Possessions

by Judith Michael

  POSSESSIONS

  to Craig and fifteen years hasn't been long enough for you to stop hating him. And you don't like Ross either. I don't know why, but it doesn't matter. And Melanie is married to Ross. And Jennifer was Craig's favorite."

  "Katherine." His face and voice had not changed, but the muscles in his neck were quivering ropes. "You are in a singularly poor position to talk about being used. For months you have used me as your guide into a world that otherwise would have been completely closed to you. You have used me for lessons in behavior and for satisfying your insatiable need for praise; as an escort to replace the husband who discarded you, and for sexual titillation without a sexual liaison. You're a good match for your husband; both of you run from responsibility."

  Katherine's face burned. "You mean my responsibility was to pay for your services with sex."

  He let out a long breath, relaxing the explosive pressure behind his rigid muscles. 'This wiU stop. Now. I am not ready to end our curious affair—"

  "But I am." Breathing rapidly, Katherine leaned forward. "I couldn't go on now. Because even though I did use you— you're right, of course; you've given me a great deal—but did I really take anything from you that you didn't want to give? You never said a specific coin was necessary to pay for what you did for me." Feeling ashamed, she held her head high. "How could I go on after this?"

  "Are you asking for advice? Listen to me. You have grandiose ideas about making something of yourself, but you are no one in this city; you have nothing. The best thing for you is to go back to Vancouver, get some simple job that you can keep for more than a few months, and wait for your pathetic husband to crawl back into your lap, where he belongs and where you probably like him best."

  Katherine looked at him in disbelief. "Is that a threat?"

  "I never threaten." He picked up his mug and showed a flicker of surprise as he found it empty. "But if you were not a fool you would have learned something about power by now— in our family and in this city. That, too, was offered for your use; you had a choice between your husband's cowardice and the terms I might have offered if you'd been willing to be what I wanted. But you were afraid of that and threw it away."

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  "I didn't— '* A wave of revulsion niade her choke. She fumbled blindly in her purse to take out a five-dollar bill and put it on the table. "This is for my coffee." She stood, looking at him as if he were a small figure in a painting. "I won't try to pay for the food and drinks you've bought me since October, I paid for them in the last few minutes by listening to you insult me. I don't know anything about your kind of power because I don't care about it. I want a family, not a battlefield, and I wanted companionship from you, not a contest. If you do have power, that only proves to me that a man can be handsome and charming and powerful, and still, underneath, crude and vulgar. And that kind of man I don't want to see again."

  She took a step back as his face darkened with fury, then turned, forcing her way through the crowd. Unexpectedly, violently, she began to tremble, and she let herself be carried along with the brightly colored mass of people to an arch across the square, and through it, to the street. It was quieter there, almost peaceful. It's all right, she said to herself. It's all right. Everything is all right.

  And as a cab came to a stop in response to her raised arm, she knew that, in fact, everything was all right. Once before, after she decided she would not sleep with Derek, she'd felt as if a burden had been lifted from her. Now another was gone. She did not want him; she did not need him. She was free.

  Part III

  Chapter 12

  B,

  OSS swiveled his chair to look through the window behind him. His gaze took in the steady stream of traffic on the Em-barcadero, and beyond it the city's bustiing piers, stretching like thin fingers into the choppy, deep blue bay. Two years earlier, when he was expanding his company to work on BayBridge Plaza, he had moved into this building, a former icehouse converted to bright office suites with interior brick walls and tall windows reaching exposed-beam ceilings. He had furnished his own office in rosewood and leather, with patterned American Indian rugs on the floor. No outside sounds breached the thick walls, and in the silence Ross let himself daydream about Paris.

  "Work with me," Jacques had urged earlier, on the telephone. In college he and Ross had shared an apartment; since then, across the thousands of miles between them, they had shared ideas about work, wives, their countries, and those thoughts often expressed more easily with someone far away. Now Jacques Ehivain, believer in the new and modem, was in the midst of renovating a forty-room Parisian townhouse built

  POSSESSIONS

  in 1605, converting it to four apartments of ten rooms each. "You always preach to me—*Keep the past; as much as possible, keep the past.' Here is the past and I am being paid to keep it. Work with me on the Place des Vosges; be my consultant."

  "I know nothing about renovating seventeenth-century French townhouses," Ross had said.

  "And I," Jacques promptly replied, "know little of new American renovation techniques. We will leam from each other. Besides, is this not a perfect way to pry my friend from his American drafting table to visit with me?"

  Place des Vosges. Ross pictured in his mind the magnificent square of brick and plaster townhouses surrounding a park, once the Paris residences of the royal court, lately—having survived almost four hundred years of use and misuse—being bought by investors for renovation as condominiums, shops, and restaurants. On his last trip to Paris, two years earlier, Ross had been given a tour of the square by Jacques, and he remembered still the elegant dimensions of the rooms, the grandeur of curving stairways, carved moldings and ceilings, and the intimacy of private courtyards hidden in the center of each of the houses.

  He had wanted to go back, but woiic on BayBridge intervened. Over the two years, Jacques had sent him progress reports that in many ways matched the progress of BayBridge; now he was ready to make his detailed plans, and he wanted Ross to join him.

