Fortune Is a Woman

by Francine Saint Marie

  It had been nearly that long since mother and daughter had been to the summer place together and almost never this time of year. To Lydia there seemed a sadness to the occasion. The aging mother, the run-down house, the childless daughter.

  Those feelings haunted her throughout the afternoon as the two resumed inspecting the inside of the house and made an inventory of their various other discoveries. Twice she had an inexplicable desire to apologize to her mother. For what, she couldn’t exactly say. Maybe for being too faraway and too busy all the time, or for the grandchildren she didn’t give her, or for her father’s philanderings of which Lydia knew so much more than even her mother did. Maybe it was just watching autumn empty the landscape of all its vitality, replacing it with flashy colors that couldn’t and didn’t last.

  Neglect, she mused, after they had completed their mission for the day and she was following her mother’s taillights down the dark country road to the village where they had once all lived together as a family. She and Eddie and Daddy and Mother. Surely that was the reason for her mood she decided: how liberal the seasons had been with the once pretty place, the incredible cruelty of time and neglect, her family’s overwhelming neglect. That’s what had gotten her so down today.

  She retired early that evening so her mother wouldn’t feel compelled to stay up late entertaining her. Around midnight, though, she awoke with a terrible longing and used the phone on the night stand to call Helaine. They whispered sweet nothings to each other for over an hour and then finally hung up, both privately satisfied.

  Saturday morning, in much better spirits, she returned to the lake house with her mother and, as they had planned, began to tackle the attic situation.

  _____

  Saturday. Dr. Kristenson had just finished her session with Paula when the phone rang in her waiting room. No Jenny this morning, she answered it herself and was surprised and delighted to hear from Venus Angelo who was back in the states once more, working across the street on a Saturday.

  Lunch? Why not? She had wondered if the girl would ever get the courage. Frank’s? Well…all right.

  _____

  “Lovely,” the astute maitre de mumbled to Helaine when Venus had exited his restaurant. “Problems at home?”

  Helaine chuckled. “None. She’s not mine, I can assure you.”

  “I see…?”

  “Might be in love with my wife, I fear.”

  “Oh?” he said, still unsatisfied. “She has good taste. Fanning the fire?”

  “A controlled burn, Harry.”

  He set her bill on the table and hesitated for a moment. She thought she knew him very well, but she couldn’t decipher his expression this time.

  “Then I have to believe you know what you’re doing,” he finally said, “since you are the expert in such matters.”

  He was not mocking her, she understood. He was deferring. And reserving. “You’re being way too modest, monsieur.”

  _____

  The topics were boundless and engaging, but they never once discussed their mates, as Venus would have thought two women having lunch together for the very first time might be inclined to do. Not mentioning them was even weirder to her than babbling endlessly about them.

  Good though, because the last thing Venus wanted to talk about was Sebastion. She had seen him only a handful of times since her return from Japan and with his new penchant for pulling all-nighters with god-only-knows who and at god-only-knows where, he had become as elusive these days as the ivory-billed woodpecker. Practically extinct except for a few controversial sightings.

  Ditto for Interim President Beaumont who Venus had noticed had somehow developed a pronounced stammer while she had been away. At least whenever she ran into her at work or at the gym or whenever they both attended the same meetings or whenever she had to check in with her by telephone or…Venus now questioned what she had ever seen in her, so convinced was she that the woman was simply an idiot. She would have liked to say to Dr. Kristenson, Do you know what a dork you’re married to? Do you have any idea how obtuse and absurd she can be? But instead they talked about world hunger, peace and social justice, AIDS, malaria, Doctors Without Borders, social democracy versus capitalism, in short, the Kristenson Foundation’s lofty agenda.

  One lunch and Venus Angelo was to become a major contributor to the Kristenson Foundation. Was this to impress a woman who practically fainted whenever they met?

  She practiced making martinis this afternoon. Shaken, not stirred. She wasn’t sure what she was doing, writing checks to charity, but at least it was for a good cause, and anyway she had found Dr. Kristenson so damned likable, so incredibly charming, it was impossible to refuse her.

