Saving Grace (24 page)

“I’m your advocate,” Leeds said gently. “I’m your doctor, your rabbi, your father confessor. You tell me everything.”

Jonathan ran his fingers through his hair. “I made that company. They were nothing, they had nothing until Bo Johnson came to me. I made them; and now that fucker won’t even take my calls.”

“Do you own stock in Rencorp?”

“No.”

Christopher Leeds cocked his head, a bespectacled popinjay looking for a worm. “Your wife? Your children?”

“No one in the family.”

Leeds waited.

Very unhappily Jonathan said, “Michael held stock.”

“On your behalf?”

“His own as well.”

“I see,” Leeds said without expression. “Well, we must assume the prosecution has that information.”

“Michael wouldn’t... ” he began, but the worn-out mantra died in his mouth, flooding it with poison. He wrapped his arms around himself. “I know they’ll twist it. I know they’ll make it look dirty. But the honest-to-God truth is that investing in that company was a pure act of faith. Five years ago they were nothing: a room, two typewriters, and a three-legged desk. Today they employ two hundred people. They did it on their own. I enabled them, but they did it. I’m supposed to apologize for that? I’m proud of it!”

“But you had a fiscal interest in the company. By helping Rencorp, you helped yourself.”

Jonathan’s temper flared; but he told himself that Leeds wasn’t judging him, only playing devil’s advocate. “That’s incidental—it takes nothing away from the benefits to the community. On the contrary: if I profit from the public good, doesn’t that make me even more zealous in its pursuit?”

Astonishingly, Christopher Leeds giggled.

“Don’t look at the letter of the law,” Jonathan pleaded. “Look at the spirit. Weight the good I’ve done for others against the harm and tell me: which is greater?”

Leeds reached across the desk and pressed Jonathan’s hand. “In my eyes, there is no question. But the court doesn’t work that way. It’s either guilty or not guilty of the charges. ‘More sinned against than sinning’ isn’t one of the options.”

Jonathan looked down at the hand touching his, and suddenly his dream of the night before, which had teased at the edge of his consciousness all day, came back to him. He was golfing with Michael on an unfamiliar course. Jonathan hit his ball into a sand trap. When he went in after it, the trap turned out to be a bog. He sank down to his waist and still felt nothing underfoot. The more he struggled, the faster he sank. He screamed for help.
 
Michael stood watching with a furrowed brow. “Michael, hold out a club!” Jonathan cried, buried now to the chest.
 

His friend drew back, clutching the bag to his chest.. “Not these clubs!”
 

The quicksand lapped at Jonathan’s chin. “For God’s sake, man!”

“Sorry,
paisano,”
Michael said. “We’re not kids anymore.” He turned and walked away.

* * *

After leaving the men to their work, Lily found herself restless and sick of the house, once her refuge, now her prison. She called her hairdresser, who agreed to receive her at once, and left the house. At the gate she ran the gauntlet of reporters, who howled her name.

“I knew it,” Randall said the moment he laid eyes on her.
“You
didn’t say so, but I knew you would need color. Well,” he sighed, slipping on rubber gloves, “there goes lunch.”

“Sorry, Randy,” Lily said. “Things have been a little hectic.”

“Oh, I know, my dear, I read the papers. It must be terrible for you. But, Lily, you really cannot go on this way.”

“What can we do? It’s out of our hands.”

He stared at her in the mirror. “I was talking about your hair, dear.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s not lose our sense of proportion,” Randy said, mixing chemicals in a bowl. “Scandals come and go; hair is forever. Everyone has troubles. I had a woman in here last week—hold this, please—in one month she lost her father and her mother. They come home from the mother’s funeral, and out of the blue her husband tells her he’s leaving her for another woman, some young gal from his office. On top of this, the bum has the nerve to try for custody of the children. Last Monday she comes in, she tells me, ‘Randy, just a quick fix. I don’t have time for anything else, I’m going to court today.’ ‘Not like that, you’re not,’ I tell her; I stand her in front of the mirror. ‘Look at yourself, my dear,’ I say. ‘You’re a mess. The judge will take one look at that face and say to himself, “This woman is not coping.” ‘ “

As he spoke, Randy deftly sorted out strands of hair, painted them with a small basting brush, and wrapped the hairs in foil. “To make a long story short, I did not let her out of that door until we had her looking beautiful—hair, nails, makeup, the whole works. P.S., she went to court and the judge awarded her custody.”

