Missing Pieces (18 page)

Of course, I was as delusional about Robert as I was with regard to my mother.

“What’s the best line of men’s clubs you carry?” I asked the Greg Norman look-alike who offered his assistance. Guilt had nothing to do with my decision to buy my husband the best set of clubs currently on the market, I told myself, following the young man to the back of the store.

“Well, of course, that depends on your needs,” he said as he walked. “But there’s this new line of clubs called Titans that’s just fabulous.” He grabbed a long club with a large wooden head from its bag and began waxing rhapsodic about its particular virtues, his hand sliding up and down its smooth surface as lovingly as if it were a woman’s body. “It’s the perfect combination of titanium and graphite. For my money,” he concluded, replacing the wood with an iron, assuming I knew the difference, “it’s the best there is.”

“How much is it?” I asked. It was, after all,
not
his money, but mine.

“Well, let’s see,” he began, scanning the store as if he didn’t already have a price worked out in his head. His eyes suddenly widened, then froze, as if he’d been shot. “My God, watch out!” he yelled.

I heard the
whoosh
of the golf club before I actually saw it, felt the air beside me stir as it swept past me, the club missing my head by no more than six inches. Several young men suddenly appeared, seemingly from out of nowhere, and all but wrestled my mother to the floor, tearing the golf club she was wielding, as if it were a baseball bat, from her hands.

“Kate!” she cried, a look of pure terror distorting her delicate features as strange hands seized her. “Help me! Help me!”

“It’s all right,” I yelled. “She’s my mother.” Looks of astonishment crossed the faces of the young men as they reluctantly released her. “It’s all right,” I repeated, as confused as everyone else. “She wasn’t trying to hurt me.

“Hurt you?” My mother was whimpering now, her head bobbing up and down, as if attached to her body by wires, the bobbing accentuating the skin that hung in folds around her neck, like loose-fitting socks. “What are you talking about? I would never hurt you. I just wanted to try out that bat. Remember in high school, I was such a good hitter. The best on the team.”

“It’s okay, everything’s fine,” I assured the small crowd gathered around us. “She gets a little confused at times, that’s all. Are you all right?” I asked her.

“You know I would never do anything to hurt you,” my mother said as I led her from the store.

“I know,” I told her. It wasn’t until I was behind the wheel of my car that my knees stopped knocking together. And it wasn’t until I’d dropped her safely back at her apartment that I could breathe.

“You look a little flushed,” Robert was saying, his hand reaching over to touch my cheek. “Are you coming down with something?”

The touch of his hand on my cheek was almost more than I could bear. I closed my eyes, imagined us on a shimmering white beach, far away from mothers and daughters and husbands and wives. And sisters, I reminded myself, forcing my eyes open, firmly relocating us in his impressive suite of offices in the heart of Delray. “My mother thinks she’s Babe Ruth,” I said.

“Why do I think there’s an interesting story there?” he asked, eyes twinkling.

“Because you’re the media,” I told him. “Everything’s a story to you.”

“Ah,” he said, “but not always an interesting one. Why is it I find everything about you so interesting?”

“Because you haven’t seen me in thirty years,” I replied dryly. “Because you don’t know me very well.”

“Something I’d like to change.”

For the second time that morning, I was finding it hard to breathe. I looked around his office, forced my eyes to absorb a host of inconsequential details: the walls were pale blue, the broadloom thick and silver, the top of his large desk a black marble slab, dominated by a large-screen computer. There were two blue-and-gray tub chairs in fashionable ultra-suede positioned in front of the desk, and several more in front of a full-size sofa that sat at the far end of the rectangular room. We were on the top floor of a twelve-story building; floor-to-ceiling windows faced east toward the ocean. It was the spectacular view that was responsible for my shortness of breath, I told myself, almost laughing out loud at this feeble attempt at self-denial.

A row of framed photographs graced the top of the oak credenza behind Robert’s desk. I walked toward the pictures, casually perusing the happy family smiling back at me: a woman, dark-haired, petite, pretty enough without being beautiful, a slightly startled look about her eyes that
indicated either surprise or plastic surgery; four children, two boys, two girls, their growth captured inside silver frames as they advanced from childhood through adolescence to young adulthood. “You have a lovely family,” I said, although, without my reading glasses, the more minute details of their faces were lost on me.

