Pot of gold : a novel

by Michael, Judith

  Emma took long ragged breaths, gulping air. She wiped her cheeks with her palms and watched Brix. His head was down, as if he were concentrating on his swinging foot; his hands gripped the edge of the desk. And suddenly, through the turmoil inside her, Emma thought, he's afraid. He's doing this to me because he's afraid. Fuck me up with my father. He was afraid of Quentin, afraid that Quentin would find out Emma had read the memos, afraid he would be held responsible. Especially, she thought, if the memos told the truth. But she could not face that possibility now. Now she had to think of Brix. Brix needed her. "I was only worried about you," she said, her voice low and shaking. "I don't care about anybody else; it was just you."

  He looked up, frowning. "Why were you worried about me.''" . "Because"— oh, thank God, we re talking, we're not fighting; we're talking again —"because you're so important." She took a breath and tried to smile, but her face felt stiff and she thought she probably looked awful, and Brix would hate that. "You're in the middle of everything because you and your father run the company . . . and I thought if something was going wrong and somebody wanted to blame somebody, they'd pick you."

  "Somebody meaning who.-^"

  "Oh, I don't know. Whoever would be . . . your father, maybe ..."

  "My father and I run this company," Brix said harshly. "You just said that yourself. He trusts me with everything. If anything goes wrong, we take care of it together. He needs me."

  "I know, I know. I know how close you are and how much he needs you. But sometimes when things happen . . ." Her voice faltered, but she went on because he had to understand that she wanted to help him. "Sometimes there's trouble and somebody has to get blamed ..."

  "That isn't going to happen here; there isn't any trouble; nobody's going to get blamed."

  Afraid to bring up the memos again, Emma looked at him helplessly, trying to understand. Gina had said the same thing. But if they weren't true, why would Brix be afraid.'^

  Brix was scowling at his swinging foot, thinking. "Okay, now listen and pay attention," he said at last. "We got a couple reports on tests that hadn't been done properly. Those are the ones you saw. You got that.^ They weren't done right, they were done wrong. So we're doing a bunch of new tests and everything's fine."

  "Oh." The word came out in a long sigh. She looked at him searchingly. "Everything's fine." It was part question and part statement.

  "That's what you can tell all your friends."

  Emma looked at him with fresh alarm. "I don't talk about the company to my friends. I don't tell them anything."

  "That's what you say."

  She started to tremble again. "Please, Brix, don't do this again. You can trust me; all I care about is what happens to you. I want you to be all right. And us to be together." She waited, but he was silent. "Brix, are you . . . are you going to say anything to your father.'' Or Hale.^ About my being the Eiger Girl.^"

  "I don't know. It depends."

  Emma shrank into her chair as if her body understood that it had just been put on a leash. "I'll do whatever you want. You know I will."

  "You can keep your mouth shut. You can keep out of my office. Keep out of my business. Just do what you're told and we'll

  see how things go. Come on." He stood up and shook his pants straight and reached for his suit jacket. "Let's go to dinner."

  "I don't think ... if you don't mind, Brix, I'm not very hungry. I'd rather just go home."

  "Hey, we had a date, remember.'' Don't pull any prima-donna stuff on me. We can skip the movie if you want; I'd just as soon go back to my place early." He lifted a few strands of Emma's red-gold hair and let them fall. "It's been—what.^ A week.-^"

  "Eight days."

  "Well, then we've got a lot of catching up to do. Maybe you'll stay the night."

  Emma looked at him dully. Her mother expected her home. After those two nights her mother had stayed out, it had never happened again, and it was as if they had made a silent agreement that as long as they lived there, they would sleep there. But if Brix wanted her to stay with him tonight, she had to do it. She could call later and say she'd had a flat tire or something. Lyingaga'tn; Vm turning into a liar. She felt a stab of despair. She did not want to lie to her mother; she wanted to love her and be loved by her with that unalloyed kind of love that mothers have, like a great velvet cape sweeping her up, surrounding her, making her feel safe and warm and so sweetly happy. Tears filled Emma's eyes again. She had always had that kind of love from her mother; she had taken it for granted. Now, she could remember it, but it seemed so far away she could not imagine ever getting back to it. Her mother was far away, too. They had lost each other. And Emma had lost her way back.

  "Okay, you go wash your face and whatever, and then we'll go," Brix said, and held out his hand to her. "I'll tell you all about my quick trip to Florida last week; did you know I went scuba diving.''"

  Claire adjusted the light and gazed at the large sheet of paper in front of her. She was working on the last group of PK-20 packages, sketching shapes that would blend with the others she had designed. The only sounds in the room were the swish of chalk on paper, the knocking of branches against the window in the high wind that had come up earlier in the day, and music playing softly in the background. A cup of tea steamed near at hand; shapes appeared and disappeared beneath her fingers, col-

  ors merging and glowing softly in the light. She loved the feeling of dominion that came with working in her own space and creating something from nothing; especially she loved this moment of beginning, when ideas, images, memories, and feelings floated freely through her mind until, from them, order suddenly appeared, a way of showing and saying something, a shape that revealed itself as if it had just been born.

