Pot of gold : a novel

by Michael, Judith

  were all shut, and left the room. And only then, as she was standing in the dark, did she realize that the memos proved that the cumulative test reports she had seen were false. And there was a chance that the originals were still somewhere in the test-lab files. And a good chance, she thought, that the computer codes for the memos might be the codes for the cumulative reports.

  "A few more minutes," she muttered to herself. "There's no way I can leave now." Shielding the flashlight, she moved along the ranks of file cabinets. Three of the cabinets were organized by months, one month for each drawer. Gina flipped through the folders in March, and at the back of the drawer, behind test reports on other Eiger products, she found a folder coded as the memos had been in the computer, and inside it were test reports on PK-20 Eye Restorative Cream. They were not the ones Kurt had shown her, taken from a file cabinet at the other end of the room; these showed a report of blindness in one eye of a test subject. These listed conjunctivitis and minor burning, itching, irritation, foUiculitus, acneform eruptions, and allergic contact dermatitis. These were the reports Kurt had summarized in his memos to Brix.

  A feeling of triumph swept through Gina. They kept them. The damn fools kept them. Shoved them in a file and forgot about them. So why bother to make copies? Til just take these with me.

  She slipped the reports into her shoulder bag with the memos and the disk, turned off the flashlight, and made her way back through the laboratory. As she got closer to the door, she could make out tables and workbenches in the pale light from the corridor, and she moved more quickly. Once outside the lab, she heard a distant voice saying good-night to someone, and a door slam. She turned to the right and almost ran to the product laboratories and her own worktable. A carton was on the floor, partially filled with the things she would take with her on Monday, when the chemists and technicians in her laboratory were giving her a going-away party. She threw her books, an empty flowerpot, and a box of pens and pencils into the carton and picked it up. Now, if anyone saw her, she had a reason for being there.

  But she saw no one. She left by the side entrance and walked to the parking lot. Floodlights illuminated the few cars that were there, and Gina turned toward hers.

  "Gina! Gina, hi!" She spun about, wondering if she looked

  guilty, and saw Emma, sitting in her car, leaning out the window.

  "What are you doing here?" Gina asked.

  "Waiting for Brix. We're going to somebody's party. What about you.^"

  He was here the whole time, Gina thought. Both of them. I was practically breaking and entering and he was here. "It's moving day," she said to Emma, gesturing with the carton. Then she thought how absurd it was to lie to Emma. "Well, not really. I came in for something else." She hesitated. "Look, do you have a minute.'' I mean, when does Brix appear.'"'

  "Not for about ten minutes. I'm early. Come keep me company,"

  Emma had the motor running and the heater on, and when Gina sat next to her on the front seat, she closed the window against the cold mist that had drifted in. "Did you find out anything about the memos.'"' When Gina hesitated, she said again, "Did you.?"

  "I found the jackpot. The memos you saw. They were still in Kurt's computer. I've got printed copies and I've got them on disk and they're exactly what you said they were."

  "Oh." Emma's breath came out in a long sigh. "That's awful, isn't it.'' I mean, I knew I didn't make them up or imagine them, but now . . ."

  "Now it's really true. I found the original test reports, too, Emma; I've got the whole thing. And now we have to do something about it."

  Emma's eyes widened. "Like what.''"

  "We have to tell the FDA. They can't do anything about a product until it's shipped across state lines, but I have a few acquaintances there and they could call Quentin, unofficially, and warn him that they've got evidence that could cause them to seize his shipments as soon as he makes them. He'd cancel the release if that happened. And then there's the State's Attorney. He's intensely interested in what products are on the shelves of Connecticut's stores, so I think he'd call Quentin, too, and tell him he has evidence that would not permit the product to go on sale in the state."

  "Oh, no," Emma wailed. "You can't do that. Gina, he'll blame Brix; he'll take it out on him; you can't do that."

