Second Love

by Gould, Judith

  'Come on, girl,' Venetia said gently. 'Best we get out of the cold before we catch pneumonia.'

  I wish I would catch it. Then I could die and join Freddie.

  Reluctantly, she allowed herself to be steered to the limousine, all the while glancing back over her shoulder at the grave.

  Is this all there is? Can this be what life is ultimately all about?

  For Dorothy-Ann, Meadowlake Farm had always been a refuge, a magical green fortress to which she could escape from the world and slam a door on its troubles, the one place where reality was never permitted to intrude.

  She and Freddie had spent six years lovingly restoring the three- hundred-year-old eyebrow colonial and its ramshackle outbuildings with their own hands, coming here to unwind and recuperate, to spend weekends and holidays, to lead a normal family life.

  As the limousine turned into the lane leading to the farmhouse, Dorothy-Anne remembered what John Donne had written: 'No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.'

  She stared out at the leafless orchards, at rows of apple trees contorted like charred skeletons against the milky gray of the winter sky.

  She couldn't imagine Meadowlake Farm without Freddie.

  It's become a mere shell. Like Freddie himself, a lifeless body without a soul.

  Yet to be anywhere else right now was unthinkable. Deep in her subconscious, she knew that the farm was the only place where she could come to terms with his death.

  As if such a thing were possible.

  It has to be, she told herself grimly. What choice do I have? I'm a mother, and my children have lost their father. They need me now as they've never needed me before.

  She had to be there for them.

  Had to.

  Yes, she thought wearily, but who's going to be there for me?

  Despite its arcadian serenity, Meadowlake Farm had turned into one vast torture chamber. Every room and nook and cranny was haunted by memories. There was no escaping them. Reminders of Freddie were everywhere.

  There were times she swore she heard his tread on the steps, or saw him out of the corner of her eye. But when she looked, there was nobody there.

  Sometimes she forgot herself. Unthinkingly she would set an extra place for him at the table. Or she found herself telling one of the grooms to saddle up his horse. She even called out to him from the bathroom: 'Freddie? Could you bring me an extra towel?'

  And then she would catch herself and remember that he was gone, that the earth had swallowed him up and he would never walk through the door again.

  I'm a widow, she kept reminding herself.

  Widow. What an ominous word. It made her feel strangely self- conscious and tainted, as though she were the carrier of some highly communicable disease.

  Widows are supposed to be old. I'm only thirty-one. How can I be a widow when I'm so young?

  Venetia stayed on in a guest room, running her office by fax and phone. Offering what little consolation she could. Suspecting that Dorothy-Anne would have preferred mourning in seclusion, but wanting to be there for her, just in case.

  One morning, passing the open door of the master bedroom, she saw Dorothy-Anne pressing clothes of Freddie's against her face, inhaling his lingering scent.

  Venetia's heart went out to her. The poor thing, she thought, quietly moving on before Dorothy-Anne could notice her. If only there were something I could do.

  There was.

  Later that day, Venetia sat down with her. 'Christmas is just around the corner, honey,' she said. 'The children will expect a tree.'

  'Freddie will put one up—' Dorothy-Anne began, then caught herself, put her face in her hands, and wept.

  Venetia put an arm around her. 'Honey,' she said gently, 'Freddie's gone. You've got to let go.'

  Dorothy-Anne gave a little nod but continued to weep.

  'Life goes on,' Venetia said.

  But Dorothy-Anne knew better. No. Life doesn't go on. It comes to a screeching halt. The only thing that goes on is the pain.

  Venetia sat with her for a while, and then sought out the housekeeper. 'What kind of Christmas tree does the family usually have?'

  'An eight-foot Douglas fir.'

  'Right.'

  Venetia got her coat, borrowed a Jeep Cherokee from the garage, and went to see a man about a tree.

  'Tell me if it's straight.'

  It was the following day, and Venetia had conscripted the children into helping trim the tree.

  Three sets of eyes looked up. She was on the ladder, crowning the treetop with the exquisite baroque angel. It was a South German antique, of papier-mâché and gold lace over gray silk, with great gilt wings and a wire halo, so beautifully crafted that it looked as if it belonged in some rococo church.

