An Independent Woman

by Howard Fast

  “I’m on Green Street.” He had a sense of humor, which Barbara liked.

  “You’ll give me the number and I’ll come over for a talk. With a big proposition like this, we always have a talk with the customer. I’ll bring a lemon meringue pie, just a token. You’re free today?”

  “Between four and. five, yes.”

  She gave him her address and put down the telephone. Just like that, she said to herself. Now we’ll pray that Mr. Cohen can deliver.

  Mr. Cohen was a large, stout man who bore a pie as if it were a treasure, and he arrived at exactly five minutes after four. “We’ll sit in the kitchen, yes? You’ll give me a cup of coffee and a pie knife, and you’ll taste something. Like a picture is worth a hundred words, a taste is worth a hundred claims of good cooking.”

  Barbara contributed the coffee and agreed that she had never tasted anything as good in the way of pie.

  “And the thing is, it doesn’t melt on the plate on a hot day. The reception will be outside, yes?”

  “Under pavilions.”

  “And you have chairs and tables and dishes?”

  “No dishes, no. Chairs and tables and the pavilions.”

  “No problem,” Mr. Cohen declared. “We’ll supply them. And the food—hot or cold?”

  “Cold, if you can manage that.”

  “No problem. We have two large refrigerated trucks, and we bring ice; if you need water, we bring water.”

  “There’s a good spring,” Barbara said; “all the water you need.”

  “Then there’s no problem. Tell me, Ms. Lavette, and forgive me for a personal question. Are you Dan Lavette’s daughter?”

  “Yes, I am. Did you know my dad?”

  “No. But my father, may he rest in peace, catered his wedding to your mother.”

  “Wonderful!” Barbara exclaimed. “That makes us practically family.”

  “And now the food.”

  Barbara went into her thinking on crabs and chicken, but Mr. Cohen shook his head. “You’ll forgive me, Ms. Lavette, but cold chicken is always a problem, unless it’s chicken salad, which I don’t think you want.”

  “Why is chicken such a problem?”

  “Because you don’t know. The white meat can become hard and tasteless. Let me make a suggestion. I deal with a farm in Petaluma, and they can supply me with little rock Cornish hens, small birds so delicate they melt in your mouth. We cook them and mold them in a special aspic, my own invention. Delicious! Tomorrow I send you one, if you want. You serve a whole hen on each plate.”

  “But that must be terribly expensive.”

  “Wait with the expense until we finish. Now, about the crabs—yes, Bay crabs are the most delicious seafood in the world, but these crabs, you got to keep them alive and cook them as you serve them, and what I’m left with, I don’t know what to do with. You can’t keep them alive for too long. Now, salmon—that’s something else. I can buy the best salmon at a very good price. We divide them into proper portions, poach them, and set them in aspic molds. Beautiful. You serve them with sliced, slightly marinated cucumbers and a German potato salad—something fit for a king, believe me. And what’s not used will stay. I always have a call for poached salmon and we have good refrigeration in our trucks. And I bring you a sample of everything. You’re not buying a pig in a poke.”

  “And what do you suggest to go with the Cornish hens?”

  “Rice and little sweet peas. But with both dishes, first a salad. And then for dessert? You’ll have a wedding cake—or I can give you the lemon pie. And, of course, coffee and tea. Do you want wine?”

  “No, we’ll take care of that.”

  “Now, the wedding cake. We bake it, our own rum fruitcake. For this occasion, you need at least forty pounds. We age our cake for at least a month, so we always have it ready. Or maybe fifty pounds. I’ll have to do the arithmetic. We decorate it and slice it for you on the occasion. We top it with a small bridegroom and bride.”

  “Two of them,” Barbara said. “Not only is my niece being married, but I am as well.”

  “Congratulations. Who is the lucky man, if I may ask?”

  “Philip Carter. He’s the minister at the Unitarian church.”

  “Of course, a good man. I do a little for them sometimes. Mostly they do it themselves… Two brides, two grooms. I’ll take care of that. And we bring a crew of twenty for such a crowd. Now if you’ll let me sit here for half an hour, I’ll work out the price. A lot of older people?”

  “I’d guess half are past fifty.”

