The Adored

  “That wasn’t me,” Wheelwright protested, “That was Kish. He’s as driven as me.” “That was you,” Bridge insisted, “Kish had a life once. No one has seen him socially for months.”

  “And you mentioned you like the returns of the fund,” Wheelwright offered, tensing. “What is it, Gideon, returns or social life?”

  “Eddie, this is not about us. It’s about you. You forget the reason for the creation of the Brunswick Fund. What was your great question in Mr. Conetta’s class—‘How can we stay friends for life?’”

  “I remember.”

  “And the answer?”

  “Create the fund.”

  “And working backward,” Bridge persisted, “why, once again?”

  “How can we stay friends for life?”

  “Exactly! Not money. Friendship.”

  “What are you saying, Gideon?” Wheelwright pawed at Bridge seeking what he did not want to hear.

  “Eddie, it’s not about the money. I appreciate all I can get, but frankly, there isn’t a prayer in the world I’ll ever be able to figure out what the hell to do with what I already have.”

  Wheelwright paused. For him, it had become about money; it was his way up. While there was wealth in all of the Brunswick Fund families, there was wealth and there was wealth. Admiral Johnson’s million or two was not Sebastian Ball Sr’s billions. The Moira’s few small businesses worth several million were not the Barnes Construction’s billion. The Wheelwrights dwindled, few million coming on the back of the Edward’s father’s financial career were not the Bridge Law Firm’s hundreds of millions or the Trout’s newly minted IPO hundred million. In the back of his mind, way back deep, Gideon’s argument was creating a stir. What was it? Wheelwright had a hold of it. Don’t let it go. And it was slipping away.

  And now, again, here on the beach.

  Damn it, almost had it, he said to himself. Money, friendship. Something about glue. He couldn’t hold the thought. It was too far recessed, an echo.

  Then his mind flipped back to the plane, and he heard Gideon’s counsel, “Step back, Eddie, hire a couple of professional managers to run this thing, but give yourself some room, and pay attention to your girl.”

  “Yeah, I hired a professional manager based on Parker’s recommendation. Had to can him. Crane was a liar and a crook. Santa. Screw her. Tart. And Sebastian. The rat bastard.

  And that was about the way the conversation went on their flight back from Winston Trout’s bachelor party in San Juan. Wheelwright was so upset he convinced Gideon Bridge to take a separate flight back with him, different from the one Ball and the others were on.

  Now, Wheelwright stretched out on the beach blanket, let out a sigh and waited for Valerie Samson on the beach of their youth.

  On his return he had been surprised by her phone call. It seemed almost fateful. He was intrigued by her anxiety over this opportunity she wanted to share with him. He was more intrigued by the tone he detected when he asked, “How’s your family.” She sounded as flat and uninspired as he had ever heard this spirited young woman whom he had known forever.

  Wheelwright sat up and applied sun screen to further the early summer tan he had started in San Juan. He was at that end of the beach that was more Cape Cod like, with small dunes, sea grass and a big sand apron stretching into the Sound.

  This beach, a refuge, a 147 acre peninsula, the former estate of a nineteenth century Scottish tycoon, was where the seven friends had grown up. This was their space, their time away from parents, unsupervised by teachers and coaches, out from under the wings of nannies, chauffeurs and housekeepers—no adults allowed. The Point’s woods was their laboratory. This is where they experimented with smoking, first sexual contacts, alcohol, and, for a few, drugs.

  When they were seventeen, Edward, Parker, Valerie, and Tray worked as lifeguards for the man now approaching Edward.

  “Wheelwright,” Sol Katz, “the mayor of Tod’s Point” boomed out. “Where the hell’s the rest of your bunch?”

  Wheelwright looked up and saw his old mentor and, not ten feet behind him, Valerie Samson.

  Edward got up and gave the older man, who now seemed so much smaller, a hug. “One of them is right behind you,” Wheelwright said to Katz.

  Katz turned, his white Safari hat, sitting back on his head. “Umm, Vvv, Valerie!”

