A Woman of Intelligence

by Karin Tanabe

  “In that case, it was Old Tom,” I said, unable to keep from smiling.

  “Old Tom on the rocks,” Faye said to the waiter. “And I’ll switch to champagne. In fact, we both will. Old Tom and champagne, sounds like a very good night out. Though young Tom would be even better.”

  “My name is Tom,” said the waiter, laughing.

  “Well, there you go.”

  After he left, I looked at Faye quizzically. “Do you think his name is really Tom?”

  “Absolutely not. I think it’s something very long like—”

  “Like Rachmaninoff?”

  “Exactly.”

  When the champagne was poured and our meal ordered, she took a long sip of her drink and flipped her hair from her shoulders.

  “Now that we don’t have le tout Hollywood around us, tell me all about yourself. I know some, but not enough. What was it that landed you all the way in California? Trouble at home?”

  “You could say that. It’s a long story, but I suppose it can be summarized as I tried to murder my son and got a free vacation out of it.”

  “Did you!” she exclaimed, putting her glass down so firmly that a few drops splashed out. “How utterly fascinating.” She spread her free hand out on the table like a fan. “Do go on.”

  My body tensed instinctively as I thought about that day. I realized that I hadn’t told anyone what happened, my version of it. Though I was terribly short of female confidantes, I was now plus one UN telephone, thanks to Ava Newman. That was something rather delightful. And so was Faye. “My son fell in Central Park,” I explained. “He was running, quite some distance from me, then he fell on some glass, and was bleeding quite a bit. And I didn’t help him, I simply froze in place, like an ice sculpture with no heart. In the end he needed stitches, and my husband thought I needed a lobotomy.”

  “And then?” she asked.

  “I suppose that’s it, really,” I said, the image of bleeding Gerrit flashing before my eyes. “Those are the important parts.”

  Faye raised her glass, and Young Tom the waiter came and refilled it.

  “Let me try to understand something,” she said after he’d slipped away.

  “Please.”

  “You could not have prevented him from cutting his knee. You didn’t see the glass.”

  “I suppose if I’d done a full sweep of Central Park before I let my kids play there, I could have.”

  “Right. But that’s an insane person’s behavior, yes?”

  “Let’s go with overly concerned mother.”

  “So, the only thing you’re guilty of is not reacting fast enough.”

  “Not reacting at all.”

  “But you would have eventually. You wouldn’t have let the sun set on your bleeding child.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t,” she said, putting her elbows on the table and leaning toward me. “You’d had a hell of a day, and your reaction time was slower because you were shaken and exhausted. Trust me, if this were a court, I could get you excused.”

  “I may take you up on that one day.”

  She laughed, thinking I was talking about motherhood. Which I was, and which I wasn’t. The way things were unfolding with Jacob and Ava, Turner and Coldwell, I didn’t know where I would end up. A courtroom felt entirely possible.

  “You do know how much easier it is for women to get divorced these days? There are these new courts, just established. Family courts, they’re called. They focus on divorces involving children. I’ve argued in one.”

  “You seem too young to have done all that you’ve done.”

  “I’m forty, but I look amazing for my age,” she said, grinning. “But when I say it out loud, forty, people assume I’m practically deceased,” said Faye, pointing to my gin, which was still untouched.

  “Practically,” I said, taking a long swig. “There should be a pasture for women who practice law at forty or who give birth after thirty. Just like for old mules. We could hang around and pluck one another’s whiskers.”

  “You’re very funny,” said Faye, laughing. “And listen, Mrs. Tom Edgeworth. I’ve seen you very drunk and not at your best and my opinion is still that you’re great-looking, even at your advanced, nearly dead age.” She put down her fork and knife. “After we devour these steaks and things,” she said, “let’s go to some crummier place. I’m in the mood for trouble. Let’s go somewhere with dirty floors, lurk in dark corners, and drink everything put in front of us. Or I can do all that and you can have a coffee.” She knocked back the rest of her champagne and placed it on the table with a bang. “Thoughts?”

