Best Friends (22 page)

“If she does, Alt's wife can take her cue from that old French joke,” said Sam, patting the bamboo chair arms with his large, flat, hairy hands. “You know.”

Roy did not.

“Well, it's usually the lover and husband, but in this case it would be Mrs. Alt, seeing Celia's tears, saying, ‘Don't worry, my dear, I'll get married again.'” His laugh was short, loud, and ugly.

Roy nodded, not sharing the laughter. He was struggling against being overwhelmed by a conviction that Sam knew about himself and Kristin. “I guess I never felt it up to me to speculate on what kind of arrangement Sy and Dorothea had, if in fact they had one. I considered both of them friends.”

“And friendship is sacred to you.”

Now Roy did smile, more in courtesy than affection, in an effort to keep the proceedings polite rather than personal, though well aware that he could not succeed. “It certainly means a lot.”

“That's how you can fuck my wife without regrets,” said Sam, in the warm, soft voice of mockery.

“For God's sake,” Roy said, “you're back to that. How many times do I have to tell you Kristin and I had a meal together when you were in the hospital. You know that. In fact, we ran into Sy and Dorothea in the restaurant. That's as intimate as we've ever been. Maybe it's your medication. It won't do your heart any good to get so worked up about nothing.”

“Swear to me you haven't touched her.” Sam leaned forward, hands tensed on the chair arms, as if he might leap at his friend, except that even after losing a pound or two during his hospital stay, he was still far too heavy to rise from a sitting position so easily.

Roy groaned. “Want me to get a Bible? Okay, if that's what will satisfy you, I'll swear.”

Sam let his heavy eyelids fall. “You dirty bastard you.” He opened his reddened eyes. “You stupid prick.
Kris admitted it.
” He paused to let the information establish itself. “Get the hell out of my house.”

Roy started to rise, then sat back down. He put his hand in the air. “Listen, kid—”

“Not a word,” Sam said. “You're shit. Get out of my life.”

Now that he could be honest, Roy no longer felt morally crippled. “No!” he cried. “Not until I speak my piece. I'm not going to try to justify myself in any way. You're right to be outraged. I deserve no consideration. But I want to say that this is not just an affair. I'm in love with her.”

Sam's grin was ghastly. “You…are…in love…with her,” he said, dragging it out. “
It's not an affair.
”

“It's no excuse,” said Roy. “I admit that. But it's true. I fell in love, I couldn't help it. I didn't have any designs on her. I wasn't even attracted to her. This is different from everything else. I've never felt this way about anybody.”

Sam's large body was shaking in some awful caricature of mirth. “I can't get over how stupid you are. That you're a corrupt, lying, cheating, backstabbing cocksucker doesn't surprise me as much as how goddam dumb you are. I at least thought you were bright.”

The abuse relieved Roy of some of his debilitating sense of guilt. He had admitted the grave offense and had to take what he had coming. But though it might seem so to the injured party, he had not thereby become less than human.

“All I can say is I regret behaving dishonorably toward you. I apologize for that. I'm not sorry to have fallen in love with Kristin.”

“I've been saving the zinger,” Sam said. “But suddenly I'm not getting the satisfaction I expected from the suspense.” He looked at the floor and exhaled audibly. “I lied, and you fell for it. Kris didn't admit anything.”

“This started as a
joke?
” Roy could have smashed a fist into his fat flabby mouth, but that impulse lasted for only an instant. His feelings were in contradiction. Once again he sank into guilt, now for the damage he had done to Kristin. That he had been unwitting did not diminish his role in the destruction of her marriage. It was uniquely his accomplishment.

Wordlessly he rose to his feet. Not looking at Sam, he left the house and his best friendship.

R
oy crunched along the gravel driveway and had almost reached its junction with the road when the tan Toyota turned in. Its approach had been blocked by the shrubbery and, were the car not crawling, he might have been struck. He jumped aside, and Kristin braked to a stop.

She put her head out the window. “Roy! Are you okay?”

He came to her window. “Kristin, I—”

“And I just heard about Seymour Alt being killed, my God…. Why are you walking?”

He explained and then began an attempt to introduce the crucial matter. “I came to tell Sam about Sy. We all go back a long way, you know…. And then I—”

“Get in,” said Kristin. “I'll run you home.”

It was probably the best thing to do. He hoped Sam was not watching, though that would have been unlikely.

She backed out, swinging the car to point in the right direction. The world had changed since the last time he had been her passenger. That had been less than a week ago, at which time he could not have imagined they would ever be other than they were then, wife and husband's best friend, always a sensitive and often an uneasy alliance, unless perhaps the latter was gay.

