Poor Mac. Poor, poor Mac. Where had it all gone? She pulled on a sheer nylon, careful to keep the seam straight. She wasn’t certain if she had ever loved Mac. She rather thought she had, in the beginning. But maybe it had only been his dashing cadet uniform, his potential, his background, and all that wonderful, old, crackly, green money. Mac and his family were everything her family wasn’t. Her father was a landscaper, her mother a nurse. They’d lived in a square little house that was manicured and pruned, so much so that it screamed at you when you walked up the flagstone walkway to the little front porch with its two wicker chairs. She’d never wanted for anything. She’d had everything the other youngsters had, possibly a little more, as her mother worked. She’d had her own car at seventeen, a spiffy Pontiac with real leather seats. She’d even been popular in school, a cheerleader, and she had sung in the school choir because her voice was high and sweet. By the time she left for Syracuse University, she knew she never wanted to return to Rockville, Maryland. Instead she wanted to find a rich husband and get married as soon as she finished college.
The secret to anything, she thought as she twirled in front of the smoky mirror, was planning. For her anyway.
She had a plan now. It was committed to memory. Later, at some point, she would decide it was time to put it into effect.
Poor Mac. Poor, poor Mac.
Alice climbed behind the wheel of her Mercedes sports coupe for an exhilarating day of shopping at Garfinkle’s.
IT WASN’T UNTIL Mac parked in the lot nearest the Pentagon’s Seventh Corridor entrance that he started to wonder if Alice would deliver a girl or a boy. A baby! Son of a bitch!
It wasn’t that he didn’t like babies. In fact, he loved kids. As an only child, he’d often been lonely growing up and had always wished for a house full of siblings. He knew he’d make a good father if given the chance. He debated a full minute about the strings he’d pulled to get transferred out. He could pull them again and have his orders changed. If he wanted to. But he’d made a commitment and he would stick to it. Alice would survive as long as she had a housekeeper, a butler, a chauffeur, a cook, and round-the-clock nurses.
Mac Carlin turned more than one head when he strode down the corridor to the office he shared. He was tall, well over six feet, and he carried himself like a commanding general. The Academy did that to a man. Chest out, chin in. People called him handsome. He saw himself as clean-cut and all-American. He had the kind of bright blue eyes that women loved, and sinfully long eyelashes that swept upward and matched his unruly dark hair, which he threatened to brush-cut every time it fell over his eyes. He also had a sense of humor. He could laugh at himself and was fond of playing practical jokes on the secretary, Stella, who took it all with good grace.
Stella thought of him as a son and brought him cookies and brownies from home. She was Polish, and once in a while told him a silly Polish joke. She also told him, over and over, that if he wasn’t happily married, she could fix him up with one of her hundred cousins. Captain Carlin always laughed, but he never said he was happily married.
Stella wiped her eyes. She was going to miss him. How handsome he looked, she thought, as he strode past her desk and winked at her, something he did every morning. She pretended to swoon, as she did every morning. It was a standing joke between them.
The buzzer on her desk sounded. “Stella, will you get Phil Benedict on the phone for me and call my father to confirm our lunch date? By the way, you look beautiful today. That husband of yours must be treating you right.” He chuckled.
Stella beamed. “Yes, sir, I’ll take care of it right away. Stash always treats me right, Captain.”
“That’s because he knows a good woman when he sees one,” Mac joked. He was going to miss Stella and her sweet, homely face. He was going to miss a lot of things.
He thought about the baby while he waited for his old roommate to come on the line. He’d miss the birth, the first bottle, and everything that came afterward. Would Alice send him pictures? Out of sight, out of mind. He’d have to discuss that with his father.