  'Looks okay to me,' Fred said disinterestedly, shrugging and tossing his head to flip the hair out of his eyes in that way of his.

  'Does not.' Zack blurted. 'It's crooked!'

  'You dweeb,' sniffed Liz. 'It is not.'

  'Is too! Ask Mommy. M-M-M-Mommy? It is, isn't it?'

  Zack turned imploringly to Dorothy-Anne, who was carefully lifting a fragile glass ornament out of its nest of tissue paper. It was the Victorian bird of paradise with feather plumes that she and Freddie had unearthed in a London flea market.

  During our first trip abroad together, she remembered, with a pang.

  'Mommy!' Zack cried plaintively, stamping an impatient foot.

  'Hey. Guys.' Venetia clapped her hands to get their attention. 'Turn down the volume, huh? Tell you what. This girl says the angel's straight, so it's straight.'

  She started down the ladder.

  'Is not!' Zack bawled.

  Nanny Florrie, bustling in from the adjacent room, scolded, 'For Gude's sake, laddie! Will ye quiet doon?'

  But Zack wasn't about to. Though at first the family's mounting tragedies hadn't seemed to affect the children as much as their mother, the cumulative buildup of loss and grief and anger had taken their toll. Now their suppressed rage was surfacing, bursting like pus from some fetid, festering wound.

  'It's crooked! It's crooked! Daddy never put it up crooked! If Daddy were here—'

  'Stop it!' Dorothy-Anne whispered hoarsely.

  Her face had gone ashen and her hands were shaking. The glass bird slipped from her fingers, hit the floorboards, and shattered.

  'No!' she gasped. 'Not the bird . . .'

  She backed away from the fragments, the shattered ornament both a symbol of her sundered family and a brutal, mocking reminder of joyous Christmases past.

  'See what you did?' Liz hissed, elbowing Zack. 'You upset Mom. God. Like you are sooooo immature.'

  'Am not. Am not!'

  'Are too!'

  'Am not'

  'Och!' Nanny Florrie exclaimed. ''Tis nae time to fight.' She wagged an admonishing finger at them. 'Ye both best behave and mind yer Nanny, else Santa will nae hae presents for you!' she said darkly.

  'Santa!' Fred scoffed sullenly. 'Even Zack's too old to believe that crap. Dad and Ma bought the presents.'

  'Did not!' Zack yelled, his huge blue eyes gushing tears, his short small arms windmilling—ineffectually slapping and pummeling his big brother. 'Liar! Santa brought them! You'll see. Santa'll bring them again this yea—'

  The telephone rang, silencing him like a school bell.

  'I'll answer it,' Venetia said, offering up a prayer of thanks for its quieting effect. Stepping barefoot off the ladder, she hurried to the phone and picked up on the fourth ring. 'Hello?'

  It was Derek Fleetwood. He was calling from White Plains.

  'Hold on,' Venetia told him.

  She took the phone into the dining room, hearing little smears of interference crackling in the ether as she moved about. She shut the door, pulled out a side chair, and sat down wearily, one elbow resting on the table.

  'Okay, Derek. What's up?'

  'What isn't, you mean.' He paused. 'Venetia, things are get
ting pretty hairy here in the office,' he said gravely.

  'Want to trade places? Try this end for a change?'

  He laughed mirthlessly. 'No, thanks. I've got my hands full.'

  She waited.

  'Look,' he said awkwardly. 'I know this is bad timing, but I don't have any choice. We're sitting on a backlog of decisions only Dorothy- Anne can make, and things have really gotten down to the wire. When do you think we can expect her in?'

  In . . . ?

  Venetia felt a surge of outrage at the call, of business being conducted as usual. For crying out loud! What was he thinking?

  'Derek, for God's sake, it's too soon! She's not ready. She just buried her husband four days ago. You saw her, you were there!'

  'I know, I know' he commiserated. 'Christ, if I could I'd make the damn decisions and sign for her! But I can't. That's the trouble—nobody can. We're not authorized. You know that. Freddie was the only—'

  'All right, all right!' she snapped, raking her fingers through her mane, clutching the remote phone tighter in her hand. 'Let me think.'

  'You know I wouldn't be calling if it wasn't imperative.'

