Inheritance

by Judith Michael

  "Almost through?" he asked.

  "Almost. Are you here for the weekend?"

  "Just tonight. I'm sorry, but I have to be in Washington tomorrow."

  "Fm sorry, too." She signed letters and folded them in their envelopes. "Ready. Shall we have a drink on the porch? It's been so warm today; it doesn't feel like November, does it?"

  The weather was warm, but she was cool, as always, and Currier felt a flash of adolescent anger: didn't she appreciate what he was going through to see her—dragging himself to the Adirondacks ten times in three months? And what did he get for it? A lilting voice saying "I'm sorry, too." Fuck it, he tfiought as they sat on a cushioned sofa on the long front porch. I don't need her; the world is fiill of women.

  "Laura," he said, "I want you to marry me."

  The silence was sudden and complete. All around them, as the sun set, the sky was an ocean of flame streaked with islands of thin, purple-gray clouds. "How can you marry someone you've never slept with?" she asked lightly, then added quickly, "I'm sorry, Wes, that was foolish. I'm ashamed of myself. You took me by surprise."

  "And you said the first thing you thought of.'*

  "I apologize. It was crude."

  "But you aren't crude, and I know it. And I did indeed take you by surprise, so I apologize, too. As for my sleeping with you— *'

  "Please, I've said I'm sorry. It's not important."

  "It's very important, at least to me; I've wanted you in my bed for a long time. But I'm a patient man, Laura, and I always get what I want. And I'm not worried. Are you? One of these days, as soon as you vanquish your demons, you'll want more from me than companionship and my presence at conferences and then—"

  ^That's unfair." Her face was flushed.

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  "It was and I apologize." He held her face between his hands and kissed her lightly. *This is the damnedest proposal; all we're doing is apologizing. Laura, I want to marry you and take care of you. I don't want you to look the way you did when you told me about the old man you took care of when you were working your way through college, the one who died—"

  "How did I look?"

  "Brokenhearted," he said briefly. "Not for long—you have a remarkable spirit—but I don't want you to feel any sadness, ever again. You deserve happiness and luxury and a life free of worry, and I can give you that. I can give you everything. And I want you with me wherever I go; I'm even going to ask; your help in some of my work. You have a way of striving for order that I admire, and you're very precise in what you say. and what you don't say. In a marriage that might be a problem, but in business it's invaluable."

  She smiled. "You mean you'll take the lumps in marriage; because the business will prosper."

  "That's unfair." He studied her face. "You won't always be so careful with me; if we love each other—^"

  "Love," Laura murmured. "Does that enter into itT*

  He laughed. "Yes. I should have said that first, not last. But I'm not always sure whether my love may not be suspect Three times it's ended in divorce. I thought you might prefer a simple proposal without the fluff of an emotion that might sound a little frayed around the edges."

  Laura laid her head briefly on his shoulder. "A girl likes a little fluff now and then, even if she has to say no."

  He hesitated only a fraction of a second. 'Then I'll use more of it next time."

  They were silent. The sky had darkened to a deep bronze so rich it turned to orange the shadowed grass and tall pines in front of the lodge. Currier put his arm around Laura, his fingers caressing the short springy hairs at the back of her neck. Vanquish your demons, she thought. Of course I will. I've stopped missing Ben, except when I'm really lonely, late at night, and then I wonder what kind of life he has in Amsterdam and if he ever thinks of me anymore. And it's just a matter of time before I forget Paul and stop having dreams

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  about Osterville and Boston, Leni and Allison, Paul's parents, even the cousins who were always in the background, making everything seem more alive, more like a storybook family.

  It will all seem like a story if I wait long enough; like something I read once and put away. And then maybe I'll be able to make love to Wes Currier instead of knotting up inside every time he kisses me.

  "Still," he said musingly, as if continuing a conversation, "you're not as brittle as you were four months ago. You may be breaking out of this cage you've made for yourself."

