Secret Lives of Second Wives

by Catherine Todd

  “Harrison told you something?” I pressed her, incredulous.

  She shook her head. “Not Harrison. Your other partner. Brooke.”

  “I don’t have another partner,” I said, trying to keep my voice under control.

  Naoko was no dummy. “I must have misunderstood, then,” she said.

  “That’s probably it,” I agreed, suppressing the urge I felt to rush back to the office and throttle Brooke right on the carpet of her paid-for-by-me office.

  “She was very helpful,” Naoko said, trying to cover. “She’s so impressed with your abilities as a lawyer, and she offered to do anything for us herself if you were unavailable.”

  “‘I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him,’ ” I murmured.

  “Julius Caesar.” Naoko smiled. “Well, you know best,” she said. She stood and offered me her hand. “Good luck.”

  “I WAS JUST TRYING TO HELP,” Brooke said. “I thought that if she realized there were a number of people available to do the bank’s work—not just you and Harrison—that it might be … well, more reassuring.”

  “You can see how reassuring it was,” I told her.

  “She’d already made up her mind,” she said. “It’s not my fault.”

  “Then why did you tell her I had personal problems that might prevent me from doing her work?” I concentrated on keeping my voice low and steady, not without some effort.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t say that.”

  “Did you imply it?”

  She looked away. “She probably misunderstood. English isn’t her first language, is it? Maybe she misinterpreted something I said.”

  “I see,” I said. “Do you remember what I said about not being ready to deal with the clients directly? About running things past me first?”

  “You don’t trust me with anything important,” she said. “Every time I take the initiative, I get in trouble with you. How am I ever going to learn anything this way?”

  “By watching and listening and not opening your mouth till you’re sure of what you’re saying,” I said. “You’ve way overstepped the boundary here.”

  “Well, it wasn’t really a conversation with a client,” she argued. “Naoko’s really more of a friend, in a way. Harrison used to take me to meetings with the bank, and we sort of hit it off.”

  I remembered my suspicion that Kojima had somehow gotten wind of the false documents even before I’d informed them. “You didn’t by chance give your friend Naoko some kind of early warning about their possible immigration problems, did you?”

  She looked wounded. “Of course not. I wasn’t even informed myself, if you remember,” she said accusingly. “Harrison gave me a lot more responsibility,” she added.

  “I don’t think we should forget that Harrison was creating a smoke screen to hide the fact that he was fudging on a lot of the work,” I told her.

  “That’s cruel,” she said.

  “Tell that to all the clients who trusted—not to mention paid—us to help them,” I said.

  “I’m not defending what he did, but, I mean, maybe he couldn’t help himself.”

  I looked at her.

  “Well, we don’t really know why he did it, do we? Maybe he was being blackballed or something like that.”

  “Blackballed?”

  She closed her eyes. “I mean blackmailed. I’m upset, so I’m getting confused.” She gave me a look that suggested her confusion was all my fault.

  “Brooke, I sincerely doubt that anyone would blackmail Harrison into forging documents when he could have gotten the approvals at all events in the ordinary way. I have to believe he did it to cover his tracks. I think he had a much more serious drinking problem than anyone realized.”

  She put a hand to her ample chest and said dramatically, “I feel so guilty. All this time together, and I never had a hint of it.”

  I thought of reminding her that associates rarely have a hint of anything that goes on with the partners, at least if the partners have anything to say about it, but of course I didn’t.

  “I mean,” she continued, “he did miss a few meetings, and sometimes he seemed a little blank, if you know what I’m saying. But I didn’t think it was anything serious. Besides, he was old. He was supposed to have trouble remembering things.”

  I sighed. “Not that old. Anyway, it’s a big problem,” I told her. “A surprisingly large percentage of attorneys have alcohol issues. That’s why the bar makes us take all those continuing-ed courses on substance abuse. There’s no need for you to feel guilty. It was Harrison’s responsibility to deal with it.”