“Thank you,” he acknowledged. “And what about you? Any pictures of your girls?”

I fished around inside my purse, grateful for something to do with my hands. Immediately, I pictured my mother reaching inside her handbag and proudly proffering forth her wondrous new discovery. An egg. Maybe she was right, I found myself thinking. There
was
something pretty wondrous about an egg.

“What are you thinking about?” I heard Robert ask, his eyes crinkling into a smile.

“Eggs,” I told him, quickly resuming my search.

“Eggs,” he repeated, shaking his head. “You’re a woman of mystery, Kate Latimer.”

I smiled. It was something I’d always wanted to be. “Kate Sinclair,” I corrected softly, almost hopeful he wouldn’t hear, finally locating a small red leather folder that contained pictures of Sara and Michelle, and extending it toward him. “These are at least a year old. Michelle hasn’t changed that much, except she’s even thinner now.”

“She’s lovely.”

I studied the small photograph of my younger child: heart-shaped face and huge navy eyes; light shoulder-length brown hair and slightly sad little mouth. Of my two girls, Sara was the more striking, Michelle the more conventionally pretty.

“And this … ?”

“Is Sara,” I said. “Her hair’s different now. It’s shorter, and blond.”

“And you don’t approve?”

I returned the red leather folder to my purse. Was I that transparent? “I like the cut,” I qualified. “I’m not wild about the color.”

“No pictures of your husband?” A mischievous twinkle danced in Robert’s hazel eyes.

I moved to the window, stared out at the ocean, although I wasn’t able to distinguish where the sky ended and the water began. What did it matter? It was all a miraculous shade of blue. “No,” I said, wondering what I was really doing in Robert’s office, feeling slightly guilty. “No pictures of Larry.”

The intercom on his desk buzzed and his secretary informed him that a Mr. Jack Peterson was on the phone from New York. Robert excused himself to take the call, and I excused myself to go to the ladies’ room.

I leaned against the large bathroom mirror. “What are you getting yourself into?” I asked my reflection, applying some fresh blush to my cheeks, fluffing the sides of my hair. Do you need this in your life right now? Even if this whole thing is really about a job in radio, is that what you really want?

In truth, all I wanted was a semblance of normalcy back. I wanted a daughter with brown hair and a good report card, a sister with a steady job and no love life, a mother who wasn’t acting like a visitor from another planet.

At least I’d been able to persuade her to see a doctor, I consoled myself, smoothing on a fresh coat of lipstick, recalling the magenta lipstick smudged across my mother’s fingernails. At first, she refused to see a doctor, said she’d seen enough doctors, so I made it seem as if I was the one who required the appointment and wanted her along for moral support. “Of course, dear,” she’d readily agreed. Unfortunately, the earliest appointment I could schedule was two months away.

Maybe by then the problem, whatever it was, would have sorted itself out, I told myself. Maybe in two months’ time my daughter’s hair would have returned to its brown roots, Colin Friendly would be on his way to the electric chair, and my mother would be herself again.

I had no way of knowing that things were only going to get worse.

Although maybe I suspected as much. Maybe that’s why I decided not to let Robert introduce me to the station brass, not to join him for lunch, not to pursue some half-baked notion of radio stardom. Instead, I splashed some cold water on my face, in what was decidedly a symbolic cleansing gesture, returned my makeup to my handbag, and marched from the ladies’ room.

Robert was waiting for me in front of the elevators. “Sorry about the interruption,” he began, taking me by the elbow and leading me across the hall to the office of his station manager. “I can’t wait to show you off,” he said.

I allowed myself to be led through the labyrinth of offices that made up the twelfth floor, shaking hands with the various managers and office workers, touring the recording studios below, meeting the announcers and producers, those who worked on-air and behind the scenes. I have to admit I loved everything about it, the atmosphere, the people, the lingo, the buzz. Mostly, I loved the feel of Robert’s arm on my elbow as he guided me from one room to the next, from one unfamiliar situation to another, from new face to new face. It wasn’t his touch so much as what that touch represented: the feeling of being gently led, of not having to do for myself, the knowledge that someone else was in charge, was making the decisions, was leading the way. That I was no longer responsible.

