Blessings (24 page)

Jill’s eyes were wet and shining. “Is it me?” she persisted. “Are you ashamed of me?”

The word ashamed, containing as it did an element of partial truth (not ashamed of you as a person but of your emerging from my denial of the truth), along with this attack, yes, this furious attack from someone whom Jennie had never harmed, for whom God alone knew she had done the very best she could, made anger rise again. And she knew that she was angry at herself for having to inflict this hurt, for causing these tears.

She had to defend herself. “Shame has nothing to do with it, believe me, Jill. Can’t you try to accept what I offer? I want my independent life.” Need pushed her; she spoke rapidly, urgently. “You have yours. Peter has his. I never bothered him for anything. Isn’t it fair for me to have my independent life?”

Now Jill’s tears ran hard. She spoke through them scornfully. “Independent life! Am I stopping you by sitting in your living room?”

“Of course you don’t mean to, but all the same, it would be—”

Jill interrupted her. “This lunch was a deception. You came here to tell me in the nicest possible way to stay out of your way. That’s all you came for.” And she pushed her chair back as if to rise.

“Sit down, Jill. Sit down. Let’s be reasonable. I beg you. Eat your dessert.”

“Jennie … I’m not a baby to be pacified with sweets.”

“You’re not being fair to me! I said I’d call you, didn’t I? Whenever I can, I will. I only said you shouldn’t be the one to—”

“I won’t call you, don’t worry. You needn’t have any fears about me. But I’ll tell you something. I can’t answer for Peter. He was pretty well shocked by what you said to the search committee. He’ll be more shocked next week when I tell him about today.”

Jill rose abruptly, upsetting her chair. A waiter rushed to retrieve it, heads turned toward the small commotion, and Jennie reached for Jill’s arm.

“Don’t go like this,” she pleaded, keeping her voice low. “Don’t run away again. Let me pay the check and we’ll sit someplace and talk.”

Jill gathered bag, gloves, and scarf. “There’s nothing to talk about unless you tell me we can behave normally to each other. That I can ring your phone like anybody else and … can you tell me that?”

The waiter stood holding the check, and a woman at the next table was staring in open curiosity. Appalled and shaken, Jennie sought new words, a fresh approach.

“Can you?” Jill repeated.

“No, not exactly. But listen, hear me out—”

“I’ve heard you, and I don’t want to hear any more. Thank you for lunch.”

Jennie watched her go. Without strength to follow and aware that it would be of no use, anyway, to do so, she sat gazing at Jill’s plate, on which the ice cream was already melting over the pie. Strawberry, it was. A pink puddle. So that’s the end of my daughter, come and gone in the space of a day. Raging eyes, a retreating back, and a puddle of ice cream in a dish.

The waiter coughed, a reminder of his presence. She took the check, paid, and went out to the street. Taxis stood at the curb before the hotel’s entrance, but she had no wish to get home so soon, there to sit bewildered and alone. So she turned north instead and began to walk.

In the park, brown with winter, the twiggy treetops, still wet after rain, were washed with a metallic sheen. The cold sky raced. Sunday afternoon was a bleak time, no matter what the weather, unless you were with someone you loved.

Yet she was in no condition just now to be with Jay. She was in no condition to be with herself, either. And, giving up, with no place to go but home, she hurried eastward. Nearing home, she began to run down the last street, up the stairs and into the apartment, where she bolted the door and sat down, out of breath with effort and weariness.

Voices rang: Jill’s, Jay’s, Mr. Riley’s, her own father’s, her own mother’s, and Jay’s mother’s making a plaintive clamor, each for his own reason. Jennie, Jennie, what’s happening to you?

When she turned the television on, the voices were stilled, only to be replaced by that of an enthusiastic young woman chuckling with delight over a new detergent. She switched the television off and lay down on the sofa.

I’m tired. So tired. Sick at heart, as they say. I thought we could iron things out, that I could find some compromise. I really believed I could, and look what happened! Such a quick temper the girl has! She hardly gave me a chance. Still, from her point of view, I suppose my secrecy is baffling, like a door slammed in her face. But I was willing to go partway, and I said so, didn’t I? I had in my mind that I would call her sometimes; I really would. I couldn’t just go on for the rest of my life as though I’d never seen her. How could I?