  "How come you're so sure Brix isn't part of whatever's going

  on? I know you love him, Emma, but try to think past that, just for a minute. There's a cover-up going on here. Somebody altered those test reports. If Brix is really close to his old man and there's a cover-up going on, why wouldn't he be part of it.''"

  "He wouldn't be! I know him; he'd never do anything like that!"

  "Well, I don't see how you can know that for a fact. But whichever it is, Emma, he's a big boy; he'll take care of himself. If I were you, I wouldn't worry about him. What you ought to be worrying about—"

  "I do worry about him," Emma said, her voice low.

  "Well, I can't help that. What you ought to be worrying about is him finding out that you saw those memos. As long as he doesn't know, you're out of it and that's the best place for you to be. You don't want him to know you have anything to do with this. Because I have to do something about it, Emma; I have a responsibility here, and I can't turn my back on it." Gina had been watching the door of the building, afraid Brix would find her there. Now she opened the car door. "You know, I keep imagining that whole PK-20 line in Claire's gorgeous new packaging, filling up the Eiger warehouse: all those jars and tubes and plastic bottles in their neat little cartons piling up, higher and higher, huge piles of them, like the pyramids, and everybody in the lab, from Quentin on down, just waiting for March, to sweep them onto trucks and trains and ship them all over the country. Like an invading army. And it looks as if some of that stuff is poison, at least potentially, to a lot of people. If I ignored that, I'd be as guilrv^ as whoever ordered the test reports changed, and whoever did it, and whoever knows about it."

  "Gina, listen. Nothing's going to happen until March; you just said so. So you could wait a few days, couldn't you.^ Brix told me there were new tests and the results were coming in and they were fine, and maybe all that old stuff—"

  "Emma, there aren't any new tests; I would have heard in the lab if there were. There hasn't been a word about any more PK-20 tests. And I've just been reading the memos."

  "Did you read all the test reports.'' You read the memos and the old test reports, but what about new ones.'' Did you read those.?"

  "There aren't any new test reports."

  "Brix said there were. You can't be sure, can you?"

  "Ninety-nine point nine percent."

  "That's not fair, Gina; Brix told mQ. And even if there aren't any new tests, maybe they've changed the release date and you haven't heard about it. You're leaving; maybe people aren't telling you everything. Isn't that possible.'' It won't make any difference if you wait long enough to make sure. Just a few days, Gina. You could do that."

  "I suppose I could, but I'd be willing to bet nothing's going to change."

  "Do it anyway, please, please, Gina. Just a few days. A week."

  "Why should I.-' What's going to happen in a week.'"'

  "I don't know. But something might."

  Gina looked at her closely. "Emma, you stay out of this. Listen to me; I'm very serious. Stay out of it. I don't want you thinking you're going to tell Brix about any of this; that would not be smart."

  "No. Of course not. I just think you ought to wait and give them a chance."

  Gina hesitated, then shrugged. "I'll give it a week, but I wouldn't expect much, Emma. And another thing. I think we should tell your mother. There are a lot of things going on that—"

  "No!" Emma shook her head fiercely. "She'd tell Quentin! You can't tell her, Gina, you can't, you can't! Please, Gina . . . oh, I can't stand this. Couldn't you just not do anything for a while.'' I mean, just forget all of it for a few weeks or—"

  "You said one week."

  "We
ll, okay, one week. But you won't tell anybody. Promise, Gina, please promise."

  "Your mother ought to know," Gina said stubbornly.

  "Know what.'' Nothing's going to happen to me, and I don't want her to know anything about this, and I'm asking you not to tell her. I'm asking you to promise."

  After another moment, Gina shrugged again. "I'll give it a week."

  "Thank you." Emma leaned over and kissed Gina's cheek.

  Gina put her hands on Emma's arms. "Now, listen. Tell me you heard evervthing I said. You may think I'm being silly, but I'm not; and I'm asking you: don't play heroine, Emma. Stay out of this. These people have a lot at stake, and nobody should know

  that you saw those memos or heard anything else. In fact, you should forget that you know anything about anything. If you do that, you'll be all right. Are you listening.'*"

  Emma nodded.