So I allowed myself to be seduced, as one always consents to a seduction, still insisting to myself as we left the
station for the restaurant that Robert’s interest in me was strictly professional and that my interest in him was strictly the same, a way of branching out, of spreading my professional wings.

Of course, that was before we had our lunch.

Self-delusion, rationalization, outright denial—they’ll only take you so far.

S
o, tell me, what are the secrets of a happy marriage?”

I stared across the table at Robert Crowe, searching for signs of irony in his bright hazel eyes. There weren’t any. I tried to laugh, but the intensity of his gaze caused the laugh to stick in my throat. My hand fluttered to my face, returned to my lap, stretched across the table for another roll—my third.

He reached over, his palm covering the top of my hand. “You seem a little nervous.”

Was he playing with me? “I guess I’m not sure how seriously to take you,” I answered truthfully.

“And that makes you nervous?”

“I like to know where I stand.”

“Take me very seriously,” he said, removing his hand.

I was more confused than ever. I hadn’t engaged in this kind of elliptical banter in over twenty-five years. One of the things I’d always liked about my husband was that I’d known where I stood with him right from the very beginning of our relationship. There’d been no anxious nights by the telephone waiting for him to call. No emotional roller-coaster rides. So why wasn’t it my husband I was flirting with across the table of a cozy little restaurant in Delray Beach?

“The secrets of a happy marriage,” I repeated, trying not to think of how handsome Robert looked in his dark green suit. “There are no secrets. You know that.”

“You’ve been married almost a quarter of a century,” he reminded me.

“You’ve been married over twenty years yourself,” I reminded him back.

“Who said I was happy?”

My mouth went suddenly dry. I looked around the dimly lit restaurant, decorated in shades of burgundy and pink, and wondered what was taking our food so long. We’d been sitting here, in a corner table at the back, for almost half an hour. We’d already tossed around a host of ideas for my so-called show: Was a daily hour-long format preferable to a weekly two-hour show? Would I interview various experts or go it alone? Should we concentrate on one topic at a time or should we open the phone lines and let the topics fall where they may? What about conducting real-life therapy sessions on the air? How about dramatizations? Was there a way to combine the two?

We’d reached no conclusions. Clearly, we had a long way to go in our discussions. It was obvious more such lunches would be necessary.

“You’re not happy?” I asked, the question out of my mouth before I could stop it.

“I’m not unhappy,” he qualified. “My wife is a very nice woman; she’s given me four beautiful children and a very successful career. I owe her a great deal. I know that.”

“Do you love her?” I knew the question sounded naive, maybe even trite. But in the end, it was the only question that really mattered.

“Define love.”

I shook my head. “Love means different things to different people. I couldn’t presume to speak for you.”

“Speak for me,” he said. “Go ahead—presume.”

I smiled, wishing I wasn’t such a sucker for his easy charm. Get up now, I told myself. Get up out of your seat, and tell him you’re not hungry, that this whole radio show idea is a bad one, that you’re not fooled by his newfound interest in your therapeutic capabilities, and that you have no more intention of sleeping with him now than you did thirty years ago. Go ahead, tell him. Instead I stayed put, twisted restlessly in my seat, said, “I can only tell you what love means to me.”

“Please do.”

I swallowed. “I think that love is a combination of many factors—respect and tolerance and acceptance of the other person for who they are.” My eyes shifted inexorably toward his. “And, of course, physical attraction.”

“So, what happens when you have respect and tolerance and you accept the other person for who she is, but the physical attraction is no longer there?”

“You work hard to get it back,” I said, somewhat stuffily, grateful beyond words when the waiter approached with our food.

“Be careful,” the waiter warned, prophetically. “It’s very hot.”

I tore into my seafood pasta as if I hadn’t seen food in weeks. It burned my tongue, seared the roof of my mouth. Still, as long as my mouth was full, I couldn’t get into trouble, I reasoned, barely taking a breath between forkfuls. My tongue grew numb. The food lost all taste. I kept shoveling it in regardless, aware that Robert was smiling at me from across the table, that he was enjoying my discomfort.