“I understand we have until the first of the year to resolve the issue.”
“Resolve! We are not being ordered to resolve anything. Capitulate is what is required.”
“Scrod,” said Jane handing a plate to the Architectural Critic, who seemed to have run out of steam. He and Owen silently exchanged plates.
“Damned unfortunate,” said the Critic, shovelling lightly breaded crab into his florid face.
“Is everything all right?” asked Jane without pausing in her rounds.
“No, I mean about this membership thing.” The Critic sounded almost plaintive. “The heart of a club is its membership. How can a bureaucratic body which deals with bars and restaurants take it upon themselves to tell the private clubs of the city whom to choose as members?”
“It’s part of something that began in the sixties,” said Dormant into his shrimps.
“Feminism?”
“Good God, no. Feminism began long before that. My mother was a flaming feminist before the First World War.”
“How did she feel about clubs?”
“She was a charter member of the Pilgrim Club when they were organized in 1912. She was right out of Goucher and red hot for women’s suffrage.”
“And she joined a women’s club?”
“Of course. The Pilgrim was quite the radical organization in those days. It was what today they would call a support group, I suppose.”
“What have the sixties to do with the Licensing Board?” asked Owen.
“That’s when politicians learned that irrelevant issues can produce votes. Pick an unpopular minority and legislate against them. That’s the way to make a name for yourself.”
“Such as?”
“Cigarette smokers. Or motorcycle riders. Can you think of any group of people less popular with the public than motorcycle riders—short of drug dealers?”
“Drug dealers must be pretty popular or they wouldn’t be as busy as they are,” said DePalma, “or as rich”
“Motorcycle riders,” Dormant said firmly. “What outrages them will please the body politic, so you propose legislation that forces the cyclists, the, ah, bikers to wear helmets,” he paused, “for their own good, of course.”
“I wouldn’t care if the noisy idiots all dashed their brains out,” said the Architectural Critic.
“Of course, but that’s not socially responsible. Or popular with voters. It’s important to force minorities to do what the majority decides is good for them. And if the minority resists, like the motorbikers who hate their helmets, or black families who don’t like their children bussed ten miles to school every day, so much the better. The sixties taught the politicos that resistance to a socially popular idea only makes it more popular.”
“Roger, you surprise me,” said the Critic.
“Well, I’ve thought a lot about this. The sixties were tragic years, tragic. For the first time authority and tradition, two of the entities I respect the most, were publicly reviled.”
“The Licensing Board seems to have assumed the authority in this situation,” said Gland.
“Yes, and if they were investigating the clubs to see if we were serving alcohol to minors, or ignoring complaints from the neighborhood, I would respect them for it.”
“The poker evening in September got a little out of hand. I heard we got several calls about that. Did you stay to the end, Owen?” DePalma was finishing his coffee, ready to leave for court.
“No, I went home early. I could hear it from across the street, as a matter of fact.”
“But you see, that’s the point. We deserve to be criticized if we are drunk and disorderly.”
“But that’s not the issue here.” Gland turned to Owen. “It’s politics. The Licensing Board, especially the termagant who runs it, are doing all this for selfish political gain.”
“Is there any other kind?”
“You think she really believes that clubs should be integrated, if that’s the correct word?” Gland smiled at them all.
“Perhaps she does,” said Roger, “but what kind of an issue is that in the face of homeless derelicts wandering the streets in an alcoholic haze, or the remnants of the Combat Zone dispersing across the city as the developers move in on their real estate, or the gay bars and the sports bars and the college bars that stay open all night?” Dormant paused for breath and drained his glass of Vouvray. For once no one spoke. An unexpected silence spread across the room for ten seconds.
“Are you still working on that?” asked Old Jane, indicating Dormant’s half-eaten shrimp casserole Before he could answer she was gone, the plate added to the stack on her arm.
“Well, Roger, I must confess that this is one of the few instances in which we are in agreement,” said Gland. “It is a political issue, the kind the people at City Hall call a win-win.”
“What exactly is a win-win?” asked the Architectural Critic, as he folded his napkin.
