Lily White

by Susan Isaacs

  Both men ignored her. Their eyes were on Lee. “Babe,” Jazz said, “don’t react. Just listen.” An entirely unnecessary statement, since Lee was sitting as unyielding as a petrified tree. “This is going to be great for all of us.”

  “I can’t take the tension!” Sylvia protested. “Pretty please!”

  “This is the story, honey,” Leonard said to Lee, ignoring his wife. “You know what’s been happening with Le Fourreur. Can I say it? Can I brag? An unqualified success. A success beyond my wildest dreams.” When his satisfied smile did not elicit the same from Lee, he looked across the huge block of pink-veined marble that was the coffee table and winked at Jazz, bolstering and boyish. Lee did not have to look to know her husband was winking back.

  “You men!” Sylvia declared. “Tell us!”

  “Success brings rewards, enormous rewards, but it brings problems too. Dealing with top-of-the-line designers who have armies—I’m serious—of advisers. Dealing with suppliers, with foreign governments, for God’s sake. Do I have to tell you who the number one importer of Russian golden sable into this country is? I mean, I should have my own embassy in Moscow.”

  Jazz let out a deep breath, reluctant to join the conversation, but he realized Leonard had stopped and was waiting for him. “You know how I’ve been trying to help,” he told Lee. “Serving as a sounding board, really, so your dad can check out what his lawyers have been telling him. And in general, trying to be there for him.” Lee was close enough to smell sweat-drenched vicuña. “But this is the thing: We talked. We went out to lunch. You know. Got to know each other.”

  “More than father-in-law and son-in-law,” Leonard interjected.

  “More like peers.”

  “Peers,” Leonard echoed. “And friends, I hope.”

  “Friends,” Jazz said, as if it could not be otherwise. “And besides that, I realized one thing. No. Two things. One, I was able to help your father.”

  “It was incredible!” Leonard said. “I had a whole law firm working for me. You wouldn’t believe the fees they were charging. And what was I getting? A lot of ‘On one hand, but on the other hand.’ No one could make a decision. Until Jazz. He’d say: ‘This is what I think you ought to do. Here are the pluses. And so you can reach a balanced decision, here are the minuses as well.’”

  At that moment, Lee regretted being a lawyer, because she understood what was going on: What Jazz was telling her father was no different from what Breitbart, Wasserman, Mishkin, Schwartz and Oshinsky was telling him. But she kept stone-faced and stony silent. Because she thought she knew what was coming next—and she was right.

  “It wasn’t just that I liked helping your father,” Jazz continued. “You know, being useful to him. I found out that all the times I was working with him, I was having fun. I mean, sometimes we’d have lunch uptown and then I’d go back to the salon with him and look at whatever needed looking at, and it was fun. Challenging. Interesting.” (Naturally, Jazz did not mention, then or ever, that it had taken him about twenty minutes in Leonard’s mahogany-paneled office to realize that his father-in-law and Dolly Young were longtime paramours, a state of affairs Leonard confessed to him anyway, at their next lunch.) “But then I found out something else. That when I was finished and had to go back to the office, I was … well, I felt really, really low.”

  “I sensed it,” Leonard went on. Listening, Lee was somehow reminded of the oft-repeated stories married couples tell of how they met and fell in love. “And I thought about it. I mean, heavy thinking. I knew how much Jazz liked working with me, and it goes without saying that I was getting more and more … well, dependent is not too strong a word. Dependent on him. His advice was always great. And whoever I introduced him to at the place: my insurance man, the employees, the customers—my God, the customers!—they were crazy about him. So …”

  “So … your father made me an offer, Lee.”

  They waited for her to ask what it was. When she didn’t, Leonard finally said: “I offered him the presidency of Le Fourreur.”

  Sylvia clapped her hands together with joy, but then she bit her lip. “What about you?” she asked her husband.

  “I’ll be chairman of the board,” he said proudly. “And founder. I’ll do the buying of skins. I’ll deal with the designers. Sell to customers who need special handling. Work on bringing in bigger names. But Jazz is going to take over running the show.”

