Possessions

by Judith Michael

  Amazing how we adjust, he thought, parking his car and taking the stairs to his office. A year ago I wouldn't have believed I could do it. A year ago, he realized, he had been in Vancouver, meeting Katherine Eraser. Her life had been crumbling; his had been under control. He wondered if she'd commemorated the year: not an anniversary, but a milestone of sorts. She might even have heard from Craig. Maybe he should call her, to find out. No; what difference would it make? If Craig showed up, they'd all hear about it. From Derek.

  Sitting at his desk, he looked out the window at the Em-barcadero. Few cars; empty sidewalks. Down the street, the stepped red brick buildings of Levi Plaza still slept; behind them, in his apartment on Lombard Street, Derek presumably slept. In Tiburon, Carrie and Jon were probably awake, perhaps making breakfast, since the cook didn't arrive until seven-thirty. Across town, Katherine might be awake by now, especially if Jennifer and Todd—

  Damn it, why did he keep thinking of Katherine? Turning from the window he pulled out his Monday morning agenda. He probably wanted sympathy and thought she would understand him well enough to provide it. But he'd find sympathy elsewhere: on Sunday he and Tobias would be cooking a sumptuous farewell dinner for Victoria before she left for France. Considering how those two felt about Melanie, he'd find sympathy to spare.

  He concentrated on his work until the members of his staff arrived and he gathered up his papers and strode down the hall to the conference room. It looked as if a tornado had blown through. Papers, charts, computer printouts, blueprints, sketches, pencils, and notepads covered the oval table and draped to the

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  floor; a few lay on the rolling table in the comer where an automatic coffee maker sputtered and gurgled as its carafe filled to the top. Twenty men and women stood about, chatting, holding styrofoam cups as they waited for the coffee. "Breakfast," one of them announced, handing a box of I>anish pastries to Ross. "I figured you'd be hungry, since you get here at the crack of dawn."

  "I am," Ross said. "Thanks, Will." He sat in die center of one side of the table and waited until the others were seated. "Let's start with the latest crises on BayBridge. Who goes first?"

  "I'd better," said one of them. "You won't believe this, but when the crews began gutting the Number Three warehouse yesterday they found a strucmral column fifteen feet from the southwest comer—a goddanm column through all ten floors, in the goddamn middle of what's going to be a goddamn living room!"

  "Christ, " someone whispered. "How the hell— T someone else began. The rest sat in stunned silence.

  Feeling his anger build, Ross got up to refill his cup, moving slowly and deliberately, keeping his face calm. He was supposed to be the steadying influence around there. But it wasn't always easy. You design a massive project, he thought; you put your best people on it; you get the approval of half a hundred committees, agencies, and everyone else who's interested; you get written up in the newspaper as innovative, bold, brilliant— and then you spend the next year or two putting out fires that no one could have foreseen.

  He returned to his chair. "If it's a structural column," he said quietly, "I'd guess it was added during constmction, fifty years ago. Probably the warehouse began settling while they were working on it and they stuck in a support column and then forgot it. No one bothered to redraw the plans to show what they'd done. Any ideas on how to get around a concrete column in the middle of a living room?"

  They began to bounce suggestions around the table as Ross listened.

  "Make the living room smaller and hide it in the wall."

  "A twelve-foot room on that comer, with that view? You want your biggest room there!"

  "So make it longer. What's wrong with a twelve- by

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  twenty-fcK>t living room? If you take five feet from the east bedroom—"

  "You just eliminated the east bedroom's closet."

  "Shit."

  After a while, Ross said, "How about going up?" They looked at him. "Multi-story apartments. If you can't have a modem loft, build a Victorian house. Two rooms wide, two or three stories high. Spiral staircases if we don't have room for conventional ones ..."

  They caught the idea, liked it, enthusiastically began embellishing it. Ross scheduled a meeting for later that week to work on final drawings. "Any more crises?"

