Finding Mrs. Ford

by Deborah Goodrich Royce

  Susan does not open the envelope. She places it apart, avoiding the pile of papers, and reaches into the safe again. Groping in the dark, she discovers it—there at the back—the object of her attention. A small gun.

  Really, a pistol. A .38 caliber Smith & Wesson.

  Susan lays her hand on the barrel and slides it down to the grip. It is cold, which is strange on this hot day. She puts the jewelry and papers—all but the dingy envelope—back into the safe. Then she closes and latches the door. She hauls herself up from the floor, retraces her steps to the hallway, and places the gun and the envelope inside her orange purse.

  She has done what she came here to do; now the afternoon stretches in front of her.

  She sits at the dining table and flips open her laptop. She goes into her office email account and scrolls through the roughly two hundred that have come in already today—deals that are closing, client inquiries, contracts, details, minutiae—each small item requiring one tiny touch, like little birds pecking at her, holding their mouths open to be fed. It would be good to knock these off, to use her time efficiently, answer questions needing answering, and take care of business. It would be smart to call Samantha back, get her messages, and return her calls.

  But she is incapable of doing any of those things right now.

  Susan snaps her laptop closed. She wanders back to the kitchen, boils water for tea, and checks her watch. Unable to sleep, unable to read, unable to work, she settles on a bath—her cure-all for just about anything that ails her. She runs the water as hot as she can stand it, throws in some Epsom salt, and gets in. The Pavlovian response—her body’s purely physical and automatic reaction of calm provoked by the warmth of the water begins to talk to her brain.

  Susan closes her eyes and wills her mind to drift. This is a technique she has practiced for years, the reverse of the mindfulness of meditation. She has cultivated her own brand of mindlessness. Mind erasure, she might choose to call it—a prying of the jaws of her terrier brain off tenacious and troubling thoughts, a repositioning of them on more palatable pictures.

  She will not go where she does not choose to go. Not to this morning or the past it threatens to bring up. She is not ready to face that just yet. In the heat of the bath, she yokes her imagination and reins it toward more pleasant memories—to the early nineties, a dozen or so years into her life in New York. To the Upper East Side on an afternoon when she wasn’t watching where she was going.

  She had met Jack Jr. on a subway platform. Literally upon the platform because that is where she landed when they collided with each other rushing top speed in opposite directions. Susan had lost her balance and fallen to the ground and Jack Jr. had dropped everything to help her.

  “Oh my God! I’m so sorry,” he’d said as he jettisoned his briefcase to lift her to her feet. The way he so freely abandoned his bag had won her over instantly. New York could be a rough town where pickpockets abounded. But Jack had put the welfare of a total stranger above his own; he had cast his possessions aside to come to her aid. It was an act of simple chivalry and it made its impression.

  “I’m fine,” she asserted in a voice that did not come out as authoritatively as she had intended. They both could see that she was badly shaken. Jack was a big man and the force of him had landed her hard on her hip.

  “Oh no. I’m taking you to the hospital. We’re going to Lenox Hill and you’re getting an X-ray and I won’t take no for an answer.” He flashed a million-dollar smile. “Maybe you’ll let me buy you dinner afterwards.”

  Susan, who had been alone for some years, felt tears spring up in her eyes. Jack Jr. thought she was crying from the pain of the fall. But, really, she was crying from his kindness. It felt so unfamiliar but, in a primal way, recalled a memory of gentler times.

  They waited at Lenox Hill Hospital for hours. Susan, with her bruised hip, did not compete with the true emergencies that were walked or wheeled through the doors. Jack popped out, from time to time, to bring them coffee and food.

  “If we keep eating this way, I don’t think I can face that dinner you mentioned. I think we’ve consumed about six full meals since we’ve been here.”

  “Man up, young lady, I intend to feed you back to wellness today and we’ve only just begun.”

  “I’m serious. Muffins, chips, cookies—you haven’t left any room for dinner.”

