VC01 - Privileged Lives

by Edward Stewart

  “Something to drink?” the maître d’ offered.

  “Just wine with the meal for me,” Babe said.

  Scottie nodded, indicating he’d take the same.

  And then there were just the two of them, silent at their table.

  For Babe, it seemed only hours since she and this man had clung to each other and felt the deepest oneness of body and soul. And now Scottie was remote, sitting stiffly in his chair, regarding her wordlessly with his deep-set brown eyes. She couldn’t even guess at his feelings.

  “I didn’t expect this,” he said. “Frankly, I never expected you to want to see me again.”

  The waiter brought menus and they ordered gravlax and cervelle. Scottie ordered a bottle of Gavi de Gavi white wine.

  She couldn’t help but be aware that he was noticing the other tables, watching the diners who were pretending not to be sneaking glances their way.

  “Are you sorry you came to lunch?” she asked. “Sorry you’re here, alone with your ex?”

  His brows gathered together. “Why should I be sorry? You’re the one who’s taking a chance.”

  “Am I? Are you going to kill me over gravlax?”

  “Not funny, Babe.”

  There was a silence. When finally the food came, Scottie raised his glass in an unspoken toast and then asked her if she didn’t think the wine’s flinty taste perfectly complemented the gravlax.

  “Did you?” Babe asked. “Did you try to kill me?”

  “Is that what we’re here to discuss?”

  “I don’t know what we’re here to discuss. I miss you, Scottie.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t you miss me? At all?”

  She would have liked him to say that he missed her horribly, but all he said was that after seven years he had gotten used to most of the changes in his life.

  She told him it hadn’t been seven years for her. She’d gone to sleep with a life and a family and a husband and she’d woken up the next day to find it all whisked away.

  “You’ll adjust,” he said. The look on his face was determined and cold.

  The waiter brought the second course, cervelle bubbling in beurre noir with capers and beautiful lemons that looked as though they’d been carefully halved with pinking shears.

  The waiter refilled their wineglasses, and when he was out of earshot Babe said, “You couldn’t have wanted to kill me. I couldn’t have misjudged you that badly.”

  “Do you really want to discuss this over lunch?” he said.

  “When else are we ever going to have a chance?”

  “You do realize the attempted murder charge was reduced,” he said.

  “Mama says your lawyer used a technicality to get you off.”

  “Your mother has never made a secret of her feelings about me. I pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment and nothing else.”

  “I don’t understand why you pleaded guilty to anything at all.”

  “I couldn’t face another trial. My lawyer said a deal was the best way out of it.”

  “I spoke to the detective who investigated. Vincent Cardozo. He’s positive you tried to kill me.”

  “Babe, you’re going to meet a great many people and every one of them will have an opinion. I could tell you yes, I tried to kill you, or no, I didn’t, and knowing you you wouldn’t believe me whichever I said. Either you accept the court’s finding, or you decide for yourself. Nothing I can say is going to help you make up your mind. And as far as I’m concerned, the case is closed.”

  “It’s not closed for me. I have to know.”

  “It’s history now, Babe.”

  “It’s my history. My life that went down the tubes. My marriage.”

  “You still have your life.”

  “Do you love Doria Forbes-Steinman?”

  His eyes had a sad, overcast look. “Why are you asking these questions? What’s done is done.”

  “Have you stopped loving me?”

  “Babe, it’s useless. I stopped loving you long ago, long before the coma.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “You’ve never believed things you didn’t want to hear. Two years before that night I’d stopped wanting you, stopped wanting to sleep with you or even be with you. You must have sensed that.”

  “Were you sleeping with other women?”

  “Only Doria.”

  She was afraid that if she moved the hurt and frustration inside her would explode. “Why did you stop wanting me?”

  “It built up over the years. One day I realized I had to have something of my own, something that wasn’t your career or your celebrity or your money.”

  “You had me.”

  “Hardly. Nothing was going to get you away from that office of yours—and the interviews, and the photography sessions, the showings—the whole nonstop emergency. It was like being married to a surgeon. You were always on call for other people.”

  To hear him tell it, the marriage had been years of living in her shadow, of wiping his own desires out of existence. As she listened, she felt a great dull void forming between them. Her voice grew low and weary.

  “Were you jealous?” she asked.

  “Not even jealous. I felt worthless.”

  She realized that she knew nothing about him. Suddenly there was an emptiness inside her so deep that she could almost feel wind blowing through her. “I never knew that. Never had the slightest idea. Do you feel worthless now?”

  “No.”

  “Doria’s done that for you?”

  “I’ve done it for myself.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were unhappy?”

  The muscles of his face tensed into a furrowed, faraway look. “I did—and you never heard.”

  It made her angry that the blame was being heaped on her, and she felt argument edging into her voice. “I’m not a mind reader. If you’d told me my work was hurting our marriage, I’d have changed.”

  “Babe, this isn’t the nineteenth century. Women have careers.”

  “They still want marriages.”

  “It’s a little late for our marriage.”

  She looked at him and wondered if she would ever, ever stop missing him.

