Best Friends (23 page)

“
If he asks?
” Roy was up on an elbow in bed, watching her movements, as graceful as a dancer's.

She bent, with an exquisite sweep of flank, to collect her skirt from the threshold. “He might well not ask. I doubt that he will.” She stepped into the skirt and closed the zipper with a flourish. She still wore nothing above the waist.

Roy at last left the bed to join her in reclothing themselves. It was something to distract him from the matter at hand, which had become more ambiguous than ever. The first garments discarded, out in the room he used as a gym, were the last retrieved. As usual, in her business clothes—today a brown pantsuit with a tan blouse—she was more formally attired than he in his jeans and corduroy jacket.

“Let me go there.” Kristin pointed toward the bathroom.

When she emerged her face was fresh and her hair back to normal perfection, though neither would have needed much restoring. Her makeup had always seemed minimal, and not even the soaking rain had changed the character of the short-cut fair hair that when dry conformed to the elegant contours of her head.

Roy was sitting on the Bowflex.

“Sam is supposed to exercise,” Kristin said. “But I can't see him using anything as intimidating as that. If only I could get him to jog a little.”

Roy stood up. “He should have tried to cultivate a little self-reliance. You weren't his mother.”

“He wants kids,” said she. “So do I. But it's not yet the right time, though we can't wait forever.”

However he might interpret that remark, he could make no sense of it. So he had no choice but to dismiss it. “The time for that's gone by so far as he's concerned. I never really wanted children before, didn't
not
want them, just didn't give the matter much thought. But now, with you, I want children very much, but
when
will be absolutely up to you. I won't have any requirements.” He took her fingers. “I can't demand that you love me. I just ask you to let me adore you.”

Kristin was still smiling sweetly, but with an undercurrent of discomfort. “Roy,” she said, turning his hands so that hers, though so much smaller, were in at least symbolic control. “If we are ever to see each other again—I mean, intimately—we really have to come to terms with just what we are to each other.” She peered keenly into his eyes. “We're friends, we're dear friends. We've had sex a couple of times, and it's been heavenly. I didn't know my body could feel the way you've made it feel. You've realized all my fantasies. Dear Roy.” She caressed his face again, as she had on previous occasions, all of them memorable to him.

“It's been like a dream to me,” he said, “in which everything is the act of love, getting rained on, running through this place, leaping into bed. It hasn't stopped yet. I'm still in a state of ecstasy, standing here with you in this nutty gym I made in the goofy place I live, if this could be called living. I want a real life with you.”

“I'm married.”

“Oh, I know—”

“I want to stay married, Roy. To Sam.”

“You can't love him!”

“Why can't I?” She let him take his hands back.

“And make love that way with me?”

Kristin looked sober. “I won't go into our sex life, I mean Sam and me. I can't stand it when married women talk about that stuff.”

“I don't want to know about it anyhow,” Roy said hastily. “What I meant was the intensity of
our
lovemaking—you just said it was unique. How can you have that with someone and then live with someone else?”

“I don't know. Maybe I can't. It hasn't been happening for very long. I haven't had time to get adjusted. Maybe I won't be able to.” She hung her head for an instant. “If I can't, we'll just have to stop seeing each other—in this way, I mean. We'll still be friends.”

It was not she who was crazy, tempting as it was to believe that. But what validity did he have if, demented, he called himself mad?

“
Stop being lovers?
”

Kristin wailed, “I don't
want
to, Roy!”

He reached toward but did not touch her. “It's not the bed that's important to me.”

Her eyes, gunmetal in the light that came from the several sources—floorlamps, overhead fixtures, sconces—dilated in amazement. “It is to me!”

In panic and chagrin, Roy surrendered to spite. “You can't possibly want to stay with that queer. Whatever my father did with or to him, he must have liked it because he mourns him to this day.”

“Sam's your best friend.”

“That's over now. You should have heard the way he talked to me. I hate his guts.”

“Oh,” said Kristin, “don't say that. You don't mean it.”

“What in the world do you have in common with him? He's wasted all his inheritance. He lives off you, runs up big bills, buying expensive gadgets for his own amusement. God knows he's no gourmet. Does he appreciate your cooking? He's a glutton. And you don't want to say it, but it's pretty obvious he's not much good as a lover. As a banker, you know you would never grant a loan for any of his so-called business projects. You even begged me not to lend him any more money!”