  She stirred. "What does that mean?"

  "I'll tell you a story. When I was twenty-five, a year after I'd made my first million, my wife left me. I fell into a funk that wouldn't go away. Something I cared about, something that was safely mine, had been stolen from me. All I could think was that some vicious mythical beast was punishing me for having everything I wanted." He paused. "I think someone took something away fix)m you, something very precious, and you've been feeling like a victim ever since, with the forces of nature and mythology stacked against you. The logical reaction to that is anger, and building a thick shell around yourself, and no sex."

  She smiled. "Probably." But her eyes were focused inward. "You think a shell is like a cage."

  "It was for me. I was locked into my anger because I'd been robbed, and I was determined to defend myself so no one could rob me again. That was my shell and that was my cage." They were silent. Within the circle of his arm. Currier felt Laura's taut muscles, and he spoke quietly but with an intensity that struck to the heart of her memories. "I'd earned what I had—that was what made me angriest. I'd worked hard and I'd given love, and I deserved the good things I had. Other people got what they wanted; why shouldn't I? I was as good as they, maybe better. But in a way that was the worst of all: I'd known what it was to have the happiness I wanted and then it was taken from me before I could enjoy it. So I locked myself in even tighter, like a besieged general."

  "And how did you break out?" Laura asked after a moment.

  "Oh, that's the dull part of the story. I remembered what I'd always known: that life isn't fair and we're never promised

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  that it will be. Too many people spend their time looking for someone to promise them happiness or beauty or wealth, instead of fighting to carve out their own. I'm still fighting, but I'm almost there; I have most of what I want and I'll get the rest. I told you, I always do."

  The last faint hues vanished from the sky. The first star flickered just above a grove of pine trees; amber lanterns lined the curving driveway and front walk. Behind them, Laura and Currier heard the chatter of guests gathering in the Great Hall for cocktails, and the soft strains of classical guitar from the tape John Damton had just put on. **Wes," Laura said thoughtfully, "if I asked you to back me in buying a hotel, would you consider it?"

  He masked his surprise and the instinctive refusal which sprang to his lips. He wanted a wife, not an entrepreneur. But he was patient, and he knew the advantages of having someone in debt to him. "If you knew what you wanted, of course I would. Do you have a specific hotel in mind?"

  *The Chicago Salinger," she said.

  Myma's legs were clamped around Clay's hips and he thrust deep inside her. He heard her litde kittenish cries that meant she was coming, and then let himself go. The surge tore through him like a torrent bursting through exploding floodgates. He couldn't see, he couldn't hear, for that incredible instant when everything in him felt free and absolutely perfect, and even when he heard Myma's voice murmuring, "So lovely. Clay, you are a lovely lover," and opened his eyes, he still felt the tremors all through him and her warm wetness clinging to his penis. He lay flat on her surprisingly cushiony body to stay inside her as long as he could, and reached back to pull the sheet over them; in the midnight air, his skin suddenly felt chilled. "Lovely lover," Myma whispered, turning her head and flicking her tongue deep into his ear. "My wonderful lover ..."

  Little sparks shot from her probing tongue all through him. Her hands grasped his butto
cks and he felt the quick sharpness of her finger pushing into him and then he was hard again inside her; he was moving again inside her; and again Siey found a rhythm that could last, as far as he was concerned, forever.

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  Of course he wouldn't say a thing like that, then or later, when, finally, he was pretty sure he couldn't get it up again even if he had the energy to think about it. Myma didn't seem tired—^Myma never seemed tired, whether she was teaching on Damton's tennis court or swinmiing in the pool or shopping all day for presents for her family somewhere in Nebraska or screwing all night in her little rented house in Jay's Landing. Crazy lady, he thought, and I'm crazy about her— but sometimes she scares the shit out of me.

