Guardian Angel

by Andrew Neiderman

  It had been that way with their sex, too. He’d been delighted she was still a virgin. He, obviously, had long since not been, and when he made love, he knew exactly how to please her. In those early days, he had never made love without being sure she had gotten as much or more out of it than he had. In a sense, he was teaching her how to be a complete woman.

  But it was all this guidance, all this growing because of him, that gave Scott the impression she would never be able to get along without him. He’d kept her afloat. He’d convinced her to marry him before she completed her second year of college. Her parents were surprised at how quickly she had decided. Ironically, her father, who was a crackerjack insurance salesman, hadn’t seen how effective Scott was when it came to convincing someone to buy something or take a chance on an idea.

  “You’re only in liberal arts anyway,” Scott had told her. “You don’t seem inclined toward any particular subject or career. Why not make a career out of being Mrs. Scott Lester? You won’t regret it.”

  You won’t regret it, she thought. The words haunted her now as she opened the office door that read, EMILY LLOYD, ATTORNEY AT LAW. She couldn’t help feeling numb all morning. Scott had repeated his apologies and regrets even as he rushed out before having breakfast with her, because he had a breakfast scheduled with one of his father’s and his clients. She had said nothing. She had given him the silent treatment before, but he had shrugged it off. She could see it in his face: You’ll break down and talk. What else will you do?

  Here’s what else I’ll do, she thought, and gave her name to Emily Lloyd’s secretary. She was led into her office immediately. Despite her inner rage, she couldn’t keep her hand from trembling when Emily Lloyd extended hers. The five-feet-two-inch woman with a stern, no-nonsense look in her eyes picked up on it immediately.

  “Relax, Mrs. Lester. Tell me your story and we’ll do the right things for you and your daughter.”

  Megan took a deep breath and began to relate her life with Scott and especially how it had been during the last year and a half. When she was finished, Emily Lloyd shook her head, looked out the window a moment and then turned to her and said, “Sounds more like a case of desertion. Forget incompatibility.”

  “I should warn you before we start, Ms. Lloyd. Gordon Lester, Scott’s father, is a very powerful man. There won’t be an attorney sitting across from you; there’ll be a battery of attorneys.”

  “David and Goliath.”

  “No, Meg and the Lesters.”

  Emily Lloyd laughed.

  “No doubt, I wasn’t the woman Scott’s father wanted him to marry, but it was the one independent and firm decision Scott made. I think as punishment, Scott’s father gave him more responsibility, more to do, so there would be a strain on our marriage.”

  “Maybe, but that’s not a good argument for us. Scott’s the master of his own destiny. He’s old enough. Any affairs?”

  Meg laughed.

  “Sometimes I wish there were. It would make it easier to hate him.”

  “Then, you don’t?”

  “No. I’m just tired of it. Scott’s been walking in his father’s shadow so long, he can’t see anything. I’m stifling. Get me out of it. Get me into fresh air.”

  Emily Lloyd nodded.

  “I’ll do my best,” she said. “But let me explain how this works. First, we file a petition, which will be served on Scott. The petition asks that the marriage status of you and Scott be terminated and a judgment entered. The required period is six months.”

  “Six months?”

  “We can’t speed that up, I’m afraid. The concept is to give the two parties time to calm down and perhaps reconsider. He’ll have thirty days to respond with his view of the pertinent facts. Then the case will be set for a court hearing.

  “In this instance, of course, there are child-cus-tody matters as well. I don’t see him fighting your primary custody, but if he has any arguments about it and/or visitation rights, it will go to mandatory counseling at what we call conciliation court.

  “If we don’t get into any serious disputes over these matters, we’ll move toward a marital settlement providing for equal division of community property, child support, et cetera. We’ll have to have the assets valued, so this will take up time.

  “Now, I always ask my clients this question. I’ve already asked about Scott. Are you having an affair? Can he bring up anything to challenge the custody of your daughter? It’s best I know what he will tell his lawyer.”

  “No, absolutely not, absolutely nothing. He’s going to be more shocked by this than anyone.”

  “Well, then, if this is truly what you want after six months, I can assure you, you will get it,” Emily Lloyd said. She was silent a moment and then added, “Just be sure it’s what you want.”

  “I’m sure,” Megan said. “It took all my courage to get this far. I don’t know if you understand, but…“

  “I understand,” Emily Lloyd said, leaning forward. “I got a divorce after ten years of marriage. Fifty percent of marriages these days end in divorce. Welcome to the club.”

  Megan said nothing.

  Despite how she felt now, this was one club she wished she couldn’t join.

  Her hand trembled when she called Clare that afternoon and told her the news. She asked her to do her a favor and break it to their mother.

  “I know she’s not doing so well these days with her diabetes and all. It’s good she has you nearby,” she added.

  “From the sound of you, you might need me nearby,” Clare responded.

  “I’ll get through it. Thanks, Clare.”

  She was sure both of them were thinking about how hard Daddy would have taken the news and how quickly he would have gone to his piano.

