Possessions

by Judith Michael

  "How will they taste?" Todd asked, trying to make Katherine smile.

  She did, and gave him a hug. "Tough but sweet. It's Leslie and Claude."

  They laughed. And as Jennifer went to the telephone, and Todd finished the cheese and crackers, Katherine gave a small, private sigh. Another crisis bypassed—at least for a time.

  Jennifer stood beside Claude, waiting, while he opened the bottle of Spanish sherry he had brought and filled three glasses. He looked at her grave face. "Would you and Todd like some?"

  "No thank you. I hope it doesn't hurt your feelings, but we think it tastes awful."

  He smiled. "No hurt feelings. Did you want to ask me something?"

  "Todd and I would like to borrow you to be our father, just for one night."

  A stunned look settled on Claude's face. Across the room, Katherine looked puzzled; Leslie alert and curious. "Was this planned with someone?" Claude asked.

  "Just us," Jennifer said. "We need a father for the Father's Dinner at school, and our own father is gone, and we can't ask Ross because he and Mother get in each other's way when they think about important things so he doesn't come around anymore, and I did ask Uncle Tobias but he has to be at an alumni dinner that night. And you're here."

  "So I am," Claude agreed. Jennifer and Todd stood side by side, watching him. "I'd be honored to be your father. But I've never been one and I'm not sure I can do it in a way that will please you."

  "Just stay around for a while," muttered Todd.

  "Longer than one evening?" Claude asked.

  "No," said Jennifer. "That will do. Two weeks from tomorrow—that's a Wednesday night, is that all right?" He nodded. "Could you be here at five thirty? Then we could walk to school together. We should be finished by eight o'clock, so if you have more important things to do that night you can still do them."

  POSSESSIONS

  'That will be the most important thing I have to do that night," said Qaude. "Am I supposed to perform? Sing or dance?"

  "Do you sing or dance ordinarily?*' asked Jennifer.

  "No. Definitely no."

  'Then you don't have to. Just be with us."

  "It will be a pleasure. Now, if you'll excuse me—^" He carried the tray of sherry glasses to Katherine and Leslie, who had been whispering and now watched him with small, soft smiles.

  "You're amazing," Leslie murmured as he sat beside her on the couch. "Where did you leam to talk to children?"

  "I don't talk to children. I talk to people. Leslie, did you and Katherine plan that?"

  "Damn it, of course not. You know I'm not that devious."

  **What does that mean?" Katherine asked.

  Leshe held her glass by its stem. "Katherine, will you drink to our momentous decision to marry?"

  A smile lit Katherine's face. "How wonderful! Of course I will. To all the joys you'll have together." After they drank, she said, "But I still don't understand—"

  "You see, we've been having a dialogue. I want a child. Qaude, being fifty, doesn't think—"

  "Fifty-one."

  "Almost fifty-one, doesn't think he is at an optimum age to become a father. So when we walk in your front door and almost immediately he is asked to be a father, even for one night, he is naturally, or unnaturally, suspicious. I, on the other hand, think it's wonderiiil. Dress rehearsal."

  "What's wrong with fifty-one?" Katherine asked Qaude.

  "I'm set in my ways, I've never had to take infants into consideration when I schedule my days and nights, I've long since forgotten what the anxieties of childhood are like, and I'll be sixty-one when this child wants to play baseball. What kind of a father is that?"

  "A little slow at running bases," Katherine said. "But if you learn how to throw a fast one—and lawyers occasionally do, don't they?—the rest won't matter." Claude chuckled. "What's more," she went on, "you just said you don't talk to children; you talk to people. If you want to know about children's anxieties just think about people's anxieties; they aren't much different."

  POSSESSIONS

  "Faultless reasoning," he said admiringly. "Do you think Leslie will be happy as a homebody?"

  Katherine looked at her. "You'd give up your job?"

  "How do I know?" Leslie asked crossly, "Claude thinks I can be president of Heath's if I fight for it. Maybe I don't want to fight. Or maybe I do, but not right now. Maybe I want to be domestic for a while. Maybe I'll decide to do both, like a four-armed wizard. Do I have to decide this very minute?"