  "This is very serious business, you know. Okay.''"

  "Yes. Yes, Gina, really. I understand."

  "I hope so." She stepped from the car, opened the back door, and took out her cardboard carton. "I'll talk to you in a day or two. Give my love to your mother."

  Emma watched her walk to her car and drive away. But he already knows, she told Gina silently. I told him I'd read the memos; he knows all about it. And when you talk to your friends at the FDA and the State's Attorney, and they call his father, or him, he'll blame me. And he'll be right, because it's all my fault.

  So I have to talk to him. I'm sorry I had to lie to Gina, but I don't know what else I could have done. Because I have to talk to him. I have to warn him about what's going to happen.

  "I thought we'd have a drink here, first," Claire said when Quentin arrived.

  He put his arm around her waist and kissed her. "Everyone at the lab is ready to give you ribbons and medals. You're a talented woman, Claire, and the last designs were the best you've done. They've already gone into production. How many do you still have to do.'"'

  "Four." Shaken by his kiss, not wanting to admit that her body had clung to his as he held her, she eased away from him and led him into the library. "But I've got two I'm pretty sure of. One more week at the most."

  "You've set a record." He sat on the couch and picked up a copy of the December Vogue. It fell open to the PK-20 ad with Emma's luminous beauty almost filling the page, dreamlike, as if seen through a mist, above a richly colored photograph of one of Claire's amber packages and two bold lines of type:

  Coming in March. The revolution in banishing aging. Reserve yours, with your cosmetics specialist, today.

  "The response has been phenomenal. We're very pleased with Emma. Both of you: our Goddard women."

  Claire winced, but, still looking at the magazine, he did not see her. She brought him a Scotch and put her glass of wine on the table between them. "Quentin, I'm not going to dinner with you tonight."

  He closed the magazine and looked up, frowning. "You're not well.'' You look fine. Of course we're going to dinner. If you really aren't feeling well, we'll go someplace quiet. Come over here; why are you sitting over there.'*"

  Her hands were trembling. This is crazy, she thought. People end relationships all the time; there's nothing to be afraid of. "I'm not going to see you again," she said, the words tumbling out. She met his hardening frown and the quick calculating look in his eyes that always appeared when he was faced with something unexpected, and she clenched her hands to hide their trembling. She made herself speak slowly. "We both had a good time and I'm grateful to you for so many things, but I don't want to go on."

  "Why not.^"

  "Because we've done enough together. People begin to change toward each other, after a certain point; they don't think about each other in the same way they did in the beginning or behave the same way. Sometimes it gets better. With us it's getting worse."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "I know you don't." She drew a breath, feeling unsure of herself, as she so often did beside his overwhelming solidity. He dominated the cozy room, making the furniture seem smaller, the books fading into a blurred background. Even the lamplight seemed dimmer. It occurred to her that she could stop and reverse direction; she had not said anything irrevocable. She could cling to Quentin and the life he gave her just as her body had clung to him when he kissed her. That would be the easiest thing to do. But it wont be the easiest if I think Vm being bullied. Or if I become a different kind of person, to keep him happy.

  "I'll try' to explain." Her voice was low, but in the strange frozen silence of the room it seemed loud to her, and she lowered it even more, speaking to the black mirrors of his eyes and the hard, sculpted lines of his face. "I don't want to live up to your expectations for me, Quentin; they're not the ones I have for myself. You have a slot for me that you expect me to slip into, and I can't do it."

  "You mean you won't."

  Her eyebrows rose in surprise. "Of course. That's what I'm talking about. You've always made rules for me, and I went along, and I suppose that makes me an accomplice, so in a way you had a right to believe you could make whatever rules you wanted. I'm sorry I gave you that impression. But even if I did, I don't like the way your rules are changing, and I want us to stop being lovers before we stop being friends."