  That night when he went to sleep, he immediately dreamed of a new life for himself. He was married again and his wife was pregnant almost hours after they performed the wedding ceremony. This was a fantasy he enjoyed, but more and more it was a fantasy out of necessity.

  His mother had done the usual nagging at dinner, making him feel inadequate. He didn’t believe she had intended to do that, but it was the way he felt when he heard her talking incessantly about his failure to find a good woman. It was as if she believed they were out there, growing on trees, and all he had to do was get into the female orchard and pluck one for himself. It wasn’t their fault; it was his.

  “I can’t believe all the women you meet are so bad,” she told him. “You’re giving up too quickly.”

  He hated that expression more than anything— “giving up too quickly.” He was certainly no quitter. She was parroting his father now. With him gone, she had to pick up all his miserable expressions and throw them around the house, scatter them like chicken feed. Every time he was unable to do something, no matter how daunting the task, his father had hit him with that “you’re giving up too quickly” line. There were many others as well, and before he had met Julia and married her, many that mocked his still living at home.

  “If you had a wife and your own home and family, your mother wouldn’t be washing your clothes. She would.”

  “Your mother’s got to cut that umbilical cord. I trip over it every morning.”

  “You’re already ten years older than I was when I got married and we had you. Those were the days when men were men and women were women. Now you can’t tell a man from a woman no more.”

  “Cut your hair or I’ll have your mother braid it.”

  On and on, like a flood of derision. Why had his father wanted to have any children? Maybe his birth was a mistake. On more than one occasion he had heard his father tell someone that God rains children down on us as punishment for former sins. He’d say that right in his presence, too.

  Some day, he thought, I’ll take my wife and children to the cemetery to see his grave and I’ll have my kids stand on it. I’ll tell them to stamp the ground so that it will feel like a heavy rainfall. They won’t understand why or why I’d be smiling, but that�
��s fine.

  He woke up from his fantasy dream and turned over to look at the moonlight cutting through the trees outside. Moonlight made him feel lonelier. So did soft music and a woman’s laugh. The world was a symphony of painful noises when you were by yourself, he thought. He really didn’t enjoy anything.

  He hated going to the movies by himself, so he didn’t go.

  He hated eating in a restaurant by himself, so he didn’t go.

  He hated going to shows by himself. Hell, he even hated driving by himself.

  The idea of a vacation seemed terrifying.

  And he hated making friends with guys who were married and had children. All they did was talk about their families and when it was his turn to speak, there was a deep silence that echoed in his head.

  All he did enjoy was going on his boat by himself, but he never felt he was by himself then.

  He knew most men claimed to envy him. He could hear the dumb expressions. When I was single, my pockets did jingle.

  So did your brains, he thought.

  One thing he really hated was to be invited to a party and have to go alone or go to meet one of the single women who sat around waiting for someone to be thunderstruck with their beauty and personality. Women his age were all rejects, he thought. It was like eating leftovers.

  No thanks.

  Sorry, can’t attend.

  A cloud moved over the moon and the darkness that ensued was like a needle in his heart. He groaned and turned over on his back to look up at the ceiling.

  Julia’s face appeared on it. She was smiling down at him.

  He could hear her from the bottom of the sea, her words coming up in bubbles and popping in his ears.

  You think you’re better off now. Look to your right. Anyone lying beside you?

  You don’t even have good sex anymore. Go out and make some poor girl pregnant and then volunteer to be her husband. That’s the only way you’ll have a family.

  “Shut up!” he screamed. “Shut up!”

  His mother came to the door. He could hear her standing out there waiting to hear him shout again.

  Julia smiled.

  He turned over on his stomach and pressed his mouth to the pillow.

  He was screaming inside, screaming at himself.

  “You all right in there?” he heard his mother ask.

  He didn’t answer.

  She waited and then she went back to sleep.

  He knew what she was mumbling to herself: “I wish he’d find someone and get off my back.”

  “I’m not just going to pick someone to make you happy,” he muttered. “She has to be the right one. I’m not making that mistake again.”

  His firmness and determination gave him relief. This was, after all, the only reason why he was still alone. He was particular and intelligent about his choices. His friends wondered why he had to be so serious with a woman. Why couldn’t he just go from one to another, one sexual encounter to another, enjoy it and move on?

  He wasn’t religious, but that idea was truly sinful to him. He’d wasted enough sperm with Julia.

  The truth of the matter was, and he’d never tell anyone this, that he couldn’t get it up unless he felt he was in a potentially serious relationship. Otherwise, it was simply an animal act. Every mature civilized adult, especially priests, ministers and rabbis would applaud that, wouldn’t they?

  Or would they congratulate him and then, when he turned away, shake their heads and snicker? He’d often thought they were laughing behind his back when he was in high school, and even men he met at work who had conversations about sex and love nodded at him but ridiculed him when he wasn’t around.

  It didn’t matter.

  I am who I am, he thought.

  And she, wherever she is, is just waiting for me to find her.

  She’s out there, waiting because she’s just like me, serious and responsible like me.

  She might even know my name. It was given to her in dreams.

