Amanda Bright @ Home (23 page)

“Bob,” Amanda whispered, letting the paper fall, “I didn’t say it like that. I swear to you, that wasn’t what I said.”

“Then why did he quote it?”

“I—I don’t know,” she faltered. “Sophie was crying …”

“Oh God.” Bob sat down on the opposite corner of the bed, as far away from her, it seemed, as it was possible to be without leaving the room. He stared hopelessly into the armchair where yesterday’s shirts, socks, and pants had collected; his robe hung limply on him as if his whole being had suddenly become inanimate, like a suit valet. Amanda knew that she must say something—she wished to console him, to apologize, to convince him that there had been a terrible misunderstanding—but he had never seemed so remote from her, and Amanda feared that uttering even a gentle word might alienate him further. Instead she picked up the paper again and skimmed the item urgently, hoping that upon a second or third reading it would not seem so terrible, but every time she read it, it only got worse and she flung the paper down, sick to her stomach.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Bob said, as if to some invisible third party.

“Bob, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—” Amanda edged nearer, hesitating before placing her hand upon his shoulder.

He shrugged it off and stood. “I better get going.” Without looking at her, he fetched his clothing from the closet and took it with him to the bathroom to change.

Amanda curled up under the covers. She felt paralyzed; she did not think it possible that she would be able to leave the bed. It was only when she heard noises from Sophie’s room that she raised her head. Her eyes strayed across the headline again—
strange bedfellows
—and she buried her face tightly in the pillow, moaning, “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

The light padding of feet told her that Sophie had entered the room. “What are you doing?”

“Mommy doesn’t feel well.”

“Mommy need medithine?”

“No, honey. Maybe just a hug.”

The little girl obliged and Amanda clutched her, trying to banish her horrible feelings. After a few minutes Sophie began singing a nursery rhyme to herself and idly twisting Amanda’s hair. Amanda knew that she could not lie there indefinitely; Ben would awaken shortly and demand breakfast … and the day’s chores would begin their relentless assault upon her, regardless of whether she was able to stand or not.

Actually, Amanda realized, the prospect of a thousand tiny tasks in which to lose herself was not altogether unappealing. She winced once again at the sight of the newspaper, then folded it to take to the recycling bin.

“C’mon, Sophie. Let’s get you something to eat.”

Downstairs the remnants of Bob’s breakfast—a crumb-covered plate and a still-warm quarter cup of coffee left on the kitchen table—caused her stomach to lurch again. He had left without a word of good-bye. What he would face at work she couldn’t predict. The only thing Amanda could do was to wait—and to wait without distraction was intolerable. Rather than set out a bowl of cereal for Sophie, she gathered her purse and got the stroller bag ready.

“Sophie, wake your brother and start getting dressed. We’ll go out for breakfast. Would you like muffins in the park?”

“Yeth!”

Within half an hour, the three of them had emerged into the fire-wall heat of a Washington summer morning.

They stayed out the whole day. After the park, they ventured downtown to look at dinosaurs in the Smithsonian. Amanda wanted to keep going, but by three o’clock, they were all hot and exhausted and Amanda had spent her last bit of change on ice cream. Reluctantly, she brought the children back home. There were six messages on her answering machine. None of them was from Bob. Four were from the mothers in her play group, including a long-distance call from the odious Patricia vacationing in Portugal. How had she heard? One of the other women must have phoned her, which meant—they were all gossiping about it. Patricia’s message, however, was less odious than might have been expected. It was almost simpering: “Heard about ‘The Ear’ and had to call. Imagine Jim Hochmayer at your house! Congratulations, and can’t wait to hear all about it when I’m back. By the way, Meredith has just learned to dive. She’s such a little fish!” Amanda ignored the veiled reference to Ben’s aquatic shortcomings: he still refused to put his head in the water. Kim’s and Ellen’s messages were much the same, both offering their “congratulations” on the item. Christine’s was the oddest. She called about an event she purported to be organizing “on the spur of the moment” to celebrate her new, postsurgical look (“although I’m only telling
you
that”). Then Christine added, almost shyly, “I’m sorry about the late notice and I hope you and Bob will be able to come, although with your newfound celebrity status maybe you’ll be spending the weekend at the Hochmayer ranch. Ha ha!”

