by Sonia Taitz
Dave Biddle-Kammerman, Esq.
Instead of immediately responding, Abigail found herself calling Tim. Back in New York, she had thought the relationship was moving too quickly. Here, in Grenada, she’d tried to focus only on her work. But Mrs. MacAdam, so weak and yet so fierce, had tapped some longings in Abigail. What was that about? Maybe it was the dowager’s talk about her faithless husband, or the way Cora-Lee was now there to cater to her every need. Tim was a good man, Abigail realized. He’d been single-mindedly loyal to her. He seemed to really care about her. In her motherless world, she was his baby. He had asked for nothing in return. Tim was a gift, plain and simple.
It was early, about seven in the morning. The sun was bright and warm, another gift. Like the food Tim prepared for her, undeserved and deeply needed.
The answering machine came on. When the beep sounded, Abigail said: “Tim, I don’t even know why I’m calling. I’m supposed to be working on a pressing bit of litigation, right? But I’m tired and I’d rather be with you than with anyone or anything else, because you care about me. I mean, I’m beginning to feel that you do.”
Tim picked up his end.
“You know I do.”
“Do you miss me?”
“I’ve taken my first Lamaze class without you, and believe me, a man alone at Lamaze is a lonely, lonely man.”
“Oh, Tim, that was brave.”
“It was actually kind of fun. There are some characters there. And the teacher’s a real pistol.”
“Uh-huh.”
Abigail had gotten back into her king-size bed. She wore a long white T-shirt that said “Sun-Waves-Fun” in citrus colors, the word “waves” billowing out over her ripe stomach.
“Abigail, you really should take this stuff more seriously, this birthing stuff. You really shouldn’t miss classes.”
“OK, I know, but I had to go down, and right now, I—I want you to come down here and be with me. I need you.” She was surprised at herself. She’d admitted something. Even Tim seemed to freeze for a bit, before he hurtled on forward:
“All right, let me think, today is Wednesday, and I can get away until—well, Saturday’s my mini-publishing session for the kids, and the next class is on Monday—”
“Which class?”
“Birthing class, and you’re going with me this time!”
“I’ll do whatever you want if you just come now.”
“Let me hang up and I’ll check Travelocity.”
“No, wait a minute—Tim?”
“What?”
“Nothing.” Abigail was trying to say she cared about him, too; she was reaching for some loving words.
“What?”
“See you soon.”
That was all she could say. Despite everything, Richard Trubridge stuck in her mind, a phantom husband. It had been years since she’d first laid eyes on him, but certain moments had a way of sticking—and somehow, maddeningly, didn’t get displaced by what happened later.
So Abigail kept seeing an incomparable man walking through the halls of the firm, tall and serious, earnest as Abraham Lincoln. She kept hearing his voice, low and rich, as he stood in the library asking for a Supreme Court amicus brief, just before he had come to her aid.
At the time, she remembered, he had practiced a subset of family law involving custody disputes. Caught up in her own field, crushed by her workload, she had tried not to think too much about him, at least not in a “crush” way. Anyway, office romances were frowned upon, particularly those between associates and partners. But her excitement had always dwelled as much on his presence as on his potential as a mate for her. Richard Trubridge just seemed to have gravitas—a moral seriousness, the weight of conviction. There seemed to be a meaning and purpose to his life.
Abigail and her mother had loved watching Jimmy Stewart movies together, films in which he stood up for what was right. Richard had something of that persona to him, the modest everyman who is anything but ordinary.
What Tina had mentioned about Richard’s professional disgrace was a painful contrast to these musings. Yes, he had left the firm under a dark cloud. There were whispers about some controversy—a client dropped in the middle of litigation, evidence hidden—and then Richard’s name was blackened. He had seemed to disappear for a while. But somehow, these people never fully did. They remorphed, and the more sociopathic they were, the better they were at reemerging, in new form, demonstrably strong as ever.