  "No," Claude said. "And I'm sorry if I was pushing." He put his hand on the back of Leslie's head, caressing her red curls and the nape of her neck. "I adore this woman," he told Katherine. "I want to give her vacations in Italy and moonhght cruises in Scandinavia and balloon flights over the Himalayas, but all she wants, at least right now, is a child. I have a suspicion she really wants two, but so far I've managed to refrain from asking. Well, dear Leslie, I think we should have a child and see how we like it. If things don't work out, we'll give him or her to Jennifer and Todd."

  "You'll what?" cried Jennifer from across the room.

  Leslie kissed him. "I'm marrying a clown. Things will work out. We can always come to Katherine for words of wisdom."

  Katherine jumped up. "I forgot about the wild rice," she said and went to the kitchen.

  Leslie followed. "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing." She turned down the flame a fraction. "You two looked so happy. And settled."

  "And you're not. What happened with Ross? Can't I go to New York for a few days without you getting into trouble?"

  Katherine laughed slightly. "We decided to stay away from each other for now. Jennifer and Todd act like it was a divorce."

  "They're fond of Ross."

  "I know. He's very good with them."

  "So what are you going to do about him?"

  "Nothing. Until I do something about Craig."

  "Like divorce him?"

  "Maybe."

  *The alternative is to go back to him."

  "I know."

  "Listen, lady, you wouldn't do that."

  "I don't think so."

  "What do you want, Katherine?"

  POSSESSIONS

  "I think I want Ross. I'm still trying to work it out; I don't understand it all, yet. I can't even talk about it, Leslie. Let's talk about something else."

  Leslie paused. "OK." Something cheerful, she thought. "I was going to ask you anyway. Where did you get that belt? Did you make it?"

  Katherine looked at her waist. "Yes. I'd forgotten I had it on. I wore it for good luck."

  "Did it work?"

  "Yes."

  "Can you make me one?"

  "You mean for good luck?"

  "I mean because it's sensational and I want one."

  "I'll give you one now. Burgundy silk or blue velvet, whichever you want; you can put in any fabric, to change the look."

  "How many do you have?"

  *Two."

  "How fast can you make them?"

  "I don't know. I didn't keep track. Why?"

  "Because I want to sell them at Heath's. Can you make me a dozenT'

  "I can make as many as you want. You really think you can sell them?"

  "Damn right; in fme jewelry or the Empire Room. I might even design my wedding dress around one."

  "When?" Katherine asked. "Leslie, I'm sorry; I got sidetracked and never asked when it would be."

  "You would have been told; you're part of it. Christmas, we think. By then, you'll have your problems solved and you and Ross can be best man and best lady. Will you?"

  Katherine lit the candles on the table and turned down the lights. "I'd love to be part of your wedding. I can't speak for Ross. Can I ask a favor?"

  "Name it."

  "I'd like to make your wedding rings."

  'That's a favor? I was going to beg you on bended knee to fit us into your schedule! Why is it a favor?"

  "Because I can pretend," Katherine said. "I always do, when I make my
best pieces; I pretend I'll be the one who wears them, for some special event."

  POSSESSIONS

  'Then I have a suggestion." Leslie put her arm around Katherine. "Make two sets. You can pretend twice as hard, and you'll have an extra pair—in case a special event should come along."

  Katherine laughed. "I just might. Now let's get the children and their borrowed father to the table. We'll have a family dinner."

  Chapter 19

  0

  N Friday, the first of October, at 9:34 in the morning, an earthquake sent shock waves rumbling across San Francisco and the surrounding area. Centered beneath the bay and registering 4.7 on the Richter scale, it was not considered severe, especially by those who remembered a more damaging one fifteen years earlier, but it was strong enough to shift furniture, knock groceries off shelves, cause doors to open and shut, and slosh coffee out of thousands of cups. In a warehouse at BayBridge Plaza, Ross was perched on a sawhorse, going over blueprints with the construction manager, when he felt the shock. The sawhorse jolted beneath him and he fell. "Ross!" someone yelled. "Look out!" Instinctively he rolled to the side as a stack of lumber toppled and crashed, grazing his arm, covering him with a cloud of dust.

