Best Friends (16 page)

“It's getting late.” Only after making this statement did she lift and twist her slender forearm to consult the small gold watch. “I ought to get back with his prescriptions.”

“Wait a minute.” Roy was desperate. “Where does this leave us?”

“Sam assures me you agreed to lend him fifty thousand dollars.”

“I didn't want to mention this,” Roy said. “Doing so now is a defeat for my principles. But then what hasn't been, lately?” By accident he noticed his own hamburger. He had a violent urge to gulp it down in all its greasy-sweet-saltiness, simply to remove it from offending his sight. As an adolescent Sam could eat three Double Whammyburgers in succession, with attendant fries, shakes, whatever, at any hour of the day or night. Roy stared at Kristin. “You and he, in your different ways, have pushed me into a corner. I wouldn't give him another cent for himself. I'm sick of him and his troubles. I don't even like him.” If he had hoped to shock her, she showed no reaction. “He claims he's going to file for bankruptcy unless I lend him this money. What would that mean for your career?”

“He's lying,” she said levelly.

Roy would not affront her by asking the conventional, “Are you sure?” In all the world his faith was only in her. It had come to that.

“I'm sorry, Roy. She put her fine hand on his fingers. “I didn't have any idea, though I guess I should have figured it out if you didn't turn him down when I kept asking you to.”

“I hope you know I would do anything for you.”

She lowered her golden head. “I suppose I could if I let myself think about it, but I don't want to.” Looking up, she said in a voice angry in pitch but paradoxically soft of tone, “You're too damned gullible about him.
He doesn't wish you well.
”

Roy was embarrassed, not being used to this sort of candor, if such it was. Maybe he had misheard. “I don't understand.”

“Because you don't want to.”

“If you mean the money thing—well, he wasn't left penniless by any means, but people have strong feelings in that area. I overlook that kind of resentment, because it's not about anything essential, only money. I know Sam wouldn't cry his eyes out if I lost everything—I mean everything material. Maybe he'd even be pleased—okay, he probably
would
be pleased. I can accept that and not hate him for it. I can only hate somebody who betrayed me, and I'm sure Sam himself is the same.”

Kristin's smile was thin and unamused. “The question is what you'd see as betrayal.”

“It would have to be something personal, a violation of trust, something dishonorable.”

“And you don't think
money
could figure in it?” She was incredulous.

“You're right. It could concern anything elevated to importance. But money isn't that important to
me
—maybe because I haven't had to work as hard for it as many, uh, most people. But neither has Sam, after all.” He raised his eyebrows. “What you said was only that he doesn't wish me well. That's not so malevolent. He might feel like that even if he could score sometime with his business ideas.”

She leaned forward, as if to soften the impact of what she was about to reveal. “As unlikely as that would be, it wouldn't be enough, I assure you. You would have to fail as well.”

He wondered whether he should be suspicious of Kristin's motives. After all, he was only in love with her; he did not know her that well. But everything about being in love was new to him, as opposed to having a crush on, being attracted to, having the hots for, or loving friendship, at all of which he was a veteran hand. For a forgetful moment he found himself wishing he could talk it over with Sam. But to what avail would she unjustly defame her husband, or for that matter, with justice? So Sam resented him for his money. Was that not rather pathetic than hateful? The same judgment could be made about
him,
who envied Sam for having her.

“I only wish I had met you before he did.”

“But you did,” said Kristin. “You were wearing blue jeans and a navy T-shirt. You got out of a blood-red car of an exotic make I had never seen before. That was in front of the Main Street Pharmacy. I was a college freshman, home for the holidays. I stopped and asked you what kind of car it was, and you said, I've never forgotten, ‘Ferrari Testarossa.' You hardly looked at me.”

Roy was relieved to hear his delinquency had been so minor. For an instant he feared he had been introduced to her at some crowded party in years past, perhaps even chatted for a while, and did not remember the encounter because he had not then found her that attractive. “So much the worse for me,” he said now. “But you were just a kid.”

“I was only a couple years younger than you. I was also overweight with a mess of dirty-looking brown hair.” Kristin showed her perfect teeth in a happy ruthlessness toward a self that no longer was.

