The Reluctant Trophy Wife
Page 1
THE RELUCTANT TROPHY WIFE
JUDITH PETRES BALOGH
ISBN : 978152057-6602 Copyright© 2017 by Judith Petres Balogh All rights reserved.
Cover photo: Jackie T. Ewendt
Graphic design: RGB Grafik Kft. Zalaegerszeg, Hungary I am deeply indebted to Dr. L Andrew Laurie Stangel, who read the entire manuscript and provided valuable suggestions, corrections and encouragement. Those who are familiar with his busy life can surely appreciate the generosity of this help.
Another unselfish and valuable help was given by Jackie Ewendt. Her careful reading and watchful eyes prevented major errors. Her unbroken enthusiasm about the book helped me to survive those bleak times which visit most authors during the birth of their novel.
Also very special thanks go to Ivanka di Felice in Italy; without her considerable help this book would have been filed away as just another impossible dream. I am truly blessed with the best and most unselfish friends. She pointed the way and was the spirit who moved the book toward publication.
And of course there were always Christina Cantrell, Andrea Majorczyk and Steven Szappanos, who during the tortuous birth of this book rescued me time and again from several computer caused asphyxiation. Just like those strings of convoluted Christmas tree lights we unpack shortly after Thanksgiving, the PC with all its cookies and a language preferred by robots, has the malicious potential to kill by suffocation. I was rescued from this horrible death by these good souls, who in addition also have the patience of angels.
I would also like to thank everyone from coast to coast who are supporting my work by being faithful readers. Without readers literature would be about as extinct as the dodo bird.
Table of Contents
ONE .........................................................................................................7
TWO ......................................................................................................18
THREE ....................................................................................................27
FOUR .....................................................................................................39
FIVE .......................................................................................................50
SIX .........................................................................................................63
SEVEN ....................................................................................................77
EIGHT ....................................................................................................87
NINE ......................................................................................................93
TEN......................................................................................................104
ELEVEN ................................................................................................112
TWELVE ...............................................................................................121
THIRTEEN.............................................................................................130
FOURTEEN ...........................................................................................145
FIFTEEN................................................................................................151
SIXTEEN ...............................................................................................160
SEVENTEEN ..........................................................................................173
EIGHTEEN ............................................................................................181
NINETEEN ............................................................................................191
TWENTY...............................................................................................201
TWENTY-ONE.......................................................................................215
TWENTY-TWO......................................................................................227
EPILOGUE ............................................................................................232
Before I sat down to write the story of the reluctant trophy wife, I asked a few of my very special acquaintances to tell what they thought about love and marriage. Here are some of their responses:
It is not lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. Friedrich Nietzsche
Where there is marriage without love, there will be love without marriage. Benjamin Franklin
Love is moral even without marriage, but marriage is immoral without love. Ellen Kay
Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational.
Hugh Mackay In almost every marriage there is a selfish and an unselfish partner. A pattern is set up and soon it becomes inflexible, of one person always making the demands and the one person always giving way.
Iris Murdoch Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures. Samuel Johnson
No villain need be! Passions spin the plot:
We are betrayed by what is false within.
George Meredith There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it.
George Bernard Shaw By all means marry. If you get a good wife you will become happy. If you get a bad one, you will become a philosopher.
Socrates If you could not be who you are, who would you like to be, Mr. Churchill? “If I could not be who I am, I would most like to be…Mrs. Churchill’s second husband.”
To my Readers: The location of this story exists, although some minor changes were added, but it is as close to the original as the story’s need permits it. The plot and the characters are fiction. However, should you recognize yourself, a friend, or should some of the problems presented here appear as your own, that would please me more than the most eloquent praise.
Authors create fantasy, but through this medium they are forever searching for truth. When a reader says, “That is me” or “I know this person”, “These are my thoughts” or “I have been there”, then the author has been blessed and richly rewarded, because he was able to touch fleetingly the mysterious and sacred miracle of truth.
ONE
The holiday table was set. To the mistress of the house elegance was synonymous with simplicity, and her table, set for ten, was indeed a case in point. It was the kind that does not come cheaply. The centerpiece of white roses was in quiet harmony with the pristine white of the china, the noble silverware and the glittering crystals. She stepped back for a moment in the semidark room and scrutinized the total effect. It satisfied her. The tapered white candles in the silver holder above eye level were already lit, and the flames in the fireplace shimmered with warm glow, giving the necessary subdued enchantment to the carefully built scene. The strapless black evening gown draped artfully around her slender figure was a showy contrast to the general white and silver glimmer. The effect was not calculated but in spite of its innocence, or perhaps because of it, quite dramatic.
