by Luanne Rice
“Sounds demented,” Pete said.
“Yes, but I must say she did the right thing, coming here,” Jean said. “Any summer associate who fails to show up here, I don’t care if her father just died, is dead meat. Kiss the job offer goodbye. Anyone planning to play tennis?”
Pete and I said no, and Jean walked away. “Do you agree with her about Michele?” I asked, watching Jean enter the clubhouse. Suddenly, in my white sundress, tinged red along the hem by Michele’s blood, I felt drab. My simple outfit broadcast the fact that I was a wife, not a lawyer, that I lived on Connecticut’s shore, not in New York. I imagined Jean finding Nick, convincing him to play tennis with her.
“That’s a tough question,” Pete said. “I think she’s right about Michele not getting an offer if she didn’t come here. But what does that say about priorities? I mean, Michele should care more about her health than one legal job.”
“And the firm should be more understanding.”
A slight breeze rustled through the leaves overhead. Sunlight filtered through, making patterns of shade on my knee. Far off, someone yelled “Fore!”
“No offense, Georgie, but the firm doesn’t have to be understanding. To the firm, associates are apple seeds. Chew them up, spit them out. Lose one, another is waiting in line. You know how hard it is to get a job at a place like Hubbard, Starr?”
“I remember,” I said, grinning. I thought of the summer Nick had worked at the firm, between his second and third years of law school. How we had sweated through the last weeks, ignoring Pem’s and Honora’s pleas that we spend at least one weekend at Black Hall, hoping that he would get a permanent offer.
“And now I leave you in the able hands of your husband,” Pete said, greeting Nick, who approached from the clubhouse.
“Fortunately the club has a club doctor, and he’s going to check her out.”
Sitting on the bench, I gazed up at him. Next to Pete, who had the compact body of a wrestler, Nick looked ravishingly tall and lean. And relaxed. Happy. We were together in the middle of a weekday.
THE DAY PASSED in a bucolic blur. Since my tennis shorts were stiff with Michele’s blood, I forwent tennis and walked the grounds with Nick. Then we played nine holes of golf with two partners from Nick’s squad. Then I sat on the ground watching Nick and the Tender Offer Squad play volleyball against the General Corporate Squad. Naturally, being the most aggressive, the Tender Offers won. Then they played and beat the Litigation Squad, the Leverage Leasing Squad, the Taxation Squad. Victorious, the Tender Offer Squad formed a circle by grasping one another’s biceps. They did a gleeful little dance that made me laugh because it reminded me of young English children frolicking around a maypole. Nick, sweaty and happy, joined me and some other wives.
“You play a mean game of volleyball,” said one, Virginia Grant, a nice stockbroker who was married to a litigation partner. “Where’d you grow up—California?”
“No, Massachusetts,” Nick said.
“Excuse me, folks,” called John Avery, head of the Tender Offer Squad. He stood ten yards away, beside the volleyball net. Addressing the group, which covered a wide area, he spoke in a low voice that carried magnificently. His body was trim, dressed in a khaki safari suit. “Our match, superbly executed though it was, seems to have gone on a bit longer than anticipated. Customarily, one of the—I don’t like to say losing squad leaders—” here everyone laughed, “presents the trophy here, at courtside. However, time constraints and the fast-approaching cocktail hour force us to postpone that ritual. So, with haste, I bid you to take to the locker rooms. We shall convene on the terrace in seventeen minutes.”
“Bravo!” called Jean Snizort, a vision in a tight, sleeveless navy blue jumpsuit made of some iridescent synthetic.
A ribbon of lawyers and their mates began winding up the hill toward the clubhouse. Nick and I held hands, walking faster than the others. We passed Jean.
“Hi, Nick, hi, Georgie,” she said, emphasizing my name, twinkling at Nick.
“What was that about?” I asked when we were alone.
“Oh, Jean asked me yesterday if my wife, Jessie, was coming. Then she made me promise not to tell you that she always gets your name wrong.”
