Stephen L. Carter

by New England White

  “That I have no idea who or why.”

  “No. You’re suggesting that I might know why.”

  “Of course I’m not. I told him neither of us had the slightest idea. Oh, good, we’re not late after all.” He pointed to a taxi a block away, at the corner of Seventeenth Street, depositing the House Majority Leader and his wife. In the park, protesters were beating drums, but Julia could not remember why.

  “Lemmie, wait. Wait.” Pulling his arm to slow him down, because otherwise he would be busily glad-handing, and she would never get him back.

  “What’s wrong, Jules?”

  “I want you to tell me the truth.”

  “It is not my habit to tell you anything else. I’m your husband.”

  Oh, well, that explained everything.

  “Please, Lemmie. Tell me you don’t think I would have any idea who did this.”

  The eyebrows did that inverted-V thing that she hated. The night chill nipped a brightness into his dark cheeks. In the cold his sharp face always seemed so handsome, and so impregnable. “No, Jules. I don’t think you have any idea. All right?”

  “I don’t know.” She felt sullen, uncertain, ready to scream. Lemmie did this to her, whether by intention or not: took her perfectly reasonable indignation and turned it into a perfectly unreasonable shame. “I guess so.” A shake of the head. “I don’t know. It’s all such a mess. I hate this.”

  “It’s going to be fine, Jules.”

  “You don’t even know what I’m talking about!”

  “Interesting.”

  “What is?”

  “How you seem to get awfully riled every time Kellen’s name is mentioned.”

  “And that’s an awfully shitty thing to say.”

  Those eyes, so beautiful and expressive and wise. Reproach. Judgment. Hurt. Lemaster disapproved of vulgarity, and the kindness in his voice made sure she knew it. “Calm down, Jules. Look. I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right. I love you. I would not hurt you for the world, or let anybody else hurt you. You know that. So tell me, Jules. Please. Tell me what you’re so upset about.”

  About the fact that I seem to get awfully riled every time Kellen’s name is mentioned. About the fact that he broke the lamps on our driveway. About the fact that he left me two mirrors. About the fact that I missed my chance to say goodbye. About the fact that our daughter sometimes freezes up when she tries to eat her cereal in the morning. About the fact that love to you is duty, not choice. About the fact that I got pregnant and married the man who calmed me down instead of trying for one last chance with the man who—

  “Nothing.” She smiled her crooked smile and, once more, straightened his tie. He was a good man, she reminded herself. Solid and steady. “I’m sorry, sweetie. Let’s go see the President, and find out what job he’s handing you next.”

  Except that, once they were inside the White House, she knew that the get-together had nothing to do with Lemaster’s career, or, indeed, with Lemaster. Dinner was in the Yellow Oval Room, upstairs in the residence, with its view south between the columns of the Truman Balcony toward the Washington Monument and beyond. The President and the First Lady, Lemaster and Julia, and three other couples: a prominent novelist who had vociferously opposed the President’s election, the new head of the second-largest think tank in town, and the Congressman they had spotted outside. The Majority Leader and the think-tank fellow both had spouses in tow; the novelist had brought a girlfriend. Not the floating of a job, then. The sort of mix-and-match party this President was said to enjoy. But, for a moment, all Julia could see was the novelist’s girlfriend, who, according to his laughing introduction, wrote circles around him.

  “Julia and I have already met.”

  “Have you?”

  “Oh, yes. And it’s so nice to see you again,” said Mary Mallard.

  (II)

  THE TWO WOMEN STOOD on the balcony, shadowed by one of the massive columns, lights deliberately kept dim for reasons of security. Inside, the party was into the oh-do-you-remember-the-time stage. The South Lawn was floodlit and, from this vantage, looked like a football field before the big match.

  Mary Mallard said, “I was hoping you would have called me by now.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “To tell me you’d found Kellen’s surplus.” The writer stubbed out her cigarette, her excuse for wandering out here, with only Julia—who no longer smoked but, unlike most of her judgmental generation, could stand those who did—as company. Although Mary’s ducklike countenance was softer than Julia remembered from the funeral, the obsidian eyes had lost little of their fanatical glow. At her neck was another Hermès scarf, this one of a playful plum. “The truth is, Julia, I really think we should work together. I think we share a common goal.”