“That was for both your sakes. Money is ruinous for Sam. He sees it only in terms of expenditure. He talks of investing, but he would rid himself of any investment that was profitable. He despises money. He would be miserable if he was stuck with too much to squander.”

“What in the hell do you see in him?”

“
You've
been his friend all these years.”

“I guess I'm just dumb,” Roy said. “You told me he doesn't wish me well.”

Kristin shrugged. “That's only envy. He needs us, Roy.”

“I don't care whether he lives or dies.”

“Oh,” said she, coming to him, her arms at his waist and her cheek against his, “don't say that. You don't mean it.”

He found her embrace suffocating and hypocritical. “You better get going. Rush home and make his low-fat supper.”

This of course was said bitterly, but Kristin took it as literal. She stepped away. “I don't even dare see how late it is
now.
” She gestured at him. “Let's not say all is lost. Let's have a little patience when it comes to
us.
Meanwhile, don't turn your back on Sam when he's in this delicate condition. I think we might be able to work something out that we can all live with.” She opened and closed her eyes ritualistically. “I've never made any trouble about Maria.”

“Your maid?”

“I suspect he's been having sex with her for years. She worked for him before we were married.” Her smile was more tender than ever. “I'm awfully fond of you, Roy. I wouldn't want to give you up. You're a wonderful man.”

She kissed him quickly on the lips, with a closed, cool mouth, and hurried to the staircase. The heeltaps of her descent on the oak treads seemed to continue to echo even after the closing of the front door, but that, like all else about her that related to him, was obviously an illusion.

R
oy saw Kristin and Sam at the lavish nondenominational funeral that Dorothea Alt arranged for the late Sy, but only at a distance that both parties were careful to maintain. His own companion was Margaret Forsythe, who had hardly known Alt even as a voice, for when calling on his own Sy preferred to reach Roy directly on the cell phone. But given her importance to Incomparable Cars, Inc., she felt obliged to attend the ceremony. The black dress looked good on Margaret's figure, which was somewhat full but in the right places. She was not an unattractive woman. Roy himself had begun to look older than his years. They were not an incongruous couple. He sensed that such was her opinion as she clasped his arm on arrival and departure.

But though he was almost as sexually prescient as ever, he was now utterly indifferent to what had no bearing on his exclusive purpose, which for the first time was other than making the most of the good fortune that had made it possible for him as an adult to practice an enjoyable, relatively risk-free, and intentionally harmless way of life.

He had too often been in Kristin's situation in a love affair not, after an interval of anguish, to understand hers. The difference was that
he
had had no spousely equivalent of Sam to go home to, nobody to look after but himself. On his part there might be regrets to one degree or another—sometimes, as with poor Francine, a regret that the affair had ever started—but
his
heart had never been broken. There was more than one woman who doubted whether he had a heart. The question had now been answered.

Kristin left a cell-phone message on his home machine several days after he had last seen her. “Things have been hectic at the bank, and I've really had to do some work on Sam. I guess he was hurt more than I thought, but you would know more about a male thing like that. But I think he's coming around. After all, he's only got one best friend in the whole world. As for
us,
it's hard for me right now to find any time I can't reasonably account for. And speaking of accounts, all the branches are being audited. The whole system is about to be purchased by Downstate, and I couldn't be happier. I see much greater opportunity for someone like myself. First United has been marching in place for years. You're with Downstate, aren't you?…I've got to run now, Roy. Please forgive me. I'll be in touch as soon as I can…. You know, I think if you made some sort of overture to Sam—it wouldn't have to be much, maybe just call and ask how he's feeling—you wouldn't be rejected…. God, I miss you!”

 

A young attorney named Jefferson Alcott, who had done some work with Sy, had been brought in by the Alt family to handle the practice while they decided what to do for the long term. He was expected to tread water on the major matters but certainly had the capacity to change a will. It was easier for Roy to deal with a stranger like Alcott on this matter than it would have been with Sy, who would have given him an argument.

After exchanging handshakes with Alcott, Roy asked about Celia Phelps, Sy's longtime assistant and mistress. He knew the family would oppose her continuing in her job, but had not expected to find her gone so soon.