  “Can I get one of those hugs?” she asked as she neared the old head lifeguard, arms outstretched.

  “You sure can, sweetheart,” and he embraced another of his younger charges.

  “You two look fit enough to get up on those chairs right now,” Katz said pointing down the beach to the lifeguard chairs.

  “And you remember me?” Valerie asked. “How? It’s been so long.”

  “I never forgot the name of one of you kids. Know the year you were guards, know your names, and how old you were then, which means I can easily figure out how old you are now if you’re not careful,” Katz said, before a second thought. “In fact you two were guards the same summers. And you were a thing for a while.”

  Valerie and Edward glanced at each other quickly.

  “Great memory, Sol,” Edward said. “You’re looking great.”

  “There are three stages of life, Wheelwright,” Katz said with a smile, “youth, maturity, and you’re looking great.” The three of them looked at each other and broke up in laughter.

  After more memory exchanges and catching, up the “Mayor” went on his way.

  Val called after him, “Does that fan in the helmet still work?”

  Sol raised his hand and made an OK sign with his fingers.

  “Eddie, that’s so amazing running into Sol at the exact moment we see each other. For a second, it’s like time stood still.”

  “I agree. And look at you. It is like time stood still. You’re more beautiful than ever,” Wheelwright said looking at the taut, tanned body in shorts and a knit top. Valerie not only looked fit, she was strong. At five-foot-nine-inches tall, an hour glass figure with the square shoulders of a swimmer and the legs of a college soccer player, she was an impressive woman.

  “And you’ve taken good care of the Wheelwright legacy,” she said admiring the obvious strength in his shoulders and arms. “Still a gym rat?”

  “Only reason I’m alive,” he replied.

  And they hugged. And they stood there awkwardly in each other’s arms. They moved apart and smiled. Valerie turned and picked up the beach chair she had dropped. She opened it and placed it next to Edward’s. She placed a Gucci beach bag next to his sneakers at the foot of the blanket. She pulled her top over her head and slipped off the shorts, revealing a neon green bikini. Wheelwright flinched when he saw and remembered the stunning body beneath the bikini. He reached down, opened the cooler and offered Val a beer. “Yes, yes,” she said thirstily.

  They both sat.

  “A lot to talk about, Val. It’s been a long time.”

  “Two years goes by pretty quick. A lot has happened,” she said twisting the top off of the ice cold Anchor Steam beer.

  “You first,” he said

  “This idea I called you about. It’s an opportunity we cannot pass up.”

  “No, not that. We’ll get to that,” Wheelwright said. “Tell me about you. On the phone you didn’t sound like Val McGuire.

  “No, I’m not that girl anymore, Eddie. I’m Val Samson: mother, housewife, suburbanite extraordinaire.”

  “And you’re not happy?” What’s going on here, he thought to himself. What am I doing asking that question, pressing her like that. Are you taking glee in whatever burden she’s carrying?

  Simultaneously, she thought: what’s going on here. Is he trying to put me in my place? Am I so obvious a mental mess that he can come on like that? Careful.

  She looked away. “I’m OK. It’s just a new life. It’ll take a while to keep it all in perspective. Isn’t that what you always told me Eddie? Keep it all in perspective. I wish the hell I kept it in perspective,” and on an impulse
she decided to get it out. “But I was so upset you dumped me I dashed into this and it sucks.” She was looking into Wheelwright’s eyes now. Fire in her eyes. Tears. She was smiling. That horrid smile of a beautiful woman, hurt by a man, and nothing could be done about it. It was done.

  “Your husband?”

  “David’s a good guy. He’s a nerd. I let him rush me,” she stopped. Two minutes. Two minutes talking and I’ve humiliated myself. She thought when he agreed to meet with her that nothing would matter, that they would stay on a higher plane, only talk about the deal. The deal was nowhere in the discussion, and she was on the floor. Pick yourself up, get it all out. “And now I’m stuck. The only thing I have is my work,” she stopped again. “The gym keeps you alive. My work keeps me alive.”