  For ten seconds the ground shook. Buildings creaked and a brown haze of plaster dust and wood shavings filled the air. Then walkie-talkies began to chatter as workers reported to each other from one end of the construction site to the other. "OK in Number One ..." "Pile of bricks down in Number

  POSSESSIONS

  Two ..." "Bag of Oreo cookies crushed in Number Ten— " Ross chuckled as he stood and brushed himself off; then he froze. "Couple guys hurt in the Macklin Building! Get some help over here!"

  He dashed through the building, jumping over piles of lumber, bypassing the construction elevator to take the stairs. Outside, the dusty haze blurred buildings and equipment and workers hunting for tools that had fallen and bounced away amid scattered lumber and bricks. Ross ran past them to the Macklin Building, where a cluster of workmen stood just inside the door, arguing loudly among themselves. The floor was littered with debris below a gaping hole in a comer of the ceiling. "Let me through," Ross ordered, shoving the men aside.

  "Who the hell do you think you are?" one of them demanded.

  "I own the building; now stop that danmed shouting and somebody tell me what happened."

  "Ceiling fell," a voice said caustically. "Couple guys underneath got hit."

  A man was lying on the floor. Ross knelt beside him. His eyes were open; so was his mouth. "Shit," he muttered. "The fucking ceiling ..."

  "He ain't the worst," someone said. "It's Bud—"

  Ross followed his pointing fmger and saw a pile of shattered concrete, with a man's leg jutting from it. Christ, he thought. Not dead; please God, not dead. "Has he moved?"

  The men nodded. "We pulled some of the shit off, but we can't get at him. But he moved and he said something . . ."

  "He did not!" a voice yelled. "He ain't said a— "

  "Somebody called the fire department?" Ross demanded.

  "Yeh, sure," a heavy-set man said. They heard the wail of a siren. "Fast work," he joked nervously. He pulled a flask from his back pocket and knelt beside Ross. "Medicine for my friend," he said.

  The man had pulled himself part way up and sat slumped against the wall. He saw the flask and reached for it. He was all right, Ross thought. But the other man's leg had not moved.

  Another, closer siren was heard; the undulating sound pierced through the building, then stopped as if cut with a knife. Two fire trucks pulled up, then an ambulance. In a few minutes the space was crowded with firemen and paramedics. "Cutters!"

  POSSESSIONS

  one called and they began cutting through the twisted steel bars that had reinforced the concrete ceiling.

  "A hoist, damn it, you can't lift that concrete!"

  "You want a rope?"

  "Damn right I want a rope! Over that beam—"

  "Have to get something under the concrete to lift it—"

  "A sling."

  "Right; and the hooks in the truck ..."

  "Tie the fticking rop)e to the hooks! You think we got all day?"

  Ross and the workmen slid the makeshift sling beneath the largest slab of concrete as the firemen made a hoist with a block and tackle attached to an overhead beam. "Everybody keep that slab from swinging sideways when we pull the rope," the fire chief ordered. "Got that?"

  "Do it," Ross said, gritting his teeth, and with the workmen he strained to steady the slab as it stirred and began to move.

  "Little more! Little more!" grunted the fire chief. He and his men pulled on the hoist. "More! Keep it up—!" And slowly the slab rose a few inches above the still form lying beneath. "Grab him!" yelled the chief, as Ross and one of the workers already were shoving aside small pieces of concrete and then easing the man from beneath the hanging slab.

  "OK," Ross gasped and the slab crashed back into place as the hoist was released. Two paramedics lay the limp figure on a stretcher and as they inserted an intravenous tube into the vein on one of his hands Ross grabbed the other to find a pulse. He found it, strong and steady, and closed his eyes in relief, counting for a full minute. "OK," he said again, and stood up. "No, wait a minute." He turned to the workman with the flask. "How come you were in here? All the work in this building had been stopped."

  "Came to get some wire we'd left." The man rubbed his head. "Just for a minute. That's when it hit."