  It was true. She'd never known Derek to be a worrywart; he was, in fact, the last person on earth to cry wolf, or make much ado about nothing.

  'Derek,' she said gently, 'I can't make any promises, but I'll see what I can do.'

  'Great!' There was no mistaking the relief in his voice. 'Thanks, Venetia. I knew I could count on you!'

  'I wouldn't if—' she began, but he had already hung up.

  '—I were you,' she completed in a murmur.

  She pressed the Off button, pushed the aerial down, and 'put the receiver on the mirrorlike surface of the mahogany table. For a while, she just sat there.

  From a professional standpoint, she could appreciate Derek's position. In the Hale Companies, only two people were authorized to approve any major decisions.

  One of them is dead, and the other might as well be.

  'Shit,' she enunciated quietly.

  Later that evening, Dorothy-Anne heard a knock at her door. 'Come in,' she said.

  'Hi, Mom.' It was Liz.

  'Hi, sweetie,' Dorothy-Anne said. 'Come over here and sit beside me. Now what is it?'

  'Mom,' Liz said. 'I just want you to know that Fred and Zack and I talked it over, and we'll do everything we can to make things easier for you.'

  Tears welled up in Dorothy-Anne's eyes, and she didn't trust herself to speak.

  'We know that this is harder on you than anybody,' Liz said. 'We just want you to know that we're here for you.'

  Dorothy-Anne hugged her daughter to her. 'I'll be here for you all too, sweetie,' she said through her tears. They're being so brave. I've got to be here for them, too. I've got to go on living for them.

  22

  The distance between Little Italy and Chinatown is an alphabet and a cuisine. Otherwise, the seemingly disparate neighborhoods have much in common.

  Both are composed largely of tenements. Each maintains strong cultural ties to the Old Country. And behind the facades offered to the casual tourist exist societies that are exceptionally insular, secretive, and impossible for outsiders to breach.

  Another similarity is ethnic pride. Just as a Sicilian makes the distinction of not being a Neapolitan, so too does a Swatow of not being a Cantonese.

  Appropriately, restaurants flourish in both neighborhoods. As does crime.

  In Little Italy the mob runs things, whereas in Chinatown it is the tongs.

  Sonny Fong—who gave a good impression, and whose trappings placed him in the sleek, well-heeled cosmos of the Upper East Side—felt the gravitational pull of his ancient culture as he goosed his Lexus through Chinatown's maze of one-way streets and teeming back alleys.

  He instantly fell into the rhythm of familiarity. Sloughed off now was his tony uptown skin, his polished Western veneer. Even the cleaved flat planes of his face seemed more pronounced, glinted with a sharper, unmistakably lethal edge.

  He cruised slowly, surely, his X-ray eyes seeing through the lies sold to tourists. This was one place where nothing ever changed, where nothing was what it appeared to be. Chinatown was a netherworld of mysterious layers, of boxes within boxes, a painted whore of shadows and corruption decked out in gaudy native costume.

  Parking the Lexus in an unlighted alley, he killed the headlights, unscrewed the overhead dome light, and slipped out of the car. Melting into the shadows, he felt for the unmarked steel door. Rap-tap-tapped a soft code with his knuckles. Then waited, not bothering to look around.

  Even if there had been any light, which there wasn't, he knew exactly what he'd see. Grimy blank walls on both sides, with bricked-up windows violating every city ordinance and fire code. Bricked up for dual purposes—locking sweat shop crews in and keeping strangers and authorities out.

  Soundlessly, the steel door opened an inch. The lights inside were off, a precaution to avoid anyone from being silhouetted against it. And for good reason. Triad rivalry was fierce, with bloodshed the norm rather than the exception.

  Sonny's voice was quiet. 'I come on behalf of an esteemed elder,' he said in the Chiuchow dialect. 'He hears your tea is renowned for curing a faltering love life.'

  'You arrived at a most fortuitous time,' a voice whispered out of the darkness. 'I believe the fabled remedy is in stock.'

  'My esteemed elder would be most grateful if you could check.'

  Now that the passwords were exchanged, the door opened wider. Sonny crossed the threshold and slipped off to the side. Something hard prodded his belly. Then the door snapped shut again. A low-wattage bulb clicked on overhead.

