The Husband (29 page)

Hill gulped air.

“The first thing I’m going to suggest is the hardest.”

“Shoot,” said Peter.

“You’re okay,” said Hill. “I hope you hold up. What I want you to do is not to see the children for a while.”

Peter didn’t understand why that was necessary.

“You’ve been in plenty of business negotiations,” said Hill. “Their trump card in this negotiation is the children. The more they know you’re desperate to see them, the more they’ll twist.”

“This isn’t a business negotiation,” said Peter, wondering if he had chosen the right lawyer.

“I know,” said Hill. “But if you could see it that way, it’d make things easier. What we’re trying to do is make a deal. The problem is this lawyer your wife’s got—”

“Jack Baxter.”

“Right. Baxter seems to take all our discussions personally. Sometimes he sounds like he’s the aggrieved husband.”

Peter explained that Jack had always had a bit of a hang-up about Rose.

“That may account for it,” said Hill. “Your wife’s found herself a new boyfriend, and her lawyer seems as unhappy about that as he is about you.”

So Rose had a friend. That was quick.

“His name,” said Hill, “is Leluc. He’s a French business man now living in the States, twice divorced, no children of his own, and intensely interested in a third marriage equipped with suitable children. He’s not a fag. He’s not an alcoholic. No police record. According to Baxter, Leluc’s around the house all the time, evenings and weekends, taking charge. He actually sat in on the meeting I had with Baxter.”

“He what?” asked Peter.

“That’s okay,” said Hill. “It helps us. His presence threw Baxter off. Also, if Leluc’s serious, that’s in our favor. When she remarries…”

Peter had a sudden sense of everything happening much too quickly.

“When she remarries,” continued Hill, “the alimony stops. Of course, she won’t get married till she’s got a property settlement out of you.”

“Can’t we hold off then?” asked Peter.

“You can’t get a divorce without a settlement. She can haul you into court, and the court will gladly serve as the instrument of her revenge. If they try family court, you’ll get an impartial social worker, impartial except she’s a woman, and an impartial psychologist, impartial except she’s a woman. You’ll have to keep away from your new friend because Baxter’ll put a detective onto you. Of course, we can put a detective onto her and Leluc, but it won’t get you anywhere. How long can you take not seeing the children?”

Peter thought,
not long
.

“I don’t know,” said Peter.

“I think we ought to go for the settlement.”

“Is it permanent?”

“Probably. It sticks even if she gets married fast.”

Peter fumbled with the pack of cigarettes on Hill’s desk. He took one. He lit it, even though he didn’t smoke cigarettes.

“It’s a free country,” said Peter finally.

“Yep,” said Hill. His rimless spectacles jiggled as he laughed.

*

Gradually Peter came to see the threats and counterthreats—and there were many—as the legal game it was, and though it was still painful, like all things it went down easier as the weeks passed. Finally the negotiations reached a point where Hill was able to recommend, “Let’s take the deal.”

Rose got most of what she wanted—money, house, car, furniture—and Peter got, for the first time, the legal right to see his children every other Saturday, 10 A.M. to 7 P.M.

Peter couldn’t help wondering what Leluc looked like. In his mind’s eye, French came with a neatly trimmed mustache, wavy hair, tall, thin, elegant, something like a maître d’, with a voice like the man who read Air France’s commercials on the radio. He wondered if Leluc had hair on his chest (Peter had none). He wondered if Leluc had hair on the back of his hands (Peter had none). Or—and the thought hit him with a shock—would Leluc look like Peter, because people were said to repick the same style in mates?

The first Saturday after the settlement was signed, Peter found himself as nervous about the visit as he had been about his first job interview out of school. (How does a father visit his children, what does he do, how does he behave, how—?) Though Peter wanted Elizabeth along for necessary comfort, to feel that someone else was on his side, on Hill’s advice he left her in a coffee shop several blocks away and went to the door alone, intent on controlling what he said and felt, if that were possible.

