“Don’t be afraid of me. I won’t bite. Or, if I do, you won’t mind.”
Two years before, Paul would have been tempted. Instead, he said, “Let’s go swimming, Nicole. Senatorial candidates don’t do it on the beach.”
She sulked all the way back to San Juan, puffing nervously on a joint. Ever since Nora had moved to Washington, Paul had been resolutely faithful. He felt he had straightened out his life. It was time to do so. He didn’t want any lurking scandals when he made his big move. Moreover, he and Nora seemed on their way at last to becoming friends. He was not going to risk ruining a good thing. He would never understand his wife, but no doubt about it, she would make a wonderful First Lady.
Nicole wasn’t worth it.
* * *
Sean lay sleepless in his bed. The luminous clock face told him it was two o’clock. He could hear the waters of the lake slapping gently at the beach just below the dark window. Two weeks at Glendore had revived him physically and psychologically. He had not thought about the Church or the priesthood or the archdiocese for more than a few minutes. He had read mystery stories and science fiction—from a seemingly inexhaustible collection that Mary had gathered—swam, water skied, sailed, played golf.
He had no desire to return to the chancery office; to the telephone, the mail, the idiotic letters from Rome, the protestors, and the charismatics; and to all the myriad right-wing and left-wing organizations that demonstrated each day. He did not want to have to attend a committee meeting with a group of bishops ever again—dry, bloodless, unfeeling old men. The rest of his life, as far as he was concerned, should be spent in the peace and undemanding affection of Oakland Beach.
His desire for Nora was as strong as ever, but somehow that no longer seemed a serious problem. Nora was a hostess and a nurse and a friend. The old savage, imperious desire that had shattered his confidence and his self-esteem in Italy, that kind of desire seemed to have died out.
“Getting old, I guess,” he told himself. “But if you don’t want to be in that bedroom with her down the corridor, how come you’re not asleep?”
* * *
Nicole Shields carefully injected the hypodermic needle into her vein. Coke was a lot quicker and more spectacular than grass and, everybody said, not nearly as dangerous as heroin. She had been able to find a source in San Juan, recommended by one of her Chicago friends, who guaranteed that San Juan coke was “pure as the driven snow.”
She injected the coke slowly, carefully. She wasn’t hooked on cocaine and didn’t intend to be, nor did she want her arm to be marked by scars. Life was too much fun to do yourself in that quickly. But she had something to celebrate. After his speech tonight he would come to her room, and by the next morning she would own him. And then she would destroy him, just as he had destroyed her mother. She would make her affair with him public, and he would lose everything: his wife, his kids, his seat in the Senate, his future.
Ecstasy started to flow through her veins like a tropical river at flood tide, and she forgot about her mother and Paul Cronin and everything else.
There was a knock at the door. She said blissfully, “Come in.”
It was Helen Colter, another junior staff aide to the Congressman. Helen was four years older than Nicole, plain and prudent. She looked disapprovingly at the sight of Nicole spread out on the bed in her underwear. “Have you made copies of the speech?” she asked.
“There … on the chair.” Nicole’s voice was languorous. “Would you like some cocaine? There’s nothing in the world like it.”
“No, thank you.” Helen shook her head in irritation and picked up the stack of speeches.
“Well, there’s nothing like it—’cept screwing a future United States senator.”
“What would you know about that?”
“By tomorrow morning, honey”—she smiled sweetly—“I’ll know everything there is to know about it.”
* * *
Nora was trying unsuccessfully to read Trinity. The air-conditioning system installed after Glendore was built had broken down. The night air was sullen and humid. She had thrown open the windows in her bedroom, but her red, white, and blue bicentennial sleep shirt—a present from her daughters—was soaked with perspiration.
She shifted uneasily on her bed and put aside her reading glasses. Something had to be done about Sean. When she had sailed so blithely into the chancery at the behest of Jimmy McGuire, she was confident that a few weeks of rest would rehabilitate him and give them both a chance to exorcise all the demons of the past. It would be easy, she thought, to straighten things out with him once and for all.
