Contract with an Angel

by Andrew M. Greeley

  The seraph paused and then laughed as they crossed Wabash Avenue. The wind was pushing people all over the street and bending umbrellas. Naturally the two of them were undisturbed.

  “You’d have to ask your wife, but it might just make a great feature film. Maybe Derek Jacobi as the pope … . Anyway there’s a great line in it: ‘Why comes temptation, but for man to meet and master and make crouch beneath his foot, and so be pedestaled in triumph?’”

  “Good line, but I don’t feel very glorious.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I can’t figure out who was the winner.”

  “Can’t you?”

  Neenan ignored that question. “In the other situations I was the seducer, the successful seducer. This time I was the intended seduced.”

  “Are you sure the other times were all that different?”

  Neenan stopped in the middle of State Street and glared at the angel. “Who you trying to kid?”

  “Might I suggest we complete our transit of this allegedly great street before I endeavor to explain the obvious. I am permeable: these cars would go right through me. You are, alas, not so blessed.”

  So they crossed State Street, that great street, still untouched by the rain and the wind.

  “You still persist in presuming that in your lengthy seductive adventures, you were the hunter and the woman was the hunted?”

  “Of course!”

  “You might want to reconsider that presumption and ponder the hypothesis that it was in fact the other way around and that the scene which I assume you played out with the fair but trashy Honoria was in fact paradigmatic. For various reasons we need not consider, the only difference is that now you see what it is for the first time.”

  “I was the loser?” Neenan said in shocked disbelief.

  “If you persist in using that metaphor, which your wife would tell you is appropriate for a twelve-year-old.”

  “I don’t believe it. I chased them.”

  “So it may have seemed. The next question you should address is what common traits these various women shared.”

  “So I’m not responsible for what happened?”

  Once again Neenan had the sense that he was being torn apart, as boats in a marina are during hurricane tides.

  “You are certainly responsible and you must try to apologize to those women, though for various reasons they will not take your apologies seriously. You considered them attractive. You presented yourself to them as a very attractive male. They reacted to you in keeping with their own predisposition. Who is responsible is quite beside the point.”

  “And what is the point?”

  They hurried to catch a green light at Dearborn. Neenan had the distinct impression that the angel had stalled the change to red.

  “The point is that the mythology of Raymond Anthony Neenan, all-conquering lover, is a legend that may well satisfy some of your twelve-year-old needs, but hardly accords with reality.”

  The point was clear enough, all too clear. “You’re saying that women are usually the hunters and men are usually the prey?”

  “I am saying no such thing. I’m saying in your case you usually pursued women who viewed you as an amusing, if unruly, child on whom it was diverting to prey.”

  “If that’s true, I’ve been a fool.”

  “I will not dispute that conclusion. But you were not an innocent fool. You chose women whose needs matched yours. Except, if I may add a remark that is in any case patent, your wife, who is the only wise choice you ever made in women, and you made it for the wrong reasons and then only with our help.”

  “I don’t know whether I believe any of this.”

  “Think about it,” the seraph advised.

  Then, too suddenly Neenan felt, they were at Sears Tower. He entered the building miraculously dry.

  His first stop was Joe McMahon’s office.

  “Well,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb, precinct-captain style, “I don’t think we need to worry about being distracted around here by Honoria Smythe.”

  “Oh?” Joe looked up from the papers on which he was working and took off his glasses.

  “She’s asking for a hundred and twenty-five, rock bottom.”

  “She crazy?”

  “Possibly, but she has an offer from WorldCorp for one seventy-five.”

  “They’re crazy.”

  “Maybe crazy like a fox, you should excuse the expression. It might be worth a loss they’ll be able to write off to get their nose into the cable tent—or maybe just to scare us.”

  “They think that stealing NorthCal will scare you?”

  “Probably.”

  “They’re wrong, aren’t they?”

  “I’ll tell you what worries me, Joe: What if something happens to me?”