  Lee sensed she should be angry, but she felt nothing. Nothing. No matter that the term “absolute zero” had a scientific meaning; that is what she felt. “You’re going to leave Johnson, Bonadies?” she asked.

  “Yes. Of course.” Then Jazz added: “I already told them.”

  “You already told them?”

  “You know I wasn’t happy there.”

  “I asked you over and over again whether you were happy there, whether you would be better off someplace else, and you said—” She cut herself off because she realized there was no point in going on. Jazz was leaving the law. Unlike the five previous generations of Taylor men, he did not have the stuff. And there was another reason for her not going on. As any smart corporate wife knows, it is counterproductive to belittle one’s husband in front of his boss.

  The following year, the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of the nation, Lee successfully prosecuted an organized-crime figure on kidnapping and assault charges, shut down a major heroin wholesaler by going after him—nine times in four months—for building code violations, and convinced a notoriously lenient judge to sentence a pimp to the maximum seven years for the vehicular assault of a fifteen-year-old prostitute. As a reward for her achievements, she became part of the District Attorney’s elite group, the lawyers who got to try homicide cases. The D.A. himself told her she not only was a natural in court; she had great judgment out of court.

  True. Perhaps it had to do with growing up within Leonard and Sylvia’s house. Whatever, Lee White had developed what the street-wise refer to as a built-in bullshit detector. Thus she was able to take the measure of her colleagues, judges, police, and others in the criminal justice system with a fair degree of accuracy. Her passionate soul—the part of her that could be captured at Dante’s Pizza by Jasper Taylor, or that thrilled with anticipation and pride each morning as she walked through the hideously ugly D.A.’s Office at 100 Centre Street—did not get in her way at all. Rather, it helped. It kept her from becoming cynical; it kept her believing her efforts were, truly, on behalf of the People.

  Her work was painful at times, all the more so because Jazz’s was now so … well, the only word that came to her mind was “frivolous.” Here was someone with the best education money could buy, and he was now spending his days taking department store executives out to long, extravagant lunches, cajoling them to carry Le Fourreur’s exclusive sheared beaver ski jackets. Or poring over contracts with chinchilla ranchers. But she had to admit, he was happier than ever. His normal good cheer had given way to exuberance, now that he was liberated from what he thought was his life sentence at Johnson, Bonadies and Eagle. He loved his new job, loved his huge salary, loved being loved—adored, actually—by everyone from his father-in-law to the wealthy customers to the young man who swept fur scraps in the back room. He loved the leisure he now had. He took a wine appreciation course. He bought two seats at center court for Knicks games and a box for the Rangers. He arranged for their vacations, bought their theater and concert tickets, and began to keep up with art gallery openings. And he seemed to love Lee all the more for being the means by which he had secured everything he had ever dreamed of.

  So with what little energy she had to spare, she took pains to hide her disapproval of his life. In fairness, if she did not love Jazz’s choice, she still loved Jazz. It wasn’t hard: In his custom-made suits, his gleaming brown hair growing fashionably long once more, he had gone from being good-looking to being devilishly handsome. Coming home from the D.A.’s, she was sometimes startled to discover the beauty of the man waiting for h
er. He remained an ardent and attentive lover. If he was not particularly inventive, at least he now had the time to read, and he bought books and videotapes and studied the arts and sciences of Eros so he might knock Lee’s socks off. And when she was not in the mood—as she usually was not during the height of a homicide trial—he was the warmest and tenderest friend.

  But her work was such a contrast to his. Unlike some of her male colleagues, Lee did not want a bubbly spouse to jolly her out of the black moods brought on by the horrors of the crimes she prosecuted. Rather than talk things out, and thus relive what she wanted to forget, she preferred to suffer in silence. There were nights, however, when she tiptoed out of bed, went into the bathroom, closed the door, and sobbed at the viciousness of what she had seen: tortured corpses, some of them women her age; photographs of children brutalized by the very people who were supposed to love them. Sometimes, though, she forced herself to remember. She would take a crime scene photo home with her to look at it last thing every night and first thing every morning while she was on trial—to remind her what she was fighting for. This isn’t necessary, Jazz told her. It is, she said sadly. It is.

