Natalie Borg opened the door to her apartment and quickly shut it, locking it and putting up the chain. She let out a long, harsh breath. Unexpectedly, the afternoon had turned into a battle of emotions for her. Sitting across the dining table in Ted’s immaculate apartment from Beverly Phillips with her blond good looks initiated a downward spiral of self-deprecation that led to a physical response. She almost didn’t make it through the meal without crying. She’d given up a baby when she was in her twenties and had spent the next twenty years pretending that it didn’t bother her, that she didn’t care. She never told anyone that every time a news item about an abused child came on the air, she wondered, heartsick, if it was her child. And when she was unable to find anyone to spend her life with, the realization that the child she gave up for adoption was it, was the only one she’d have, a severe depression engulfed her. It was so bleak that she was almost unable to do her job and received her first warning from the university. It was like black dust, almost thick enough to block air and sunlight. Slowly, her senses were dulled until the only thing she could feel was the satisfaction of food being stuffed into her mouth and swallowed.
Deborah wanting to meet her and having spent the time and effort to seek her out should have wiped away all of her guilt and doubts, but it only made her sadder. Who was this young woman? Did she have the energy to get to know her? Did those same qualities that allowed Natalie to give her infant up for adoption to strangers also make it possible for her to resist building a relationship with her now? Why in God’s name did she have to face it? She wanted to draw the blinds in her childhood home and pretend that nothing mattered but going to her silly Parks and Recreation summer job to show poor children how the natives made their crafts. She thought the woven mats and feathered headdresses she created were something white people had conjured up to trivialize the life of the first people in the country. It made her sick now, thinking she’d have just Sunday alone, and then what would the rest of the summer bring?
Natalie’s phone rang, and she went to see who it was. Deborah Phillips popped up on the caller ID. She was obeying Natalie, calling to tell her she arrived home safely.
“Mother,” she said, “I’m home. We’re hungry already, so I’m going to make sandwiches. What are you doing?” Natalie took the phone to an easy chair in front of the window that looked out on Broadway. The buildings were in shadow, the sun beginning to set to the west. The scene always made her smile, for some reason.
“Hi, dear, sandwiches sound good. I guess I need to get ready for my little craft project for Monday.” It sounded so lame that she was almost embarrassed.
“Why don’t you come into Hoboken tomorrow? I can meet you at the train. They have lobster claws at City Hall Bakery on Sunday, but we have to get there before noon. They are so amazing. The pastry is crispy, and the filling is this delicious cream, like a cross between whipped cream and pudding. I have no idea what it is. And there’s a great used bookstore down the street from Zach’s apartment,” she said, stopping to take a breath.
Natalie had been all set to take the phone off the hook, close the shades, and be incognito for Sunday. But she was a mother now, and mothers didn’t normally get to do such selfish things. They had to be available for their children when they called, and hers had just called.
Chapter 16
Dan Chua pulled his car in front of Pam’s beach house.
“You don’t have to get out, Dan. I’ll run in, make my calls, and meet you at the gym in an hour and a half. Is it a date?” He nodded at her and smiled his crooked smile. His teeth were perfect except that the two to the right of his eye-tooth were slightly overlapped. It gave his grin an authentic, personal quality, like he smiled only for her. It sent another shiver down her spine.
“It’s a date,” he said. “Hurry up!”
She got out and bent down to look in the window. “Thanks for breakfast, by the way. I’ll see you soon!” She waved a silly, immature, flirtatious wave. He caught on and gave her another smile and an open-mouth laugh. Oh, God, he’s going to be hard to resist, she thought. And then, What about Dave? She just couldn’t see him tonight. They’d gone dancing almost every Saturday night for the past nine months. What could she say to him that wouldn’t make him angry? She was so nervous about him spilling the beans about having her AIDS all over Babylon.
But then the realization hit her; she didn’t use him as she was condemning herself for. They’d been companions and not much more. She paid for his air fare and hotel room when they went to Pasadena, or he stayed in a separate bedroom if she rented a house. She never made a promise to him of exclusivity, nor did he to her. They weren’t intimate; although there had been a time she thought they might be moving toward it. The truth was that she made excuses not to sleep with him. She maintained that they needed to be married, or at least considering it, but she knew all along she would never marry him. She didn’t like the way he treated other people. He wasn’t interested in anyone else, and that made him uninteresting. They shared a love of good food, and he sure knew his vegetables, but he didn’t have a thing to say when he was with her kids—and in a crowd, forget it. He treated her friend, Jeff like a leper, and hated her relationship with him. It just boiled down to the fact that they were from different places in their lives. She’d been a wife and a mother, and he’d had only himself to worry about all his life. Dave’s poor ex-wife seemed like a really genuine person, yet he talked about her like she was a dog. In contrast, Pam had tried to remain loyal to Jack and not speak ill of him for the sake of their children.
“Why do you keep trying to protect him?” Dave had asked when Pam once again refused to say anything to him about how Jack had contracted AIDS. They’d barely been home from Pasadena for twenty-four hours when he started in again. “It’s clear he was unfaithful to you. How else did he get it?” That day Pam was disturbed by the conversation more because of where it was taking place—on the beautiful veranda that Jack had built—than because of its content, which was becoming an ongoing drama of Dave digging for information about her marriage.