Now, after having him around the house for three weeks, it did not look simple at all. Sean obviously adored her. Her own response to the quiet pain in his eyes was every bit as powerful as it had been in Italy. She had overestimated her maturity.
Yet Nora was afraid to clear the air, afraid that if she opened the door to discussion, her weakness would lead her to an even greater surrender than Amalfi. And perhaps on a deeper level she was more afraid that her strength would rule out the possibility of any such surrender in the future.
There was a soft knock on the door. “Come in,” she said, her heart thudding against her chest.
It was Sean, of course. Trim and solid in a T-shirt and swimming trunks. “I thought you’d be awake. I can’t sleep either. Want to try a swim?”
She almost said yes, then realized that the beach might be even more dangerous than her bedroom. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Too much exercise today for an old body.”
The thin drapes stirred restlessly on a draft of air.
“Presentable enough body as far as I can see,” he said. “Hey … do you want a drink?”
She wanted one desperately. It would be a mistake. Her defenses would be shattered if she had any alcohol in her. “A martini would be wonderful,” she said.
While she waited for his return she tried to banish the memories of the hotel room in Amalfi. Same thing all over again. Her body, beyond her control, began its relentless preparations for sexual union. “I can’t do it,” she moaned under her breath. “I won’t.” But the stirrings she felt made her not at all sure that she wouldn’t. She ought to get out of bed, put on a robe, join Sean in the parlor.
Instead, she lay on the bed, her palms pressed against the damp sheet, as though she were paralyzed.
The pitcher contained only enough for two martinis. Sean was deceiving himself as much as she was.
He sat on the far edge of the king-size bed, the blue sheets an ocean separating them. “To the next First Lady.”
“You mean to Rosalyn?” She joked.
“Do you want the job?” Sean was serious.
“I like Washington. I like being a congressman’s wife. I think I’ll like being a senator’s wife. After that, I don’t know.”
Sean sipped his drink and leaned toward her. “What’s in it for you, Nora?”
“There are a lot of payoffs,” she said uneasily.
“And you’re happy?” He leaned back on his arm, one tightly knuckled hand depressing the edge of the bed.
She wet her lips. “Yes. Sometimes more than others.”
“I love you, Nora,” he said, his voice gentle. “I always will.”
“I love you too, Sean. Of course I do.…” She tried to sound matter-of-fact. It came out a sigh.
Then he came around to her side of the bed and, prying the glass from her fingers, took her in his arms. He was a natural lover, knowing by instinct what to do just as he had ten years before. Gently he slid her shirt up and began to caress and kiss her body. She felt as though she were floating on a cloud of tenderness. Another few seconds and it would be too late. Neither of them would be able to stop.
As though returning from a faraway galaxy, she pushed his hands aside. “I don’t think so, Sean,” she murmured in a voice she hardly recognized. “If we don’t stop, we’ll lose each other for the rest of our lives.”
He pulled
back, jolted to his senses. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.…”
With as much modesty as she could summon, she rearranged her shirt, her hands trembling. “Come on, Sean, we both know what happened.” She would try to get control of herself by being the efficient administrator.
“I’ll leave right away,” he said. “Drive back to Chicago tonight.” He was almost to the door. Running away.
“You’ll do no such thing,” she said. “You’ll sit down, and then we’re going to have the talk we should have had a long time ago.”
She sat up straight, her back against the headboard. “What happened in Amalfi was the natural consequence of all of our lives. It had to be.… You can handle it under your moral theology—the circumstances took control over us, robbed us of our freedom.…”
Sean laughed bitterly. “Nora Riley Cronin, moral theologian. Well, I think I’ll go along with your opinion, Professor Cronin.”
Nora relaxed. She was certain she would be able to handle the situation now, to establish boundaries where there were no boundaries.