“What did I know?”

“Tell you the truth,” said she, “I scarcely looked at the car. You were the most handsome man I had ever seen.”

“Now I'm embarrassed,” Roy said in truth. “But you can't call that really meeting. The first time we actually met was that time at dinner with you and Sam, at Estelle's.”

Kristin became almost cheery. “I certainly wasn't going to remind you then of the Main Street incident! I recognized your date from the magazine covers.”

“Oh, yeah. The model. She was living around here that summer. Julie, uh…”

“Wethering,” said Kristin.

“She bought a mint Alfa Superleggera from me, a fifty-eight. I dated her only a few times. She was engaged. In fact, the car was a gift from her fiancé, Charlie Venuta, the movie director. He's got a well-known car collection on the Coast. He and Julie went separate ways before long, and he bought the Alfa from her! I still hear from Charlie on occasion, when he's looking for a special marque.”

“I've already said that I didn't much like you, but I still thought you were handsome, which made me dislike you more. All those stupid, weak women at your disposal.
You
seemed to be the sex object.”

He displayed a temporizing smile. “I'm trying to find a way to defend those poor women without too much self-serving.”

“You don't have to,” Kristin said in her tenderest tone. “I know they were neither stupid nor weak—if they were in any other way, it wasn't because of you.”

The waitress hovered briefly and left. Roy glanced toward the front of the restaurant, where a cluster of new arrivals had gathered. “I guess they want this booth. You're right about how popular this place is.” He turned back to her. “You say Sam isn't telling the truth about the supposed bankruptcy. Without question I believe anything I hear from you, of course. I will definitely turn him down.”

The waitress placed the check before him with one hand and, balancing a platter of food on the other, rushed on. Kristin looked as if she were about to speak, but decided against so doing and began to slide from the booth. Without examining the bill, Roy put a fifty-dollar note on top of it.

Outside, he walked Kristin to the Corolla, which still had not been washed. It was not unprecedented that a neglected car would have a perfectly groomed driver. The reverse was also true: there were slobs who maintained their everyday transportation as if for a concours d'elegance.

She unlocked and opened the door, releasing a wondrous fragrance from an interior warmed by the sun of early autumn. For the first time Roy suddenly felt physical desire for her. He had been liberated by the decision just made.

When seated inside, she lowered the window. “I'll take full responsibility. Don't feel you owe him an explanation.”

“Of course I do,” said Roy. “He's my friend. I can't hide behind a woman. It may be your wish, but it's my doing. I'm my own man. I guess I should welcome the chance to prove it.”

His hand was on the lower frame of the window. Kristin inserted her fingers between his, one by one, worming each into place, including that which wore the gold band, the only ring on either of her hands. This was as sensual an experience as he had ever known, but if he had admitted as much to himself, it would have broken his heart.

“Thanks, Roy.” She slowly withdrew her hand from his. “I'm so sorry.”

“For what?”

“I could say for everybody, and it might be true in a way, but it would mostly be a lie.” She stared through the windshield. “I'm sorry for myself, as most people are when they say they're sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't more attractive that time you got out of the Ferrari.”

He had to deal with the sense of him she had been given by Sam. “Contrary to what you might think, I don't put the moves on every female I meet, and some of those I do want to know further turn me down, not to mention that I don't always end up in bed with those who do go out with me.” It was the same account he had made more than once to Sam and his sister.

“Oh, I know that. But it doesn't matter.” After a quick intake of breath, Kristin asked, “When can we see each other again?”

The surprising question made it even more difficult to say what he had to. He bent to speak through the window. “I know Sam, at least in this way. He won't forgive me for turning him down when he learns that I'm aware he's lying. His pride couldn't take it.” He looked down at the hairline cracks in the asphalt between his feet. “As mine can't accept you being married to a guy like that when I want you so much. He's still my best friend, but I hate him at the moment. I don't have a strong enough character to choose one of those opposites over the other, and they can't be reconciled…. So the only way to handle it is by my lifelong technique of avoiding the issue. The only thing is, for once it really hurts.”