“Dave, I’m not trying to protect Jack. I just don’t want to talk about him with you. He’s the father of my children. Isn’t that enough?”
“I don’t see them trying to protect him,” Dave countered. “Do yourself a favor and come clean so you won’t have any more regrets. Everyone knows Jack was a liar.”
Pam turned to him. “Who’s everyone, Dave? I’ve never heard a bad word uttered about him. As a matter of fact, I never have had a conversation like this before. It’s none of your business how Jack got AIDS. Why does it matter so much to you? The only regret I have right now is telling you I have the disease. I guess my trust was misplaced.” She didn’t add “once again.” She looked at him, at his profile in the soft light of dusk, and wondered when it had happened. When did their relationship switch from one filled with anticipation of the next best thing to almost open hostility? She felt like she was on the defense, trying not to expose too much about her life married to an infidel while at the same time placating Dave, giving him enough information to satisfy his curiosity about her marriage. And then the thought hit her: Had he questioned the children about their father?
“Well, we’ve talked in a circle again,” he said with that smirk on his face. He’d remember later that Pam let him have the last word, to his detriment. He wished she’d argued with him, made him see how ridiculous he was being.
After two days of fun with Dan Chua, Pam thought, Forget it! Forget Dave. She called Jeff after she made the calls to her kids and gave him the brief version of the past two days.
“Oh, he sounds wonderful,” Jeff said. “What are you going to do about Grocery Boy?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t know how to avoid seeing him tonight. I don’t want to!” She was pacing through the house, looking at the sunlight-dappled waves and the people on the beach, and then back to the coolness of her beautiful bedroom, where she stretched out on the chaise lounge.
>
“You didn’t have girlfriends to tell you what you refused to see about Jack. Well, I’m here to tell you to ditch Dave the Grocery Boy. He’s a bore, he dresses badly, and he’s not good enough for you,” Jeff said. Pam thought Jeff was right about the first thing: She chose isolation so she could live in denial. It’s pretty difficult to have a husband who screws around town if you have girlfriends watching your back. She wondered what it was about her that not only resisted girlfriends; she had avoided having them at all since childhood. She had her sisters to play with when she was young, so that eliminated the need to get together with girls from school. Who knew what the underlying reasons were? She hated gossip; maybe that was why. Once when she was about ten, she discovered a group of her classmates talking about her clothes, how she wore the same dresses over and over. It was hurtful. She was careful about who she sought out for friendship after that. Could a childish schoolgirl experience really determine how an adult would carry out her life? It appeared so.
“That’s all well and good,” she said, responding to Jeff’s critique of Dave. “But it doesn’t answer how I’m going to get out of seeing him tonight.”
“Be honest,” Jeff replied. “You don’t have to tell him you’re going to work out with a hot attorney and want to be free if he asks to see you later in the day. Just tell him you don’t want to dance tonight. If he presses, say you don’t want to see him tonight. You can do it nicely; you think you might need some space is always a good excuse.” Jeff thought he may have used that excuse with Marie when he was attempting to lure her into being his beard, but he didn’t say it out loud. He felt guilty now about not being honest with Marie at first. Poor thing, he thought. Marie didn’t stand a chance with the baggage she had.
“I know you’re right. I should have ended it before now, but I was getting so comfortable having someone there for me, even superficially.” She said goodbye to Jeff and, looking at the clock, determined she had just enough time to call Dave and tell him she was not going dancing.
“Oh!” he said, surprised she was canceling. “What’s going on?” Pam took a deep breath, thinking, Well, it’s now or never.
“After our last conversation about Jack, I almost think it would be better if we didn’t see each other so much,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut, waiting for the barrage that was sure to follow. She didn’t mean to use Jack as an excuse, but it was all she could think of.
Dave was restraining himself; in the middle of a busy Saturday crowd in June in the store was not the best place to tell anyone off. “You’re still protecting him,” Dave said with a sarcastic edge to his voice that he was unable to control.
“Maybe I am,” she said. “And if that’s the case, all the better reason to be rid of me.” With that, she hung up on him. If he talked about her personal life to others, Oh, well, she decided. Pulling her clothes off, she chose the nicest of her workout wear to meet Dan in at the gym. It was an old, unsatisfied wish she had, working out with Jack. He’d come in to use the treadmill but would ignore her if she was there. She wished she’d questioned him about it. Didn’t he want the people at the gym to know they were together? They’d lived in Babylon for years, and he coached the children’s sporting teams. Did he really think he’d get away with anonymity? Dave fulfilled another wish she had: of wandering through the garden centers like other couples did, planning what projects they would do in their yards. But it wasn’t the two of them planning anything together. She’d tried to be satisfied with a superficial solution to a deeper need. She wanted intimacy but was afraid of it. Could it be that she was growing healthier and not willing to settle for a relationship that wasn’t real? She grabbed her purse and went out to her car. The anticipation of working out with Dan was giving her a big case of jitters. But when she arrived at the gym parking lot and pulled down the visor to look in the mirror, she was smiling.
