An Independent Woman

by Howard Fast

  “Freddie, do you have fifteen minutes to spare for me?”

  “I have all the time in the world to spare for you. Has Mother been talking to you about Judith Hope?”

  “No, about the wedding. Freddie, I’ve never spoken about this, but what did you do with the twelve million your father—my brother Tom—left you in his will?”

  Freddie stared at her curiously. He had not changed much since Thomas Lavette’s will was read, still tall and slender, his blue eyes as clear as a child’s, his blond hair only touched with gray. “Please sit down, Aunt Barbara,” he said. “Are you broke and coming to hit me up for a loan?”

  “I’m not broke—no.”

  “The money’s invested, some in Highgate, some in other places.”

  “What about Adam? What is his financial condition?”

  “Stranger and stranger,” Freddie said. “Adam is land rich and equipment rich. I’m sure you have a reason for asking, but I’m damned if I know what. Highgate is like a great ducal estate, but it’s no money machine. We have a good business—but Adam? Adam has no money to speak of; he plows it back into the land.”

  “That’s what I wanted to know,” Barbara said. “Freddie, I’m going to put this bluntly. May Ling’s wedding is going to cost at least twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  “You’re kidding! That’s crazy.”

  “So are most of the things we do.”

  Freddie shook his head. “Joe can’t afford that. He’s the pro bono doctor of the Valley. I know. I take care of what little money they have. If you’re thinking of that million my father left him in his will, most of it went into his surgery. Do you know what those machines of modern medicine cost?”

  “I have a good idea, yes.”

  “So how the hell did Sally fall into this?”

  “Freddie, where do you live? Sally’s not paying for this, your mother is.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. Don’t blame Sally entirely. Ellie wanted the wedding here, and Sally’s invited half the population of San Francisco—over four hundred people. Now listen to me, and I’m going to be very blunt with you. You owe this to May Ling. You owe a lot more than this to May Ling. You married one of the finest women I ever knew, and you didn’t have the heart to stay with her.”

  Freddie dropped into the chair behind his desk. The telephone rang and he ignored it. When Ms. Gomez opened the door, he snapped, “No calls—no one!” Then he said to Barbara, almost pleadingly, “You don’t think much of me, do you?”

  “Freddie, I think the world of you. I love you, you know that. You’re like my own son. It’s simply that when it comes to people, you have both feet firmly planted in midair.”

  “You want me to pay for this wedding?”

  “If you don’t, I will.”

  “No, you don’t have to. I’ll pay for it. It’ll take a bit of arm-twisting with Mother and Adam, but I’ll pay for it.”

  Driving back to San Francisco, Barbara reviewed her actions and motives, wondering whether she had done something worthy or not. She was not given to interfering in the lives of others. But here she had interfered, and grossly, and it worried her.

  She had made arrangements to meet Philip at the church and have dinner with him. It was seven o’clock before she parked her car at Franklin Street and entered the church. For the first time she saw Philip distraught and worried. “Thank God,” he said as he embraced her. “I’ve been calling your home since noon—you did say you would be home working all day?”

  “Yes, dear Philip, and it’s my fault. Eloise telephoned from Highgate and begged me to drive out. There was no way I could refuse her.”

  “Is something wrong there?”

  “I’ll tell you all about it. We’ll talk about it at dinner.”

  “Just let me wash up, and I’ll be with you.”

  They had dinner at a small Italian place on Geary Street, and after they had ordered and Barbara had taken her first sip of wine, she sighed with relief. “Do you know, Philip, I haven’t been this content in a long time. Just to know you were waiting for me. But you must never worry about things happening to me.”

  “But things do happen to you, my dear. You have a penchant for things happening to you. What was it that took you off to Highgate this time?”

  She told Philip the story of her day, and he listened attentively. And then she asked him, “Did I do something wrong?”

  He shrugged. “There’s no question of right or wrong. You did what you had to do, being yourself. As for Freddie, this will help him. He needs every bit of good karma he can amass.”