When the new, improved Richard Trubridge had shown up at the resort in Palm Springs, he didn’t have the air of a black sheep. No, he was a conquering hero, greeted by the senior Fletcher colleagues with a deferential friendliness. If they and he had history, there was no overt sign of it now. Now he was a partner at Murdock & Hill, a larger firm than the one he’d left, and he seemed to have no worries about what anyone at Abigail’s firm thought of him. Certainly not about what she thought. Why would he? Why would she matter? Abigail had been, in his world, just a kid, a novice. And compared to Richard Trubridge at the top of his career, she still was.
Abigail had not placed him immediately. First, there had been only the sense that she knew him from somewhere in her past. Those new (to her) Peter Sellers frames had thrown her off—and the fact that his hair, so short before, now sexily tickled the collar of his polo shirt. Furthermore, she had never seen Richard without his three-piece suit, a navy blue pin-striped costume of authority. But that slow, loping walk, as he took her around the links, seemed familiar. His scent tugged at her heart—bay rum and cloves. And his thrilling, low, sensuous voice was the same.
But it was his touch that defined him. It was when he had lain there, vulnerable, in his hotel bed, no glasses, myopic, that she had begun to retrieve the feelings she had once had for Richard Trubridge—and then some. Though she did not remember ever seeing his hands at the firm, Abigail had always known that his fingers would be finely carved. They were, and they had moved gently over her that night in Palm Springs. He had caressed her in a way that no other man had ever done. Tenderly, with curiosity.
Abigail had, perhaps, wanted to fall fully in love with him now that she was older. The age gap was much less important—less than ten years, and what did that mean in the larger scheme of her now longer life? And he worked at a different firm. No obstacles, then. Abigail had stepped to the ledge of her feelings. She had almost begun to fall, and it would have been a huge drop, because she felt like she was falling from a height.
But to Trubridge, of course, she would always be just a “funny creature,” to use his own words. Had he meant them disparagingly? Was he saying that he could never take her seriously? And how could he, when it turned out he was married? That call on the phone. That really hurt. No, she wasn’t in “big” love, not yet, but she was connected, too far gone not to care. It was too late to hear him say “honey” to someone else without feeling left out and ashamed. Abigail was pretty sure he’d been single while at Fletcher, but she should have realized that a man like that—with prestige; a good, solid income; and that deep, quiet attractiveness—would eventually marry and have a family. She should have realized that he’d send them kisses over the phone when he traveled away to Palm Springs. Even if he was with her, for a time. She didn’t really count at all.
And of course Abigail would now feel, when she thought of Richard, wounded and abandoned. He didn’t know he had left her this way, pregnant and longing, and he didn’t need to know, either. Let him remember her as the hard, plucky lawyer, out for a bit of sport. His ignorance of her true state gave her the only victory she could savor—a form of one-upmanship. With that slight advantage, Abigail determined not to think of Trubridge too much. She would put their tawdry little escapade behind her.
How lucky she was to have Tim now, someone who cared, who would come when she called him, no matter how impulsively.
When, after his long journey, Tim arrived from New York, Abigail was determined to unwind. After all, there she was, in the sultry Caribbean. S
he had flown down on short notice and worked hard.
She was still working until the minute Tim knocked on her door. Papers all around her in her room. He took them from her and said, almost severely:
“It is now officially time to spoil yourself.”
“What’s that in your hand?”
“Planter’s punch. They gave it to me in the lobby.”
“Mmm—looks good. I never got one.”
“You probably ran in reading a memo and missed the tray. Anyway, you can’t have it. I’ll get you a lemonade, though. And then we’re going down to the beach. No, you know what? You can order one down there—let’s go.”
“Can I at least put on my flip-flops?”
The ocean waves, like sighs of relief, had helped Abigail surrender. As Tim sat drinking on a chaise, she had tossed off her flip-flops, walking barefoot into the water and letting it carry and cool her. The next day, she bought a cheap snorkel set from the hotel gift shop. Now she floated, breathing through the little J-shaped tube. She could hear herself breathe, in and out, a living creature like the ones around her.