  That was the only magic fairy he had ever believed in.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was another one of those gray, marine-layer-overcast days for which Los Angeles is famous in the summer months. Sometimes, it didn’t break until midafternoon. In the land of otherwise-glim-mering sunshine and promise, a veritable garden for dreams of fame and riches, these hours of gloom were as unwelcome as a hurricane or a tornado, not to mention a too-frequent tremor. Convertible tops were still up. Auto headlights on late-model cars were still on, and joggers, especially the fanatical ones, looked unhappy and depressed. Even the rare pedestrian had his or her forehead down over soured eyes.

  There always seemed to be more fender benders on days like this, too. Part of that was because people were so intolerant of each other that even if one tapped the other rather gently, the tapped driver would pop out of his or her car and dramatically study the car for the slightest damage. It wasn’t surprising. Drivers were distracted by their daydreams and fantasies. Everyone was in a rush, as if getting to where he or she was going would bring on the sunshine.

  Megan was no different. She nearly hit the side of a city bus when she squeezed in a lane to pass it. The driver let her know it with a loud and long beeping that seemed to rattle her bones. She bit down on her lower lip and squeezed her eyes to keep from crying.

  Yesterday, Emily Lloyd had gotten Scott and his attorney to agree to Scott’s moving out during the period of separation. She was deliberately staying away from the house all morning and into the early afternoon to give him a chance to take out whatever he wanted. She knew he was still reeling from the reality of her quick and decisive moves to end the marriage. He called her, not to beg forgiveness and ask for a second chance, but to reassure himself that she was really going through with it and that this wasn’t simply some overly dramatic gesture. She could hear the disbelief in his voice.

  “You really want to do this?”

  “It’s done,” she told him. “Get used to it.”

  “I’m trying to be patient, to understand, but…“

  “I no longer want your understanding, Scott. I’m not the one who needs therapy here.”

  He was fuming. She could almost feel it through the phone.

  “Just get your things,” she added, and hung up.

  Five minutes later she called Tricia Morgan.

  “It’s done,” she told her.

  “It’s not done, Meg. It’s begun, is what you mean. Don’t forget, I’ve been through it.”

  “Yes, that’s what I meant. I feel numb though.”

  “And frightened. Don’t forget that. Just keep thinking about all the disappointment and pain you’ve felt these past years and how tolerant and forgiving you were. Stupidly, I might add. That will give you the strength.”

  “I know you’re right. It’s just…“

  “Hard. I know. So is losing weight. Listen. I’m taking you out tomorrow night. It’s what I call a ’good for you’ night out. Get a sitter.”

  “Night out? Where?”

  “The Cage, on Robinson.”

  “The Cage?”

  “Might as well get right back into the scene, Meg. Wear something sexy as hell. You’ve got the figure. Most of us don’t. And start thinking about this as the beginning of your life and not the end.”

  “But tomorrow night? That seems fast.”

  “It’s like falling off a bike, right? If you don’t get back on, you never will.”

  “I guess you’re right. I guess I have to try.”

  “Try hard,” Tricia said. “Call me in the morning. I’m seeing that cable-television executive Brook introduced me to at her husband’s office party last week. He called. I didn’t think he meant it. It did take him a week, but maybe he’s shy. Wouldn’t that be a change? A man who was insecure and not bleeding testosterone all over you?”

  Megan laughed. It felt good.

  “That’s the sound I like to hear,” Tricia said. “Contrary to what they tell us, smiling and laughter does not
bring on wrinkles.”

  “What time do we meet at the Cage?”

  “We don’t meet. I’ll pick you up at seven so you don’t come up with some phony excuse. Prepare to get soused, too. If I’m not sober, I’ll find someone else to drive you home.”

  “Okay,” Megan said, and made the turn into her street. “I’ll call you in the morning to get the blow-by-blow.”

  “Watch it. I never said anything about blow,” Tricia quipped. “These phones are tapped.”

  Megan laughed again and shut off the Bluetooth. She was actually feeling better until she approached the house and saw that Scott’s Mercedes was still in the driveway. She almost drove past, but he came out of the house carrying a suitcase and saw her approaching. He stopped to wait. She drove into the open garage and got out quickly to head for the door.

  “Meg, wait.”

  She paused and turned to him.

  “You were supposed to be finished much earlier, Scott, but I’m not surprised you’re late. The stock market is still open.”

  “Actually, I had to see my attorney. This is crazy. Can’t we have a sensible, reasonable and quiet discussion about all this?”

  “Don’t you ever get tired of talk, Scott? Don’t you ever just want to do what you say?”

  “I’m not saying I’ll do anything.”

  “Well, I am.”

  “I don’t see what we’ll be accomplishing here. If we just keep trying…”

  “We?”

  She laughed and took a step toward him.

  “Why is it you’re smart enough to make thousands of dollars in an hour, but not smart enough to see your own failings? Maybe you just don’t want to see. I have to keep reminding myself that Lesters have no failings, right?”

  She turned around and headed for the door again, her heart thumping like a flat tire.