  No one spoke. No more fires, he thought. Until tomorrow. "I have one item before we go to other projects. Donna, I just got a copy of the engineering report on the Macklin Building. You've seen it?"

  "Of course, Ross. I ordered it."

  "You ordered it. And it says the northeast comer has settled two inches." She nodded again. "Damn it, I knew that already. You would have, too, if you'd gone to look at it. I don't need a consultant to tell me what I can see from the cracking pattern on the walls." He was aware of the surprise on the faces around the table; he wasn't being the steadying influence they expected. But he was worried and didn't hide it. 'The question isn't if it's settling; it's why; and if there's something wrong with the foundation, what should we do about it? Is that building in danger of collapse? Should we halt the renovation work untO it's fixed? That's what I asked you to find out last December; what the hell are you waiting for? Where's the foundation engineer's report?"

  "It hasn't been done," Donna said defensively. "You said there was only one company you wanted to use, in Lx)S Angeles, and they have more work than they know what to do with. I gave you a memo on this, Ross; it looks like they won't get to us until July. I did look at the building, and I tried to get the engineers here earlier, but they can't do it. If you want, I'll call someone else."

  "No, I remember now. I know you don't let things slide. Donna, and I know you wouldn't work on a building without inspecting it. I apologize." He looked around the table, at faces that were sympathetic, even solicitous, and he knew they were

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  telling themselves he was tense because he and his wife had split and he was living alone, spending weekends with his kids ... he needed understanding in this difficult time.

  And probably they were right, he thought later, as he went back to his office; there was a lot going on at once. "Derek Hay ward called," his secretary said. "He'll be a few minutes late." Ross nodded. Something else going on: why had his brother, who had never set foot in his office, made an appointment for this morning?

  "Good job," Derek said, looking around the renovated office as they shook hands. "How are you? Melanie is telling her friends you arc devastated, callous, and obstreperous."

  Ross chuckled. "What does that mean?"

  "No one knows. Probably not even Melanie. It may, however, have something to do with money."

  "It may indeed." They smiled together and Ross felt a moment's regret that they were not close. They looked close, he knew; a stranger would have noted the physical likeness, the easy way they sat in their chairs, the smile they exchanged, the quick, almost intuitive way they sometimes communicated. Like good friends, Ross thought. But we aren't. We're only brothers. And there is nothing either of us likes about the other.

  He made a fresh pot of coffee and they sat on the leather couch. Derek deliberated a moment, then asked amiably, "Who's controlling the BayBridge contracts?"

  "A number of people."

  "But you're pulling the strings."

  "I'm not even trying to pull the strings. Your spy is giving you false information, Derek."

  "I don't need spies; I know everybody in this business." The brief amiability was gone; his voice was metallic. "And from what I hear, the Hayward Corporation is getting the contract for a four-million-dollar parking lot and deck. Four million out of a three-hundred-million-dollar project."

  •That's not public knowledge."

  "I heard it."

  Ross was silent, wondering who was feeding Derek information. Someone in the contractor's office, or one of the developers.

  E)erek sat back. "It's true, then."

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"As far as I know."

  "You son of a bitch. Where did you leam to play like the big boys? You made yourself a nice little reputation since you moved here—you can't imagine how many people think they'll please me by praising my little brother to tfie skies—but you never played for stakes like these. And it went to your head. One of the biggest projects this city ever had, and you couldn't risk competition. / should have been the contractor on that project. But you kept me out of it."

  "You're wrong. I wanted you in."

  "Bullshit. You had the developers eating out of your hand; all you had to do was point in my direction."

  The first time in our lives, Ross thought, that I had any influence over something Derek wanted. "They chose the contractor on their own. I wanted you in as a subcontractor, to build the shopping mall. But I only made suggestions, none of the final decisions. You know everything else; you know that, too."

  "You're lying."