  “I don’t need any more trouble, but why stop now?” I said, cutting into my steak. I considered my activities over the last few months. Nearly crashing to my death in the rain, moving stolen classified documents up and down the Eastern Seaboard, lying to Jacob (and to the KGB by extension), stealing moments with a man who breathed life into me, and being threatened by Carrie because I’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time with said man. I was already in plenty of trouble—what was one more night?

  We both ate quickly, paid the bill, and jumped into a taxi heading downtown.

  “I went to a horrible little hole in the Village the last time I was here,” said Faye, rolling down her window. “The drinks were awful, but the men were gorgeous. I know you’re married and all, for now, but what do you think?”

  My mind flashed to Turner, how he looked waiting for me at the Eighth Avenue Coffee Shop or standing outside my window on Fifth Avenue. Marriage was complicated. So was lust. “I think that sounds like the perfect scenario,” I said to Faye.

  “Good,” she cooed.

  “How did you get your job? As a lawyer,” I asked as the cab made its way downtown.

  “During the war, of course,” said Faye. “That’s when every woman who is currently in a top law firm edged her way in. With the men off at war, there was a shortage of lawyers. Even ones with ovaries would do to fill the vacuum. I was a legal secretary, and when I pointed out that I’d gone to Yale Law, they took me on as an associate. All but two women gave up their jobs when the men came back; I was one of them. They all said we’ll always be associates working like sled dogs, pulling the men on their way to becoming partner. But I would rather be an associate sled dog than not be in a law firm at all. Be a nobody.”

  We were both quiet for a moment as her words sank in. She would rather be a sled dog than stay at home. Like me.

  “That sounded awful,” she said, reading my silence. “Trust me, it’s everyone who is not a lawyer that has it figured out. As long as you’re happy, then life’s a tango rather than a square dance, right?”

  “I wouldn’t call myself happy. Though I’m better now than I was in California.”

  “You’ll have to come back and give us a try. Maybe wear shorts next time. Nothing longer than the Bermuda variety. Come,” she said as our taxi slowed. “Here’s the miserable place.”

  We walked inside and the very college-aged crowd made room for us at the bar.

  “At least they respect their elders,” I mumbled, ordering a gin straight up.

  “They’re older,” she said, nodding her head slightly to indicate a group of men in their thirties.

  Seeing her gesture, one of them immediately came up and offered to buy her a drink. Faye was dressed to sashay between luxury hotels and the “21” Club; he was dressed to stomp between a poetry reading and a one-act play, done in the original Romanian.

  “Buy you lovely ladies a drink?”

  Faye looked at me and winked. He was dressed like a college student, but he was very easy on the eyes. “Tell you what…”

  “James Harris.”

  “James,” said Faye. “I’ll buy a bottle of champagne or homemade whiskey or whatever they sell here and you have a glass. Then after I’m done speaking to my friend, I’ll come find you and we can either have long conversations about great American writers, because based on what
you’re wearing, I’m assuming that’s your life’s purpose, or we can kiss passionately in the corner and decide if we want it to lead to more. See if our tongues get along and all that.”

  “What is your name?” he said, taking her hand in his.

  “Faye Buckley Swan.”

  “Faye,” he said, looking at her. “I think I love you.”

  He turned to me, took my hand, and kissed it. “I think I love you, too.”

  The bar did have champagne, and we sent James Harris on his way to ogle Faye from the corner.

  “Did you attend some underground charm school or something? I think that man is ready to give you a kidney.”

  “More like his manhood. And no, I just happen to love men. Especially ones that look like that. It’s a product of growing up in Los Angeles. Everyone thinks Californians are just tan idiots, but they’re wrong. We were raised on the smart, snappy language of cinema and have to study hard to keep up. Not to mention all that very blonde competition. The bar is high in the Wild West.”

