"Big deal. Your name on a story doesn't mean shit
anyhow," Barrows said, clicking off. Prima donna! The insult rang in his
ears, knowing that Barrows would indeed tell Webster. It was all changing
anyhow, he told himself. He lay back, watching the ceiling, seeing its flaws
and flakes. The focus had changed. They were into other things now, trivia. Who
boffed whom? That wasn't reporting. Remembering, he looked at the girl, curled
like a fetus, oblivious to his rage.
"They want that kind of trivia," he hissed,
considering her sensuous form, "bet you could give them a snootful."
He patted her bare arm, the idea slowly taking shape, growing inside him. She
didn't stir.
Fiona drew the draperies, then lit the double candles in
their creamy Irish glass holders, a gift from her mother years ago. Being
Irish, according to her, required the possession of Irish things and this glass
was one of them. She had made a pâté from a recipe in a French cookbook and
bought a loaf of French bread and a good Bordeaux for the steak au poivre.
Asparagus with hollandaise sauce was boiling in a plastic bag. The table was
set in her two place Irish china bought piece by piece, placed carefully on the
tablecloth of Irish lace, still faintly camphory from its long slumber in a
bottom drawer. Lord knows there was little enough romance in this life, she
told herself, composing an image of Clint in her mind, a face pink and
smile-crinkled under a cascade of prematurely gray, curly hair. She was beyond
guilt now, eschewing sorrows and self-pity, taut with expectation. Nor did she
care what subterfuge he used to free his Monday night. That wasn't her
business. The memory of Dorothy Curtis had prodded her. Tonight was high noon.
The mind computed its own rationalizations. She had never
considered herself a mistress in a technical sense. Not as she was now, the
lover of a married man, Clinton Chase. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, she had
concluded finally, when it became evident that she was, all protestations
notwithstanding, hooked.
She met him as she had met all her men in the last few
years, through an investigation. The reverse twist was that he had been
investigating her investigation. He had worked then for the
Detroit News
,
Washington bureau. To make matters more steamy, she detested having to do her
work under the scrutiny of media people, unless she was passing information for
a specific purpose. It inhibited her. Besides, all media dealings were
covetously usurped by the eggplant. Because it was a Detroit paper, she decided
to go along with it. Anyway, she had learned, it was one of his last
assignments. He was about to accept an appointment as undersecretary of
transportation, in charge of public information.
The case involved a young man, son of a prominent Detroit lawyer, who had run over a prostitute with whom he had just had sexual relations
in his car. He was drunk as well. It was purely accidental, but it made a juicy
story for Detroit. To make matters worse, a legal curtain had descended,
engineered by Daddy's money and, as she knew, her report constituted the only
real unvarnished truth. The girl was a teenage prostitute who was also a drug
addict.
Clinton had dogged the eggplant for
two days and he had ducked the man with equal persistence. Drugs and
prostitution did not reflect proudly on the police force. Nor was there a
mystery to be solved or glory to be had. When Clinton put pressure on the
Chief, the Chief put pressure on the eggplant, who put pressure on Fiona.
"You go," he ordered her.
"Me?"
"Yeah. Only watch your mouth."
She met him at the Regency Hyatt, her first mistake. She
would have been better off meeting him in the ugly anteroom that served as an
interrogation spot for suspects. Windowless and stinking of stale smoke and
fear, the room itself always gave her the upper hand. But the hotel cocktail
lounge, dark and cool with its lush ambience, designed for salesmanship and
seduction, caught her off guard, softening her up for what she would later refer
to as the romantic kill.
Not that he was consciously seducing her. He was
professional to a fault.
"His father is up for a federal judgeship."
"It's the son, not the father."
"I know," he said. "I have two myself."
The remark further disarmed her. Or was it the chemistry of
the man himself, that shock of curly gray hair? Almost from the beginning, she
wanted to shove her fingers through it. He reminded her of Bruce. Was she
destined always to be attracted to the same type of man?
"The kid got drunk. He picked up a floozy then ran her
over. Pure accident. What has that got to do with the father?" She was
oddly defensive.
"I spoke to the man. He blames himself."