  “That seems a little hard,” she said.

  I was feeling the temptation of some alcohol abuse myself at just that moment. “Well, put it this way, how sympathetic would you be if he’d been driving drunk and killed somebody?”

  Her mouth dropped open. “He didn’t kill anybody,” she said at last, in a whisper.

  “No, just the firm.” I couldn’t help letting the bitterness show. I folded my arms and looked at her. “Listen, Brooke, I’m not firing you, but I think you should be looking for another job.”

  She reached over my desk and patted a pile of papers into a neat stack. She said, over her shoulder, “Do you think I’m not?”

  “WELL, THAT’S THAT,” I told Jack. We were sitting at the table after dinner. It was his turn to cook, so we’d had what he almost always fixed, pasta with some kind of vegetables and a little meat. He made it a point of pride not to get takeout, but frankly the repertoire was getting a bit stale. We ate dutifully, like post-op patients with their hospital trays.

  I set aside my napkin. I wasn’t hungry anyway. “I don’t see how I can keep the office open any longer,” I said. “Without Kojima and the other clients who’ve left because of Harrison, there’s scarcely enough business for one person, let alone three.”

  “You’ll get new clients, Lynn,” he said. “You still have a good reputation.”

  I shook my head. “Thanks, but Felix Frankfurter might have trouble getting clients after this. In this economy I can’t afford to wait till they see the error of their ways and come flocking back.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “What will you do?”

  “I’ve asked Kay to find me some cheap office space,” I told him. “I’ll go it alone, answer my own phone, and do the work for the clients I still have. I’ll have to try to find jobs for the others, though. They deserve better than this.” At least most of them did.

  “That’s tough. But there are people out of work all over the Valley. They’ll land on their feet.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Have you considered working out of the house?”

  I looked at him. “The extra room isn’t available right now.” I had to fight the surge of panic that arose from merely contemplating the idea of working out of the house. It surprised me. I hadn’t realized how much of a refuge my office had become.

  He frowned. “Patrick won’t be here forever,” he said.

  I didn’t respond to that one. “There are probably too many distractions,” I told him. “Anyway, you don’t want clients coming here. They keep odd hours, and some of them get paranoid when they don’t hear anything and start dropping in to see if just by chance you might be keeping the news from them. Trust me, you don’t want that.”

  “Not when you put it that way,” he said. “It was just a thought.”

  “Also,” I said, “there’s going to be a certain amount of activity here because of the wedding, and—”

  “I get the point, Lynn. You don’t want to work here. It’s fine.” He sounded hurt, but since he was, in effect, correct, I didn’t see how I could make it better without agreeing to something I would find surprisingly intolerable. The person you are at the office and the person you are at home may not be all that compatible, and increasingly I found I liked the office person a lot better.

  Jack pushed his plate away. “It’s probably not the best time to bring this up, bu
t I might as well tell you now. I’ve reached a settlement with the IRS.”

  I swallowed the last bit of wine in my glass and tried to smile. “And?” I prompted him.

  “Two hundred thousand.” He said it briskly, which was his way of signaling that he didn’t want to argue about it.

  I closed my eyes. “How soon?” I asked.

  “Payable over two years,” he said.

  “Can we do that?” I asked.

  “Not without borrowing,” he said.

  “What about selling the house?” I asked impetuously.

  “And do what? Anything decent would be just as expensive.”

  “Well, actually I was thinking we could move away. Almost anywhere would be cheaper than this, and we could …”

  He looked at me as if I’d suggested a hiking tour of the Afghan countryside. “Leave the Bay Area? What about my business and … your practice?” He added the second part out of politeness, as we both knew.

  “I could start over somewhere else. It would be better to do it now than wait to build things up again. I don’t know about your business, Jack, but you aren’t one of the principals, and so far it’s caused us a lot of grief.”

  “I still believe in it,” he said. “And anyway, what about Merry and Patrick?”