“Poor woman,” Lily said, wondering who she could be. Sometimes, though, she suspected that Randy’s stories were apocryphal; he seemed to have a customer for every occasion.

“The point is, appearances count. They count more than guilt or innocence, more than right or wrong. I’d much rather read about you in the society columns, Lily dear, but if I must see your name on the front page, I want it to read, ‘the beautiful and elegant Lily Fleishman.’ “

“‘Hair by Randall Gray,’ “ she added with a smile.
 

“Absolutely. Perhaps a discreet little tag... ”
 

They burst out laughing and once she started, Lily couldn’t stop. She laughed until tears streamed down her face. She felt so safe in Randy’s chair, so well-protected.

They went a long way back, she and Randy, so far back that it was he who had presided over the sacrifice of her beautiful long hair to Jonathan’s burgeoning political career. When Randy had left the Martindale establishment where he worked to open his own salon, Lily went with him. Even after they moved to Highview, she came faithfully, bringing her new, fashionable friends with her. Randy’s reputation grew, along with his prices. He expanded the store, added manicure and makeup departments, and eventually opened a second salon in East Hampton, where he catered two days a week between Memorial Day and Labor Day to his migrant birds of fashion.

He was a lifelong bachelor with campy mannerisms. People who didn’t know him well assumed he was gay; in fact, Randall Gray was a closet heterosexual. He was discreet, but his lovers weren’t always; Lily knew two Hampton women who had been his mistresses, and suspected a third. Though Randy had never made any advance toward Lily, more than once she had caught him gazing at her with more than hairdresserly regard; but when she noticed, he would sigh theatrically and say, “Lord, what an artist I am.” She called him her Pygmalion; and in her honor, he named his salons Pygmalion East and West.

He had never visited Lily’s home, nor she his. They had never shared a meal, seen a movie, or taken a walk together; yet they were friends, and Lily confided more in him than in anyone else.

Leaning back in the chair, Lily closed her eyes and surrendered to his competent ministrations. The familiar buzz of the salon soothed her spirit: laughter and the high-pitched clatter of gossip, the endless dialogue of the hair washer and the manicurist, the swish of the broom wielded by a sweet-faced young girl who served coffee in between rounds. Suddenly she heard a familiar bray of laughter, and she opened her eyes to find Margo bearing down on her.

“Lily, you naughty girl, where have you been?”

“Hello, Margo.”

“Don’t ‘hello Margo’ me! Why haven’t you returned my calls?”

“Do you mind!” It was hard to say what bothered Randy more—Margo’s intrusion on his work or her harassment of his favorite.

“Oh, don’t fuss, Randy. Darling, I’ve been worried sick about you.”

“I’m sorry, Margo. It was good of you to call. I just didn’t want to impose my troubles on my friends.”

“Who else can you impose them on? Jonathan’s got his own, poor man. Lily, I am so furious at those goddamn reporters I could spit. Such filthy lies!”

“It’s very strange,” Lily said. “I can’t tell you how strange. It’s as if someone pulled the rugs out from under your feet and you look down and see there’s no floor.”

Randy shuddered. “That reminds me, did you see the revival of
Metamorphosis?
Baryshnikov was absolutely brilliant. Imagine waking up one morning and finding you’ve turned into a cockroach.”

“Oh, please,” Margo said, “you should see how I wake up in the morning.” She looked at Lily. “Why weren’t you at Christina’s last weekend? Everyone was there. She told me you’d accepted.”

“That was before.” No need to say before what.

“But, Lily, darling, what’s the point of sitting home feeling sorry for yourselves when you’ve got tons of friends dying to show their support?”

“Tons of friends? You’re the only one who called.”

