I laughed. I probably shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help it. It was so unexpected. “What happened to ‘would you like to order?’ ” I asked.
“Would you like to order?” Barbara Elson said, looking concerned. I wondered if this was a good cop/bad cop routine they’d perfected.
“Yes, I would,” I said, studying the menu. “What’s the lobster boniato mash?” I asked the waiter.
“White sweet potato and lobster chunks. It’s a side dish,” he sniffed.
“Nevertheless, that’s what I want,” I said. I felt reckless and festive all at once. The desperation comment had liberated me from pretense, not to mention hope. What did I have to lose?
They ordered more conventionally, and we all sat back. I waited for my desperation to seep back into the conversation.
It didn’t take long.
“So where were we?” Nora said. Her eyes were a very vivid blue that pinned you with their gaze.
“You know I’m desperate,” I offered pleasantly.
Her mouth twitched. “Oh, yes.”
“Is it really as bad as that?” Barbara asked sympathetically.
“Probably,” I agreed. “If you know anything at all about me, you’ll know that Harrison Grady’s problems wreaked havoc with my client base.”
“Yet you went to his funeral,” Nora said.
“How did you know that?” I asked.
“I was there, too,” she said. “We were friends a long time ago.” She sighed. “You wouldn’t have seen me,” she said, reading my mind. “I sat in the back.”
I shrugged. “Then you understand,” I told her.
“He didn’t wreck my career,” she said pointedly.
“No,” I agreed.
She nodded, as if she’d satisfied herself on some particular point I hadn’t yet grasped. I waited.
“Well,” she said, “Barbara and I are very impressed with your work.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“I’m not just saying that,” she said, a little sternly. “I’ve reviewed some of your extraordinary-ability petitions.” She consulted some notes she had put on the table. “Most recently you did one for SLAC, didn’t you? A Dr. Strela?”
I’d almost forgotten that SLAC had asked Elson Larimer to review the petition. I nodded. “I should probably tell you that Dr. Strela has a very strong case, but there are some complications you don’t know about. He might not get approved.”
They both nodded. The ways of the INS were mysterious and unpredictable.
“Anyway,” I added, “it’s how you handle the weaker cases that counts, don’t you think?”
Barbara, the good cop, smiled. “Absolutely.”
The waiter brought our lunches. The mashed sweet potatoes and lobster alone made the entire trip—the drive in traffic, the scramble to find a parking place, the interview jitters—worth it.
“How is it?” Nora asked.
I sought the right adjectives. “Magnificent,” I said. “Ethereal.”
She smiled. “I like women who aren’t afraid to eat,” she said. “So, Lynn, do you think you might be interested in joining our firm?”
I swallowed carefully. “I know it’s said that beggars can’t be choosers, but I couldn’t answer that without knowing the terms.”
She nodded curtly. “All that would have to be worked out, of course. I’m not offering you an equity partnership, at least not right away. We’d have to see how your client list grows. But we’re very interested in expanding our extraordinary-ability practice, and you seem to fit the bill. If that doesn’t interest you, tell me right now, and we’ll drop this discussion altogether.”
“Keep talking,” I said.
“We’re planning to increase the practice in the Bay Area,” Barbara said, “but we would also like to open an office in Southern California. That would be an exceptional opportunity for the right person.”
“Where?” I asked.
“That’s negotiable,” Nora said. “Also, we have a small office on the East Coast that we’re hoping to build up.”
“In New York City?” I asked, my voice rising. The odor of brimstone filled the air, and Nora didn’t even know what she was tempting me with.
“Of course,” she said with some asperity. “Hackensack was full up.”
Barbara laughed, so I did, too.
“Also,” she said, “if you want to bring any of your associates along, we’d be willing consider them as well.”
“There is just the one,” I ventured, wondering what they would make of Brooke.
“Is he competent?”
That required either a very long answer or an inadequate one. I chose inadequate. “With some reservations, yes, she is.”
“We’d do our own screening in any case,” Nora said. “But your recommendation would carry the most weight.” She set her napkin beside her plate. “Those are some options,” she said. “Think it over. If you want to take it further, we can hammer out the details.”
“I will,” I said, scarcely able to get the words out fast enough. “I’ll definitely think it over.”
“Good,” she said, “I’ll get the check.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you very much.”
35
I was wondering…,” Meredith began. Her voice sounded uncharacteristically reticent.
I was sitting at my desk in a state of total self-absorption, frozen by the possibilities Elson Larimer had offered me. I could go to New York with Alexei. I could stay here. I could go back to Southern California. To be offered what you wished for most—choice—was profoundly unsettling. If I left with Alexei, I could start over. I could reinvent my life one more time. I knew that part of his charm was that he, too, in headhunter-speak, had “zero drag”—no inconvenient attachments, at least not here. A blank slate, the projection of my yearnings. Unfortunately, he filled a void in me I didn’t even know I’d had until he filled it. How was I going to go on without repeating the mistakes of the past?
