Alligators in the Trees

by Cynthia Hamilton

  Even though their time together had been mostly lighthearted and exciting, Priscilla could feel the unease below Tobias’s surface. If she was with him in a week’s time, she was sure he’d become surly and indifferent toward her. It would be impossible to avoid letting him down in some way.

  You put a warp on me

  Now no one else fits

  You’ve made your claim

  But I know you won’t commit

  If time meant nothing

  And souls could grow anew

  I would surrender both

  Without ever feeling blue

  I’d make my bargain

  Cross my heart and hope to die

  Let you do what you will

  And never say goodbye

  But my heart’s a silly fool

  I can’t trust it where you’re concerned

  As soon as I’d hand it over to you

  You’d make sure that it was burned

  I’ll let my head lead me on this one

  Hop that train for out of town

  If there’s fifteen-hundred miles between us

  Perhaps I won’t feel I’ve let you down

  They say a man has only one master

  In your case that master is you

  What you call your consuming passion

  Is entirely up to you

  In any event, the time has come

  And I must say goodbye

  I’ll disappear in a puff of smoke

  And not give you one last try

  When I look back upon this time

  I don’t believe I touched your heart

  Will you ever look back at me?

  Will you forget me once we part?

  Though I’ve never been one for betting

  I think it’s pretty safe to say

  I’ll end up like so many memories

  That the tide will wash away

  Priscilla drew a deep breath and kept writing. Her words uncorked wouldn’t stop flowing until she had gotten them all out on paper. Twenty years of these musings had become a burdensome load to cart around and protect, but the act of writing was no different in its vitality than the blood coursing through her veins.

  As she continued to write, she realized an emotional growth spurt had occurred without her knowing it.

  Casting long shadows, we run across hilltops/ Chasing the day with the onset of night/ A pocket in time, we wrap up this memory/ Making a wish, then holding it tight

  Tobias’s shortcomings were far less glaring than the quirks, handicaps and flaws exhibited by the former men in her life—Brawny, Ryan, and all the rest. Yet they were so vividly apparent to her, she knew she wouldn’t stay with him for long.

  This was a stark contrast to her former modus operendi. How many months and years she wasted with those other men! Had she not reached this pinnacle of insight when she had, she would’ve surely tagged along with Tobias until his humiliating rejections finally broke down her remarkable resilience.

  She drew a deep breath and let it seep out of her. She was grateful she’d never gone down the path of unrequited love like the girl she’d seen at the club. She wouldn’t have wanted to be in her designer shoes for anything. She rubbed her blistered toes as she reflected on her good fortune.

  She didn’t know when her amusing interlude with Tobias would end, but mentally she had already crossed the finish line. She was in the safety zone now, immune to his unique charms. It was a shame he wasn’t made of different cloth, for there were aspects to him that made her weak in the knees. She would never find another man who’d put her lyrics to music, for one thing.

  And yet, if Tobias had been the sort of man whose heart and mind were accessible, he wouldn’t have been available to her anyway. The good ones were seldom on the market for long. She yawned and rested her head against the sofa, as she let the memories of Tobias slip out of her mind.

  Priscilla opened her eyes to daylight. The sound of Tobias padding around the room had woken her. She watched him for a moment as he stood by the window looking at the day. In incremental movements, she sat up. She had been sleeping on the sofa, but she couldn’t remember climbing up there. The rustling of paper as she endeavored to right herself caught Tobias’s attention.

  “Hi there,” he said, coming toward her. “When did you come out here?”

  “I don’t know,” Priscilla said, sitting up, a piece of paper stuck to her cheek. She looked down to find the others floating onto the floor. She peeled off the damp page while trying to corral the rest with her feet. Tobias laughed as he realized what had driven her from his bed.

  “…this place, this piece…what does that say?” he said, trying to decipher the ink marks on her face. Reflexively, she rubbed her cheek, smearing the words into a blue streak. “I guess I’ll just have to read the original later,” he said, giving her head an affectionate ruffle.

  “Want me to order some breakfast? I’m absolutely famished. I guess I really didn’t eat much yesterday,” he said, patting his flattened stomach. “Or would you rather go out and get something?” Priscilla sat there and blinked at the sun-filled room. Tobias’s chipper mood confused her.

  “Uh…I need to take a shower,” she said, looking down at the minute stubble on her bare legs.

  “Okay, I’ll order room service, then. What would you like?”

  “Coffee,” she said, her voice hesitant and low.

  “Anything else?” he said, looking at her over the menu.

  “Um…a biscuit?”

  “A biscuit? Well, that sounds homey enough. I don’t know if they serve biscuits…”

  “An English muffin, then.”

  “Okay, I’ll get it ordered while you take your shower. We’ve got to get on the stick—we’ve got to take you shopping today. See, I didn’t forget,” Tobias said, smiling like he was about to burst with happiness. “Go on, this won’t take long.”

  Priscilla obeyed, staggering down the hallway on legs made shaky from lack of sleep. As she stood under the showerhead, she thought back to her revelations of a few short hours ago and wondered if she had judged Tobias unfairly. To look at him, one would think he was love’s greatest success story: the man transformed by his feelings for another human being. In her compromised mental state, she couldn’t tell which assessment of him was correct.

