Daddy Lenin and Other Stories (30 page)

The sound of footsteps woke Jack. He listened to Linda pass down the hallway to their bedroom, heard the door gently close. Jack was certain that she was not being quiet out of consideration for him, was certain that she was not doing her best to avoid waking him. From experience he knew that when Linda was most furious, she was softly, quietly furious. That had certainly been the case when, four months after Jorgensen had left town, Stoyko had let him in on what everybody else already seemed to know. That Linda had been sleeping with Daddy. When he confronted her, she had made no attempt to deny it. In a voice that barely qualified as a whisper, she had said coldly, “Face it. You could care less that I betrayed you. It’s Jorgensen betraying you that’s really got you upset. Well, I just fucked him. Unlike you, I’m not in love with him.”

Jack had forgiven her – halfway forgiven her. Not that Linda had asked for forgiveness. She never felt any guilt for things she did. In her mind, what was done belonged to the past, and she had no interest in the past. She was always looking ahead. Maybe that was what made her such a successful realtor.

However, she wasn’t likely to concede him the exemption from guilt she granted herself. Springing Kurt Jorgensen on her like a jack-in-the-box was not something she would let go of, he was sure of it.

Truth be told, maybe throwing all this in Linda’s face had only been his pathetic attempt to wrong-foot her, to throw her a little off-balance. She had been so confident, flying so high for such a long time. It wouldn’t hurt his wife to be reminded that in her day she had done a stupid thing or two.
Her success hadn’t been good for Linda, had been even worse for him. Things had been bad between them for a considerable period of time and now they were going to go downhill fast. Not bad enough for either Linda or he to ask for a divorce – there were too many practical considerations for that to be feasible: there were the girls and the grandchildren to consider, and Linda would be hard-headed enough not to wish to contemplate a division of property now that there was quite a lot of property to divide. Most of it earned on her watch.

One thing was for sure, and this he hadn’t foreseen, what had happened tonight was going to cut his legs out from under him in the debate concerning the preposterous château. His hating the house would make it even more attractive to her. He supposed the uncomfortable sofa he was lying on now would soon be going the way of the buffalo. The château would need to be decorated with either overstuffed Victorian furniture or maybe a pricey French country antique look.

Jack glanced at his watch. One o’clock. He curled up even tighter on the sofa, knees drawn up to his chest, desperately trying, without success, to hug sleep to him. He began to sweat and tremble. With the cruel clarity of a hallucination, he saw the château in every detail. Above all, he saw the shadowy figure behind the stained-glass window, studying him, scrutinizing him.

In a haze of exhaustion, he recognized who the figure was. It was Jack Corbin waiting for Jack Corbin to arrive home, arrive at the place to which every step and misstep he had ever made had been leading him for years. There he would
stand, keeping watch behind a stained-glass window, waiting for Daddy Lenin to pass by on the street where they both now lived, hoping that the only person whose opinion had ever counted with him might break stride, pause, give him a wave confirming that, yes indeed, Jack Corbin had once shown extraordinary promise. A final sign from Daddy, before he resumed his frantic clip and continued on his way.

THE STORIES IN THIS COLLECTION
were published in slightly different variations in:
Epoch
: “1957 Chevy Belair”;
Planet: The Welsh Internationalist
: “The Jimi Hendrix Experience”;
The Walrus
: “Live Large”;
Prairie Fire
: “Tick Tock.”

I would like to thank my editor, Ellen Seligman, and my agent, Dean Cooke, for their valued counsel, assistance, and support over many years.