"Then he's a fool."
"He blames himself anyway."
"Only because it hurts his chances. Bad publicity. I
know the disease."
"Hey," he said. "I know the guy. He really
loves the boy."
"I thought newspapermen are supposed to be
neutral."
He shrugged and emptied his glass. "There's no law
against compassion." Behind the words, she caught his vulnerability, drawing
her interest. She saw, too, that he hadn't bargained for the intimacy.
"I've never been a parent," she said, sipping her
martini.
"I owe it to the guy not to make it seem lurid. We all
give our kids too much. He had a car, too much pocket money."
"Are you talking about him ... or yourself?"
"Generally. As a father."
He'd made her uncomfortable. Maybe she was getting too
hard, too indifferent. As if to compensate, she spelled out the facts again.
"Now who's to blame?" she said when she had
finished. By that time, too, her martini had disappeared. "The girl had
thrown away her life, walking a treadmill to hell. All the boy was looking for
was a thrill." Her anger was disturbing--something about the man had
touched her, shaken her.
"Will it really hurt his chances?" she asked.
"Yes."
"But that's unfair."
"What's that got to do with it?"
He had put away his notebook and ordered them another
round. There was a long silence as she felt his gaze, like a warm tide, lap
over her. The feeling, although long dormant, was a familiar one. Her business
was finished. She knew she could get up and leave, refuse the second martini,
run like a bunny. She stayed, although she made an attempt to blunt the
onslaught.
"Aren't you going to ask?" she said in an attempt
to ungrapple their greedy mutual stares.
"Ask what?"
"Why a cop."
"Is that what I was going to ask?"
"They all do."
Her guard was down by then. She felt foolish and afraid,
open and vulnerable. Does it happen like this sometimes? She hadn't the will to
unlock her eyes from his. Her heart was pumping furiously. Watching him, she
sensed the mystery of attraction.
Her mind told her to be clinical. Was he a widower,
divorced? At her age, she could confront that kind of second choice. I won't
ask, she decided. By then it was too late.
A few days later, he invited her for dinner. They went to a
restaurant in Prince George's County, far off the beaten track. He's married,
she realized, noting the restaurant's darkness and his nervous glances as they
entered. But she was too far gone, even then.
His knees were pressed against hers and they held hands
under the table.
"This is utterly absurd," she told him.
"You're telling me."
They had lots of wine and talked a great deal about their
childhoods. Everything they told each other seemed important. She discussed her
parents.
"I am my father's child," she told him,
explaining how for three generations the FitzGeralds were in the
"farces." "Wrong sex. Wrong town. But right occupation."
"And your old man? Is he proud of you?"
"He'd never admit that. But he doesn't have to. I can
tell how his eyes light up when he sees me."
"So do mine."
He was from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a country boy.
He had started on a weekly paper.
"Will you be happy in your new job?" she asked.
"Happy?" he mused. "What's that?"
He drove her back to her apartment in his car and they
grappled with their first kiss in the front seat.
"You're not coming up," she said firmly. His
kisses had sobered her.
What followed was a kind of trench warfare. As soon as she
had gained one trench, she crawled out of it to another.
"I will not have an affair with a married man,"
she told him, although she couldn't resist meeting him for drinks or an
occasional dinner.
"And I don't want to subject you to that."
"So there. It's settled."
"But I love you."
"Don't say that. Save it for your wife."
"I don't love her."
"Then why do you stay with her?"
"Because I'm responsible."
"Well, so am I. I'm responsible to myself."
"How do these things get started?" he had asked.
"You started this one."
"I was only doing my job."
"What do you think I was doing?"
The questioning stimulated their excitement. He called her
at odd hours and they went over it again, protesting their involvement, until
finally she had let him come up for a final parlay.
"For a cop, this is very undignified," she said,
when within seconds of entering her apartment, he was undressing her in the
foyer. When he felt her gun he stopped momentarily, and without a word, she
undid it herself.
Later, nestled against his naked body, she told him:
"This doesn't mean we're involved." It was a refrain that was to last
the first few weeks.