  “How come you’ve never written any love songs?” Priscilla asked as they rode the elevator down to the lobby.

  “You don’t know that I haven’t,” Tobias replied.

  “Okay, why haven’t you ever recorded any love songs?” she rephrased. She knew the words to every song he had recorded by heart, and not one of them resembled a love song in any fashion.

  “Just never felt like it,” Tobias answered. She regarded him skeptically out of the corner of her eye.

  “I don’t believe you’ve never written any,” she challenged him. Tobias tilted his head, neither confirming nor denying her assertion.

  “I can’t claim to have read everything in those notebooks of yours, but I don’t recall finding any mention of love’s slings and arrows,” he countered. “I did read a few very lovely passages that sounded like the author was on an endorphin high. But to your credit there was nothing soppy or overly sweet about them.”

  Priscilla scrutinized him silently while she determined whether or not he was tipping his hand. Like a machine, her brain scanned line after line of his lyrics, with no red flags. Maybe it just wasn’t in him to put his most vulnerable feelings into words. Or maybe he never had any.

  “Have you ever been in love?” she asked as the elevator door opened.

  “Oh no,” Tobias said, shepherding her out of the car. “It’s too early in the day for true confessions.” Priscilla felt a hot wave of shame wash over her. Why did I ask him that? she berated herself. It’s not like I care. Aggravated with herself, she sulked while Tobias attended to business at the front desk. He rejoined her and handed her a key to his room.

  “Just in case you bolt out of
the store without me,” he said with a wink.

  One second later, he caught sight of Marvin Stacks, yet another person he had been studiously avoiding. His first impulse was to duck into the nearest doorway, but he didn’t want to have to explain his strange behavior to Priscilla, who would invariably think he was ditching another ex-lover. His only hope was to try to out-walk Marvin.

  To this end, he turned his body in such a way to shield both Priscilla and himself, talking in hushed tones as he navigated her across the lobby. Unfortunately for him, his tactic failed to work. Marvin was on him like a heat-seeking missile.

  “Tobias!” he called out, taking long strides on his stilt-like legs in an effort to catch up with his client.

  “So, where should we hit first?” Tobias asked, pretending he didn’t hear Marvin’s appeals.

  “That guy’s calling you,” Priscilla pointed out, slowing their progress as she craned her neck around.

  “Probably a fan,” Tobias said, all but pushing Priscilla toward the revolving door.

  “Tobias. I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days,” Marvin huffed, eyeing Priscilla curiously.

  “Oh Marvin, hi. What a coincidence running into you here,” Tobias said with feigned nonchalance. “We were just passing through.”

  “I need to speak to you, Tobias. It’s urgent,” Marvin said, zero humor in his voice. “Alone, preferably.” Tobias’s smile faded as the three stared each other down. He started to make excuses, but Priscilla preempted him.

  “You go ahead. I’d rather do this alone anyway, if you don’t mind.” Tobias stood there, unable to argue with her in front of his business manager. He knew Marvin wouldn’t track him down to give him good news, so he didn’t want her around to hear what he had to say. The only thing he could do was let her go by herself. He discreetly reached for his wallet, but Priscilla’s hand on his arm stopped him.

  “I’ll see you later,” she said to him, giving him a cautious smile.

  “Yeah, I’ll meet you back here,” Tobias said as nonchalantly as possible. He watched her as she passed through the revolving door and out into the sunlight.

  “Beautiful weather we’ve been having,” he said to Marvin, a man who would have been hard-pressed to describe the conditions he just stepped out of, be it snow, sleet or sunshine.

  “Is there somewhere we can talk?” he said, letting the weather report pass without comment. Tobias glanced around the lobby, searching for a nice, darkened corner. He didn’t think it wise to take the disgruntled moneyman up to his extravagant digs in his current frame of mind. Finding what he was looking for, he led Marvin to a secluded spot, conveniently sheltered by two towering ficus trees.

  “Coffee?” Tobias asked hospitably. “I’ll buy.” Marvin shook his head, all business. “Okay, what’s on your mind, as if I didn’t know,” he said, positioning himself on the settee as if Marvin’s mission was nothing but a bore to him.

  “You need to generate liquidity, Tobias. I don’t know if you bother to keep any running tally of your monthly expenses, but you’ve far exceeded what you’ve taken in these past few months.”

  “What about the cushion?”

  “What cushion? The remodel blew through that weeks ago.” Tobias’s jaw dropped.

  “That’s impossible. There was over half a million dollars in that account,” he stammered, a ripple of nausea churning his stomach. There was no way Monique could have possibly burned through that much money on the limited amount of remodeling and redecorating she had done, no matter what outrageous prices that crook Smythie had charged her.

  On top of the queasiness, a jackhammer of doubt began to throb. “So, if that’s all gone, where’s the money been coming from?” Tobias asked. Marvin’s smug smile showed appreciation of Tobias’s sudden interest in his own finances.

  “As of April 19th, it’s all been borrowed against your principle in your money market account, at a rate of one over prime.” He let this reality sink in for a moment.