As he approached the house, slowing his pace a bit because it was still a few minutes to ten and he wanted to be there precisely at the time indicated in the agreement, Peter found himself anxious about Leluc.

Maybe Leluc wouldn’t work out, he thought, and Rose would have to find someone else. No, Rose was too skilled. If Leluc was eligible, she wouldn’t let him get away. This was it.

He pushed the familiar doorbell. It might as well have been the door to Tibet.

Chapter Nineteen

Be civil
, Peter gave himself a final instruction as Leluc answered the door.

Though Leluc, standing on the threshold, was a step up from Peter, Peter found himself looking down at Leluc, who was short indeed. Of course, Frenchmen were short. No mustache. In fact, no wavy hair, very nearly no hair at all, just a vestigial ring of fuzz above the earline where the grass fire had ended.

“Leluc,” said Leluc, extending his hand. They shook.

“How do you do?” said Peter. He felt ridiculous.

“Won’t you come in?” said Leluc in a markedly French accent. Peter wondered whether Rose would pick up the accent in time.

He took a step or two inside the house—
his
house, he thought, then immediately squashed the thought. Truthfully he hadn’t expected to be invited in, but to be left waiting for the kids at the door.

Past Leluc, he could see how much the living room had changed. The furniture had been rearranged, the wall blazed with radical paintings (Leluc’s, or just Leluc’s taste?), and the burnt-orange drapes had been replaced, with white chiffony stuff Peter would have permitted only in a bedroom.

This is not your home
, he told himself,
not anymore
.

“I will get the children,” said Leluc. He went up the stairs, which seemed to Peter an undue familiarity, and soon came down with Margaret and Jon in tow. Both children were “dressed up” and nervous as hell.

“Hello, Dad,” said Jon very formally.

Maggie seemed prepared to be formal also, but it didn’t work, and she and Peter embraced, not without embarrassment, in front of Leluc.

“Seven o’clock,” said Leluc.

That was unnecessary
, thought Peter. And wasn’t Rose going to make an appearance? He had to get used to the idea that he might not see Rose again, unless the law required a confrontation at some point.

As soon as they were out of sight of the house, Jon relaxed his formality, which pleased Peter. The boy’s stiffness was not for him, but for the others. They chatted about school and the Little League until they reached the coffee shop, where Jon slid in beside Elizabeth in the booth and Maggie opposite. Peter ordered coffee for himself, a refill for Elizabeth and chocolate milks for the children.
They seemed less like children than they ever had before
. While Elizabeth was doing a brilliant job of getting acquainted with the kids and making them feel comfortable with her, Peter was thinking: What to do?

Finding a solution to Brew’s sales problems seemed minor compared to filling the emptiness that loomed in the next few hours. When he had seen the children regularly, day in, day out, it was easy to suggest a movie on the weekend, or bowling, or just a walk. But he had a sense now that the movie itself counted, that if it turned out to be less than great, he would have created a disappointment for them. They weren’t dressed for bowling; in the future that would have to be arranged in advance. It seemed absurd to have to make arrangements for something like bowling in advance. What to do?

“What would you like to do today?” he asked, feeling somewhat like the aimless characters in Paddy Chayevsky’s
Marty
. He fully expected Jonathan to answer, “I don’t know. What do you want to do, Daddy?”

Which is exactly what Jon did.

Peter looked to Elizabeth for help.

“Why don’t you do something reckless?” she suggested.

“Such as?”

“How would you kids like,” she addressed them, “to try the Ferris wheel at Palisades Amusement Park?”

Peter thought the idea of the amusement park brilliant. With dozens of different things to turn to and not more than minutes to spend at each, the kids could be kept whirling, safe from dragging time, safe from boredom with him.

“I think Palisades is a great idea,” said Peter.

“It’s hard to get to,” said Jon matter-of-factly.

“Oh, we could rent a car, zip across Manhattan, through the tunnel, up the other side. An hour tops.”