  So it’s a big fat check for the Kristenson Foundation. For hunger, for world peace, for justice and democracy, for medicine. She’d deliver it to the doctor next weekend. They’d be meeting for lunch again then. Same time, same place.

  Chapter 14

  Villainous

  Joseph Rios paced his cell anxiously. It was a habit he was unaware of, something he had become accustomed to doing over the slow passage of time, over the five excruciatingly long years in the federal penitentiary.

  It’s called doing time. And now, because of good time–good behavior–his sentence had been reduced.

  It had been unexpected news. Not that he hadn’t tried his best to convince the panel before of his worthiness for parole, but because his fortunes had seemed to him so permanently reversed that he truly believed it too futile to even hope for such a reprieve.

  But things can happen whether or not you wish for them, whether or not you believe they will happen. And so this evening Rio Joe paced a little more anxious than usual. He was wired, eager for the outside, though what he would do once he got there he really hadn’t a clue. He was banned from the securities industry, banned from banking and investment, banned from anything to do with his former career at Soloman-Schmitt. Christ–he just realized–he wouldn’t even be able to vote.

  His family had stopped visiting him at the prison years ago. The trip was too much for them, they had said, but he knew better than that. Fuck ‘em, he thought to himself, chucking an ancient copy of Sons and Lovers to the floor and kicking it across the room. There was no point in notifying them, sharing with those pretentious assholes the first good news he had had in years. They’d only ask him about his plans now that he’d ruined his otherwise glorious future.

  What were his plans? Even the parole board had seemed somewhat skeptical about his prospects, stone-faced dickheads that they were.

  Well, no plans yet, but big deal, he would be a free man in just six more months. After that, no matter what happened, he would never be caged again. Never, not ever, no way.

  But how could he survive legitimately; what actually were his prospects? He had been a millionaire for a day once. He was not a millionaire anymore and he doubted that he could ever be one again, though he still had some hidden resources stashed overseas, some in Switzerland, most in the Cayman Islands. His illegal assets. But, of course, they didn’t exactly amount to millions anymore and since he knew he would be watched after his release, making a mad dash for his booty was clearly out of the question.

  His booty. He laughed ruefully. Okay, so it wasn’t really his money. Who cares anyway? It’s all the same thing. Just one big racket.

  He paused at the foot of his bed and withdrew from beneath the mattress a folded newspaper article he had pinched months ago from the prison library. It showed a happy Lydia Beaumont, the new “Interim President” of Soloman-Schmitt. He gazed at it poisonously.

  She had poisoned him. Ruined his life. Married someone else. A woman. He slumped as he studied her face, the face of the future president, the woman who had helped to send him behind bars, who had lived happily ever thereafter without him. Never inquiring, never writing, never looking back. He wanted her to know that he was getting out soon. He wanted her to look back, to look over her shoulder for him, to worry about he
r future as he was forced to do about his own, to feel caged like he was. And shunned. And despised. RUINED. He wanted her to grow old and gray overnight just as prison had done to him. He wanted her to go pale and gaunt, even jaundiced. He wanted her to long without hope for an eternity, to yearn for something and for someone she simply couldn’t have. He wanted her to know what it was like to go without all of the fine things in life, to lose every single one of them. He wanted her to sink like him, in front of the whole wide world. He wanted her to drown while everyone watched, in unfathomable despair.

  He did. He wanted her.

  _____

  “What is the matter with you tonight?”

  Lydia paced the downstairs lobby as they waited for their driver.

  “Nothing. Forget about it.”

  “Darling, stop then. You’ll break a heel.”

  Break a heel! Now that was the ticket. Then they’d be too late for the opera. Maybe have to stay home. Maybe have go to bed early. Lydia shot a sly, almost criminal look at her mate.

