Five Days in Paris (22 page)

“I'm sorry it's been such a lousy summer,” Peter said sadly, sitting down on the bed, as Katie put a stack of sweaters away in a box with mothballs.

“It wasn't that bad,” she said kindly, glancing at him over her shoulder from the top of a short ladder.

“It was for me,” he said honestly. He had been miserable all summer. “I've had a lot on my mind,' he said in an oversimplified explanation, and Kate smiled at him again, and then her eyes grew serious as she watched him. She was thinking of her father.

“So has my dad. This hasn't been easy on him either.” She was only thinking about Vicotec. Peter was thinking about the extraordinary woman he had met in Paris. Olivia had made coming home to Katie nearly impossible. Kate was so independent and so cool, so willing to function without him. They didn't seem to do anything together anymore, except see their friends at night occasionally, and play tennis with her father. He wanted more than that. He was forty-four years old, and suddenly he wanted romance. He wanted contact with her, he wanted comfort, and friendship, and even some excitement. He wanted to snuggle next to her, and feel her flesh next to his. He wanted her to want him. But he had known Katie for twenty-four years, and there was very little romance left between them. There was intelligence, and respect, and a variety of shared interests, but he didn't stir when he saw her lie next to him, and when he did, she usually had phone calls to make, or a meeting somewhere, or an appointment with her father. They seemed to miss every opportunity to make love, to be alone, just to laugh sometimes, or sit around and talk, and he missed it. Olivia had shown him just exactly what he was missing. And in truth, what he had with her, he had never had with Katie. There was a kind of heady excitement to everything he did with Olivia that took his breath away. Life with Katie had always been more like going to the senior prom. With Olivia, it was more like going to the ball with a fairy princess. It was a silly comparison, and it made him laugh when he thought about it, and then he saw that Katie was staring at him.

“What are you smiling at? I was just saying how hard this has all been on my father.” He hadn't heard a word she was saying. He'd been dreaming of Olivia Thatcher.

“That's the price you pay for running a business like ours,” Peter said matter-of-factly. “It's a huge burden, and a tremendous responsibility, and no one said it was going to be easy.” He was tired of hearing about her father. “But I wasn't thinking about that just then. Why don't you and I go somewhere? We need to get away.” Martha's Vineyard hadn't been the restful vacation it had been in previous years. “Why don't we go to Italy or someplace else? Maybe the Caribbean, or Hawaii?” It would be different and exciting just being there with her, and he thought maybe a trip like that would put a little life back into their marriage.

“Now? Why? It's September, I have a thousand things to do, and so do you. I have to get the boys into school, and we have to take Mike to Princeton next weekend.” She looked at him like he was crazy, but he was persistent. After all these years, he had to at least try to keep them together, “After we get the kids settled in school then. I didn't mean today, but maybe sometime in the next few weeks. What do you think?” He looked at her hopefully as she came down the ladder and he wanted to feel more for her than he did. But the agony was that he didn't. Maybe a trip to the Caribbean would change that.

“You have to go to the FDA hearings in September. Don't you have to prepare for that?”

He didn't tell her that no matter what her father said, he had no intention of going, and he wouldn't let her father go either. They couldn't perjure themselves on the remote chance that all the problems would be solved sometime before Vicotec hit the market. “Let me worry about that,” was all he said to her, “just tell me when you can get away, and I'll plan it.” The only thing on his schedule were the congressional hearings on pricing he had finally agreed to appear at. But he knew that, if he had to, he could postpone his appearance. It was more a matter of courtesy and prestige than a life-and-death situation. To him, their marriage was far more important.

“I've got a lot of board meetings this month,” Katie said vaguely, and opened another drawer full of sweaters. And as Peter watched her work, he suddenly wondered what she was really saying.

