Laura Rider's Masterpiece (12 page)

He was at the sink, running the water, filling the coffeepot, knowing, without hearing the sense of her murmurs, that she
was discussing a topic of great importance with the two cats who were sacked out at her feet.

The third meeting of Mrs. Voden and Charlie a few days later, as told to Laura by her husband, went on longer than he’d figured.
They had coffee at the one café in Hartley, called the Queen Bee. “I talked too much,” Charlie reported to his wife.

“What did you tell her?”

“About Mom and Dad-o. About—”

“Drinking out of the bottle until you were seven?”

“The whole story.”

Women, Laura considered, would like that detail, the idea of little Charlie having breastlike comfort, and the idea that Charlie’s
mother had been relaxed and loving enough to ignore the child-rearing experts. “Did you tell her about barely graduating from
high school?”

“Like I said, I told her everything.”

Had that been smart? If Jenna liked Charlie enough, she would appreciate how intuitive he was even though people in Hartley
thought he was at heart a loser and a fruitcake. But if Jenna was just passing the time with Charlie, for her own bizarre
reasons, if she was having a conversational fling, she would probably think that Charlie was, in fact, a loser. Still, Jenna
had experience with all kinds of people, and Laura’s guess was that she would be impressed by Charlie’s ability to make something
of himself even if his high-school teachers hadn’t been able to get him to read the assigned books or do his written homework.

Since the morning when Charlie’s eyes had been doing the telltale glistening, Laura had given herself many stern
talkings-to, reminding herself that this, after all, was her plan, and reassuring herself, too, that she was pretty much in
charge, more or less, because of her access to the e-mails. She wouldn’t let Charlie stray very far, and in the meantime she
was going to learn so much from the experiment, the adventure, the gamble—the whatever it was.

“What do you think Jenna likes about you?” Laura said.

Charlie drummed his fingers on the kitchen table. “Is this Twenty Questions?”

“Maybe.”

“She likes me because, even though I’m scrawny, I’m a stud. She likes me because she has never met anyone as studly as myself.”

“But besides that. Why else?”

“Okay, okay.” He rested his head on his fists and thought awhile. “She likes me because she knows she’s not going to have
to interview me about nuclear physics or international labor laws. She’s not going to have to keep—whatever they’re called—the
Sunnis and the Shiites straight.”

“She likes you because you don’t know about anything important?”

“Bingo.”

“You’re restful to be with?”

“Restful, that’s it. Restful.”

Everything he’d told his wife was true. There were, however, several details that Charlie had omitted in the story of his
date with Jenna. They had not spent time in the café but instead had ordered their coffee and morning buns to go. He had told
her he’d like to show her a favorite spot in a county park, about six miles south of Hartley. They had driven in his car through
town, past the ice-cream shop, the bait shop, the resale shop, and the therapist’s house, which was also her office. He told
her about the therapist, Sylvia Marino, about Sylvia’s troubles with her fifteen-year-old daughter. Every afternoon, the girl
sat on the steps of her house—also the steps of the therapy office—with five boys, five lugs, who were her only friends, and
seemed to be vying for her affections. Ariana Marino splayed herself across the steps, and the five enormous boys surrounded
her, leaden moons to her gaseous planet. Periodically Sylvia would come out and shoo them away, but the next day there they
were again, sprawled on the stairs. All the people who were in counseling had to step over them to get to their appointments.
Jenna had loved that story, and he’d driven them around the block twice, looking for any sign of fair Ariana.

Once they got to the park, they walked along the path through the restored prairie, and along the crest of a hill where there
was a single tree, a stocky burr oak with generous lower limbs. Charlie scrambled up to the spot he used to come to after
his grandfather died. He reached down to Jenna and helped her to sit beside him. She seemed unconcerned about getting her
light linen pants dirty, a quality he admired in a woman. “How I love a pretty little girl,” he sang in his gravelly voice,
“Lord only knows. She brought me a letter, and said she’d be mine, and I can hardly wait to love her all the time.”

