Good Intentions

by Joy Fielding

  “Renee,” Philip was saying jovially as he bent forward to kiss her cheek. “What a wonderful surprise. Hello, Kathryn,” he continued, “how are you feeling today?”

  “Much better.” Kathryn smiled, unconsciously touching her wrists, oblivious to the drama she was witnessing.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to return your calls. You know how time can just get away from you. Was it anything important?”

  Renee shook her head. He’d obviously forgotten their tentative arrangements. There was certainly no point in bringing the matter up now. “Just calling to say hello.”

  He smiled pleasantly. “How was your meal?” he asked. “The food here is wonderful. If I’d seen you earlier, I’d have recommended the swordfish. In fact, any of the fish or pasta dishes are first-rate.”

  “I had pasta,” Debbie said proudly. “Kathryn had the red snapper. Renée,” she added flatly, “had steak and french fries.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” Philip told them. “Steak is steak.”

  “Next time, I’ll know,” Renee said, and wondered what exactly she meant by that.

  “Who are you with, Dad?” Debbie asked.

  “You remember Alicia Henderson from Bennett’s party,” Philip whispered, leaning close to Renee’s ear. “She’s having a few problems with her husband. Says he’s schizophrenic, but he refuses to get help, and she doesn’t know what to do about him anymore. She wanted some advice, and she didn’t want to be seen coming into my office, so I agreed to meet her here. She’s a little embarrassed, so she doesn’t want to come over, although she said to give you her regards.”

  Renee nodded without speaking, and reached up with her lips to kiss those of her husband.

  “I’ll see you later.” Philip gave his daughter a big hug. “It was great seeing you,” he said, and managed to sound as though he meant it. “It’s nice to see my girls out together having a good time.”

  “She’s gorgeous,” Debbie said after Philip had returned to his table. “All that beautiful red hair, and what a figure.” Renee looked toward the waiter and signaled for the check, wondering how long it would take her to dismember Debbie’s body, and thinking of appropriate places where she could hide all the pieces.

  “Lynn Schuster on line two,” Renee’s secretary announced over the intercom late that afternoon.

  “Lynn, I’ve been thinking about you lately.” Renee forced a note of cheeriness into her voice although cheery was far from the way she actually felt. Her lunch—both the food itself and the accompanying events—had been repeating on her all afternoon. She hoped she hadn’t let Debbie see how upset she was. She’d simply gritted her teeth and smiled, following her husband’s lead, and told the girl how much she’d enjoyed their outing, all the while fighting growing feelings of acute anxiety. It had never been easy for her to lie. She wondered how Philip could do it so effortlessly. But then, maybe he wasn’t lying, she tried to convince herself. Maybe the lunch with Alicia Henderson was every bit as spontaneous and innocent as he claimed. And maybe she would be appointed a Supreme Court Justice. And maybe the moon really was made of cheese.

  What was she doing wrong? What was it about her that drove Philip into the arms of all the Alicia-call-me-Alis of this world? What was missing? Renee looked down at the bulging buttons of her blouse. It wasn’t what was missing, she told herself. It was the opposite. There was simply too much. She had to start another diet. She had to get her weight under control. “I’m sorry,” she stammered when she realized that she hadn’t heard a word Lynn had been saying and that Lynn sounded very upset. “What? Say that again…. He what? Sent you flowers? Who sent you flowers? … I don’t believe it…. All right, all right. Calm down. Throw the flowers in the garbage, if it makes you feel better, which I suspect it will, and then go fix yourself a good stiff drink. Lynn, are you listening to me? … Good. I haven’t had such a great day myself. I’ll tell you about it some other time. But right now, chuck the flowers, have a drink, and try to relax.” They exchanged goodbyes, and Renee replaced the receiver, shaking her head. “Men,” she repeated until the word lost all meaning.