  “Oh,” Helaine said, suddenly wise. She glanced at her watch. Their car had just arrived at the front of the building and the driver stood waiting beside the opened door. Time, time, time. Madam Butterfly, Madam Butterfly, Madam Butterfly. “You’re a fiend to make me think of this,” she whispered as they both got in.

  Lydia hated the opera anyway. “The long way,” she informed the chauffeur.

  There was no further protest from Helaine. They went the long way.

  _____

  “Please, Venus, sit down. What’s got into you?”

  Oh, a number of things, but right now, as was usual whenever she went home, it was Jasmine. Hostile Jasmine with her bad attitude and her bad self and tonight accompanied by her bad homey-from-the-hood boyfriend with his shiny gold tooth and matching chains and the overgrown fingernail on his pinkie for his crack cocaine and his shaved head and untied sneakers, and his stupid backwards baseball cap and those ridiculous baggies, and his relentless hip-hop banter spoken in a pseudo-slick and ever so manly gangster patois–

  “Venus, sit!”

  Venus sat. “Where’s father?” she asked.

  “Father is it? Not daddy?”

  “I never called him daddy.”

  “Out with the boys tonight. Finish your supper, honey.”

  Honey. Venus dropped her fork. She had called her honey she just remembered. How could she dare do that? Honey, I really have to go, Lydia had said in the heat of–

  “Venus? I asked you something.”

  “Mama…what?”

  “Is everything all right at home? Where you at tonight, girl? The moon?”

  The moon? Yes. Yes, dammit all, the moon. She picked her fork up again. “Yes.”

  Her mother threw up her hands. “Yes, what? Everything’s all right or the moon?”

  Venus carefully placed her fork to the side of the plate. “Both–Mama why is she with that riffraff? Don’t you care?”

  “Actually, he’s a very sweet boy, Venus. You both seem to prefer sweet boys.”

  “Yeah, sweet. He’s up to no good and you can see that.”

  “Oh, honey. How do you know? It’s just a look.”

  Honey, honey. We can’t. I can’t. “She’s doing it to spite me. You know it’s just spite.”

  Her mother laughed low. “Perhaps, perhaps. You finished with this?”

  The plate looked like an accident. Venus nodded and it was removed. “Why can’t she see someone from school?” she asked. She heard her mother suddenly laugh into the sink. “Well, what’s funny about that?” Venus pursued. “Why can’t she?”

  Her mother turned around and wiped her hands on her apron, rested them on her hips. “He is from school, honey. I told you, it’s just a look.”

  Venus looked dumbfounded. Honey. Honey.

  “Honey, are you pregnant or something? You seem so…so strange tonight.”

  She had not observed anything strange about herself. She was always edgy here. “He’s from school?” she repeated incredulously.

  “Yes, school. Are you?”

  “Am I? You mean pregnant? Or strange?”

  “Oh, you’re acting mighty queer tonight. I swear,” Mama muttered, going back to her dishes. “Mighty queer, little girl.”

  “Perhaps,” Venus answered absently. “Perhaps I’m not the one you should be worrying is pregnant.”

  “I’m not worried you pregnant. I’m worried you never be pregnant. Just leave her alone. Jasmine’s as smart as you are.” She turned and faced her daughter. “Maybe smarter I’m thinking–why aren’t you pregnant, Venus? Why don’t I have any grandchildren?”

  Bad subject. Venus shrugged. It was not diffidence. She wanted children. She just didn’t know when or with whom. “Sebastion’s…I don’t know, Mama…he’s…I don’t know.”

  “Never home?”

  She had already complained to her mother about that. Just left out the part that she really didn’t give a shit if he was there or not, except when she needed sex. Then she missed him dreadfully. Then, if he was home, she made him know he was missed, made him feel genuinely loved. But Sebastion Jones didn’t love her, or if he did, he never let on. Except with that perfect penis. She sighed thinking of it. Sebastion Jones had a penis that should be cast in a mold and mass produced. Maybe that’s what he was doing. Distributing himself for mass consumption. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t love the man anyway.”

