Fashionably Late

by Olivia Goldsmith

  Behind the wall of glass, inside the air conditioning, Karen got her first look at Thailand. She was woozy from her sleep and the long trip, but she had to admit that if you were going to take a twenty-hour flight, this was the only way to travel. Would she always be treated this way once she was in the bosom of the NormCo family? Or was this just the honeymoon, to be followed by business as usual? Out the windows, Karen was disappointed to see that Bangkok looked much like any other city on the way in from the airport, although all of the Thai writing was very different than anything Karen had seen before. It was decorative, prettier even than Arabic. Somewhere Karen had read that the Thai alphabet had forty-four consonants and more than half as many vowels. Well, she didn’t plan to learn it any time soon. But it would make pretty patterns on fabric.

  The Bangkok traffic was as desperate and mad as she had been told. Darting among the hundreds of small cars and trucks were tiny tuk-tuks, the open-air little canvas-topped taxis that buzzed around like swarms of colorfully striped insects. The noise, even through the cool glass of the Mercedes limo, was incredible.

  The driver pointed out the grounds of the Royal Palace. They passed a series of canals, green and inviting, and then they were in the heart of the city, a hive of stores and crosswalks, signs and lights like any other capital. It wasn’t until she pulled into the circular driveway in front of the Oriental Hotel that she felt as if she might be in another part of the world.

  She was greeted by six men in pristine white jackets and the traditional skirted pants of Thailand. Everybody smiled and bowed low, their hands raised and clasped together before their faces. ‘Sawadee kop,’ they said, in greeting. She bowed back while her luggage was whisked out of sight. ‘Sawadee kop,’ she said back to them, and they all giggled. Her driver smiled. ‘Only boy say “kop,”’ he explained. ‘Girl say “kah.”’ Karen didn’t understand, but she bowed and smiled. Then she was met by one of the managers and whisked past the registration desk and straight to the elevators. Check-in was apparently a formality she didn’t have to be troubled with, just like customs and immigration. This was what power bought. Karen was taken up to a suite in the old, central portion of the building. She walked in and it took her breath away.

  The living room was tiled with white marble. It had huge windows from ceiling to floor. There was a carved teak divan upholstered in purple silk – apparently the Thai national color – and a beautiful huge porcelain ginger jar beside it. There were several clusters of comfortable white cushioned chairs and a large bamboo plant growing in the corner near the staircase. The stairs brought her up to a bedroom loft that overlooked the living room and the enormous windows. Somehow, her bags had already arrived, and two valets in immaculate white jackets were almost finished unpacking her clothes. They bowed and murmured, ‘Sawadee kop.’ A tiny bouquet of purple flowers that Karen had never seen before, beautiful little bell-shaped ones with flat round leaves, sat on the bedside table. There was a note beside the flowers addressed to her. She tore open the envelope. ‘Pleasant dreams,’ it read. ‘I have a business dinner but I hope to see you for breakfast tomorrow. Bill.’ The valets bowed out of the room, while the assistant manager showed her the enormous white marble bathroom, the smaller dressing room, and the little room downstairs off the living room that contained only a table, two chairs, and some kind of a blooming tree. Its utter simplicity and its utter luxury charmed Karen. If she could pick a single room to live in, it might be this one, with its floor-to-ceiling view.

  It was already dark, but the room looked out on the gardens and the pool that edged the river, a twinkling green ribbon. There were dozens of graceful boats swooping over the surface. Across the river, Karen could see some kind of temple, its gold roof shining in the reflected lights of the water. Here, for the first time, everything looked otherworldly, oriental, delicate, mysterious, and beautiful. It was the Asia she had imagined in some fairy tale, not the terrible place Arnold had often described where virtual slave laborers worked for pennies an hour.

