Blessings (15 page)

“Who was the man in the windbreaker who made all the noise?” she asked.

Arthur Wolfe sighed. “A bad sort. Name’s Bruce Fisher. He’s a cousin of our mayor. He lives in a shack on a couple of acres just this side of the Green Marsh. The way I figure—and it’s pretty obvious, since his land gives level access to the lake on that end, where otherwise the road would have to go up a steep grade—he’s had a good offer and he doesn’t want anything to get in the way of it.”

Anything or anybody, Jennie thought. He actually tried to trip me on the stairs! But that’s crazy! Of course it is. Yet don’t people shove people in front of subway trains? So why not this?

“He’s been in trouble with the law half a dozen times,” Arthur continued. “Served a few years in jail too. I think Chuck got the sentence reduced. Funny, they’re not close—outwardly, anyway. Chuck wouldn’t exactly invite Bruce to a dinner party, and yet they stick together. Once he aimed a shotgun at some kids who took a shortcut across his land on the way to the lake. Chuck got that squashed. He lived with a woman until he beat her up one time too often, so now he lives alone. Or, I should say, lives with a pair of pitbulls he’s trained to kill. In short, he’s not a nice guy.”

“Was I too emotional in my summing up?” Jennie asked now, needing to change the subject. “I’m sort of hearing myself all over again. Was I?”

“Goodness, no,” Enid said. “It was just right.”

“But don’t be too encouraged,” Arthur reminded her. “Even if you should win over the planning board, the town council has the final vote. They’ll be the tough ones. Don’t underestimate our mayor. Chuck loves money.”

“Most people do,” Jennie said.

“Yes, but I have the feeling he loves it more than most of us do. He’s not above selling his vote, nor are some of his cronies I could name but won’t.”

Jennie thought aloud. “The Barker people have a good reputation. I wonder whether they’d risk it to bribe a small-town mayor. They’ve got much bigger projects than this one.”

“It wouldn’t have to be a bribe. Just a big offer to the mayor’s cousin, as I said. Ten times what the land’s worth, for instance. A perfectly legitimate offer.”

“I should have figured that one out myself.”

Arthur stopped the car at the front door of the house, where the potted evergreens in their wooden tubs formed two white pyramids.

“I’ll put the car away, and maybe you’ll make us some hot buttered rum, Enid? It’s the right kind of night for it.”

“Yes,” he said as they sat in the kitchen, warming their hands around pewter mugs. “Yes, you might want to go on and make a name for yourself in this field of law, Jennie. You’ve got the feeling for it, and goodness knows these are tense issues, and we’re going to see more and more litigation over them as the planet gets more crowded.” He reflected, “It’s not easy to pit immediate gains against the long-range view. Most people don’t want to imagine what the world may be like after they’re not in it anymore.”

“Don’t keep her up, Arthur,” Enid said. “Her eyes are closing. Go on up to bed, Jennie.”

But her eyes were not quite ready to close. Lying in bed in the plain, snug room with its one dormer window and sloped ceiling, she listened to the last noises of the night, the dog being let out to bark at whatever he might have seen or heard in the profound country quiet, then the dog being let back in, the door thudding, and finally the footsteps on the stairs. Family sounds, routine and comforting. This was the first time Jennie had been with Jay’s parents without his presence. And unlike the gift of pearls, unlike any formal words, the simple fact of being there not as a guest but as a family member who sat with them in the kitchen and slept under their roof meant full acceptance.

And just as suddenly, in the lovely warmth of this awareness, the hovering cloud of fear descended again, falling over her to chill and cling.

She’s in New York… . She wants to see you… .

W
henever the phone had rung at home in the evening, Jennie had run to it in hopes that it would be Jay calling, and it usually was. But these days it was different, because she knew it was foolish to go on hoping that there wouldn’t be another call from Mr. Riley.

That night, however, it was Jay.

“Just got off the phone with Dad. Then he put George Cromwell on. They’re all delighted with the way you handled things. They’re delighted and I’m proud.”

“I’m so glad, Jay.”

“Now listen, I’ve decided that tomorrow’s the day. We’re going for the ring. I want you to meet me downstairs in front of my office at three. And I won’t take no for an answer. We can walk over to Cartier’s.”