  Sonny stared down at his midsection, where the muzzle of a Colt .45 pressed into his stomach. He raised his eyes slowly, without fear.

  A hard-faced youth in jeans, futuristic Nikes, and a yellow satin baseball jacket was eyeing him coldly. Sonny recognized him at once. Itchy Finger Sung was a triggerman for the Shadow Dragons, the Chiuchow tong, said to be Chinatown's most vicious. Lean and wiry, Itchy Finger had a pockmarked face and a propensity to shoot first and never ask questions—hence his nickname.

  'You look more like a barbarian all the time, Sonny Fong.' Itchy Finger's smile was spiteful. 'Soon you will be as unrecognizable as the round-eyed devils you cavort with!'

  Sonny returned the smile, teeth glistening. 'And that fornicating tongue of yours,' he said softly, 'will soon rot with the rest of you on a fly-ridden dung heap.'

  Itchy Finger spat on the worn linoleum. Then he stared at Sonny a while longer, reluctantly withdrew the revolver, and tucked it into his waistband. 'You're expected,' he said harshly. He jerked his chin down the dim, narrow corridor and grunted, 'Come with me.'

  Sonny followed him—an olfactory experience. From the front of the building—actually three interconnected tenements—came the overpowering stink of a fish store, and the rancid odors of grease from the restaurant next door. From the basement below, where bean sprouts were cultivated on a vast scale, rose the graveyard stench of chlorophyll.

  But even without these smells the building would have reeked to high heaven. For beneath these individual odors lurked one other—the rankness of too many people crammed into too small a space. Sweat, vomit, urine, garbage, filth. They made an olfactory brew that was the same the world over.

  Sonny closed his nose to it.

  The stink of poverty.

  The effluvia of survival.

  He kept his sharp-eyed gaze on alert. Caught liquid shadows sliding along the edges of the walls in near invisibility—enforcers on constant patrol. Nipping problems in the bud before they could become problems.

  Breathing through his mouth, he followed Itchy Finger up a rickety wooden staircase, on up past the second floor, where an herbalist's cures and an opium den added to the general miasma. And where cell-like rooms were crammed from floor to ceiling with crude two-by-four-and- plywood bunks.

  Chinatown housing for sweatshop labor.
r />   On they climbed, Sonny and Itchy Finger, up to the third-floor landing, where the stairs abruptly ended and a formidable steel door barred the way.

  Itchy Finger pushed a buzzer and spoke rapidly into an intercom. The door opened and two toughs in black tie gestured for Sonny to assume the position. He raised his hands and they expertly patted him down. Finding him clean, they nodded at Itchy Finger to take him on in.

  Sonny played the wise guy, making a production of straightening his tie and shooting his cuffs and giving the hem of his jacket little tugs. Only then did he flash a smile and, adopting a little extra swagger, follow Itchy Finger through the door.

  It led into a duplex of astounding sumptuousness. No warped or worn linoleum here; no sign of cracked plaster walls or cheap bare bulbs, either. The carpeting was deep and lush, the lighting recessed and muted, and the walls covered in squares of real gold leaf. On them hung large unfurled scrolls, delicate ink paintings depicting erotic scenes.

  Sonny Fong knew them to be priceless antiques, but Itchy Finger Sung didn't spare them a glance. He led the way straight into a sprawling space where lamps with fu dog bases and silk shades cast a golden glow, and spiral stairs of icy Lucite curved elegantly up to the floor above.

  Instead of the stench of poverty, the air was fragrant with the scents of hyacinth, jasmine, and expensive perfumes.

  Sonny, who'd been here on more than one occasion, nevertheless looked around in approval. There were polished rosewood tables with vases of cut flowers, their petals as palely pink as the heavenly gate between a woman's legs. Off in one corner, an old black man in formal wear was caressing the keys of a grand piano, crooning 'You're the Tops.'

  And all around, displayed on silken banquettes, was the merchandise.

  Flesh.

  Undeniably, the choicest female flesh Chinatown had to offer.

  The dozen girls, mostly Chinese, were all in various stages of undress, and eyed Sonny's arrival with cash-register eyes. The experienced ones instantly dismissed him. They had only to look into his face to know that here was a man who took, rather than purchased, his pleasures.