“She's with us on a contingency basis,” said Alcott, a sinewy man with a shock of sandy hair and a rather darker mustache. His suit, shirt, and tie each displayed a slightly different shade of gray. “I've brought in my own people, but we're going to need Celia to help us navigate through the maze.”

That arrangement would undoubtedly be complicated. Celia, a drab little person, a total contrast to Dorothea but perhaps more devoted to Sy's professional success and personal well-being, was not to be seen at the funeral, surely in deference to the wishes of the family, who would also no doubt legally fight any clause in Sy's will that left a penny to the woman he habitually referred to as “good old Ceil.”

“You asked us to dig out your will,” said Alcott, tapping the document in question as it lay before him. “It seems to be in order.” To see a stranger behind Sy's desk was not that startling, for Roy had seldom found Alt there.

Roy produced a sheaf of paper from an inside pocket of his jacket. “I've prepared a list of additions, codicils, or whatever you call them. Sorry about the handwriting, but I can't type and didn't want to ask anyone else to do it. At least I think it's legible.”

Alcott's mustache quivered in a smile. “Lawyers love handwritten documents! Or at least if one supports their case. They're hard to challenge.” He accepted the two sheets, unfolded and quickly read through them, emitting murmurs of assent. “Uh, yes, the Holbrooks are minors? Yes…yes…‘Llewellyn' is four ells?” He made a mark with a silver pen. “Yes…yes.” He raised his head and lowered his pen. “You want the Holbrooks to get their bequests when each reaches his or her majority?”

Roy gave him an account of the incident involving Francine and her husband. Alcott of course knew about the subsequent murder-suicide, a famous event throughout the region. “Both families were talking about suing me. I don't know how this stood at the time of Sy's death, but if you can't find it in the files, that's something Ceil might help you with. I guess if I weren't alive, they could still sue the estate?”

“Excuse me for asking, Mr. Courtright. You're a young and very healthy-looking man. I hope you haven't an illness.”

Roy tried to be disarming. “I sell vintage high-performance cars, and I like to test them at speed. I'm not a reckless driver, but accidents can happen. I tend to be superstitious, and these recent deaths of people I've been associated with have had an effect.” He paused. “I want to make sure the Holbrook children get something in trust that the adults in those families can't intercept.”

He and the attorney discussed this bequest further and then went again through the list of the others, verifying spellings, addresses, and sums. Alcott promised the amended document would be ready for signing and notarizing as early as Monday afternoon.

“Tomorrow.”

Alcott was incredulous. “Tomorrow's Saturday. And we're just moving in, Mr. Courtright.”

“Then you'll be here,” said Roy. “I'm nervous. I don't want to wait the whole weekend. I was a damn good client of Sy Alt's.”

“Oh, I'm aware of that, Mr. Courtright. I hope you'll stay on with us. I know your business and those beautiful cars: It's a credit to this community. I'll put a couple of people on this right away, and it should be ready tomorrow afternoon.”

“Noon, please.”

Roy's existing will was as simple as one could be: His material worth was to be divided equally between his twin sister and his best friend. Robin would have been infuriated had she known, but she had not, nor had Sam. The latter was kept in the dark because Roy did not want to tempt Sam to commit murder during one of his frequent financial crises. A private joke at the time, this consideration was now obsolete. Today Roy would have provided the cocked gun, had he believed Sam was man enough to fire it.

The new codicils reduced what the two principal beneficiaries would divide by less than a fifth. He would leave the building, which he owned outright, to Margaret Forsythe, to do with as she desired, with the condition that the mechanics Paul and Diego be permitted to occupy the downstairs garage as long as they wished and at a reasonable rent for the district and time, which of course however low would be more than the nothing they had paid to date.

But Roy was bequeathing to the guys his entire inventory of classic cars, to sell or endlessly dismantle and reassemble the engines and transmissions as they wished.

Except for the Holbrook children, the monetary awards were comparatively modest, but it was Roy's intent to make some acknowledgment of the kindness that some women had shown him in recent days, women he had not touched, on whom he had no designs. To Suzanne Akins he would leave more than enough to pay off the loan she had taken, on a nurse's income, to buy the BMW 530i she drove that night they slept chastely in the same bed. Michelle Llewellyn had a dinner coming, at an expensive restaurant, and a good dress; Roy's gift provided for a half-dozen of each, but the escort was up to her. Finally, he decided that the overtip he left for Daisy Velikovsky had still not been sufficient to cow her police-officer husband, so Roy left them together the estimated equivalent of a waitress' annual income.