  Karen sat and watched for a long time. She was tired, but she felt happy. Soon she would be rich, and soon she and Jeffrey would have their baby. She was looking forward to settling down to a better time then. With both of these conflicts resolved, couldn’t they go on to have a marriage better than it had ever been? She got out her name book and began, once again, to search through it. But happy as she was, she was restless. The gardens below looked so inviting that she felt irresistibly drawn to them. After all, this was her first evening in Asia and she had barely let her feet touch the ground. She would leave this heaven on the tenth floor and have a drink in the garden beside the pool and the river.

  The lobby, which she hadn’t had time to notice when she was whisked through on her way in, was now the meeting place for people dressed in evening clothes. Karen saw two beautiful Thai women, all in silks, one turquoise and one violet and both sparkling with diamonds. They were drinking with an Asian and two American men. They were breathtakingly beautiful. Karen walked passed them, feeling even larger and more clunky than usual, but once she exited through the glass doors and into the soft caress of the garden’s air and darkness, she felt not just comfortable but transported. The air seemed to be exactly body temperature, as if the boundaries between where she began and where she ended became blurred. She walked along the immaculate bricked paths, palm trees and tropical vines swaying overhead, fern and orchids at her feet. A parrot shrieked from a hidden nest, and Karen, startled, laughed. She walked to the balustrade along the river, which in the gathering darkness had turned into a black satin mystery. Lights twinkled all along it and the chatter of a dozen languages from people sitting sedately at the tables overlooking the pool merged into a lulling sound, as comforting as the slap of the river water against the pilings below her feet.

  Karen felt as if she had never known such peace. She had worked hard. Nothing had been easy. She existed in a man’s world, a tough world of business controlled by people who didn’t want to give her a share. She had struggled and she had managed, against great odds, to make a life for herself and to shape it into what she wanted. Soon all the struggle would be made worthwhile. Staring into the Bangkok darkness Karen felt the deep pleasure of success.

  Breakfast with Bill beside the pool was charming. A Thai breakfast, at least at the gorgeous Oriental, consisted of the thinnest of omelets, rolled like a crepe over chopped vegetables and sided not with home fries, like in her local Greek joint back in New York, but with the most delicious rice. The idea of rice in the morning had no appeal – until she took her first bite. Mercedes, with her no-starch diet, would have been scandalized, but Karen smiled.

  ‘Good, isn’t it?’ Bill asked.

  ‘Beats hell out of eggs over easy and a side of pig,’ Karen agreed.

  She couldn’t remember when she had felt so pampered, so surrounded by luxury. She couldn’t tell if it was the pleasant cocoon of the Oriental, of Bill’s money and power, or the deference and attention of Bill himself. She wished they could spend the day staring at the river traffic, drinking and eating on the sunny veranda. It might be good to be rich.

  As if he sensed her mood, he leaned across the sun-splashed table and smiled at her. ‘So, are we going to sleep together?’ he asked pleasantly.

  Karen couldn’t say she was completely surprised by the question, but she was surprised by Bill’s asking it aloud. And she didn’t know how to answer him. Like a kid, she laughed. ‘I’m married,’ she reminded him.

  ‘I already knew that,’ Bill said easily and picked up his glass of mango juice. It was one of the most exquisite colors that Karen had ever seen.

  ‘I don’t do that sort of thing,’ Karen said.

  ‘But you have thought about it?’ Bill asked. ‘You even thought about it for this trip, as a possibility today.’

  ‘I did not,’ Karen told him. She was confused. She had thought about Bill back when they first lunched, but that was when things weren’t going well with Jeffrey, before
there was the prospect of the baby. Anyway, even then it had only been a fantasy. Admitting it might make it happen, and she was fairly sure she did not want it to happen.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Bill said.

  Karen laughed. ‘I can prove it,’ she told him. ‘Any woman who was considering an affair would have shaved her legs.’ She uncrossed her and held one out, discreetly, for him to see. Her ankle just brushed his. He reached down and circled the ankle with his hand. It made her blush, but she covered her confusion with another laugh. ‘See?’ she said. ‘Five o’clock shadow. I rest my case.’

  Bill let both the subject and her ankle drop. Smoothly, he began to talk about their schedule. Was he angry? She couldn’t tell. They finished breakfast and met the entourage that was waiting.