As if in wonderment, Kristin said, “I no longer think you're that handsome. I look at you in a completely different way. You're no longer
someone else.
”

For his part, he had never even touched her in fantasy. He finally gave a direct answer to her question. “I can't see you again.”

“No!” she said fiercely. “That can't be right.” There were quick tears in her eyes. “I won't let you go!”

Had the situation been otherwise, how ecstatic he would have been made by that assertion. But then she would not have been Sam's wife, and therefore he would not even have known her.

“Don't put your faith in me,” he said. “I can't visit the house on the old basis, and seeing you alone is out of the question.”

“
Why?
”

“After being with
me
you would go home to
him.
”

Someone nearby was shouting, someone with a persistent female voice that was sufficiently annoying to distract him, as he had not been distracted by the coming and going of cars in the parking lot.

He turned and scowled.

“Sir?” It was their waitress, running toward him, waving paper. “You didn't get your change.”

“That's for you.”

On reaching him she gasped for air. “A tip?…But that's like over a hundred percent.” She lowered her hand with its sheaf of bills.

“I want you to have it,” said Roy. Curbing his impatience, he added, “You work hard.”

He quickly turned back to Kristin, but in those few moments the car was gone. She had been parked just inside the lot, nearest the exit, and there was little traffic at the moment on Milburn Road, his view of which was restricted by shrubbery, but even so she must have driven as if pursued.

S
eymour Alt, who rarely ate lunch, was in the office but on another line. Roy left his cell phone number and stayed in the still-parked Jeep, in the Corral lot. He was suffering from the aftereffects of an affair he never had, which were much more confusing than those founded in the ineluctable facts of reality.

When Alt returned the call, the lawyer took the initiative. “The Holbrook business doesn't look good, Roy.
His
attorneys are staying hardnosed. They've come up with a shitsack of witnesses who say you beat him up bad and, believe it or not, they tracked down the Korean who was your karate teacher years ago.”

“Right now I want to know something about Sam. Did he talk to you this morning?”

“Kindly don't involve me in your romantic entanglements—unless of course you want to start one with my wife and get her off my back. I would cheer you on.”

“I'm not involved with Kristin Grandy!”

“Then you shouldn't look at her the way you do,” said Alt. “And vice versa. And if so, you fooled Jonathan, who called you two ‘lovebirds' when I ordered the champagne.”

“She's my best friend's wife,” Roy said icily. “I won't stand for the slandering of her character, which is flawless. Now answer my question: Did Sam call you this morning?”

“If he did, he didn't talk to me. I'll have Celia check the log.” Alt clucked. “You're getting mighty touchy for a fellow with your reputation. Relax. I told Jonathan that Kristin's too career-driven to waste her time on romance. She's not very popular at the bank; she's stepped on too many people on her way up. She's got her eye on upper management.”

“Has Sam ever mentioned asking me for a loan?”

“If that were a serious question, you know I couldn't ethically answer it. As it is, I'll just give a horselaugh at the idea of any sane person lending him fifty cents.”

The ethics of friendship should be at least as stringent as those of the attorney—client relationship, but having made the major renunciation in the name of principle, Roy got some satisfaction from saying, “I've lent him a lot of money over the years, in relatively small amounts, but what he asked for lately is sizable.”

“If you need my advice on the matter, you can infer it free of charge.”

“I don't need it.”

“Now, as for this Holbrook thing—”

“We'll talk about that later. I'm occupied at the moment.” For once Roy hung up first, and scarcely had he done so when the phone rang.

“Where in the world,” Mrs. Forsythe began, “have you been? I've been trying to find you for hours. Charlie Luger called from Indiana. He says that…uh, I've got it right here…Cord Eight-ten that he located, someone else is interested, and he has to know right away what kind of offer you will make if any.”

Roy was bored with everything. “I have to look at it first. I'm supposed to be out there in a couple weeks at the Evansville show. If the owner can't wait till then, let him sell it to the other person.”

“And then there's—”

“I'm not feeling well, Mrs. F. Kindly hold all calls until further notice. Take the rest of the day off if you like, and switch on the machine.”