  For the first half of 1976, his first six months with Le Fourreur, Jazz seemed content to live as they always had, albeit with better seats at sporting events. But by June, it was clear to Lee he wanted some changes made. Already drifting away from their classmates, he laid down the law on the matter of the Fourth of July: He absolutely did not want to go to a big, noisy keg party in someone’s tiny apartment overlooking the Hudson River and watch fireworks. And he definitely did not want to trek to a mildewy house out in the Hamptons someone was renting for the month, to sleep in sleeping bags and get bagged on crappy Chablis. Okay, he was just twenty-six and maybe he was sounding like an old geezer but he was the president of a multimillion-dollar company. Not his, and—he was the first to admit it—he could never have done it on his own, and he didn’t deserve it, but there it was. The fact: He was different from their old friends at law school and really didn’t have that much in common with them anymore. At least, not enough to spend the Fourth of July of a lifetime with, the celebration he and Lee and the rest of America would always remember. Unless she really and truly wanted to go, and then of course he would, for her.

  Lee did truly want to be with her law school pals, or with a group of assistant D.A.’s and cops who were planning a bash on Liberty Island, in the shadow of the Statue. But she knew Jazz now felt uncomfortable among lawyers. He saw himself through their eyes as a loser, a guy who couldn’t cut it. Conspicuous by his comparative wealth. Made a target of gossip among their old classmates by his move out of the world of men and into the world of women—a move made more humiliating by his wife’s success among the toughest of the tough guys.

  They spent the Fourth with Leonard, Sylvia, Robin, the fur buyer from Lord & Taylor and a fashion writer from the New York Times and her whining husband and two sniveling children. Leonard hired a forty-foot sailboat and crew for the day at a stunning price, and they cruised along, watching the flotilla of tall ships and getting drunk on fresh salt air. That night, Greta made an all-American barbecue based on Sylvia’s instructions for red and white food served on blue dishes. Lee did not have one moment of fun.

  The following morning, Jazz drove her to the station for her train back into the city. She had a trial coming up, witnesses to prepare. Over and over she apologized for having to leave him, after she’d promised to take a few days off, stay out in Shore-haven, and play tennis at his folks’ house.

  “Don’t apologize,” Jazz told her as he pulled Leonard’s Mercedes convertible into the parking lot. Even Lee thought he was being too tolerant. She had been the one who had made the big speech about having some balance in life, vowing she would take more time off. No more working on weekends, she had pledged. And if I don’t get it done by eight or eight-thirty at night, it’s not worth doing. Here she was, however, the only lawyer in America not on vacation, going back to Manhattan to interview a pickpocket, a chicken-hearted, mean-spirited liar who was her one eyewitness in what was going to be a miserable case to try.

  “I can’t not apologize,” she said. “I feel terrible. But if I can’t get this guy to tell a straight story, then there’s no point bringing this to trial. So I’m sorry. And you’re being absolutely wonderful about it.”

  “Thanks,” Jazz said, a little absently.

  “What’s the matter?”

  He glanced at his watch. “Your train is in two minutes. Better get going.”

  “Jazz …”

  “We’ll talk tonight. I’ll come back in around seven or eight. Maybe you can break away, and we can go out for dinner.”

  “Fine,” Lee said. The door handle was in her grasp, but she let it go. “What’s up?”

  “Your train—”

  “Forget it. I’ll get the next one.” Naturally, her stomach responded to her easygoing offer by immediately going into a spasm. The cop, the witness, everybody waiting for her, looking at their watches. “What’s bothering you, Jazz?”

  “I love it out here.”

  “I know.” She smiled, indulgently. “Especially in the summer. But you love the city, too. Eight million stories, eight million movies, the theater, the Knicks—”

  “Please, Lee.” He took her hand between his and held it tight. “I want to live here.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve made the best of the city, but I’m not a city guy.”