  “You think they would resent it if you moved away? Even though Meredith is getting married and Patrick has his own life?” I hope.

  “I guess it does seem foolish,” he said, “but they’ve always depended on having their parents close by.”

  “Well, Janet would still be here,” I pointed out. I couldn’t seem to drop the topic, even though I have to admit that I knew I should give it a rest. It was as if someone with no self-control and little judgment had taken over altogether while I was distracted by something else.

  He frowned. “Is that what this is about? Janet?”

  “No, of course not,” I said, hoping I was telling the truth. Or at least not an outright lie.

  “You don’t have to feel threatened by her,” he said.

  That statement, like “You can trust me,” generally inspires the opposite of what it professes to invoke.

  “If that’s what this is all about,” he concluded, in the face of my silence.

  “Give me some credit,” I said finally. “Don’t you ever think it might be fun to live somewhere else? Somewhere less materialistic?”

  “Materialistic?” he said.

  “Well, focused on material things, I mean. Half the people here live in million-dollar homes, and the other half can’t afford any place to live. And all those slick dot-commers riding around in their expensive sports cars pulling fast ones on the shareholders and the grocery stores that seem to be Fauchon’s knockoffs specializing in carrot fetuses or some other vegetables so precious you could wear them as jewelry. I mean, whatever happened to produce?” I stopped to catch my breath.

  “Where did all this come from?” he said, sounding incredulous. “A month ago you wanted us to get a bigger house. Now you sound postively puritanical, like Jonathan Edwards.” He tried to smile. “What gives?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said truthfully. “I know it’s not consistent. But sometimes it all seems … excessive somehow.”

  “You’re just tired,” he said. “I can’t blame you; it’s this thing with the firm. Things will work out eventually, you’ll see.” He stood and started clearing the plates. “We’ll sort out the tax situation somehow. We don’t have to sell up. And besides, I like the Bay Area,” he said. “We have a good life. All our friends are here. The kids. Why would we want to move away?”

  I looked at him. I opened my mouth, and the Jonathan Edwards voice came out again. “All of your friends are here, you mean.” I didn’t add, And that’s exactly what I want to move away from.

  Silence.

  “I’m sorry, but that’s the way I feel sometimes,” I told him. “Like a guest in your life. And anyway, don’t you think it might be good for us to start over somewhere else?”

  He paused, dishes in hand, and gave me a bleak look. “I didn’t know you felt that way,” he said. “I really thought you were happy here.”

  22

  Of course, I’d assumed I would be happy. Jack had gone to great I pains to arrange my first meeting with his children, which I thought was a very good omen for our future life together. He’d chosen a lovely restaurant (neutral territory, as I realize now) and prepared them with a description of my wit, charm, and accomplishment that would have done credit to a combination of Madeleine Albright/Condoleezza Rice (pick your administration) and Princess Diana. It was a stage set, and I was cast in a leading role. Sort of like Lady Macbeth.

  Meredith and Patrick had arrived early and were already sitting alertly on tapestry-covered chairs, watching us enter the restaurant. They looked formal and a bit stiff, something like the chair backs, but not unfriendly. I put the stiffness down to nervousness and uncertainty, emotions I was only too aware of in myself.

  Jack bent and kissed Meredith on the cheek and patted Patrick on the shoulder before shaking hands. “This is Lynn,” he told them, putting his arm around me. “Lynn, my children, Meredith and Patrick.”

  I shook hands with each of them. We sat down and busied ourselves with the settling-in rituals—napkins in lap, menus, water glasses—while we studied each other covertly. Jack picked up the wine list.

  “Would anyone like a drink before dinner?” the waiter asked.

  Meredith shook her head firmly, Jack and Patrick had scotch, and I had a glass of white wine. I wanted to keep my wits (overhyped as they were) about me, so I resisted the urge to gulp it down.