  Just for a minute, Ross thought. So much for precautions. He took a notepad from the inside pocket of his jacket. "Can you give me that man's name and address? And phone number, his family has to be notified."

  "Sure. He all right?'

  "Looks like," said one of the paramedics. He held the intravenous flask while the other strapped the man to the stretcher.

  POSSESSIONS

  "Small pieces kept the big one from crushing him. Lucky guy," he added as they lifted the stretcher and carried it to the fire department ambulance.

  Ross squatted beside the other workman. "Names and addresses," he said. "For both of you."

  "My cousin's a lawyer," the workman said. "I gotta call him."

  "Names," Ross said again, and he was writing them as the construction manager came. Ross gave him the paper. "Greg, would you make this call?"

  "Right." He stood there, looking with Ross at the gaping hole in the ceiling. "If somebody fucked up—" he muttered.

  "Is that what you think?"

  'Tell you the truth: I don't know. I thought your engineer did an OK design for the temporary support beams—he said a herd of elephants could do a polka on it and tell you the truth: I thought so too. 'Course we weren't figuring on a quake, but still and all, I wouldn't of thought that little bit of shaking would make this much mess. Shit, now we'll have lawyers all over the place."

  "Probably," Ross said. "How about making that call?"

  "Sure. Be right back."

  Ross stood amid the debris. His throat was dry. He'd thought he could repair the building and keep its history a secret, but now it would all come out. Because he knew there was too much damage for a minor earthquake: it had to be more. It had to be what he had worried about from the moment he read the engineer's report: some of the support columns had settled just enough to cause the ceiling to break apart. And because the temporary supports weren't designed to hold the entire weight of the ceiling, when it pulled away from the columns, they collapsed and a chunk of the ceiling came crashing down.

  And two workmen were in the way.

  If they sued BayBridge, there would be an investigation. One earthquake, one investigation, and out into the open would come a sixteen-year cover-up by his father and brother of illegally changing specifications and bribing an inspector—and a two-month cover-up by Ross Hayward after he had the building inspected in July and could no longer say he only suspected problems.

  The Hayward Corporation could survive it; Ross Hayward

 
; POSSESSIONS

  Associates might not. If he had to pay damages to those two workmen he could be wiped out. And Victoria would be forced to watch a dream splinter in scandal.

  Unless they could settle out of court.

  With the force of a physical pain, Ross wanted Katherine beside him. I wouldn't keep it from her, he thought; I'd share it; I'd ask for her help. I'll have to tell her that.

  Except that he wasn't telling her anything these days. He was waiting for her to make up her mind about her husband.

  So this one he'd have to handle by himself. And in fact, the solution was really very simple. All it took was money.

  Katherine had asked if Derek was going to help pay for the repair of the footings. Ross had said no. But now everything had changed. Now, afer sixteen years, Derek and their father were going to share the responsibility for the Macklin Building.

  He went outside, to see if any other buildings had been damaged. And it was then that television came to BayBridge.

  All that hectic Friday reporters raced about the bay area, gathering earthquake stories for the evening news and a later special report. "Thank God it was in the morning," they told each other. "Nothing worse than late-afternoon disasters; no time to get them on the air."

  By the time Ross got back to the Macklin Building, Greg Thorpe, the construction manager, was looking with loathing at two cameras and the microphones thrust in his face. He waved in relief. "Ross Hay ward," he told the reporters. "Architect for BayBridge, and he owns the Macklin Building."

  They switched to Ross: reporters from two different television stations, flanked by bored men in shirtsleeves holding mini-cameras on their shoulders. Shooting questions, the reporters kept an eye on their watches; they had a quota of earthquake stories and the Macklin Building wasn't really news: no one had died. They wouldn't even have come if BayBridge weren't so important.

  "The beams," one of them began. "They were temporary?*'

  "While we cut the atrium," Ross said. "We had to—"

  "Yes, sir, what I meant was, were they safe?"

  "Of course." Quickly, without letting them interrupt, he described the shoring up of the ceiling. "I wouldn't have allowed work to start in there if I didn't think it was safe. No