  “You don’t want me, Babe. You didn’t want me then and you don’t want me now. You’re just upset at losing something that you thought was yours. Believe me, you’ll get used to it and you’ll be glad not to have me moping around.”

  “I never accused you of moping.”

  “You’re blind. We went into marriage wanting two different things. It was bound to come apart.”

  “What was it you wanted?”

  “I wanted it to go on the way it was in the beginning. When we were courting—funny word, isn’t it—you adored me. We made love every minute we were alone. And when we were apart we were on the phone ten or twelve times a day. Once you phoned to tell me to look out the window because there was a beautiful storm in the north. In those days I was the center of your life. Everything you did, you wanted to share with me. You can’t imagine how lucky I felt, how important, how loving and how loved. And then, when we married and you had me, the rules of the game changed. We made love on weekends—period—unless we were houseguests, and then we didn’t because the sound might carry through the walls.”

  “That was only once, at Cybilla deClairville’s, and you know how old-fashioned she is.”

  “It was more than once.”

  “Scottie, if it was my fault, I’m sorry.”

  “You’re a remarkable woman, Babe. You can go years without seeing there’s a problem, and then when it’s finally pointed out to you, you don’t just try to solve it, you take responsibility for causing it. You’re very much like your mother in that respect. Neither of you seems to recognize that there are some facts in this world that you didn’t create. And a great many you can’t control.”

  “Someone caused our problems. They didn’t just happen. Maybe I was too busy and too blind. But if I seemed to t
ake you for granted, I never took you for granted in my heart.”

  He sat hunched, staring into space. She felt she was pleading with him, pleading ignobly.

  “I loved our time together,” she said. “I loved our conversations over breakfast and the walks in the country and sailboating and traveling. I loved all those meals in our favorite little restaurants. I loved the times we were alone and I miss them.”

  “I loved them too.” He was silent. “But I don’t miss them.”

  Emptiness swirled around her, and she was sure she would drown in it. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “You’re changing things, you’re rewriting the past. You were happy with me. You do miss me.”

  “Babe, you’re wrong.”

  “I couldn’t be that wrong. I’m not an idiot.”

  “Yes you are. Don’t you see, Babe?”

  “See what?”

  “For God’s sake, I did what they accused me of.”

  First puzzlement, then shock filled her. “What are you saying?”

  She looked at him, drawing back into her wheelchair as if she could shrink away from the words. There was pain in her like a fistful of pointed needles.

  His face was a mask of dead calm expressionlessness. “I tried to kill you.”

  26

  WHEELING HERSELF OUT OF the air-conditioned restaurant, Babe met a curtain of hot, blinding light. She sat blinking and thought she was going to faint, but her grip on the arms of the wheelchair held her.

  Willing herself to be calm, alert, she maneuvered her chair slowly along the sidewalk, allowing the crowd to press past her.

  As Babe came out of the elevator her mother was waiting in the law firm’s reception area, face set, eyes filled with total disgust. She laid down her copy of Town and Country and stared at her daughter, moving nothing but her unforgiving green eyes. “You have knocked me absolutely speechless.” She spoke evenly and with enormous anger. “You look dreadful. What did that wretch do to you?”

  Babe drew herself up stiffly in her wheelchair, feeling naked and vulnerable. She couldn’t get out, so she’d have to get through. “It’s a long story.” All those years, she thought. Gone like one tick of the clock.

  “You always find a reason to disgrace yourself, don’t you.”

  “Mama, please. Let’s not have a fight now.”

  “All right, we’ll have it later.”

  Lucia led the way to Bill Frothingham’s office, and Babe wheeled behind her.

  Bill Frothingham offered his best smile. His hands grasped Babe’s tightly and she squeezed back, grateful for his touch. She hadn’t realized till that moment how much hurt and rage there was in her.

  She reached out and took the pen from the silver Tiffany inkstand. “Where do I sign?”

  Babe handed back the two volumes of NY-P-3567 PEOPLE V. SCOTT DEVENS.

  “There was an appeal,” she said. “Could I see that record?”

  The librarian looked at her chair and then at her. He was a man of about fifty and he had a pinkish porcelain face. “You’ll have to give me the number.” His breath had the disinfectant smell of eucalyptus oil and she instinctively knew he had been drinking on his lunch hour.

  She gave him the number, neatly typed on a sheet of Bill Frothingham’s firm stationery.

  He vanished into the stacks, throwing one doubtful look back at her. Finally he returned, empty-handed.

  “I’m sorry. Those records are sealed.”

  The limousine stopped at the Greene Street address and the driver came around and helped Babe into her chair. The sky above SoHo was bright blue.

  There was an art gallery in the elegantly renovated storefront on the ground floor. Babe glanced at the paintings in the window—hyperrealistic still lifes of food wrapped in plastic, spattered with supermarket price stickers. The name of the gallery owner triggered a memory—Lewis Monserat: she knew him from dinner parties and gallery openings. Then her mind corrected: that had been seven years ago; she had known him.

  Babe’s driver wheeled her into the vestibule. The elevator—a refurbished freight lift—was waiting.

  “Thanks, I can manage from here,” Babe told the driver. She pressed six, Cordelia’s floor.