  “They’ll go for the salmon. I can tell you from experience, it will divide evenly, but we’ll have extras of everything. I’ll bring wineglasses, of course.”

  “And you can give me a price now?”

  “Of course. What will the timing be?”

  “The ceremony will be at eleven.”

  “Then we’ll be there by ten. Lunch at twelve. My crew will help you move the chairs. Nice men, nice waitresses.”

  In her study, Barbara sat and waited. Her husband’s name—her first husband’s—had been Cohen. She was lost in thoughts of the past. Once, when they stood at Coit Tower, Bernie had said to her, “Look at it, the most beautiful city on the face of the earth, built by a pack of mongrels.”

  Mr. Cohen exuded confidence, but then a good salesman always exuded confidence. Philip would now and then refer to guardian angels, and she once asked him flatly, “Philip, do you really believe in guardian angels?” “The trouble is,” he replied, “that I’m never sure what I believe in.” Had this been a guardian angel or the Yellow Pages?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Mr. Cohen’s voice, and she went into the kitchen. Mr. Cohen sat with a sheet of paper covered with numbers and scribbles. “Ms. Lavette,” he said, “before I give you a price, let me make a suggestion. We have been in this business since before the earthquake, and I never had a customer who complained about our poached salmon. Let me bring you four hundred servings of poached salmon. The price is the same.”

  “I love cold poached salmon—but there are people who won’t eat fish. Can I take a chance?”

  “Believe me, take a chance. For them, I’ll have a reserve of Cornish hens.”

  “All right.”

  “So we have that, and salad and bridal cake, and the dishes, and twenty in help, and when we leave, you won’t believe we were ever there. I’ll give you a flat price, and if it should be four hundred and twenty guests, the price is the same. Did I say coffee and tea? Absolutely. The price is sixteen thousand dollars, even. I know that Highgate specializes in Cabernet, so if you wish, I’ll throw in twenty cases of an excellent Chardonnay for only a thousand dollars more, and what you don’t use, I take back and refund the money. That’s a rock-bottom price for a good white wine. I always buy Highgate when I want a Cabernet, and I know how Mr. Levy feels about Chardonnay.”

  “That’s great. Poor Eloise was worried so about the wine. Everyone who knows Adam will drink red, but I imagine a good many will want white. Seventeen thousand—”

  “You can check with other caterers.”

  “We already have. You have a deal, Mr. Cohen.”

  “Just give me the date, and I’ll send the contracts out tomorrow. I’ll need a five-thousand-dollar advance.”

  Barbara couldn’t wait to call Eloise, and when she told her the details, Eloise sighed with relief. “But do you trust him?”

  “If I’m any judge of character, yes. Call Glen Ellen or Mondavi—I’m sure they’ve used him. And tell Freddie I’m paying the five thousand deposit. He has enough with everything else. And, Eloise, if I’m not wrong, you don’t have to lift a finger. They’ll even move the chairs and tables.”

  THE LUNCH AT HARRY’S OFFICE the following day was another matter entirely. When Eloise objected to Barbara’s paying for any of the cost, Barbara won easily. Eloise was never a good contender, and Barbara showed up for the lunch still glowing with her successful arrangements. The glow spread only to Philip, who always
glowed when he saw her. Harry was glum and apologetic. “I don’t know how I had the nerve to drag you over here. I charge three hundred an hour for stupidities not worth listening to, but I’m desperate. You don’t mind talking while we eat?”

  He had put out a platter of corned beef and pastrami, Jewish rye bread, and a bottle of wine.

  “Of course we’ll talk while we eat,” Barbara said.

  “It goes the other way in business meetings, but this isn’t a business meeting. It’s about Danny.”

  “Danny?” Barbara asked, puzzled.

  “Small Danny. May Ling’s four-year-old son. I never had children of my own when I was married. It broke my wife’s heart, but she had a condition that prevented conception. I always wanted children, and when Freddie agreed to my adoption of Danny, I was delighted. May Ling wants to have another child, and I can’t tell you how happy that would make me. But Danny hates me.”

  “Oh, come on,” Philip said. “Four-year-old children don’t hate.”

