She wasn’t sure what she would do if her daughter came, though. She could say she had been fishing. That was true. That the man in the kitchen was the carpenter. He had been fishing, as well. What a coincidence, Lydia might challenge. Would she say yes, indeed, agree with her it was so, just a weird coincidence? Would she lie to her daughter? Or couldn’t she just tell her the truth, how lonely she had been till the restoration, till he came upon the scene, that she hadn’t known it? Lydia was devoted to her father but she knew what kind of man he was. She had heard their arguments when she was little, his midnight exits punctuated with the sound of a slamming door. Would she still think it wrong, the strongman in the kitchen making her feel weak again?
Marilyn swung, wondering now what her friends might have to say about it, a he-man in the kitchen wearing her apron and preparing to pan-fry lake trout for her lunch, forcing her to relax while he peeled the potatoes and tossed a salad of greens he had grown in his own garden, coming outside at intervals to keep the swing going and to give her his silly anecdotal accounts of fishing escapades and hunting mishaps, to ask if she was getting hungry yet, if she wanted more wine. It was this day that Marilyn had learned everything she needed to know about Roy Mann, the master carpenter, to determine whether he was worthy of the sparks he had been kindling, this same day that she agreed to meet him again, say for a leisurely walk around the lake, or a movie, or more fishing, now and then perhaps some grocery shopping, or even a candlelight dinner.
_____
Like so many women of her generation, Marilyn Sanders had only ever been with one man–Edward Beaumont–and that was only after they were married. Consequently, what qualities defined a good man and proved his masculinity to her were those epitomized in her husband, notions arrived at through lack of experience and propped up by the hearsay of the times. Edward was an excellent breadwinner so he was “a good man.” Edward was a philanderer. This is “what men do.” Manhood equaled prowess.
Perversely, a girl in Marilyn’s time became a good woman either through chastity or marriage or both. No rites of passage here, a good woman was one physically mature enough for sexual relations, but morally unwilling to have them until her wedding night, and even then only for the purposes of having children. Girls were taught that good men only proposed marriage to good women. So for good girls like Marilyn and her friends, womanhood equaled chastity, which led to marriage, children, fidelity and domestication. Success.
How, in these bizarre equations, good men would ever find the libertine women they needed on the side and were entitled to have, nobody asked, but Marilyn discovered early in her marriage that there were, paradoxically, plenty of them to go around and that, in fact, her husband seemed to desire the company of such women much more than that of a faithful wife, the mother of his two children.
At seventy-one, she had been faithful to Edward Beaumont for nearly five decades. More than half of that time she had lived virtually estranged from him, occupying herself with respectable pursuits appropriate for a married woman while he flagrantly roamed for the better pastures and the greener grasses that beckoned him beyond his own fence. She was sitting on that fence now, no longer in love with him, being true to him merely by habit and training. She did not know if, so late in life, she could give Roy Mann all that he wanted from her, but she was damn well willing to try. If her husband would give her a divorce.
“I think I may be too old for you,” she had suggested to Roy last week, though she didn’t confide her age. It was a moonlit night at the lake and her back had been acting up again. He was helping her to stand up and it made her feel ancient to need his assistance. She was in good shape except for that back, trim, and no other health problems to speak of, unlike so many of her ailing friends.
“Your secret’s safe with me,” he said. He had been wanting an opportunity to kiss her all night. Finally he had one.
The ladies at the bridge club earlier that day had oohed and aahed about how radiant she was looking lately, but though they voiced their suspicions, as ladies of seventy often do, and though they pried relentlessly for something they could sink their teeth into, as ladies of seventy excel at, they got absolutely nothing out of Marilyn Beaumont. She was not ready to confide in them yet. She recommended, as she always did, a daily walk, some soy, some yogurt, regular doses of black cohosh, and green tea sweetened with wild clover honey.
“I spoke to Edward, today,” she whispered to Roy.
He could tell by her voice that the news wasn’t good.
“Roy?”