  Everything should have been perfect, Claire thought, but it was not.

  Emma was avoiding her, sleeping late, leaving the house when Claire was upstairs in her studio or out with friends, coming home late. They never had a conversation anymore; when they saw each other, they exchanged a few words that had no meaning for either of them. She and Emma had lost each other, and Claire missed her. It was as if she had moved out, but it was worse than that because her ghostly presence still drifted through the house, a constant reminder of what they once had had together. At first Claire had thought that what kept Emma away was normal adolescent rebellion, delayed in her case: she had never gone through the turmoil all her high school friends had had with their parents. But now Claire had begun to think there was something very wrong in Emma's life, something she could not talk about because she was afraid or ashamed or both.

  When Claire had brought home the letters Hale had given her, she and Emma read them together, amazed and touched that people would take the time to write to a stranger and tell her they thought she was beautiful—a lovely, all-American girl—and if she ever came to their town, they would like to meet her. Claire and Emma laughed together and exchanged smiles, and for a few minutes they found each other again. And then it was over, and Emma went to her room. She had no date with Brix that night, nor with friends, since all of them had left for college, but still she went to her room right after dinner and did not come out until almost lunchtime the next day.

  Thinking about her, Claire had stopped sketching. When she heard footsteps on the stairs, she came back from her thoughts and looked down at her paper. In one corner a half-moon intersected a circle and a long wavy line. Claire took up a pen and outlined the shape at the intersection, then gazed at it. It was slender and graceful and she could almost feel its cool, smooth

  curve in her hand. A bottle, she thought, with a stopper going in sideways at the top of the half moon. She was smiling when she heard a knock at the door and turned. "Yes, Hannah," she began, and then saw that it was Alex.

  "I'm sorry to bother you. Hannah told me to come up."

  "It's all right." Now that she knew what her drawing was, she was anxious to get back to it. "I thought you had everything you needed from me."

  "So did
I. But when I was writing it, a few loose ends came up. That always happens. If this isn't a good day, I'll come back."

  She sighed. "Come on in; I know you have a deadline. What can I tell you.^"

  He shook his head. "You've got something good; you should work on it. I'll come back another time."

  Claire's eyebrows rose. "How do you know that.'"'

  "I know the signs. When you've hit on something exciting, you should stick with it before it drifts away. I'll come back."

  "Why don't you wait.? You're right; I'd like to work on this a little bit, but once I have the concept, I can put it aside. Can you give me half an hour.'"'

  "As long as you want. Thank you."

  He took an art magazine from the bookshelves and sat in the armchair, turning the pages quietly. When she looked up from her drawing, Claire saw his strong profile, the firmness of his mouth, the comfortable stillness of his tall body filling the deep chair. He seemed at home and she found herself with a different feeling about her studio: her sense of dominion was the same; it was still her space where she created from her own ideas, her own self, but now it was shared. Not invaded, she thought, but occupied in a way that was neither threatening nor competitive. She smiled to herself because it was pleasant, and she worked in silence for almost an hour. "Now," she said at last. "What can I tell you.''"

  Alex put away the magazine and took out a small notebook. "Emma told me about your first shopping trip; she said the owner tried to make her feel young and stupid, and you stopped it and she thought you were wonderful. Could you tell me about that.'"'

  "She said she thought I was wonderful.'' What a long time ago that seems."

  Claire sat on the couch and told him about shopping at Si-mone's. "But please don't use the name of the store; there's no

  reason to. They're all the same; salespeople, even owners like Simone, don't like customers who seem to have no money because they're afraid they'll spend a lot of time for nothing. I understand that, but it's still atrocious to categorize people by whether you'll make money off them or not."

  "Aren't some of your new friends the same way.'*"

  "In a way. Most of them don't think about making money off the people they meet socially, but some of them do rate people by money or notoriety. At benefits they talk about 'A' tables and 'B' tables, meaning where the famous or chic or rich will be sitting, so they can sit with them and not get stuck with people who don't impress them."

  "Does that make you angry.''"

  "Angry enough that I'm beginning to want to stay away from them and their 'A' tables. But it makes me sad, too. I don't like categories anyway, and when they're based on money, they reveal such a poverty of spirit that it's very depressing."

  "What else is depressing.'"' Alex asked, almost offhandedly.

  Claire looked at him in surprise. "Why do you think something is.^"

  "I think you're feeling melancholy about something. It has nothing to do with this article, so of course you don't have to talk about it."

  Claire gazed at him. Having been with Quentin for several months, she was not used to a man who was sensitive to her feelings. "I'd rather not. Do you have any other questions.^"

  "A couple." He glanced at the notebook in his hand. "You said you'd be doing some volunteer work as soon as your life got organized. Are you doing any.^"

  "Not yet." She told him about the after-school art and design classes she would teach in nearby schools after the first of the year, and about the students who had already signed up for them. "I've never taught; I'm looking forward to it."

  "I taught for a few years, in New York. I liked it a lot, but I was frustrated a lot, too. You get such a sense of how much you can accomplish, and then, just as powerfully, you know how much you can't."