When he had hung up, she sat for a moment at the telephone, assessing her own feelings. Cartier’s. A ring,

to make official the bond that was so strong and tight between them. She ought to be feeling unadulterated bliss. She was the luckiest of women! It was wrong and absurd to let fear, to let anything, spoil—

The telephone rang again.

A woman said, “Miss Rakowsky?”

A woman this time, yet Jennie knew before another word was spoken. She knew.

“My name is Emma Dunn. Mr. Riley talked to you a while ago. He’s turned the case over to me.”

The case. I’m a case in a social worker’s file.

“There’s no case,” Jennie said.

“Well, we needn’t call it that. But there is a problem, although there shouldn’t be. Have you thought about it any more?”

Act sure of yourself. Don’t let her feel that you’re wavering or intimidated.

“Yes, I have. I gave Mr. Riley my answer, and I haven’t changed my mind.”

“We were hoping so much that you would change it after you’d had time to think it over.”

“I thought I made myself very clear.” Jennie spoke sternly. “This … this matter was settled years ago. It was supposed to be a confidential arrangement, and a permanent one. That’s how I want it to stay.”

“She’s such a delightful girl. If you could see her—”

“Look, do you know what you’re doing? You’re opening an old wound, and it’s cruel of you. Don’t you realize that?” She ought to hang up. Just slam down the receiver on this intruding stranger. And yet it would do no good. They’d only keep calling. Maybe she’d even find them at her door one night when she came home. Maybe Jay would be with her. Jennie shuddered. Now her voice was shaking.

“I was eighteen years old. I was all alone. His family didn’t want me. I wasn’t good enough. And he was a helpless baby, no good to me at all. My parents, poor souls … Listen to me, I had to fight my way through my trouble then without any real help from anybody! And I’ll fight now if I have to. So will you please just leave me alone? Will you just do that?”

The voice became conciliatory. “Nobody wants to fight, Miss Rakowsky. Quite the contrary. Your daughter wants to come to you with love. She feels that need.”

“Mr. Riley said she didn’t need anything. I have no money, anyway, you know,” Jennie said, and felt instant regret. It had sounded so coarse, and she hadn’t meant it to.

“Money is not what Jill wants.”

She didn’t want to know; she wanted only to be rid of the whole business, yet something compelled her to ask, “Isn’t she happy with her family?”

“Oh, it’s nothing like that at all. In fact, the family is quite understanding about her wish to see her parents.”

“Understanding! What about my wishes, my needs? This was a closed chapter in my life—” Jennie’s voice caught in her throat.

The woman must have heard the catch, because she responded sympathetically. “Why don’t you come to our office to talk? Telephone talks aren’t any good. Face-to-face, we’ll understand each other. Come in for counseling. We want to help you.”

“I don’t want help!” Now Jennie was openly weeping. “I haven’t asked for any, have I? I’m getting along fine the way I am—or was getting along, until you opened this Pandora’s box that was meant, according to law, to stay shut.”

“The law is changing. People want to know where they came from. They have a right to know—”

“I have rights too! This is my private life you’re talking about. I don’t want to hear about the laws changing. I’m a lawyer, and I understand—”

“We know you’re a lawyer, Miss Rakowsky. So surely you, of all people, know that the law often changes with the mores, with the times.”

Jennie was exhausted. It was too much of an effort to hold the telephone.

“Look, I don’t want to talk anymore. I’ve said it all. I just want you to go away. I’m going to hang up. I just want you to leave me alone.”

“I’m afraid that isn’t possible,” the mild voice replied.

Jennie hung up. Her tears were not tears of sorrow but of anger and fear. Even while they were falling, cold and slippery as glycerin, she knew that. Behind shut lids, between eye and brain, dark anger and bitter resentment were taking shape, billowing like smoke, coal-black and furnace-red, swirling in the image of a rising genie. How dare they track her down like detectives, as if she had committed a crime?

And yet … Poor girl. Perhaps she’s desperate. No, she isn’t, she’s at Barnard, and they said she’s fine. Except that she thinks she needs me. How could she possibly be desperate, though? No, it’s me. I’m the one who’s desperate.