“Honora would say she has her eye on you,” I said. I did not say that Jean was the embodiment of every fear I had ever had about Nick working late.
“Honora would be wrong,” Nick said.
Parting in the corridor, we kissed, then entered separate locker rooms. I found mine filled with women in various stages of dishabille: naked in the shower, pulling on pantyhose, slipping into summer dresses. I took a quick shower. I hoped my lilac linen shift would look pretty.
“Well, hi,” Jean said as I walked out of the shower. She was applying gold eye makeup in a long mirror. Her creamy white skin looked flawless as a Spanish princess’s. Her lips were garnet red.
“Hi, Joan,” I said, walking directly toward the bank of gray-green lockers.
A VIVID PURPLE and orange sunset blazed in the western sky. I leaned against a stone balustrade at the terrace’s far end, talking to John Avery. He had changed out of his safari suit into a coral silk blazer and white slacks. He drank a frozen daiquiri. I drank dry vermouth with a twist. My lavender dress looked darker in the purple light.
“Now, last thing I heard about you,” Avery was saying, “you were doing science. Marine biology, is that it?”
“It was. I was profiling a bay in front of our house.”
“How do you profile a bay? If you’ll forgive my ignorance . . .” John Avery chuckled, sipping daiquiri through a slim straw.
I smiled. I knew that John Avery was being amusing, that he considered himself ignorant about nothing worth knowing. “A profile is basically an inventory,” I said. “You know—marine life, rock formations, seaweed, that sort of thing. But I’ve put the bay profile aside for something else. I’ve started the Swift Observatory.”
His jaw literally dropped. “Oh my dear sweet Jesus, of course. Your name is Georgiana Swift, not Symonds,” said John Avery, and at that instant I made the connection: the Avery Foundation.
“You don’t—do you?” I asked.
“My family endows the Avery Foundation,” he said. “I sit on its board of directors. I read your report last week. I’ll be damned.”
Nick joined us; he listened in silence.
“The material on Mrs. Tuchman was most interesting,” John Avery said. “I must admit I didn’t read many news reports about her case, but other board members said your piece was the most personal, the most revealing piece they had read.”
“Thank you,” I said, struck by the situation’s oddness. John Avery was Nick’s boss, my patron. He was the master of both of our professional destinies. I cast a sidelong glance at my husband, to see how he was taking it. I could not read his face.
“We’re looking forward to your next report,” John Avery said. “How about this, Nick? Fascinating turn of events, eh?”
“It’s amazing,” Nick said. “I’ve never connected you with the Avery Foundation.”
“Many people have never even heard of it. We’re a very small operation. What made you try us for a grant, Georgie?”
Suddenly it occurred to me that maybe he thought Nick and I had known of his connection all along, that we had exploited Nick’s closeness with him to get me the money. I felt myself blush deeply. I would have to tell the truth, which was embarrassing and might offend him. “I read a description of the foundation in a book about grants, and it said you favor unorthodox projects that probably wouldn’t get money elsewhere.”
John laughed. “Worse things have been said about us. Some people think we’re a venture capital organization, funding fly-by-night inventions or research projects—no offense, Georgie—then profiting from them down the line. It’s the lot of a grant-giving foundation. We’re nonprofit, of course. There’s no way we could earn a cent. But there are lots of sour grapes among people who apply and don’t get the money.
”
“Why did I get the money?” I asked, feeling daring.
John looked me straight in the eye. “Because your project was unorthodox and probably wouldn’t have gotten money elsewhere.” He smiled.
“Oh,” I said.
“But we think it’s important. We take your work very seriously.”
“So do her family and I,” Nick said.
“Between you and me, Nick,” John said, “we are lucky men. A lot of lawyers have nothing in their lives but law. No outside interests to speak of. But I have the foundation, where I’m in touch with creative minds and the outside world. You have a wife who does interesting work. I don’t understand lawyers who marry lawyers or, worse, accountants. What do they have to talk about?”
“Georgie shows me her work hot off the presses,” Nick said, and I detected pride in his voice.