“I never met him till the other night at the restaurant,” Kristin said, “but what a shock to hear
this.
”

“Sy Alt,” said Roy, “was the last person likely to get hit by a car. He was seldom on foot except inside an office or courtroom, although he hated to drive. I guess it made sense that he had no interest in cars. When he came to my place, only once or twice in all the years he represented me, he would walk in and out without turning his head to look at the collection.”

Roy continued to speak nervously about Sy, giving an impromptu eulogy of the man. By this means he cowardly delayed revealing what had become of his friendship with Sam, an unbearable subject to address, all the more so in view of Kristin's current mood, which aside from an appropriate gravity in listening to what he said about Alt, was seemingly happier than he had ever seen her. This was subtle, and could have been imagined, but she looked at him with evident affection and spoke in a new, intimate tone. It was as if she felt even closer to him in this routine act of providing a lift than when making love. She was comfortable with him, and in fact this made
him
less so than he already was.

“You didn't know Sy, but I did and more often than not thought him a pain in the neck even though he was acting in my own interest. I played golf with him though I'm not good at the game, and I was bored out of my skull by the other members of the foursomes he put together.” He did not specify who these people were, for they often included bankers, at least once Kristin's predecessor at First United. “Anyway, he's gone now, and I'll miss him.”

After Roy concluded his remarks Kristin drove for a decent interval in silence. They were nearing the place he called home when, smiling warmly, she said, “Roy, I've made a decision. I'm no good at being false. I feel creepy when I try to lie, and even worse if I'm caught at it.” Turning into his driveway, she kept her eyes on where the car was going. “I don't know how you feel, though. You're as close to Sam as I am. What I want to do is tell him.”

Roy nodded miserably but said nothing.

Kristin braked and turned off the ignition. She took his hand in hers. “I don't think I should do this without your permission.”

“I honestly don't know what I'd answer under other circumstances,” he lied. “But Sam already knows.”

She let go of him and clasped her hands to her lowered head.

“He tricked me!” Roy cried.

Her incredulous face came up. “I don't understand.”

“It was really a filthy trick. He told me you had confessed.”

“You believed him?”

Roy had not anticipated how this would seem from her side, but still…. “What could I have done? Called him a liar? What kind of man would lie in that case?”

Kristin's lips were contorted. “Apparently you
don't
know him as well as I do.”

“Just because you know somebody for years doesn't mean you know everything about him. But you ought to get some idea of his basic character. I'm saying ‘him' here, because I mean a man. I doubt this applies to women, though I haven't known any for long enough to say, except of course my sister.”

“Do you know why she broke up with Sam years ago?”

“I've always wondered. She would never tell me.” Looking at Kristin, he saw rain begin to fall against the window beyond her.

“This is his version,” Kristin said, carefully enunciating her words. “She accused him of being your father's lover when he was a young teenager.”

Roy spoke quickly. “Robin is probably capable of something like that. She was the one hardest hit by finding out my father was gay. I can't say I didn't care, but I never liked him anyway. I was crazy about my mother. I blamed him for her leaving, which no doubt was true, but in the end he acted more responsibly than she in looking after us. She didn't want custody. My dad did. When I look back, I think better of him than I did when he was alive.”

“What about the accusation?”

It was as if he had forgotten it. “Oh, that was not true, not true at all! The last thing my father did was ever show us any hint of that, and Sam was like a member of the family. To make a pass at my best friend would have been out of the question. My father was very discreet about his private life. Throughout the years I never saw him with anyone who could conceivably have been a boyfriend, unless some of his business associates doubled as that, and they were as old or older than he. Not to mention that Sam has never shown any gay tendencies as long as I've known him.” Roy snorted in derision. “He and I spent all our free time together in those days. When he would have had the opportunity to submit to my father's, uh, seduction I don't know—providing my father would have done that under any circumstances.”

“Would he have done it in the case of a sixteen-year-old who
wasn't
your friend?”

The rain had increased in force, drumming on the roof and continuously washing the window he faced. “I don't think so. My father, believe it or not, was pretty straitlaced. He was a reactionary except maybe in being gay. I can't see him pursuing a minor, which is against the law, isn't it?”

“What if,” Kristin asked, “Sam confirmed it?”

Roy hung his head. “No, no, that's not
right.
There's nothing right about it.” He punched the dashboard. “He oughtn't say that sort of thing. That isn't a joke. He's in a crazy mood nowadays. I've never seen him like this. Maybe it's the medication. Trouble is, he was wrong when he first accused
us,
but then events proved him right.”

“I don't think we can blame it on events,” said she. “It was us—hell, it was
me.
I can't blame it on you.” She held his face in her hands and kissed him on the lips but sweetly, not erotically. “I just wanted you.”

“I wasn't an innocent bystander,” said Roy, savoring the taste of her fragrant mouth. He seized her hands as she was withdrawing them. “God, how I adore you.”