  “What goal is that, Mary?”

  “Truth. We’re each of us, in our own way, committed to truth.”

  “I see,” said Julia, leaning on the rail.

  “You don’t think so. But you’re the one who got fired because she decided to let a thirteen-year-old explain to her science class why she thought the Genesis story was true and God created the world in six days.” Julia was stunned. It had not occurred to her that Mary would look her up.

  “I did not get fired.”

  “There were parental complaints, there was going to be a hearing, the union ran for cover, and you resigned.” The writer was precise. “You were offered several speaking dates, which you turned down. By the way, how’s your daughter doing? Vincent Brady has such a brilliant reputation. Would you say it’s justified? Or too early to tell?”

  Julia was ready to get in her face. “You’ve made your point, Mary. Now, do you want to tell me what I’m doing here, or do you have some more showing off to do first?”

  The white woman’s tone remained placid. She lit another cigarette and drew deeply, eyes closed, and Julia remembered the delicious tickling warmth of smoking outdoors on a cold night; and not only tobacco. Early snowflakes, tiny and delicate as newborns, brushed over their faces. “You’re here because the President and the First Lady invited you to dinner,” said Mary. “Please don’t make it into something it isn’t.”

  “I’m here because you wanted to talk to me.”

  “I’m just a hack writer, Julia. The White House Social Office doesn’t exactly dance to my tune. If I wanted to talk to you, I’d drop by Room 118 of the main building of Kepler Quadrangle, or the Exxon station on Route 48, in Langford, where you buy gas twice a week on the way home, or Greta’s Tavern on Main Street, where you like to stop for coffee after work, or the bagel shop at the corner of King and Hudson, where you used to have the occasional breakfast with Kellen Zant.”

  Despite her anger, Julia was dizzied by this casual disclosure of how much information the woman had compiled about her everyday life. Still, she kept on swinging, because Veazie women never quit. “Unless you wanted to meet me where there was zero possibility of being overheard.”

  “Although they deny it, I’ve always suspected that the Secret Service has the whole White House wired for sound.”

  “Probably not the balcony, though.”

  Mary smiled. Her lips, painted bright red, would otherwise have been nearly invisible, despite her protuberant mouth. “Yes. Probably not the balcony.” She stubbed out the second cigarette. Down below, uniformed guards on patrol looked up at them suspiciously. The writer waved, so Julia did, too, on the off chance that waving helped them decide whom not to shoot. “And, yes, you’re right, when I heard you were going to be here I sort of had to persuade Mr. Pulitzer Prize in there to bring me as his date instead of somebody else.” A glance at the door. “He needed a lot of persuading.”

  “Am I supposed to be flattered?”

  “No. You’re supposed to stop attacking me and listen for a minute. I’m joking. Okay, I’m not joking. But, seriously, please, Julia. Just give me a minute. Kellen came to me, not the other way around. That’s what I want you to understand. He was on th
e track of something important. An old story everybody got wrong. That’s what he said. And that the implications would be—earth-shattering.”

  “He was always the shameless self-promoter.”

  “Maybe so.” She pulled out a third cigarette, pondered whether to light it, yielded to temptation. “But he was frightened, Julia, and I’d never seen him frightened before. He offered me a teaser. That’s what he called it, a teaser. He said when he had the story nailed down he’d give me the rest. Not before.” She paused. “He said he’d had some help in putting together his inventory. He said the Black Lady had helped him. That’s what he called her, Julia. The Black Lady. You could hear the capital letters. Naturally, I figured it was you. Black Lady, Sister Lady—you see the connection. I mean, you are all black, aren’t you? Ladybugs?”

  “That’s actually a contentious issue. The charter doesn’t specify skin color, even though it’s understood, and a few of the chapters have tried to admit Caucasians to make up the budget, because it’s not cheap to be a member and they can’t find—” Julia made herself stop. “And that’s why you bothered me at the funeral? Because you think I’m Kellen’s Black Lady?”