The trees were well past the delicacy of their leafing and into the full-bodied vigor of summer. How beautiful and strong
the world was! How free Charlie and Jenna were, alone, away from everyone who loved them. “Sometimes,” he said to her, “I
think of telling you secrets.”

She was gazing out to a pond in the distance.

“Sometimes I’d like to tell you that my wife won’t, you know, sleep with me. That she gave it up years ago. I’d like to tell
you that this seems unfair …” Jenna was very still. She didn’t turn her head or make a sound or appear to be listening. “It
makes me,” he whispered, “sad.”

“I know” was all she said, after a minute.

She didn’t tell him, not until several days later, in a message, what she’d been thinking. In the moment she could feel herself
swimming in the cool water of the pond that was down the hill and past the cornfield. She was swimming in that imaginary girlhood,
a childhood that had unfolded with Charlie, a long-ago life together. She could see it and hear it, the details, the plinth
of their bond, a secret language, a place in the crook of a tree with chipped teacups, the escape at night through an old
lake house, through the wet grass, to swim naked in the black water. It was that idea, up in the tree, perhaps more than the
man himself that made her reach for him. There, the first kiss! He clasped her face—and between them there were astonished
and grateful smiles. He kissed her cheeks, her brow, and then the second kiss, longer than the first, and deeper. Charlie
did not think of Mrs. Rider much. How could he when he had Jenna in his arms, Jenna with her creased white eyelids solemnly
shut and her tongue so shyly exploratory. Because he had always been prone to think in ecclesiastical terms when it came to
love, he believed that he was nearing heaven’s gate, that he was about to be welcomed, after the long absence, back to paradise.

ON A SCORCHING DAY AT THE END OF JUNE, JENNA WAS
sitting in Studio B, just finished with the morning’s program, a show that had featured three authors of Hillary books, all
of them patched in from around the country. The studio was dim in the corners and cool, and Jenna, by herself, felt miles
from stalled traffic and fierce sunlight and the gang shooting that had occurred not far from the station at dawn, and presidential
candidates, including Hillary, who in unlikely small towns were recovering from their pancake breakfasts and preparing for
their picnics. She would have to get out in a minute, making way for David Oberhaus, who did the daily read-aloud show, but
she liked sitting in the stillness, with her mike in front of her, the sleek cylinder that felt as if it were part of her,
an extension of her vocal cords. Suzie Raditz had once told Jenna that in the post-show moments she could see Jenna’s on-air
self—that large, generous, unfailingly curious character—get coiled up and put away, stored for another day’s use. Jenna had
supposed it was an insult, and yet there was probably truth in it. The outsized on-air Jenna was not necessary back in the
office preparing for yet another show.

She could see Suzie through the window, at the control desk, talking to Pete Warner, the engineer. Gone were Suzie’s frumpy
drawstring pants and plain T-shirts and worn-out sandals. She was wearing a summer dress, a yellow sleeveless frock that was
not inappropriate, not really, and yet she walked with a self-conscious boldness, and she stood with defiance, her arms crossed
under her breasts, her feet, in dainty heels, planted wide. It was her impenitence that seemed lewd. Jenna understood that
there is no one as wildly happy as the middle-aged woman who has discovered or rediscovered her sexual self. She had seen
the type countless times. There is perhaps no one as self-absorbed or as careless even as she takes pains to go in secret.
Suzie, despite the new dress, however, did not look radiant or youthful or exhilarated. Her skin was gray, she had circles
under her eyes, and the concealer she wore on her neck drew attention to the hickeys rather than masking them. It had been
years since Jenna had seen a hickey. Had they gone out of fashion? Or was Jenna not around enough young people? She should
ask Suzie if hickeys were making a comeback in the culture at large.

It did not surprise her that as soon as she sat down at her desk Suzie was at her office door. She had felt the Raditz, as
Pete Warner called her, coming on as one feels a headache or a bad cold gathering force. The weight loss had made the producer’s
long nose seem longer, and her green eyes larger and closer together. Love, it seemed, was a starvation diet.