John tapped the side of his head. “The workings of the creative mind.” He glanced around. “I’d better talk to some summer associates. Can’t forget what this party is all about. We’ll talk again, Georgie. See you tomorrow at the clients’ office, Nick.” He walked away.
Seeing John Avery disengaged, hordes of summer associates made straight for him. Michele whizzed by, not noticing us in her zeal.
“This is weirder than words,” I said. “I had no idea, absolutely no idea that John Avery was that Avery. Are you mad at me?”
“Why would I be mad? It poses a slightly awkward situation, with both of us essentially working for John, but I’m not mad.”
“I don’t work for him. He funds my work, but that’s it,” I said, feeling huffy, though secretly sensing truth in Nick’s assessment.
“If I had checked the firm directory, I probably would have discovered John’s affiliation with the Avery Foundation. It always lists memberships, directorships, things like that. I probably should have known,” Nick said, looking worried. He was thinking that he had committed a disastrous gaffe, not realizing John’s connection.
“Don’t worry—there’s no reason why you should have known,” I said.
“Partners notice things like that. After all, if my wife applies to some foundation, I should be reasonably expected to know that my boss sits on its board. Shit.”
“Nick—”
He glanced at me sharply. “I’m mad at myself, not you, all right?”
“All right,” I said. But I wondered why he would be mad at himself if nothing were wrong?
5
FOR FOUR NIGHTS, SLEEP WAS DANGEROUS, my dreams haunted by images of Nick and me on opposite sides of a desk, not speaking or even acknowledging each other; of leaving the room by separate doors; of Jean Snizort waiting, unseen but quite tangible, behind Nick’s door; of a butter knife in my pocket. I would waken and press close to Nick. He would open his arms and sleepily pull me against his chest, where I would lie until his dark and sparse chest hair tickled me away.
How anxious I’d felt to see Nick rattled at the outing! Every word spoken to a partner contained a million nuances. How would John Avery perceive the fact that Nick hadn’t known his position with the Avery Foundation? Associates were supposed to be impressed by such things. The biographical information published by the firm was a gold mine for eager associates. Nick denied that he was seriously upset, but he was. I knew.
Then one afternoon came the moment of truth. He called to tell me he would have to work late that night and wouldn’t be home.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come into town?” I asked, pleasantly enough.
“Maybe tonight is a good night for you to stay in Black Hall. Project Broadsword is heating up again, and I know I won’t leave the office till midnight. It would be much easier for me if I just eat Chinese or something at my desk.”
“I can’t believe this is happening, Nick,” I said. “That you don’t want to be with me tonight. I don’t care how late it is.”
“Georgie,” Nick said, sounding weary.
Rage, hurt, and fear battled for the lead. “You seem so upset these days,” I said, trying to sound reasonable. “I can’t help thinking you’re staying away on purpose, that you don’t want to come home.”
“Georgie, that’s not true,” Nick said, his voice making me trust him. “I do want to come home. It’s rotten, having to work so late, then going to some hotel alone. You sound self-centered, accusing me of that. Why can’t you see it from my point of view? The clients from Broadsword are so fucking nervous they can’t see straight.” His voice rose and rose.
“Don’t sound so mad at me,” I said.
“Well, I am mad at you. You could show me a little sympathy. You always need plenty of reassurance, and don’t I always give it to you? I think you should give me what I need right now—understanding. You could say, ‘Oh, I feel so bad you have to work all night with lousy demanding clients and I wish we could be together.’ Instead you turn it into an accusation.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Forget it,” he said, still sounding angry.
“We can’t hang up feeling this way. I don’t want to stay angry at each other when we’re going to be apart all night.”
“That’s too bad, because I’m still angry and I have to get off the phone. The clients and John are waiting.”
I felt a sob rising. “Is this because of John Avery? Are you upset because of that?”
“Jesus, Georgie! Why can’t you take someone’s word for it? It’s not deep, it’s not complicated. I’m upset because I have to work late and I can’t come home. Goodbye.”