Under the circumstances, the logic was convoluted. At
first, she chalked it up to a powerful sexual attraction between them. The
uncontrollable force that transcended logic and caution. They were certain it
would burn out quickly. It didn't.
"I wish I were a courageous man," he told her. By
then, he had outlined his life. He was a Midwesterner in outlook and spirit.
The simple verities were programmed into him. "Home. Hearth. Church.
Family. That's me."
"And girlfriend on the side," she pointed out.
"I'd never done this before."
"That's supposed to be my line."
The morning trysts were his idea--it left him free of
suspicion. At least he was honest, she assured herself, going along with the
arrangement.
They settled into an odd-hour affair, discreet, passionate
and anguished, contrary to all rules she had set up to protect herself. She was
now part of a peculiar Washington subculture, the other woman. It was a
debilitating, painful, masochistic role. It doomed her to lonely nights, a
flood of tears on an icy pillow, unbearable longings. Days were lived by rote
on the edge of anger and despair, her concentration spoiled, her sense of
individuality and achievement sullied.
But nature's compensation was bountiful. Their moments
together overflowed with joy, psychic and sexual, with an intense mutuality
that, she was certain, came rarely in anyone's lifetime. This was the real
thing, transcending words and reason.
"Why you?" she asked aloud, or to herself a
thousand times.
"Why you?" was his inevitable response.
During those moments of practicality and lucidity between
their lovemaking, they would broach "the subject," their sword of
Damocles. Ann Chase, Clint's wife, worked as an AA, administrative assistant,
for a Colorado senator, Charles Hurley. When Clint spoke of her, it was always
with regret. Whenever Fiona called that to his attention, he would look at her
in disbelief.
"Maybe," he finally agreed. Between frantic
encounters they would lay in each other's arms, wallowing in self-analysis.
"She was a devoted, loving housewife for fifteen years. Then she became a
super-achiever and our marriage came second, or third." He stole a glance
at her and winked. "I wouldn't be here if she hadn't changed."
Why is he risking it all, Fiona wondered.
"Have you ever discussed it?"
"As an exercise. Not a final exam."
"I don't understand," she pouted, just this side
of pressuring him. She had her own risks to run.
"Neither of us wants to torpedo the ship," he
said. "The kids ... they still need the family concept." His
hesitation when this came up was always pronounced. "Then there's this new
job."
He had explained earlier that his wife's employment by a
powerful senator had gotten him the appointment.
"I took it. We needed the money. It's nearly ten grand
more than the newspaper job."
"So you're a vassal," Fiona had said, cruelly.
She was angry and wanted it to hurt.
"Not a vassal. A hostage."
"And if she finds out about us?"
"Let's not think about it." Obviously, he thought
about it all the time. Also, he admitted he liked the new job and all its
perks. Where is love in all this, she wondered?
Nowhere. He was frightened, stealing happiness.
"And what about the future?" she would ask. It
had become her most persistent theme.
"Not now," he would beg off, just as
persistently.
"When then?"
Was this Fiona, who could look convention in the eye and
spit at it? It was appalling to her to be reduced to such a whimpering fool.
The low point of their relationship was the weekends, which
he always spent with his family. She dreaded those weekends when she was
off-duty; they became a sentence of abject loneliness. Mooning around the
apartment, she seemed to spend most of her time staring at the telephone,
waiting for it to ring when he had found a safe moment.
The last weekend had been the worst. The rainy gloom seemed
to permeate her bones, prompting her resolution to end this servitude
immediately, a resolve that, predictably, lost its energy on Monday morning
when he came to her.
The jumper lying there in the mud at the bottom of the
bridge had a sobering effect on her paralyzed will. There but for the grace of
God, she thought dramatically, remembering the sight of the broken remains. Was
it possible that she, too, could find all other exits locked?
Inexplicably the experience had motivated her, and although
she had no set plan, she knew that the time had come for a change. She'd had it
with being a closet mistress.
He arrived unsuspecting, carrying flowers, and embraced
her. He was surprised when she pried herself out of his arms, a massive act of
will and self-denial on her part.
"In a good meal, timing is everything," she
whispered, hurrying to the kitchen, mostly to gather her strength.