  NINE

  The flowers had arrived just minutes after Lynn walked through her front door at the end of a frustrating day. She had spent hours at work on the phone getting nowhere and several more hours going in a similar direction with a family whose lives had been torn apart by their son’s drug use. To top it off, she’d had to endure a lengthy lecture by a lawyer named Stephen Hendrix, who represented an angry Keith Foster, father of the allegedly abused child, and who had told her plainly to stop harassing his client or he would have no alternative but to take legal action against her. Her personally, the lawyer stressed.

  “We’ve received a complaint regarding a possible case of child abuse,” Lynn had told him, trying to keep her voice even, “and as I’m sure you’re well aware, Mr. Hendrix, all such complaints have to be investigated fully. I’ve tried to contact both Mr. and Mrs. Foster repeatedly to set up an appointment, and have met with the utmost resistance. The last time I drove out to the Harborside Villas, Patty Foster refused to open the door. I am not harassing your clients. I simply want to interview them, and their daughter, Ashleigh. I not only have that right, but that responsibility. If need be,” she had continued, looking up into the eyes of the man, who was a good foot taller than herself, and refusing to be intimidated, “I will bring along members of the Delray Beach police force on my next visit. You can sue them too. The choice is up to your clients.”

  “I intend to be there,” Stephen Hendrix had announced at that point, capitulating, though he made it sound as if he still maintained the upper hand, “to monitor the conversation.”

  “As you wish.” She had her secretary make the appointment for the following week. The Fosters were out of town and would be unavailable until then. Mr. Foster was a very busy, very important man, Stephen Hendrix had explained, not for the first time.

  “We’re all busy,” she had told him plainly. “The child is who’s important here.”

  Much as Lynn hated to admit it, such scenes took a lot out of her. She hated confrontations, voices raised in anger. Boy, did you get into the wrong line of work, she told herself as she pushed through her front door at the end of the day, heading straight into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice from the oranges that grew in her back yard. Megan and Nicholas would be home soon. She had just enough time to crawl into a nice, soothing bath. And then there was the knock at her front door, and a young delivery boy all but hidden behind a large box of flowers.

  “Lynn Schuster?” he asked, quickly shoving the flowers at her before she had time to confirm or deny her identity. She watched him leave in something of a daze, the flowers balanced precariously in her arms, her eyes staring blankly ahead. It couldn’t be, she thought. He wouldn’t.

  Slowly, not moving the rest of her body, she extended her right foot forward and kicked the front door gently closed. No, she thought, once again standing resolutely still, he wouldn’t.

  She didn’t know how long she remained there, barefoot in her front hallway with a long rectangular box of flowers in her outstretched hands, but she gradually became aware of the box’s weight. She marched determinedly into the living room and sat down on the sofa, tearing open the box, temporarily ignoring the card. He wouldn’t, she thought again, staring at the dozen beautiful, long-stemmed yellow roses.

  She left the roses lying in the box, watching her reluctant fingers stretch toward the small envelope, momentarily debating whether or not to open it or simply throw it out. “Oh, look, kids, someone sent us flowers,” she rehearsed, hearing in her mind the barrage of questions that would undoubtedly follow, ultimately tearing open the envelope and pulling the card free.

  “Thank you for so many wonderful years,” she read out loud, her eyes clouding over. “Here’s hoping we can remain friends for many more.” She dropped the card on the rattan coffee table in front of her. “
Love, Gary.” In the next minute, she was trying to hurl the top of the flower box across the room, but it was still partly secured to its lower half with a strip of adhesive tape, and so it merely bounced into the air and then dangled over the edge of the table threateningly. “God damn you to hell, Gary Schuster,” she cried, bursting into a flood of bitter tears.

  She had been avoiding the reality of today since she had first opened her eyes that morning. July 16. Her wedding anniversary. She had ignored the calendar, skipped over the date on her appointment book. She had thrown herself into the mountain of work on her desk, dealing with her phone calls and clients, and confronting the Fosters’ unpleasant lawyer head-on, working right through lunch, avoiding, doing, until it was time to go home. Somehow she had managed to make it through most of the day.

