My Father's Wives (12 page)

“How nice.” Her smile appeared genuine. “How did you know where to find me?”

I was prepared for that. “My mother. She kept tabs on everybody all these years.”

Christine’s face clouded. “My goodness, she must hate me.”

“She doesn’t. My mother doesn’t hate anyone. She let it go a long time ago.”

“That’s nice of you to say.”

“I mean it. I wouldn’t lie to you about that.”

“Well, that’s very nice,” Christine said.

We were still holding hands. Two strangers distantly connected with nothing to say, nodding to fill the excruciating awkwardness.

“Can I buy you lunch?” I asked. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Of course. Where would you like to go?”

“It’s your neighborhood; why don’t you choose.”

“Do you mind a little walk?”

I turned to look out through the glass. “It’s a little cold.”

Christine burst into a sharp laugh. “My, you are just like your father. He couldn’t take the cold at all. Let me tell you, for Chicago
this
is not cold.”

“Well, how far are we talking about?” I asked. It seemed pretty cold to me.

“My goodness, take my arm and let’s go. A little suffering does a body good.”

An icy chill burst through me, stopped me in my tracks. I dropped her hands. “What did you say?” I asked.

“A little suffering does a body good. Your father used to say that all the time.”

THE WALK UP MICHIGAN
Avenue was brisk but beautiful. When the wind wasn’t roaring off the lake it wasn’t too bad; I was able to appreciate the venerable, iconic architecture of the Magnificent Mile, the Drake Hotel, the John Hancock Center. When the breeze blew harder I tugged my collar around my neck and shivered. Christine cackled all the way at how cold I was; she hardly seemed to notice the wind. “I grew up in Des Plaines, a little town about thirty minutes north and west of the city,” she said. “You get away from these tall buildings, that’s when you really feel the wind.”

“My father didn’t like the cold?” I asked.

“Not at all. Only came to Chicago in the spring. ‘No place in the world more beautiful in May,’ he used to say. ‘The trouble with Chicago is the other eleven months of the year.’” She changed her speech when she imitated him, not as much the voice as the cadence. It sounded familiar.

“What else did he used to say?”

She tugged my arm and pointed. “Here,” she said. “This is where we’re going for lunch. Let’s get you warmed up and then I’ll tell you anything you want to know about Percy.”

ACROSS MICHIGAN AVENUE FROM
the Hancock Center is the Bloomingdale’s building, six floors of upscale shops and eateries amid the wonderful smell of luxury and opulence.

“This is beautiful,” I said.

“It is my favorite place on a chilly day,” she said, and smiled. She hadn’t even bothered to zip her jacket. “Just coffee?” she asked. “Or are you hungry?”

“I’ll eat lunch if you will.”

“Perfect.”

On the sixth floor was a restaurant called the Oak Tree: coffee bar and bakery in front, hostess station behind, restaurant with panoramic views of the skyline in the back. I frowned at the cluster of people milling about the hostess. “Crowded,” I said skeptically.

Christine patted my hand. “Don’t you worry.” She led me directly through the crowd to a handsome young man in a vest and tie who was maintaining a pleasant disposition while people complained about how long they had been waiting. When he saw us, he smiled broadly. “Mrs. Sweetwater,” he said. “How nice to see you.”

“Hello, Gerald,” Christine said. “I’d like you to meet someone. This is Jonathan. Technically, he’s my stepson.”

Gerald extended a hand. “Pleasure,” he said. “Just wait here a minute.” He disappeared into the kitchen, returned before the door finished swinging. “Will you meet Maria in the coffee bar?”

“Of course. Thanks.” Christine yanked me by the arm and we pushed through the crowd again. By the bakery counter stood a gorgeous blonde holding menus.

“Nice to see you, Mrs. Sweetwater. Right this way.” She led us through a back door into the kitchen, where the temperature rose at least twenty degrees. We exited through a door on the opposite side into the rear of the restaurant, where a table for two was waiting against the window.

“This is perfect,” I said. “Thank you so much.”

“Enjoy,” said the blonde.

