by Buffa, D. W.
“It was hypocrisy, pure and simple,” he went on. The words came more slowly now. He was trying to explain as clearly as he could what he had been thinking about for months, trying to summarize in a few short sentences what he had only begun to understand. He narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaw, and began to wag his finger back and forth, like someone determined to correct the mistaken judgment, the false assumptions, not of other people, but of himself. “Hypocrisy, but necessary to their own sense of who they were; hypocrisy, but they never knew it: they could not afford to know it, to admit it. They had to think they deserved all the money; they had to believe that they were the ones who made everything work, that without them the markets could not function and the economy could not exist. They had to believe that it was only because they controlled the financial system that this was the wealthiest country in the world. They did not have the courage, the strength of will, to look things in the face and admit that they were only doing it for themselves. They needed a country to believe in, a country gullible and greedy enough to believe in them, a country dumb enough to let them think themselves heroes, admired and envied and respected for what they did. That’s why St. James was so successful, more successful than any of them: he knew it was all a lie. He doesn’t believe in anything: that’s the key to his success. He’ll take advantage of anyone and never give it a second thought. He’ll do anything, and that’s what makes him so dangerous, and, in a certain way, admirable.”
I nearly fell off my chair. Admirable would have been the last thing I would have expected him to say about the man he had just described.
“I mean it,” he assured me. “St. James doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what he is. He doesn’t make excuses or insist that he’s only doing what everyone else is doing. You’ll never hear him talk about the system, and how much depends on people like him; he gives none of those chamber of commerce speeches about the virtues of the free market. I said he doesn’t believe in anything. I meant any of the things that act as a restraint on how far we’re willing to go to get what we want. He believes in money, that the only thing that’s important is that you have it and that you keep getting more. Those others, the ones that always talk about how much they’ve done for the prosperity of the country – St. James doesn’t have a country, he has that ship of his. Everyone talks about a global economy – what better place to run it than a ship that can go anywhere in the world?”
I remembered what one of the other guests aboard Blue Zephyr had said.
“Where the government can never reach him. We had an interesting conversation,” I explained. “He made a curious point, how so many of the people who get indicted, men with more than enough money to go off to some country without an extradition treaty, just stayed and went quietly to prison.”
With a knowing look, Tommy gestured emphatically with his hand.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to say. Most of them are too respectable to think about getting away. They go to trial, or take a plea, and go off to jail without a protest. Someone charged with murder – they’d run like hell if they had the chance, wouldn’t they? They know they’re criminals; they don’t feel any obligation to do what’s expected. St. James is like that. He’s an outlaw in the classic sense, someone who rejects the rules, who won’t do anything he doesn’t want. There’s a certain strength of character in that. When he finally goes to court, when he’s finally convicted, you won’t hear him say he’s sorry. And you sure as hell won’t hear him asking anyone to forgive him for what he did.”
We finished dinner, but there was still wine to drink and so we stayed and talked some more, a rambling conversation that moved in fits and starts from one subject to another, one of us suddenly remembering something we had wanted to say. Tommy had become quieter, more introspective, but at the same time less guarded in the way he expressed himself. He was the best friend, perhaps the only real friend, I had, but we had not seen each other in a while and there had been some major changes in his life.
“What I said about… that look of disappointment in her eyes; that wasn’t really fair. I think she was more disappointed for me. I liked all the attention, I liked the crowd; I was used to it, all the cheering, the way that everyone looked at you when you walked across campus, the way everyone waited for you after the game. I wanted a pro career. I did not want it to stop. I went to law school because I didn’t know what else to do. That look of disappointment, that was not her, that was me. Maybe that’s why, despite my better judgment, I can’t help but admire St. James a little. He’s like what I was – what you were, too – in college. We didn’t follow anyone’s rules but our own, we were better than the game. Everyone wanted to know us, get close to us. We could have anything we wanted and we never thought there was anything wrong with it. We could have any woman we wanted and I married the best looking girl in school, and he married damn near the best looking woman in the world.”
“Danielle is all of that,” I agreed.
“That’s not her real name, you know,” he remarked quite casually. It was nothing important, a minor fact he had picked up along the way, something anyone who conducted a criminal investigation, or simply followed the New York social scene and knew something about the world of high fashion, would have known. “‘Danielle’ was the name she used as a model. Just that one word. Clever, when you think about it; different, easy to remember. The most famous model in New York, the face that for a while was on practically every magazine cover any woman cared to buy. She was beautiful, and St. James was rich and good looking. So now she’s Mrs. Justine St. James, and along with her husband, is about to lose everything she’s got.”
“Justine? Is that what you said?”
“Justine Llewelyn, that was her real name.”
“Justine Llewelyn, who grew up near San Francisco, the other side of the bay?”
“As a matter of fact, she did. Why? – Oh, I see. You did know her then.”
I was shaking my head in disbelief. Justine Llewelyn. I had not seen her since her older sister, the girl I wanted to marry, had broken our engagement.