  “Karma—karma. For heaven’s sake, Philip, what is this karma thing? I’ve never gotten into this California cult mania.”

  “It’s not a cult thing. In Buddhism it’s a belief that what you do in this life controls your destiny. It’s a process of creating your own soul and destiny. In reincarnation it determines your next existence.”

  “Philip, you don’t believe in reincarnation—or do you?”

  “My beliefs have nothing to do with it. Many people do believe in it. For me, karma is a way of keeping score. You do a decent or charitable thing, and it changes you. Is that so strange? Think of the way you were fifty years ago. Are you the same Barbara Lavette now as you were then?”

  Barbara thought about it. The food came, and she burrowed into the pile of pasta and clams on her plate. The wall facing her was covered with a poorly painted mural of maidens in diaphanous dresses dancing in front of an ancient pillared temple; it reminded her of a wall painting she had seen in Pompeii on her honeymoon after she had married Carson—forty years ago, fifty years ago? How many lives had she lived? And why had she told Philip everything about the day except Eloise’s suggestion that they be married on the same day?

  “I would have to know who Barbara Lavette is, and I’m not sure that I do,” she said.

  “Oh?”

  “I was answering your question, Philip. I don’t talk very well when I’m stuffing myself with pasta. You asked me whether I’m the same person I was fifty years ago, and I have to say that I don’t really know.” It occurred to her that she wouldn’t have done very well with Philip half a century ago, when he had been a Jesuit priest.

  He nodded.

  “The food here is good.”

  It was difficult to entice Philip into a judgmental statement. She had never loved a “saintly” man, and she had loved many men and fought and scrapped her way through her life. She was Dan Lavette’s daughter, and now she found herself becoming irritated at Philip’s talk about karma. She didn’t do things for self-gain, and she prided herself on doing what she thought was right, regardless of the consequences; and the events of her life had given her a deep suspicion of religion and religious people. A trifle truculently, she asked Philip whether he was religious.

  “That’s an odd question, Barbara.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t know what you mean by ‘religious.’”

  “Of course you do.” Now she was irritated, and she said to herself that she must get off this kick, or it would develop into a real fight. This morning she had crossed out a page of her memoir because she felt she was incapable of understanding people she had loved. Listen to him, she told herself.

  “Well, put it this way,” Philip said, smiling slightly. “You abhor every religious institution—even my own Unitarianism—yet I think you are the most deeply spiritual person I have ever known.”

  “And how did you come to that conclusion, Philip?”

  “Ohhh”—stretching the word—“by knowing you, loving you, being with you, and experiencing you.”

  “ ‘Experiencing’ me?”

  “Exactly. You love people, you’re filled with love—you have such a capacity for love. That’s what my faith consists of. If Unitarianism means anything, it’s that.”

  “I was all ready for a scrap,” Barbara said. “You’re beguiling.”

  “I don’t intend to be.”

/>   “And you’re impossible to fight with.”

  “Oh no. Just wait and see.”

  She abandoned what remained of her huge mound of pasta. “I was sitting here and stuffing myself and trying to decide whether I loved you.”

  “I’m patient.”

  “Oh, damn it, Philip. I’m an old lady. Do I really want to get married? I’ve loved and lost so much—what is left?”

  “More than I ever dreamed of.”

  “Do you really love me that much?”

  “I won’t say I love you more than I’ve loved any other woman. I loved my wife enough to leave the Church, and she loved me enough to do the same. I thought I was through with love, that it would never happen again. But it has happened, and I want to live with you and be with you the rest of my life—for whatever time we have.”

  “I wish I could say that, but I do love you, Philip, and I will marry you because it’s better to be with you than without you. I’m no good at marriage and I’m no good at living alone.” She paused—then decided to change the subject. “I have to tell you about Eloise’s proposal. But remember that Eloise is all emotion and romance, even at sixty-six… Everyone I know, more or less, will be at May Ling’s wedding, and Eloise suggested that we be married at the same time, and I said I would discuss it with you.”

