Amanda Bright @ Home (10 page)

“Not if we had a choice of other cars to buy,” Hochmayer replied cheerfully. “But we don’t. Frith’s got what amounts to a monopoly. And to further your analogy, what if Frith not only insisted that consumers buy his model with radios but then attempted to prevent them from buying and installing radios manufactured by different companies—
better
radios, with CD players and stereo speakers? Then what would you say?”

The Texan winked at Amanda.

“I’d say you had a point,” Susie retorted, undaunted, “if those radio manufacturers were actually making better products. But the problem is, you folks aren’t.”

Amanda did not understand Susie’s reference to “you folks,” but she ventured a reply of her own. “How can they make better products, Susie, if Frith is always threatening to put them out of business? That’s what he’s doing, you know. He’s terrorizing other companies so he can dominate the market.”

“Well, bravo, Amanda,” said Hochmayer, clapping her on the back and chalking up an invisible “point” in the air. “You and I make a good team. What makes you so knowledgeable about Megabyte, anyway?”

“Oh,” said Amanda, her cheeks reddening. “My husband’s leading the government’s antitrust investigation.”

“That so?” replied Hochmayer, impressed. “You’re married to Frank Sussman?”

Susie chortled, and Amanda’s face turned redder.

“Oh, no. My husband is Bob Clarke—he’s the section chief for computers and finance at Justice. But he’s organizing the investigation. Frank Sussman is his boss.”

“Well, you shake your lucky husband’s hand for me. You tell him that Jim Hochmayer is a big admirer—an even bigger one now that I’ve met you.”

Amanda floated back toward the foyer. What a nice man! She hoped Susie wouldn’t blow it this time. But who on earth was he?

Amanda returned to the spot where she had last seen Bob, but he wasn’t there. The crowd was thicker now, and Amanda had to gingerly thread her way through without knocking into anyone’s wineglass. She almost crashed into Jack Chasen, but fortunately his back was to her and he didn’t notice. Finally she spied Bob over by the terrace doors deep in what appeared to be intimate conversation with a woman whom Amanda had not met before. The woman certainly seemed to have met Bob before. She pressed close to him and absently stroked his forearm as she spoke. Bob kept withdrawing his arm and taking small steps back, but every time he moved, the woman moved with him, until he had wedged himself into another cluster of people.

Amanda slowed her pace. It felt as if every one of her nerve endings were suddenly standing at attention. Her heart pounded in the hollow of her chest, and her eyes fixed on the scene the way a frightened animal stares at the tall grass in which it thinks it has heard a rustle.

Then Bob did something astonishing: he shook off his jacket and draped it over the woman’s shoulders. The woman accepted it—rather coyly—and they continued talking.

Amanda was paralyzed, not knowing whether to bolt away or rush toward them. But the longer she stared, the more the sight of another woman in Bob’s jacket filled her with possessive rage, and the rage soon eclipsed all other emotions, including fear. She pushed her way to his side.

“Hello, Bob.”

Strangely, Bob seemed undismayed by her arrival.

“Hi, Amanda. Where have you been? I’d like you to meet Grace—what did you say your last name was?”

“Bertelli,” the woman said in a soft, whispery voice.

She’s not even pretty!
Amanda thought indignantly,
and she’s much older than Bob—forty-five maybe, or even forty-eight.
Her thick chestnut hair was cut bluntly below the chin, and she was dressed in the utilitarian skirt, blouse, and pumps of the think-tank world. Nonetheless, there was something insinuating about the woman, almost feline, that might be alluring if a man were dense enough not to know that cats purr and brush up against your leg only when they want something.

“I work at the Project for America’s Future—Jack Chasen’s think tank,” Grace Bertelli said. She, too, seemed to find nothing odd in being introduced to a woman while wearing that woman’s husband’s jacket.

“I’m Amanda Bright.”

Amanda turned abruptly to Bob. “I’d like to go now.”

“Already?”

Amanda glared, making no reply.

“Okay—” He shrugged at Grace. “It was really nice meeting you—I’d like to hear more about your project.”

“Another time.”

“Hey, don’t leave without this,” Grace said, shaking off his jacket. “Your husband was so kind to lend it to me,” she added to Amanda. “I always find myself
shivering
in these air-conditioned rooms—don’t you?”