And yet my offer would be no real relationship at all, would it? She knew that. And it wouldn’t work, anyway. No, married to Jay, in his house, with his children, I would be a juggler with a dozen balls in the air; eventually I’d be bound to miss one, and then they all would tumble… .

She fell into an exhausted doze and was awakened, in a room grown dark, by the ring of the telephone.

“Hello,” Jay said. “How was your day?”

“My day?” she repeated, and then remembered her mother’s friends, the museum and lunch. “Oh, not too bad. A little too long. I was asleep just now.”

“Well, I had a miserable Sunday. Being alone in this apartment is like being alone in a stadium. It echoes. I couldn’t stand it. I took the dog for such a long walk that he’s knocked out.”

“I’m sorry I abandoned you. I won’t do it again.”

“Don’t forget tomorrow night.”

A client of Jay’s was the sponsor of a modern-dance recital which, being a lover of ballet, Jennie did not especially enjoy. But feeling the need to keep up her courage, she made herself sound bright.

“Of course not. I’m looking forward to it.”

She slept restlessly, waking often to hear traffic dwindle as the night deepened and to hear it start again as black turned to gray, to white, and finally to a row of yellow bars between the slats of the Venetian blinds.

There was just so much that makeup could do. Trouble left its wretched mark even on a young face, even after the most careful application of eye shadow, eyeliner, lipstick, and blush. Tie on a red-and-white scarf, walk briskly, and smile; it made little difference because the mark was there.

Dinah, the typist, inquired whether Jennie felt all right. Her first client advised her to take it easy because there was a lot of flu going around. By mid-afternoon she was starting to wonder whether she really might be ill. Her eyes wandered, unseeing, over the records on the desk, and then out toward the building across the street where lights were coming on as the afternoon darkened. For an instant she saw a picture of Jill, also at a desk, and also, perhaps, unable to focus her thoughts. Then she was almost overwhelmed by pity, until returning anger surged. Unfair, unfair to be held this way, “between a rock and a hard place,” as Mom used to say.

Dinah appeared at the door to inform Jennie that a Dr. Cromwell wanted to see her.

Cromwell. What on earth could he be wanting? Jennie’s mind was a million miles away from the Green Marsh.

The old man wore, along with a polka-dotted bow tie, the affable expression that she remembered. Natty and spruce, he looked exactly like what he was, a small-town gentleman visiting the big city.

“Gosh,” he said, “I was expecting to see one of those offices with a mile of corridors, carpets, and oil paintings. I was in one of those places one time, made me feel small. Even New York dentists’ places are—” Aware of his unintentional disparagement, he corrected himself. “This is nice, though. Comfortable place to work in. Well, how are you? Busy getting ready for the wedding?”

“Oh, it will be very quiet,” she said.

“Even so, I hate to come to you with another problem. It’s about a phone call.” His bland face took on a timid, worried expression. “First we had all those anonymous letters, but you know about those.”

Jennie nodded. “Anonymous, but no secret that Bruce Fisher probably wrote them.”

“Probably. No secret that he’s half crazy, either.”

The more recent events in Jennie’s life had pushed some others to the back of her mind, but now they leapt up in full, vivid force: the vicious thrust on the stairs and the cunning grin as the man fled past.

“But what I want to tell you is— Oh, I don’t know whether he had anything to do with it, maybe not, but you never know. Why, I remember that case, it was twelve or fifteen years back, more likely fifteen, when he and a crowd of—”

Jennie, concealing impatience, said kindly, “You were going to tell me about a telephone call.”

“Yes, of course. Well, I’ve had two, actually. They may not mean anything, but then again they may. And Arthur Wolfe says I must talk to you about them. He can be a worrier, Arthur can. Still, in the circumstances—”

“Who called you? Do you think it was Fisher?”

“It didn’t sound like Fisher at all. I’d know his voice. Besides, this man gave his name. John Jones.”

Jennie made a wry face. “John Jones!”

“Yes, it sounds phony, doesn’t it? But he was very polite, even friendly. He said he was interested in the Barker proposition—”

“What does that mean, ‘interested in it’? Is he a partner, or what?”

“Well, he wasn’t clear about that. I got the impression he just worked for them or something.”

“What did he want with you?”