“If they win, they win. And if they don’t win, they still win.”
“Why shouldn’t women be admitted as members?” Owen was surprised to hear himself ask.
“Why not, indeed? But let us debate the issue in a dignified manner,” said Gland turning to his colleagues on either hand, “not with a gun to our heads.”
“Perhaps she, Constantine, I mean, feels the issue has been debated too long,” said Owen.
“Perhaps she wants to run for the Legislature,” said DePalma.
“But why trample us in the process?”
“Because, as you so succinctly pointed out, Roger, next to South Africa, she could hardly have chosen a safer group to attack than private clubs.” The Critic looked down the Long Table.
“Are we such pariahs, then?” asked Roger.
“Indeed, we are,” said the Critic. “And if we admit women, we will be no less unpopular. We will just be, as you put it, integrated pariahs.”
Owen pushed back his chair and walked through the dim, cream-colored lobby to the coat rack by the foyer door. “Speaking of City Hall,” he said to the red-faced Critic, who was pulling on his hat, “what do you think of it? Architecturally, I mean. I’m sure you saw the piece in the Sphere, uh, that called such a sixties modernist statement out of context in Boston.”
“I’m rather fond of it.”
“I would have thought the opposite,” said Owen, shrugging on his old raincoat.
“Not a bit. It’s quite genuine. It is what it is. No pretense, simply the ugliest building in New England. We should value it for that.” Smiling, he stamped out of the door, on firm ground again.
Chapter 11
Getting to work was the biggest problem of Roger Dormant’s day. Usually, it involved at least one telephone call and a series of troubling decisions which challenged his self-esteem, never robust in the morning. He had several transportation choices. Over a solitary breakfast of cornflakes and coffee he would try to match these to the level of his spirits, the state of his digestive tract, the absence or more likely presence of throbbing in the frontal lobes, the degree of revulsion evoked by the prospect of social conversation, and his need for a drink away from home. This matching process, not unlike a child selecting Legos and connecting a random series of sizes and colors, eventually produced a construct which if it did not collapse of its own weight would cause Roger to rise from the Chippendale dining table and begin his journey.
The problem was created by the fact that Roger did not drive. He could drive, but having once been admonished by the Commonwealth for DWI—he could never recall exactly what the initials stood for but remembered well the consequences—he chose not to. He lived in a Georgian house in Dover. It was comfortable even by Dover standards, in that it had approximately twenty rooms—although no one had counted them since his mother had died and left it to him a decade earlier. It was known as the Cushing House since his mother had inherited it from her mother, who was married to a Cushing. Tucked away on forty acres of woodland and rolling pasture, it afforded a generous vista o
f the Charles River. The garage/carriage house contained three automobiles—a Mercedes, a Volvo station wagon, and a Range Rover—which were used by his wife and daughter. Roger had often considered hiring a chauffeur, but he was uncertain how to go about it. In addition, he was reluctant to raise the subject with his wife and was sure it would be talked about at the Charles Club. Thus, he could ask Celia, his wife, or Ann, his daughter, for a ride into Boston if and when they might be going in. He could call Tom Appleyard, a neighbor and fellow club member, assuming he was not already on the road to his law office or to court. He could walk a half mile down the lane and wait for a bus. He could call Earl Loud, who charged him a special rate of thirty dollars each way in the single Dover taxi. Or he could reconsider the chauffeur idea which must, he now determined, include a nondescript, unmarked car, which would let him off two blocks from the club. Perhaps, Roger thought as he paused in the sunny entrance hall at the foot of a graceful cascade of stairs, I could ride in front. The problem of finding a deaf-mute chauffeur in Dover was no less daunting this morning, so Roger began the search for an alternative.