  He considered it for a few moments, and then he asked, “How do you feel about it?”

  “I don’t know. At first I rejected it, but—”

  “But what?” Philip asked. And when she did not reply, he said, “I think it’s a wonderful idea—if you agree.”

  “Oh, what the hell,” Barbara said. “Why not? It will certainly be a great party. How many guests must you invite?”

  “Not many—three or four.”

  “Then come with me, and we’ll work on invitations and scribble in the double marriage. But you can’t marry us?”

  “No, but my assistant is a minister, and she’ll do it happily.”

  AFTER THE PARTY ON RUSSIAN HILL, Freddie had four dinner dates with Judith Hope and she declined only two others—once when her photography session went well into the night, and a second time when, as she explained, a birthday party was being given for her father. Freddie considered four out of six a very good record indeed, but still he was limited to a sisterly kiss on the lips. It was a totally new experience for him, and he could not recall having dated a woman whom he had not taken to bed on at least the third night. Each time he took her to a very public place, in either the Fairmont or the Mark Hopkins Hotel. This was deliberate on his part; he knew a dozen good small restaurants in San Francisco, but he refused to let her think that he was hiding a relationship with a black woman.

  At the fourth dinner she asked him abruptly, apropos of nothing they had been discussing, whether he was straight or a switch-hitter. As used as he was to her frankness, this took him aback.

  He stared at her blankly, then pulled himself together and said, “My, God, I’ve never been asked that before. What makes you ask?”

  “Because you’re so goddamn good-looking.”

  “Well, thank you,” he said frostily.

  “Come on, Freddie. This is a new world we live in. This city is high on the AIDS list, and you know that.”

  “You can’t catch it with brotherly kisses or holding hands.”

  “I know. But I had to ask.”

  For the next few minutes, he sat silently, staring at his plate. Judith reached across the table and touched his cheek. “Freddie, Freddie, forgive me. I think I’m taken with you, and this is the first time it’s ever happened to me with a white man. I’m scared.”

  “So am I,” he mumbled.

  “Let’s get out of here and go home.”

  At Judith’s door, he paused. She opened the door and then motioned him in and closed the door behind her. Inside, he turned to her, hesitated for a moment, and then took her in his arms and kissed her. It was not a brotherly kiss.

  “The bedroom’s upstairs,” she said, pulling away from him. “There’s a guest bathroom straight ahead. You’ll find a robe and towels, and you can shower if you want.” With that, she started up the stairs without glancing back. Freddie walked to the indicated door. It was large for a guest bathroom, the walls, floor to ceiling, covered with bright tiles. He showered and then wrapped himself in a white robe and, barefoot, climbed the circling iron staircase to the balcony. The door to the bedroom was open: the floor of white tile; the great swan bed, king size, covered with a mauve quilt and a pile of pillows. She was sitting up against the pillows, naked, her small round breasts and her hair, cropped to the shape of her head, giving the impression of a bronze sculpture.

  Freddie stared at her, thinking that he had never seen anything quite so beautiful in all his life. He felt awkward and not a little bit afraid, like an adolescent at his first encounter. She looked at him inquiringly. He dropped the robe to the floor and crawled under the covers, his heart pounding madly, and embraced her.

  AT ELEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING—the morning after her dinner with Philip—Barbara’s doorbell rang. Philip, who had spent the night with her, had already left for the church, and she couldn’t imagine who it would be.

  It was her brother Joe, and after she had kissed him and welcomed him in, she asked what could possibly have brought him here to San Francisco at this hour.

  “I had a bad emergency in the middle of the night, something I couldn’t handle, and I called Sam, and he said to bring her into the hospital here. It was one of those hopeless, godforsaken pregnancies—I don’t want to go into it, but it was a procedure I had never done.” He appeared to be totally tired. Three years younger than Barbara, he was older in every other way, a big man gone to weight, bags under, his eyes, and his day’s beard dark and heavy.

