Woman on Top (12 page)

“So? What do you think, Ann? Do you like him?”

She sat quietly for a minute, and then glanced at Patrick who remained silent, nursing his drink.

“You’re the best thing to happen to him in twenty-five years,” she declared.

Me?

Len, who apparently had enough of the dinners with my friends, offered to take Chloe, Ben and me out for a meal at a sports bar near our home where we could watch the World Series. The Atlanta Braves were playing the Cleveland Indians and I frankly didn’t care. But Ben appeared psyched while Chloe quickly disappeared into her room.

McNale’s dark wood paneled walls were lined with three televisions and all three had the game already on. The place was packed, mostly with men, some with their young sons.

“The food here couldn’t be worse than the concession stands at a stadium, could it?” Len said while surveying the place.

Ben looked around and appeared thrilled to be at a guy’s place with a guy.

“I might leave you two alone,” I whispered to Len.

He nodded and I headed out the door after explaining to Ben that I wanted to keep an eye on Chloe. He hardly seemed to notice my exit.

At home, Chloe came downstairs when she heard me open the door.

“Where’s Ben?”

“With Len at McNale’s.”

“Hah. Good luck with that.”

Two hours later they showed up, barely moving their Buffalo wings and chips laden bodies into the house. Ben headed up to his room. Len looked relaxed and one might almost think content.

“He’s a great kid. We had a really good time.”

Couldn’t things always be like this with him? I hugged Len and kissed him gently on the lips. This meant more to me than any piece of jewelry he could possibly lavish on me.

CHAPTER 14

November

W
hile Len headed to Dallas one weekend for a meeting, I drove Chloe, Ben and my mother south to D.C. for my cousin Alan’s wedding. The entire family showed up - cousins, uncles and aunts - and we celebrated late into the evening. A ten-piece band completed the somewhat unsurprising atmosphere, a ballroom filled with two hundred guests. I missed having Len there that evening to introduce to my family but seeing my many cousins had definitely made the trip worthwhile. Chloe and Ben pooped out around midnight after dancing non-stop for hours.

It was long past midnight when the phone rang in the hotel room I shared with Chloe and Ben. We were sound asleep.

“Hi!”

I was thrilled to hear Len’s voice. From what I could tell, he was in the midst of a very crowded room.

“How was the wedding?”

He sounded drunk. His voice giddy as he slurred his words.

“Typical. I would have loved to have you here, have you meet everyone. How’re you feeling?” I asked.

“Great. We’re having a great time. I’m with the other partners.”

“You’ve had a few drinks, huh?”

“Yeah, quite a few. You wouldn’t believe it. The office manager from Dallas is here. She’s a blonde bombshell. She has the biggest tits you’ll ever see, we all want to fuck her.”

“Good night Len.” I hung up.

“Kate, if you want to be with me and my friends you’re going to need to be demure,” Len had lectured me just the week before.

“I’ll be demure, if you’re dignified,” I said.

Later that week one of his oldest friends told me of a dinner he had with Len in L.A. about five years earlier.

“The waitresses were gorgeous, with the largest fake boobs you’ve ever seen. Well, you should have seen Len. He was literally chewing on the table, reaching for these babes, he simply couldn’t contain himself.”

Len gritted his teeth and nearly fell off his chair as his friend continued to divulge the story. As Len teetered on the edge, I considered what a nice little kick to his chair might accomplish.

The weekend after his trip to Dallas, Len and his two closest friends went fishing in Florida. Len was a lousy golfer and refused to do anything in public he couldn’t excel at so fishing was a possibility. Short of catching the monster fish that could become legendary in men’s circles, it would be hard for anyone to judge him at his fishing skills. He had no patience for either golf or fishing, so I considered all of this an excuse to spend time with the guys.

Once Len had asked Ben to join him in a rare golf outing and had allowed Ben, only ten at the time, to drive the cart while Len and a friend watched from a distance.

“Ben drove the cart directly into me and flipped me over the front seat landing me on my back,” Len explained when they got back.

Ben hadn’t told me about this and I cringed, worried that Len had lost his temper. Although I worked hard not to laugh at the thought of Len knocked over by a ten year old.

“Ben just stood there waiting for me to scream so I said nothing. I knew he had no control of the cart.”

“Thank you for not yelling at him,” I said while breathing a huge sigh of relief.

I hugged Len and held onto him while I savored the moment. He had allowed what was probably a very embarrassing moment to pass without a word to Ben.

Len called me Friday night to say that the place where they were staying was a dump.

“I miss you terribly,” he said.

Saturday afternoon he called again to say that it had rained that day and he had stayed in his room and worked. Finally, on Sunday they fished. He called again on Sunday night.

“I told Brad and Bill that we’ll be married before I have a weekend like this again.”

I said nothing.

“You ought to get to know Brad and Bill well. They’re the trustees of my estate. If something happens to me, you’ll have to deal with them.”

He had told me just weeks before, “I just say things. You take them too seriously.” I wondered how seriously I should take what he had just said to me.

•  •  •

My calendar was loaded with work meetings, Little League, soccer practice, Sunday School, car pools, teacher’s conferences, trips to the orthodontist and everything else that suburban parents squeezed into their days. Chloe and Ben often went off for sleepovers with friends or had their friends camp out at our house. Meanwhile, I’d see Len one night on the weekend and once during the week while Myra, our wonderful au pair, stood watch over my children.

Managing the unpredictability of Len while working and juggling all the countless variables in Chloe and Ben’s life was no small feat. But I felt lucky to have the chance.