One of the complications which made the Legos hard to fit was that Roger had no work. When his lawyer, Tom Appleyard, told him several years earlier that he must declare an occupation for the benefit of the IRS they settled on consultant. Roger was not comfortable with any of the alternatives which alluded to investments or real estate. He harbored fears that someone might ask his opinion on the market or real estate investment trusts. He had spent much of his life since graduating from Harvard College avoiding any discussion of real estate investment trusts. Consultant was a horse of another color. Roger knew well that none of his acquaintances would consult him on any question more vexing than a good hangover cure. This limited his consulting practice to the Charles Club, which had long since become his daily destination. He was about to enter the library to pick up the telephone when his daughter appeared at the head of the stairs. “Daddy,” she said with no evidence of surprise.
“Ann,” he replied, the relief audible in his voice since she was not wearing any clothing associated with horses. “Are you by any chance …?”
“By any chance I am. Let me get a cup of coffee and we’ll take the Volvo.” She descended the carpeted stairway, tall, too heavy-boned to be called leggy, too often frowning to be called pretty, too abrasive to have many friends, too lazy to be a college graduate, but an undeniably excellent driver. Roger smiled gratefully at his only child.
Owen stopped at the Newbury entrance to the Ritz-Carlton, the one which was designated an Accredited Egress. He slipped the loop of the leash over a wrought-iron curl on the planting box under the marquee and shoved the revolving door. He was in a hurry. He had hurried home to give the dog a quick walk and he had to be back to the office in twenty minutes. He was sweating. In November. This thing about a dog in the city which everyone derided as such a pain was actually good for you. It kept you in shape no matter what the weather. He had been thinking, while he hurried along, about his basic lack of business knowledge which in an office full of venture capitalists was more than a little conspicuous and so he decided to get a copy of the Wall Street Journal to read at his desk in the afternoon. He handed a bill to the woman behind the marble pulpit in the Ritz newsstand. “Nice day,” he ventured.
“Cold,” she said, “and gusty,” as she handed him two quarters. He smiled, pocketed his change and reached for the paper. “But no snow yet,” she said. He nodded. “We should be glad for that.” He nodded again and took hold of the paper but it was not relinquished. A column head said, “Real Estate Investment Trusts Rebound.” “They say snow this weekend. If,” she added.
“If what?” he said reluctantly.
“If the jetstream swings a little down. You know and lets in the large high-pressure area that’s up there.” Owen gave the Journal a little tug. “They say these things are set up in the Pacific Ocean. By the El Neeno. I wish sometimes you didn’t know, you know? When you know like all that can happen, they show you these maps with the flashing stuff on them, then there’s no way you’re gonna be surprised, you know what I’m saying? Not that I want to see snow before Thanksgiving, believe me, but if it happens it won’t be a surprise to anyone, will it, since they tell you so much stuff?” Owen nodded and she gave him the paper. He ducked out of her cubicle as another supplicant entered. As he unhooked the leash he glanced apprehensively at the sky, pristine above the Victorian rooftops. Snow? He hurried his dog down the street.
After Ann dropped her father at the steps of the Charles Club on what they agreed was a surprisingly mild and sunny November day, she reversed direction on Commonwealth, turned right up Exeter sliding by on a yellow light, and left the Volvo in the most expensive parking lot in Boston. The attendant, a tall man of impressively forbidding countenance, greeted her. “Yo, mama,” he said as she handed him the keys.
“What can I say?” said Ann, completing their ritual. She strode quickly through the sunlight to Lord and Taylor. After a strenuous swing which included Saks, two shops on the second floor of Copley Place, and an emergency run to Bonwit’s, she stood on the corner of Boylston and Clarendon, brushed back her mink sleeve and checked the time. “Shit,” she said, wondering where the time goes. She was late, so she hurried to the Ritz, where her friend Leslie Sample, perhaps her only friend, she thought, as they embraced carefully in the lobby, was waiting.
“Ann, you look fabulous. Where are the packages?”
“Yo, mama,” said Ann. They went in to the Cafe where the maitre d’ seated them at the table in the center of the bow window where everyone could get a good look. “I don’t carry anymore,” said Ann after they had ordered wine and water respectively. “It’s a basic mistake. It slows you down, you can’t cover the ground. And it gives one time to think about what one has bought if they send it out. On the way home, I sort of try it all on again.”