“You know I’ll always love you, Sean. But we both have other commitments, commitments we’re not going to turn our backs on. I’ll be your mother, your sister, your friend, your inspiration, but I won’t be your mistress, because that would mess you up and it would mess me up, it would mess up my family, and it would mess up your Church.”
“Maybe I really came here tonight, Nora, to hear you say those things more than to make love to you.”
“Can you live with this kind of love, Sean?”
“I’m going to have to learn to, aren’t I?” he murmured.
Both the Cronins were really little boys, she thought, each needing her. Fair enough; she would mother them both, each according to his needs, keep her fingers crossed, and leave the rest to God.
Then, without warning, the Presence was there, enveloping the two of them, caressing, encouraging, reassuring. You never told me it was to be this way, Nora silently chided the Presence.
Rarely did the Presence say anything. Rather it absorbed, bathed, and soothed her. Tonight, however, it laughed. Not a sardonic laugh; rather it laughed at her the way she often laughed at Noreen when that teenage tomboy did something particularly wonderful.
Everyone, sighed Nora, wants to be a mother. Even you.
* * *
Esteban Muñoz was the best journeyman electrician in all of San Juan. There was not an electrical problem in the entire sky-high Barrington Hotel on the beach in San Juan that Esteban could not solve before the sun had set, and it was a very bad electrical engineer who designed that hotel’s wiring.
Unfortunately for Esteban’s peace of mind, the chief electrician at the hotel, under whom Esteban was forced to work, a certain José Alvarez, was jealous of Esteban’s greater skills; if the management at the Barrington should ever find out that Esteban did all the work and José took all the credit, they would fire José and give Esteban the job he deserved—chief electrician at the Barrington.
Esteban took it for granted that there would be some harassment, but the harassment was especially heavy when the labor leaders were in San Juan; the hotel wished to prove that even though its workers did not belong to a union they could keep a modern hotel running efficiently.
All day Esteban ran from broken lamps to dead outlets to nonfunctioning air-conditioning units to disturbed television sets. Finally, late in the afternoon, on the very top floor, he discovered a loose wire at the end of the corridor. He was busy soldering and taping it when José came upon him and screamed many terrible curses. There were three air-conditioning units not functioning properly on the second floor. The loose electrical wire could wait; if it had not caused a fire before today, then it would not cause one today.
Esteban protested, but to no avail. He would be fired if he did not repair the air conditioners immediately. He hastily taped the dangling wire, closed the panel in the wall, and then, at the end of the corridor, flipped up the master switch for that floor.
Before he went home that night, however, Esteban stopped at the office of Señor Manuel Ramirez, the assistant general manager of the hotel, and warned him in the presence of his own good friend, Humberto García, that there were dangerous wires on the fifteenth floor that ought to be fixed.
Señor Ramirez was upset with Esteban. He told him that he knew he was only trying to obtain overtime pay for the weekend. He ordered Esteban out of the office and warned him that on Monday morning he would discuss his future at the hotel with Señor Alvarez.
Long before Monday morning, however, Esteban would thank the Madonna that he had had the presence of mind to bring Humberto García into Señor Ramirez’s office when he made his complaint. It was the wisdom of the Madonna, he would tell his wife María Isabel, that protected him from perhaps going to jail and guaranteed him employment at the Barrington Hotel for as long as he wished it.
* * *
The labor leaders and their wives had been well dined and well wined. Paul Cronin realized that his role was as much entertainment as politics. He also understood that even if the labor barons and baronesses did not remember a single word he said, it was still important that he impress them as being a likable, promising, very pro-union member of the Congress of the United States.
The union leaders were not interested in practical programs. They were interested in stirring words and energetic visions, a repetition of the New Deal rallying cries tempered by the new common sense. Paul gave them exactly what they wanted. The old Irishman who was the president of the union bellowed to the audience at the end of Paul’s speech, “This is the best goddamned politician I’ve heard since John Kennedy talked to us in 1958.”