“It’s too long,” said Jon.

“Last Saturday,” said Margaret, “Mommy took me shopping to Saks and Bloomingdale’s, you know, not for anything special, just to see what they had.”

“Browsing?” asked Peter.

“Something like that. We didn’t finish Saks, so we couldn’t get to Bloomingdale’s. Could we go to Bloomingdale’s?”

“That’s no fun,” said Jonathan with finality.

The kids glared at each other.

Elizabeth touched Peter’s hand across the table in reassurance, then immediately withdrew it, lest the kids see.

Peter quickly weighed the facts of visiting life. Margaret would want to do some kinds of things, Jon others. Would that mean they’d have to separate, perhaps Elizabeth going off with Margaret and he with Jon? Would that be interpreted as Elizabeth’s having visiting rights? Would it be better for him to take Margaret for one Saturday a month and Jon for another? Was once a month enough to maintain a relationship with your own children?

“Surely,” said Elizabeth, “there is something we’d all like to do together.”

There were all kinds of “good” things they ought to do, thought Peter—the Metropolitan, the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Natural History, the planetarium—but the kids had been to all of them, and were they old enough to explore in depth? And if they got bored, would it allow time for someplace that was fun, so they wouldn’t on this first visiting day conclude that a day with the old man was a drag? Obviously alternate Saturdays now had to be planned in advance, very, very carefully, specific places, with a timetable.

As the best bet for a holding operation, he got them all onto the subway headed downtown without telling even Elizabeth where they were going. When they passed Times Square, Jon and Margaret’s interest perked. When he motioned for them as the train pulled into West Fourth Street, they both lit up. Daddy was taking them to Greenwich Village.

The Village had the allure of the offbeat, the not-quite-prohibited, the semi-scandalous. Boys with beards, beatniks, hippies, the streets a walking museum of characters to look at, and then, on Eighth Street, the shops, which pleased Margaret and Jon, who found the book and record stores fascinating. They accumulated packages at a rather fast rate, but Peter gratefully paid, buying the day’s grace.

They ate in a pizza joint, ordering a large-sized sausage pizza for the four of them, Cokes for the kids, and Chianti for themselves. Jon said he was still hungry, so they ordered a supplementary pizza, this time with anchovies. Jon ate one slice, decided he didn’t like anchovies on pizza. Peter offered to order a third, plain pizza, or a small sausage pizza, but Jon said he wasn’t hungry anymore. Peter found himself staring at the uneaten pizza in front of them, angry not because of the waste, but because the pizza lay there as a symbol of his failure to work things out.

“Did you enjoy it?” asked Elizabeth, swinging to the rescue of Peter’s downhill mood.

The kids nodded, and so they paid the bill, gathered their armloads of packages, and off they went. Peter thought it would be heavenly to rest a bit, but the two movie houses they passed had shows “for mature audiences only.” It was just after the disappointment of the second movie house when they spotted the leather-craft store, its small window filled with sandals, hats, handbags made of supple leathers. It was Elizabeth who led them into the shop, her eye on a handbag in olive leather, a beautiful, simple thing, a pouch really, but fashioned with great taste. While she was deciding in its favor, Jon disappeared into the back of the shop and emerged wearing a vest covered with brown fur.

“Crazy,” he said. “It’s called a bear vest.”

The proprietor, a very thin Indian, turned on the hard sell in a way which convinced Peter that the bear vest was a dog to be disposed of. Jon gloried in it. The price was twenty dollars. Twenty dollars for a gag? The pressure from the Indian was great but resistible. The pressure building all day inside Peter was not resistible. He gave in.

“You sure it’s not too expensive?” asked Jonathan.

“I’m sure it is too expensive,” said Peter, trying to smile as he handed over the money, only to see Margaret, taking her cue from Jon’s triumph, trying on a leather Greta Garbo hat.

“You’ve never worn a hat, Maggie,” he said in self-defense.