“And?” Leslie stared at this creature from another world with rapt attention.
“And by the time UPS arrives I can send half of it back without even opening the box.”
“Don’t the stores mind?”
“Are you kidding? They just want to see the stuff move around. That’s retailing. Actual purchase is not as important as movement.”
“It’s a little different in my business.”
“Don’t believe it. How do you keep your clients, your boss happy? Movement, a steady stream of johns moving through the, what do you call it, inventory. As long as someone is inspecting the inventory, everyone is happy.”
“Not me,” said Leslie. “I have to close. If I don’t close, I starve.”
“Well, I suppose there’s that. I was talking more about business principles.” They ordered salads and Ann devoured the pita toast until they came.
Leslie had been silent for a few minutes. “Are you a happy person, Ann?” she asked after a second round of drinks was presented. “I don’t mean to pry, but I have a reason for asking.”
Her friend smiled under arched eyebrows. “What a question. You do ask the questions, don’t you? Of course I’m almost always quite deliriously happy, aren’t you?”
“Well, no. But working keeps me busy so I don’t think about it.”
“So?”
“So, I thought you might want, well, want a job, perhaps. I thought you might want something to do.”
“Do?”
“Yes. You know, like a business career and stuff. It might, well, keep you busy.”
“My dear child, I am one of the busiest people you know. My life is a dizzy whirl of this and that and the other. What kind of job?”
“Well, you could sell real estate like I do. I’m good at it, everyone says so, and if I can do it, you can with how you look, and how you talk …”
“I’m speechless.”
“You could be great.”
“Let’s talk about something else.” Ann caught a glimpse of a tall young man dragging a white dog down Newbury Street. “How’s your
sex life?”
“Like nonexistent. I’m too busy. I have to work every weekend.”
“Then there you are. How could I give up all that?”
“All what?”
“None of your business.”
“Is there someone?”
“No. Not anyone you would know.”
“How do you know, Ann? Who is it? Maybe I’ve shown them something.”
“If you had, I’d have nothing to keep secret.”
“Don’t you like to talk about secrets?”
“No. I’ve got to hold on to what I’ve got. Let’s have dessert. I couldn’t sell real estate. I don’t have the head for it.”
“You have more brains than anyone I know.”
“Don’t worry your pretty head about my brains. Let’s split a dessert.” They divided a napoleon and then parted, one feeling full and one feeling empty.
Chapter 12
Owen could not believe the awful symmetry of his luck. To discover the girl—the woman, why did he always say girl—who could quicken life again for him and then to lose her ten days later was almost beyond luck. Perhaps luck had nothing to do with it. But if there were no luck he was dealing with a vengeful God whose intent seemed clear. Demi’s face as she slammed the door of the restaurant was the image before him as he walked down the Mall heading for Gland, Hollings Ventures.
The November day shone deceptively bright and mild. The next-to-last red and yellow leaves drifted in front of him as he paused, waiting for a crease to open in the traffic on Arlington Street. He dodged across and glanced up at the belly of Washington’s horse at the Garden entrance, his eye automatically checking the tightness of the cinch. Two birds perched on the brim of the General’s hat. Washington beamed at the scene of civic order and prosperity that flowed beneath him. The Garden’s beds of chrysanthemums were threaded by streams of men and women many of whom had ventured out into a morning three weeks short of the first day of winter without coats. The men carried shopping bags, small knapsacks, newspapers. The women strode along in charcoal skirts and white sneakers, swinging their briefcases. Except for the bald and the gray, most wore tiny earphones connected by wire to a plastic case whose electronics poured a steady stream of sound into each ear. Owen, who had most of his hair although a few strands were lately gray, remembered Seymour Gland’s lecture about the earwear of the young. “It’s the Japs’ revenge, they’ve discovered a way to turn off the American mind for most of the day and we buy these poisonous devices, along with the software, if you can call hard rock software. In an elevator it sounds like you are riding with a swarm of bees. It leaks out of their heads, the music, I mean, it just dribbles out.”
The Last Bastion Page 6