  “Why would I want to borrow against my own money?” Tobias asked, as if regarded the notion as an act of fiscal stupidity. “I never authorized that,” his tone suspicious and accusatory.

  “You didn’t, but Monique did. As she has the authority as a signatory on all your accounts, I assumed she was doing it at your behest. I know how you dislike dealing with financial matters,” Marvin added, having a go at Tobias.

  “How much has she borrowed?”

  “As of yesterday, she’s borrowed twenty-five percent against the principle.”

  “Twenty-five percent?” Tobias’s color had gone from blotchy red to a sickly green.

  “Do you need some water?” Marvin asked solicitously.

  “How much are we talking about?” Tobias croaked weakly.

  “Three million.” Tobias nearly went limp. “The bank’s called the margin. They need a principle reduction or they’re going to have to liquidate some of your holdings.” Tobias buried his head in his hands.

  “Let me get you something to drink,” Marvin said, alarmed by the way Tobias was taking the news. In the back of his mind, he had suspected Tobias was the one behind the outrageous expenditures. Now that he thought about it, it had been Monique’s subtle hints that had led him to believe this. Tobias tugged at his sleeve, lowering him back down to his level.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this?” he asked, clearly aggrieved by the seeming complicity to financially ruin him.

  “I tried. I couldn’t get hold of you anywhere. I left messages…lots of them.” Marvin was now beginning to feel a certain culpability, a feeling he didn’t enjoy. “Honestly, Tobias, I thought she was acting on your directive. After a while, I started to get uneasy, which is why I tried to contact you…”

  “How’d you find me?” Tobias asked, the realization of being located belatedly occurring to him.

  “Through the hotel charges. I contacted American Express and got a printout of your recent charges.”

  “You didn’t let Monique know, did you?” Tobias asked, becoming more anxious.

  “No, of course not…I just got the information myself…Where’re you going?”

  “I have a few things to sort out with my wife.”

  “What about the margin call?” Marvin reminded him.

  “You’re my business manager—you deal with it,” Tobias said before vanishing through the revolving door.

  Forty-One

  Priscilla read through the first page of the New York Times the way a starving person would gobble down a cheeseburger and an order of fries. It had only been three days since she picked up a paper, yet she felt as if she had been cut off from the world for months.

  Not until she passed through the hotel’s revolving door did she realize how oppressive her voluntary confinement with Tobias had been. From the moment she stepped out of the Amsterdam Hotel, she began to breathe easier. She felt almost giddy with freedom as she sat sipping her coffee and reconnecting with her lifelong habits of reading newspapers and scribbling in her notebook.

  It made her heart beat erratically to think just how narrow her escape had been. If that man hadn’t shown up, she and Tobias would have been skulking around department stores for the better part of the day, only to flee to the refuge of his spacious prison afterwards. It was a lifestyle that made her cringe with apprehension. How ironic it was that the famous often had to do without the greatest privilege of all: the liberty to come and go as you please.

  She took a sip of her coffee while she turned the page. As stimulating as even the dullest items seemed to her, there was an article halfway through the first section of the paper that really got her blood pumping.

  There, at the top of the page was a photograph of Philip standing in front of The Phoenix, his expression confident and resolute. Architect Takes Bold Measures to Save His Building, the headline proclaimed. The rest of the article didn’t tell her more than she already knew, except that the restoration would be completed by the end of the following week.
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  “Everyone who bought in The Phoenix will be able to return to their homes as soon as the city signs off on the stability of the retrofitting. This building will be completely sound once the caissons constructed with faulty admixture are replaced. I’m staking my reputation on it,” Philip was quoted as saying.

  The reporter went on to say that the procedure being used to jack up the structure and reconstruct the caissons was virtually unheard of in this country, but it had been practiced in Europe for over a decade with tremendous results.

  Good for you, Phil, Priscilla silently congratulated him. She studied the photo, looking for hints of the personality she knew. Examining the photo so intently made her wistful. She missed his alter ego. She wondered if the Phil she knew had been assimilated by the old one now that his career was back on track.

  She figured that was probably the case. She always suspected his visits to Frank’s were an escape from his troubles, a brief interlude, a mindless way to distract himself until things got better. She turned the page and read on.

  She managed to read through most of the second and third sections of the paper, but nothing penetrated as her eyes moved across the words. She was too distracted by thoughts of Phil. Without giving herself a chance to change her mind, she gathered her things and left the coffee bar and headed for Glessner & Associates.

  Philip put his signature on the last of the settlement agreement documents and stuffed them back in the pouch they came in. He called for the receptionist to take the package to the special courier who had been waiting while he reviewed the changes made before he left Martin’s office only four hours earlier. When Marianne agreed to his demands so quickly, he ran with the ball and made his offer contingent on receiving the finalized agreement no later than three o’clock. It had arrived at 2:30.

  All of this should have made Philip a happy man, but the truth was he felt hollow and numb. There was so much to be ecstatic about: the rehabilitation of The Phoenix and sole discretionary custody of Caitlin. Yet he found there was no joy in losing a wife, even if that wife had been insincere and conniving.