  “Coffee?” Barbara asked. “I’ve never seen you look so tired. Did you have breakfast? Come in the kitchen and sit down. I’ll fix you something to eat.”

  “Sure, thank you. I had some coffee at the hospital, that’s all. I’ll have to go back there and see her again. If I could lie down for an hour or so?”

  “Of course.”

  He sat in a chair at the kitchen table, watching Barbara pour coffee and put bacon up to render. “Just drop the eggs into the bacon grease. I like it that way, and I don’t dare ask Sally for it.”

  “No, she wants you to keep alive. Like all doctors, you ignore every rule of nutrition.”

  He nodded. She gave him the coffee. He put two spoons of sugar into it and as much cream as the cup would hold. “Barbara,” he said after he had sipped the coffee, “I have to talk to you about something serious.”

  She had never seen him actually angry. A word like serious was as far as he would go.

  “Go ahead.” She cracked the eggs and dropped them into the bacon grease, thinking that once more would not kill him.

  Silent, he sat with his eyes half closed. Barbara felt that he would fall asleep at the table. Then he shook his head, like a shaggy dog freeing itself of water, and she thought of what Philip had said about karma. In a world where few doctors still made house calls, Joe drove up and down the Napa Valley and often over to the Sonoma Valley to deliver a baby or to put together a broken body. Time had not been good to him. His stomach bulged; his eyes were red from lack of sleep.

  “Joe, go ahead and tell me what’s on your mind,” she said, filling his plate with bacon and eggs and taking toast from the toaster. She had anticipated what he was going to say.

  “It’s about the wedding.” He was hungry, and he ate as he spoke. “I understand that Freddie is paying for the wedding. That hurts me. I can pay for my daughter’s wedding. I hear that you put Freddie up to this. You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Twenty-five thousand dollars plus. Joe, you can’t afford that. It’s good for Freddie’s soul.”

  “I don’t give a damn about Freddie’s soul. It’s my daughter and my responsibility. I know how Sally blew this all out of proportion—well, Sally is Sa
lly, and let it be. But I’m going to pay for it.”

  “Don’t blame Sally. Eloise wanted it this way. And it’s not only May Ling’s wedding. It’s mine as well, and I don’t intend to allow you to pay for anything.”

  He perked up at this. “What do you mean, your wedding?”

  “I mean that it’s to be a double wedding. May Ling is marrying Harry, and I’m marrying Philip Carter.”

  “No. When did that happen?”

  “It’s been happening.”

  “Why didn’t I know about it?”

  “Because it was just decided. Are you going to pay for my wedding, Joe? I can understand how you feel—but this was never Eloise’s intention. Joe, let it be. You’ve been doctoring Eloise and Adam and everyone else at that winery for years and you never send them a bill, and when they send you a check, you return it.”

  “Barbara, they’re family.”

  “Then let them be family. What happened last night?”

  “A third-trimester abortion. The child’s brain was outside its skull. God, I hate those things…”

  He finished eating. She steered him upstairs to the guest room, pulled off his shoes, and loosened his tie. “One hour,” he mumbled. “Then wake me. Call Sally and tell her to cover for me.” He fell asleep even as Barbara stood there.

  ONE EVENING A FEW DAYS LATER, Freddie drove Judith Hope to her parents’ home in Oakland. It came about in this manner:

  He had said to her, “I want to meet your parents.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll tell you why. You agreed to come to the wedding at Highgate. You’ll meet my mother and father. That’s perfectly normal and natural, considering the way I feel about you.”

  “And how do you feel about me, Freddie?”

  “I love you. That’s how I feel about you. If you were a white woman, I’d know your family by now. I don’t see why it should be any different because you’re black.”

  “Suppose I feel it’s different? I’m not a white woman. Suppose I had no father and my mother did day work and she lived in the Oakland ghetto?”

  “You would never permit your mother to do day work. I know you well enough to know that. You told me your father is a successful dentist. You told me you go there every week on Friday for dinner. I want you to bring me along and for them to expect me to be with you.”