If I left with Alexei, I would ruin everything I had with Jack. Even battered and damaged, we already had a story, a shared history, a family life. But if I stayed, things would have to change. The marriage would have a chance only if there were two of us at the center of it, and if that meant the kids had to “go lower,” as they say in Jane Austen novels, it also certainly meant I had to give up Alexei. When you’ve felt that much for somebody, you don’t rip him out of your heart without a lot of scars. If I’d been a character in a Graham Greene novel, I would have done the decent thing and killed myself before I hurt anyone, which I was bound to do, maybe myself most of all.
Meredith’s call shook me out of my reverie, if that’s the right word for it. “Yes?” I said. “Sorry. You caught me daydreaming.”
“Oh,” she said, as if this were an alien concept.
She didn’t continue, so I asked, “How are you? How are the wedding plans going?” It was all I could think of to say.
“Fine,” she said. “Everything is under control.”
That was such a typically Meredith statement that I almost laughed. “That’s great,” I said, mastering the impulse.
“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I want you to know …” She hesitated.
“Yes?”
“That I’m very grateful to you and Dad for putting on the wedding.” The words came out as if she’d squeezed them out of a toothpaste tube, from the bottom up. I assumed that Jack had suggested that such a statement should be forthcoming, but I didn’t care. At least it was something.
“It’s our pleasure,” I said. Not a sincere sentiment exactly, but a necessary one.
“Also …”
“Also?”
“A friend of my … of Mom’s is giving me a shower. I was wondering if you’d like to come.”
Now I was sure Jack had put her up to it. “I take it it’s not a surprise or anything like that?” I asked. I could just imagine Janet’s naked dismay when I showed up at her dau
ghter’s party. One bad turn did not deserve another.
“I don’t like surprises,” she said.
“No, I suppose not. I guess what I mean is, does your mother know you’re inviting me? Is it all right with her?”
“It’s my shower,” she said authoritatively.
“Yes, but it’s your mother, too. She has feelings, and they ought to be taken into consideration. If she doesn’t know already, ask her if she minds. If not, then I’d be glad to come. If she’d rather I didn’t show up, then I won’t. No hard feelings.”
“She won’t mind, but I’ll ask if you insist,” she said.
“I insist,” I said.
“She won’t thank you for it,” she pointed out.
“She doesn’t have to,” I said.
She paused. I thought the conversation was as difficult for her as it was for me, so I was just about to thank her for calling and hang up. “By the way…,” she said, before I could. “I’m really sorry about your cat. Patrick told me.”
“He’s okay,” I told her. “The hair is growing in, and he’s gotten all kinds of treats and sympathy since the accident. He seems to be enjoying himself.”
“That’s good,” she said. “I love animals.”
“Do you?” I tried unsuccessfully to keep the incredulous note out of my voice.
“Of course,” she said. “I always … Mom would never let us get a pet.”
“Because Patrick was allergic?” I suggested.
She made a derisive sound that in anyone less controlled would have been a snort. “Anyway,” she said eventually, “that’s mostly why I became a vegetarian. At age ten,” she added proudly. “Ask Dad.”
I said I believed her. On the basis of our acquaintance so far, I could just imagine her determination as a ten-year-old child, confounding her parents and upsetting everyone’s menu plans. In a way I sort of admired it, at least before things got out of hand. My parents never let me have a pet either, and now I’d turned dotty about an elderly, one-eyed cat.
“I’ll be in touch,” she said.
“DID YOU,” I asked Jack carefully after dinner, “say something to Meredith about thanking me for the wedding?” We were sitting on the couch watching the DVD of I, Claudius. Despite having seen it at least three times, I didn’t get tired of watching it again, and tag lines from the episodes—“People really are despicable”—had worked themselves into our household vocabulary. It is probably a sign of age to prefer watching what you’ve already seen to trying something new, choosing comfort over excitement, Hawaii over Nepal. Still, the pleasures of re-viewing—like rereading—are underrated. Particularly when you share them with somebody else. Even something as small as a shared reaction to a TV program reinforced the concept of us.
“Why do you ask?” he said, not taking his eyes off the screen. Livia had just warned Tiberius not to eat the figs. She’d poisoned them, in order to get rid of her husband, Augustus Caesar. “Nobody would eat the figs,” Jack said, before I could answer. “Figs are inedible.”
“I like figs,” I said. “And so did Augustus. That’s the point. He thought he was safe eating them, and he wasn’t. And you’re evading the question. I’m asking because Meredith called me today.”
“That was nice of her,” he said blandly.
“Yes, it was,” I agreed.
He sighed and hit the “stop” button. “Then why pursue it? Isn’t it enough that she called?”
I had my answer. “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m glad you did, at least I think so. It just led me to think of something else.”
“I thought,” Jack said quietly, “that it was time she started treating you like family.”
My fingernails dug into my palm. “Thank you for that,” I said. “As long as you feel that way, there’s something I want to ask you.”
“What?” he asked.
“I want you to let me pay half of our contribution to the wedding.” He started to shake his head, but I forestalled him. “I know we’ve discussed it before, but this is important to me. I’ve thought about it a lot. Please let me.”