  “But, Jazz, I can’t. Not now. I can’t live here and be an A.D.A. in Manhattan. I have to reside in the jurisdiction. You know—”

  But he wasn’t listening. Or perhaps he knew so well what her objections would be that he didn’t have to hear them. “I’m so miserable in New York. I want to be able to come home at night and breathe air that doesn’t stink and see trees that aren’t stunted. I need a break from the workaday grind. I know you think I’ve got it easy compared to you—”

  “No, not at all.”

  “—but believe me, I feel I have to prove my worth every single day. And I’m good, really good. But it takes a toll. Why can’t we come out here—”

  “Don’t you think commuting would take a toll?”

  “Millions of people do it every day. You get to read the paper, do some work; it goes by like that.” He snapped his fingers. It made a loud sound and she sat up straighter. “Your dad and I even talked a little about getting a driver, take the pressure off. So we wouldn’t have to cope with sitting behind the wheel in traffic, and wouldn’t have to be dependent on the Long Island Rail Road’s whims. It would be the best thing in the world for me. And also, it would mean we could be near our families. I know, I know how much of your folks you can tolerate. The same with me and mine. But at least you’d be near Robin, now that she’s a human being. And Kent. I know you worry about him a lot, and it kills me too, the way my parents ignore him. We could be there for him.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I know it would mean a sacrifice to you. Your job. But you know you can’t do the work you’re doing and have a family. Isn’t that something you want?”

  “But we’re only twenty-six!”

  “So?”

  “Do we have to do this now?”

  “When, then?” He let go of her hand. His voice took on a harsh, aggrieved edge she had never heard before. “Next year? Next decade? When will you have time for me?” She touched him on the shoulder, but he jerked away. “I’ve tried to support you in every way I can. But I need to know there’s some mutuality at work, that I’m not the only one who gives and gives and gives.”

  “You think I’m crazy,” Lee said to Melanie Tucker.

  “Not at all,” Melanie replied, rearranging her handkerchief in her cuff. “I think you’re a fool.”

  “Oh,” was all Lee could think to say.

  They had deliberately chosen a deserted spot for dinner, a trendy place in TriBeCa where the chairs were made of rubber tubing. It was too expensive for cops an
d prosecutors. And at seven in the evening, it was far too early for the chic set who came for twenty-dollar variations on the sun-dried tomato.

  “I don’t see you rising to your own defense,” Melanie observed.

  “I’m too used to being the prosecutor. I’m cross-examining myself: How could you leave the best job in the world to be a furrier’s wife on Long Island?”

  “And your answer?”

  “I have none.” Lee moved an oily vegetable—on the menu it was called Sliced Sauteed Summer Squash in the Umbrian Manner—around her plate with a fork that resembled a hoe. “Well, maybe I’ll find something in one of the law firms out there.”

  “That might be challenging,” Melanie said in the upbeat manner of women who were girls in the fifties—with a rising lilt in a dead voice. A second later, she recovered; all she had learned since 1959 prevailed. “Personally, I don’t think defending companies who corporately defecate in Long Island Sound will challenge you. But that isn’t why I called you a fool.”

  Lee’s fork pierced the squash. “All right? Why?”

  “Because you are giving up everything you fought for and care about for a man.”

  “For a marriage.”

  “For a man who is eaten up by jealousy and for a marriage that—I’ll understand if you never talk to me again—a marriage that will come to no good. Why move? You’ll only want to come back. But then it will be too late.”

  Seventeen

  I had watched Norman Torkelson go from being the Cary Grant of the Nassau County Correctional Center to being just another dirty-nailed, unshaven con. Now he was at the third step: exactly where anyone in his right mind would be in similar circumstances: depressed. Not suburban depressed, with the standard loss of appetite or sleep troubles, the sort of malaise a little Prozac, a little therapy, or a new girlfriend can cure. No, this was the big-time despondency of a guy who was going to spend the next couple of decades in hell and emerge, somewhere around age fifty-five, an old man.