“I’m…would you let me speak to him? Maybe man to–”
“No, God, no. What would you say?”
He laughed through his nose. “I’d say, look here ol’ timer, I want to make love to your wife, so what’s it to you?”
She tried not to encourage him.
“Hmm, Marilyn? What can he say to that?” He massaged the small of her back as he spoke. “Marry Roy,” he murmured as he stroked her. He felt her lean into him. “Marry Roy, Marilyn. Mrs. Roy Mann. Marilyn Mann. Mr. and Mrs. Roy Mann. Do you like any of that?”
She liked it all, but she was already married. “Drive me home, Mr. Mann. Before you make it so I can’t live without you.”
These were just some of the details concerning the progress at the lake house that Mrs. Edward Beaumont omitted from her glowing reports to her daughter.
_____
“Queenie.”
“Hi, Daddy…Daddy?”
“Listen, are you going to the lake house this weekend?”
She hadn’t planned on it but, “why?”
“I’ve…I want you to go out there. See if your mother’s all right.”
“Mom? I just talked to her last week. She seemed fine.”
“Nevertheless.”
“What’s wrong, Edward? Is there something wrong with Mom?”
“I don’t…no…she’s talking funny, Queenie. I want you to go see her.”
“Funny like what? What do you mean? Senile funny, stroke funny?”
“No, I don’t think so. Just funny, Queenie. I can’t go into it right now.”
“Do we need a doctor? Do you want me to call a–”
“No, no, I don’t think that’ll be necessary. I’m…just go see her and get back to me. Discreet like. Will you do that for your old dad?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you. Heard from your kitten lately? I read Europe’s treating her well.”
“Every day–flying out to see her next week.”
“Where to?”
“She’ll be in Zurich for four days.”
“Pretty city. Give her my kisses for me. You know where to put them?”
“Yes, Daddy. I think so. Listen, do you want me to…what should I tell Mom?”
“Tell her that…tell her I said never.”
“Never–she’ll know what that means?”
“She knows what it means.”
“But I don’t. What’s it supposed to mean?”
“Queenie…never means never. Without exception.”
Chapter 34
True by Necessity
Billy Kendle must have decided he needed his job after all, or else someone put him up to it. The complaint he filed with the grievance committee cited a “hostile work environment” and “sexuall [sic] discrimination.” He sent an identical one to the Division of Labor. His next course of action, he threatened, was to hire a lawyer, maybe bring in the ACLU.
“I’m not dealing with this, Angelo. These regs are for women and minorities, not pampered white men. The kid is a dope and I don’t want to be the one who has to tell him that.”
“I’ll handle it,” Venus promised Paula, but she completely ignored the complaint making it necessary for the committee to get on JP Beaumont’s back to investigate.
JP Beaumont recoiled at the idea of investigating Venus for anything “sexuall” so she put it off, too, dragging her feet and yessing everyone until the Division of Labor finally s
wooped in demanding a summary from her, which, of course, she did not have ready for them on the day they sent their agent to call on her.
“Pleased to meet you, Ms. Menendez,” Lydia said, buzzing an assistant. “Bring me Kendle’s personnel file, please.”
“Vice President Kendle?”
“No, his nephew. Can I offer you tea or coffee, Ms. Menendez?”
“Thank you, no–his nephew, did you say?”
“Yes. A little nepotism goes a long way sometimes,” Lydia explained. “Kendle was an unremarkable employee and it’s my understanding he didn’t want to work for Ms. Angelo once she replaced his uncle.”
“Ms. Angelo succeeded his uncle? It doesn’t mention that here.”
The assistant entered and deposited a skinny file on the desk. Lydia handed it to the agent.
“This is all?” she asked.
“As I said. Unremarkable,” Lydia replied, stealing a peek at the time. She and Delilah were planning to leave in two hours for the lake house and she hadn’t packed anything yet. She didn’t have time this afternoon for Billy Kendle’s melodrama. “I can direct you to Ms. Angelo’s offices, if you would like,” she said. “She’s just below us.”
