“Hell, even I haven’t read those plays in years,” I said.
“Well, when Philip told me he wanted to work with you, I thought it would be smart to see what you’d been up to before you were famous.”
“And is that how you managed to find We Three Grunts?”
“Yes, I’m to blame for putting it into Philip’s hands.”
“And was it also your idea to put his name on my script?”
She looked at me as if I were deranged. And said, “What on earth are you talking about?”
I explained about her husband’s little stunt with my screenplay—how it had arrived (via Bobby) with his name on the title page.
She exhaled slowly—through clenched teeth.
“I am so sorry, David,” she said.
“Don’t be. It’s not exactly your fault. And the fact is, I still accepted his offer to come out here . . . which shows you just what a fool I am.”
“Everyone gets suckered in by Philip’s money. And it allows him to play the games he loves to play. Which is why I feel bad about this. Because when he called me to ask about you, I should have known that he’d start messing you around too.”
“He called you to talk about me? Aren’t you kind of married?”
“Actually, we’re kind of separated.”
“Oh, right.”
“It’s not official or anything. And it’s certainly something that neither of us wants to be made public. But for around the last year or so, we’ve essentially been living apart.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be. Because it was my decision. Not that Philip exactly begged me to reconsider or pursued me to all four corners of the earth. That’s not his style, anyway. Not that he has any style to begin with.”
“Do you think it’s permanent?”
“I don’t know. We talk from time to time—maybe once a week. If he needs me for a public appearance—a big charity benefit, some heavyweight business dinner, or the annual invitation to the White House—I put on the appropriate dress and the appropriate fixed smile and let him hold my arm, and we playact the happy couple. And, of course, I live in all his houses and use all his planes—but only when he’s not using them. The fact that he has so many houses and so many planes means that it’s easy to avoid each other.”
“It’s gotten that bad between the two of you?”
She paused for a moment and stared out at the interplay of sunlight and water on the glistening surface of the Caribbean Sea.
“From the outset, I knew that Philip was just a little odd. But I fell in love with his oddness. And his intellect. And the vulnerability that he keeps hidden behind his taciturn rich man facade. For the first couple of years, we really did get along. Until, one day, he started going into retreat. I couldn’t figure it out at all. Nor would he explain it to me. The marriage was like a shiny new car that, one morning, simply refuses to start. And though you try everything to get it moving again, you start worrying: might this be a lemon? And what makes this worry even worse is the realization that, despite everything, you still love the idiot you’ve married.”
She fell silent, staring out again at all that water.
“Of course,” she said, “looking at that view, you must think: everyone should have her problems.”
“A bad marriage is a bad marriage.”
“Was yours very bad?” she asked.
Now it was my turn to avoid eye contact.
“You want the facile answer or the honest answer?” I asked.
“That’s your call.”
I hesitated for a moment, then said, “No, in retrospect, it wasn’t that awful. We’d lost our way a bit—and I think there was a certain amount of built-up resentment on both sides because she had been carrying us financially for so long. And my success didn’t really simplify matters between us. Instead, it just created more of a gulf . . .”
“And then you met the astonishing Ms. Birmingham.”
“Your researchers are very thorough.”
“Are you in love with her?”
“Of course.”
“Is that the facile or the honest answer?”
“Put it this way . . . it’s very different from my marriage. We’re a ‘power couple,’ with all that that implies.”
“That sounds like a pretty honest answer to me.”
I glanced at my watch. It was nearly four o’clock. The afternoon had slipped by in a nanosecond. I glanced up at Martha. The sun had angled itself in such a way that her face was bathed in a soft glow. I looked at her carefully and suddenly thought: She is actually beautiful. So smart. So damn witty. And (unlike Sally) so self-deprecating. More to the point, we were so attuned to each other’s sensibility. Our rapport was instant, all-pervasive, so . . .
Then a second thought immediately popped into my head: Don’t even think about going there.
“Penny for them,” she said, interrupting my reverie.
“Sorry?”
“Your thoughts, David. You seemed to be somewhere else.”
“No—I was definitely here.”
She smiled and said, “That’s nice to know.”
At that moment I realized . . . what? That she’d been watching me watching her . . . that there was “an unspoken thing” between us? . . . the makings of a really messy coup de foudre? . . . Grow up, you idiot, I heard the Voice of Reason whisper in my ear. So what if there’s an attraction? You know what would happen if it was acted upon. Terminal fallout, followed by the longest nuclear winter imaginable.
Now it was her turn to glance at her watch.
“My God, look at the time,” she said.
“Hope I haven’t kept you from anything,” I said.
“Hardly. Anyway, time flies when the conversation flies.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
“Is that a cue to break our vow of sobriety and order us something French and fizzy?”
“Not just yet.”
“But later, perhaps?”
I heard myself saying, “If you’re not doing anything . . .”
“My social diary isn’t exactly full down here.”
“Nor mine.”
“So if I suggested something . . . a little outing, perhaps . . . you’d be game?”