  But Jack Jr. had prevailed. By the time Susan was called to the back, X-rayed, and seen by a doctor, by the time she was iced, bandaged, and advised to take ibuprofen, she had surprisingly worked up an appetite.

  “I think if we spend any more time together I’ll get fat!” she said as she tucked into a mound of linguini Carbonara. Jack Jr. had taken her to his favorite little Italian place around the corner.

  “Well, that’s good, because I like you. That way, there’ll just be more of you to like.”

  “Listen, Jack.” Susan put down her fork to look straight at him. “You seem like a great guy—a very charming guy. In fact, you’re so charming I’m going to venture a guess that you’re dating quite a few women right now. I don’t see a ring, so I’m guessing you’re not married. But I could be wrong on that one. I’ve been wrong before.”

  Jack burst out laughing. “What are you, a shrink?”

  “You think it requires a degree in psychiatry to see that you’re a world-class flirt?”

  “Touché. So, what are you saying? No go?”

  “No go. To put it as delicately as possible, I’ve had my fill of that. I wouldn’t mind being your friend, though. In my experience, any foray off that path can get in the way of a good friendship.”

  “Well. You can’t blame a guy for trying.”

  “No. A guy cannot be blamed.”

  Jack Jr. raised his glass of Montepulciano and Susan followed suit. He clinked his to hers and said, “All right, then. It’s funny that we ran into each other today—funny, strange, not funny, ha-ha. You’re right, I do have a fair number of women in my life. And not one of them is a friend. So, if you’ll give me a roadmap in this friendship between a man and a woman thing, I’ll give it a try. To friendship!”

  “I’m not sure I know how to do it, either. But I promise to take the lead. To friendship.”

  And they touched glasses again to seal it.

  11

  Henry opens the elevator doors on one.

  “Lobby, Mrs. Ford. Stay cool tonight.”

  “Oh, thank you, Henry. I won’t be going out.”

  “Smart move. It’s a scorcher.”

  “Yes,” she says and exits the elevator to the splendor of the lobby before her. Marginally restored from her bath, Susan allows herself a moment to admire the flowers, to really stop and look. They are always here—a changing array of branches and blooms—in a palace-sized urn atop an ormolu table. But tonight—dislodged as she is from her normal awareness of her usual surroundings—Susan’s vision feels more acute.

  “Beautiful,” she says back to Henry, who waits with his elevator door open.

  “Yes, ma’am. They sure are.”

  Susan breaks off to make her way into Cipriani.

  From the items in her city closet, she has chosen a pale blue linen dress. The crispness of the linen augments her tentative grasp on composure. The fact that she hasn’t left the cocoon of air conditioning for several hours helps as well.

  After a good deal of waffling, she has decided to keep the gun and the envelope with her, tucked deeply in her bright orange purse. Before heading downstairs, she has grabbed an orange sweater to throw around her shoulders, hoping it might deflect attention from her bag, glowing—in her mind—like Exhibit A.

  At five p.m. on a Thursday in August, Cipriani is sparsely populated. An offshoot of the famous Harry’s Bar in Venice, where the Bellini cocktail was invented in 1948, the look is mid-century, glossy wood veneers with highly visible grain, glass sconces, low tables and chairs. The late afternoon sun streams in the westward-facing windows. Sergio comes over and warmly greets
her with the requisite ciaos and cheek kisses and ushers her toward a table in front, next to the windows looking out on the park.

  “Actually, no, Sergio,” Susan demurs. “It’s such a warm day that I’d love to sit farther in. A little more out of the way.”

  “Certo, Signora Ford,” Sergio pulls out her chair. “Your usual Pellegrino with lemon? Or may I bring you one of our Bellinis today?”

  “Pellegrino, thank you.”

  Susan takes her seat and surveys the crowd while she waits. They are neither downtown nor uptown in style. No Brooklyn hipsters and no Upper East Side headband blondes. There is a Euro-element—creased jeans and blazers, and double, triple cheek kisses—and a smattering of Americans in summer suits and ties. All the women are fully made up. The feeling is clubby, though it is unclear to what club they all might belong.