  And then the flowers had arrived. Were they Gary’s idea of a joke? Or had the flowers been Suzette’s idea? She stared into the box, amazed as she always was by the natural perfection of roses. Yellow roses were her favorite. Gary knew that, just as she knew that it had been Gary’s idea to send the flowers, not Suzette’s. The woman probably wasn’t even aware he had done so, would have been properly horrified at the thought, just as Lynn was horrified at having received them.

  She knew Gary well enough to know that he had not intended to be cruel, that he genuinely believed he was doing something nice. The sensitive male of the eighties. Is this really what modern women wanted? Flowers from their exes on what would have been their anniversaries?

  Absently, she reached down and fingered the card, which she read again. “Thank you for so many wonderful years,” she repeated aloud, incredulously. She brought her fist down angrily on the table and watched the flowers jump. “If they were so damn wonderful, why did you leave? And who the hell wants to be friends?” She shoved the box roughly to the green carpet, watching the roses spill out in attractive abandon, and then bent over to scoop them up. “Dammit,” she cried, carrying the box into the kitchen and dumping it into the sink. “What were you thinking of?” she asked, seeing Gary’s smiling face in front of her. “What on earth could have possessed you to send me these?”

  And yet, deep down in the part of herself she had been hiding from all day, she had to admit she wasn’t all that surprised. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had suspected he might do something like this, although for a second before she looked at the card, she had entertained the possibility that the flowers might have come from Marc Cameron.

  What was she supposed to do now? Was Gary expecting her to call and thank him? Should she, for God’s sake? What was the proper etiquette in a situation like this?

  The hell with him, she thought, reaching for the phone, calling her lawyer instead. “Hello, Renee? It’s Lynn. Gary just sent me flowers. Can you believe it? It would have been our fifteenth wedding anniversary today, and the lunatic just sent me a dozen long-stemmed yellow roses. I’m shaking, I’m so upset. And I have to calm down before the children get home, but I keep looking at the flowers and reading that stupid card. Can you believe it? He hopes we can be friends for many years,” she continued in one frantic outpouring, vaguely aware that the woman on the other end didn’t seem to be giving her her full attention. And then Renee had snapped into action and told her to throw the flowers in the garbage and to make herself a good stiff drink. Somehow she had managed to pull herself together. Had she really carried on that way on the telephone? And what had made her call Renee Bower of all people? This wasn’t a legal problem. She had other, closer friends whom she could call. And yet, since her separation, she had felt curiously removed from all her old friends, most of whom had always viewed her as one half of a happily married pair. No one, least of all herself, quite knew what to make of her new status. Lynn reached into the sink, pulled out the box, and dumped the beautiful flowers into the trash can under the sink. She was pouring herself the good stiff drink Renee had recommended when she heard the camp bus pull up in front of her house.

  “How was camp?” she asked her children as they scrambled past her toward the kitchen.

  “Thirsty. I’m so thirsty,” Nicholas growled, clutching at his throat and knocking his plump little knees together, as Lynn reached into the refrigerator and poured both children a large glass of milk. “First taste,” Nicholas said, quickly taking a sip before Megan had a chance to lift the glass to her lips. “It was great,” he answered when his glass was empty.

  “It was all right,” Megan said quietly, not even bothering to compete for the first loud gulp of milk.

  “Something wrong, sweetie?”

  Megan shook her head, finished her drink, and wiped her mouth with a napkin, about to discard it into the trash can under the sink when she saw the flowers. “What are these doing in here?” Megan pulled the yellow roses gingerly from their unorthodox vase. “Mom, why are these flowers in the garbage?” Lynn only shrugged, unable to come up with a suitable response. “Who sent them?”

  “Your father,” Lynn said truthfully, then immediately wished she hadn’t. There had been no need to involve Megan in her misery.

  “Oh.”

  Lynn expected her daughter to react with furious indignation, and watched in amazement as Megan simply returned the flowers to the trash can and shut the cupboard door. “Megan?” she called after her as the girl fled the room in tears. Lynn turned toward Nicholas, who stood watching the scene with eyes like saucers. “All right, what happened?”