“No,” Amanda said curtly. “I don’t.”

They made their way back to the front door. Amanda marched ahead of him.

“Frank asked me to appear on
Left/Right
next week for him,” Bob said, catching up to her. “He’s going to be out of town.”

“Swell.”

He handed Amanda the ticket for the car and excused himself to say good-bye to Jack Chasen. Amanda leaned against one of the porch pillars, feeling dizzy and confused. Was she going mad? Was she the only one aware of what had just happened? The valet startled her by leaping up the steps to hand her the keys to the Volvo. Another couple breezed by, shot a glance at the quivering and wheezing car, and slid off in their Mercedes. Amanda climbed into the passenger seat and waited.

She heard the driver’s-side door slam and felt the car grind forward but she didn’t raise her head from its resting position against the window.

“What kind of time did you have?” Bob asked as they turned onto the main road.

Amanda said nothing.

“C’mon, is something wrong? Why won’t you talk to me?”

“What kind of time did you have?” she repeated sarcastically. “The question is, what kind of time were
you
having before I so inconveniently interrupted you?”

“What do you mean by that?”

They had come to a stop sign. There was no one behind them, and Bob kept his foot on the brake. “Amanda, speak to me. What did you mean by that?”

She snorted as if only an imbecile would not understand what she was talking about. “It was obvious. The whole room could see what was going on between you and that woman.”

“Really? And what was going on between us?” A car tooted from behind. Bob rolled forward.

“For God’s sake—do I have to spell it out?”

“I honestly don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“You gave her your jacket!”

“What was I supposed to do? She
asked
for it. She was cold. I was just being polite.”

When Amanda didn’t answer, he went on, “You’re being paranoid. It meant nothing—
nothing.
”

“Did it mean ‘nothing’ when you gave me your coat that time, when we first met?” She looked directly at him now, her eyes filling up with tears. It was so embarrassing—she didn’t ask to play the role of inquisitor.

“That was
completely
different.”

“Why was it different?”

Bob kept his eyes on the road. It was that last moment of dusk when sky and earth meld together, and oncoming cars take on the gray camouflage of the pavement. This stretch of the route back to Washington twisted and turned dangerously, yet they flew along it, Bob distractedly pressing harder on the gas.

“Because I liked you, and was interested in you, and I wanted to—” He paused.“—protect you. You seemed so vulnerable.”

A car lurched at them from around a curve, causing Bob to swerve. “Jesus, the drivers out here.”

“And did you want to protect her, too?” Amanda asked bitterly. She thought of Grace Bertelli nestling into Bob’s jacket, into his smell, his warmth. The audacity! And the insult! Did Amanda seem that easy a target? Had her value plunged so low? Or was it that her husband’s value had risen exponentially?
“You can’t have him,” Sussman had said to Chasen.

“No, I did not want to protect her. I just didn’t want to be rude. Okay?”

“Then why did you let her stroke your arm? Was that about being polite, too?”

A shape dashed in front of their car and leaped away, eyes gleaming.

“Christ, a deer!”

“You didn’t answer me.”

“Forgive me. I was trying to prevent us from being killed.”

“Why did you let her stroke your arm?”

“What are you, Amanda? The FBI? Did you have cameras set up in the room?” Bob gripped the wheel so hard his knuckles were white. He was grinding his teeth the way he did when he was enraged. That was fine. She was furious, too.

“I didn’t ‘let’ her stroke my arm, as you put it. She just did it. I kept pulling away. She seemed like a very tactile person. What was her last name—Bertolucci? Maybe it’s an Italian thing, I don’t know.

“But what I do know,” he insisted, “is that all she was interested in was antitrust law and that’s what we were talking about. That’s
all
we were talking about. Jesus.”

“Sure.” She mimicked him again: “‘I’d like to know more about your project.’”

“Dammit, Amanda,” he exploded. “Do you know what I think?”

He averted his eyes from the road to glare at her and accelerated at the same time.

“Watch what you’re doing.”

“I think this whole argument is about something else,” he continued. “I don’t think you’re really angry about Grace What’s-her-name. I think you’re mad about something else—something you’ve been mad about for weeks.”

“Oh, so now you’re going to change the subject.”

“I’m not changing the subject because this
is
the subject. Face it. You’re angry with everyone—me, the kids. You haven’t been yourself at all. Every time I touch you, I can feel you practically recoiling from me.”