  “God forbid!” Joe said piously. “You’re not sick are you?”

  “No, I’m not sick at all. I passed my last physical with flying colors. But that airplane ride on Saturday made me think. We all die someday. A man in my position should get ready, know what I mean?”

  “I’m older than you are, R. A.”

  Michael slipped into the room and arranged himself in an easy chair in the corner. Today he was all in black, including a black shirt with a silver collar and a black-and-silver tie. His cuff links glittered on and off as if a flame were inside them. Had his companion chosen his clothes? Were they like humans in that respect too?

  “Impressive.”

  “I know that, Joe … . Still, would you want to take over the firm if anything should happen to me?”

  “Hell, no. You know that, R. A. You’ve offered me top jobs before. They’re not my cup of tea. I’m content with where I am.”

  “Who, then?”

  “Why not the kid?”

  “What kid?”

  “Vinny, who else?”

  He had never been “Vinny” to the family. Was this what they called him face-to-face?

  “My son?”

  “Sure, aren’t you grooming him to succeed you eventually?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it in those terms.”

  “I’ve noticed, R. A., that he kind of clams up when you are around.”

  “Not last Sunday.”

  “That’s true … . Normally he’s very articulate and very smart. Hardworking, determined. Reminds me a lot of you at that age. Only more …”

  “Gentle, sympathetic, sensitive?”

  “The word I was about to use was urbane.”

  Neenan threw back his head and laughed. “I don’t think I was ever urbane.”

  “You are now … . Anyway, I think he’d be first-rate as vice CEO or something of the sort, if you’re looking for someone to fill that kind of a position. A lot of people around here are wondering why you haven’t done that already.”

  “Just goes to show you, doesn’t it?”

  “You keep out of this.”

  “I’ll get to work on it tomorrow. Have the lawyers rearrange everything. Make an announcement next week.”

  “You’ll have to ask him first,” Michael said, raising a warning finger.

  “I’ll have to ask him first. As soon as he gets back from California.”

  “Good idea. No doubt about what he’ll say.”

  Back in his own office, Neenan called Lerner and Locke and set up an appointment for the next morning with the team of lawyers that took care of him over there.

  “I want to make some adjustments in my will.”

  “Of course, Mr. Neenan,” said the young woman who was a junior partner and the only one of the team that was not still out to lunch. At 3 P.M.

  “I’ll want to do something about the prenuptial agreement too.”

  “You’ll need Ms. Neenan’s consent to modify the conditions.”

  “To tear it up?”

  “It is about time to do that, isn’t it, Mr. Neenan?”

  “Pushy brat!” he said to the seraph.

  “She’s right you know.”

&
nbsp; “All right! All right!”

  “You’re right about that,” Neenan said with a laugh that was not completely forced.

  “We’ll be looking forward to seeing you tomorrow, Mr. Neenan. At some point we’ll need documentation from Ms. Neenan.”

  “Thank you, Ms … .”

  “Kim, Mr. Neenan. Lourdes Kim. You know, as in Madonna’s daughter.”

  Even Korean women are pushy these days. Maybe they always have been.

  “What a beautiful name!” he exclaimed, and began to hum the refrain from the Lourdes hymn. The young woman, now thoroughly charmed, joined with him.

  “One more thing, Lourdes. I will want to found a chair at Loyola in honor of my wife, who went there. Could you provide a draft of a deed of gift tomorrow morning.”

  “Certainly, Raymond. One chair?”

  “Probably something like four or five.”

  She didn’t gasp. Asian-American women rarely admitted that they were surprised by anything. Good for them.

  “That’s very generous, Raymond.”

  “An angel made me do it, Lourdes. See you tomorrow.”

  “Hmf,” Michael observed. “You might have said ‘seraph.’ I’m not just an ordinary angel.”

  “You guys are vain.”

  “Practically our only fault. But then we have much to be vain about, don’t we?”