“Would you rather not go away?” If that was the case, he wanted to know it. Maybe there was something bothering her too, and then he had a sudden thought that hit him like a bolt of lightning. Had she had an affair too? Was she in love with someone else? Was she avoiding him? It could have happened to her too after all, though it had never even occurred to him, and he felt suddenly foolish at the realization that she was just as vulnerable as he was. She was still attractive, and fairly young, and there were a lot of men she would appeal to. But Peter had no idea how to ask her if that had happened. She was always fairly cool, and somewhat prim, and asking her if she'd ever had an affair was out of the question. Instead, he narrowed his eyes at her as she threw some more mothballs in another box of sweaters. “Is there some reason why you don't want to take a trip with me?” he asked as bluntly as he could, and she finally looked up at him, and gave him an answer which annoyed him greatly.

“I just don't think it would be fair to my father right now. He's upset about Vicotec. He has a lot on his mind. I think it would be really selfish of us to go lie on a beach somewhere while he sits in the office and worries.” With difficulty, Peter tried to hide his aggravation. He was sick of worrying about Frank. He had been doing just that for eighteen years now.

“Maybe right now we need to be selfish,” Peter pressed her. “Doesn't it worry you sometimes that we've been married for eighteen years, and we don't pay much attention to us, or what we need, or our marriage?” He was trying to say something to her, but not set any alarms off while he did it.

“What are you saying to me? That you're bored with me, and you need to see me on a beach somewhere to put a little spice into it again?” She turned around and looked at him and for a moment he wasn't sure how to answer. She was much closer to the truth than he would have dared to tell her.

“I just think it would be nice to get away from your father, and the kids, and our answering machine, and your board meetings, and even Vicotec. Even here, we're hounded constantly by the fax machine, or at least I am, it's like being in the office, with sand. I'd just like to go away with you somewhere, where there are no distractions and we can talk, and remind ourselves of what it was we were crazy about when we first met, or when we got married.”

She smiled at him then. She was beginning to understand. “I think you're having a midlife crisis. And what I really think is that you're nervous about the FDA hearings, and you want to run away, and you're using me to do it. Well, forget that, young man. You'll be fine. It'll all be over in a day, and we'll all be proud of you.” She was smiling as she said it, and he felt his heart sink. She didn't understand anything, least of all the fact that he needed something from her that he wasn't getting, nor that he had no intention of going to the FDA hearings. The only thing he was going to do was appear before Congress about pricing.

“This has nothing to do with the FDA,” he said firmly, trying to sound calm, and refusing to discuss the hearings with her again. He got enough of that from her father. “I'm talking about us, Kate. Not the FDA hearings.” But one of the boys interrupted them then. Mike wanted the keys to the car, and Patrick was downstairs with two friends, and needed to know if there were any more frozen pizzas hidden somewhere, they were starving.

“I was just going to the store!” She called down to them, and the opportunity was lost. She turned and looked at her husband over her shoulder as she left their bedroom. “Don't worry, everything will be fine.” And then she was gone, and he sat on their bed for a long time, feeling empty. At least he had tried. But he had gotten nowhere, which was small consolation. She had no idea what he was talking about, and the only thing she could focus on was her father, and the hearings.

Frank mentioned them to him again at the party. It was like listening to a broken record, and Peter did his best to change the subject. Frank had been telling him to be a “good guy” and “go along with things” for a while. He was sure that their research teams would find all the bugs long before Vicotec hit the market, and they would lose face, and important ground, if they backed out now on asking for early release from the FDA. In Frank's mind, it would be a red flag signalling to the industry that their product had serious problems.

“It could take us years to live that down. You know what it's like once that kind of talk gets started. It could taint Vicotec forever.”

“We have to take that chance, Frank,” Peter said, with a drink in his hand. It was a litany he knew by heart now, and the two men remained glued to their polarized positions from each other.

As soon as Peter could, he walked away from him, and a little while later he saw Frank talking to Katie. He could guess what about, and it depressed him watching them. It was obvious to him she was not discussing their proposed vacation. And he knew without a doubt that that little plan would never come to fruition. He didn't say anything more about it to her that night. And for the next two days, they were busy closing up the house. It had never been winterized, and they wouldn't be back until next summer.