Amanda was silent. It was dark now and there were no streetlamps. It was like being in the countryside except it wasn’t the countryside. Every so often the headlights revealed the brick pillars at the end of a driveway and a huge house festooned with carriage lights would suddenly rise up from behind a screening of cypress, only to vanish into blackness until another identically lit house burst into their field of vision.

“So what is it?” he prodded. “Tell me.”

“I—I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.” He had adopted her tone of sarcasm. “Well, that’s just great. Because let me tell you something. I don’t know why you’re unhappy, either. Only six months ago you were telling me how happy you were. You told me how much you liked being at home, that it was the right choice, yadda yadda. Now, suddenly, you’re telling me you’re unhappy.” Bob shook his head. “I give up, Amanda.”

“Are you saying you don’t care if I’m unhappy?”

“No. I’m saying I don’t understand why you’re unhappy. Because frankly, Amanda, if anyone should be unhappy, it’s me.”

“You?”

“Why not me? I’ve been working long hours. I come home and my house is a wreck. There’s nothing to eat. You’re, like,
Go read Ben a story
or
go give Sophie her bath.
Every night it’s the same thing. You’re pissed off about something; the kids are fighting. I can’t even sort through the mail. And look at this car! It’s filthy. It’s breaking down, and I can’t afford to replace it. You’re asking me about summer camp for the kids, and I haven’t bought a new pair of shoes in two goddamn years. And why? Because I thought you were happy. Because I thought this was what you wanted.”

White light from a passing car flashed on Bob’s face, illuminating an expression so cold, so inward, so detached from her, it frightened Amanda. She wanted to answer him. She
longed
to answer him.
You don’t spend your afternoons cleaning out potties while another child is screaming he can’t find his sock and the phone is ringing and the doorbell is going and you only got half of the living room vacuumed before you realized you’d forgotten milk at the store but now there won’t be time to get it before supper and when are you going to find time anyway to deal with the little piles in every room that grow an inch every day like some magic beanstalk, and there’s the laundry to catch up on too don’t forget, and if you trip over someone’s shoe on the staircase one more time you’re damn well going to hurl it against a wall. But most of all, Bob,
most of all,
at least you exist in the eyes of other people. At least you exist.

Instead she said, her voice trembling, “I guess I don’t know what I want.”

“Well, I don’t know, either.”

The rows of cypress gave way to power wires and streetlamps that marked their reentry into the city. When they got home, Amanda went straight upstairs, passing by the sitter wordlessly and forgetting that she hadn’t yet eaten. Bob came up sometime after that, how long after she didn’t know. She heard him lock the front door and switch off the lights; when she felt his weight settle in beside her, she pretended to be asleep.

Chapter Eight

THE PHONE rang and rang. Amanda was about to hang up until someone on the other end picked up, fumbled, and dropped the receiver. There was the sound of a brief scuffle, and a tiny voice said, “Huwwo?” Amanda could hear a baby crying. An adult voice scolded, “Give that to me
now.
” After another scuffle, the adult voice answered, “Yes?”

“Liz? It’s Amanda.”

“Amanda!”

“Am I calling at a bad time?”

“Well, as you know, there is no
good
time. But I can talk for a few minutes, sure. Hang on.”

Amanda waited through the muffled commotion of Liz trying to herd her children out of the vicinity of the phone. Amanda’s old college friend, who now lived in Binghamton, New York, had given birth to her fourth child only six months ago. That fact alone made Liz’s entry stand out in the Brown class of ’87 bulletin. While other female graduates announced their promotions to “VP—marketing and sales” or “creative director for thelatestidea.com,” and assured their classmates that they continued to enjoy cave rappelling, Himalayan treks, and hot-air ballooning, Liz proudly reported each one of her children’s births and described herself as an “at-home mother.”

“Even their wedding announcements read like corporate mergers,” Liz once scoffed, as she read aloud from a recent bulletin. “
Melanie Saltzberger of Manhattan, associate at Phelps, Strong, Biddle & Throckmayer, was married in March to Yale graduate Peter Staunton, senior analyst for the First Equity Fund of Boston.
Their first child is going to be a stock offering. What these women don’t realize, Amanda, is that
we
are the radicals—
we
are the pioneers on the new frontier.”