The Investment Club

by Cooper, Doug

  The most difficult task Bill had to do in preparing for the wedding was the call he knew he had to make for Darlene but kept putting off. Every day it started at the top of the list but moved down as he pulled ahead less important items. The first time he purposely called Hughie’s office number, which he had obtained from Darlene’s address book, after normal business hours. He didn’t expect him to be there, but at least he could tell himself he had tried. The next day Hughie was in court. Bill declined to leave a message. No way he wanted to be in the position that anytime the phone rang, it could be Hughie on the other end calling him back. He wanted to remain in control of the situation and have the conversation on his terms. By the fourth attempt Hughie’s secretary already knew his voice. She told him exactly when to call so Bill was sure to reach him. Bill had run out of excuses.

  Hughie was stern and businesslike when Bill called back later that day. “This is Hugh Price.”

  Bill froze at the sound of his son’s adult voice. He contemplated hanging up. Hughie repeated himself. Bill said, “It’s me—your dad.”

  Hughie said, “Is everything OK?” The words expressed concern but the tone was still composed and distant.

  “Yes, well no. I’m not sure if you’re mother told you—”

  “I know. She has cancer. Did something happen?”

  “No. Everything is the same. Well, actually she’s doing better.” Bill paused. He had been so focused on making the call that he wasn’t sure what he would say once Hughie was on the other end. Hearing Hughie’s voice after so many years full of such poise and confidence was comforting but unnerving at the same time.

  “Hello?” Hughie said. “You still there?”

  “Uhm, yes, I’m here. Just surprised how grown up you sound.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s what happens,” Hughie said. “So you called me. If everything is fine with mom, what did you want then?”

  “Yes, of course.” Bill cleared his throat, mustering the strength to continue. “Your mom and I have decided to renew our vows at a chapel in Vegas.” Bill hesitated again, not expecting a reaction, just searching for the right words. “It’s really lifted her spirits, which the doctor has advised is the best possible medicine. I know it would mean the world to her if you were there to walk her down the aisle. It’s still not for a couple weeks, so—”

  “I’ll be there,” Hughie said. Then it was his turn to be silent for a moment. “But I’m not bringing Grace or the kids to the ceremony. I don’t want to involve them in our drama. They can wait at the hotel, and Mom and I can go back there after.”

  “Of course. Whatever you think is best.”

  “Anything else?” Hughie said, not waiting for Bill to answer. “I have to be in court in twenty minutes. I’ll transfer you to my secretary so you can give her the details to book the travel.”

  “OK, sure. Your mom will be—“ Soft cello music played over the line, ending abruptly when the secretary came back on. In taking down all the relevant details, she was pleasant and friendly, which only stung more. Bill wondered if she knew the whole story or maybe she was just good at handling awkward phone calls for Hughie. He hung up the phone, hurting that he didn’t know the answer.

  On the morning of the ceremony Darlene complained nonstop—about the dress, her hair, all the same stuff she worried about the first time. Bill thought it was cute that so many years later, she was the same fretting bride he had married. When they left the Juhl—her in the wheel chair and him pushing behind—he could tell she was excited. She tilted her head back, looking up at Bill leaning over her with the clear sky as the backdrop. Not a single cloud floated above, a fresh coat of indigo painted across the entire canvas. It wasn’t even eleven o’clock and already north of a hundred degrees, but she seemed to be enjoying the hot, dry air on her skin. Other than investigating the chapels, it was the first time she had been out of the building for a nonmedical reason in months. He watched her face light up as he wheeled her down Fourth and the chapel came into view. He knew it was only the beginning of her excitement once she learned what else he had planned.

  In the weeks following Bill’s proposal, Darlene’s mind had flooded with memories from their original wedding. She made him dig out the photo album from storage to clarify some of the details that they remembered differently. Most of which, when they verified, she had been right about. Her pancreas might be failing, but her mind was as sharp as ever.

  At the chapel, Darlene asked, “Do you think we can leave the chair outside and you help me down the aisle? If we go slow, I should be OK.”

  Bill said, “Now since when does the groom walk the bride down the aisle?” He looked over his shoulder, out into the parking lot, recognizing a face very much resembling his own through the windshield of a car. He hadn’t seen it in many years, and it was much older than he remembered, but still much younger than his. He nodded toward the person, prompting him to exit the car.

  “Well, I can’t make it on my own,” Darlene said. “And I don’t want to be hanging on some stranger.”

  Hughie’s voice floated in from behind them. “I guess it’s true, women are the most beautiful on their wedding day.” Bill offered a tight-lipped smile and stepped back. Hughie walked in front of the wheelchair. “Hi, Mom.”

  Darlene shook her head and just stared at Hughie. She had tried so many times to bring the two of them together, and now they were standing right in front of her. She said, “What? How? Where’s Grace and the kids?”

