Yvetta shuffled into her bedroom and briefly hunted around for the box of letters. She didn’t find it immediately. Some things are better left where they are, she told herself, shutting the closet door.
The phone was ringing again. She ignored it and went back out to the porch. It was well after eight o’clock in the evening. Nobody would be ringing her line with good news and she didn’t have the stomach for anything bad.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The storm hit just as the sun docked over the city. The September sky was gray and thunder clapped in the distance as the warm rain fell. The street below was barely visible through the dense, lingering fog. Etienne sat alone in the large, wood-paneled conference room, sipping a vanilla latte. She watched the rain fall against the large window, suddenly uneasy with her decision. Wynn Finlayson was stuck in court a few blocks away and decidedly late for his three o’clock appointment. She tapped her watch and settled in further. The rain was coming down in thick white sheets now. For a moment, she wanted to give in, to go home and start again.
She glanced at her watch. The Patek Philippe that adorned her wrist had been a Christmas gift from Jack. The Golden Eclipse had cost more than ten thousand dollars. She unsnapped the clasp and stared at the inscription on the back of the face. “For now and always” it read, “12/25/97.”
There had been good years, she admitted to herself. And she wanted another Christmas morning with the boys, another holiday in Telluride watching Jack zoom down the slopes. She wanted for summers on Sea Island, evenings when she would sit between his knees and read from a shared novel while their sons played on the private stretch of beach. She wanted to listen to him quote Shakespeare in Spanish.
But more than anything else, she wanted for the days when he would stroke her hair with his long narrow fingers and remind her that he was hers. Jack adored what he called long “blow” hair. Etienne now regretted cutting hers. It never grew back longer than the base of her neck and he took the haircut as a slap in the face.
She missed her life, their life. It had been noticed that the Gabrielles no longer appeared together at various charitable functions.
The once-coveted invitation to the annual Swan Ball was soundly ignored. It had been years since they enjoyed a concert from a center orchestra table at the Chastain Amphitheatre or even took a decent vacation. The annual two-week stay on Sea Island had been pared down to four insufferable days. Jack and Etienne put on a charade of bliss to shield their sons from the disappointment. With this charade came obligatory sex. That’s what she called it these days.
It had started with some medical conference seven years ago. Etienne knew that Jack and Thandy had secretly boarded separate planes for Los Angeles. They had checked into the Beverly Hilton under assumed names. Etienne took account of the tryst and hurled an increasing mountain of accusations. She threw around words like shame and humiliation as she conveniently placed her own lengthy string of misdeeds into a neatly packed compartment of mitigating factors. Jack accused her of caring more about what good people thought than the state of the union. Divorce was served with breakfast each morning. The evening nightcap was peppered with further threats. All of which Jack seemed to summarily ignore. For a while, he didn’t come home until midnight, then two a.m., then four. These days she was lucky if he showed his face by noon the next day.
Etienne couldn’t decide whether sleeping alone was better than sleeping with a man who didn’t love her. Leaving now was as good a time as any. She absentmindedly took a sip of coffee; it was cold. There in the palatial offices of Hilder-brant, Finlayson, and Moss, her always was coming to an end. Jack hadn’t been home for more than a few hours at a time over the past few weeks. When he was, they ignored each other completely. It was over.
Wynn Finlayson arrived in the office flustered. He quickly composed himself and gave her a strong hug. The attorney had been a good friend over the years, a good person to call on such short notice. Wynn and Liddy Finlayson, one of only a few white couples with whom they had close relations, had often used the summerhouse and Liddy had been a fellow board member with the Junior League. In the early years, the women had volunteered together, hosting fundraisers for one worthy cause or another.
The men, Wynn and Jack, took off on a once a year “boys only” holiday, sometimes ice fishing in Alaska, sometimes white dove hunting in Mexico or skiing in Telluride. For a couple of years straight, the dynamic duo went down to Brazil to celebrate Carnivale and watch the pretty brown girls in spaghetti thongs. Mancations, they called them.