  Her mother sat down. “But you in love, Venus. In love with someone. Someone stole your heart, didn’t they?”

  Someone had stole it all right. That was the truth. But was steal the appropriate word? Was Lydia Beaumont really a thief like that? Venus felt faint. Was Lydia just a common thief or had she just given her heart to her? Her hand trembled at the possibility of discovery. Who else saw this thing, this love thing? “Mama, I can’t do this.”

  “You’ll feel better if you do.”

  Couldn’t she confide her secret to her own mother? Couldn’t she confess she had met her soul mate, her Mr. Right? Couldn’t she admit this to somebody and take that weight off her over-stressed heart, make herself lighter, if only for an hour or two? Couldn’t she tell her mother everything? Would she understand such things? Could she understand this? The ache in her loins and in her chest and in her arms and in her heart?

  Her mother’s arms were warm and soft, she remembered from childhood. She had had no need of them since childhood, but she didn’t, today, feel much older than a child. Her heart was throbbing, her feelings hurt like a child’s. She could hear her own pulse, feel her blood. “Mama.” Her throat was dry and tight. She listened for any sound that might betray an eavesdropper. No one was home now but her mother. She leaned precariously toward her. Her mother moved closer, her arms opening wide. She collapsed into them.

  “Oh, Venus,” Mrs. Angelo whispered, holding her daughter’s head against her shoulder and cradling her. “Oh, Venus, Venus, it’s–” she felt the muscular body quiver. “Baby, it’s all right,” she whispered, rocking her gently. Venus Angelo was sobbing softly. “It’s all right,” Mama said. “Gonna be fine, baby girl. Just you wait and see.” She rocked her and rocked her and rocked her. “Just takes time. Takes time. We got time, honey. Plenty of time, don’t we?”

  “Oh, god, Mama…god.”

  “Don’t you worry about that. Everything’s gonna be better, baby. Don’t you fret.”

  _____

  She proved to be a very good mother, which even she had to marvel at from time to time. She could honestly say that she loved her daughter and that she gave her daughter every reason to love her in return, which the beautiful child gladly did. And, save for the little girl’s innate dislike for the industry that had made her mother so rich and so famous–or infamous as the case could be made–they had a perfect mother/daughter relationship.

  Sharon Chambers sat on the sidelines watching with dismay as her pretty little girl fussed and became, with every passing moment, more and more impossible
at the photo shoot. It was clear she had no desire to follow in her mother’s footsteps and although the girl had only begun the misadventure at the tender age of two and was now only the tender age of five, her stint as a child model would, Sharon knew, soon have to come to a screeching halt.

  Screeching was probably an appropriate choice of words to describe the present session Helen Chambers had sabotaged with her willfulness and her tears and her other incorrigible characteristics she drew on to end an activity she had no patience for. She did not like the lights or the strangers poking at her, or being too far from her mother, or not being able to play or read.

  “Ms. Chambers…?”

  “Yes?” Sharon answered, holding her hand over her eyes to see who was speaking. It was that asshole Coreali.

  “She’s all yours. I don’t think we can use a bit of it.”

  She saw her daughter slap his hip and run past him.

  “Mommy,” Helen whispered, climbing into Sharon’s lap.

  “What, baby?”

  The little girl pantomimed a whisper, but blurted loudly, “He’s a prick.”

  Sharon clamped her hand tightly over Helen’s mouth and scooped her up for a quick exit.

  Nearby, some of the light and sound crew had overheard the child’s remark. They laughed in consensus.

  “He is a prick,” someone agreed.

  “Yeah, but she’s a brat,” someone else countered.

  Sharon hustled her daughter out of the room and the two giggled all the way to the elevators.

  It would be nice, Sharon sometimes thought, to know who Helen’s father actually was because he surely must have been a remarkable man to have such a clever offspring.

  Helen Chambers was indeed very clever.

  “What now, you brat?” Sharon teased when they reached the lobby.

  “Home. I’m going to read to you, Mommy.”

  “What–again?”