  “What about your baby?”

  “He’s wonderful. If I could, I’d snatch him up, move back into the city, get a nanny and live happily ever after. You have to see him, Eddie, he’s beautiful. I do love him; it’s everything that surrounds us that I hate.”

  “That’s what you get for marrying a Jew.”

  “Edward Wheelwright, that’s bullshit.”

  “Bullshit it is. A McGuire marrying a Jew. I didn’t believe it when I heard it.”

  “You’re the fucking reason,” a fiery Samson said with a bittersweet smile.

  “That’s it. It’s my fault you’re miserable?” he questioned.

  “If you married me like you fucking promised, I wouldn’t be in this shit,” she laughed hilariously. It was a real laugh. A roar. Old tears streamed down her cheeks, the sad sentiment having passed.

  Wheelwright laughed with her, “That’s the McGuire I know. Indomitable. Able to spit in the eye of the devil.”

  “You are the fucking devil, you know,” and the laughter continued. The anger out, unbottled after these two years. “You fuck, you promised to marry me.”

  “If you hadn’t been so damn pushy, I would have,” he said.

  “Pushy! Pushy? I gave you half my fucking life. How long am I supposed to wait?”

  “Till I’m ready,” Wheelwright said.

  “Are you ready now?” she asked impetuously. In fact, stunned by her own question, but she decided to wait for an answer. And it wasn’t long in coming.

  “Why, are you going to run away with me if I say yes?”

  “I’ll drive.” And they both laughed the way they had their whole lives. “Now answer my fucking question. Are you fucking ready now?”

  “Jesus. That mouth, Val. You kiss your baby with those lips.”

  She punched him hard on the arm, “Answer the fucking question,” she screamed.

  “Maybe,” he said, looking at her seriously.

  Valerie Samson looked at Edward Wheelwright. Humph. How to proceed? Push it. No. Rub it in, same old procrastination. Yes, but no. Probe? Yes. “What happened?” she said caringly at first. Then she asked it again with a little more vinegar, “What happened with you and little Miss San Juan?”

  “It wasn’t Miss San Juan,” Edward said a little defensively, then in keeping with their openness, “just little Miss Mountain Town.”

  “What happened, Edward?” her voice now raised in a sing-song way.

  “I think she slept with Sebastian.”

  “She would cheat on you? With Sebastian? Ugh!” she said disgustedly.

  “That’s my Val,” he said, smiling at her way of phrasing it.

  “Well, I agree he’s got more money than God, but he’s so full of himself and his do-goodness that he couldn’t piss if he didn’t have a valet or chauffer to help him.

  “Val, it’s Sebastian,” he protested.

  “I know.”

  “When did you feel that way about him?” Wheelwright said, genuinely surprised.

  “How about forever,” she offered.

  “Always?

  “Always!” she repeated. “He was too good for anyone. Even his “magnificent seven.”

  “Magnificent seven?” he wondered where Val got that from.

  “You guys were always so funny with your Brunswick thing. There were other people on the earth, and some of us thought you were pretty great without the group thing.”

  “But the group is about loyalty and friendship.”

  “Tell me I didn’t just hear that. Sebastian. Santa. Same bed. Loyalty. Wrong word, Eddie. If Sebastian didn’t have you boys for play things he’d still be home sucking Mrs. Ball’s tit.”

  “When we leave here, you’re going straight to confession,” he said.

  “When we leave here, we’re going straight to bed,” she said.

  Chapter 55

  And they did. Metaphorically. The desire returned—it remained, untouched with time, reawakened.

  “Let’s go,” Edward said, standing now, starting to pant.

  Smiling, Valerie said, “Where?”

  “In back of the secret garden, the old mansion tower.”

  She knew the spot, she laughed and got up. She kissed him. “You’re so creative,” and touched his cheek.

  “There are times when expediency means something. I figure you’d understand.”