He hung up. I sat there, holding the receiver, feeling cold as ice. I was shivering. Waves broke on the rocks outside; I listened, wanting them to soothe me. I hated myself. I felt as though I was driving away the person I loved most in the world. I called his office, but Denise said he had just gone into the conference room. “Just tell him I called,” I said.
For a moment I regretted calling, like a high school girl who likes a boy but fears appearing overeager. But of course Nick and I had been married for eight years. We called each other ten times a day. In the natural course of events, whenever we fought, we would stew separately, each feeling wronged, perfectly justified in the feeling, certain the other was skewed. Then the moment Nick came home he would tell me he understood my point of view, I would tell him I understood his, we would talk and reach a compromise. Then we would kiss. We would snuggle into bed, touch each other’s body, show each other the real meaning of vulnerability. That night it wouldn’t happen because Nick would be staying in New York. It scared me to think I wouldn’t see him until late the next night. I calculated the hours: at least thirty hours until I saw him. How bad could things get in thirty hours? I envisioned his anger hardening, growing bigger than a house, so that when he did come home he wouldn’t even fit through our door.
The thought of having dinner alone seemed terrible, so I called Honora to invite myself over. Nick would call me there if he didn’t get an answer at our house. If he called. On my way across the yard I met Clare.
“You alone too?” I asked.
“Yes. Mother just called to tell me you were eating there, so I decided to make it a foursome. Nick has to work late?”
“Yes. Donald?”
“He’s in San Francisco. The boys are having a cookout at the Fortnums’.”
Pem and Honora were sitting on the terrace. The sunset splashed gold and rose across the sky. The water tower on Plum Island, eight miles across the Sound, glinted like the edge of a knife. Everyone wore sweaters. Pem was wrapped in her wool coat and a blanket.
“Ah, my two Nereids,” Honora said, rising to kiss us. The Nereids, to the ancient Greeks, were personifications of breezes. Clare held up her peach silk scarf to let it flutter in the light wind. “It’s been so long since the four of us had dinner alone. Seems like since you girls were in high school.”
We tried to remember a more recent time, but always Nick or Donald or Eugene or Casey or a friend of Pem’s or Honora’s had been there. “Three gen
erations of Bennison women are on this porch,” Clare said. “One of us should have a daughter, Georgie, and make it four.”
“I’d love a granddaughter,” Honora said. “Not that I don’t adore the boys. But I loved having little girls. Other people would say, ‘Don’t you wish you had a son?’ But I didn’t, not a bit. Your father didn’t either.”
I sat on the glider beside Pem. “Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” she said, smiling. “Where’s the boy?”
“Nick? He had to work late.”
“Dare we ask why you’re not at the Gregory?” Clare asked.
For a second I felt too close to tears to answer, but then I managed to lie. “He called too late for me to get the train.”
“Oh, sweetie,” my mother said.
Clare leapt to her feet. “Quick! We’ll take my car! Honora can ride shotgun, watch for speed traps, you and Pem in the backseat, we’ll be in New York in two hours—tops.”
“Shut up,” I said.
“If the boy were here, he could make us a drink,” Pem said.
“Not a bad idea,” Honora said. “Care for a cocktail? It’s a little early, but so what?”
“If you’re serving bourbon, it’s never too early,” Clare said.
“Martinis all around,” Honora said, knowing Clare never drank bourbon. Clare went to mix them. Honora came to sit on the glider beside me. She tucked one bare foot beneath her and started the glider moving with the other. Afraid she would try to begin an intimate conversation about the troubles she imagined between me and Nick, I felt my back stiffen. I’d been on guard ever since she’d said “Oh, sweetie.”
“I had the loveliest swim today,” she said. I waited to see how she would segue from the swim to marital tensions. “I didn’t see one jellyfish—odd for this time of year, don’t you think?”
“They usually come around July fifteenth,” I said.
“Well then. Anyway, I swam out to the big rock, then across the bay to Tobin’s jetty, then back to my house. The water was perfectly clear. I kept my eyes open the entire time, and I think I saw an octopus. A very small one.”