“Well, he knew I was on the town council, and he realized I had the town’s interest at heart, and he thought it would be a good idea for us to get together and talk. He thought we’d find out we weren’t so far apart, after all.”

“And what did you say?”

“Well, I said I didn’t think we could, but that if he had anything new to say, it should come up at the town council’s next meeting.”

Jennie gave approval. “Just the right answer, George.”

“But he said no, that most ideas were developed in executive discussions beforehand. He said he’d heard about me and had a lot of respect for the intelligent work I’d been doing on the council, and he’d been wanting to meet me. I can’t figure out how he knew so much about me.” The old man blushed.

“Why? What else did he know about you?” she asked, feeling as though she were leading a child through cross-examination.

“Well, it really surprised me that he knew about Martha’s cancer. My wife, Martha, you know. It’s been in remission for three years, but now they say she needs another operation. As a matter of fact, she’s with me in the city. We’re seeing somebody new at Sloan-Kettering tomorrow.”

And Jennie, observing the old, wrinkled throat above the natty bow tie, the old throat that she hadn’t noticed before, felt soft pity.

“I wonder how he knew. Surely you don’t have friends in common.”

“Oh, no. He comes from New York.”

Unless he’s made inquiries in town, she thought, and asked, “Exactly what did he say about your wife?”

“Just that he’d heard about her illness and that I must have a lot on my mind. That I must have big expenses.”

“Oh?”

“Of course, they are awfully big. That’s the God’s truth. Not that I wouldn’t spend my last cent for Martha. Still, I’m only a small-town dentist… . Say, are you thinking this could have something to do with a bribe? Are you? Because Arthur Wolfe said—”

“Do you think so?” Jennie queried. Poor old man. Poor child.

“Well, I did wonder. And Arthur Wolfe—”

“Don’t wonder anymore. Of course that’s what he’s leading up to.”

“Oh, my,” George said. He reflected a moment. “I suppose he’s trying everybody on the council, one at a time.”

“No, George. That’s not the way it’s done. And certainly not in this case. I’ll tell you why not. The way it is now on the council, the vote stands four to four. You’ve got the mayor and three cronies on one side. The mayor says he hasn’t decided yet, but we all know he has. And on the other side, you’ve got four who probably aren’t going to budge, two summer people who probably don’t want a development near their rural retreats; Henry Pope the lawyer, who’s got a rich wife; and the Presbyterian minister. So that leaves you. Speaking plainly, you’re the only one they think they can easily buy off, and you cast the ninth vote, the deciding vote.”

“You’ve got it all figured out.” Cromwell gave a long, tired sigh.

“It’s my job to figure it out.”

Neither said anything for a moment until Cromwell exclaimed, “So all I have to do is refuse to see him! Then what am I worried about? Nothing!”

“I wouldn’t say that. I said there were four who probably wouldn’t budge. Probably. Okay, the minister won’t be bought, but while I don’t think the others would be, either, still … they might be. Henry Pope, for instance. The Wolfes tell me his law practice isn’t all that great. Who knows what he might do if the offer were big enough?”

Cromwell looked dismayed. “Oh, I don’t believe Henry would ever—”

Jennie interrupted. “You don’t believe, but you don’t know, either, do you? So if this Jones person fails with you and then tries Pope or someone else, he could get his fifth vote, couldn’t he?”

“I suppose so. What are you getting at?”

“What I’m getting at is that he mustn’t fail with you. We have to get the bribe offer on record.”

“How do we do that?”

“I’m not exactly sure. I want to think about it.”

“Now, you mean?”

“Stay awhile. I want to look something up.”

Row on row of brown-bound volumes stood on shelves across the room. Searching, Jennie found what she wanted and set it on the desk with a thump. She read, took some notes, and called Dinah.

“Bring me the file on the Fillipo case, will you, please?”

One of her clients had been released from a wretched affair with a drug dealer when he had been sentenced to prison. There was something in the record, she recalled, although the case had been finished at least four years earlier, about the defendant’s having been trapped by a taped conversation.

George watched her nervously while she turned pages; his foot, which was in her line of vision whenever she raised her eyes for a moment, kept tapping the floor in rapid rhythm.

At last she put the papers aside. “Would you consider wearing a wire, George? Go to lunch with Jones and tape him?”