  “Hi, Mom.” Jack Jr. bends to give Susan a kiss on the cheek. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “You’re not late. I’m early.”

  As Jack sits, a waiter returns with Susan’s Pellegrino and pours from the large bottle into her glass.

  “Dewar’s on the rocks,” Jack orders.

  Stockier than he was when she had first met him, like an ex-athlete gone soft, Jack Jr. is still a very handsome man. The ladies in Cipriani take a moment to watch him as he settles into his chair.

  “So,” says Jack.

  “So,” Susan parrots back.

  “Are you okay? What’s going on? Wait—before you begin, I forgot to tell you; I wasn’t going to come up to Watch Hill tonight for the cookout. I’d committed to a dinner tonight with some Brits down at Balthazar; they really like the downtown scene. Why don’t you come with me? It’s a deal for a row of townhouses in Brooklyn that they want to punch through and do up as offices. We’d need a zoning variance.”

  The waiter brings Jack’s scotch.

  “I don’t know about dinner, Jack, I’m pretty tired. Who are these people? Do you even know Brooklyn?”

  “I’m not sure but my contact is pretty attractive.”

  “You want to drag me downtown to pick up a girl? What makes you think they’re for real?”

  “I’ve been doing this a long time—longer than you. I got you into the real estate profession, if you remember.”

  “Yes, Jack, I remember. I also remember that other English guy you got involved with—the one who was in the music business with the heavy Cockney accent.”

  “Oh God, yes! John Zee!” Jack laughs loudly.

  “What kind of name was John Zee?”

  “Excellent point. Probably made up.”

  “Remember he kept you going for two or three years? You thought he must work for some really big rock band or something to be able to afford the kind of properties he had you showing him.”

  “He did test my patience, Mr. John Zee.”

  “What ratted him out in the end?” Susan asks. “I can’t remember that part.”

  “His shoes.”

  “That’s right.”

  “When he told me his father always wore John Lobb shoes, I knew he was full of shit. It was pretty damned unlikely, with that accent, that his father, back in the day, would’ve had his shoes custom made at John Lobb. Mr. Zee had stretched credulity beyond its breaking point.”

  “Well, like I said, vet these people we’re meeting tonight.”

  “Yes, Mom. Now, you want to tell me what’s going on with you?”

  “Well, I just wanted to talk to you about a strange thing that happened today. It’s probably nothing. But you’re a lawyer, after all.”

  “A lawyer? Is it something serious?”

  “No! I mean, I don’t officially need a lawyer. It’s just—your legal background might not hurt in this situation.”

  “What is the situation?”

  “I don’t know where to begin.”

  Gesturing with both palms, he cedes the floor to her.

  12

  Saturday, July 14, 1979

  Suburban Detroit

  Day One at Frankie’s Disco began at five p.m.

  Despite the heat, Susan wore a light coat over her skimpy outfit to get in and out of her car without notice. Plus, as her mother had always said, what if she were in an accident? What would they think at the hospital? At least she’d have the coat. Although, once the nurses threw her on a gurney and undressed her, all bets were off as to what conclusions they’d draw.

  She arrived fifteen minutes before the appointed hour, wanting to get the lay of the land. She was uncertain which entry she was meant to use, where she was supposed to go, or whom she was meant to seek out. Looking around, she opted for the front door. As she opened it, she was hit by a rank aroma of stale cigarettes, rancid beer, cleaning fluid, and musty carpeting. How had she not noticed it yesterday?

  Inside, the place was dark and sticky. The lights were on but even at their maximum capacity, the interior couldn’t be called bright. The black walls showed scuff marks; the mirrored surfaces looked streaked or—worse—had dried drips running down them. The edges of the black Formica tables were banged up, as were the chairs. The disco ball hung limply over the center of the dance floor.

  Susan felt the bottoms of her shoes suctioning slightly as she moved across the charcoal carpet. Squinting down, she could see blobs of stuck gum and stains all over its surface.