  “I’ve tried everything,” Harry said. “Toys, the circus, icecream sodas. Every time I try to take his hand for a street crossing, he pulls it away and says—” Harry shook his head.

  “Go on,” Barbara said.

  “I don’t want to offend you.”

  “We can’t be offended, Harry,” Philip said gently. “We’re here to help—in any way we can.”

  Harry sighed and said, “He pulls his hand away and says, ‘Fuck off, you creep.’”

  A long moment of silence, and then Philip asked, “Those words?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Have you discussed this with May Ling?” Barbara asked.

  “How could I? The child is the center of her life. How could I repeat those words to her?”

  “He’s in nursery school?” Philip asked.

  “Yes. And he watches television.”

  Philip nodded. “It’s 1984,” he said. “I can offer one thing, Harry. Children of that age don’t hate. Not in the sense that we understand hatred.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Philip looked at Barbara inquiringly, and she said, “Go ahead, Philip. You’re better at this than I am.”

  “All right. I can offer two guesses, anger and fear. The anger because he thinks you’re taking his beloved mother away from him, as well as his father. He can’t understand divorce, and I wouldn’t try too hard to explain it. Does he know that you intend to move him to San Francisco?”

  “I imagine he does.”

  “Then that’s the fear part—to be separated from the house he knows and the children he knows.”

  “He’s not happy here in San Francisco.”

  “Those words he uses are meaningless. He picked up the phrase somewhere—it’s everywhere today. Does he ever say it in front of his mother?”

  “No, not that I know of.”

  “At least he knows that it’s forbidden.”

  “Then, for heaven’s sake, what do I do?”

  “The first thing I’d do is discuss it with May Ling. Then don’t press too hard. Listen to what May Ling says; that’s important. I would suggest that both of you take him to Highgate as much as you can. Let May Ling, if she agrees, stay with him at Highgate until the wedding. He can see Freddie whenever he wants to, and let him see you and Freddie together as friends. That should change things and help with his fears. May Ling, I think, should explain about the phrase as much as she can. It’s amazing how much a four-year-old can understand. Give it time.”

  They went on with their lunch and talked more about the problem, and when they left, Harry was a less troubled man. Outside, Barbara said to Philip, “You’re very wise about some things.”

  “Not all things, believe me.”

  “I didn’t say ‘all things.’ I don’t want to boost your ego out of sight, now that I’m beginning to love you. But you never had children.”

  “No, we never did. We wanted them desperately, but it was no use. We could have adopted children, but we felt that childlessness was our punishment, and we accepted it.”

  “Oh, come on, Philip. You’re a Unitarian minister.”

  “So I am. Not a very good one, but still I am. Does that mean I shed my belief in God?”

  They were at the garage now. Barbara handed over her tab for the car, and while they waited, she studied Philip thoughtfully. He was a handsome man, she decided, in spite of the sharp Irish nose—the Kennedy nose, she called it—and his lined sunken cheeks. He walked with no stoop, and his hands were untouched by the brown spots of age. Did she love him, or was she simply grateful that she would not have to spend the last years of her life alone? Love was to be felt for children and men—and most men remained children until they were worn and old. He was not worn and old, and she felt a great tenderness for him. She often thought of his wife, the nun who had left the Church for the love of a man, and she wondered whether she could have done that, whether she was capable of that kind of love. She was firm in her beliefs; all her life she had fought against oppression and human degradation—spitting into the wind, she called it, a phrase that she got from her father. Two nights ago she had spoken to a group of women, a newly formed group of Bay women in support of Geraldine Ferraro, trying to convince them that the choice of Ms. Ferraro for vice-presidential candidate was the most important event in the feminist struggle, pleading with them to understand what this choice meant, and wondering why there were so many faces unmoved and unchanged.

  Philip had said that he was not sure what he believed. Barbara knew what she believed.

  When the car emerged from the garage, Philip reached into his pocket to pay the fee. Barbara did not protest. She had decided that, meager though his funds were, she must allow him to pay for their restaurant meals and whatever other expenses they incurred. A decent man was a decent man, but still a man. As for going abroad for their honeymoon, as they planned, she would deal with that when the time came.