Etienne would not cry over what was lost, she told herself, but rather she would try to focus on what was before her. Life without Jack would be different. If it would be better, she could not say. Etienne had not allowed herself to imagine it.
At that moment, she wanted it all to be over. No drawn-out, traumatic trial, no property dispute. Just over. At five hundred dollars an hour, Finlayson was among the best good money could buy. He read through the paperwork, carefully giving counsel about the various legal issues. She scanned the boxes on the first page and checked the one next to “irreconcilable differences.”
She would get half of everything, Finlayson had advised. There would be nothing left for the presumed brood of whores Jack kept company with. If he put up a fight, she would add adultery, mental abuse, and abandonment to the filing, soiling the public reputation he so enjoyed.
“We have to list a date of separation,” Finlayson said.
“But we still live in the same house.”
“When did you last have sex?”
“What?”
“Legally,” Finlayson patiently explained, “that is your separation date.”
Etienne thought hard. “New Year’s Eve,” she said softly.
“Nine months ago?”
“No, last year. Twenty-one months. I suppose he was afraid I would get pregnant.”
Wynn had already heard the story of Etienne’s well-timed pregnancies from Jack. He also knew how she’d used the boys as anchors when the union teetered on rough seas.
“I know he’s hiding money somewhere. Can we find it?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I know he is.”
“He’s my friend, Etienne. As are you,” he advised. “But if the son of a bitch is hiding assets, I will find them. You’re my client.”
After the brief meeting, the soon-to-be-former Mrs. Etienne Renee Pulliam Gabrielle paid the handsome retainer and signed the formal petition for divorce. Finlayson loaned her an umbrella, just in case the rain picked up again, then walked her to the elevator. She got into a waiting car and went directly to Hartsfield-Jackson International, where she boarded a shuttle flight to the District. Bleary-eyed, overwhelmed, and stewing in grief, she ordered a vodka and tonic to numb the storm raging in her head, to quell the war in her spirit. She longed for the one place where she had been endlessly adored, fawned upon, and loved beyond measure. Another waiting town car ferried her through Washington on her passage to her childhood home.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Georgetown, which borders the Potomac, had been a burgeoning industrialized hub at the turn of the century. Flour mills and wharves were plentiful. Prosperity had flowed like sweet honey. While in the beginning tobacco had been the lifeblood of the city, commercial shipping soon erupted from the port, spilling the resulting wealth to all who came. The economic boom drew freed slaves, who migrated to the area in droves, many of whom were experienced tobacco processors, hailing from plantations in Virginia and North Carolina. By the late 1950s, when the Pulliam family settled there, the quarter was again fully alive with commerce. Hip coffeehouses and tearooms sprang from the shadows. Crumbling turn-of-the-century buildings were transformed into art galleries and haute couture boutiques.
Situated just off the square, the Pulliam townhouse was graciously furnished and boasted an expansive kitchen with a coveted butler’s pantry. There were three overly large bedrooms connected by narrow hallways, gentle r
eminders of the day in which the home was built. The interior was filled with well-kept pieces that had been picked up along the family’s travels abroad. Bought for a mere pittance on Bishop Pulliam’s then meager salary, the furnishings were now collectively worth more than the home itself. The brownstone had been purchased by the church for the bishop’s use while in office and gifted to him upon his retirement from the Baltimore-Washington United Methodist Conference.
Prior to his final assignment, Bishop Jean-Paul Pulliam served two districts with distinction, in Boston and Pittsburgh, before moving to Georgetown. In 1954, he took an extended sabbatical in France, where he met Helene Louise de Campis, a lay worker in the church. Years later, the couple married. A short time after that, Etienne Renee was born in the countryside just outside of Rouen, located a hundred or so miles northwesterly of Paris. The Pulliams moved into a spacious cottage just off Rue de Campulley. The family returned Stateside two years later to rejoin the Baltimore-Washington Conference where the bishop was installed. All told, he remained in service of the church for more than fifty years, which represented the entirety of his adult life.