  “That was part of it. But Kellen also said that if anything happened to him he’d arranged to transfer the surplus to the girlfriend who got away. That’s you, I believe.”

  “It could be any of a dozen women. He had so many.”

  “I don’t believe that, Julia. You don’t believe it either.” She flicked the cigarette over the balcony, the red ash arcing into the chilly night, an act Julia found vulgar as well as rude but also endearingly defiant, reminding her, oddly, of Vanessa. “Come on, Julia. He wanted you to follow up his work. All right, nobody can force you. If you choose not to try, that’s your business. I understand that.”

  “I’m so glad,” said Julia, irritated by her condescension.

  “I know it sounds silly. But Kellen said he had the goods on a major political figure.” She pointed toward the glass doors. “Maybe the guy in there. Maybe somebody else. I don’t know, and he wouldn’t say.”

  Maybe the guy in there. No. No. Do not think about it. Do not invite Kellen back into your life.

  “It’s not my fight, Mary.” She turned away to look at the Monument, the red lights blinking for the benefit of air traffic, even though air traffic was no longer allowed.

  “No. I suppose it isn’t.”

  Julia heard something in the writer’s voice, or thought she did. She spun around. “There’s more. There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  “We should go back inside.” Despite the fiery eyes, the voice remained calm as autumn. “They’re going to miss us in a minute.”

  “What did you leave out, Mary? What else did Kellen tell you?”

  A beat while the white woman decided how much to tell. From inside came the novelist’s laughter, raucous with drink. “He said he would set it up so that the girlfriend who got away had only one, ah, welfare-maximizing choice.”

  “Choice about what?”

  “About whether to…follow his footsteps. Search for his surplus. His inventory. Kellen seemed to think he could, ah, force you to help.” While Julia processed this distressing notion, Mary scribbled on a business card, which she handed over. “My home and office number are the same. I wrote my cell phone. You give a ring, I’m on the next flight.”

  “I doubt that I’ll be calling.”

  “Because you’re not interested in what Kellen was up to. So you told me.” Mary reached for her cigarettes, then changed her mind and tucked them back in her handbag. “Or maybe you’re putting on a show. They say you love the theater.” The writer delved in her purse for a piece of paper, handed it over. Julia, still in a snit, unfolded it, glanced, then glanced again. She sagged. Snowflakes danced across the floodlit lawn. She was holding a photocopy of a letter from an outdoor electrical contractor recommended by Norm Wyatt, the architect who designed the house—and, as it happened, That Casey’s father. The letter, addressed to Julia, contained an estimate for replacing the broken lampposts on the Carlyle driveway.

  From far away, Mary Mallard was speaking to her. “I think a lot of people would be very interested in knowing exactly what happened to your lights, Julia.”

  Julia clutched the rail, all her warring selves, present and past, mother and child, docile and aggressive, defensive and patient, sinner and penitent, hater and lover, roiling around inside. She had no idea which would be left standing when their eerie dance ended.

  “You’re a considerable bitch,” she finally said. “Did you know that?” Mary waited. “So—what is this exactly? Are you accusing me of some kind of—”

  But by that time the President himself had flung open the French doors and come outside to see what they were doing, and invite them back in for charades.

  Good choice.

  (III)

  LEMASTER ENDED THE NIGHT in a sour mood, once he realized that the dinner was no more than social, and grumbled about one thing or another all the way back to the hotel. Julia, who had dithered over telling him about Mary, decided that she could not.

  Not yet.

  So she let her husband run on until he realized for himself how close he was to whining. That snapped him out of it, as she had known it would. Carlyles never complained. Carlyles took charge, turned the tables, grabbed the bull by the horns, reversed the controls—he and Astrid and her brother, Harrison, all three embarrassingly successful in their chosen careers, had so many different ways of describing their shared life philosophy that they sounded like each other’s coaches, which perhaps they were.

  And so tonight, as usual, Lemaster transformed himself, becoming once more the cheerful and confident man she had known since divinity school twenty-odd years ago. He told her, as they sat at the table in their hotel suite, sharing a snack and a drink and watching a basketball game, how the President had drawn him into a small study for a private conversation, to the envy of others in the room.