Margo said nothing for a moment. The little sweeper came over, bearing coffee: sweet and light for Margo, black for Lily. “They don’t want to intrude,” Margo said. “They feel awkward. It’s not like a bereavement, when everyone knows the form. One can’t send a card: ‘So sorry to hear of your indictment.’ “

“It hasn’t come to that,” Randy said sharply. He tilted Lily’s head downward to work on the back. “Margo, get washed.”

“In a minute. Lily, I’m having a little get-together Saturday evening, nothing elaborate, just a few old friends. Why don’t you and Jonathan come?”

“Thanks, Margo, but I don’t think Jonathan’s in a very sociable mood.”

“Then come yourself. Come early, so we can talk. I won’t take no for an answer, Lily. Just because your husband’s unaccommodating is no reason for you to be in purdah.”

Lily laughed. Margo’s aggressive warmth had melted her icy cocoon; just for a moment, she was tempted to accept. Randy was giving her significant nods and winks in the mirror.... She was startled by her own reflection, failing for a moment to recognize the silver-snaked Medusa head as her own.

“Isn’t it funny,” she said, “how, to become beautiful, we must first make ourselves hideous?”

“Shut up, Lily, or I’ll slap a mud pack on your face,” Randy said.

Lily wished her time in Randy’s chair would never end, that she would never have to go home. Margo put her face close to Lily’s and said earnestly, “You remember when Jerry had that trouble with the IRS two years ago and we had to sell the Palm Springs condo? He got so depressed, he damn near dragged me down with him. Finally I got it through my head that Jerry is Jerry and I am me, and that no matter how much you feel for your husband, you’ve got to be your own person.”

“It sounds good.” Lily sighed. “If only saying made it so.”

“Saying doesn’t make it so;
you
have to make it so. Will you come?”

“It’s kind of you to ask, but I’d just spoil everyone’s evening.”

Margo drew herself up. “Really, Lily, who do you think we are? Maybe your political friends are pulling up stakes—to hell with them if they are—but we are made of sterner stuff. We judge our friends by the really important things, like how they dress and the quality of their parties.”

Lily dissolved in laughter. Now she knew how Alice had felt in Wonderland. Everything she’d thought was solid—her marriage, her family, Jonathan’s political standing—turned out to be built on sand; while all she had taken for froth was turning out bedrock. “I’d like to come,” she said. “I’ll ask Jonathan.”

Driving home, she rehearsed her arguments. “It would do us good to get out,” she told the rearview mirror. “Hiding at home is like admitting guilt. Appearances count.” She was in such a good mood that as she drove up to the pack encamped by their gate, she did a Reagan: cupped her ear and shrugged regretfully.

Outside the garage stood a black-and-white New York City police car.

Lily’s first thought, oddly, was that something had happened to Grace.

She ran into the house through the kitchen, then followed the sound of men’s voices to the front hall. Lily stopped dead. The door was open. Standing in the portico, facing her, were two uniformed New York City cops. Her husband stood with his back to her; in front of him, a barrier between him and the police, was Christopher Leeds. As she watched, one of the policemen handed an envelope to the lawyer.

Jonathan looked around, pale beneath his tan. His eyes passed over her without registering her presence.
 

Suddenly Greta was in the room, standing just behind Lily, singing softly but distinctly in her ear:

Three blind mice, three blind mice,

See how they run, see how they run.

They all ran after the farmer’s wife,

She cut off their tails with a carving knife;

Did you ever see such a sight in your life

As three blind mice?

17

THEY STOOD ON THE COURTHOUSE STEPS in a glare of blinding light. Jonathan and Lily, arm in arm, faced the cameras; his face was somber, hers wore a nervous hostess’s smile. At Christopher Leeds’s insistence, they did not speak, but were dressed to make speech superfluous. Jonathan’s conservative dark suit, ivory shirt, and striped tie asked the question: Is this a man who would sully his hands? Lily’s white linen dress was immaculate, yet something about the crimson scarf around her throat and her air of exquisite dignity evoked the image of Jacqueline Kennedy emerging from
Air Force One,
stained with her husband’s blood.