  “There are seven of you, who stand before the face of God?”

  “You have a good memory for what Sister John Mark taught you, good if selective. Actually there are more than seven of us and we stand before the face of God only metaphorically speaking.”

  “Which reminds me, those singers who work for you …”

  “They don’t work for me, not exactly anyway.”

  “Are they a few angels singing loudly or a bunch of angels, each one singing softly?”

  “Somewhere in between.”

  “Vain and secretive too.”

  Amy Jardine buzzed Neenan as soon as he had hung up.

  “Ms. Megan Neenan on the phone, sir.”

  “Hi, Megan. Is everything all right?”

  “Everything is wonderful. Vinny wants to talk to you, but I insisted I talk to you first. I want to thank you for these few days out here. We’re having a grand time. It was very thoughtful of you to insist he bring me along.”

  “If I should forget that in the future, you remind me.”

  “I may just take you up on that … . Here’s Vinny.”

  “Hi, Dad. Good news on Jerry Carter. He’s promised to deliver the finished print in three weeks. He’s agreed that if he doesn’t, I can come out here again and take it away from him physically.”

  “Less than four weeks?”

  Michael flashed his “I told you so” smile.

  “I started the negotiation at two weeks … . I wouldn’t mind having to come out here again. Let me second everything that Meg said.”

  “You’re a very fortunate man, Vincent.”

  “That’s what she tells me all the time.”

  “Amy Jardine has set up a dinner at your house next Monday.”

  “No one has told me that yet, but if Amy says so, it’s written in stone.”

  “Enjoy the rest of your time out there.”

  “I intend to. Give my love to Anna Maria.”

  “I’ll certainly do that.”

  A sudden, unexpected, and loud burst of angelic trumpets was followed by a polyphonic song that sounded remotely like the “Hallelujah Chorus.” They were showing off too. The rain had apparently not driven them to silence.

  Whence, Neenan wondered, had come all of his son’s sudden self-assurance? He had never called Anna Maria by her given name before, had he?

  Or had he been confident for a long time and his father had simply not noticed?

  “Well,” Michael said grudgingly, “I guess you didn’t foul up everything with your children.”

  “If I did well with Vincent, it wasn’t because I knew what I was doing.”

  The seraph shrugged. “When I praise you, accept the praise. It won’t happen often.”

  That night, while they lolled in each other’s arms after a deeply satisfying romp of love, Neenan said to his wife, “I’m going to tear up that dumb premarital agreement.”

  “It’s about time,” she said with the same laugh as when she had signed the agreement. “It was ridiculous.”

  “I had a very bad experience,” he said defensively.

  “I know,” she said, kissing his chest. “I didn’t blame you. But I thought it was kind of silly to think that, having caught you, I’d ever let you get away.”

  She kissed his chest to make up for her laughter.

  “I’m going to make a few rearrangements in the will. I’ll leave most everything to you and Vincent. He’ll control the company and you’ll get all the real estate and a huge trust fund—regardless of whether you eventually remarry, which I hope you will.”

  The choir began to sing sweet lullabies.

  Anna Maria was silent for a few moments.

  “Are you sure you’re all right, Raymond?” she asked anxiously.

  “I’m fine, Anna Maria. That crazy plane ride last week reminded me of some things I’ve been planning to do for a long time.”

  “You don’t have any premonitions or anything like that?”

  “Premonitions? No, certainly not.”

  Revelations, of course. But nothing as mild as a premonition.

  She relaxed in his arms and went to sleep almost immediately. Her ability to fall asleep easily, especially after lovemaking, astonished him. She was not the unsophisticated peasant he had thought she was. Nonetheless, there was a certain trusting simplicity in her character.

  Poor woman, she’d be a widow soon. He was happy that he had thought about telling her that he hoped she would remarry.

  The seraph should at least give him credit for thinking about Anna Maria after his death. He had, however, banished that prying angel from their lovemaking sessions. All that meant was that Michael couldn’t be seen. It didn’t mean he wasn’t watching.