  They had a long day ahead of them. Bill was going to show her several of the factories that NormCo used, as well as two locations where they might become the major buyer of production time. Karen felt guilty, because a part of her wanted to spend the day lounging on a chaise beside the beautiful pool, but she was Arnold’s daughter and she wouldn’t duck out on her responsibilities. So she was whisked into another white Mercedes and they spent the morning and afternoon at the five different places. Wherever they went, Bill was referred to and treated with more than respect. It wasn’t just the bowing or the deference due to a boss. It seemed to Karen that there was a natural submissiveness, an almost religious pleasure, in the rituals of respect. She mentioned it to Bill.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘I think it’s a Buddhist thing. You know, reincarnation and all. If you are born to a high station it’s because it’s your karma. It’s because you are reaping the benefits of many lives, well-lived.’

  ‘Sort of like the divine right of kings?’ Karen asked.

  Bill nodded. He seemed a believer. Somehow, kings always believed in the divine right of kings, but girls from Nostrand Avenue weren’t so sure.

  Karen was sure that she liked the Thai people. They were good-looking and hardworking, and seemed very gentle. The factories were clean and well lit. There were no child workers, although some of the young Thai girls looked much younger than their stated ages. Still, it was clear that these factories, at least, were not hideous sweatshops. She had an interpreter, and she got to ask a few questions, but even without the glowing testimonials of the workers, she could see that there was nothing wrong with this setup.

  She was relieved, and delighted. Now she could sign the deal and she and Jeffrey and the baby (Marcus? Lucas?) would be able to live well and, she hoped, happily. Their share of the money would be close to thirty million dollars, and after taxes and fees they’d keep more than half of it. For the first time, Karen began to think about the money.

  Bill took her back to the hotel at four. ‘How about drinks on the veranda at seven?’ he asked. ‘And dinner? Tomorrow we fly to Korea, then the Marianas, and then we’re back to the US of A.’ Karen nodded. She was tired, and she wanted to call New York. She smiled at Bill and left him, planning to take a nap and then bathe and dress. But when she got upstairs to her room there were three messages: two from Jeffrey and one from Carl. She called Jeffrey first, at home, but there was no answer, so she tried Carl.

  He answered on the first ring. ‘Karen?’ he asked.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Who the hell else would be calling at this time?’ he asked. ‘Listen, the baby has been born.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Cyndi gave birth this afternoon at Doctors’ Hospital.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Karen felt her stomach drop. ‘Is everything all right? Is she all right? Is the baby all right? Isn’t this much too early?’

  ‘One crisis at a time,’ Carl said. ‘The baby is three weeks early, but he weighed almost six pounds so it’s right on the border of not even being premature. It has no problem breathing – that’s the big worry with a preemie – but it seems its lungs are all developed. And Cyndi is fine too.’ He paused. ‘Jeffrey’s back from Milan. Have you spoken to him?’

  ‘No. He wasn’t home. Maybe he’s still at the hospital.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Carl said. ‘I took Cyndi to the hospital.’

  ‘You did? What about Jeffrey? Where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. It took your office a little while to find him. He came in and said hello but he left before I did. Anyway, you should talk to him.’

  ‘About what?’ she asked. ‘Carl, if you are lying to me, if there’s something wrong with the baby, I’ll kill you.’

  ‘I promise you, there’s nothing wrong with the baby. Except …’

  ‘Except what?’ she nearly screamed.

  ‘Well, it’s probably just my imagination, but something seems wrong with Cyndi. Not physically, you know. Just well …’

  ‘Is she upset?’ Karen asked. ‘Should I call her?’

  ‘Talk to Jeffrey,’ Carl said. ‘I think Jeffrey just has to kind of calm her down. She hasn’t stopped crying. I mean it’s only natural. It’s her first baby. This is a hard thing for her.’

  ‘Of course it is. But she is okay and the baby is okay. You promise?’