Mac’s fingers drummed on the desk. The ease with which Alice had announced her pregnancy puzzled him. She’d made it clear early on that she didn’t want his children, even though she’d said otherwise when they were dating. Once she’d made the rash statement that she couldn’t wait to cook a meal for him. He was still waiting. Alice couldn’t boil water, much less cook a meal. Sometimes he wondered how she got herself together in the mornings. This whole thing was confusing, to say the least. The Alice he knew would have demanded he find a doctor to perform an abortion. She would have ranted and raved and blamed him. The Alice he knew would have thrown a fit at her circumstances, and more so when she found out he was leaving for Vietnam, but even that hadn’t bothered her.
“You son of a bitch, I just heard!” Phil Benedict hissed into the phone. “I want to go too!”
“Sure you do and sure you want to leave those twins and that cute little wife. Don’t shit me, Benny.”
“Sounded good, though, didn’t it?” Phil laughed. “Personally, I think you’re nuts. Let the marines go. They come by that kind of stupidity naturally.”
“I need to put some distance between me and here, that’s all. The thing at home, it’s not getting any better. My old man is leaning on me real heavy. I hate staff duty. This is nowhere to be, Phil, and we both know it. By the way, Alice told me she was pregnant this morning. Before I delivered my news.”
“But . . . You told me . . .”
“Yeah . . . Yeah, but I never told Alice,” Mac said tightly. “Since I exercised my conjugal rights one night when I had too much to drink, she thinks I’m responsible . . . or she’d like me to believe I am.”
Phil Benedict whistled. “Hey, why don’t you pull some of those awesome strings your father pulled the first time around?”
“I thought about it and decided against it. This is something I feel I have to do, Phil. I don’t want to deal with Alice and her pregnancy now.”
The faceless voice on the other end of the phone was silent for a moment. “I understand, Mac. Is there anything I can do, anything you want me to take care of while you’re. gone?”
“Write to me. I have a feeling I won’t be getting many letters. Alice said she’s going to rent a villa in the south of France and have her baby there.”
Phil whistled again. “Hey, you know what I always say, it’s probably meant to be. Listen, I can meet you for a drink after work if you want. We should at least shake hands and all that crap. You can tell your wife you had a flat tire.”
“The hell I will. I’ll say I stopped for a drink with the best friend a guy ever had. Sadie’s, right? Five minutes past five okay with you?”
“I’ll be there.”
Mac looked at his cleared desk. There really was no need for him to be here. He had his orders, and his time was his own. Something had prompted him to come in today, possibly the luncheon with his father. Marcus Carlin was the kind of person you had to make an appointment to see. Marcus Carlin didn’t believe in time off.
From childhood on Mac had always had to play the part of a little soldier for his father. He’d done it to please him, and when he pleased his father, his mother smiled. In his formative years he’d never said more than “yes, sir” and “no, sir” to his father. A regimented life, according to the judge, built character. So first there was boarding school, then prep school, and then the U.S. Military Academy and his commission in the army. “Ten years,” his father had said, “ten years and you’re out and headed for a bright future in politics.” Well, his goddamn ten years were almost up, and he didn’t want to go into politics, and Vietnam was his one and only chance to show independence from his father. Maybe, if he was lucky, he wouldn’t come back, and he’d never have to go into politics. Or he could take off and disappear when he mustered out after his tour of duty in Nam. The coward’s way out, he thought miserably, although in his gut, he knew he was a coward only when it cam
e to confronting his father. Otherwise, nothing cowed or frightened him.
Where Vietnam was concerned, the old man would surely expect him to come home with every medal the army had to offer. Once, that is, he got over the shock of Mac’s decision.
Mac’s stomach rumbled ominously. A grimace of pain stretched across his face. Once the judge heard about Alice’s pregnancy, he would have a press release scheduled by three o’clock. It would be full of saccharine and bullshit.
