“So he pulled the same thing on you!” Holly said. “It’s impressive, actually. He must have seen right away that there was something between us.”
They sat in silence, brooding on Jonathan’s cunning and treachery.
“Well,” said Peter finally, “I can’t really blame him. After all, he was just trying to hold on to you.”
Peter and Holly remained on the sofa for a long time, kissing and caressing each other, and listening over and over to a certain album that just happened to be in the CD player. Then they moved on. Now a gray glow seeped out around the edges of the curtains in Holly’s bedroom. The curtains themselves, the bedclothes, the upholstery on the chaise, the high and low chests, the wallpaper, the paintings, all made for a monochromatic tableau. Holly’s head, though, lying on Peter’s shoulder, and her bare arm, lying across his bare chest, were close enough so that Peter could perceive their hues: the hair a muted blond with caramel top notes, the arm a pinkish beige over a white undercoat. It was about five-thirty in the morning. Oddly, it all seemed to have followed directly from that meeting on the plane all those years ago. Peter had difficulty remembering what had happened in the meantime.
Holly stirred, resettled herself while tightening her embrace of him, and let out a shallow, savoring sigh. A few minutes later, she shivered. Her eyes blinked open and she raised her head.
“Hello,” Peter said.
“Hi.”
Holly propped herself up on her elbow. She stroked the side of Peter’s face with her other hand.
“Holly,” Peter said.
“Yes?”
“Will you marry me?”
Holly wore a big smile. “Yes,” she said.
They kissed tenderly and for quite a while lay awake holding on to each other tightly before falling asleep again.
Something had to be done about Arthur, of course. Holly called him later that morning, and, hearing that she was better, he wanted to take her out to dinner, but she said that she wanted to come by his house in the evening and discuss something with him. So, sitting in the small study, she told him then that there was someone else, and he took it well, very much the gentleman, but he couldn’t hide his disappointment. “He was sweet and noble,” she said to Peter later that night. Holly had predicted that he would not allow her to tell him anything about his rival, and he hadn’t. “That’s none of my business, Holly. I only hope that he is worthy of you.”
When Peter arrived at work the morning after Holly had her conversation with Arthur, he had a message from Miss Harrison: Arthur wanted to see him. Peter sighed.
Here it comes, he thought. Now that Holly has dumped him, there’s no reason to keep me around. How honorable of Arthur to do the job himself. Maybe I should beat him to it and resign. God knows, when he learns about Holly and me, he’ll want my head. Well, none of it matters! Holly is in love with me! And as long as Holly loves me, I don’t care if I’m fired! I don’t care if I starve! I don’t care if my entrails are burnt with a hot poker!
As long as Holly loves me.
Peter sneezed and blew his nose—he had come down with a bad head cold—and set off for Arthur’s “aerie.” Once again, Miss Harrison met him on the sixty-third floor and led him to Arthur. When they entered his office, he was leaning against his desk with his arms crossed, lost in thought.
“Mr. Beeche,” Miss Harrison said. “Here is Mr. Russell.”
Beeche looked up with a halfhearted smile. “Ah, Peter, yes,” he said. “Thanks for coming up.” He held out his hand.
“Hello, Arthur,” said Peter. “I better not shake your hand. I’ve got a pretty bad cold.”
“You sound terrible.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing serious.”
They sat as they had before, Peter on the sofa, Arthur in an armchair. They had a brief, desultory chat about a report they had both seen on the huge number of engineering undergraduates in Mexico.
“Can I offer you anything?” Arthur asked. “Coffee? Water?”
“No, thank you.”
“Peter,” Arthur said, “there are a couple of things I want to discuss with you. First, I called you this morning because—and I can’t help but remember the last time we sat here—because Holly and I had a talk last night. I don’t know if you have spoken to her. We had a talk last night, and we’ve decided—” He looked up and rolled his eyes. “‘We’ve’! Whom am I kidding! She has decided that it would be best for us to be friends but no more than that.” He winced. “Apparently, she’s in love with somebody else.” He stopped there, deep in thought.