I held Christine’s chair for her and then sat opposite, unrolling a yellow cloth napkin. “Nice to have connections,” I said. “How did you manage that?”

“Tip well,” she said. “And marry a senator.”

CHRISTINE ORDERED THE CHEF’S
salad. I had a ham and cheese omelet. We both drank iced tea. She sat with her back to the window,
observing the room, leaving me the sensational view. No matter how gray the sky, there is something wonderful in the view of a big city at midday.

We made a great deal of pointless chat while we ate. She was waiting for me to start asking questions, and I suppose I was waiting for that too. Meanwhile, I enjoyed her company. Christine had a brazen quality, like a woman who’d spent a lot of time being judged and finally didn’t give a damn anymore.

“So,” she said after the dishes had been cleared and we were drinking coffee. “Tell me about your family.”

“They are well, thank you.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” she said, stirring a third spoonful of sugar into her cup. “Who are they?”

I shook my head. “Of course. My wife is Claire. She grew up in New York, as I did. We live in suburban Connecticut now and have two children, a girl and a boy.”

“How old is the girl?”

“She’s nine. Going on nineteen.”

Christine leaned back in her chair. “If I have one regret in my life it’s that I never had a daughter. I think I would have made a wonderful mother to a girl.”

“Did you have a son?”

“No, but that doesn’t bother me nearly as much.”

“Well, you would love Phoebe, she’s a piece of work,” I said.

“Phoebe,” she said, running the name across her tongue like a taste of wine. “I love that name. Did you name her after the girl from
Friends
?”

“Actually, no. We named her after Holden’s sister in
The Catcher in the Rye
.”

“I always thought the one who played Phoebe on that show was the prettiest and the funniest but she seemed to get the least attention. I never understood that. So I’m glad you named your daughter after her. Even if you didn’t.”

I took a deep breath. “May I ask a few questions?”

“Are you paying for lunch?”

“I would be honored.”

Christine smiled. “Then you can ask anything you want.”

“Why did you and my father divorce?”

She shrugged. “He found someone else. Makes sense if you think about it. Our relationship began when he was married to someone else, so why would I have expected otherwise?”

“So you were involved in a relationship with my father when he was still married to my mother?” I’m not sure why I phrased that as a question. I knew the answer, and she knew I knew.

“I suppose I should apologize to you,” she said, “but it seems well past the time for that. If I were to see your mother I would apologize to her. In fact I would like to, because if she felt anything like I did when it happened to me, then an apology is the least I could do.”

“Do you mind if I ask how old you are?”

Christine didn’t answer, nor even look in my direction. She just went on stirring her coffee.

“I’m sorry if that’s an inappropriate question,” I said.

“It is inappropriate and I wouldn’t tell almost anyone else the answer,” she said slowly, “but I
did
break up your parents’ marriage so I guess I owe you one.” She took a sip. “I’m sixty-one years old.”

“So you’re ten years younger than my mom.”

“Almost exactly. I just had my birthday last week and if memory serves, your mother’s is next week. Is that right?”

I nodded.

“Percy always used to say I was
exactly
ten years younger.”

“How did he say that? Like bragging?”

Christine shook her head. “The opposite. The press gave Percy a hard time about my age. Remember, I was almost thirty years younger than he was. But he would counter by saying, ‘She’s only ten years younger than Alice,
that’s
the number that counts.’”

It made me uneasy to hear her use my mother’s name. “How did
he get away with that?” I asked. “The press would destroy someone for that today.”

“That’s true, but things were different then. Plus, they loved your father.”

“The press did?”

Christine leaned in over the table. “Jonathan, I assume you already know this, but
everyone
loved your father.”

“I know that,” I said. “I’m here because I’m trying to figure out why.”

“It isn’t easy to explain,” Christine said, her eyes glancing upward, less toward the ceiling than toward the past. “He had enormous energy that was very magnetic; I never recall hearing him say he was tired. He was amazingly intelligent, as you must know; I never met a smarter man in all my life. And he knew everything. Go find another man who understands economic policy, orders wine in French, and plays Gershwin on the piano. I dare you.”