“It’s interesting,” Suzie said, “that, no matter how well researched those Hillary books are, no matter how much time the
author has spent following her around, you never really get a sense of who she is.” She closed the door and sat across the
desk from Jenna.

That morning, Pete had also barged into Jenna’s office, in order to deliver an oration on Suzie’s breasts, in order to hold
forth about how the technologically advanced brassiere he believed she now wore, an undergarment that was intended to lift
and separate, did not fit Suzie, and that, although her boobies were higher than their naturally sucked-out mother-tit selves,
they also looked squashed, cramped, unnatural, and dangerous. The threat level of her breasts, he’d explained to Jenna, was
ORANGE.

“Thank you, Pete,” Jenna had said.

Suzie plucked a tissue from the box on the desk—a bad sign, Jenna knew. “I need your help,” Suzie said, dabbing at her nose.
“I really need your assistance. I’m in over my head, Jenna.”

“What seems to be the problem?” Jenna was trying not to look at Suzie’s chest, trying not to remember what Pete had said about
the threat level.

“Let me just say that I know it’s not exactly fair to bring issues like this to you. I know that. You’ve always been clear
about the boundaries. But you’re the only person who can help, the only one who can go—”

“What’s the matter?”

“The matter is … the matter is David Oberhaus.”

“David?” The professor of English who’d done the read-aloud half-hour segment at twelve-fifteen for as long as Suzie had been
at the station.

“I’ve been having a—a thing with David, a thing—”

“Suzie.” Jenna tried to modulate her voice so that there was an undertone of warmth, a very quiet undertone, barely detectable,
but present. She did not want to sound unfeeling, but she had no intention of encouraging Suzie, of falling down the black
hole of need that was Suzie Raditz. “I can tell you’re distressed,” Jenna said. “You look exhausted. Do you need a few days
off? A week? Or two?”

“I need your help. Please, Jenna. You were so great to me when my mother was sick. You were there for me, and I’ve never forgotten
it, I haven’t. It’s just that I need that kind of support again.”

Jenna had made the error, early on in Suzie’s tenure. She had been young, too, and hadn’t yet understood that her staff could
not be her friends. After the mother had died and Suzie had regained her strength, Jenna drew back, declining her dinner invitations
and outings to the movies, and avoiding the heart-to-hearts. They had gone on together in what Jenna hoped was a rewarding
working relationship for Suzie.

“I’m worried,” Suzie was saying, “about David. I mean seriously worried. And if this thing gets out, and it looks like it
might—”

“I can give you time off. Go away with your husband. Take the kids to the Dells. Get yourself rested and grounded—”

“You’re not hearing me.” She was crying now, pulling tissue after tissue out of the box. “I need you to talk to people in
Administration. I need you to go to David, to make sure he doesn’t—”

“I am hearing you, Suzie.” Jenna spoke evenly. Pushing the tissue box closer to her employee was the best show of support
she could manage. “I’m not available to help you cover up your adultery. I hope that’s clear. The less I know, actually, the
better. I’m not going to talk to Gary, I’m not going to discuss it with David. It’s none of my business.”

“I’m trying to talk to you,” Suzie pleaded, “as a friend. Is that too much to ask? I’ve worked for you for sixteen years.
I’ve always been—”

“Invaluable,” Jenna said, standing up. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to get involved with your scandal. If you need time
off, let me know.” She went to the door and put her hand on the knob. “Try to find the thrill in sound judgment.” She paused,
to let that idea sink in. “I’d prefer not to lose you. That would be terrible. You know how much I depend on your curiosity,
your ability to probe a subject, and your gift for making connections. You know I couldn’t operate as I do without you. However,
this is simple office decorum. You understand the rule, that you don’t shit where you eat. I hope you can keep whatever situation
you’ve gotten into under control.” In the moment, she had the small satisfaction of not having capitulated. “I know you’ll
work it out.” She left Suzie sobbing, soaking the eyelet lap of her yellow sundress.