Meanwhile, Peter’s hands were sweating and his tie had begun to strangle him. He girded himself and finally managed to speak. “Yes, Arthur,” he said. “Holly did mention that.” He girded himself some more. “Arthur, there’s something I think you should know—”
Arthur held up both hands. “No, Peter, no. I don’t want to know anything.”
“But—”
“Please. We’ll say no more about the matter. Except this: I want to tell you how grateful I am to you for bringing Holly into my life. I will always cherish our time together, and I want to thank you.”
“Arthur, really, it’s kind of you to say, but I don’t deserve any thanks.”
“You do, Peter, you do, and I do thank you.” He straightened up. “And now the subject is closed.”
“But, Arthur—”
“No, Peter. I’m going to have to insist. No more on that. I shall never speak of it again.” He looked at Peter sternly. Peter opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, making noises in his throat, but Arthur stared him down.
“And now,” Arthur said, adopting a businesslike tone, “there is another important item on the agenda. It has to do with your future at the firm.”
“Oh, that,” said Peter. “I suppose you’re going to fire me. If I could only explain—”
Arthur held up his hand. “I think I’d better explain first.”
Surprised, Peter settled back to listen.
“When I talked to Gregg Thropp about this project you had been working on with Mac McClernand, he said some things that simply didn’t jibe with what I knew about you and that seemed especially inconsistent as I’ve gotten to know you a bit better. I’ve never trusted Thropp, so I’ve been doing some checking. He suggested that I call Rich Hooper and Andrea Larsen to ask about a presentation you gave that apparently went poorly. Well, they did say that it was not a very good meeting.”
“I know, but—”
Arthur held up his hand again. “Please, I think you will be interested in what I have to say. Well, Rich and Andrea described your idea to me, and I must say, I found it fascinating.”
“You did?”
“Yes, and for all the reasons you mentioned I was particularly impressed with your analysis of the risks in the mortgage market. I’ve been thinking along the same lines. Certainly, implementing your idea would be a huge and complicated undertaking. But I want to pursue it.”
“You do?”
“Yes. Now, as for this McClernand business. Thropp told me that the project was your idea, that you had asked to work with McClernand, and that you had kept what you were doing a secret. Well, of course, Mac is at that place up in Connecticut now and they have him under sedation most of the time, but I did manage to talk to him at a moment when he was fairly lucid.” Arthur stopped and looked off. “Mac McClernand,” he said. “It may be hard to believe now, but Mac once really had something. I will never forget, years ago, when Seth and I had a very big and, we thought, very clever trade going. We were short a company’s bonds and long their stock. As soon as he learned of it, Mac undid our positions, and we even made a little money. But he chewed us out royally and told us all the ways it could have gone wrong. Over the next few weeks I looked on with horror as both the bonds and the stock moved in the wrong directions. We would have lost millions. If we had had to face my father …!” Arthur shuddered and laughed quietly, then turned back to Peter. “In any event, Mac
told me that it was his brainstorm, and that Thropp had sent you to him. Mac also said that in the fall he had explained the whole idea to Thropp.”
“Yes,” said Peter. “That’s right.”
“Well, perhaps you can tell me the whole story.”
Peter blew his nose and took a deep breath. “All right. Thropp hates my guts. I don’t know why. Nothing accounts for it. But he decided to torment me.”
“Of course. Gratuitous sadism,” Arthur said. “Go on.”
“At first he was very friendly. I had told him a little bit about my idea, and he said he wanted me to give a low-key, very rough presentation to just a few other people. I was shocked when I walked in and saw who was there and the expectations he had raised. A couple of his protégés had obviously been briefed ahead of time and they attacked me. Afterward, Thropp said he was assigning me to McClernand, hoping to damage my reputation further. For one reason or another, I had lost my protectors, but he still didn’t think he could justify firing me, and anyway, he wanted to watch me suffer. When Mac told him what we were doing, he was ecstatic.”
“I see,” said Arthur. “But why didn’t you find some underhanded method to get back at Thropp?”