  But I have two major projects already, Ross thought, brooding at the view from his window. BayBridge, which is just taking shape, and my marriage, which is losing whatever shape it had.

  "Mrs. Hayward is here," his secretary said over the intercom. "Should I call the others to tell them the meeting will be late?"

  Her words were carefully chosen. Ross knew, from past experience, they meant there was a storm on Melanie's face that probably could not be dealt with in the five minutes before his scheduled meeting. "Yes, do that," he said. "I'll let you know when we can get started. And tell Mrs. Hayward—"

  But Melanie was already there, closing his office door as she walked in. With her ebony hair and tanned skin, wearing

  POSSESSIONS

  a white silk blouse and red suit cut geometrically to make her shoulders broader and her hips narrower, she looked like a drawing in a fashion magazine—even, Ross thought, to the cold, faintly defiant look with which she swept his office, just as models sweep the audience as they glide down the runway.

  Melanie glided across the office to drop her purse and gloves on his desk. "I was shopping and had some extra time, so I decided to stop by and talk."

  Flattering, he thought. But probably not true; she came expressly to talk, since we don't talk at home. Which means there's a crisis. He went to a credenza near a leather couch and chairs grouped beside the high windows. "Coffee?"

  "You could offer me a martini."

  "If I had it. The best I can do is coffee."

  She shrugged and sat on the edge of the couch, drumming her fingernails on the glass coffee table. "Wilma tells me your Mr. Macklin is getting a divorce."

  "He's not mine. I don't even know him well enough to be interested in his affairs." Ross handed her a cup and carried his own around the table to sit beside her. "Do you?"

  "I'm interested in divorce."

  "So you've told me. Wilma's stock in trade." He was playing for time; he knew she had not meant Wilma'
s gossip. "Was there something special you stopped by to talk about?"

  With an exasperated clatter Melanie set her cup on the glass table. "Do you have to be difficult? Couldn't you once, just one goddamn time, be understanding? I'm not talking about Wilma; I'm talking about me. / am interested in divorce because / want a divorce. I've—"

  "Just a minute. Wait." They had always stopped short of this point. "We've never talked about this; we never even talked about finding a way to—"

  "What difference does it make? I've found somebody who's better for me than you, somebody who really cares about me, about what / want and how / feel and what's good for me. So I want a divorce. Right away."

  "Someone else?" He hadn't heard any gossip; he'd never thought of that. "Who is it?"

  "It doesn't matter. All that matters is that I've found someone who really cares about me, who pays attention to me and satisfies me—"

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  "Can you control your teenage tantnimT' Ross asked bit-ingly. "And use a few words besides / and me?"

  "Damn you," she spat. 'That's what you do every time. You treat me like a teenager—a baby—you make me feel little."

  Instinctively Ross put out a hand. "I know. Melanie, Vm sorry; I know I—"

  "I don't want your fucking apologies; it's too late for that! Don't you understand? I'm sick and tired of feeling like I'm not smart enough or grown up enough for you. I'm as grown up as you are, and I want somebody who'll treat me like that, somebody who knows how grown up I am—"

  "Who is he?"

  "Somebody special."

  "God damn it, who the hell is he?"

  "You can swear at me all you want; I'm not afraid of you. It's somebody wonderful who's going to take care of me and buy me presents and bring me breakfast in bed—"

  "Melanie. I asked you who he is."

  At the low steel of his voice, she took a quick look at his face. "Guy Walker."

  "Guy Walker?"

  "He's a very famous champion tennis player. He gives lessons at the club, but when he's on tour he wins trophies. He's going to marry me."

  The words struck an odd chord. "What about you?" he asked. "Are you going to marry him?"

  "Don't try to make me look silly. Of course I'm going to marry him."

  It registered then. Ross sucked in his breath, feeling as if he had been punched in the stomach. He'd known how far apart they had moved; even Carrie and Jon knew it, watching, listening, moving through the house with delicate footsteps, as if afraid of making a noise that would bring the whole structure tumbling down. Already tumbled, Ross thought; the evidence had been there for a long time—the spaces, the quarrels that came up like thunderstorms and were as quickly spent, their silences, the way their eyes never quite met.

  But he'd willfully ignored the signs, assuming that however bad it was, they would work it out; assuming that because it

  POSSESSIONS

  was familiar and predictable, it would be easier to repair than to destroy.

  Wrong. All the assumptions: wrong. Panic welled up, and he turned from Melanie, staring out the window. He remembered the day he'd moved here and first looked at this view. He was beginning BayBridge and was boundlessly confident: sure of his wife, his home, his profession. Idiot, he thought. Secure, satisfied—blind.

  / miss knowing the boundaries of my days. Where had he heard that? In a moment it came to him: Katherine, at The Compass Rose. / miss being sure of what will happen tomorrow and the day after. I miss knowing the boundaries of my days. None of it was true, nothing was certain, but it was so comforting to think it was ..."

  I knew as little as she did, Ross thought.

  "Are you listening?" Melanie demanded.

  Frowning, he turned back to her. "I was thinking of something else."

  "Something else! Something more important than your children?"

