The Emperor of Ocean Park

by Stephen L Carter

  We turned her down.

  “So,” murmurs the good reverend, “I suppose we should get back to your fight with your wife.”

  “Please.”

  “You would agree, would you not, Talcott, that what you did was unwise?”

  “Yes.”

  “A woman in your hotel room,” he murmurs.

  “I realize it was a mistake. I wasn’t thinking too clearly.”

  He nods. “You know, Talcott, I know a man, a good Christian man, a pastor, a lifelong friend, who is never alone with a woman other than his wife. Not for a moment. If he is on a trip, he insists that a man pick him up from the airport. If he has to counsel a female parishioner, he always has his wife or a female deacon present. Always. That way, there is never even the hint of scandal.”

  I try not to smile. “I don’t think that would work in my part of the world. People would call it sex discrimination.”

  “A strange part of the world.” He seems about to say more, then decides not to pursue the point. “But, as I say, it is easy to understand your wife’s anger, isn’t it? You have hurt her, Talcott, you have hurt her reputation . . . .”

  Suddenly I cannot contain myself. “Her reputation! She’s the one who has affairs, not me! She has no right to get angry just because . . . just because people think I had one!”

  “Talcott, Talcott. Anger is not a right. It is an emotion. It flows from our fear or our pain, of which we broken creatures possess a surfeit. Your wife’s sins, her weaknesses, give you no right to impose further pain upon her. You are her husband, Talcott.” He folds his hands and hunches over his desk, and I reciprocate, drawing closer. “You know, Talcott, I have asked you for quite a few favors on behalf of the boys, and you have always been more than generous.”

  I grimace. One of the favors was to accompany the boys, along with three or four other adults, on a trip to the beach, an event that confirmed my utter lack of influence over them. Another was to persuade my famous student Lionel Eldridge, the onetime basketball star known as Sweet Nellie, to talk to the boys last spring. I have been paying for that one ever since, for Lionel seems to think, having done me a good turn, he no longer needs to finish his seminar paper . . . from last spring.

  “Thank you, Dr. Young, but it was the least I could do.”

  “You’re storing up treasures in Heaven, praise God. You’re a good man, and the Lord has important work for you.”

  I nod, saying nothing. Although every believing Christian understands that God guides our steps, fewer and fewer emphasize the point. A God working actively in the world makes us uneasy. We tend to like our God distant and a bit malleable, ready to bend to every new human idea. A God with a will of his own is too scary, and, besides, he might get in the way of our satisfaction of immediate desire. Or so my father wrote someplace or other.

  “But this next favor . . . well, this is a favor I want you to do for yourself.” Dr. Young leans back in his creaky chair once more. “You see, Talcott, when you first came to me for counseling, you said you thought your wife was having an affair. You wanted her to come for counseling with you, she refused, you finally came alone. Remember that? And yet, praise the Lord, the two of you are still together, and you, Talcott, you personally are committed to staying with your wife until you are parted by death, just as the Scriptures instruct.”

  “Yes.”

  “Or unless she leaves you.”

  I swallow. “Yes.”

  “You are one flesh, Talcott, you and your wife. That is Christian marriage.”

  “I know.”

  “So perhaps it is time you found it in your heart to forgive her.”

  “Forgive her for . . .”

  “For her transgressions against you, Talcott. Real or imagined.”

  An unexpected shot. And he is grinning as he fires it. “What do you . . . when you say imagined, are you implying that I . . . uh . . .”

  He folds his plump hands in his lap and swivels his chair, this way, that way. “Talcott, you came to me in the summer and said your wife was having an affair with a coworker. But, as far as I can tell, you have no actual evidence.”

  “Not evidence that would stand up in a court of law, but . . . well . . . a husband just knows these things . . . .”

  “Talcott, Talcott. Listen. You have told me she often works late. You have told me she often is not at her desk when you call, sometimes for hours. She goes out of town a lot with her boss, and she seems to have lots of meetings with him when they travel. Why is it impossible, Talcott, that she is simply a hardworking lawyer, devoted to her job and trusted by her boss? If a man worked the same hours at the same firm and did the same things, would you, Talcott, assume that he was having an affair with the boss?”