Amanda was flummoxed that her friends viewed “The Ear” column as anything but an embarrassment and potential calamity. Was it possible it was less bad than she thought? Then she listened to the fifth message. It was Alan. “Hey, read today’s ‘Ear.’ I guess there’s not really anything to say, but—I feel for you.” Sigh, long pause. “I’m sorry about the other night, too. I meant to call and tell you how much I appreciated it that you came. I guess I was really just disappointed with everything and—”

Amanda hit the
delete
button.

The last message was from a female editorial assistant at the
Wall Street Journal,
wanting to “fact-check something.” Amanda took down the number and automatically began punching in the numbers for Bob’s office. Then she stopped. She was too afraid to tell him.
Let the reporter find him,
Amanda thought.
I’m not going to do it.

Instead she spent the next hour assembling something that reasonably approximated a home-cooked meal—ground beef hastily unthawed from the freezer and simmered in canned tomato sauce.

Bob came through the door around six—not a good sign. Amanda hadn’t expected him until past eight. She could see immediately that his mood had improved from that morning, although the kiss he administered to her cheek was perfunctory and not altogether forgiving.

“Bob, what happened today?” she asked tentatively.

“I think it’s going to be okay.” He sat down by the table and loosened his tie. “God, I need a drink.”

“I’ll get it. Scotch?”

Bob nodded.

“What did Frank say?”

“He was a bit upset, there’s no doubt about it.” Bob suddenly looked tremendously weary, as if all the excitement that had animated him through these past weeks of hard labor had been switched off. He slumped slightly in his chair, his eyes as dull as unlit lamps. “But overall he dismissed it as gossip. I assured him of course that Hochmayer and I had discussed nothing improper, that it was entirely a social visit. Frank said to just let it pass.”

“Does it hurt the case?” She placed a large dose of Scotch in front of him.

“I hope not. Frith might make a bit of a fuss—but then he fusses about everything. I think Frank’s right. Let it pass.” He drained the glass.

They avoided the topic for the rest of the evening. Several times Amanda attempted to mention the call from the
Wall Street Journal
, but she could not get it past her lips. Bob took refuge, as she had done, in the distraction of the children, and offered to give them their bath while she cleared up.

By the time she came to bed, Bob had already tucked himself in and was going through a copy of Hochmayer’s testimony. She settled in next to him with a book, and they both fell asleep early, exhausted by the tension of the day.

The next morning she was again awoken by Bob. And he was again holding a copy of a newspaper. This time he was not angry, but ashen.

“Amanda,” he said, rousing her. “Good God, Amanda, listen to this.”

He sat down beside her with the
Wall Street Journal
opened to the editorial page. In the left-hand column, below the two main editorials, was a smaller one headlined
who is bob clarke
?

Bob read it out loud:

Antitrust supremo Frank Sussman has promised to pursue the government’s investigation of Megabyte impartially. And even though we’ve been vigorous critics of this Justice department, we respect Mr. Sussman’s reputation as a fair and open-minded lawyer. We have to wonder, though, what is going on when we hear that Mr. Sussman’s right-hand man, Bob Clarke, is coordinating the government’s case with Megabyte’s competitors over barbecue and beers.

“Oh no,” said Amanda.

“Hold on, it gets worse.” Bob swallowed and continued:

Mr. Clarke, who has taken an increasingly public role in the case, had Jim Hochmayer of Texas CompSystems over for an out-of-the-limelight dinner the night before Mr. Hochmayer’s Senate testimony. While the DOJ refuses to comment on the record, Amanda Clarke—wife of Bob Clarke—confirmed to the
Washington Post
that her husband used the dinner to go over “strategy” for the hearings.

Off the record, Justice insiders say that Mr. Clarke has been vigorously—even fanatically—pushing Mr. Sussman to prosecute Megabyte. It’s not clear whether Mr. Clarke is one of this Justice department’s hate-success crowd—or whether he’s just spent a little too much time in the company of Sherwood J. Pressman, the colorfully wacky attorney who earns his living arguing that Mike Frith is to blame for every business failure in Silicon Valley. Either way, America’s high-tech industry needs to be put back under adult supervision.