“Justine was all of about sixteen, skinny as a rail and plain looking except for her eyes. A nice, quiet, shy kid. She felt sorry for me, after what her sister did, and she told me that she would marry me, when she was old enough. I remember laughing and telling her that she could do much better. And now she’s Danielle, and I didn’t remember a thing about her.”
CHAPTER Four
Though it had been more than a dozen years since I had last seen her, Carol Llewelyn greeted me as if I had married into the family and had been gone only a few weeks.
“It’s been a long time,” I remarked.
“I’ve followed your career,” she said with a brief smile. “I always knew you would do well.”
Opening the trunk of her car, she reached for the metal sign. I started to help, but she swung it free on her own, joking that it was the only exercise she got. She carried the bright red and blue open house sign to the bottom of the driveway and placed it in front of the stone pillar on the right side of the open iron gate. She stood there for a moment, her eyes full of hopeful calculation, as she looked first at the house she was trying to sell and then down the curving narrow two lane road. Trying to guess what effect the searing summer heat might have, she squinted up at the sky. There might not be many people out looking on a day like this; on the other hand, the ivy covered house, set back from the road under the shade of a massive spreading oak, promised a welcome refuge from the blinding mid-day sun. With a quick glance that said she thought things were fine, she started up the drive, the staccato sound of her high heel shoes cracking the silence of the burning air.
The sun was not kind to Carol Llewelyn. Her make-up was too thick; her lashes too black and too brittle. She was in that inadmissible part of middle-age, when the vanity of youth has been reduced to the sad and useless lie that she was only forty-nine. The dress she wore, though perfectly pressed, was a little fra
yed, and a little out of fashion; and the silver-blue Mercedes she drove, though clean and polished to a shine, was almost ten years old. It was easy to imagine her, after a grueling day of smiling through the inane remarks of prospective buyers who did not know what they wanted, and could not afford it if they did, going back to her small condominium and kicking off her shoes, lighting up a cigarette and tossing down a beer.
“Last year, wasn’t it?” she asked as she unlocked the front door. “You were on television, on all the time – some trial that had everyone’s attention. You won, didn’t you?”
She gave me the look of someone who wished things had turned out differently, not the trial, but what had happened with her daughter. It was what she had told me at the time, when the engagement had been broken off.
“You were too serious for her. You were starting law school. Jean wanted to have a good time, and, well…you remember. I told her she was making a mistake.”
Her eyes brightened with encouragement, the same look she had given me the last time I had seen her, just after the engagement ended and I did not think anything would ever be any good again.
“And I was right,” she went on. “You’ve become everything I thought you would be, and Jean’s now been married and divorced and married again.”
She took a picture from her wallet and handed it to me. Jean, the girl I had fallen in love with and wanted to marry, was standing with her arms around three small children. The carefree look had gone from her eyes and even her smile seemed solemn.
“Three kids and a couple of husbands will do that to you,” said Carol, who, when it came to her daughter, had always been able to read my mind. “Are you married?”
“Me? No.”
“Close?” she asked, eager to know.
I laughed and told her that I had not felt about anyone what I had felt about Jean.
“You’ll say hello for me?”
“Of course. She asks about you. She won’t say it, but she wishes she had it to do over.”
She left the front door open and led me into the kitchen in back. Pouring a glass of water from the tap, she took a sip and sighed with small pleasure. She tossed the rest in the sink, wiped the glass dry and put it back in the cupboard. Opening the refrigerator, her eyes lit up.
“Here,” she said, handing me a cold bottle of beer. “They won’t mind. After standing outside, waiting for me in that heat, you deserve it.”
We sat down at a table next to the window and I took a drink, and then I took another. Carol watched me, waiting for me to tell her why I had suddenly called and asked to see her. A car stopped outside. Her eyes darted down the hallway to the front door, but the car started up again and with a shadow of disappointment her gaze came back to mine.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t see you earlier, that I had to ask you to meet me here,” she started to explain. “It’s too warm in here, isn’t it? I better check the thermostat.”
She disappeared down the hallway, her steps a hard echo on the gleaming hardwood floor. A few moments later, she was back, nodding to herself as she made a mental note.
“They had it set too high. A big, expensive house – and they’re trying to save a few dollars on the electric bill. Everybody’s desperate now, trying to sell in a market like this,” she mumbled. Suddenly, her eyes brightened, and she bent forward, wondering, from the delighted expression on her face, why she had not thought of it before. “Have you ever thought about living out here? Thought about getting out of the city? This would be a wonderful place for you, perfect for someone who likes his privacy.” She turned her head toward the window, making sure my eyes would follow. “Look out there: a pool, a tennis court, and with that vine-covered fence you don’t even know you have neighbors! I can get you a very good price,” she promised confidentially.
After years of selling real estate, it was what Carol Llewelyn had become, her identity. Saying no was a little like telling her that you preferred someone else. Even if she had not been the mother of the only girl I had ever really been in love with, even if she had not always been so remarkably kind to me, I still would have felt an obligation to let her down gently, to make it sound as if I was not saying no at all.