“I would prefer that you accompany me there, if you don’t mind. Perhaps we can dispose of things quicker that way.”
Perhaps she was right. Lydia gave her a patient smile. “Very well,” she said, rising. “Let’s do it.”
There were three new assistants working for VP Angelo, but only one of them had been present the day Billy Kendle was allegedly fired. Lydia dismissed them for an hour and Ms. Menendez interrogated a rather intrepid Kate Fitz-Simone.
“He said he didn’t need the job,” she asserted.
“So she fired him? You heard her say he was fired?”
Lydia eyed the girl.
“I have no recollection of that,” Kate answered.
“You’re saying she didn’t fire him?” Ms. Menendez pressed.
“I’m saying I can’t recall. I remember only that he said he didn’t need the job.”
Venus had been out of the office when they came in. She returned now looking smart in a pinstripe suit, arms full of files from her old office. She was pleased to find Lydia there until she discovered the purpose of her visit.
“Oh? Well how do you do, Ms. Menendez,” she said, setting the files on Kate’s desk and shaking her hand.
“Good, Ms. Angelo. Did you fire William Kendle or not? We’d like to know.”
Venus shook her head and avoided Kate’s eyes. “He was incompetent. He said he didn’t want the job.”
“Didn’t want or didn’t need?”
“Excuse me?” Venus asked, detecting a sticking point and running a playback in her mind. Had Kendle said he didn’t need the job or that he didn’t want it? She couldn’t recall.
“Did you fire him?” Ms. Menendez asked, stepping away from the other question.
“I have to say, I really can’t recall.”
The agent smiled and jotted a note in her pad. Kate looked to Lydia. Lydia studied Venus’ reaction. VP Angelo was dignified, suffering fools.
“From your point of view, Ms. Fitz-Simone, what preceded this event, the, uh, sudden disappearance of Mr. Kendle from his position here?”
Kate took a breath and tried to remember. “He put a call through without clearing it first. It was,” she hesitated and looked at her boss, “not business related, unauthorized. He knew not to. Ms. Angelo was…she seemed very displeased.”
Lydia and Venus exchanged glances.
Ms. Menendez continued to write. “So it had nothing to do with making coffee?”
“Coffee?” Kate flinched a little. So did Venus. “No, ma’am. That was something else.”
“So coffee’s not related. Do you find this a hostile work environment, Ms. Fitz-Simone–sexually speaking?”
“No ma’am,” Kate replied without hesitating. “Not anymore.”
“Not anymore? And when did that change for you?”
The girl glanced to her boss and then JP Beaumont. Both officers nodded for her to proceed. “It changed since Ms. Angelo.”
“Uh-huh. I want to ask you something, Ms. Fitz-Simone. You don’t have to answer it, but were you ever sexually harassed at Soloman-Schmitt, and if so, by whom?”
_____
It was a can of worms.
“Hi, cowboy,” Delilah said to the Marlboro Man she had just discovered making dinner for two in his pretty floral apron in the hot, hot kitchen of the lake house. “Sorry I’m late.”
“Del,” Lydia warned, aghast at their find. “Mom!” she shouted, cautiously trying to get around him. “MOTHER!”
“Ms. Beaumont,” he said as she passed by him, “I can explai–”
“And I want you to–MOM!”
Marilyn was turning the corner at the same time her daughter was. She was dressed for dinner, looking nearly twenty years younger than the last time Lydia had seen her.
“Mom?”
“Hello, sweetheart.”
_____
“Ooh, Liddy, I want one–please tell me you’re a twin.”
Roy was taking Delilah in stride. “No,” he answered. “I’m not a twin.”
“Pooh. And you made this all by your little lonesome? Gawd almighty, Marilyn.”
Marilyn chuckled, self-conscious in front of her daughter.
“Del,” Lydia said under her breath, digesting more than just the salmon steak and hollandaise sauce. Dinner was fabulous but she wished they hadn’t crashed it. “Shut up.”
_____
“Darling, how wonderful! You must be so happy for her.”