On the drive back to town, the boys talked about going back to school. Paul was looking forward to seeing his friends at Andover, Patrick wanted to visit Choate and Groton that fall. And all Mike could talk about was Princeton. His grandfather had gone there, and all his life he had heard about eating clubs and reunions.

“Too bad you didn't go there, Dad. It sounds so great.” But a degree earned at night from the University of Chicago was hardly Princeton.

“I'm sure it is great, son, but if I had gone there, I would never have met your mother,” he said, remembering their first meeting at the University of Michigan.

“That's a point,” Mike said with a smile. He was planning on joining his grandfather's eating club as soon as they would let him. He had to wait a year, but he was going to talk to some fraternities in the meantime. He had everything planned, and everything worked out already. And he talked about it all the way back to New York, which left Peter feeling left out, and somehow lonely. It was strange, he'd been one of them for eighteen years, and yet sometimes he still felt like an outsider, even with his own kids now.

And as they drove south, and the others weren't speaking to him, his thoughts drifted to Olivia. He remembered their talks in Montmartre the first night, and walking on the beach with her in La Favière. There had been so much to say, so much to think about. He almost hit another car as he let himself daydream about her, and everyone in the car shouted as he veered to avoid a collision.

“God, what are you doing, Dad!” Mike couldn't believe what had just happened.

“Sorry!” he said, and drove on more carefully, but she had given him something no one else had. He remembered too her saying that what he had accomplished had been thanks to him, and not the Donovans, but that was hard to believe, especially for Peter. It was so obvious to him that Katie and her father had made it all happen.

But as his thoughts drifted back to Olivia again, he wondered where she was now, if the story about her being in a hospital was true. Everything about it had seemed phony. It sounded like one of those cover-ups for a separation, or an affair, or a facelift, and he knew that in her case, at least two of those were unlikely. He wondered suddenly if, in spite of Andy's bid for the presidency, she had left him. And it was just like Andy to say she had gone crazy.

And two days later, he realized he'd been right, when he got a postcard from her in the office. It was sitting on his desk when he got back from lunch. There was a drawing of a little fishing boat on it, and the postmark said La Favière.

It was written in her small, careful hand, and was somewhat cryptic. “I'm back here again. Writing. At last. I'm out of the running for good. I couldn't do it. Hope all is well with you. Don't forget how brave you are. It's all
you. You've
done it all. It takes more courage to do it, than to run away, as I have. But I'm happy. Take good care. Love always.” And she had signed it simply '?.” But along with her words, he felt what was between the lines. He could still remember the hoarseness in her voice when she said she loved him. And he knew she still did, just as he loved her. He would always love her. She would live in his heart, and his memories, forever.

He read the postcard again, thinking about it. She was so much stronger than she knew. It was leaving that had taken the real courage, not staying, as he had. He admired her. And he was glad for her that she had escaped the life she led. He hoped she was happy there, and peaceful. And he was sure that whatever she was writing would be brilliant. She was so brave about what she felt, so willing to be who she was, to say what she was thinking. She sliced through the mists like a knife, as she had with him. There was no hiding with her, no falsifying anything. She was a woman who lived by the truth, no matter what it cost her. She had made her compromises too, and she admitted that. But she wasn't now. Olivia was free now, and he envied her, as he put the postcard away, hoping no one else had seen it.

The test results came in on Vicotec the next day, and they were better than he'd hoped, but in terms of an early release of the drug, they were disastrous, and Peter knew it. He was becoming a pro at interpreting them now, and even he knew what these meant, and so did Katie's father. The two men had scheduled a meeting to discuss them at length on Friday, and they met in the conference room next to Frank's office at two o'clock. Frank was waiting for him with a stern expression, already anticipating what Peter would tell him. And they wasted no time on chitchat, except to talk about Mike. Peter and Katie were taking him to Princeton the next morning, and Frank was visibly proud of him. But the moment that subject had been touched on, he turned back to serious business.