  They left their beach gear on the sand, took the blanket, and got into Edward’s BMW and drove to the southern end of the peninsula and up a narrow path by the cow barn. They walked through the secret garden, a walled rectangle that looked out from a bluff over the sound and the sailing club below. They followed a path into the woods stopping to kiss and grope, gaining heat as they progressed down the path and then back up to the plateau that was all that remained of the Tod mansion, except for a round twenty-five-foot stone turret at the rear of the plateau. It had an open entrance that curled in a half circle enclosing visitors from view. The stone masons that Tod had brought in from Italy to build his estate had even included a cantilevered bench, that was a slab of stone imbedded in the turret’s walls and that now found itself supporting a prone Valerie Samson, who was beneath Edward Wheelwright, on the beach blanket.

  The bathing suits had come off quicker this time than they did the first time the couple explored this space nine years ago.

  Nothing had changed. The passion, the love making, the meeting of pounding bodies all remained intense, only more so now by the desperation of the woman and the timely rediscovery by the man. And when they reached the climax to the reignition of what had always been torrid love making, they could hear the voices of children approaching the plateau.

  They laughed and dressed quickly and retraced the path back toward the car, passing two pre-teen boys along the way. The boys turned to look at Valerie’s body and giggled to themselves. Valerie and Edward smiled at each other.

  “They would have got quite an education if they came along two minutes earlier,” she said, her arm around Edward’s waist.

  “Naw, I’d have scared the shit out of them if they got too close.”

  “With a growl or that big thing in your pants?”

  Edward laughed as he continued to be reminded how fast Valerie was in any situation and how she always kept him happy. She was right, he told himself. It wasn’t that he was procrastinating on their future. It was a damn accident, a confluence of incidents: finding his father’s papers that he had paid for Val’s college, learning about his father’s affair with Val’s mother, and being in Paris, couple of days of partial downtime, meets an exciting and beautiful girl. He owed Valerie for the way he ended their relationship—their engagement, their planned life, their friendship—and that was why there had been no contact for the two years even though they were in the same business, in the same city.

  When they reached the BMW, Valerie pressed up against Edward. “Eddie, I want you again,” she said looking up at him, the passion not yet subsided.

  “Me too, Val,” he said. And then putting his arms around her he said he was sorry. “You should hate me, but you don’t. I shouldn’t have returned your call. I don’t deserve to be in your life.” He kissed her, and he remembered what it felt like to care deeply, sy
mpathetically, lovingly for someone. The girl he had loved his whole life, who had promised to be his wife, and who he dismissed so easily was now standing before him. He thought, this moment should remain. They kissed again.

  The moment was interrupted as a group of boys and girls came up the path from the cow barn that was now used for sailing lessons and boat and sail storage.

  “That’s twice with the kids,” he said.

  “I can stay over,” Valerie said. He looked startled, and then smiled, always a surprise—this girl.

  “What about your husband?”

  “He’s fine. He’s out of town, our nanny is with my baby, and I’m in the city with a girlfriend.”

  “And what if I didn’t say, ‘Maybe?’” he said with a laugh.

  “But you did,” and she punched him in the stomach.

  “Let’s go take a swim.”

  They swam in the chilly, late spring water of the Sound. They raced; they played in the water as they had as teenagers. Val’s bikini top came off, and she quickly pulled it back up. “It’s a tanning suit, not a swim suit,” she told the admiring Edward.

  As they toweled off by the beach chairs, from a distance a person would have thought Edward and Valerie were a happily married couple. They held hands as they emerged from the water, smiling, drying each other, hugging, spreading out beside each other on the blanket on their stomachs, looking at each other as they talked, constantly smiling and laughing.

  The girl was back in the woman. In an afternoon she had been given her spirit back.

  They rolled over and were on their backs on the blanket now, her head resting on his arm. “Where will we spend the night?” she asked, following it with a suggestion, “How about that sleazy hotel in Stamford by Exit 9.”

  “How about my house?” he offered, “I’ve kept my space in the guesthouse.”

  She smiled. “That would be very nice, Eddie.”