  “Nothing,” Nicholas answered, averting his gaze to the floor and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Camp was great …”

  “I don’t mean at camp. I mean on Saturday. At the lunch with Daddy. Neither one of you has said a word about it, and Megan’s been especially quiet ever since.”

  “Nothing happened.”

  “Nicky …”

  “Can I have another glass of milk, please?”

  “Did Daddy say something that upset Megan?”

  “Not Daddy,” Nicholas answered, and then literally held his breath.

  “What do you mean?” Lynn realized she was holding her own breath as well. “Was there someone else at the lunch with you and Daddy?”

  Nicholas shrugged. “Sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “There was sort of this woman there.”

  “Do you remember this sort of woman’s name?”

  Nicholas nodded. “Suzette,” he said finally, as Lynn had known he would.

  Lynn reached over and drew her young son into her arms. “Thank you, sweetheart. I’m sorry you felt you had to keep that inside you.”

  “Daddy said he thought it would be better if we didn’t tell you.”

  Lynn nodded. I’ll bet he did, she thought, remembering that Gary had agreed not to introduce Suzette into his children’s lives until a few more months had passed. Let them deal with one thing at a time, Lynn had urged, and he had agreed. What had changed his mind? What was going on in that handsome head of his? She pictured the flowers behind the closed cupboard door. “You said you wanted another glass of milk?” she asked her son, surprised, as she always was, by how much he looked the way she herself had as a child. It was ironic, she thought, the word immediately conjuring up the image of Marc Cameron, that sons so often resembled their mothers whereas girls more often looked like their dads. Lynn poured Nicholas a second glass of milk before the boy had time to reply, then excused herself to check on Megan.

  Megan was lying on the bedspread of her four-poster brass bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. Her long legs, which were caked with dirt around her bony knees, were stretched out across the soft white of the bedspread, the bottoms of her frayed sneakers making dark creases in the quilted fabric. Lynn approached her daughter slowly, arranging herself at the foot of her bed. “Nicholas told me that Daddy brought a friend to your lunch on Saturday.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Megan whispered, her answer for everything these days.

  “Do you want to talk about it, sweetheart?”

&nb
sp; Megan stubbornly shook her head.

  Lynn knew all the proper things to say at moments like this, soothing phrases neatly laid out in her textbooks, things she would probably say if this were not her child, if this weren’t happening to her. Instead she simply patted Megan’s knees and said nothing.

  Megan suddenly burst into tears, the bed shaking with her heart-wrenching cries. “I don’t want to be a lawyer anymore, Mommy. Do I have to be a lawyer?”

  Lynn felt her own eyes once more spilling over. Today is obviously a day for tears, she thought, reaching over to gather the sobbing youngster in her arms. “No, darling, of course not. You can be anything you want to be.”

  “I don’t want to be a lawyer.”

  “You have lots of time to decide.”

  “I want to do what you do.”

  “Whatever you want,” Lynn told her, patting her back.

  Megan suddenly pulled back, so that Lynn’s arms had to stretch to hold on to her. “And I don’t want to take any more ballet lessons.”

  “You’ve always loved ballet,” Lynn said, trying to keep up with the abrupt twists in the conversation.

  “I don’t want to take ballet anymore,” Megan insisted.

  “Okay. You don’t have to. Maybe you’ll change your mind,” she said as Megan snuggled back into her arms. The sobs, which had momentarily subsided, picked up again with renewed vehemence.

  “Why did she have to be there?” Megan demanded angrily. “Why did Daddy have to bring her?”

  “Don’t cry, baby. It’ll be all right.”

  “I hate her, Mommy. I hate her for taking Daddy away from us.”

  “I know, sweetie. I’m not so crazy about her myself.”

  Lynn heard footsteps, and turned her head to see Nicholas tiptoeing—as only he could tiptoe—toward them. Soon the three Schusters were curved into a tight little ball, all arms and legs and tears, swaying rhythmically against the almost unbearable sense of loss that each was separately experiencing.