Mac pounded his clenched fist down on the shiny desktop. A pencil skittered to the edge, teetered, and dropped to the floor. Dust particles swept upward. They reminded him of the sawdust in a carnival. He’d run away with a local fireman’s carnival when he was twelve. The carny people had hidden him for two months. That two months had been the happiest time of his life. He’d loved eating with the Fat Lady and all the roustabouts. His only concern was his mother, who was in failing health. He’d called her once from a pay phone to tell her he was safe, but he hadn’t told her where he was. The worst part was being found by state troopers and taken home. His father hadn’t done anything normal like taking a belt to his behind. Instead, he’d banished him to his room without a radio. The only reading material he was allowed to have was Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and a book consisting of maps of the entire world. His punishment was to learn the spelling and the meaning of every single word in that dictionary. Every night for a year his father quizzed him. Weekends were spent drawing maps and penciling in remote places, half of which he couldn’t pronounce at twelve years of age. To this day he could close his eyes and pinpoint any place on the world map. It was his personal nightmare.
Still, he didn’t start to hate his father that year. The hatred started two years later, when he found out that his father was having an affair with a diplomat’s wife. He thought he was being a good son when he returned home from the city and told his mother about seeing his father with a strange woman. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never forget the awful look on her face. Two weeks later Elsa Carlin packed her bags and returned to her home in Charleston, leaving him behind. The old man had handled it by pensioning her off like a servant. His mother had taken the money too; she’d marched out of the house like a soldier, her head high, her eyes brimming with tears. How cold her face was. He had thought then that the hatred in her eyes had been for him. Even now he wasn’t sure that it wasn’t. What he did know now was that he was responsible for breaking up their family.
They’d never divorced, and his mother had died five years after she left. A coronary. The old man had given out some kind of piss-assed statement about his wife having had a breakdown and, good husband that he was, he had insisted she return to her family, where the atmosphere was conducive to a complete recovery. In the meantime, he and his son would manage to get along on their own. From that day, his father had totally ruled his life.
Now it was time for a change. When he got back from Vietnam, he would be mustered out and take his place in the civilian world. Then he could do whatever he wanted. He could get his divorce, provide for Alice and the baby.
His bottom line was his personal happiness. He wanted to be loved by someone, and he wanted to love that person in return. He wanted to watch sunsets, to walk in the rain, to discuss his old age, to raise a family born out of love with a partner he loved.
Maybe it would happen. Maybe it wouldn’t. Right now he had a luncheon to attend with his father, and then a year to serve in Vietnam.
MARCUS CARLIN WAS every bit as imposing in his Saville Row suit as he was in his black judicial robes. His peers described him as formidable. Friends called him distinguished. Women said he was magnificently handsome and they plotted and schemed to be seen with him. The President of the United States considered him capable and austere. Media reporters treated him with deference, while they mumbled and muttered among themselves that yes, he made good copy, but not good enough to lose your job over. Most of them had come close to the unemployment line when they’d taken his political dossier to their chiefs just as he was about to announce his entrance into politics. Publishers and television network presidents immediately descended on his home and suggested to him, as friends, that he should withdraw from the race. In his study, over Havana cigars and Jim Beam whiskey, he agreed to do exactly that.
With his political ambitions in ashes at his feet, Marcus Carlin got drunk and slept on the Persian carpet that night. When he awoke with a colossal hangover the following morning, he decided all the media were his enemy. But if he’d had to pay their price this once, he wouldn’t pay it a second time.
Now his son Mac would do what he, Marcus, hadn’t been able to do, the elder Carlin thought. There were no skeletons in his son’s closets. The boy had promised him ten years in the army. He had one to go, and then his hat would go into the ring for the governorship of the state of Virginia. With Alice at his side, the beautiful, dutiful wife, they would make a perfect couple. The idol-loving public would go wild over them, he was sure. He’d make sure, by orchestrating their private lives and feeding tidbits to the hungry press. Once he whet the public’s appetite, he would have the election in the bag.
Marcus rarely smiled, but he smiled now. Mac would be a figurehead, and he would be the power behind his son. It would be almost as good as being governor himself.