Don’t do it, Mr. Voice of Reason hissed in my ear. But, of course, I said, “Fine by me.”
An hour later, with the sun in steep decline toward night, I found myself sitting with Martha on the deck of the cabin cruiser, sipping a glass of Cristal and steaming toward the horizon. Before we embarked, she’d told me to bring a change of clothes and a sweater.
“Where, exactly, are we going?” I’d asked her.
“You’ll see,” she said.
Around half an hour later, a tiny island came into view: hilly, verdant, festooned with palms. From the distance, I could make out a dock, a beach, behind which was a trio of simple buildings—built in pseudo–Easter Island style, with thatched roofs.
“Quite a little hideaway,” I said. “Who does it belong to?”
“Me,” Martha said.
“You serious?”
“Absolutely. It was my wedding present from Philip. He wanted to buy me some huge, absurd Liz Taylor–style rock. But I said that I wasn’t really a Star of India gal. So he said: ‘How about an island?’ And I thought, well, that’s pretty damn original.”
When we docked, Martha led me ashore. The beach wasn’t large, but it was perfectly white and sandy. We walked up to the little development of buildings. The main structure was circular, with a comfortable lounge (all bleached wood and bleached fabrics), and a large veranda, with sun loungers and a large dining table. A kitchen took up the rear of the building. On either side of this central structure were two bures: Polynesian-style cottages, each furnished with a king-size bed, stylish cane armchairs, more bleached fabrics, and a bleached-wood bathroom. House and Garden Goes Tropical.
“Quite a wedding gift,” I said. “I presume you had a hand in the desig
n of the place?”
“Yes, Philip flew in an architect and a builder from Antigua and essentially gave me carte blanche. And I told them that, of course, I wanted a five-star facsimile of Jonestown . . .”
“You mean, you’re going to start your own cult?”
“I think there’s a clause in my prenup that specifically forbids me from founding my own religion.”
“You have a prenuptial agreement?”
“When you marry a fellow worth twenty billion dollars, his people definitely insist that you sign a prenuptial agreement . . . which, in our case, was about the same length as the Gutenberg Bible. But I hired an exceptionally tough lawyer to negotiate my end of the deal . . . so, if things do fall apart, I am well covered. Ready for a little island tour?”
“Isn’t it getting dark?”
“That’s the point,” she said, taking me by the hand. On our way out of the bure, she grabbed a flashlight positioned by the door. Then she led me up a narrow path that began behind the main building and headed straight uphill through a jungly thicket of palms and labyrinthine vines. The sun was still casting a fading glow, but the nocturnal tropical soundtrack of insects and ornithology was in full swing . . . an echo chamber of hisses and unearthly shrieks that brought out my deep city-boy fears about the call of the wild.
“Are you sure this is a smart thing to be doing?” I asked.
“At this time of the night, the pythons aren’t out yet. So . . .”
“Very funny,” I said.
“You’re safe with me.”
Up and up we climbed—the flora and fauna now so thick that the path felt like an ever-darkening tunnel. But then, suddenly, we emerged on top of the hill we’d been ascending. The foliage gave way to a cleared summit. Martha had timed our arrival perfectly . . . because there before us was the incandescent disk of the sun, perfectly outlined against the darkening sky.
“Good God,” I said.
“You approve?” she asked.
“It’s quite a floor show.”
We stood there in silence. Martha turned to me and smiled and took my hand in hers and squeezed it. Then, in an instant, the world was dark.
“That’s our exit cue,” Martha said, turning on her flashlight. We headed slowly downhill. She continued holding my hand until we reached the compound. Then, just before we went inside, she let go—and went off to speak to the chef. I parked myself on the veranda, staring out at the darkened beach. After a few minutes, Martha returned, accompanied by Gary. He was carrying a tray with a silver cocktail shaker and two frosted martini glasses.
“And I thought we were going to practice abstinence tonight,” I said.
“You didn’t exactly say no to the two glasses of champagne on the boat.”
“Yes—but martinis are in a different league from champagne. It’s like comparing a Scud missile to a BB gun.”
“Once again, no one’s forcing it down your throat. But I figured you wouldn’t mind yours made with Bombay gin, straight up with two olives.”
“Did your people research that one as well?”
“No—that was just a straightforward guess.”
“Well, you were right on the money. But I promise you—I’m just drinking the one.”
Of course, Martha didn’t have to twist my arm to down a second martini. Nor did she have to bribe me into sharing the bottle of another absurdly wonderful wine and grilled fish. By the time we were working our way through a half bottle of muscat from Australia, the two of us were in riotous form, trading absurd stories about our respective adventures in the movie and theater games. We talked about our childhoods in Chicago and the Philadelphia suburbs, and Martha’s failed attempts to become a theater director after graduating from Carnegie Mellon, and my fifteen years of endless professional setbacks, and the assorted romantic confusions that characterized our twenties. When we started swapping bad date tales, we were on our second half bottle of muscat. It was late and Martha had told Gary and the rest of the staff to call it a night. So they all retired back to their quarters behind the kitchen, and she said, “Come on, let’s take a walk.”