  "God damn it—!" Ross took a breath. "Use your common sense. Most of them never backed a project like this before. They didn't know how long it would tsice, or how much they'd have to spend, before we could begin. The day we got commitments for federal money they bought champagne; five years later, when we were still waiting for final approvals from federal and city agencies and community groups, and they'd spent twenty million dollars on land, feasibility studies, schematics, all the rest, and we still hadn't dug the first hole, they were too cautious even to buy beer. All of them were on edge, swearing this was going to be the cleanest project since cave dwellings; they didn't want any hitches. So how do you think they felt about giving a seventy-million-dollar contract for the mall to a corporation owned by the architect's family, with the architect on its board of directors?"

  Derek's mouth was a thin line. "Who the hell do you think you're talking to? I know developers; I was handling them while you were still kissing professors' asses in college. Nobody's clean, little brother. And all this fucking piety about the family corporation . . . you might show some piety about getting your family a chunk of your three-hundred-million-

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  dollar baby. Why didn't you call me at the beginning? We could have set up a front company to funnel contracts through, and a fund to pay off the bush-league politicians in Sacramento—"

  "Why didn't you call me and suggest it?"

  "Call you? Ask favors from you?"

  "What are you here for now?" Ross asked evenly. There was a pause. "It doesn't matter. I wouldn't have done it; I don't work that way. But it wasn't—"

  "Eton't give me that choirboy bullshit—!"

  "Derek." Ross's voice was low but it cut through the room. "We're in my territory, not yours."

  There was another silence, long enough for Ross to reflect that it had been more years than he could remember since he and his brother had argued. In the past, when Derek charged like a bull, accusing or attacking, Ross had retreated—once as far as New York—reluctant to confront him, revolted by his tactics. But something had changed- Bay Bridge, he thought; giving me a sense of what I can achieve. And Melanie; forcing me to be alone, and find out who I really am. He leaned against the wall, contemplating his brother's rigid face. "The decisions on contractors for BayBridge were never up to me. The developers made it their game, their baby—not yours, not mine. And they decided to award the Hayward Corporation the contract for the paridng lot and deck; nothing else. They didn't ask me; they told me. Whatever you heard, that's the way it was."

  Derek was silent, the muscle beside his eye pulsing in the smooth mask of his face. "What about Brock Galvez? Didn't he have anything to say to your brave band of developers?"

  "A lot. He even suggested setting up a front company to funnel contracts through. He did his best. How much did you pay him? No, never mind; it doesn't matter." A wave of revulsion swept through Ross and he turned to the windows, his back to his brother, watching the noon crowds gather with their lunches on the grassy knolls and benches of Levi Plaza. Galvez could buy and sell the Haywards; if Derek had bought him, it wouldn't have been with money, but services—drugs, sex, insider information—and Ross didn't want to know about them.

  "If we're going to talk about payment," said Derek softly,

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  "how much did you pay for advance information on BayBridge before you bought the Macklin Building?"

  Ross turned. "I didn't know about BayBridge when I bought it."

  "Didn't know," Derek mocked. "The way I heard it, you bought it in 1976 and didn't do a damn thing with it; even let Macklin keep his office space. And one year later developers begin buying land just behind it for a three-hundred-million-dollar development. Amazing coincidence—or someone selling information." He waited, but Ross made no answer. "Why else would you buy it?" he demanded.

  His brother was worried, Ross thought, about the Macklin Building. But he wasn't ready to talk to him about it. "I'll tell you someday. As for Galvez, he did his best for you; I suppose he'll go on trying. But he's not a fool; when he's outvoted he backs off and goes with the majority. And they're not about to bend."

  Derek nodded thoughtfully and turned to leave. Cutting his losses, Ross thought. He seldom made mistakes as serious as this—counting on one developer without gathering information on the others—but when he did, he didn't waste energy; like Galvez, he knew when to back off. Besides, after swallowing the bitter pill of coming to his brother to ask for help, he wouldn't stay a minute past the time he knew he had failed.

  But at the door, Ross held him back, asking, before he could hold back the words, "How is Katherine?"

