The Winners Circle (6 page)

Jerry unfolded himself from the car, glad he’d worn his work boots. Chelsea hassled him to update his wardrobe, ordering a fortune in shoes, pants, and shirts from catalogs, but after a cursory look, he let the boxes pile in the corner of their bedroom. He preferred his well-worn boots to the odd Italian loafers with girlie tassels. He favored jeans and flannel shirts over the baggy pants and linen shirts. Forget about the colors. What passed for fashionable and suave would have gotten you beat to a pulp in grammar school, not to mention your stones busted on the assembly line at the car plant.

Haskell led them up a footpath crowded with pine and fir trees with large sticky needles. The attorney stumbled on the big rocks. He wasn’t a hiker.

“
You want me to carry you?” Jerry joked.

“
Wait ‘till you see it.”

“
See what?”

“
The view.”

“
What view?”

“
You’re a lucky man. People envy a man with options.”

Options was one of Haskell’s favorite words; mobility too. He spoke like a luxury car brochure. God knows, Jerry’d read enough of them in the last month. He wrestled between the choice of a Land Rover and the super Ford pickup with every amenity. So he asked Ted at the garage to overhaul the old Ford’s engine instead. Chelsea still complained about it. “God, we’re never getting rid of that bomb, are we?”

When they reached the ridge, Haskell pointed to a flat rock that jutted over the ravine. “Go ahead, there’s only room for one.”

Jerry stepped onto the precipice without worry. In deer hunting season, he balanced himself on a tree limb for half the morning. He sensed the breeze in his hair and the smell of the budding pines. He loved the woods any time of the year.

“
Do you see it?” Haskell asked. “Look through the trees.”

Jerry squinted, making out the tops of the buildings below. He recognized an ornate pair of iron gates. The crest held a shield in black and orange. “That’s Princeton University.”

“
Bingo, my friend. B-ingo!”

Jerry glanced back at the little man. “So what?”

“
So what?! You can spend the rest of your life overlooking town. That’s what.”

“
Why would I want to do that?”

“
Because Chelsea wants it.”

“
She never ...” Jerry wished he hadn’t admitted that. Men will always be men, and he needed to know what his woman wanted before any other man. “I mean, she never mentioned this place in particular.”

“
She wanted you to see it. It just came on the market. Twenty acres. It’s been a tree farm since colonial days.”

“
What happened to it?”

“
The owner died, and the heirs want to sell. Most people don’t know about it yet. You have to move quickly.”

“
I don’t want to move.”

“
Think of the options this place can afford. You can build the house of your desires.”

“
We’re going to do that in Hopewell.”

Haskell spread out his arms. “Why Hopewell, when you can have Princeton? At five million, it’s a steal.”

Jerry fought to stay one step ahead of him. “I suppose you’re going to tell me about the tax write-offs.”

“
Of course.”

“
Will the soil perk for water and septic?”

Haskell donned a smarmy look, an extension of his repellent persona. “Those are merely details.”

Details was another one of Haskell’s favorite words, and details were where Haskell would always excel.

Jerry hopped off the rock. He looked down on Haskell. It wasn’t unusual for Chelsea to be swayed by dangerous promises, even an intelligent lady like her. Jerry determined to jettison this attorney from his life. He was going to discuss the matter with his wife as soon as he reached home. “Let me think about it.”

The lilac sprigs shifted in the breeze, as Jerry drove the old Ford up the drive and past the dilapidated carriage house at the front of the property. Light emanated from the farmhouse, and he spotted Chelsea’s silhouette beside the living room reading lamp. The sight of her calmed his nerves. He decided to take the conversation slow. She was a hard mind to change. She trusted Haskell. Jerry wouldn’t send Haskell down the block for a loaf of bread. Haskell might not steal their money, but Haskell believed that he knew a better way of spending it.

Jerry tossed his keys and jacket on the chair by the door. He considered dinner, preparing Chelsea’s favorite veal dish. “I see you got home alright.”

Chelsea never turned around. She perched on the edge of the couch, leaning over a large binder on the coffee table. “What do you think of these?”

He stood over her shoulder, taken aback by the array of photographs upon the page. They were snapshots of naked women, below the chin and above the waist, a full view of bare breasts. “What the hell?”

“
What do you like?”

He double-clutched. This was not a question you often answered for your wife, not the typical wife.

She flipped through the pages. He saw round shapes and conical shapes. There were pendulous sacks of female flesh and pairs that stuck out like bookshelves, defying gravity. Some looked petite and pert. Others floated like dirigibles, feminine warships in the sky. He spotted side views and overviews; views of how they’d look lying down. There was nothing erotic about it, just a who’s who of breasts in America.

“
What are you doing?” Jerry asked.

“
I want new ones.”

“
New what?”

“
Breasts, dummy.”

He didn’t believe it, even as the words left her mouth. Chelsea was a B cup, a nice round shape, still high for thirty-two years. He reached over and slammed the binder shut. “What in the world are you doing?”

“
Wouldn’t you like more?” She arched her back, pushing out her chest beneath a gray cashmere sweater.

“
Did Weinberg suggest this?”

“
I asked him.”

“
Why?”

She led his arm around the couch, until he faced her. “It would be fun, don’t you think? Your friends wouldn’t be able to keep their eyes off me.”

He balked at that. This was a woman who wanted no one’s eyes on her. “I have no friends.”

“
You know what I mean.”

“
No, I don’t.”

“
Don’t be so resistant to change, Jerry. You’re becoming a bore.”