“I like living in the city,” I said, feeling foolish and defensive; “but if I ever change my mind….”
She filed it away, another name, different because of the minor part I had once played in her life, but another name on the list that grew longer every week, names to remember, names to call again. I lived in San Francisco, and I liked it there, but people change and, even if they don’t, no one stays in the same place for very long.
“This week has been just impossible: new houses to see, buyers who have to be taken around, buyers who usually have to wait until their own house sells.” Something caught her eye, a drawer that had not been completely shut. “Anyway, you’re here, and this isn’t a bad place to talk.” She shut the drawer the other side of the kitchen and came back. “I was a little surprised when you said it was something about Justine.”
I told her what had happened; not all of it, of course. I did not tell her what had happened on the deck of Blue Zephyr late at night while the other guests were getting drunk down below and how close we had come to being caught; I did not tell her that Justine had slipped into my bed hours later, after she and her husband had quarreled. I told her only that I had not recognized Justine, that I had no idea that Danielle was the kid I used to tease when I was going out with her sister.
“Half-sister,” said Carol Llewelyn. She turned away, as if there was something not quite right about it, something she would have preferred to keep hidden, and then, reaching across the table, gave my hand a squeeze. “I didn’t do a very good job of things. The girls had different fathers. At least I was married to the first one.” Crossing her arms, she leaned back and fixed me with a warm, steady, glance. “He was gorgeous, Jean’s father: blonde, blue eyes, with tight fitting jeans and a summer tan, nineteen years old and he stole my seventeen year old heart, along with my virginity. I was pregnant before the summer ended and married in the fall.”
She paused, and then laughed quietly at her hesitation even now to discuss what she thought the failures of her life. The laughter died away and her mouth began to tremble, but she stopped it with a smile, brave and sad and determined.
“I always liked it, when you and Jean were engaged, how easy everything seemed, how I never felt I had to hold anything back, whenever we talked. It must be those honest eyes of yours. I knew that whatever someone told you, you would not think less of them because of it. I’ve never told anyone what I just told you. God, it was so long ago; I was so young, so….It doesn’t matter now; I can’t go back and change it. We were married in the fall, and he left a few months later. He told me he was going, that he just couldn’t settle down, stay in the same place, work a regular job. He said he knew it wasn’t fair, but he couldn’t help what he was, and so he left me and I cried for weeks, praying he would come back and knowing he never would. He only married me because he thought he had to, and then, before he could see the child he fathered and maybe feel something that might make him stay, he ran away. Maybe that’s where Jean got it, the blonde good looks she had, the refusal to take life on anyone’s terms but her own, the way she only wanted to think about today and never tomorrow, the only thing important having a good time. That’s why you fell in love with her, isn’t it? – You were always so serious, and she could pull you out of that, make you think about nothing but her. Justine was not anything like her.”
The doorbell rang. Startled that she had not heard the car, she jumped up from the chair and went to greet the young couple that had just arrived.
“Take your time; look around. If you have any questions, just let me know. I’ll just be in the kitchen. I’m helping someone write up an offer.”
When she came back to the table, I raised an eyebrow.
“It wasn’t exactly a lie,” she whispered with a mischievous grin. “I�
�m still hoping you’ll change your mind.”
Her gaze drifted toward the window, out to the trees and the close cut grass and the kidney shaped pool and the tennis court, out to the ivy covered fence that guaranteed the privacy of anyone lucky enough to live a privileged life in which money and the cost of things were never an issue. A soft, wistful smile played at the corners of her aging mouth and she put aside the brandished aura of busy efficiency.
“Justine’s father – I would have married him.” She looked at me with a quizzical expression, as if wondering what my reaction was going to be, and then she told me, quite without any sense of guilt, that she had not been able to marry Justine’s father because, “He was already married.”
I had always liked her, and I knew she had always liked me, and I was old enough now to have a better understanding of what makes people do the things they do. There was, so far as I was concerned, nothing to condemn in what she had done or how she had chosen to live her life.
“You haven’t had very good luck with men, have you? And I haven’t had very good luck with women.”
“Depends on how you look at it,” said Carol with a good-natured laugh. “I was in love twice, and both times I got a daughter. Worse things could have happened.” A shrewd, worried look came into her eyes. “And you fell in love with both of them, didn’t you? First Jean, and now, unless I miss my guess, Justine.”
I started to deny it, but I could not; not entirely, anyway.
“No, I didn’t fall in love with her; I probably could have, though, if she hadn’t been married, and if there had been more time, if….” I threw up my hands in frustration. I did not know anything, what I felt, why I was even here, asking about a woman I was never going to see again. I was curious, that was all; curious about how Justine had become Danielle, how the kid I had known, the girl no one noticed, had become the woman every other woman wanted to look like and every man who saw her wanted to have.