“I could never have guessed how affectionate you are.” She gave him a melting smile and kept her eyes on his. “Oh, my,” she said fervently. “Let's run inside!”

They dashed through an intense cloudburst, which seemed to be timed precisely for their inundation, as if a great vat of water had been emptied directly overhead. It was the kind of harmless catastrophe that, along with ruining one's clothes by means of mud or wind or playing with a pet, can be hilarious between lovers, and when Roy could not immediately locate his doorkey, they were further soaked by the even funnier gush from a lofty gargoyle poorly mounted for serious roof drainage.

“This is a great goofy kind of place for you to live,” said Kristin, as they finally gained entrance to the stout door and dripped on the hexagonal tiles of the vestibule below the staircase. “I've forgotten what you told us about who built it.”

She and Sam had been there just once. Roy always considered it as a novelty, especially his residence in it, and showed it as such. But he had not wanted to bore them and did not let them stay long. The three of them had soon adjourned to a restaurant. Those were the days when Kristin admittedly had had a low opinion of him. He was now somewhat disturbed that she would bring up an experience they had had that included Sam. And not only included him: Sam was the central figure in the trio, the only one who enjoyed the confidence of the other two.

“I'll tell you about the guy later,” Roy said as they hustled up the stairs. “I don't have time now.”

She had never been so beautiful as she was now, swathed in wet clothing, wet hair compressed against her perfect head, waterdrops still dripping from her eyelashes.

By the time they had reached the bedroom, both were naked except for those garments that could not be conveniently shed while holding one's own in what, on the final lap to the bed, became a sprint.

“I won!” Kristin cried as her knee was first to touch down, and then immediately added, as her entire body followed, rolled over, and lay supine, “You
let
me.”

Roy was soon in the same position beside her. “Why do you say that?”

“I guess I don't want to compete with
you.
” She rolled about, removing her remaining underwear.

“Gee, it's all right with me if you do,” he said on a rising note. He wouldn't take that seriously.

She collided with him. He could feel the immanent strength in her long, lithe person, which however slender was not in the least fragile against his bulk.

He lost himself in an act of love that became a continuum, with no remembered beginning and no anticipation of an end. It seemed all of life, now and forever. Then, when it was finally done, it had been but a measureless moment.

Once again the sky had lost its light while they were joined together. Tonight was even darker because of the rain still hurling itself against the leaded, multipaned windows.

They had only just let each other go at last when Roy reclutched her desperately.

“Stay here. Don't go home.”

“I'd love to,” Kristin whispered. “How I'd love to…. But I can't. I just can't.”

“But he
knows.
He must realize we're together right now.”

She sat up abruptly. “That clock of yours—Oh,
nooo!
”

He glanced at the big red numerals of the liquid-crystal display: 9:47. That was certainly unbelievable, but provided even more support for his cause.

He reached to switch on the bedside lamp. Kristin had become even lovelier through the uses of love, with now mostly dried but more disheveled hair and skin very near the pellucidity of pearl.

“You said before that you wanted to tell him—when you didn't know he knew.”

“Yes.” She sank back on the pillow. “I had made up my mind.” She put her hands across her eyes. “So when I heard he already knew, you can imagine how I felt.”

“You can be proud of the nerve it took to reach your decision. You took the high ground. I didn't have the guts for it.
I
lied.”

“You were protecting me.”

“I could claim that if I hadn't caved,” Roy said in self-contempt. “But maybe it's better in the long run that he found out before you told him. He'll have had a little longer to come to terms with it, and you won't have to face the worst of his rage.”

Kristin's voice assumed her everyday style, cool and crisp. “That didn't and doesn't worry me. He never gets angry with me. When he's displeased, he whines.”

It made Roy uncomfortable to hear something like that, as it would have done to learn of an intimate physical disorder known only to a bedmate.

He shrugged. “Well…”

“What I dread is he'll believe this is something other than what it is.”

Roy agreed. “But it's going to be a tough job to convince him of the truth. And I can't blame him. He's known me all my life. To him I've always been simply a lecher.”

She caressed his face. “Roy, I hate to, but I'm really going to have to leave. It's ten o'clock. He'll still be waiting for his dinner. He'll be starving.”

That her husband could not feed himself—a hunk of bread, a chunk of cheese—was outlandish. “How you handle this thing between us and him is your business,” Roy said. “You can speak for me in every matter. I'd be more than willing to help in any way, but I think I'd only make it worse. I've done too much of that already.”

Kristin sprang up with astonishing energy and began to collect her discarded clothes from the floor. “I'll tell you how I'm going to deal with it. I'm going home and make farfalle with grilled breast of chicken, dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, and nonfat half-and-half. I'm not going to say anything about you or why I'm late unless he asks.”