“I—I don’t know,” Peter said. “I considered various options but not that one.”
“You should always stab people like Thropp in the back, Peter. It’s good for you, it’s good for the firm, and, most important, it’s good for humanity.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well,” Arthur said, “this is all much as I expected.” He punched a button on a nearby phone.
“Sir?”
“Miss Harrison, I’m afraid that by about ten o’clock this morning, Gregg Thropp will have decided to leave Beeche and Company in order to spend more time with his family. You’ll take care of the details, won’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And let’s call around. It would be dishonorable for us not to warn others about Mr. Thropp, even our competitors, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you, Miss Harrison. That’s all.”
“Very good, sir.” She rang off.
Arthur smiled at Peter. “When we’re through, Thropp won’t even be able to work as a bank teller in Mud Flap, Arkansas.” He laughed. “‘Mud Flap.’ Not bad. Quite funny, don’t you think? I just made that up.” Arthur chuckled again, pleased with himself. “Now, then,” he continued, “with Thropp gone, it raises the question of who should replace him. I wonder if you had any ideas?”
“Let’s see,” Peter said. “Of course, it would be presumptuous of me even to make a suggestion, but wouldn’t Kearney make sense? Or Poschl?”
“Fine choices,” Arthur said. “Excellent candidates. But I had someone else in mind.”
“Oh?” said Peter.
Pausing dramatically, Arthur looked at Peter with a knowing grin. “Yes, Peter, I was wondering if you would be interested in Thropp’s job.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“Gregg Thropp’s job?”
“Yes.”
Gregg Thropp’s job! This would be a big jump and would result in a huge increase in Peter’s bonus. People like Jonathan or Charlotte, and even Holly—they could never understand how it felt to get a big promotion and raise. Peter could hardly believe what he was hearing.
“So,” Arthur said. “What do you say?”
“What do I say? Yes! Definitely, of course! I’m thrilled and honored, Arthur, truly—”
“Terrific!” said Arthur. “You’ll be good at it.” Arthur stood up and offered his hand, and Peter stood and took it. “Congratulations!” Arthur said.
“Thank you, Arthur,” said Peter, “thank you!” He tried to sound enthusiastic, but his face had suddenly fallen.
Arthur pumped Peter’s arm. “And you thought you were going to be fired!” he said, laughing. “Fired!”
“Um, Arthur?”
“Yes?”
“There is something I need to tell you,” Peter said. “There’s something I need to tell you, and when I do, well, when I do you just might want to change your mind, about this job offer, I mean.”
Arthur’s smile vanished. “Whatever do you mean?” he asked.
“Maybe we’d better sit down,” Peter said, and they did so.
“Sorry, just a second.” Peter sneezed. “Sorry.” He straightened his tie and cleared his throat. Arthur, stolid and unruffled but deeply puzzled, tilted his head to one side.
“Well, now, aherm … ah, Arthur, you know that subject we were talking about earlier—?”
“You mean Holly and me? I told you, Peter, I do not wish to discuss it.” Arthur did not raise his voice, he did not even sharpen it, but his words came with the force of heavy ordnance.
“Yes,” said Peter. “I know. And I respect that, I do. But, you see, Arthur, there is just one thing that I really think you ought to know. Believe me.”
Arthur stared at Peter sternly, but after a moment, he relented. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll listen to what you have to say.”
“Good. Well.” Peter shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. “Well, now, Arthur. As you were saying, according to Holly, there is apparently a person toward whom she has feelings that are the kind of feelings … feelings of a romantic nature, I guess you’d call them, that, she says, she doesn’t necessarily have toward you, notwithstanding her desire, her strong desire, that you and she remain the very best of friends.”
“That’s correct.”
Peter tried to put on his most winning smile. “It’s a funny thing, isn’t it, how life takes its twists and turns? Quite a funny thing!” He let out a nervous laugh, then composed himself. “So, Arthur, what I wanted to say, you see, that other person? That other person Holly was talking about, the one toward whom she does have those feelings of what I guess you’d call a romantic nature?”