Resting one hand on the back of a chair she bent slightly forward to move a perfectly placed rose a fraction of an inch. The white tablecloth as a base, the slim body illuminated from behind by the fire and the extended candle-lit arm formed a subtly shimmering triangular composition, often used by Renaissance painters. Botticelli or Raphael would have with delight captured her graceful form as it emerged from the background, although they might have added fragmentary episodes, such as dreamlike towns, misty cypr
esses in the hazy distance, or some complicated arabesques on buildings, quite ignoring history, time line, or even logic.
Lena liked the essence of things without distractions. She could do without the cypresses that dotted the backgrounds of those paintings like so many Umbrian exclamation marks. At the university she was well taught by excellent aesthetes, who repeated over and over again that perfection is not reached by adding more to a thing; rather it is the state when nothing more can be taken away. Extremes in color, form or quantity seemed to her vulgar. Her only concession to the seasonal decorating frenzy was the tall Christmas tree in the far end of the stately dining room. It glittered self-importantly in trendy shades of purple and silver.
The guests would soon arrive and she had nothing to do until then .Earlier in the day, she was busy in the kitchen. Cooperating with the cook and a kitchen help, a perfect menu was started, but the actual cooking, the finishing touches, and the serving were no longer her responsibility.
While waiting for Clyde to get dressed and to join her, the realization that time or more specifically biological time, was running out overwhelmed her once again. Although she seldom indulged in the luxury of crying, tears were now ominously close to spilling. She knew that less than a quarter hour before the arrival of important almost-strangers for a carefully prepared dinner party the painful and central issue of her life could not be discussed, let alone solved. This was not the proper time for talking about her wants. Perhaps there was never a proper time for it. She sighed and like so often before, in true Scarlett O’Harafashion shelved the problem to another day.
“Beautiful table, beautiful wife,” her husband remarked as he entered the room.
“In that order?”
“In any order. Perfection has no priority in serial arrangements.”
She guessed that his political success was based on his ability to explain everything, and to convert an awkward remark into a triumph of gallantry.
“Are you exhausted?” he asked, but did not expect an affirmative answer.
“Not really. Only…”
“Only what?”
She was silent for a fraction of a moment before she answered carefully forming her response.
“I wish we could sometimes celebrate Christmas, or some other state occasion alone, together and without the fanfare.”
“That too will come in due time. After we achieve, what we set as our goal. Right now, we do what is essential in order to get there. And you do it beautifully.”
She looked at him and did not say what was on her mind. Their marriage was molded so that her rare but inconvenient or uncomfortable wishes were politely and effectively silenced out of existence. She often heard the phrase, worn thin by repetition, that marriage is a give and take. She gave a great deal, although these silent sacrifices were not of the material world. On his part, he also gave great many things, all of them of this material world. It was more or less a comfortable symbiotic arrangement that seemed to work well enough, at least as long as she could silence her most personal desires.
At times, she felt that the maxim of their marriage was telling and consenting. He told gently but incontestably and she consented meekly. There was a time when she tried to make a point about an issue. The truth was that she could even score, but only when the point taken did not in essence contradict his own agenda. When she won in questions that held no importance for him, he acquiesced, but still ruled his home and their life, even her very self, with unrelenting determination. Adrienne, her closest friend categorized him unmercifully.
“He is a control freak,” she said dispassionately but with conviction. She did not dislike him, just wished that her friend had chosen a more congenial partner.
“I know. He doesn’t even use the cruise control. Not ever. Does this tell something about him?”
“And?”
“And nothing.”
“In that case, courage to you, my friend, no comments, and I rest my case.”
Eventually she learned to accept his decrees. Always fair, she admitted that the iron fists were attractively covered with velvet gloves. Life went on elegantly, but joylessly.
He was cultivated, conservative, scrupulously polite, kind, carefully scheming and rigid. She found these contradictions in his character quite remarkable because he was truly a refined and eminent man. His vitality, his distinguished good looks, his skill in making small talk and shaking hands jovially, combined with a subtle sense of humor, managed to convey an excellence of character to others .People generally admired him. If he had an emotional life, other than his insatiable hunger for power, he was hiding it well enough.
Although labeled the “golden couple” they were basically a grave mismatch. She was contemplative, emotional, craved closeness and intimacy, but these were not the traits Clyde valued in her. She found politics, the sole interest of her husband, distasteful and vulgar. Her admiration of power was that of a bystander; she would never consider to fight for it. She loved a thunderstorm because it too displayed power, the same as a waterfall, but she did not wish to be the storm in the sky, nor the thunderous fall of huge masses of water.