  I hate being hemmed in this way, but Dr. Young is an expert. “You’re forgetting those furtive telephone calls . . . .”

  “No, Talcott, I have not forgotten. You say you will be eating dinner or lying in bed and the phone will ring and your wife will answer it and she will say, ‘Sorry, Jerry, I can’t talk now.’ And when you ask her what that was all about, she will say something like, ‘Oh, I just didn’t want to interrupt our time together.’”

  “Exactly.”

  “One interpretation is that she and Jerry—or whoever was really on the other end of the line—are, indeed, engaging in an adulterous relationship. Another, however, is that she is simply telling you the truth. She does not want to ruin what precious time she has with you and your boy by getting into an extended telephone conversation.”

  I shake my head, certain it cannot be this simple, yet suddenly assailed by doubts. “I . . . you would have to know Kimmer. The kind of person she is. She’s totally devoted to her work. She wouldn’t hesitate to interrupt our time at home for a business call.”

  “Talcott, Talcott.” Smiling in that avuncular way of his. “Perhaps your wife senses in your marriage the same strains as you do. Perhaps she thinks she is partly to blame, the way she works. Perhaps she is trying, in her own way, to fix it.”

  “I don’t know . . . .”

  “And there is the point, Talcott.” Pouncing like an experienced litigator. “There is my very point. You don’t know!” Excited now, he leans across the desk, no easy feat for a man of his bulk. “You don’t know for sure she is running around with her boss. You don’t know for sure if she has had any extramarital affair. Except the one, of course.”

  “Which one?”

  “A little over a decade ago, Talcott, in Washington, D.C. When she was married to André. I mean the affair she had with you.”

  I blink. This shot hit me, as it was supposed to do. They say that Dr. Young boxed when he was in the Army, back in the fifties, and I can believe it, for he has the boxer’s mind, the ability to weave and jab and jab and weave until, finally, he lands a straight right.

  “I . . . I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

  “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Maybe you are just assuming that your wife will do to you with someone else what the two of you did to her first husband.”

  Another blow lands! I reel into the ropes, memories tumbling through my mind at a dizzying pace. Kimmer and I dated during our first year in law school, and then she broke up with me over the summer because she found one of our classmates more interesting. We dated during our third year in law school, but she broke up with me three months before graduation, again for another student, although not the same one. In Washington, she spent two years dating me along with two other men, and then she pared the number to two, of which I was not one. A year later, she married one of the finalists, André Conway, formerly Artis, a production assistant at a television station, with dreams of becoming a big documentary filmmaker. By then, I, too, had moved on. My new girlfriend, Melody Merriman, a journalist and member of the darker nation, expected to marry me. I suppose I expected to marry her. Then, a little more than a year into her marriage, Kimmer began a torrid extramarital affair . . . with me. Kimmer left Ar
tis-André, I left Melody, scandal ensued, and when Stuart Land called a few months later to ask if I was interested in teaching yet, I decided to leave a law practice I loved in a city I hated. My father was delighted, but I was never sure I wanted to be a professor: I probably fled to Elm Harbor as much to escape the Gold Coast gossip mills as because of my desire for the academic life. But I also had the hope that Kimmer would follow me, demonstrating through this affirmative act on her part a commitment to our future.

  To my astonishment, she came. To my astonishment, we married. Kimmer put off starting a family until she feared her biological clock might just stop ticking altogether. Then God gifted us with Bentley.

  And, in what is about to be nine years of marriage, I have hardly given a thought to what Kimmer and I . . . did, that was the word Dr. Young used . . . what we did to André Conway. Or, for that matter, what I did to Melody Merriman, which I am sure Dr. Young will bring up momentarily.

  I continue with difficulty. “So—you’re suggesting that I . . . I’m just projecting . . .”

  Dr. Young holds up a hand. “Talcott, listen to me. Listen carefully. Have you asked the Lord to forgive you and your wife for the wrong you did your wife’s first husband?”

  I nod slowly, admitting the truth. “Yes. Many times.” I close my eyes briefly. The heating vent gives off a brief, angry whine. “But, to be honest with you, I don’t know if I . . . if I’ve forgiven myself.”