  Cordelia opened the door and looked at her mother with a surprised and happy smile. “Mother—why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

  “I won’t stay but a minute.”

  “Let me show you around. Do you need help with that chair?”

  “No, I’m getting pretty good at it.”

  Cordelia went on ahead, and Babe wheeled behind.

  “This is the living space.” Cordelia’s braceleted arm swept out an arc, tinkling like a wind harp with gold and plastic and dime store charms. “And that’s the sleeping space, and there’s the eating space. It’s all partitioned space, you see. Someday the plumbing will be done, and then I can get on to something fun—like putting up shelves. Would you like coffee? I was just having a cup. It’s French roast, I get it from DeLuca’s downstairs.”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  Babe watched her daughter at the gas range, neatly setting up the Melitta and spooning coffee into the gold mesh filter and then sprinkling cinnamon on top and finally, careful as an action painter dribbling color on a canvas, pouring in the boiling water.

  Babe sat holding a hand-painted Provençal mug. Feeling embarrassed, almost shy, she stared down at the coffee and then she looked up at her daughter. “Is Lewis Monserat still alive?”

  Cordelia laughed. “Of course he’s alive. Why?”

  “I used to know him, and I saw his name downstairs.”

  “He’s the most successful art dealer in town.”

  “He always was.”

  Cordelia sipped. “How’s your coffee?”

  “Perfect.” Babe hadn’t tasted her coffee. She tasted it now. “Cordelia—I was wondering—I was wondering if you’d want to—if you’d consider living at home again.”

  Cordelia came across the room and knelt at Babe’s wheelchair and hugged her mother’s knees. “Oh, Mother, that’s so sweet of you. I had a feeling you were going to ask—but I don’t think so, thanks.”

  Babe sat motionless, looking at the floor that had been taken down to the bare oak and varnished, then again at Cordelia.

  “I love you, Mother—and I understand—really I do. But you’ve got to understand me. When you—went away—my world fell apart. I did the only thing I could. I learned how to take care of myself. Now that you’re back you want to take up from where you left off. You want me to be twelve years old again, and don’t you see, I can’t be. I’ve accomplished too much. I have my life, my career, my home—I can’t give them up.”

  “I wouldn’t try to make you dependent.”

  “Oh, Mother, semantics isn’t going to get me back to Sutton Place. I’ve grown up. I’ve moved on. And there was a lot of pain, more than you realize, and I’m not going to go back to it.”

  Babe sat hovering between hurt and acceptance.

  Cordelia unhooked a set of keys from a peg over the kitchen sink and pressed them into Babe’s hand. “Look—these are yours. Keys to my place—so you won’t ever feel shut out.”

  Babe’s hand closed around the keys. “I know now how hard it must have been for you.” A burning lump had stuck like half-swallowed food in Babe’s throat. “I read the transcript of the first trial.”

  “Why in the world did you do that?”

  “I’m sorry you had to go through it. It must have wounded you terribly.”

  “Wounds heal, Mother. But they’ve got to be left alone. Your wounds and mine.”

  “They told me the transcript of the second trial is sealed.”

  Cordelia looked at her mother.

  “What happened at that trial?” Babe asked.

  “You don’t actually think I remember.”

  “You must remember something.”

  “I was twelve years old and scared to death. I don’t remember any of it, I don’
t want to remember any of it. And I really think you should put all that behind you too.”

  It was raining when Babe got home. As the elevator lifted her upward, there was a gentle throbbing between her eyes.

  She wheeled down the hallway into her bedroom and sat staring out the window. The low slate roofs of the neighboring town houses glowed damply.

  She picked up the phone and dialed Ash Canfield. A machine answered. “Ash,” she said at the beep, “it’s me, pick up.”

  Ice rattled in a glass. A voice said, “What’s up, sweetie?”

  “That’s a terrible message, you sound dead.”

  “I can’t help it, I feel dead. You don’t sound so full of beans yourself.”

  “I was down at the courthouse reading the trial transcript.”

  “Yuck.”

  “They’ve sealed the record of Scottie’s second trial.”

  “Just as well. You don’t want to poke around in all that muck.”

  “I want to know what happened.”

  “It’s no secret what happened. Scottie got off with a week at that country club where they sent Martha Mitchell’s husband and now he’s playing the piano at the Winslow and he’s a great hit with all the ghouls in town.”

  “How did he get off?”

  “How do I know?”

  “Come on, Ash, you always used to know everything.”

  “I still know everything. I just don’t happen to have the details at my fingertips. But I can get them.”

  “How soon?”

  “Are you still attached to that wheelchair and nurse?”

  “Just the wheelchair.”

  “Meet me for lunch Friday at Archibald’s.”

  “What’s Archibald’s?”

  “A very posh, very in, dining spot on the Upper East Side. And the food’s half edible, too.”

  27

  THURSDAY NIGHT AT THE Inferno. pounding music hammered through Siegel’s skin. The smell of liquor and sweat seeped through her pores.

  Her friend with the clone moustache was really letting her have it, his whole philosophy of living and loving. “Nothing beats good sex,” he said.

  “Nothing,” Siegel agreed.