Paul modestly disclaimed such a compliment, but he nevertheless spent forty-five minutes accepting the congratulations of the assembly. He noted how many handshakes were gnarled and rough from long years of manual labor. His father’s old cliché that the labor bosses had never done an honest day’s work did not seem to be true after all.
In the elevator ride to the fourteenth floor, Paul’s spirits soared. He was enormously pleased with himself. The unions and the city organization would be a strong political base. Yes, indeed, it had been a very good night’s work.
* * *
Esteban Muñoz had discovered the loose electrical wire on the fifteenth floor just as it became dangerous. The insulation around the wire had eroded through the years until it was little more than a live wire loose within the wall between the corridor and room 1502, a room that remained unoccupied during the convention. If Muñoz had been permitted to finish his work, there would have been no danger of fire. But he had not, and now sparks from the wire had already started to smolder in the wall.
* * *
Paul tossed his coat on the chair in the parlor of his suite, opened the small refrigerator, put some ice cubes in a tumbler, and half filled the tumbler with whiskey. He loosened his tie and took a hearty swallow of the drink. Then he noticed a piece of paper that had been slipped under the door. He picked it up and glanced at it. I’m in room 1510 and waiting. N.
He rolled the note into a ball and tossed it into the wastebasket. A stupid little girl, sending a note like that.
He hung his jacket in the closet and sat down on the couch. Ten thirty in San Juan, nine thirty in Chicago. Still time to call Nora.
That’s what he would do, he would call Nora. He would not go up to room 1510. That would be a ridiculous thing to do. He dialed the long-distance operator and gave her the number. The line at Glendore was busy. He hung up, drummed his fingers on the telephone table, then rose, went to the closet, put on his jacket, and walked out to the corridor.
As Paul was leaving the elevator on the fifteenth floor, Helen Colter entered it. Politely he held the door for her. “Wonderful speech tonight, Senator,” she said.
“Let’s not anticipate the wishes of the people of the state of Illinois, Helen,” he said. “But thanks for the compliment anyway.”
> Helen flushed slightly and then smiled in response to his engaging boyish grin, a grin that seemed to be especially effective with unattractive girls like her.
Paul hesitated. Could Helen have guessed where he was going? But what difference would that make? She was too devoted to him to blab about it. And she certainly wouldn’t tell Nora.
He knocked on 1510, and a dreamy voice said, “Come in; it’s open.”
Nicole Shields was stretched out invitingly on the bed, her childish body available, a languid smile on her face. It was, he told himself, a face that would not be pretty for nearly as long as her mother’s had been.
She was a much more intense and inventive lover than her mother, however, and the Congressman enjoyed himself thoroughly. A flaky kid with enormous energy and kinky ways. Nothing serious, just a little bit of entertainment on a hot summer evening in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
It was only after their lovemaking was finished that Paul realized how high his partner was. “What have you been taking?” he asked her, half asleep.
“A little coke, a couple of pills, that’s all,” she mumbled.
Then they both were asleep.
The smell of the smoke from the fire at the other end of the corridor had teased Paul’s nostrils for many precious minutes before he finally struggled awake and realized there was a fire someplace. He turned on the light. Smoke was seeping under the door. He jumped out of bed, rushed over and felt the door. It was hot; a fire in the corridor. Smoke inhalation was the danger: He must soak a towel with water, wrap it around his face, and make a dash for the exit stairway.
He pulled on his clothes and, with shoes untied, dashed into the bathroom, soaked four towels, two for him, two for Nicole. Then he hurried back to the bed where she lay peaceful and complacent, in the afterglow of lovemaking. He shook her roughly. “Come on, Nicole, wake up! This damned place is on fire!”
There was no reaction. He shook her again and yet again. Then he remembered what she had said about coke and pills.
Thy Brother's Wife Page 28