Chapter 17
The following week was a week back to work for everyone. Ashton had several big staging jobs to pull off quickly for the largest real estate firms in town. Ted had closings, one after another, and two new clients to show industrial spaces suitable for residential conversion downtown. Natalie was going back to her summer hobby of teaching Native American crafts at the downtown YMHA. Deborah was starting her waitressing job, and Zach was going to teach at summer camp.
Monday morning, Steve and Carolyn met in the elevator going up to their offices. She was already on when she heard his voice.
“Be a champ and hold that car!” he hollered. He is such a nerd, she thought, but a nice one. She stuck her hand in the doors so they wouldn’t shut, and he pushed them open and stepped in next to her.
“Thanks! Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning, to you,” she replied, looking up at him with a smile. “Thanks again for Saturday. My boys had a great time with you. They talked about how they were moving to the Village as soon as they graduate high school. So what’s on your desk today?”
“I had a nice time, too. It was difficult coming in to the office after such a nice weekend. Today I’ve got the usual crap from Lang. What about you?” he asked.
“I actually need to go down there today. Presentation about one of their properties,” she explained. Lang, Smith & Romney was Jack’s old company and that of his former mistress, Sandra. “Unless you want to do it for me. I have so much on my plate right now.” Carolyn was hopeful Steve would take pity on her. He thought about it for a moment. It would be nice to get out of the office, and if he timed it right, he’d go home after seeing their contact at Lang.
“Sure, I can do that for you,” he replied. “Let me get my act together first. I could probably go after lunch, if you can set it up for around three?” He hoped it wasn’t too obvious that he planned to go straight home afterward, but Carolyn didn’t seem to notice, and if she did, she didn’t mind.
After lunch, Carolyn took a file folder full of charts and graphs to Steve’s office. The door was open, and he was stacking papers and organizing things on his desk. Steve was very neat, Carolyn had to hand it to him. He always seemed cool, even while Marie was sick; you never knew what was brewing.
“Are you ready to go downtown?” she asked. “Here’s the file.” She spread the contents out and showed him what had been accomplished for the client.
“I think I’ll take off now. If it’s not going to be a problem, I’d like to head home from Lang’s instead of coming back up here,” he said. Carolyn nodded her head.
“OK, well, I don’t think that’s a problem. And thanks for doing this for me. I’ll find a way to pay you back,” she said sincerely. She walked him to the elevator. He cautiously looked around to make sure they were alone and bent down to kiss her on the lips.
“Can I call you tonight?” he asked, stepping into the elevator.
“OK, I don’t think that would be a problem,” she repeated, and they laughed as the doors to the elevator closed. The freedom from the office on a beautiful June day wasn’t wasted on Steve Marks. He walked quickly to the subway, and a car came right away. The train wasn’t full, so he could sit if he wanted. His mind was racing, thoughts full of anticipation. Of what? What the hell am I so excited about? He knew giving way to the negativity would lead to a total meltdown that only a full bottle of scotch would alleviate. The underlying problem was that he missed Marie. He’d walked around in a fog since she got sick, allowing everyone to make decisions for them, and now it looked like they would continue doing so whether he wanted it or not. The problem was less their intervention on his behalf than it was his inability to take responsibility. If situations seemed too scary or too demanding, he gladly gave up his authority. Now he was suffering on account of it and blaming everyone else. You’re a slug, he thought. You had a perfectly great apartment that you loved, and now you’re stuck in that bleak mausoleum. Suddenly, as a ray of light shot through his despair, a little voice answered, Paint the place, you asshole. Move in. Make it a home. Would it be that easy? Would putting hi
s stamp and that of his daughter’s on the house really make it that much better for him? He remembered Marie saying that her mother’s house was always depressing; she never tried to fix it up or do anything to it. Steve noticed that Nelda seemed perfectly content to leave their current digs exactly as they found them. And it was as dreary as it could be. He decided that he’d call Pam as soon as he got home and find out if she would agree to let him brighten the place up a little bit. It was the least he could do for his child.
The train pulled into the Wall Street station. Steve rarely had to go that far downtown, and when he came out of the tunnel, he was reminded why. It was as dark and as dreary as his townhouse was. He’d read all kinds of stories about how lack of light affected some people, but he never thought he was one of them. It was yet another weakness he could face and conquer that would benefit him and his daughter. He got to the Lang office and was reminded of how much expendable wealth these people had. Even the receptionist looked like a million dollars. Steve was sorry he’d never met Jack. He understood what a total fucker he was; look what had happened to Marie. Yet his name still seemed to generate reverence. People were just sucked in by his wealth and his charisma. He suddenly thought he had shed some light on how Jack was able to get away with such a tremendous amount of garbage, from manipulating Marie to pulling the wool over his own wife’s eyes. He was like a cult leader. Men and women were manipulated, and he was able to destroy them without a twinge of guilt.
Family Dynamics: Pam of Babylon Book #5 Page 10