  "Why not.?"

  "Because you're fighting forces that are beyond you. The kids who do best are the ones whose parents read to them and talk to

  them as if they're intelligent human beings, and share thoughts and feelings with them, and experiences, too: concerts, theaters, trips to the zoo, all of it. Those kids have pride in themselves, they think they can move mountains, and they soak up whatever you give them like a sponge. But kids who are parked in front of television sets or farmed out to indifferent sitters or left to roam the streets would look at those mountains and shrug their shoulders and say they can't be moved because they're too damn big. Some of those kids, with lots of attention from good teachers, move beyond that, but most of them never really believe they can be movers in the world, and so they don't believe that anything we teach will help them."

  "Emma was with sitters. I worked."

  "And at night, when you got home, I'll bet you read to her and talked to her and took her for walks and all the rest of it. That's all it takes, you know: a few hours a day. And I know not everybody can do it. If we had a good system of day care in this country, it would help . . ." He gave a short laugh. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make a speech; it's been fifteen years since I taught, and I still get wound up about it."

  "I like that," Claire said, thinking of Quentin, whose passion seemed to be reserved for acquisitions and power. "I like it when people get passionate about something besides themselves and money. Did you stop teaching because you were frustrated.^"

  "Partly. But mostly I wanted to write and I gave myself a year to sell a book to a publisher. If I hadn't been able to, I would have gone back to teaching."

  "Was that the book that won the award.^"

  "It was. And I never looked back."

  "You don't want to go back to teaching now.''"

  "No, now I'm thinking of being a waiter or a longshoreman. I told Hannah all about it. Hannah is as good a listener as you."

  "Hannah taught for forty years," Claire said thoughtfully. "She's never told us how she felt about it, except to say she loved helping young people when they came to her for advice. I wonder if she was frustrated."

  "Probably not for long. My guess is, she'd turn a school or a town upside down to correct whatever was frustrating her. She's an impressive lady."

  "She is, but I think she may be in trouble. Or maybe both of us are, because I'm paying for it." She told Alex about Forrest Exeter, who, Hannah had finally told her, wanted to build the Exeter Poetry Center, partly with Hannah's money. "And I suppose he's got other women like Hannah, elderly, maybe lonely, all eager to help him. She met him on the cruise we took to Alaska, and I'm sure she told him about my winning the lottery, and that was probably all it took for him to become her instant friend. Hannah is usually the most levelheaded person, but I'm worried about her because she really likes him. She keeps saying they're only friends, and I'm sure that's true, but he seems to be able to stir in a little romance, so she's entranced by him. He must be a brilliant actor."

  "You haven't met him.'' After all this time.^"

  "She meets him somewhere or he waits outside, in his car. Either he doesn't want to meet us, or Hannah doesn't want it."

  "How much have you given her.^"

  "Fifty thousand. Twenty-five at two different times about ten days apart. She calls it a loan, of course. But I've told her I can't loan any more without meeting him and seeing some documentation of what he plans to do with the money: blueprints, building permits, something."

  He gave her a long look. "You're very generous."

  "With Hannah I am. I love her and I've trusted her since we met. But I do worry. A friend of mine thinks she's being taken, and of course he could be right."

  "Would you like me to look into it.^ I have friends at the New York Times who ought to know if there really is an Exeter Poetry Center on the drawing board; they might even be able to check on the financing of it. They can check on him, too."

  "Thank you; yes, I would. Unless ... I don't want to spy on Hannah."

  "You've paid fifty thousand dollars for the right to find out what's going on; I wouldn't call that spying."

  "Thank you," Claire said again. "And thank you for listening.
You're easy to talk to."

  Their talk moved to other things, their conversation easy and relaxed, as the windows grew dark and the afternoon slid smoothly into evening. "I'm sorry," Alex said at last when Claire looked at

  her watch and gave an exclamation of dismay, "I didn't mean to do this. I keep saying that to you, don't I? The atmosphere around here is very seductive. I'm leaving, right now."

  "I guess you'd better," Claire smiled, "or I won't finish this job."

  "Would it bother you if I write some of this up before I go.'' I didn't have my tape recorder and I'd like to get a few things down while they're fresh."

  "It wouldn't bother me," she said, already moving to her worktable. "Why don't you use my computer.'' It uses WordPerfect, if you're familiar with that."

  He looked at the broad desk with its computer and printer, neatly organized scratch pads and artist's sketch pads, coffee mugs holding pencils and scissors, and piles of photographs and design magazines. It was a space four times as big as the one he had in New York. "It's the one I use," he said. "Thank you."

  Claire sat on her high stool and looked at her drawing. The shape was still good; she still liked it. She gave a sigh of relief. Often, for reasons she had never been able to fathom, she would come back to a sketch a few hours or days after she had drawn it and find it weak and uninteresting, even though, earlier, she had thought it fine. But that did not happen today, and in two hours she had smoothed the lines, made the bottle longer, and drawn it from two different angles and from above, and another view with the stopper drawn out and placed beside it. She reached for a fresh pad of paper, and as she did so, she became aware of the quiet tapping of computer keys.