He preached less frequently in his later years, giving only periodic sermons to host congregations across the district. Helene and Etienne joined him on most occasions. From the pulpit, he trumpeted the grace and mercy of Christ. God’s pleasure for those who lived in keeping with His will, to those who prayed without ceasing. He preferred to lay out the facts of the matter with simplicity in a methodical, instructive tone, as opposed to using flowery emotive language. As a child, Etienne would always become bored and fall asleep on the front pew.
When she had sat in her lawyer’s office, weighing the matter of her imminent divorce, Etienne’s father’s signature sermon replayed itself. As the plane descended, she could hear his deep baritone voice. She could almost see him standing proudly dressed in the long black robe.
“By His very nature, the Lord is relational,” he sounded from the podium, waving his thick hands over the crowd. “He delights in us when we treat one another well, when we live faithful, orderly lives. We glorify Him when we honor the bounds of marriage with our fidelity, when we keep our promises to our children and hold fast to His unchanging hand. The Good Book tells us even that it is unpleasant to Him when we quarrel with our brothers, that our disagreements should be settled on the way to the courthouse.”
The congregation clapped. Sparse, though politely fervent “amens” came from the gallery. Etienne yawned.
She’d heard the same sermon at least a dozen times before at other churches on other Sundays. At least she heard enough pieces to recognize it as the same. She always woke just as the benediction was recited. Never prone to ardent scolding, the bishop was usually silent on the ride home. He’d utter a few curt phrases in French and that would be the end of it. “The frozen chosen,” Etienne would come to call the flock. She worshiped no God more fully than herself.
In 1973, Etienne was enrolled in the Washington Girls’ Day kindergarten a few blocks away on Davenport Street. Housed on two separate five-acre campuses in northwest Washington, D.C., the institution was founded by Mary Alice Chandler, a “creative, vibrant spirit” and daughter of a Presbyterian minister, who had been previously a teacher in a missionary school in India. A close associate and confidante of Eleanor Roosevelt, Headmaster Chandler held her position from the school’s opening in 1946 until her retirement in 1992. She took a special fondness for Etienne, who was diligent in her studies and readily shared pictures and stories from her family’s travels with her classmates. Under Chandler’s tutelage, Etienne flourished both academically and socially, despite not infrequent stares from the white students. In 1986, during her senior year, Etienne was elected to the prestigious Council of Students, an honor reserved for the intellectual elite. The headmaster pressed young Etienne to seek a career in the Foreign Service, given her knack for languages. Much to Chandler’s displeasure, the affable young woman had her mind on one thing—finding a suitable husband, one who could keep her in the style to which she was accustomed.
Helene busied herself with mothering of her daughter, her Tuesday bridge club, lay work in the church, and frequent lunches with other housewives. When the Spelman acceptance letter arrived, the Pulliams saw their only daughter off for the last time. She would not return for more than a weekend at a time, preferring to spend her summers abroad. Five years later, in 1991, the Pulliams traveled to Atlanta to witness and officiate her wedding to Dr. Jackson Leland Gabrielle.
Etienne fought her way through the terminal traffic, found the waiting town car, and settled into the backseat for the ride home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Helene Pulliam welcomed her only child with open arms. She’d left the boys with Gail. Despite her monumental reputation for impassioned, if not histrionic, tirades, Etienne settled into her parents’ town house without fanfare. Had she announced her arrival, preparations might have been made, but she didn’t want to put her mother through the trouble of finding fresh sheets or worrying over how she might take her eggs.