  “This bar feels high,” I said, starting to slump a bit against it.

  “Then we’ll just get higher,” she said, refilling my glass until it was spilling over the edge.

  “I could use a few lessons,” I said, observing her.

  “Why?” she said, watching me knock back my entire glass of champagne, which to my drunk lips tasted like drinking just bubbles and air. “You’re happily married.” She raised her eyebrows at me.

  “I think the problem is that I’m not happy. So I’m not happily married. Does that make sense?”

  “It does,” she replied. “But I think marriages can weather storms like depressive episodes, even affairs. As long as there’s more love than hate.”

  “There’s more love than hate,” I said. “But I don’t know that there’s enough love. I care for old Tom deeply, of course I do. It’s just that sometimes, perhaps often these days, I’m not too fond of this version of Tom and I’m not sure if there are any versions of him left. Maybe when he leaves medicine,” I said looking down at my second glass, which was already empty. “But that could be never.”

  “‘I care for him deeply’ is the polite society way of saying ‘I’m bored and fantasizing about another life.’”

  “I don’t know,” I said, refusing to picture Turner. “All I know is I need something stronger,” I said, tapping my glass.

  “Cheers,” she said. “To whatever is in this. May it bring a jolt of the good life.”

  Four hours later, at just past one in the morning, Faye, James Harris, and I piled into a taxi heading uptown.

  “Are you sure you don’t want your own taxi, Rina?” she said. “I’m way up on the West Side at the Lucerne.”

  “I don’t want to be alone yet,” I said. “And the taxi ride will sober me up.”

  “That’s never happened,” James muttered.

  I closed my eyes in the taxi, my head hanging out the window like a golden retriever. I was too drunk to keep my eyes open, and too exhausted, but like a man who’s lost his sight, my nose seemed to work on canine levels. As we rattled up Tenth Avenue, I smelled New York. The streets that needed to be washed, the sewers that were moving the night away, the bleary-eyed waiters serving whatever meal came between dinner and breakfast, the dry air and the moonlight, the intoxicating scent of chaos and potential.

  “Please come see me again,” I said as we stopped in front of the Lucerne. I lifted my head and kissed Faye on the cheek. I was so drunk that she was starting to sparkle. I had to walk, and get something terribly greasy and fattening to eat, before I went home to feel the wrath of old Tom. It’s not even ten p.m.in Waikiki was the best excuse I’d come up with and it was probably not going to make Tom laugh.

  “I promise,” Faye said. “Until then, telephone this sled dog if you need counsel, or counseling, or simply a friend.”

  CHAPTER 32

  By the time I had walked a ten-block loop, eaten a hot dog and french fries, had a strong cup of coffee, and reached Eightieth again, I felt able to walk in a straight line.

  As I contemplated whether I could survive a crosstown taxi, I realized I was very near Ava Newman’s apartment building. The Eden. Ava Newman, rowing in Eden. My friend, my comrade. She was leaving for Moscow soon, to save herself from people like Turner Wells and me. But she was still the Miss America of communists. And she’d broken into the United Nations for me. I couldn’t let her go without saying goodbye.

  I was in sight of the portico entrance when my nerves started prickling before my mind could catch up. There was a man approaching the door. He moved with familiarity. Before I could glimpse his face, his back was to me and he was opening the door. Even in my faded, drunken haze, I knew it was Jacob Gornev. The lanky frame, the languid gait, that inimitable air of confidence, even in ill health.

  I was about to call out to him when I stopped myself. There was only one reason a man arrived at a woman’s apartment at such an hour.

  I watched the door close after him and looked up at the building. When I saw a light turn on behind the white curtains of a fourth floor apartment, I turned and stuck out my limp arm for a taxi.

  Tom was not waiting for me with an antique revolver in the living room. Nor was there a note saying to leave the Cartier ring and never return. The apartment was quiet. I tiptoed through it, let my dress tumble to the floor in the guest room, threw some water in the direction of my face, and fell asleep.