“If Chloe and Ben made plans to sleep at their friends’ houses tonight why don’t we stay at mine?” Len asked the following Saturday night.

We ate dinner that evening at a quiet, small restaurant near Len’s home. But it began to rain heavily as we headed to his car in the parking lot afterwards. The wind howled and the rain pummeled his car. Within twenty minutes we were safely ensconced in his warm, dry home.

“Go in the bedroom, get comfortable and I’ll bring some wine,” he said.

Turning on the lights as I headed upstairs, I heard the rain beating on the windows and wondered if any of the trees could be too close to the house and might do damage. In his bedroom, I undressed completely and slipped under the pale grey thick down comforter.

Len walked in with two large glasses of Pinot Noir and handed one to me.

“I can’t think of a better way to spend an evening like this,” he said.

He put down the glass, sat down on the bed next to me and began to kiss my lips and fondle my breasts. He stood up, took off his clothes and stood up naked.

“Cheers,” he said as he drank down the rest of his wine.

I sipped on my wine as Len got into the bed and began to rub his hand up and down my chest and belly. We were lost in each other on a stormy night and it felt heavenly.

When the phone rang I wasn’t even sure what it was at first, I had become so immersed in the pleasures of his body. It was late and only trouble called at that time. Len picked it up immediately and I could hear a loud male voice.

“What?” Len said.

He sat up and a controlled, rigid Len emerged from the sensuous man of moments before.

“When?”

His face contorted.

“I’m on my way.”

He jumped out of the bed, pulled on his clothes.

“Jennifer was in a car accident. That was Bernard. She’s at the hospital. Stay here. I’ll call you.”

He ran out of the room, down the stairs and I heard the car drive away in the storm. No chance to even offer to go with him.

The nightmarish phone call Len received seemed all the more haunting on this stormy night. And I didn’t even know the degree of injuries Jennifer sustained.

The rain continued to beat down and the wind rattled the windows. It felt creepy to be alone for the first time in Len’s enormous house surrounded by the darkness and acres and acres separating me from the neighbors’ homes. Worried about Len driving in the rain, distressed about Jennifer, scared to remain in his bedroom, I decided to turn on the lights in every room in that house and to make some tea.

Jennifer had just moved in with her boyfriend Bernard in Summit, New Jersey. While the hot water boiled, I tried to figure out the distance Len had to drive in this storm. But Bernard had called from the hospital. I wondered which hospital.

With the tea cup in hand, I sat down on the black suede couch in the vast living room and began the wait for Len’s phone call, for his return, for any news. Along one long wall, floor to ceiling windows faced the dark back yard and the windows seemed so vulnerable to the winds.

One a.m., the time passed so slowly and I felt so sleepy. But no word from Len.

“Hey, wake up,” Len said as he sat down on the couch next to me.

Looking around, it was still dark and raining outside.

“How is she?”

“Bernard was driving, they went through a red light in the storm and someone hit them. She has a broken leg but that’s it. He’s going out of his mind with guilt,” Len said.

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know how I got to the hospital. This was a night from hell. But she’s going to be fine. Let’s get some sleep. It’s five in the morning.”

We began to head for the bedroom.

“Why is every light on in this house?” Len asked.

“I was scared.”

“Of what?”

I didn’t bother answering. There were too many answers to choose from at this point.

When we got into bed, Len lay on his back and stared at the ceiling.

“You don’t want to get a phone call like the one I did, ever.”

Never having seen him unnerved, this rattled, made me wonder. Len always seemed to be the steel beam that held everything together. I put my head on his chest, my arm around him and held him tightly. His body felt rigid, regathering the strength that had escaped that night. I feel asleep thinking that Len might be a mere mortal after all.

WINTER 1995

CHAPTER 15

December

F
or several years I had been working at AvnnHealth, a company considered as secure as Fort Knox. People worked there for life. Company loyalty was fastened until a sudden decision was made by the CEO and Board to merge with a smaller, more aggressive company, whose management took over. Things began to unravel as colleagues began to leave in droves, and the general utility and vivacity of the office plummeted. The final straw for me, though, occurred when my boss Janet came into my office one afternoon.

“I need to talk to you,” she said as she sat down.

“Uh oh.”

“I’m leaving,” she said with tears in her eyes.

“No!”

“I’ve taken a job and will be leaving in three weeks. I can’t stay here anymore.”

“How can I stay here without you?” I responded.

“You need to carefully think about your future too.”

“But this is the only job as a lawyer I’ve ever had. And I’ll never have a boss like you,” I said.

“Don’t call me your boss. I’m your friend. And it’s not like when you first started. You’re an experienced good lawyer now,” she responded.

“I think I’m going to cry. I thought I was going to work for you forever. You are my friend and you’ve been nothing less than a saint helping me in my work.”

She stood up, gazed at me and walked out of my office with tears flowing down her face.

Sleep became a rarity as endless nights came and went, filled with thoughts over whether I had the courage to leave Connecticut. At the Oasis, my friends looked somber.

“I don’t know. My house is nearly paid for. Chloe and Ben are doing well in school,” I said.

“You never wanted to live in Connecticut in the first place, did you?” Bonnie asked.

“I miss New York. We moved to Connecticut for Jake, for his work. When I think of the City, and I know this is going to sound strange, but it’s as if I were a gyroscope and can only maintain my orientation when I’m in New York. The City feels like my center of gravity. And that means that the gyroscope will spin upright only when I call New York my home. I always felt a little off living anywhere else.”