She was torn actually. Her loyalties. Her heart.
“Lydia?”
“She’s waiting for a divorce to...you know.”
“That’s honorable. And?”
She couldn’t bring herself to say it, what “never” would mean to her mother, how unspeakably selfish and cruel her father was being. “Will you talk to my father? Reason with him?”
“Darling, you can’t mean to say…?”
“He’s told her never, Helaine. She’s going to sue for one if she has to. Can you believe?”
“Oh, god.”
“Will you talk to him?”
“I–yes–if he’ll call me. Yes, I’ll talk to him.”
“He won’t call you. Can you call him?”
“Lydia, not as Dr. Kristenson I can’t.”
“You’re not Dr. Kristenson to him. You’re a…a kitten.”
“Ah…poor, poor Edward Beaumont.”
Chapter 35
Not Necessarily True
The suit makes the man. The dress makes the woman.
Chapter 36
Principles and Princes
Switzerland is a country of mountains and lakes, nearly three-quarters of it slathered in Alps. There are rivers, of course, like the Linth and the Limmat, and they’re beautiful, but they’re not good for much but flowing in or out of the mountain lakes, lakes like the Zürichsee where the city of Zürich is situated.
Zürich is not the capital of Switzerland but it is its largest city. James Joyce is buried here, his final resting place but one of the many pit stops Helaine and Carlos made in a day of sightseeing that also included the historic Town Hall, the Reitberg Art Museum, and the Swiss National. There were other points of interest she would have liked to take in, things she had longed to see again, the music conservatory, the Jung Institute out in the burbs, but there just wouldn’t be enough time, Carlos advised. Lydia was coming in tonight. So until then, Helaine could view to her heart’s content the Grossmünster on the Limmat Quay, where she could see from her hotel window the twin towers of that ancient church rising high into the air, looking like the arms of a giant referee declaring a touchdown.
Touchdown for Lydia would be 8PM. Having never been to Switzerland before, she should go straight to the hotel for dinner and whatnot. “You’ll know you’re in the right country if you’re hea
ring German, French and Italian,” Helaine forewarned. “Oh, and don’t worry. They speak some English, too.”
In the meantime, so that she wouldn’t perish waiting for her wife, thoughtful Carlos ran Helaine a bubble bath, put on her favorite violin concerto and set beside the tub a light snack consisting of cheese and fruit, chocolate and champagne. Inquiring before he left as to whether he should send up a masseuse before dinner, she replied provocatively, “No, but I’m hoping to need one tomorrow.”
He gave her his no comment eyes and left her to her bath and goodies.
The bath was heaven after their cold trek today. In fact, she had been nothing but cold from the moment she had embarked on this journey. London had turned out to be one big, gray, chilly mist and Dr. Kristenson’s team had spent most of their days there simply hibernating in the hotel, ordering from room service and tolerating watery beer and meat pies rather than venturing outside. All of them had seen London before anyway, so except for her speaking engagements, even the sun, when it did come out, couldn’t lure them from their holes.
That was a dreary beginning to a long trip. From there they had flown up to Stockholm. Brrrrr. Helaine sank into the hot water. She had seen icicles on the wings of their twin engine jet, ice everywhere when they landed. Helsinki, too, was a veritable glacier. Thank god, was her response when Carlos informed her that Moscow was “greatly displeased” by her “rhetoric” and had canceled. She was still freezing when they got down to Berlin and heated beer gardens didn’t do much to cure that sensation. Ditto for Munich.
Splish. Splash. She sipped her French champagne and nibbled cheese from the platter.
It had been a cold trip marked by very warm receptions and she was dog-tired, fighting the desire to sleep. She counted out the hours on her soapy fingers. Lydia would have to board a plane by eight in the morning to arrive at the appointed hour. Eight in the evening here would be two in the afternoon Lydia time. The dark might throw her. If jet lag didn’t get her right away, she might not be hungry for dinner till midnight. She might not want to go to bed till three, maybe four in the morning…
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