  ‘I promise, Karen. But call Jeffrey. Now’s the time to talk to him.’

  Karen spent the next two hours sitting beside the phone, dialing and redialing her home number. She imagined every possibility: Carl had lied and the baby was dead, or it wasn’t dead yet but it was dying, or it wasn’t dying but it was deformed or blind or retarded. She tried to tell herself to stop, that she was just being morbid, but she couldn’t stop. It was a quarter to seven, Bangkok time, when she finally got Jeffrey. She was so upset that she forgot to ask him where he had been. ‘Jeffrey, what’s going on?’ was all she managed.

  ‘Karen, I think I have some bad news.’

  She began to cry silently. She knew it! She felt her heart tighten in her chest and her stomach seemed to go bottomless. ‘It’s the baby, isn’t it? The baby is sick.’

  ‘No, the baby is fine. It’s just that Cyndi may be changing her mind. I’m sorry, Karen.’

  Her tears stopped, dried up the way a mother’s milk might. ‘What?’ Karen nearly screamed. ‘What are you talking about?’

  Even from seven thousand miles away Karen could hear the fatigue in Jeffrey’s voice. ‘I think Cyndi wants to keep the baby, Karen. And if she does, there is nothing we can do.’

  Karen had called Bill and tried to beg off, but he had heard the distress in her voice. She tried to simply cancel without bothering to explain why. As she lay on the divan, too shocked to cry, too disappointed yet to feel the pain that she knew was hovering, waiting to swoop down on her, to demolish her, she stared sightless out of the huge windows. That was when she heard his knock. She didn’t know if she could get up off the sofa, or if she could get across the room. But at the second knock she forced herself to the door and opened it to see Bill’s concerned face.

  ‘What is it?’ he said. ‘What is it, Karen? Has somebody died?’

  ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘It’s worse than that.’

  She told him everything. He listened, and then he put off the next leg of the trip, canceling Korea completely, and spent that night carefully getting her drunk. He held the wine glass for her, and she drank like a baby and cried like one, too. He sat beside her on the divan, and wiped her nose and patted her back and poured more wine. He was more sympathetic than she could have imagined. ‘What a heartbreak,’ he said over and over. ‘What a heartbreak.’

  ‘Only for me,’ she admitted. ‘Jeffrey is probably glad, and I have to figure that this is one less child who hasn’t been abandoned by its mother. This works out best for everyone except me. This is my karma.’ She wiped her eyes again and looked at Bill. ‘I could never bear to go through this again. I just can’t.’ She cried for a while longer. ‘Do you think I’m making too big a deal about this? Do you think kids are that important?’

  ‘Absolutely. What could compare?’ He told her about his two sons and how impo
rtant they were to him. Somehow, it comforted her. She kept drinking, and he kept talking: about how the elder boy had a weak eye muscle, a lazy eye, and how worried Bill and his wife had been; about the trouble the younger one had had in school until he was diagnosed with dyslexia, and how well he was doing now. Karen thought that Bill was more involved with his kids than most men. He seemed to be grounded by them. He had never mentioned his wife before, and if that relationship was strained or nonexistent, he seemed to comfort himself with the love of his now almost-grown boys. Together, Karen and Bill watched the lights blink off across the river, and then saw the sun rise. Karen could not count the glasses of wine she had drunk. She felt a little dizzy, but otherwise not ill. It was only the pain in her chest that still stabbed with every heartbeat.

  They had been silent for a while when Bill turned her face away from the window and toward him. Gently, he bent and kissed her on the mouth. ‘You know, Karen, if you want to adopt a child, I could help. I know a lot of people. It doesn’t have to be this hard.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. Even as drunk and muzzy-headed as she was, she saw how Bill made things easier for those in his care. They got private planes, the best hotel rooms, the most delicious meals, and the fastest clearance through customs. They didn’t have to travel on commercial flights, and they didn’t have to place ads in small-town newspapers and face endless disappointments to adopt a baby. What would it be like, Karen wondered, to always be taken care of by Bill Wolper?