  Most mornings, I was woken by the cries of a child, but after my night with Faye, it was by the loud, angry voice of Dr. Tom Edgeworth. I tried to keep from being sick as he listed my shortcomings. I was irresponsible, ungrateful, blotto, embarrassing, thoughtless, reckless, unreliable. The last was Tom’s favorite; of course, it was how he’d ended his tirade.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my head half under a pillow, trying to block the morning sun.

  “You said ten o’clock.”

  “No, you said ten o’clock. I said that I needed a night out. Needed a friend. Needed some levity in my life.”

  “What about me? Do you think every day of my life is a parade? That I go to work for some levity?”

  “You could go out on weekends. You used to. We used to.”

  “We have different responsibilities now. Our children. Peter was inconsolable without you. I couldn’t get him to sleep until midnight. I can still hear him screaming.”

  “How terrible for you,” I murmured. Then, just in time, I grabbed a trash can and heaved into it.

  Tom watched me with utter disgust.

  I wiped off my mouth and looked up to meet his angry gaze. Did Tom really have no idea how long it took me to get Peter to bed most nights? Or realize how many times he had been gone for twenty-four hours since the boys had been born? Calling to say he was just going to sleep at the hospital since he had surgery in the morning, even though we lived only a seven-minute taxi ride from Lenox Hill?

  “Clearly, you’ve stopped breastfeeding,” he said, looking at me in my bra, which was gaping on my much smaller chest.

  “I stopped after California.”

  “After California?” he said, his face turning even grayer as he realized it had been three months. “And you didn’t consult me about it? About what the implications will be for Peter? You breastfed Gerrit through your second pregnancy.”

  “And look at him,” I said dryly.

  “Yes, look at him,” Tom shouted. “Energetic, daring, athletic, cunning, linguistically advanced, and very loving.”

  “It’s true that Gerrit is all of those things, and many other things, but Peter is certainly not a lump of coal.” My stomach was threatening me again and I moved back to the edge of the bed.

  “I wish you had asked me.”

  “And I wish you had asked me if I wanted to do it in the first place.”

  “It’s best for the boys. And you.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” I said, my stomach churning.

  “So, last night. Sta
ying out until all hours, drinking with some woman, some terrible influence, to the point of vomiting—”

  “That terrible influence went to Yale Law.”

  “Because the world has never had a crooked lawyer with a good degree?”

  “I enjoyed myself,” I said quietly, the night with Faye now feeling so far away, and so close to coming back up again. “And I deserve to enjoy myself on occasion.”

  He looked at me in my underwear, gripping the trash can, and shook his head. “Get yourself together, Katharina. You look like some coed who just tasted liquor for the first time. Clean up and take a shower. I’ll take the boys to the park and you can join me in the next hour, looking—and smelling—nothing like you do now. And let me tell you what you’re really going to enjoy: playing with your boys in the park while green in the face in ninety-five-degree weather.”

  I waited to hear the elevator ding and then finished being sick in the bathroom. I was in the shower when the phone rang, and I ran, soaking and soapy, to answer it.

  “Rina. It’s Turner.”

  “Turner,” I inhaled sharply, immediately knowing something was wrong. No one from the FBI ever called the house on the weekend. If they had something to tell me, they did it far more covertly, like Turner had done with the flowers. “Turner,” I said again, terrified.

  “Ava Newman … Ava. She died last night, Katharina. I was told that she hung herself in her kitchen.”

  “What?” I whispered. “No. You must be mistaken … no, Turner,” I said, starting to cry.

  He let me cry, staying silent on the other line.

  “I almost went there last night, to her,” I said when I could speak again. “I was standing in front of her door.”

  “Why were you in front of her door?”

  “It’s a long story. I was drunk and I realized I was near her apartment. I wanted to see her before she left. I wanted to thank her for her friendship, as preposterous as that sounds. But I didn’t go inside.”

  “Why?”