  Meredith was studying the menu as if it were a Mafia hit list and her name was on it. She was a slender and rather pretty blonde, with aquiline features. Jack leaned over. “Is there anything you can eat, Merry? I didn’t think to call ahead and ask.”

  I remember wondering if she had some health problem, like diabetes. “No, I’m okay,” she said. “I can have some steamed fish, I guess.”

  Jack settled back with an air of relief. At the time I thought such solicitude was touching.

  “I’ll have the bifstek fiorentino,” Patrick said, jumping the line. “Rare.”

  Meredith closed her eyes.

  “And for you, ma’am?” the waiter prompted.

  I wish there were some age-appropriate form of address falling between “miss” and “ma’am.” I was too on edge to be hungry, so I ordered the first thing I saw on the menu. “I’ll have the swordfish,” I said.

  Meredith coughed spasmodically and gripped the arms of her chair. Patrick laughed. I looked from one to the other of them, but I didn’t get the joke, if that’s what it was. Afterward I realized they rarely addressed a single word to each other—they spoke mainly to their father or, occasionally, to me. I had no direct experience of siblings, but I’d expected familial ribbing or in-jokes or some manifestation of a bond beyond genetic inheritance.

  Meredith was definitely not smiling. She leaned toward me and said seriously, “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

  “Merry—” Jack said.

  “Is there something wrong?” the waiter asked.

  She ignored both him and her father. “Aren’t you worried about mercury poisoning?” she asked.

  “Should I be?” I inquired.

  She nodded emphatically. “Swordfish is one of the worst offenders. Children and pregnant women should never eat it.”

  I stole a glance at Jack and smiled. “Well, I’m definitely not pregnant,” I said.

  Big mistake. The introduction of just that much sexual innuendo lowered the room temperature perceptibly. You could almost see their postures hardening along with their misgivings. Hitherto I might have been some visiting nun in civilian dress their father had somehow invited to dinner, but no longer.

  The waiter stood holding his order pad, his face an impassive mask. “Would you care to choose something else?” he asked. He deserved a big tip just for
keeping his tone so neutral.

  “I guess I’ll have the halibut,” I said spinelessly. I didn’t really care what I ate, and I didn’t mind deferring to Meredith if it would help things go smoothly between us. I think even then I had the suspicion she would not be mollified.

  “Did I tell you that Lynn’s an attorney?” Jack said eventually, in an overenthusiastic tone of voice not inappropriate for Back-to-School Night.

  “How nice,” Meredith murmured.

  Patrick laughed again. “What kind of work do you do?” he asked.

  “Immigration, mostly,” I told him, prepared to elaborate.

  No further questions were forthcoming, however, so I asked him, “What do you do?” to reciprocate. Jack sat back, apparently pleased with the conversational ebb and flow. I was starting to sweat in my silk blouse.

  “I’m in advertising,” he said.

  “That must be interesting,” I said.

  “It isn’t, actually,” he said. “I’m just a very low-level copywriter.”

  “Yes, but so many interesting things have been going on in advertising since the eighties,” I said, hoping to coax at least some topic out of this exchange. “Ads are so much better than they used to be, don’t you think? That Super Bowl ad for Apple just blew me away.”

  He shrugged. “That was Jay Chiat,” he said. “Not me.” He set down his roll and butter knife. “Also, it was a long time ago. And he’s dead.”

  Mercifully, the waiter brought our dinners at that point, so I didn’t have to reply. The waiter poured everyone except Meredith a glass of wine. She was having some kind of mineral water from Napa-Sonoma, but I didn’t catch the name. In the Bay Area, the Napa Valley has the kind of cachet Burgundy does in France, and everything from toilet water to tofu tries to cash in on the association.

  “Let’s have a toast,” Jack said. “A toast to welcome Lynn.”

  Jack beamed at me while the others raised their glasses with expressions of mild puzzlement.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Are you here on business?” Meredith asked me after a moment.

  “No, just visiting,” I told her.

  “Where are you staying?” she asked.