She was a very young child when the neighbor next door was moving out. She watched as the moving company’s driver maneuvered the huge eighteenwheeler into the long and narrow driveway and was awed as the roof of his cab almost reached the second floor window of the house. The van was an impressive beast, and the driver a magic superman, a strapping and chivalrous knight, who controlled it splendidly. She felt diminished, crushed by the van’s size, and was deeply impressed as this man tamed it according to his will. Later the driver jumped up on the behemoth to oversee the loading to make sure the weight of the load was evenly distributed. He stood there with legs spread apart for support, lording over the men who were lifting the pieces of furniture and then placed them wherever he ordered. What command that man had! To her four-year old mind, this driver was the epitome of power. He was a magician, a Greek god, a ruler, a man who was stronger, better and more powerful than any man she knew. She stood there for a long time admiring him, and for many years remembered him with reverence. Often she believed that the unknown truck driver was her very first love, all because of the power she sensed in him. It was also true that one of the first things that attracted her to Clyde was the obvious power he possessed. But she never craved it for herself.
“You look stunning,” he said now as he inventoried her from her elegant hairdo to the high heels of the designer slippers, “even though I detect a hint of a frown on your lovely face. What is it?”
“Nothing particular, just the usual Christmas wretchedness.”
“Wretched or not, you are dazzling,” he insisted, ignoring the issue lurking under the surface. He supposed that women could be disarmed, or at least momentarily sidetracked and pacified by compliments. She never corrected his misconception. “Shimmering and beautiful. A woman made of stardust,” he added for good measure.
“We are all made of that, Clyde. Dust, I mean. Whether of earth or of stars, it makes no difference. Dust is dust. Just silicon, made up of fourteen protons and fourteen neutrons. From dust we came and to dust we shall return. If you come down to it, we are all made of atoms and spaces. Lots of empty spaces.”
“I like your spaces. What vistas you have, my dear! But I am warning you Lena, do not turn scientific or metaphysical on me. Not on an empty stomach.”
She was young, much younger than he was, and while he was genuinely fascinated by her, and in his own way even loved her, he really just wanted a trophy wife designed for public display, to add luster to his career, and to show the world that he was not done yet. She was the perfect solution. Her beauty and the meticulously maintained deluxe body were the kind that turned heads; her background prepared her to be the gracious hostess he wanted. An unconscious dignity of her movements inspired admiration and also a certain distance from people around her. He was overjoyed, because she was the ideal consort. He quietly arranged the di
vorce to his first wife at a time when such a step could not yet damage his reputation and career chances, and was happily satisfied with the arrangement he created. She no longer knew why she married him.
Marriage to a rich and much admired man, after just three years out of college, seemed like a lovely idea, but it did not take long to wake up. Of course, by that time she realized that it was too late for regrets. Backing out would have been nothing short of admitting failure, defeat. It was not an option. She remembered well the bitter opposition of her family, the tears of her mother. They felt that marrying a man more than two times her age was not just reckless and unnatural, but a full-blown tragedy. She, of course, did not listen. Her mother cried at the wedding and the tears were not of joy. Later, when her vision cleared, stubborn pride kept her from admitting the mistake. Anyhow, mere admittance without action would not have been of any use. Instead of backing out, she chose to show the world a happiness that was not there. She swept her doubts, cravings and disappointments under the proverbial rug, quickly learned the role expected of her and played it excellently and to his total satisfaction. Life did not offer what she expected, but what was given was not miserly, and eventually she convinced herself that it was satisfactory and pleasant. Of course, it lacked the essentials. Faultless politeness is a poor substitute for shared interests and when political correctness replaces love, there is not much joy left. The glitter was soon stale, the content and purpose missing. Her life was mostly make-believe, but it served her well enough. Or would have to.
However, at times, especially around holidays, her hard won peace had the recurring habit of shattering again and again. At the sights and sounds of the holidays the forbidden emotions and memories, usually buried deeply under layers of logic and convenient habits, surged to the surface with the elemental intensity of a dormant volcano coming to life once again. Christmas was the worst time for her.
She was tired of the dazzle, the frenzy, the superficiality. Political shakers and financial movers at a five course gala dinner served with the proper wines lacked the magic of what she considered a true celebration. Something was missing; something was hollow and off key. The essence of the thing, whatever it should be, was not present. There were days when she woke up dreading the coming holiday.