“Yes?”
“Well, actually, that person happens to be me, actually”
Now Peter saw all of Arthur’s tremendous latent power seem to gather and concentrate within him. What a large man he was! His great brow empurpled with displeasure.
“You!” Arthur cried.
“Er … yes.”
“You!”
“That’s right, Arthur. I’m sorry. It goes back a long time. We just hadn’t understood about each other until the other night. We’ve been in love for years.”
Arthur’s whole body seemed to bulge like that of a superhero in mufti preparing to switch identities. Peter braced himself, preparing to be smashed either by Arthur’s fist or by a blast of gamma rays.
“The other night,” Arthur said. “So that’s where you ran off to?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s when you figured out that you’d been in love with each other all along?”
“Yes,” said Peter.
“I see,” said Arthur. He stared at Peter as if on the verge of attack, but then all of a sudden stood down. He leaned back in his chair, and his muscles relaxed. For a full minute he sat there nodding his head, lost in thought.
“My wife, Maria, died ten years ago,” he said finally “I loved her very much, and I was inconsolable for a long time. The fact is, I’ve never really gotten over it. But after a couple of years, everyone thought that I should start taking women out. ‘You shouldn’t be alone’ and all that. I agreed. But what a miserable experience it was. So I gave up. I still missed Maria. I felt very lonely, but trying to find a new wife just made that worse. Being alone wasn’t all that bad, I told myself. You can get a fantastic amount of work done, for one thing.
“Well, for a while now, I’ve noticed something changing inside me. I haven’t stopped loving Maria, but I’ve begun to think that I would like to find someone. Then, when I met Holly that night, it was as if a whole side of life that had turned to ash had been rekindled.” Arthur smiled at this memory.
“I’ve been very happy during these past few weeks,” he continued.
“I allowed myself to dream that it would never end. But at the same time, I think deep down I knew that Holly had committed her heart elsewhere. I certainly had no idea to whom, but if I had been more astute I might have figured it out.”
He punched the button on the phone again.
“Sir?”
“Miss Harrison, I have a question for you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“In the time that you have known Mrs. Speedwell, who would you say is the person whom she has talked about the most?”
“That’s an easy question to answer,” said Miss Harrison. “It would be Mr. Russell. I have often noted this”
“I agree,” said Arthur. “Broadening our inquiry, now, Miss Harrison, to consider subjects of all kinds, which would you say is the one to which Mrs. Speedwell most invariably returns?”
“Also easy: that would, again, be Mr. Russell.”
“Quite so,” said Arthur. “Thank you, Miss Harrison.”
“Not at all.”
Arthur rang off and shook his head and laughed softly. “‘Peter says …’ ‘That reminds me of once when Peter …’ ‘If Peter were here …’ Holly was always saying something like that. I never thought much about it, only that she might have been trying to give you a boost with me. That goes to show how wrapped up in yourself you become in situations like these.
“Well, Peter, I’m happy for her and I’m happy for you, too. Or I will be in about twenty years.”
Peter had to blow his nose again. “Thanks, Arthur,” he said when he was done. “Thanks for being so understanding.”
“Oh, and about my offer,” Arthur said.
“Yes?”
“You’ve barged into my house and assaulted me, and now I learn that you’ve stolen my girl. And I’m still going to give you a much bigger job and a lot more money. I’ll have to ask Miss Harrison to watch me closely. I may belong with Mac McClernand.”
Holly and Peter’s wedding took place on a warm, bright day in May. It had not taken too long to settle Peter and Charlotte’s divorce, as amicable and straightforward as it was. Charlotte had laughed when she finally told Peter that some of her histrionics had been for his benefit, since she did not want him to have any suspicion that she was trying to help him. (Charlotte and Maximilien-François-Marie-Isidore were married at his ancestral seat just days after the decree was final. As a wedding trip they spent a week visiting the sites of some of the bloodiest clashes during the Vendée, which was one of Maximilien-François-Marie-Isidore’s passions.)
Love In the Air Page 40