The room, with only one lamp lit in the corner, was dim. The armchairs took on the shapes of seated men, a tribunal sitting in judgment upon Jennie. The tall curtains were men standing, frowning, waiting to seize and take her away. Then the light, as it struck the round copper pot that held the fern, printed a jeering face upon its bulging surface, and as Jennie moved, changing the angle of vision, the face moved, too, and opened an ugly, mournful mouth to weep.

Am I to go crazy here in this room?

“Looking for her parents,” the woman had said. Yes, she had said that, hadn’t she? Could they then possibly have found Peter too? She searched her memory. Had she given his name to those people at the home? But of course there was a record; his father had paid the bill, so there had to be a record.

Well, if the agency had traced him to the Mendeses— tall people beside tall columns in the blossoming Georgia afternoon—she’ll get no welcome, that’s for sure. God knows, Peter may have six children by now. God knows. You’d do well to stay away from those folks, Victoria Jill.

And now came an ache. It caught her like a stitch in the side after a breathless run uphill. It hurt so sharply that for an instant she could not breathe for the pain. Victoria Jill. “They call her Jill.” I wonder whom she looks like? She must be a little bit like me—a little bit, at least.

Dry-eyed now, Jennie put her head down on the desk beside the telephone. If only there were someone to talk to! But there was no one, not even Shirley, her neighbor, who would only give quick comfort and end by telling her not to take everything so seriously. Long minutes passed before she could raise her head and go to bed.

There was a cold wind on the avenue, and Jennie went into the lobby to wait for Jay. The filigreed bronze entrance of a brokerage office faced the identical entrance to a bank on the opposite wall. Farther from the street, close to the elevators, was a florist’s shop, its windows filled with pastel, out-of-season blooms, bringing an incongruous gaiety to the serious environment of business and finance. But then, maybe it wasn’t incongruous at all. People walked briskly in this neighborhood and looked pleased with life; they were just the people who would celebrate life with flowers. She chided herself: Don’t be bitter. People may look carefree, but that doesn’t mean they are, any more than you. Anyone seeing you in this coat—for a visit to Cartier’s she had thought it proper to wear the new coat, along with Enid’s pearls—would think you hadn’t a care, either. Nobody rides free, Jennie.

Nothing escaped Jay. He hurried over, kissed her, and drew back with a little frown of concern.

“You look so tired! Done in. What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t sleep well, that’s all.”

“Anything bothering you?”

“No, it just happens sometimes.”

They walked west toward St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Across Fifth Avenue stood a succession of airline offices. Even at this distance one could see the splashed color of the posters in their windows. Jay, glancing in their direction, said, “I’ve been thinking—those two weeks at Cancel Bay won’t be long enough for a honeymoon. Next summer, when school’s out, my parents can take the children up to the country and you and I will have a month in Europe. We’ll get a car and drive around with the top down. We’ll stay at chateaux, drink wine, and eat foie gras. That’ll be our real honeymoon.” He tightened his hold on her arm as they crossed the side street. “However, I must say I’m looking forward to the two weeks all the same.”

She didn’t answer. Traffic lights turned red at the intersection; brake lights were red; bloody red blinked everywhere. She wasn’t prepared for a vacation in the West Indies. The Isles of June, some explorer had once called them, and she had been looking at pictures of palms and beach grapes, unmarked sand on crescent beaches, gulls and pelicans, sails and parasols. But with things grown shadowy and uncertain, she didn’t feel like simply packing up and departing for pleasure, leaving behind a looming, unsolved threat that would have to be faced when she got home. It would be less risky to hang on at her desk in the office and be here to cope with trouble when it came, as assuredly as it would. Yes, yes, it would.

“Here we are,” said Jay.

Even the outside of Cartier’s was a jewel, a Renaissance palace of cut stone. Walking in ahead of Jay, Jennie felt that people must know this was her first time inside.

He went straight to the rear, where a rather elegant gentleman, who had been seated at a desk, stood up.

“Mr. Wolfe? Good to see you again. I’ve put some very nice rings aside for you, I think.”

Jay made an introduction, adding, “Whenever I see you, it’s a happy occasion.”

“Yes, your father’s golden wedding present to your mother was the last. About a year ago, wasn’t it? Well, now, since you didn’t specify anything, I’ve got some pear-shaped, some marquise, and some emerald-cut stones to show you.”