Under the water, slowly, life emerged. First a few small fish, dotted like leopards, and then a school of angelfish, turquoise and brilliant yellow. They glanced at her, then flicked away, some circling back to look again. As Abigail parted the water with her arms, more fish appeared, darting amidst the coral. Her heaviness lifting, a screen parted, revealing hidden treasures that gracefully changed. Abigail was hypnotized, succumbing to the embryonic beauty below the surface.
12
While Abigail snorkeled, Tim had a few more planter’s punches. He was getting to like them, but the climate really jacked up the potency, he thought. Was that a good thing? Sure. He considered going to bed for a brief siesta. The Caribbean sun was blistering. Better to go inside than bake on the chaise. Abigail would be OK in the water—he’d never seen her so relaxed. If only she could sustain that feeling. . . .
He was a little disappointed that he and Abigail had separate rooms at the hotel. She had thought it best to appear professional—what if Jackson, the investigator, were to visit and see a strange young man in her bed? She was on a business trip. Anyway, Abigail wasn’t sleeping with Tim, so why give the wrong impression? If they shared a room, even the maids would think he was her husband. And on some level, despite his willingness to coach the birth, maybe Abigail didn’t think Tim should be taken for the baby’s real father.
Tim pondered his months-long history with Abigail. Where was it all going? And why on earth did he stand for it? She was typical of her type—the up-and-comers. They always, always cared about their image. Maybe his career wasn’t showy enough for her. How ridiculous. How sad. These things put space between people.
He didn’t need to be a corporate type—leave that to his father and his brother. Rich, entitled, self-important, hard. They felt themselves to be real men, while people like him were—well, weak. They had never—no one had ever—seen the real him, and business clothes would only have obscured him more. He’d have fit in, vanishing into his class. He’d have fit the bill, as the awful saying goes.
I don’t have to wear that yuppie drag, that ruling-class mufti, he thought, bristling. Clothes didn’t make the truly elite, the seasoned Anglo American man. Who should be free to wear comfort and ease if not him, born to privilege? When someone like Abigail dressed casually, she’d probably be taken for the au pair or the maid. It wasn’t just the curves or the curls—she was on the smallish side, too. No more than five-foot-four, barefoot.
Yes, this one was vulnerable. Her cross-examination style—the sort of thing she’d subjected him to on the day they’d met, was a put-on, he sensed. The clothing, too. Her typical corporate disguise. She wanted to look like a Meredith from Greenwich, a Kristin from Darien, but there had been “tells” everywhere his eyes had lingered. The way her breasts swelled—they must have been big even before the pregnancy. And the dusky sheen to her skin, that touch of olive below. That’s why he’d guessed she was Latin—and hoped she’d have a lilting name like Esperanza, Dulce, Sofia. Hispanic or not, Abigail had such large brown eyes, the kind that stopped his breath. The tears he’d sometimes caught in them—the subtle shades of weakness—had moved him even more than her frailty, so bravely disguised. Yes, underneath it all, this was a fragile woman, an aeolian harp through which the winds made lovely, captivating music.
Tim wondered if Abigail’s vulnerability included this pregnancy. Was it actually planned, the way everything else in her life seemed to be? She had said so little about it, keeping her own counsel in that prim manner she often attempted. Given her personality, maybe Abigail was actually one of those women who, reaching a certain age, firmly decided to have a baby, no matter what. But why hadn’t she just waited a little longer, until the partnership was in the bag? And why had she obeyed the simple biological clock? These days, there were smarter choices. Couldn’t she have frozen her eggs, or just gone to Somalia and picked up a sibling group?
That solo, oddly timed pregnancy, if nothing else, spoke of a deliciously daring nature. And if—as it seemed—it was an accident, it spoke of impulsivity at best, sloppiness at worst. Tim found all this alluring, Abigail’s not being all in control, no matter how hard she tried. That’s what made her worth the wait.
