnie Walker tastes good, even better than usual. I’ll nurse it, make it last until I board the plane. “Blue Christmas” by Elvis comes over the radio. Talk about timing; in the movies they’d say it was too on-the-nose. That’s the problem with life sometimes; it doesn’t come out like the movies.

  EVEN THOUGH PATRICIA had told me where they were moving, her new apartment still comes as a surprise. It’s in a high-rise, on the twenty-second floor, practically a penthouse, with great views overlooking Puget Sound. You can almost see to Canada it’s so high. All the furniture is new out-of-the-wrapper, of course, and tastefully understated, as befitting a freshly-successful attorney.

  “A decorator did it,” she confesses, a proprietary hand caressing the linen shade of an Anne Taylor table lamp. “I didn’t have the time. It was all done and waiting for me … us … when we got here.”
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  “Très chic,” I say. A blind man could tell that a decorator had done it; maybe that’s because it’s basically unlived-in. No cigarette burns or wine stains. Except for a few Nancy Drew mysteries scattered about the floor, nothing of Claudia either. I wander around, looking out at the views. It’s early evening, Patricia just got back from her office (also newly-decorated, I later discover). She kicks off her pumps, tosses her coat onto an over-stuffed chair. Her clothes are new, too. Tasteful and expensive, a power outfit. Her tits are about the oldest thing she’s got now. I wonder when the face-lift is coming.

  “I had to buy a whole new wardrobe,” she explains, noticing my look. “It’s a more formal town for business.” She pauses. “And I’m not buried in the stacks anymore.”

  She doesn’t quite pull off throwing the last sentence away. There’s the touch of the defensive in it, the need to justify.

  “That’s good,” I answer.

  “Anyway,” she says, flitting around the new furniture like a lost hummingbird, “about dinner, why don’t I order in? I would’ve cooked but I didn’t know what your plans were, when you were arriving …” she tails off awkwardly. Suddenly we’re strangers in a way we never were before.

  “If it’s okay with you I’d like to take Claudia out,” I say. “The two of us.”

  “Oh.” She hesitates. “It’s a school night …” She catches herself. “Sure, of course, Will, whatever you want.”

  “So anyway where is she?” I ask. I’m uncomfortable as hell here, it’s not that I feel like an intruder (although I do): I flat-out don’t belong. They’ve been here a month and it’s so settled in its antisepticness, so grown-up. The home of a well-to-do, middle-aged career woman.

  “Downstairs with her friend Lily. They’re in the same school together so they come home after school and play. Same grade even. Lily’s mother doesn’t work. I’m so lucky, there’re two girls right here in the building her age. Her two new best friends.”

  She’s nervous around me, she can’t stand still. I’d called her office when I landed and she’d arranged to take the rest of the day off and meet me at her place. I came straight over without checking into my hotel, which she’d gotten for me, two blocks away. ‘I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to stay here, Will,’ she’d said, like she’d been thinking about it. I wasn’t sure then: a stirring in my pants, brought on by hearing her low voice over the phone, reminded me of our last encounter, not an unpleasant memory. But seeing her now, I whole-heartedly agree; I have no eyes to stay with the woman standing before me. The new clothes, the new pad, new everything, it’s all great, I’m glad for her, for real I am, but it feels wrong, like a kid playing grown-up in her mother’s oversized shoes. It isn’t her; the Pat I know. Whatever sex appeal she’d had for me is gone, up in smoke somewhere with the T-shirts and running shorts.

  She calls down, tells Lily’s mother to send Claudia up right away. “Would you like a drink?” she asks. “I don’t remember; do you drink martinis?”

  Martinis? The last time I saw her she was guilt-tripping herself over a beer.

  “I’ve been known to,” I say.

  “I’ll join you.” She walks into the kitchen, pulls out the gin—Bombay, I admire her taste—the vermouth, pitcher, ice cubes.

  “Super dry?” she asks.

  “The drier the better.” I watch as she mixes the drinks with a practiced hand. She’s done this before.

  “I didn’t know you drank,” I say. “I mean you don’t drink do you?”

  “Oh, you know,” she laughs: too loudly, forced. “When everyone else is … actually, I don’t hardly. Once in a while, to unwind.” She hands me my martini, with two olives in it, the same as hers. “Cheers.”

  “Cheers.” We both sip. I don’t like this. In one month she’s moved into a decorated high-rise, done in her absence and with none of her own particular taste, changed her mode of dress to that of every other upwardly-mobile career woman, and started drinking serious whiskey.

  She makes a face at her drink, pops an olive in her mouth.

  “It’s an acquired taste,” I say.

  “I don’t plan on it becoming much of a habit,” she tells me. “Not enough to acquire a taste; a real taste.”

  Like you, is the unspoken inference. I don’t care; if my drinking stops her from taking it seriously, I’ve done my bit for mankind. And my child.

  “Probably a good idea,” I say. I can see she’s a bundle of nerves, I’m the link with the past she’s putting behind her, she doesn’t want anything, me especially, fucking things up.