  Morris Young is too old a hand to be sidetracked by a therapeutic confession. “We can certainly work on that, Talcott. But at the moment, I am more interested in whether you can forgive your wife.”

  “For these . . . imagined transgressions?”

  He shakes his heavy head. The telephone on his desk begins to bray, but he ignores it. “For what she did to her first husband.”

  I open my mouth, close it again, then try once more. “You think I’m mad at Kimmer for . . . for cheating on André with me?”

  “Mad? I wouldn’t know. I do wonder, though, if you have somehow . . . frozen her in that moment of time. The only Kimberly you are able to perceive is, not to put too fine a point on it, the adulteress.” The phone has stopped ringing. “In your eyes, she is stuck in a particular pattern of behavior. But the Christian life is a life of constant growth. Perhaps you need to give her the chance to show she has grown.”

  “You think she’s changed that much?”

  “Have you ever cheated on your wife?”

  “No! You know I haven’t.”

  “So you have changed, Talcott. Don’t you see? And perhaps your wife is as capable of change as you are. Maybe not at the same rate. But the same capacity.”

  I am getting the message. Slowly, but I am getting it. “You think I . . . look down my nose at her?”

  “I think, Talcott, that sometimes your marital fidelity is a wall between you. Perhaps you are right and she has been unfaithful. Very well, how have you responded? Perhaps you have used your own virtue to keep your wife at bay. Remember, Talcott, that her sins are only different from yours—not necessarily worse. And that you promised to love her for better or worse.” He pauses to allow this to sink in. “Now, understand me. I am not exonerating your wife. She may indeed be engaging in an extramarital relationship with Mr. Nathanson. Or with someone else. But, Talcott, right now, what matters is your own conduct. If your wife is straying, the time will come when it is appropriate to deal with her behavior. For the moment, however, I wish to ask of you a simple favor: that you will, until the next time we meet, try to treat Kimberly as you would want to be treated. You do remember the Golden Rule? Good. You think your wife should give you the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps you should do her the same courtesy. Kimberly is your wife, Talcott, not a suspect in some crime. Your job is not to catch her in lies. Your job is not to prove you are better than she is. Your job is to love her as best you can. Scripture tells us that the husband is head of the wife, but we are also warned that the headship is of a special kind: ‘as Christ is head of the church.’ And how does Christ love his church, Talcott? Unquestioningly. Forgivingly. And sacrificially. That is the responsibility of the husband, Talcott, especially when you do not actually know that your wife has done you wrong. The two of you wronged her first husband, and it may be that you are wronging her now, by your suspicions. So the favor I wish to ask is that you try as hard as you can, until our next meeting, to love your wife that way. Unquestioningly. Forgivingly. Sacrificially. Can you say those words for me, Talcott?”

  “Unquestioningly,” I say, unwillingly. “Forgivingly,” I say, unhappily. “Sacrificially,” I say, resignedly.

  Dr. Young’s smile is wider than ever. “Never fear, Talcott. The Lord will strengthen you to do what you must do. Let’s pray together.”

  Which we do.

  (II)

  DEAN LYNDA INTERCEPTS ME as I rush up the steps into Oldie. I have avoided her since my return from the Vineyard, although this has meant skipping faculty meetings, workshops, and lectures. I am not sure whether I am driven by embarrassment, anger, fear, or some emotion I have yet to detect. Whichever it is, its protection has just run out.

  “Talcott. Good. I’ve been hoping to run into you.”

  I look up at her, she looks down at me. She is in the company of Ben Montoya, her tall, restless factotum, who has a joint appointment in the law school and the anthropology department. Ben was whispered to be the logistical genius behind the coup that toppled Stuart Land, and he remains Lynda’s instrument, it is said, in the most ruthless tasks of her deanship. The three of us stand on the steps as the season’s first snow flurries softly around us. Ben’s suspicious eyes peer at me from the upturned collar of his mountainous parka.

  “Hi, Lynda.” I slow but do not stop. “Hi, Ben.”

  “Talcott, wait,” my dean instructs.

  “I have office hours.”