  "You've met someone else," he said.

  "Oh, Quentin, you're cleverer than that." Abruptly, as she said the words, her unsureness vanished. The inanitV' of what he said made her feel stronger; it almost made her feel sorry for him. She sat straighter in the chair. She knew, without question, that she was doing the right thing. "I have met someone else, as a matter of fact, but he hasn't made this happen. You're the one I've been going to bed with, and wanting to go to bed with, and you're the one who's made me change. In fact, I still want to go to bed with you, but I won't, because everv^thing else about us is wrong."

  "If you want that, nothing else is important. And nothing about us is wrong. Someone's convinced vou to break off with me."

  "No one has," she said coldly. "Do you really think so little of me that you believe I'd send away a man I really wanted to be with, just because someone else suggested it.'"'

  "I think you're vulnerable to suggestion. From me, from the people I introduced you to, from everyone. Everything you are today you've learned from me and the women—"

  "And whose ideas did I use in my designs.''" Claire asked icily.

  "Your designs seem to be your own; I grant you that. I had a copyright search made and it appears that you broke new ground. I admire your talent and you know it; I haven't stinted in my praise of you. That's why you were allowed to go on with the entire line."

  "You had a search—.^ I could have told you—"

  "Why would I have asked you.^ Of course you would have told me you were original; what else would you have said.'' I needed an outside opinion and I pay my attorneys for that. You're a good designer; how many times do you need to hear me say that.^ But in every other way you're a follower; you're always listening to

  other people's ideas. You're too accessible to other people, Claire. You should hold yourself apart more. I thought I'd made you understand the value of that. But you still aren't entirely comfortable with me, or with the things I tell you, because you're not comfortable with money and what it can do."

  "That's nonsense. I've been having a wonderful time. I love having money. Is it such a sign of weakness to you, Quentin, that I listen to other people's ideas.'' I love to find out how other people think and live and get along with each other. Are you so sure there's nothing else you have to learn, so you can shut your ears to other people's ideas.^ I've had a good time meeting your friends and listening to them, and I've had a good time spending money with them."

  She gazed at his impassive face and wondered if he was really listening to what she was saying. "I don't like all of y^^ur friends; I don't like all the people who happen to have money. I certainly don't like what a lot of them do with it, buying rank and status and piles of possessions a
nd helping other people with whatever they can spare after satisfying all their whims, but that doesn't mean I've been uncomfortable. I've been having fun. And that's the problem. You don't have fun, Quentin; you don't have any joy in your life. Everything you do is so . . . heavy, as if you're always working through the steps of some job description. Lover, host, corporate executive, master manipulator—"

  "What the hell does that mean.'"'

  "What.^" she asked, cut off in the middle of her thought.

  "Master manipulator. What the hell does that mean.'"

  "Nothing specific. Should it.'^ But that's the way you operate: you manipulate people; you manipulate events. You set rules and you move people and events around inside them. Sometimes I feel like one of the pieces in a game of Monopoly. It's all so calculated and measured, Quentin; you don't have room for spontaneity or for tr^ing to see the world through my eyes. That's called sensitivirs', and when we met, I thought you were sensitive, but you aren't, not in the least. You just have your guidelines, your expectations, your rules. I have no control over the rules you make for yourself, or for others, but I do have control over my own life and I can get out when I think that what's happening isn't good for me. And that's what I'm doing."

  She stood up. Their drinks were untouched, and she reahzed they truly had nothing to share: not even a final drink together. She looked at his dark, handsome face with the frown etched between his eyes. He'll get over this very quickly. I'll probably remember him long after he's forgotten me. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry if you're angry. I haven't been, for the most part, but I'm not sad, either, and maybe that's part of the reason I'm saying good-bye. We've been talking about what we had and we haven't raised our voices or shown one tiny bit of passion. No music or poetry, even at the end."