And suddenly Tim, too, felt out of control. Trying to stand up, he found that he wasn’t all that stable on his feet. It’s definitely time for a lie-down, he thought, stumbling as he rose from the chaise and knocking a glass off his cocktail table. Ice and a small umbrella fell to the ground, and Tim stepped around them as carefully as he could.
As he attempted to walk, a beautiful young woman, a servant, rushed over and asked him if he needed anything. In his current inebriated state, that seemed such a lovely, sweet invitation. Tim smiled affectionately at her. He could see her trying not to smile back. To her, he knew, he was a handsome, rich American. A golden boy, kissed by the sun. But to him, she was nothing less than an angel. The idea of their service, these girls, these women, so selfless …
“What did you say, mi amor?” he found himself saying, in the old language of his favorite nanny.
The waitress stood before him.
“I ask you if you need something, anything? Maybe another drink?”
So wonderful, he thought. Serving the food, bringing in the clean towels. Some woman smoothed his bed in the morning, some girl opened it at night, leaving foil-covered chocolates on the pillow. They were wishing him sweet dreams—that’s what the notes they left said. What was he dreaming of now? The cool motherly hand, like tonic, on his brow. Checking for fever. Soothing the pain. Taking away all the wrath of the sun.
“Actually,” said Tim, swiping off his sunglasses and peering off in the general direction of the hotel. “Could you possibly help me get up to my room? I seem to have drunk a little bit more than I meant to.”
“Let me get these orders to those people over there,” said the waitress, cocking her head toward the full tray of colorful drinks on her shoulder. “I’ll come back.”
Tim waited for her, watching the dark-skinned employees race about, making white folks happy.
“OK, now,” said the woman, returning, breathless, looking at her watch. “I’m off for ten minutes. Where your room’s at?”
“It’s no more than a few yards away, there, by the main house. Ground floor, kind of by the hammock thing? Near the big coconut tree, you know?”
“I think so. You can walk a little?”
“I’ll try.…”
As she gave him her elbow, Tim thought, again, of Abigail, and the day she had fallen. He had picked her up and restored her, and here she was, letting go and finally having some fun. He had not wanted to call out to her, seeing how happy she was snorkeling in the ocean. It was so rare to see Abigail surrender, to just let go. She deserved this time in the sunshine. As for him, he wanted nothing but shade and darkness. Like this lady on his arm, this sweetly subservient woman. The r
eassuring dun shade of this woman’s soft skin.
“This way, right?” said the waitress.
“Yes, that’s it. We’re almost there. Hang on. OK, there it is, there’s the door, the, wait … the next one. Could you—could you do the key? I’m just a little wobbly here.”
Taking the key card from Tim’s hand, the woman opened the door into his large, airy room. A ceiling fan turned slowly over a huge bed draped in swirls of aqua and coral. Tim kicked off his flip-flops, raced to the bed and tumbled onto it, face forward.
“Ahhh … Thanks so, so much,” he murmured into the cool, smooth bedspread.
The woman stood near him as though expecting something.
“So kind of you,” said Tim, turning over on his back and propping himself up on an elbow to look at her. He knew she probably wanted a tip, but he could do better than that.
“Did you say you were having a break?” he said. “Do you want something? I can order in.”
“Room service take longer than my break to come here,” she replied.
“OK, well, at least have a cold beer from my bar, how’s that? Always getting drinks for everyone. You must get thirsty yourself.”
“No, I’m all right,” she insisted, but Tim sensed some hesitation in her voice.
“Take something. Key’s over there, next to the coffee maker. That’s right,” he said, as the woman knelt down at the mini fridge. She took out a Heineken.
“Expensive,” she said.
“Yes, it’s imported from Holland.”
“Never had one. Never really drink much, anyway. Not in the day.”
“Well, enjoy it!”
“It’s good cold,” she said, snapping open the top and taking a long draught of the beer. “Like how I serve you guests here.”
“Well, be my guest,” said Tim, patting the bed near him. “Come on, it’s OK. Sit down and relax.” He heard himself sound like he did with Abigail. Why was everyone else so stressed? Why was he always the one who showed them how to let go?