  Imperceptibly, Derek's face changed, as if a thin cloud had passed over the sun. "Quite well."

  Ross waited. "And her jewehy? Is she selling through Mettler?"

  "Yes."

  "Enough to make a living?"

  There was a brief pause. "With an allowance."

  Their eyes met. It had not occurred to Ross that she was taking money from Derek.

  "You should call her," Derek said pleasantly. "Now that you live alone. She's extraordinarily acconmiodating."

  Ross drew in a sharp breath. "You crude bastard."

  "My, my, such sensitivity." Derek smiled in cold amusement. "It must come from being cuckolded by a younger man.

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  Don't bother to see me out; I can find my way." He strode through the reception room, and then was gone, his diminishing footsteps echoing on the wood floor of the corridor.

  Ross was gripping the edge of his office door so tightly it left a ridge on his palm when he went back to his desk. Because no matter how much he thought he had changed, his brother still had the power to infuriate and frustrate him. Derek might have lost the round on BayBridge, but it was Ross who felt battered, even sullied, by the encounter.

  Sitting at his desk, contemplating the paperworic demanding his attention, it was a long time before his muscles loosened and he could begin to relax. Because he knew it wasn't only Derek who was the source of his frustration. It was also Kath-erine, and as Ross turned to the piles of paper on his desk, he wished to hell he could forget her and concentrate on more important things.

  When Katherine arrived, Victoria was supervising the packing of a dozen suitcases and garment bags. Dresses, skirts, and blouses lay everywhere in the white-and-gold bedroom like exhausted figures that had flung themselves on the wide bed and the silk loveseat and chaise to catch their breath. "Just look at it," said Tobias, quoting wickedly.

  "Dresses to sit in, and stand in and walk in; Dresses to dance in and flirt in and talk

  in — Dresses in which to do nothing at all.

  Dear Victoria, do you or do you not have full closets awaiting you in France?"

  "Most likely," she said. "Though when one has not been there for a year, one cannot be sure of anything. Lily, may I have those?" The maid handed her two knit suits. "St. John and Castleberry," she mused. "So very much alike. Why did I buy them both?"

  "To support the knitt
ing industry," Tobias hazarded.

  "I know nothing about the knitting industry, Tobias; as you arc well aware, I must have had a reason, though I cannot imagine what it was. This is quite wasteful; Katherine, they're your size; please take one."

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  **rd love to," Katherine said easily. *Thank you." Once, she would have refused, instinctively, even rudely, thinking every offer of help was a criticism of Craig or of her own helplessness. But now, more confident of herself, she admired the superb cut of the two pale-blue skirts and cardigan jackets, and the silk blouse hanging beneath each one, and kissed Victoria's cheek. "I shall look quite elegant, thanks to you."

  "You always look quite elegant. But of course clothes do help. I have several other— *'

  "Victoria," Tobias warned.

  She gazed at him. "I do not flirt," she said. "Where did you find that ridiculous poem?"

  "In a book of forgotten poets. It amused Katherine; I saw her smile. We haven't seen you for a while, my dear. What have you been doing?"

  "Working, and borrowing money," Katherine said ruefully. "I didn't want to, but I was afraid of using the household money for buying gold and silver."

  "Well done," Tobias declared. "Much better to borrow than use your own. Which bank?"

  *The Bank of America."

  "Very solid."

  "But I used Mettler's order as collateral. If he doesn't buy the whole collection—^"

  "Katherine, you are better than you think you are. Always. If you remember that, you will age less rapidly."

  "Never worry about a loan, Katherine," Victoria said peremptorily. "Until time to pay it back. What is this?" She took a long dress from a pile on the bed. "Satin. Why is it here? I would never wear a satin dress in Menton. The rest of the Riviera, perhaps, but I keep the villa in Menton precisely because it is unpretentious. And where is my black sweater with the pockets? Lily, this is not well organized. Come with me."