  "What about the children?"

  "I'm keeping them. How many times do I have to repeat it? They'll stay with me and you'll move out. I'm keeping the house. I don't want Carrie and Jon changing schools and doing all those upsetting things that make children hate divorce. We'll stay in our own house and everything will be the same for them."

  "Except that their father will be gone."

  "Well, yes. But the really important things won't change— their house and school and friends. And me of course. And they'll have Guy. Don't worry about them Ross; they'll be fine."

  She said it with such earnestness, mixed with defiance, that Ross felt a flash of pity. But then he thought: what if she's right? What if they would be fine without him? His panic grew; spreading through him, cold and heavy.

  Melanie was still talking. "—and visitation rights, because I suppose they'll want to see you, once in a while. Our lawyers can settle that—"

  Visitation rights? A schedule for telling your kids you love

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  them? How do lawyers work that out? He felt sick—and then the coldness inside him froze all feeling. Facing Melanie, he felt nothing. "We'll settle it now, between us. I'll want them every weekend, one night a week for dinner, and at school holidays. Thanksgiving, Christmas, spring vacation, long weekends, and of course all summer—"

  "Are you crazy? They can't always be running off to stay with you! How can we make a new family if we're not together at Thanksgiving and Christmas? You can have them—my lawyer said if you made a fuss you could have them every other weekend—if you really want them that often—and a week in the summer . . . well, maybe two weeks, but no more because of camp. And you'll pay for camp; that's on a list—my lawyer has it—things you'll take care of, alimony and child support and the dentist and all those things. Ask my lawyer; he'll show it to you; here's his card. See him tomorrow, Ross, or get your own lawyer to call him; don't wait, because Guy's impatient—"

  "To get his little family started."

  She shot him a look. "Don't use that tone of voice with me."

  "You've forfeited the right to tell me what tone to use." What emotions had broken through that cold barrier to make his hands tremble? Anger? Pain? He stood and walked to his desk, his back to Melanie. "You'd better leave."

  "Well, I guess I've said what I had to say." There was a pause. "Did you think you'd come home tonight?"

  "I hadn't thought about it."

  "Well, you'd better not try. I've had the locks changed."

  He whipped around. "Change them back. Or give me a new key. That is my house and I haven't moved out."

  "I'll do what I want! It's in both our names!"

  "Until I move out, I have the right to enter that house and use it and I advise you not to try to stop me. Give me the key." She wavered. "I won't rape you," he said, his voice grating.

  She flushed. "I didn't think you would. I just don't want you around! But if you'll call first—"

  "I'll be damned if I will; that is my house. Give me the key!" When she still hesitated, he said evenly, "I don't think you'd want your friends to hear that your husband called the Tiburon police to witness him breaking into his own house."

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  "God damn you to hell," she said, and held out a key.

  He crossed the room to take it, clenching it to hide the trembling of his hands. "I'll pack when Carrie and Jon aren't home. Probably tomorrow while they're at school." To go where? He held open the door. "One more thing. I'm not leaving them. I intend to be with them far more often than you and your lawyer think." Where? Doing what? "You'll have to organize your new family around my schedule. Remember that. I'll make you spend the next five years in court if you try to keep those children from me."

  "You bastard. You just want to ruin my marriage to Guy the way you ruined ours." She ducked, as if expecting a blow, and scurried out.

  Ross watched her stumble and catch herself. Tripped, he thought, by the wreck of our marriage. He wondered if she was right: that he could have prevented the destruction if he'd been different—better, kinder, more patient . . .

 
"—the meeting?" his secretary was asking.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. "I had a reason for scheduling it today. Do you remember what it was?"

  "We couldn't get everyone together for at least another two weeks."

  He nodded, prodding his thoughts like a shepherd herding reluctant sheep. "We'd better have it then. But give me half an hour. I have to pick up some pieces, and put myself together."

  Across the bay from San Francisco, the houses in the Berkeley Hills climb so steeply they look over the roofs of those below, offering a vista stretching as far south as San Jose. The house Ross rented stepped down from the front entrance hall, past two airy bedrooms to a long living-dining room and a square cedar deck screened by trees and bushes but still giving a clear view of the Golden Gate and San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridges, the San Francisco skyline, and the softly rounded hills of Tiburon where, only five miles away, his wife entertained her tennis-playing lover.

  Carrie and Jon sniffed suspiciously the first time they explored his new home. "It doesn't look anything like our house," Carrie declared. "Was this the best you could find?"

  "What's wrong with it?" Ross asked mildly, hiding the panic 259

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  that still gripped him when he let down his guard— What if they refuse to come here? Lawyers can forge agreements but who can make my children want to be with me? "I thought it felt like a home."

  Slowly, Carrie turned in place, her head tilted, considering the heavy, worn furniture in half a dozen different fabrics and colors, with soft cushions that retained the shape of the last person to sit in them. No interior decorator had ever set foot in these rooms; the professor's family had simply collected furniture over the years, never throwing anything out; and Ross knew, seeing it through Carrie's critical gaze—exactly like Melanie's—that no place was more unlike the perfectly modulated velvet and silk rooms of his Tiburon home.