  The door flies open behind me and by the time I’ve turned Claudia’s in my arms. I lift her, holding her close.

  “Oh daddy-do,” she exclaims in her child/grown-up way, “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Just got here, pumpkin,” I say. “I haven’t even been to my hotel yet.” I put her down. She’s a big girl; I’d forgotten. One month.

  “Come on.” She grabs my hand. “I’ll show you my room. It’s really neat.”

  As she drags me away I look back to Patricia, standing on the unsoiled shag carpet in the middle of the living room, an unconscious, apprehensive smile frozen on her lips. Without even realizing it, she’s drained her glass.

  It’s amazing how quickly a couple of weeks can go by. Not to a kid; to a kid time drags, a week can go on forever. But for an adult who’s trying to hoard precious hours, even minutes, to have them in the bank against weeks or months of separation, time flies like a rocketship. It’s hard to be in the moment when you’re afraid of what the future may not hold.

  School is out—Christmas vacation, why I’m up here. Patricia’s working extra-hard, even during the holiday lull. “I have five years of catching up to do,” she tells me later that first night I’m there, “they work their butts off.” Welcome to the private sector, I felt like telling her. But I didn’t, because her former job wasn’t her fault, and she’s happy working hard. She doesn’t say it but she’s also happy I’m taking Claudia off her hands for a little bit, giving her the chance to dig in without guilt-tripping herself.

  So Claudia and I are constantly together. After the first few days of picking her up in the morning and taking her home at night I move her into the hotel with me: books, clothes, teddy bear. We roam the streets, the art museums and coffee shops, a man and his girl on the town. Her maturity amazes me, Santa Fe is a wonderful little jewel but Seattle is a real city, big, lots of variety. She takes to it like a duck to water, the endless choice of movies, places to eat lunch, places to shop. We buy belated Christmas gifts for some of her friends back home; she’s wistful about them, many of them friends from the cradle, but the new friends are swell, they’re just like anyone else.

  She’s adapting beautifully. Part of me, the selfish part (most of me), is sorry. Somewhere in the back of my mind I’ve filed a scenario about a tearful child begging her daddy to take her home, to where it’s really home, where everything is good and comfortable. In other words, where I live. But the better part of me, and I’m discovering there is one, albeit small, is happy, genuinely so, because the move hasn’t been as traumatic as I feared, and she seems to be at peace with it. Of course, it’s all new still. Maybe when reality sets in she’ll feel differently. I hope not; mostly.

  “Are you going to let me stay up ’till midnight so I can see the ball come down?” Claudia asks.

  “Sure,” I tell her. “How will you know it’s a new year otherwise?”

  “From the calendar, silly,” she giggles. There’s a bit of coquettishness in her laugh. She’s growing up, my little girl.

  We’d spent a few days skiing, returning to Seattle New Year’s Eve day. It was great fun, by the end of each day we were exhausted, eager to climb into bed early. Now we’re back in my hotel room eating a room-service dinner; her choice, I gave her the option, we could’ve gone out. I’m glad she chose this; I don’t want to share her. Besides, I know dinner in a hotel room is her idea of supreme
luxury. Shrimp cocktails, cheeseburgers, ginger ale and chocolate cake a la mode. All the good stuff. Out of deference to her (in my head, but still …) I’m not drinking tonight; it actually feels good, not merely penance.

  We talk: about her new school and friends, her mother, me. Her mother’s new job is disturbing to her. It takes more of Patricia’s time than the old one, much more. She can’t visit the new office after school like she used to, either. It’s too far away, Patricia doesn’t want her taking city busses by herself, and the atmosphere isn’t conducive to children lying on the floor reading and drawing. The clients wouldn’t understand, she was told. Something about confidentiality, a new word she’s learned. Her mom’s much more uptight now.

  She’s also not there as much. The hours are longer, and she’s dating. No particular man, as far as Claudia knows. That one gives me a jolt, that she’s dating, I don’t want her anymore, I truly don’t, but the idea that other men do is disturbing. Your basic garden-variety primitive masculine jealousy: other men sleeping with the mother of my child. It’s an ugly thought; the jealousy. I didn’t realize I was still so chauvinistic.

  “Have you met any of the guys she’s going out with?” I ask.

  “One.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “He’s bald.”

  “Besides that,” I laugh. “Anyway, what’s wrong with being bald?”

  “Nothing, I guess. You aren’t.”

  “Wouldn’t you love me as much if I was?”

  “Yeh. But you’re not.”

  “Did you like him?”

  “I guess.” A shrug saying I don’t really want to talk about this. “I just met him for a minute when he came to pick mom up.”

  Patricia’s gain is Claudia’s loss. It’s inevitable, in the long run it may even be healthy, but it bothers the hell out of me. A new kid in a new city spending too much of her time with other kids’ mothers and sitters. I know it’s none of my business but I’m going to talk to Pat about it. She won’t like it, but that’s tough titty. Claudia’s my child, too.