  Then Neenan began to grieve over his oncoming death. He did not want to die, not now, now that he had found so much for which to live.

  Silent tears flowed down his cheeks.

  The songsters’ lullabies became more sympathetic.

  Just now he needed sympathy.

  Presumably there would be a lot more grief between now and the end. Well, that happened whenever you died. You had to go through it and get it over with. He’d better get used to it.

  Then his thoughts returned to Anna Maria, poor, dear, wonderful woman. She didn’t deserve to be widowed before she was forty. Still, she’d find another husband who would be more considerate than he was.

  Then he wept for her and for himself, equally, he hoped, for each.

  11

  “Wake up, sleepyhead,” a woman ordered him.

  Neenan rolled over in protest and tried to bury his head in a pillow. He’d experienced a restless, dream-cursed night, filled with terrifying images of dying and death.

  “I’m not sure you’re up to all this late-night entertainment.”

  Who was the woman?

  He peeked out from his pillow. Ah, it was his wife; who else these days? She was wide-awake and smelled of shower soap and scent. She wore a protective towel and was offering him a cup of coffee and a roll.

  The coffee smelled wonderful. Would there be coffee in the hereafter?

  “I think I know you, woman,” he said as he reached for the coffee cup.

  “You’d better hurry,” she warned him. “You have a long appointment at Lerner and Locke, then there’s an opera tonight, at which I suppose you’ll have to do some business.”

  “Settle the pension strike maybe.”

  “That’s worth doing.”

  “I guess so.” He drank deeply of the coffee.

  “I thought we might do it this way. I’ll ride down with you and leave my dress at the apartme
nt. Then I’ll go over to Christo Rey High School for my tutoring. Then I’ll come back to get dressed for the opera. I can send Peter back to Maeve, and you and I can spend the night at the apartment. All right?”

  “That sounds like an offer I can’t refuse.”

  “It was meant to be that … . Your white-tie outfit is at the office, isn’t it?”

  “White-tie?”

  “Absolutely, you funded part of this production, remember?”

  “Yeah, I guess I did.”

  “So you’d better get up and head for the shower. Like now!”

  “Alone?”

  “We haven’t tried that, have we? No time for it now, I’m afraid.”

  She pulled back the drapes. Sunlight and glare from the lake poured into his room.

  He groaned. “Ouch, that hurts my eyes.”

  “Sunny but cold. Looks like winter is coming early. Am I glad I insisted we go to Captiva for the weekend.”

  “Yeah.”

  “If you don’t get up this minute, I’ll open the window and pull the covers off you and you’ll freeze.”

  “All right, all right, I’ll do what I’m told.”

  “That’s better,” she said as he struggled out of bed.

  She rubbed a hand down his back in a devoted caress, a promise of more later on.

  The woman was insatiable.

  When they pulled up to the apartment on East Lake Shore Drive, she planted a lingering kiss on his lips, then popped out of the car, dress bag in hand.

  Immediately after Peter had closed the door, she pounded on the window.

  “Don’t forget the Loyola chairs,” she shouted.

  “I won’t. I asked Lourdes Kim to prepare a deed of gift.”

  “Who?”

  “Lourdes Kim, one of the women who does tax things for me. We have women lawyers these days.”

  She made a face at him and bounded away to the entrance of the apartment building, engulfed for a moment in the radiance of the sun over the Lake. The feeling of peace and ecstasy touched him lightly and slipped away, though with a promise of returning.

  “The office, Peter,” he said with a sigh.

  “Yes, Mr. Neenan.”

  “I suppose Ms. Neenan has outlined our plans for the rest of the day, Peter.”

  “Yes, Mr. Neenan. I am to take you to the office and then come back here and drive her over to Christo Rey High School in Pilsen. I pick her up about one o’clock and drive her back to the apartment, and then I head home before the rush hour begins.”