  In the car, she said to Philip, “Why have you never asked me whether I believe in God?”

  “That’s a deeply personal question. I don’t ask people whether they believe in God.”

  “I’m not people. I’m going to be your wife.”

  “For which I thank God. You see, Barbara, the Buddhists have a saying: If you see the Buddha, kill him. That’s not to be taken literally, but to Buddhists the Buddha was a man—no different than other men, only wiser—and if you think you see the Buddha, you are a victim of illusion, because God—or what we call God—is ineffable. I believe that all human beings believe in their own definition of God, and for me it is not definable.”

  “And for most of us here in America, the definition is money,” Barbara murmured.

  “If you want to be cynical. I don’t think you’re cynical.”

  “I don’t know,” Barbara said. “My father, who was careful never to set foot in a church except when he went to a funeral, believed in decency, and that was enough for him. I was baptized in Grace Church, and every time I took communion after that, until I was sixteen, I could only think of the musty smell. When I was doing the story in El Salvador, where I saw men and women and children murdered by the death squads the CIA had set up and trained and armed, the same death squads that had murdered Jesuit priests and nuns and a Catholic bishop on the altar of his own church, I said to myself that God is for others but not for me. I’ve lived my life very well believing in the decency of most people and the indecency of the few.”

  “Then that’s your worship,” Philip said after a moment. “I would not try to convince you otherwise.”

  “But you still think I believe in God?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think. I’m absolutely content with you just as you are.”

  THE WEDDING FINALLY CAME ABOUT—not in a month, as Sally had planned, but early in September. The day was cool and clean, a day made to order for a festival in the Valley. Barbara, who almost never wore white, had only one white pleated skirt and two white dresses, one of them being her wedd
ing dress from her marriage to Carson Devron. It was a lovely and expensive dress, and it still fit as well as the day she first wore it; but it brought too many memories with it, and she could not bring herself to wear it. She tried the pleated white skirt, but it was silk and to wear it with a blouse was simply wrong, and anyway, it was too short. The other white dress was of cotton, made in India, and she had bought it a decade ago for forty dollars; the cotton was fine and full, and the skirt was double, and the simplicity of it pleased her. Certainly she had no desire to distract from May Ling’s beautiful bride’s dress. She decided for the India cotton, rejecting any thought of buying another wedding dress that she would wear only once. Even if she could not predict the future, she was absolutely certain that she would never marry again; and Philip, seeing her in the white cotton, decided that she and the dress were absolutely wonderful. Philip wore a white jacket and a black bow tie, as did most of the men who were present. The female guests, sheltered under broad white hats, presented a dazzling display of color.

  The parking lot was overwhelmed, and cars were parked for a quarter of a mile up and down the Silverado Road. It was the beginning of harvest time, and the vines were loaded with ripening grapes. The two pavilions, striped in pink, stood on the spacious lawn—two full acres that Eloise had successfully fought for and prevented from being plowed up for vines. A forty-by-forty dance floor had been put down, and Candido’s gift to the bride was a seven-piece Mexican band. Instead of flowers each table had a centerpiece of ripe, luscious grapes. Mr. Cohen and his crew and his two trucks had arrived at ten, and by the time the guests began to appear, 420 chairs had been spaced on the dance floor, with an aisle in the center for bride and groom. The chairs overflowed onto the lawn, which Eloise did not mind at all. May Ling and Sally, who was in lemon yellow and white and very much the former film star, were properly secluded in the main house, but Barbara, who had no intention of playing the bride’s game in this, her third marriage, was part of the reception team; and for the first time she met Judith Hope.

  Afterward, when Freddie asked what she had thought on meeting Judith, Barbara replied that Judith was magnificent—and that this description was not an exaggeration. Wearing flat, silver-embroidered shoes and wrapped in a pale pink sheath, under a broad white straw hat, she stood a trifle more than six feet, escorted by Freddie in a white dinner jacket, his blond hair making a dramatic contrast to hers. Eloise, wearing her best light blue, felt dwarfed, speechless for a moment, but then pulled herself together and said, “Welcome to Highgate, my dear,” and then went up on her toes to kiss her, an arrangement that Judith thoughtfully helped by bending and embracing Eloise.