He took her comment deep. He remembered a guy on the assembly line who chose new breasts for his wife over a pneumatic pump for his garage. He’d bragged to the others that she’d screwed him on the workbench after the operation. The guys laughed. Jerry played along, but he wondered why he didn’t want what the others wanted. He believed that if you forced a situation, you ended up with something that you never imagined.

The new grandfather clock chimed the hour. Jerry stared at his wife, flipping through the catalog of breasts again. She was forcing the boundaries of a good thing. It was that damned money. And of course, he’d bought the lottery ticket.

He sat beside her. “I want Cogdon out of our lives.”

She looked at him. Her blue eyes swam in the intense halogen light. “I thought we were discussing my breasts.”

“
I’m done with that.”

“
This is about the land in Princeton.”

“
That’s another thing. We’re not moving. There’s no need.”

“
We can’t get rid of Haskell. He’s the only man who knows what to do with our money.”

Jerry knew she was wrong, but he lacked the vocabulary to defend his point. It wasn’t so much his words. He understood the big words. It was the way Haskell presented them. This was another stinging blow to Jerry’s ego, and he fell back against the couch. He was aced out of his best role by his own wealth. The skills that had served him well for years were obsolete. Winning the lottery was like being laid-off, except the severance check arrived with a lot more zeros attached.

Chelsea leaned her slender frame upon him. Her forearms propped against his chest. She started with a coy downward gaze, a look that usually melted him to the cushions.

“
I know what you need,” she said.

He wanted her close. They hadn’t made love much. With her not working and an abundance of free time, they were somehow busier. It used to be the one thing they did for free, as often as they liked. He wrapped his arms around her waist. If he held her tonight, everything might be alright.

She started kissing him, unbuttoning his shirt. From the start, they’d anointed her as the aggressor—the one who set the pace. There was nothing better than watching Chelsea strip. He was king of the world.

Her sweater and bra hit the floor. She straddled his legs, undoing his belt.

He examined her chest. The nipples were tight and excited. The size was just right for her proportions. He cupped them in his hands. “You see there’s nothing wrong with these.”

“
You’ve just gotten use to them.”

She reached down to make him erect. She liked to bring him along fast, and then stretch the act out for a long time. He had no other experience with women but heard that they preferred a great deal of stroking and foreplay. Not Chelsea, she wanted him inside her right away, top or bottom, and then she made him work for as long as he hung in there. She wanted him to sweat.

“
I like you as you are,” he said.

“
Things will get better.”

“
I don’t need better.”

“
You’ll see.” She dropped between his legs to force the issue. She was ready. He smelled her.

He felt her mouth bring him in, yet his thoughts drifted between her and the touch of her extraordinary lips. He worried about the changes: different mouth, bigger breasts, and God knows what else.

“
Jerry?” She looked up from his thighs. She was kneeling on the floor between the coffee table and couch.

“
Keep going, honey.”

Chelsea went to work again, but the more she tried, the softer he became. “Are you tired?”

“
No, no.”

“
Okay then.”

He fought to remain cool, but inside, his thoughts ran wild. His head resembled a lottery machine. Each numbered ball was another lousy notion, bouncing around his brain, fighting to take hold. He’d never, ever done this before. Chelsea always lit his fire. He always delivered.

She used her hand, but his penis grew limp, a completely useless device for the occasion. He heard the grandfather clock chime the half hour. He was losing, and he tried forcing the blood to his groin. Damn, he actually wasn’t going to do this.

“
Jerry?” She crawled up his to stomach. Her lip curled. “Is everything okay?”

“
I’m fine.”

“
Are you sure?”

He didn’t like the tone of her voice, but he didn’t look in her eyes. Even though she lay across his stomach, he never felt further away from her. He grabbed onto her shoulder. He tried to recall the first time. He tried to remember it being new again. It was in his head somewhere. Somehow he could reconnect the past to the present.

“
We need to do more of this.” Chelsea held the wheel of her new hunter green Jaguar sport coup. The car emerged from the Holland Tunnel. The burl walnut appointments on the dashboard glowed beneath the overcast summer sky.

“
I don’t see why?” Jerry was cramped in the passenger’s seat, ferreting extra space for his feet and knees. He felt uncomfortable in the baggy pants and sport coat that Chelsea instructed him to wear. He should’ve put on his old wedding suit and been done with it.

“
You promised you wouldn’t complain.”

“
I know.” He recalled his last public outing. His former workmates had rushed him into a bar for the afternoon—his least favorite activity. ‘You’re buying,’ they said.

“
I want you to mingle.” Chelsea checked her hair in the mirror. “These are our peers.”

“
We’ve never met them before.” He watched her steer onto the Westside Highway. The skyscrapers infringed upon his peripheral vision, slicing it up with towers of stone, steel, and reflective glass.

“
It’s a party for lottery winners. They’re millionaires like us. They have our issues.”

He studied her profile. Her lips were plump and sexy, awash in desert rose. Her larger breasts hung firm and high. A black cotton shirt detailed her tight torso. A matching skirt hugged her hips and the sleek contours of her thighs. She’d spent hours with a personal trainer and even more time with a clothes designer and makeup consultant. Jerry feared that merely touching his wife might ruin the finish.

“
I’m doing this for you,” Jerry said.

“
You should be doing it for yourself.” She shot a sideways glance, insouciant yet disapproving. She was a living, breathing glamour photo of herself. She’d pulled off the miracle, acquiring the face and body of a star, and she’d done it without him. “Sometimes I worry about you.”

He sat up, bumping his head on a rib in the convertible roof. “I’ve told you one thousand times that I’m alright.”