“That's happened all too often lately, Roy. You really ought to get a doctor to look at you, because this isn't any way to run a business.”

Perhaps he should have pointed out that it obviously was not a business, but his psychic weariness was such that he could hardly hang up.

“You're
still
here?”

It was the waitress, who had come outside to smoke a cigarette. She had quite a pretty face, under soft brown bangs. Now that he actually looked at them, her eyes suggested she was somewhat older than her vivacity and lithe figure suggested.

“Yes.”

“I thought she was your wife, but if you drove separate cars, she's probably someone else's…. So am I.” She drew in and expelled some smoke.

“Good luck to you,” said Roy. He was so exhausted he could have gone to sleep with his face on the steering wheel.

She displayed a wry, crooked smile. “What was the idea in leaving that big tip? Because you felt guilty about not touching your orders?”

Roy bestirred himself, being, so to speak, a professional at kidding around with any woman who was even halfway attractive. “I was just trying to get your attention, Daisy.” He had just noticed the green nametag on the left bosom of her pink uniform.

“In case it didn't work out with your date?”

“You've nailed me.”

“No, I haven't,” said Daisy. “I'm not in your league, and you know it.” She held up her left hand. “Anyway, I'm married, and I'm almost forty.”

“That's a pity.”

“Don't be sarcastic. I'm married to a cop.”

“Some of my best friends are policemen. What's your last name?”

“Velikovsky.”

“Well, there you are! I've known your husband for some time. My name is Roy Courtright. Please give him my regards.”

“Believe me, Mr. Courtright, he'd be flattered if he thought you tried to pick me up. I really hate to tell him you didn't, but he wouldn't believe it if you had. We've been married fourteen years and have got three children.”

“You tell him I said he is a lucky man, Mrs. Velikovsky. I thought you were twenty-five. By the way, you should know that the lady I was with is Mrs. Grandy, the wife of my best friend, who's in the hospital.”

“Oh, I didn't think anything was inappropriate.” She took another puff, threw down her cigarette, and ground it beneath her shoe. “Break's over, got to get back. I hope you come here again, Mr. Courtright, and thanks a million.”

Roy wistfully watched her return to the restaurant. What a nice wife for a man to have. She had kept her looks, was fond of her husband, was surely a good mother. He had never doubted such women existed—in fact, if he could move beyond his natural brotherly disdain, the same could be said of Robin, who had left a successful career in public relations to devote herself to her small children and doted on Ross, a fine fellow…which reflection in turn reminded him he was delinquent in his familial duties. He had not been face to face with his sister in months though she lived just five miles away.

Impulsively he now dialed Robin's number.

“Hi, Robin.”

“Who
is
this?”

It wasn't starting well. “You don't recognize my voice?”

“Barely.”

“I just wanted, first, to say I was thinking about you.”

“And?”

“Well, I wish I had been a better brother.”

“Exactly what does that mean?”

He was stung. “You're not helping.”

“What am I supposed to be helping
with?
Are you drunk? You must have just finished lunch and are full of wine and Armagnac.”

“Oh, to hell with it.”

“
Now
you're the brother I know.”

“Wait a minute! Don't hang up, please. I don't want to bicker.” He cleared his throat. “How about a family get-together tomorrow? On me, of course. There's this nice place for kids out on Milburn Road, called The Corral.”

“I got rid of that slutty au pair,” said Robin. “She wanted to spend her night off with some biker thug in
my
house. And you have no idea of quite how sick you can get hearing a Polish accent day after day, no matter how cute it was in the beginning.”

“How about tomorrow?”

“Ross is flying to the Coast on Monday. I'd like to have a day with him around here.”

“Well, maybe some other time soon, then.”

“Roy,” Robin said with an edge to her voice, “you were seen last night having dinner alone with Sam Grandy's wife.”

“
Who
told you that?” Roy was furious.

“Mitzi Copeland saw you there,” said she, citing a shrewish pal.

It went against the grain to go through the explanation once again, especially to his sister, but Roy did so.

“Look.” Robin's tone, routinely petulant, turned nasty. “I wouldn't blame you, and I certainly wouldn't blame
her.
”

“Okay, you don't like him. Let's let it go at that.”