Etienne sought refuge in a second-floor guest room that doubled as the late bishop’s study. It had been her bedroom, though little evidence of that remained. The lace bedspreads and sheer white curtains were gone. Her dolls and high school yearbooks had been packed up and stored in the basement. Mementos from Bishop Pulliam’s travels and work now crowded the wall-length bookshelf, including his purple cleric’s collar and the shawl he had worn to the installation ceremony. Her mother’s sewing basket, covered in unfinished knit work, sat in a far corner, obviously unused for several years. There was little room to store her suitcases. She abandoned them, unopened, in the middle of the floor.
Etienne hunkered down in the cluttered bedroom/study for days on end. She emerged only to eat or relieve herself, both of which she did little. She disregarded the Bible that her mother had left on the nightstand. Helene had left it open to the Book of Job. It was a gentle invitation, and one soundly ignored. She emerged on day six with matted hair and an unpleasant stench. At her mother’s urging, Etienne drew a bath, put on fresh clothes, and joined her for lunch at the Potomac Club.
“The bed will draw your strength,” Helene said, her French accent still strong.
Etienne sat on her mother’s vanity stool, wearing only a bath towel, brushing the tangles from her hair as she watched Helene steam press a crumbled Dolce & Gabbana daisy jacquard dress drawn from the suitcase.
“There,” Helene said as she finished. “You will be at least presentable.”
Etienne washed her face in the basin, then disappeared down the hallway. Helene retrieved the car.
Splendid oils of the club’s founding members adorned the walls of the imposing reception hall. They were serious men like the room that welcomed its visitors. Tall, slender women in black A-line dresses greeted them from behind a solid wood podium. No reservation had been needed given the bishop’s prior position on the club’s board of governors. His name was among those etched on a plaque that hung above the hostess stand.
“Mrs. Pulliam, it’s a pleasure to have you with us,” a young hostess greeted.
Despite the busy lunch crowd, she gave a knowing glance to another, who spirited off to clear an appropriate table. Someone would have to be hurried along in order to make way for the Pulliams. Helene, a woman of pedestrian taste, did not care for such fuss, but her late husband’s position had demanded it. When shown to the table, she gave an approving nod.
The inside of the Potomac Club looked like every other private dining room in the District. Heavy crown moldings, mahogany wood finishes, marble flooring, extravagant chandeliers, and tables draped in white, pressed cloths. Waiters and busmen in short white waistcoats scurried about the room, ferrying thick prime rib sandwiches, lentil soups, and blackened chicken Caesar salads. It was just past twelve thirty when they arrived and most of the tables were full. A dining room attendant appeared immediately and poured two glasses of spark
ling water.
Ignoring the bustling room, Helene smiled graciously at the attendant, took a sip from the cool, sweating glass, and said, “I’m worried about you.”
“I know, but you shouldn’t be. People get divorced every day. I should have left sooner.”
“Have you at least called Jackson?”
“No. If he has something to say now, he should say it to my lawyer. That’s what I pay Finny for.”
“He’s called several times.”
Helene Pulliam was not a good liar. She aimed her clear blue eyes at the white tablecloth to hide the deception. The truth of the matter is that Jack had called only once to inquire about his wife’s well-being. Helene thought it better to tell her daughter otherwise.
A waiter stopped by and rambled off a list of memorized appetizers and the day’s specials. “The lobster ravioli is a special treat,” he said. “As are the crab cake sandwiches.”
“We’ll have them,” Etienne said, shooing him away, ignoring whatever her mother might have preferred. “And a fruit plate.”
He hadn’t gotten two feet away before she waved him back.
“A bottle of your best merlot, please.”
“Domestic?”
“Of course.”
“We have a fine Duckhorn Vineyard, 1994.”
Etienne nodded. The waiter set off anew.
“Etienne, you know I don’t drink.”
“If you did, Mother, then we’d need two.”
As if reading her daughter’s thoughts, Helene paused and said, “Honey, a divorce is a traumatic experience. You don’t have to pretend for me.”
Etienne was immediately ashamed of the bottle of wine. When the waiter brought it to the table and presented it for inspection, Etienne abruptly told him to take it away.
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