Bob tossed down the paper and put his face in his hands.

“Oh Bob—do you think Frank will be upset?”

“Do I think Frank will be upset?” Bob replied incredulously, almost cruelly. “Of course he will be upset! Unless …”

Bob read the editorial again to himself, nodding more emphatically as he did so. “… unless he was the source for this. Oh, Amanda,” he groaned.

“That’s impossible!” she said, horrified by the possibility. “Frank himself said it was just gossip—that we should let it pass.”

“
Yesterday
it was gossip,” Bob said bitterly. “Today it’s news.”

Chapter Fifteen

CHRISTINE LOOKED stunning, truly stunning—like an air-brushed version of herself. Her face was pulled as smooth as a freshly made bed. Gone were the squiggly forehead lines, the billowy cheeks, the creases in the corners of her eyes. She had done something new with her hair, too: it seemed lighter, more sun-kissed, and styled in such a way as to appear prettily mussed; only when Amanda looked more closely did she notice that every strand had been meticulously sprayed in position.

“Bob,”
Christine effused, as she drew them toward her back patio where the other guests had assembled, “we’re all so intrigued by your recent celebrity.”

Amanda cast a worried look at Bob. This was their first public outing together since the story had broken. It had taken considerable effort to persuade Bob to venture out of the house. These days he didn’t even like to stop at the Fresh Farms to pick up milk in case the cashier recognized him. If they lived in any other city—any
normal
city, Amanda thought resentfully—no one would recognize him. Unfortunately, they lived in Washington, where even the Guatemalan who did the weeding next door called out one morning, “Hey, I see your husband on C-SPAN!”

Bob smiled like a sick man trying to rise above his illness for appearance’ sake. Amanda knew he would blame her for Christine’s comment, just as he would blame her for dragging him here, against his better judgment, for the sole reason that they should not appear to be “hiding.”

“Hungh,” he mumbled.

“I
insist
you tell us all about Jim Hochmayer. Amanda never told me you knew him, but then she’s congenitally modest about these things. Is he an old family friend?”

They were on the patio now, and Amanda and Bob both assessed the scene nervously. Would people recognize them? Were they a laughingstock?

Christine apparently did not think so. She tugged on Bob’s arm the way she might pull the collar of a prize ox, and led them over to a couple standing near the pool. “Let me introduce you to the Fenshaws. They’re both terrific. I used to work with Colin at Burgess, Whitehead.

“Colin, Janet,” Christine called out from a few feet away, “I want you to meet Bob Clarke. He’s involved in the Megabyte case.”

“Oh, of course,” said Colin, looking him over like a sideshow curiosity. “We’ve been reading all about it.”

Bob twitched but managed a fake chuckle. “Yes, well, it’s certainly been in the news lately.”

“And this is Bob’s wife, Amanda.” Christine prodded Amanda forward. “I’ll catch up with you all later. And remember, Bob, I want to hear
everything
. Don’t you let him give away too many of his best stories, Amanda,” she admonished before gliding off to another set of guests.

Both pairs of eyes fixed on Bob. No one seemed to know who should speak first. The Fenshaws appeared to be waiting hungrily for what Bob, in his role as curiosity, would do next.

“So you’ve known Christine for some time then?” Amanda offered the most innocuous gambit she could think of. Colin Fenshaw repeated that he had worked with Christine, and Janet warbled something about attending her wedding. On any other occasion, Amanda might have felt intimidated in the company of people like the Fenshaws. For one thing, Amanda saw that she had spectacularly misjudged the dress code for the evening. She had interpreted Christine’s description of the party as a “casual poolside barbecue” as a green light for her Indonesian drawstring pants and tank top; Bob appeared only slightly less conspicuous in his T-shirt and khakis. Janet Fenshaw, like the other women at the party, was decked out in full suburban cocktail party regalia—pearls and a dress patterned in the lurid flora of Palm Beach. Her husband wore a jacket and no tie, but he seemed uncomfortable without one—his hand kept nervously checking his open collar as if to make sure his head was still attached at the neck.

But this evening, Amanda had too much else to be self-conscious about to worry about her clothes. When her initial gambit died, she ventured another.