  “They’re at the hotel,” Hughie said. “Dad and I thought it best for me to come alone so we don’t confuse the kids. We’ll catch up with them later. They’re excited to see you.”

  Darlene looked at Hughie, then at Bill. The emotional weight of the moment was sinking in. “So you two talked? Things are OK?”

  “Dad called and invited me to come. Said you needed someone to walk you down the aisle.” He extended both hands to her. “What do you say?”

  “That sounds aces to me.” She grabbed his hands, climbing into his arms. The emotion that had been building behind the shock of seeing him washed over her face. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you two,” she said, sobbing.

  “I’ll give you guys a moment,” Bill said. “I should go inside and make sure everything is set. Come in whenever you’re ready.”

  Inside the chapel, when it was time to begin, Bill stood with the officiant at the front. The trumpets sounded over the speakers, playing “The Prince of Denmark’s March,” which Darlene insisted be used for the processional exactly like the first time. Darlene and Hughie ambled down the red-carpeted aisle under the vaulted ceiling. Bill could tell by the look on Darlene’s face that she didn’t care that the pews were empty. With Hughie on her arm and Bill waiting for her, she had all she needed. When they got to the end, Hughie handed Darlene off to Bill and turned to walk to the first row. Darlene took his hand and positioned him on her left. She wanted to make the moment last as long as she could.

  Darlene cried from start to finish. Bill removed his handkerchief and blotted the tears to preserve the work she had put into her makeup. When it was his turn to confirm the vows, he said, “I do—even in fits of crying and laughter.” Afterward they went outside for pictures, some with just Darlene and Bill, some with Hughie, and some with all three. The temperature was pushing 110 degrees, according to the thermometer on the side of the chapel, but no one complained. All just dutifully posed and smiled until Darlene had every last picture she and the photographer could imagine.

  Afterward Darlene wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down. She said, “Where to next?”

  Hughie and Bill exchanged an awkward look. Hughie said, “Well, I thought we could go back to the hotel and meet up with Grace and the kids.”

  Bill softened the awkwardness with a joke. “After all that crying and this heat, you’re probably dehydrated.” He took out the handkerchief again
and wiped the beads of sweat from his own forehead. “I know I’m probably running a quart low.”

  They walked over to the wheelchair. Bill showed Hughie how to collapse and expand the chair for storage. Darlene looked at Bill. Disappointment replaced the happiness that had filled her face since Hughie had walked up. She said, “Why are you showing him? You’re not coming?”

  “Today is for you,” Bill said. “I haven’t met Grace or the kids yet. I would just be a distraction there.”

  “Not for me,” Darlene said. “I want you there.”

  Hughie said, “You’re welcome to come if you want.”

  Bill took hold of Darlene’s hands. Despite Hughie’s invitation, Bill knew he didn’t want him there. Hughie had made that clear on the phone. He just didn’t want to disappoint his mother seeing how happy she was. Bill decided he would let Hughie off and take the blame on this one. “Nothing has changed,” he said. “We did this for you, but I don’t want it affecting others. Can we have it stop here? I’ll come pick you up and we’ll stop at that frozen custard place you love on the way home.”

  Darlene reluctantly nodded. Bill could tell she wasn’t happy about it and was just agreeing not to push the issue. Of course there was a reason to press him, and Bill probably would’ve caved if she had, but it had been a big step, and that apparently was enough. She said, “OK, we’ll save that for next time. Something to look forward to.”

  Dow Jones Close: 15,543.74

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Date: Thursday, December 8, 2011

  Dow Jones Open: 12,195.91

  After their initial time together, Fritjof refused to meet Penny at her house. He said there were too many reminders of Alec, and the guilt was too much. But it wasn’t so much that Fritjof stopped seeing her completely. They just met elsewhere. At first they convened only at his place and hotels. The rule was they could never be seen together. Eventually the meeting places escalated to parking lots, quiet neighborhoods, parks, anywhere they could slip in and out, steal twenty to thirty minutes, and not be noticed. And Fritjof’s flashy Lamborghini made that pretty difficult. So when they met in public, Fritjof stashed his car in one location and walked to another, where she picked him up. When she did, she made him sit in the back. With the tinted windows on her Range Rover, the only risk then was getting in and out of the car. But no one ever would suspect a Range Rover. If people did see him, they would just assume it was a driver picking him up. Fritjof complained about all the stealth maneuvering, how nervous it made him, how he wanted her to leave Alec so they could be together. She appeased his grumbling, but she had no desire to leave Alec. That would just create more stress and perhaps ruin what she had with Fritjof. She was not about to change the one thing that was bringing her some joy and made her feel in control of her life again, even if they were only occasional stolen moments.

  Penny loved the secrecy of the affair. She enjoyed texting Fritjof, making plans for when and where they would meet, with Alec right in the room; she relished the feeling of leaving her house, which had become a museum of sadness; she delighted in the possibility of being discovered meeting or leaving the scene with him; and most of all, she reveled in returning home with another man’s sweat on her skin and lying next to Alec like nothing ever happened. She knew it was wrong, but she didn’t feel bad. After the way Alec had abandoned her when she needed him most, she could’ve done a lot worse.