Right then I knew the trip had been worthwhile. That was the best explanation of my father I had ever heard. “Can I ask you something else?” I said.

She nodded pleasantly.

“What happened at my ninth birthday party?”

Christine sighed heavily. “What do you remember about it?”

“I don’t really remember anything except my mother shouting at Percy in front of everyone. It’s the only time I remember her acting that way, even to this day. And I know I never saw my father again.”

“And you have no idea why?”

“I have some idea,” I said, “but I’m not clear on all of the details.”

Christine paused. Then she said, “Okay, I guess I owe it to you. That day, Jonathan, was the biggest mistake your father ever made.” She took a sip of coffee, stared right into my eyes. “As I’m sure you know, Percy famously said we are the sum total of the decisions we make. Well, he was right. And he was a brilliant man who made thousands of decisions in his life. The one he made that day was probably
the worst. Your mother told him she never wanted to see him again and I couldn’t blame her, and neither could Percy. He went away and stayed away, and he respected your desire not to have a relationship with him. So it cost him his son and it probably cost him something else that was even more important to him.”

“What was that?”

Christine waved the question away. “Let me tell you what happened first, because I think it is important that you know he didn’t mean to create the harm he did. Your father was a self-centered man, but he wasn’t mean. There was no malicious intent on his part.” She took another sip of the coffee, leaving a tiny smudge of red on the rim of the cup, which she wiped away with her thumb. “As you know, I was your father’s personal secretary. It was a dream job for me. I was a girl from the suburbs of Chicago. I didn’t have many skills but I had one that became legendary: I could type. In those days typing still mattered; in fact to be a secretary it was about all that mattered. And I was the best. The fastest you ever saw. I won competitions; I was the fastest and most accurate typist in the state of Illinois. When I finished high school I moved to the city and lived with my aunt on the northwest side, and I got a job at city hall as a secretary. Pretty quickly I moved up because my typing was so good, and within a year I was working directly for Mayor Daley. You probably know how close Daley was to your father; that was how I met Percy. Some of the girls in the office who knew him bragged about my typing. He told me he needed to see for himself. He was very charming and funny; he dictated a make-believe letter to the Kremlin with all sorts of threats and jokes and it had everybody howling. I was in love with him immediately, of course. And he was flirting, I could tell. That’s how it began. Before I knew it, I was moving to Washington and working on Capitol Hill.”

The restaurant had emptied around us. A light rain was falling again, the tiny drops streaking the windows.

“I knew he was married. Should that have stopped me? I guess it should. But I honestly believe any woman in my position would have
done exactly what I did. Our relationship was in Washington, and only in Washington. I lived in his apartment in Georgetown and we barely made any effort to hide that. Your mother stayed in New York, so when he was there he was with her and when he was in Washington he was with me. I don’t know exactly when your mother knew about us but she had to. She was no idiot, and like I said, we didn’t make much effort to conceal it. I regret that part of it now; it had to be humiliating for your mother. But I was a kid and I was sleeping with one of the most powerful men in the world, so I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

The waiter approached the table but she shooed him off without looking in his direction. Her eyes never left mine. “This went on for years, Jonathan. Your mother hardly came to Washington in all the time I worked for Percy, and when he went home to New York I stayed behind. I only traveled with him when it was absolutely necessary, and when I did I stayed in a hotel away from the family.”

“Until my birthday party.”

“That’s right.” She sighed lightly. “Percy needed me on that trip because he was addressing the United Nations. He wrote all his own speeches, you know. He would write them by hand on a legal pad and then I would type them up for him; I knew exactly how he liked them. That was a big speech so he wanted to work on it right to the last minute. I was staying at the Waldorf, finishing up the speech, when he rang me from the front desk. It was pouring rain, he said, traffic was miserable. He had planned to go to your party and then pick me up on the way to the UN but with the traffic he was worried it wouldn’t work, so he said to come down and we would stop at the party on the way. I didn’t think much of it. All the way in the car we were going over the speech. We got to the place where the party was and he told me he would just be a few minutes.”

“At my birthday party?”