“That's what I've always done, Roy, but it might not last forever.”

“In fairness I should point out that though
you
dumped
him,
he's not the bitter one.”

She snorted savagely. “He's got no complaint against me.”

“Just do me a favor, if you will, Rob. It's not right to besmirch the character of his wife. Please set Mitzi straight if she mentions the matter again. Tell her you got the truth right from the horse's mouth—or horse's ass, if you prefer.”

“I can't remember you ever being that concerned with anyone else's reputation.”

“Maybe because I'm not a liar…. I'm serious about having a family Sunday. Maybe next weekend?”

“I'm getting a new au pair and she has to be broken in.”

“Check with you next week then,” said Roy. Then, doggedly returning to the motive that had caused him to call her in the first place, he added, “I love you, Rob.” Though the sentiment was sincere enough, he expected to get a barb in return. But he was only partially right.

“What brought that on?”

“Self-pity, if you like. You're really all I've got.”

“I like to think you might eventually get your act together, Roy. I really do.” This was probably as much warmth as he could expect from his sister unless he underwent a total transformation, i.e., discarded his cars, preferably at a considerable loss, and went into a real business; acquired a wife who would dominate him but be dominated by Robin and produce fewer children, worse-behaved and less talented than hers; and buy a comfortable home devoid of chic.

Nevertheless he said, “Thanks, Rob. Your good wishes mean a lot to me.”

“Mind not calling me Rob?”

“I thought you liked that.”

“I used to, but now I wonder if it doesn't sound like a guy's name.”

He had driven only about a mile on Milburn Road, heading back to town though without a conscious destination, when he saw, parked on the shoulder not far ahead, a car by now so familiar that the very sight of its dirty-beige drabness quickened his heartbeat. It was Kristin's Corolla, resting, though on a level surface, at a slight imbalance. From his high perch in the Grand Cherokee, the Toyota's right tire was not visible, but he knew it was deflated.

He brought the Jeep to a stop behind the other car and dashed to its window. Kristin's fair head was in her hands.

“Are you okay? You had a blowout?”

She lowered her hands from her distressed face. She showed no surprise in seeing him. “I did everything right,” she said with anger. “Didn't panic-brake, kept steering, and let the car slow itself. Came to a stop without damage—then, for no reason whatever, went into hysterics.” Her cheeks were flushed.

“That's normal enough,” said Roy.

“Damn. I just wish I could stop shaking. I must look like a fool.”

“I can say this, if it does any good: From outside I can't see any shaking. It doesn't look like you're moving a muscle. It's probably a nervous reaction.”

“Roy?” she asked. “Would you mind just holding me?”

He went around to the passenger's side and got in.

The strange fact was that when he first put his arms around her the experience seemed no more than the kind of superficial social embrace exchanged between members of opposite sexes (sometimes even man-to-man and performed by athletes and politicians) on meeting in public. But as it happened, he had never given Kristin such a hug. From the first, touching his best friend's wife in any way was covered by the same tacit taboo by which he and Sam never touched each other: These best friends, in twenty years of friendship, had never shaken hands.

Now his left arm was across her slender back, his hand cupping her shouldercap. His right hand was not yet in play. He did not know quite where to put it, for despite her request, Kristin at first did nothing to facilitate his compliance, maintaining her spine flush against the seat, bending forward only just enough for the insertion of his arm. He clasped rather than enclosed her, at the last inch of her narrow body.

The situation was altogether abstract until she finally leaned against him, her right arm against his left side. Slowly her head came into his neck.

“Thanks,” she murmured. “It does help.”

She was apparently more at ease than he. His prior experience of women went for naught. For an unthinking instant he wished he could compare notes with Sam, something he had never really done in the case of others, never having shared another with his best friend. Roy anyway was discreet about his liaisons. He had never had a taste for sexual gloating…. But then the moment at hand was not in the least sexual, nor was, seen from the corner of his eye, her sleek, styled hair and her fragrance, not nearly so erotic at close quarters as when it had been wafted from the interior of the parked car. She continued to be more idea than fact.