  He thought that every time he got to this very dangerous moment: three in the morning, sprawled on her bed in ecstatic exhaustion, his mind numbed with gratitude and satiety. And as always, he gathered caution around him like a winter coat and did not ask her to marry him or even live with him, though it did occur to him that there were advantages to knowing she was off the market and definitely his.

  Later, later, later, he thought, but at the same time part of his mind was listening to the satisfied hum of his body, telling him to wrap her up and make sure of her. Caught between two pieces of contradictory advice, he fell asleep.

  Myma Appleby was twenty-seven and had been a tennis instructor for almost ten years. She didn't mind that Clay was only twenty-one; he was taller than she: blond, handsome, with a neat mustache and a kind of permanent boyishness that led her to believe she could turn him into the kind of man she wanted. She'd just about given up hope of finding one.

  The problem was, most men were afraid of her. They called her bold when they were being kind, and aggressive when they weren't. But Clay liked it when she took command. At first she thought he didn't have much backbone, and in that case he wouldn't be right for her at all, but then she decided it was just that he'd gotten so used to his sister making decisions that he pretty much took it for granted when Myma behaved similariy. He'd probably been looking for a woman like that all along, she reflected as she set her alarm, and then she, too, fell asleep.

  She woke him at five in the morning so he could get to work on time. If it weren't for her, she thought, he'd likely lose his job and go wandering off with no real skills except chauffeuring and being a desk clerk, and how far would that

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  get him? She had no idea what he'd do without her, especially since Laura was working eighty hours a week and spending the rest of the time with Wes Currier. Clay had nobody but Myma. "Rise and shine, darling. I'll fix breakfast."

  "Just coffee," he mumbled, his head under the pillow.

  Myma stroked his long, boyish back and felt a rush of tenderness for him. Men were so vulnerable, when you thought about it; terrible at the basic necessities like cooking and doing laundry and buying socks; they didn't even know how to eat property. "You'll need more than coffee," she said decisively. She ran her fingers through her straight black hair, pulled on a kimono, and went downstairs to the kitchen.

  "What are we doing tonight?" she asked when he was at the table plowing through fried eggs and toast. 'There's a film at the—"

  "Can't see you tonight," he said. "We can go to the movie tomorrow if you want."

  A flicker of alarm appeared in her gray eyes. "I thought we had a date."

  "Not that I remember." He looked up, worried. "Did we? I didn't think so. Anyway, it doesn't matter, does it? The movie'll still be there tomorrow night." He returned to his eggs. 'Terrific breakfast, babe."

  "What are you doing tonight?'*

  "Playing poker. Want to tie a ribbon around my arm for good luck?"

  "Knights in armor did that before they went into combat.**

  "Good for you. I didn't know you knew that."

  "Are you going into combat?"

  "Who knows? These guys are good. I may bet some real money."

  "Does Laura know you're going to play?" His face tightened and she knew she had made a mistake. "Well, it doesn't matter," she said in a rush, adding carelessly, "Have fun and buy me something beautiful if you win."

  "Thanks, babe. Talk to you soon." On his way out, he kissed her on the cheek, and a minute later, as he backed out of her driveway, he offered a prayer of thanksgiving that he hadn't given in to his mellow mood the night before. He wasn't ready to make a commitment. Most of the time he was

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  happy as a clam, just the way things were. He still missed the excitement of stealing: scaling walls; moving like a shadow through other people's houses, as if he controlled their lives for a little while; he even missed picking pockets in the subway with Laura. But he'd stopped that small-time stuff a long time ago—not exactly when Laura stopped, but soon after. Everything seemed to peter out after she wouldn't share it with him, especially when she started saying things that made him feel . . . small, sort of . . . like he could do better things than rip off people who weren't there to fight back, or pick the pocket of some ass who didn't know enough to keep his wallet inside his jacket when he took the subway. Big deal, she kept saying sarcastically. My big hero. After a while it got to him, and he told himself he didn't want that piddling stuff anyway; she was right, he was meant for bigger things.