“I think, at this point, it might be a stagger.”
“Then a stagger it is.”
She grabbed the second half bottle of muscat and two glasses and led me down the hill from the compound, and on to the beach. Then she sat down on the sand and said:
“I promised you a short stagger.”
I joined her on the sand, looking up at the night sky. It was an exceptionally clear night, and the cosmos seemed even more vast than usual. Martha filled our glasses with the sticky golden wine and said:
“Let me guess what you’re thinking as you gaze upward. It’s all trivial and meaningless, and I’m going to be dead in fifty years . . .”
“If I’m lucky . . .”
“All right, forty years. Ten fewer years of insignificant endeavor. Because, in the year 2045, what will anything we do now matter? Unless either of us starts a war or writes the defining sitcom of the new millennium . . .”
“How did you know that was my ultimate ambition?”
“Because it’s been clear from the moment I clapped eyes on you . . .”
She paused, and touched my face with her hand and smiled, then thought better of whatever she was about to say.
“Yes . . . ?” I asked.
“From the moment I saw you,” she said, her tone flippant again, “I knew you had your mind firmly fixed on being the Tolstoy of the sitcom.”
“Do you always talk such nonsense?”
“Absolutely. It’s the only way to keep cosmic irrelevance at bay, which is why I want you to tell me something about your wife.”
“Like what?”
“Was Lucy one of those real at first sight romances?”
“Absolutely.”
“And was she the first great love of your life?”
“Yes. Without question.”
“And now?”
“Now the great love of my life is my daughter, Caitlin. And Sally, of course.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“And Philip . . . ?”
“Philip was never the great love of my life.”
“Okay—but before him?”
“Before him was someone named Michael Webster.”
“And he was it?”
“Hook, line, and sinker. We met when we were undergraduates at Carnegie. He was an actor. When I first laid eyes on him, I thought: he’s the one. Fortunately, it was mutual. So mutual that, from sophomore year on, we were inseparable. After college, we tried to make it in New York for seven years—but spent most of the time scrambling. Then he got a job for a season at the Guthrie—a fantastically lucky break, made even luckier by the fact that I managed to wangle a position in their script department. Anyway, we both really took to Minneapolis; the director of the Guthrie really liked Michael and renewed his contract for a second season. Some casting director from LA wanted him for a role in a Movie of the Week thing. We were talking about maybe starting a family . . . In other words, everything was finally panning out for us. And then, on a really snowy night, Michael decided to run down late to the local 7–Eleven for a six-pack of beer. Coming home, his car hit a patch of black ice and slammed into a tree at forty miles an hour, and the idiot had forgotten to put on his seat belt . . . and he went right through the windshield and headfirst into the tree.”
She reached for the bottle of muscat. “A refill, perhaps?”
I nodded. She topped off our glasses.
“That’s a terrible story,” I said.
“Yes. It is. Made even more terrible by the four weeks he spent on life support, even though he was officially brain-dead. Both his parents were long gone, his brother was stationed with the Army in Germany, so it came down to me to make the decision. And I couldn’t bear the idea of letting him die. Because I was so out of my mind with grief that I was under the delusion there would be some miraculous resurrection, and the great love of my life would be
restored to me whole.
“Eventually, some battle-ax nurse—a real tough old broad who’d seen it all in the intensive care ward—insisted I join her for an after-work drink at the local bar. At the time, I was spending twenty-four hours a day by Michael’s bedside—and hadn’t slept in about a week. Anyway, this broad all but frog-marched me to the nearest boozer, insisted I throw back a couple of stiff whiskies, and then gave it to me straight: ‘Your guy is never going to wake up again. There’s going to be no medical miracle. He’s dead, Martha. And for your own sanity, you’ve got to accept that awful fact and pull the plug.’
“Then she bought me a third whisky and got me home. Whereupon I fell completely apart and finally passed out for around twelve hours. When I woke up late the next morning, I called the hospital and told the resident in charge that I was prepared to sign the necessary papers to turn off Michael’s life support.
“And a week after that—in a moment of complete sorrow-deranged misjudgment—I made an application for the script-editing job that had just opened at the Milwaukee Rep. The next thing I knew, I was offered the job and en route to Wisconsin.”
She drained her glass.
“I mean, traditionally, you’re supposed to go to Paris or Venice or Tangier if you’re unhinged by grief. What did I do? I went to Milwaukee.”
She broke off and stared out at the sea.
“Did you meet Philip shortly afterward?”
“No—about a year later. But during the week we spent together working on his script, I got around to telling him about Michael. Philip was the first man I’d slept with since his death—which made the way he dropped me afterward about ten times worse. I’d written him off as beyond arrogant . . . especially after I saw what he’d done to our script . . . until he showed up at my door that night, my irate letter in his hand, begging forgiveness.”
The Douglas Kennedy Collection #2 Page 13