In the larger scheme these things of course were of little moral significance, meager gestures to leave a good taste in the mouths of acquaintances.

When it came to intimates, his motive was vengeance. The large inheritance, that which Sam Grandy had always craved, would destroy his best friend.

Next morning Roy took a long and thorough workout, returning to the free weights on which he had begun in early adolescence. It could be scientifically proven that dead iron was not as effective in resisting, and therefore strengthening, the human musculature as was a high-tech machine, but he found curling dumbbells to be more satisfying to the spirit than the equivalent exercise on the Bowflex, as was going through the traditional barbell snatches, cleans-and-jerks, and bench presses, in some of which there was danger in working alone with poundages heavy enough to crush a foot, or windpipe, if dropped—which hazard indeed was why he had purchased the machine.

Gritting his teeth, he took one last look at his body in the door-back mirror. Of course it was no more satisfactory to him than as of two days earlier. No one is at his peak at thirty-five, no matter how assiduously he has cared for himself…. He had never taken this shit absolutely seriously except maybe when starting out at fifteen, and not at all during the past decade. Yet he had continued doing it. It was really the sole effort he had made in life, the only resistance he mounted to any challenge, and as such he could not have dispensed with it and retained any self-respect. His physique at least was his own accomplishment. His father, who had furnished the means for Roy to represent a hobby as a business, played golf and in swimming trunks displayed a body like a bloated tube without the ghost of a muscle.

Nevertheless Roy could see only his own inadequacies, not how far he had come from the skinny adolescent but how far he remained from his ideal…which only now he recognized was his ideal because it was impossible of attainment. That it could never be realized was the point of any ideal in friendship, in love, in life. Had he learned this at an earlier time…he would probably have come to the same end. That he could accept this truth now suggested he had finally grown to a maturity of heart, but it was nothing to gloat about.

He breakfasted on the perishable foods in his home fridge, essentially the leftovers from the picnic with Michelle Llewellyn, then went to take his leave of Incomparable Cars before Margaret Forsythe arrived, parking the Jeep at the curb in front rather than in the lot below where he might be distracted by the master mechanics.

Inside the showroom he made a last survey of the machinery the guys would inherit and, while he was at it, ran the duster over the coachwork of all five automobiles. He had always done well by his cars, spending more in restorations than he made in profit over the decade, but they deserved such care. He had never sold one that could not be driven, that would not perform as it had when new. Though none was human, each had been made by human beings and thereby acquired at least a kind of soul. What observant driver had not noticed that his engine always ran more smoothly after the body was washed?

He had first supposed, in a moral lapse, that he would do what he had to do in one of the classics, perhaps that which had the greatest monetary value, the 1969 Lamborghini Espada. Blasting out of life at 200 mph, or however great a speed he could develop on a straightaway unoccupied by other vehicles for those few moments, would provide the ultimate thrill and also free him from the limitation imposed by fear back in the days when he had dabbled in racing sports cars but soon retired because of the risk entailed by seriously trying to win. Kill yourself to beat some other amateurs in restored Austin-Healeys?

It had made more sense to waste a dozen more years, bringing nothing but disappointment to all concerned…. But the Espada was also the car in his current collection of which he was least fond, finding the elongated rear of the body not quite satisfying to the eye. Lamborghinis always tended toward the exhibitionistic, demanding more from the beholder than they should. German cars, on the other hand, often modestly asked less, with the sublime exception of the gullwing 300SL. The great British marques, in their golden years, the Astons and Jaguars, the Morgans and earliest MGs, were perfection in form.

No classic automobile of whichever marque deserved to be helplessly destroyed in the intentional self-obliteration of a human being. If its driver failed to slow down for the fifty-degree corner on Oak Bluff Road, went through the frail barrier there, and rolled down the precipitous slope, a Jeep Grand Cherokee would never be missed, would in fact get the blame as an unsafe vehicle with too high a center of gravity, thus serving another of Roy's purposes: He did not wish to give the impression he had committed suicide, thereby furnishing Sam Grandy with further cause to despise him and Kristin still another opportunity for indifference.
If you couldn't be maudlin at such a time, when could you?
was a question Roy asked himself with optional irony, the kind that alternates with the literal too rapidly to be distinguished from it.