  Of course, by then he was earning money, first in Philadelphia and then at Damton's. And thuigs were better at Dam-ton's than he'd expected. He got resdess for New York, and one of these days he'd get back there, but he was having an okay time right here. He was driving people around in classy cars he could pretend were his; he was working half-time on the front desk and helping with the payroll; he got along with Laura in their apartment, though he wasn't there a hell of a lot anymore; he had Myma whenever he wanted her; and then, a couple of months ago, he'd discovered some all-night poker games in Jay's Landing and nearby towns, organized by the chauffeurs, butlers, and chefs for the wealthy New York socialites who had vacation houses in the Adirondacks. Decent guys; most of them a lot older than him but willing to let him join in whenever he wanted. And they had respect for him; he could tell. After all, he was a chauffeur, too.

  The only problem was, their salaries were double or triple his, and they played for higher stakes. But what the hell, he thought as he drove over the causeway to the island, when I get on to their tricks, and everything starts clicking . . . then diey'll see what I can do. Because I have it all figured out: Clay Fairchild is really going to clean up.

  In the airline club at O'Hare, Currier found an armchair in a quiet comer, pulled the telephone to him and dialed Laura's

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  number at Damton's. "I miss you. I called you from San Francisco last night but no one knew where you were."

  "I was helping Kelly and John look for a four-year-old who stomped out of the dining room when his parents told him he couldn't have dessert. They didn't go after him because they said he needed to be taught a lesson—^I don't know what the lesson was supposed to be—and an hour later they couldn't find him anywhere."

  "And you were annoyed."

  She gave a short laugh. "Furious. That poor kid was at the marina, sobbing because he thought he'd have to sleep in a boat since his parents didn't want him back."

  "Because he walked out of the dining room?"

  "Because he didn't finish his trout with ravigote sauce, which was the reason he was denied dessert. Why do people do that to children? Why do they make them stuff down food they don't want and then punish them by taking away their love?"

  "Damned if I know. Does a bloated stomach make a more lovable kid? I'm not an expert; I never fathered anyone. Did you cany him back with his arms around your neck and his head on your shoulder?"

  "Yes; why?"

  "Because I envy him."

  Her low laugh came over the wire. "Are you still in S Francisco?"

  "Chicago. I looked at the Salinger."

  "Oh."

  "It's in bad shape, Laura."

&n
bsp; "We knew—^I knew that. It's been neglected for years. Did you find anything else wrong?"

  "Not in a quick tour, we'd need to have studies done. How important is this to you, this particular hotel?"

  "It's the one I want. I've seen reports on it, Wies; it's in a perfect location, there's a good maricet for what I want to do with it, and the basic structure is sound."

  "You can't know that until we have engineering studies made."

  "It was sound a little over a year ago; I told you, I saw reports on it. If all it needs is renovation— *'

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  'Ten million dollars* worth. At a guess/'

  There was a silence. "That's what we thought the purchase price would be."

  "If the Salingers even want to sell. Tm going to have one of my staff sound them out."

  "Wes, please don't do anything that connects me with it."

  "Because the financing will come fix)m me? My dear, it doesn't bother me to be behind the scenes; I usually am when I finance a project. This is yours; the publicity should be yours. All I ask is that you make money."

  "I don't want publicity. I'm going to be an employee of the corporation I'm forming to own all the hotels—"

  Her voice abruptly stopped and he frowned. "How many hotels are we going to buy?"

  "I've only asked for your help with one."

  "But others are on the horizon."

  "Aren't there others of everything on your horizon? Isn't that how you got where you are?"

  "How many hotels is your corporation going to own?"

  "Four." There was a pause. Then, as if she had made a decision, she said, "Wes, I'll tell you all about it when we're together. Are you coming back soon?"

  He waited for her to say she'd missed him, as he missed her, but she did not. "I'll be in New York tonight; I should be with you for dinner on Friday. Or—^I have a better idea. Why don't you meet me in New York?"