Judge Carlin stepped from his chauffeur-driven stretch limousine, and within seconds was ushered to his favorite table at the rear of the room. Almost immediately a drink was set in front of him. He nodded when a copy of the Washington Star appeared on the table. Carlin allowed himself one quick glance around the room. There was nobody of importance there. Not that it mattered. He rarely spoke to anyone, and he never invited anyone to join him at his table if he was lunching or dining alone.
He did like being seen with his son, however. Although they didn’t look much alike, Marcus felt he looked as youthful as Mac, and he wanted people to notice that. As far as he was concerned, the only sign that he was older than Mac was his hair, which was gray, while his son’s was dark chestnut, almost black. The judge was fit and trim, weighing exactly 180, which was also his son’s weight. He had blue eyes, like Mac’s, but his own were calculating and shrewd, where Mac’s were trusting and open. They both had the same straight nose and the same cleft in what one reporter called a Grecian jaw. Fully clothed, Marcus Carlin could easily pass for a dashing forty-eight, thanks to a skilled plastic surgeon in Switzerland. When associates commented on his youthful appearance, he gave the credit entirely to a line of vitamins he said he took religiously. But he also worked out regularly, played tennis and squash, and jogged three miles every morning. However, he never wore shorts or short-sleeved shirts. Marcus didn’t want any observe-ers to see what he detested about himself—loose, flabby skin. For that, he hated his son’s rippling, muscular thighs and hard biceps.
The judge sensed rather than saw his son approaching. Sensed because he noticed the slight rustle of moving chairs, was aware of craning necks and a soft murmur of voices, especially from the women. Mac was almost as distinguished in his captain’s uniform as the judge was in his English-tailored suit.
“Dad, good to see you,” he said, slipping into his chair.
Marcus wondered with annoyance how his son could be so unaware of the stir he was creating. He himself was always attuned to the effect of his own entrances.
Mac reached for his glass of wine, which appeared as if by magic. His father was lighting a cigarette, and Mac wanted one too. He waited a moment to see if his father would offer him one from the crocodile leather case, but he didn’t. His father never offered anything.
“How’s everything over at the Pentagon?” the judge asked in a bored voice.
Mac watched the perfect smoke ring rise and then waft toward him. He brushed at it impatiently. He didn’t like the Jockey Club, because it was one of his father’s favorite restaurants. He also didn’t like his father’s narrowed eyes or grim jaw. Mac’s heart fluttered. Had the old man s
omehow gotten wind of what was going on? It was unlikely, he decided, since he’d learned to play the game almost as well as his old man.
Mac leaned back in his cane chair, a picture of nonchalance. He took his own cigarettes from a pocket, a crumpled pack of Chesterfields, and lit up. It amused him when his smoke ring circled the judge’s head. Rather like a halo. He thought he could see little tufts of hair resembling horns on the sides of his father’s head. He found himself grinning. “Things are about the same as they were yesterday and the day before that. I don’t sit in on policy-making decisions.”
“By your choice,” the judge snapped.
“Yes, by my choice,” Mac said quietly.
He wasn’t going to miss his father at all. How could you miss someone you were never allowed to know, to get close to? He could feel his eyes start to spark when a bowl of French onion soup was set before him. He detested onion soup. He waved it away, his jaw tightening. He wasn’t going to touch the cobbler’s salad either. He could almost picture the grilled salmon steak that would be forthcoming shortly. His father’s favorite meal; his guests too, like it or lump it. He’d seen people force down food, stifle their gagging impulses, just to impress his father. He’d done it himself, and all he’d gotten for it was acute indigestion. But not today. Not ever again.
Mac lit a second Chesterfield, then drained his wineglass and signaled for another. His father’s eyebrows shot up. One drink at lunch was his father’s motto, two for dinner. All things in moderation. Mac gulped at the dry wine.
Judge Carlin dabbed at his lips. He worked his tongue around the inside of his mouth.
He’s worried there might be specks of spinach on his teeth, Mac thought.
“Just spit it out, Malcolm, and let’s see what we can do with it,” the judge said, patting his lips a second time.
For All Their Lives Page 2