  What would her father think of this place, that elegant, gentle man from Tennessee? William Elton Bentley always went by Elton. It was the use of his middle name, yes—but also the old-timey quality of the name itself that set him apart—dated and placed him as an American Southerner of an age gone by. Susan’s own name, she knew, was no less a road map to the time and location of her birth—Middle America in the middle of the twentieth century—the era of Susies and Debbies. Depressingly middling all the way.

  Susan thought about Elton as she took off her coat and looked around the disco, knowing he’d be disappointed to see her here. The daughter he must have known from the outset he would not see grown, married, or launched in life. What was Elton thinking, at fifty-seven, when he’d had a child with his twenty-one-year-old bride? He must have assured himself that Maggie would be there—helping Susan grow up, guiding her through the byways that this disco represented.

  He had been asleep when she left today. Susan did not know how to explain to him her transition from sales clerk at the respectable Winkleman’s to cocktail waitress here, so she had said nothing. He wouldn’t ask, either. Susan’s relationship with her father was close, but not intimate. They talked a great deal and he cared about her opinions, but they stuck to safe subjects. Elton was interested in what Susan wanted to do with her life, why she studied French or dance, what books and movies she liked and why. But he never asked her the embarrassing things, the things that might actually lead him to know what moved her at a primal level.

  Susan tried, from time to time, to draw stories out of her father about his own life—his two earlier marriages, the son from his first wife who had died before Susan could meet him, his relationship with Susan’s mother. Elton would tell one little story, only ever a funny one, then quickly move away from the intimate to the abstract. His firewall would go up.

  “Hi! My name’s Diane!” A girlish voice sliced into Susan’s thoughts. She focused and saw that it belonged to a waitress who was so fresh-faced that she made Susan look overdone. She had dark shoulder-length hair with bangs over big brown eyes and freckles, and she wore not a speck of make-up—not even lip gloss.

  “Hi,” Susan responded. “I’m Susan. It’s my first day.”

  “I know. That makes me the old pro.” This was hard to fathom, since Diane looked and sounded like a child. Yet, despite her breathy voice, her cadence was crisp and polished. “You’ll want to hang that coat in a locker in the back.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Susan said. “How about you? Have you worked here long?”

  “Just since I graduated high school this spring.”

  “When do you leave for college?”r />
  “Oh, I’m not doing that. My parents want me to go, but this is it for me,” Diane said with finality.

  “This place?” Susan could not imagine it.

  “Well, maybe not this place, but school was not my shining moment. I’m not really a bookish person.”

  “I’m surprised,” Susan said. “You sound like someone who would be going off to college. You sound—I don’t know—educated.”

  “Good! I’m as educated as I want to be.”

  Susan couldn’t help but frown. “Never say never. You might change your mind. I mean, I’m not much older than you, but you’re still pretty young. So much can happen.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m looking for—something to happen.”

  “Are you from Warren?” Susan asked.

  Diane did not have the chance to answer because Frankie sidled up to them at that exact moment. “Susan, meet Diane, our twelve-year-old cocktail waitress.” Frankie laughed as he said it. “Doesn’t she look like she should be wearing saddle shoes?”

  “Cute, Frankie,” said Diane.

  “No, you’re the cute one.” Frankie winked at Diane. Then he turned an appraising eye on Susan and examined her top to bottom. “Welcome to Frankie’s,” he finally said. “You meet my brothers? Vito? Carmine?”

  “Uh, no. I haven’t really met anyone but Diane.”

  “Well, you will. Okay, enough small talk.” Susan felt his dismissal as he abruptly turned his back on both of them. “Get to work, you two,” he called over his shoulder. “Suse, you’re going to trail Sherry over there.”

  Susan snapped to attention and walked over to the woman Frankie had indicated with a parting wave of his hand. Sherry was older, thirty maybe, with layered, frosted hair and heavy make-up. Naturally, she, too, was dressed in the Playboy-Bunny-Meets-Wall-Street get up.