  “I just need a minute. Ben, you go ahead, I’ll catch up with you.” With a final glower, he rushes off as instructed, hands deep in his pockets.

  Then it is just the two of us.

  Dean Lynda, a vigorous woman who wears her graying hair unfashionably long, folds her arms, clucks her tongue, and shakes her head. She is wearing a light topcoat over one of her outdated granny dresses. A black beret perches at a jaunty angle. She enjoys her reputation as an eccentric.

  “We’re on our way to see the provost to talk about the budget,” Lynda explains.

  “I see. Well, good luck.” I climb another step toward the building, but my dean freezes me with a gesture. I am suddenly sure she is going to ask me whether I have been slanting my scholarship for the benefit of a client.

  “Talcott, Talcott, Talcott,” she murmurs, intense blue eyes measuring me from behind steel-rimmed glasses. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I understand you canceled another class last week.”

  “I was in Washington, Lynda. A torts conference. The students knew about it weeks in advance.”

  Unmollified, Dean Lynda purses her thin lips in disapproval, possibly of the weather but more likely of me. “How many classes does that make that you’ve missed this term? Ben tells me that it’s something like seven or eight.”

  “Good old Ben.”

  “He’s my deputy dean, Talcott. He’s just doing his job.” She brushes snow from her lapel. “If a member of my faculty is underperforming, I need to know.” My deputy. My faculty. I have not previously realized how much she reminds me of Mallory Corcoran.

  “Lynda, you . . . you’re the one who told me to take time off.”

  “And you certainly did, didn’t you?” She does that tongueclucking thing again. “I have to tell you, Talcott, I am starting to get a little worried about you.”

  “Worried . . . about me?”

  She nods silently, waiting for a group of laughing students to pass us. They are all white, the stars of the law review, the faculty favorites, who will get the most desirable judicial clerkships and th
e offers to come back and teach. “You must admit, Talcott, your behavior has become a little bit erratic.”

  To my dismay, I realize that she is continuing our conversation from the Vineyard, still building a case for Marc Hadley. I manage to hold my temper, but only because I have just left Dr. Young. “I’m not going to let you do this to me, Lynda.”

  The blue eyes, pale as morning, protest her innocence, as does the hand over her heart. “I’m not doing anything to you, Talcott. I’m worried about what you’re doing to yourself.” She pats my arm. “You’re family, Talcott, you know that. I only want what’s best for you.”

  “I see.”

  “You sound sarcastic. Now, why is that?”

  “Because you’re determined to find fault with whatever I say?”

  Her eyes, suddenly diamond-hard, flash blue fire. Lynda Wyatt is not a woman to cross, and now I have done it twice. “That’s uncalled for, Talcott. I’m trying to help.”

  I want to hold back, but the temptation is more than I can withstand: “Are you, Lynda? And who exactly are you trying to help?”

  For the first time in all the years I have known her, Lynda is speechless. Her mouth forms a small red O of offense, and a furious flush rises in her cheeks. Her hands go to her hips. Not waiting for her riposte, I smile and dodge past her into the building.

  Striding hurriedly through the lobby, dismayed at my own rudeness and half worried that Lynda Wyatt will come storming after me to inform me that my tenure is being revoked, I notice, off in a corner near the stairwell, my student Lionel Eldridge, the former basketballer, leaning against the wall, towering over a member of the paler nation who gazes up at him with adoring eyes. His admirer, I see in surprise, is Heather Hadley, Marc’s daughter from his first marriage, usually found in the company of her droopy boyfriend, Paul. I blink to make sure I am seeing straight. I have never understood the magnetism of the man once known to millions of basketball fans as Sweet Nellie, although even Kimmer, whose firm I all but begged to hire him last summer, concedes that he is gorgeous. Rumor has it—that is, Dear Dana says—that young Mr. Eldridge has cut quite a sexual swath through the student body. Now, seeing Heather evidently in Lionel’s thrall, I allow myself a moment of mean-spirited speculation, wondering how Marc, in his self-assured liberalism, would cope with an affair between his beloved, brilliant Heather and the married, academically marginal, and very black Sweet Nellie.