He looked at me. “If you’re feeling guilty over wanting out of this relationship, you don’t have to pay me off,” he said.
It was a moment before I could speak. “I haven’t said…,” I protested. “And anyway, that isn’t it. Oh, Jack, you know it isn’t.”
“Tell me,” he said.
The thoughts tumbled around in my head. That I wanted to be treated as a partner, not a guest. That I wanted a tangible investment in the family. That expiation, however much I denied it to him, was a distinct possibility. I could give up my money if I didn’t have to give up my life.
I did not, at that moment, know which, if any, was the truth. Did I want to stay, or did I just want to feel less guilty if I left, like someone who had paid her off her debts? I thought I knew, but I wasn’t sure. “I can’t tell you,” I said. “Not right now anyway. But if we’re to go on, I have to have a stake in this marriage. You and Meredith and Patrick and even Janet have to know I have a stake in it, too. And you know I’m not just talking about money.”
“I’ve just been trying to protect you,” he said. “I didn’t think you should be penalized because Meredith and Janet are envisioning some extravaganza worthy of—”
“Madonna meets Michael Jackson?”
He laughed. “I was thinking more of Liz Taylor and Elvis, but that will do. Anyway, why should you have to pay for it?”
“Because we got married, Jack. That should mean we share things, even things we don’t agree with or even on. Protecting me means shutting me out. Surely you can see that?”
He looked at me. “You said if we’re to go on.”
“Yes.”
“What if we don’t?”
He wanted a definitive answer, and I couldn’t give him one. I tried to imagine what the Anne Boleyn Society would advise at this point. Claire “Doctor” Billings would no doubt remind me that second marriages with children from previous marriages have a 50 percent higher chance of failing than do second marriages without children. Kay would tell me to consider the bargain I had made and decide whether I still wanted to live up to it. Lorraine would say …
Lorraine would say, had said, There’s always something you can do.
“I just know that it’s important to me,” I said. “Can’t that be enough for right now?”
“All right,” he said, after a moment.
“Thank you,” I said.
He smiled sadly. “Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?”
I couldn’t answer him.
“There’s something I’ve been thinking about, too,” he said eventually.
I straightened at his tone. Even though I wanted to get past this, one way or the other, it took all my courage to ask, “What’s that?”
He looked out the window into the dark. “I think that if … I think we should definitely sell the house and move somewhere else.”
I did not rush to ask—insincerely—Why? or Why now? I waited.
“I’ve thought it over,” he said, “and I was wrong to refuse when you suggested it before. All this”—he gestured, palms up, around the room—“was my life, not yours. I didn’t think how hard it would be, just stepping into the tableau like that. Meredith, Patrick, Janet—all of it. I was so eager for things to work out that I didn’t want to see that they weren’t working.” He looked at me. “I’m sorry,” he said.
One of the things I had always liked about Jack, in addition to his willingness to apologize (an unusual quality in a man, as I’m sure I don’t need to mention) was his eye for the perfect metaphor. Stepping into a tableau—the interlude during the scene when all the performers onstage freeze in position and then resume action just as before—was exactly what it had been like. My eyes filled. “Oh, Jack,” I said.
“I hope it’s not too late,” he said.
“I don’t think moving would make you happy,” I told him. “Your life has always been her
e.”
“My life is with you,” he said. “I have other commitments, but the one to you comes first. Besides, you can’t deny that it might be a good idea to move a little farther away from Janet.”
I had to smile.
He sighed. “And the kids, too; I admit that. They’re probably too dependent on me. It might do them good to have to make it on their own.”
I thought it unlikely that any distance between the Bay Area and wherever we moved would stop their importunings for financial help, but at least they were showing promising signs of independence. “I’d never want you to cut them off or anything like that, Jack. I hope you know that. But a little space between us and them while we worked things out might be … helpful.” I smiled. “At least till you have grandchildren. The thing is, though,” I added seriously, “it’s a leap into the unknown. Sometimes the unknown can be negative as well as positive.” What if, once we were alone together, we found out there wasn’t any us anymore?
“I love you. I’m willing to take the chance if you are,” he said. He understood what I was afraid of. “It still wouldn’t obligate you, if we decide there’s nothing to hold us together. You’d be free—you are free—to do what you think is best for you. But I’d like to give it a try.”
“Oh, Jack,” I said again.
“You don’t have to say anything now. I just wanted you to know it’s on the table.” He said more matter-of-factly, “I can continue in a consulting role in the business from a distance, but it’s going to be a long time—if ever—before the company is profitable, and I’m thinking I need to start practicing law again. My former law firm has approached me about opening an office in San Diego to capitalize on the biotechnology business. It’s a hot area. You liked living there once—maybe you’d like to start up a practice again.”
I wanted to say something, but he held up his hand. “Also,” he said, “we’ll get a small fortune for the house. We could pay off the tax liability without borrowing and still have enough for a nice condo or something like that.”
“It would mean burning your—our—bridges financially,” I said. “Once we’ve sold, we couldn’t realistically afford to come back, not with housing prices the way they are.”
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