  Once Penny went back to work, meeting Fritjof got even easier. She didn’t have to make up excuses for leaving or coming home late. Work provided that for her. Whether it was editing in the studio or researching a story in the field, she had a reason to be anywhere at any time.

  What wasn’t so easy was quitting the drinking. She thought once work started, she would be able to just stop and go back to her old routine. And so she tried to quit, making it a whole day and a half without anything. But she didn’t feel like herself, or rather her new self, without it. She thought way too much about everything, and her anxiety skyrocketed. So much so, that on more than one occasion doing run-throughs prior to broadcasts, her cameraman stopped filming to ask if she was OK because the microphone was tremoring in her hand. It got to the point that he would just say, “You’re doing it again.” She always attributed it to nerves from the long layoff or stress and made sure to start including a few shots as part of her prep. She called it maintenance drinking. The shakiness disappeared.

  Penny hated that Alec and Fritjof were on the same team. Not for the obvious reasons. She was fine with all that. It was just because when Alec was out of town on a road trip, so was Fritjof, and she got bored. The other distractions she found to fill her time were never quite as enjoyable as Fritjof.

  That all changed the night Penny discovered Alec sitting in the dark at the kitchen table when she got home from work. She had just aired the final segment in her series on the most eligible bachelors in St. Louis sports. The premise was she interviewed the top five single players or coaches from the three professional sports teams. She came up with the idea as an excuse to spend more time with Fritjof, because he was surely one of the five. After all the interviews aired, fans voted via the station website on who they deemed the best catch. The winner then came in for a live interview on the evening news to accept a check for $10,000, donated by the station to the charity of the winner’s choice.

  For each of the individual segments, Penny spent three to four hours with each of the bachelors, doing the things they enjoyed to escape the pressure and stress of their sports. The interview with Fritjof was the last of the five to air. For Fritjof, the half-day expanded to a full day, since he took her to the Heartland Lodge in Illinois, about two hours north of St. Louis, to go bird hunting.

  During the segment, Fritjof talked about how the drive was just far enough to feel like he was escaping, and how being in the country reminded him of home in Sweden. His family would go to their cabin in the fall and winter there, and he would hunt with his father and brothers. For the piece, he showed her how to shoot, and they actually went hunting. Even with a cameraman shadowing their every move and the fact she hated guns, it was the best day she had in a long while.

  The voting was close between Fritjof and one of the Cardinal pitchers, but in the end Fritjof’s accent and the stories about his family secured the victory. That evening Fritjof came into the studio to accept the donation and present it to the Boys and Girls Club of Greater St. Louis. Regardless of her motivation in creating the story and the indecent circumstances surrounding it, she was happy when she got home that night, like she had turned a corner and some good was coming from all the pain.

  When Penny got home that night, she parked in the driveway rather than pull into the garage like she usually did. No lights were on in the house. She assumed no one was home, which was fine with her. She wanted the peaceful feeling inside her to last. She tossed her purse on the counter and went for one of her bottle stashes under the sink. Crouching in the dark, she groped around. Only the coarse plastic of cleaning solutions met her fingertips. She stood and flipped on the light.

  “Looking for this?” Alec’s voice boomed from behind her.

  She whipped around. Alec was sitting at the table in the dining room connected to the kitchen. She said, “Geez, you scared me. Why are you sitting in the dark?” She noticed an empty glass and the bottle that she was looking for, along with two others, perched on the table in front of him. She could tell just looking at him that he was drunk.

  “Grab a glass. I’m buying.” He poured some vodka into his glass and slammed it back. “You know, the drinking I was willing to overlook. I figured, ‘She’s grieving and who am I to judge how a person deals with pain.’ God knows I haven’t been the best example.”

  “Alec, I’m fine now. Those bottles were from before.” She really wanted a drink, but not enough to approach him. She didn’t know exactly how much he knew. The kitchen island between them protecte
d her while she figured it out. She said, “The drinking just helped me relax until I got back to work.”

  Alec wasn’t looking at her. He just stared straight ahead speaking in a low, flat tone. “That’s what I told myself. I said, ‘Once she gets back to work, she’ll be better. Just give her time and space.’” Alec slugged his drink in a single gulp. “Then I started finding bottles hidden in cabinets and drawers, and every day the levels were lower.”

  “I know it’s silly to hide them,” Penny said. “I just didn’t want you to worry.”

  Alec threw his glass, shattering it against the dining room wall. Penny screamed. He said, “Don’t you dare say you did this for me.”

  Getting the hell out of there was her first thought. She had never seen him like this. But she knew the fight was long overdue. She composed herself. “OK, so I’ve been drinking more than usual. Big deal. I’m going to work every day.”