  “What did he want?”

  “Well, he beat around the bush, but, to make a long story short, he wanted me to promise not to endorse Mal Whisted. Apparently rumors have gotten around, maybe because of Astrid’s little visit.”

  She waited, but Lemaster made her ask. “And did you promise?”

  “I told him what I told Astrid. I’m through with politics. I told him I’m aggressively neutral.” That triumphant smile, tinged tonight with sadness. “I told him that both parties had moved so far from any real interest in the future of African America that I don’t much care who wins.” The fun faded. “That’s true, Jules. I don’t care.”

  “I know,” she said, because he told her so often, although, just now, the meaning seemed somehow more profound, a fundamental axiom of his faith.

  “You know what the trouble is? The Caucasians aren’t afraid of us any more.” About to answer, she decided to let him talk his own way out. “Besides,” he said, brightening, “it’s not like my endorsement is worth anything.”

  “Oh, Lemmie, it is so,” she assured him, and, for a while, they talked sports.

  The only uneasy moment came when they lay abed a bit later, after a brief and dutiful conjugality, and Lemaster asked the dozing Julia what she and “that woman” had been discussing for so long.

  “Girl talk,” Julia tried, playing to his vanity.

  “What kind?”

  “You don’t want to know,” she said, guessing, correctly, what his response would be.

  Up reared the handsome head. “Please, Jules, tell me the two of you weren’t out there smoking. I thought you quit.”

  “You know the old joke. I’m sure I can quit because I’ve done it so often?”

  Then she pulled him down for a kiss, knowing her husband, in this respect, better than he knew himself. Thinking he had caught her at sin, he would never look for the lie. And, right on schedule, there beside her in the darkness, Lemaster began to explain, as though any living grown-up owned any doubts, all the he
alth hazards of tobacco use. And Julia held him and stroked his back and nodded and promised to do better, because promises were what he liked. It was not, she had once told Tessa, that Lemmie thought he was better than other people. He just got such a kick out of lecturing them.

  CHAPTER 12

  AN ALMOST NORMAL DAY

  (I)

  THE YOUNG CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS were demanding the impeachment of the President of the United States, Professor Helen Bohr sought a student research assistant possessing a working knowledge of Ugaritic, the gay-and-lesbian caucus was holding a potluck for questioners, and the Vesperadoes needed two more tenors: in short, the notice board outside Julia’s office was much the same as on any other Thursday afternoon, as was the rest of the shadowy Gothic hallway, with the exception of the thin, sober man in brown suit and soft cap waiting patiently on the fading wooden bench.

  At first Julia barely noticed him, far too frustrated from her luncheon meeting with administrators at Lombard Hall who were trying to force the divinity school to become more selective in choosing its students—otherwise, they said, having crunched their numbers, the size of the class must be reduced, meaning less tuition money, and a fresh round of layoffs. Julia had complained to Lemaster last night that some of his people seemed to imagine a world full of twenty-two-year-old geniuses dying to spend two or three years preparing for the ministry, but he had told her that he could not interfere, that Kepler would have to mend its own fences. She returned to Kepler frustrated and embarrassed and probably angry at her husband for his many fussy proprieties, as though, in all the history of the universe, nobody had ever winked at anything. She continued to fume as she unlocked her office. Before Lemaster’s triumphant return from Washington last spring to take charge of the university he loved, she had never had to ask his per-mission for anything. Now the entire divinity school, once her sanctuary, seemed to value Julia principally as a conduit to her husband.

  She was angry for another reason, too. The day before yesterday, in Washington, Tessa had pumped her for inside information about the relationship between the President and Senator Whisted back when they were students. Julia, nervous, had said she did not even know if the two men had been friends, and was not comfortable talking about it. Last night, on her show, Tessa had told the world that a source close to both candidates informed her that the two men had probably not even been friends back in college. She added, ominously, that her source was uneasy even discussing the subject. Julia had a call in to Tessa this morning, which her old roommate had not yet seen fit to—