Lily White (50 page)

But forget largesse: Jazz had grown generous in understanding. He told Lee he was trying not to view each night she worked late as a personal affront. And as for having asked her to quit
work, well, he’d done a lot of thinking about how his mother had stayed at home—and how thoroughly she’d neglected all four of her children. He had been wrong about pressuring her not to go back to the D.A.’s, and he was really snowed by the way she was handling it all. He hoped she would accept his apology.

Added to Jazz’s reawakened good nature was the fact that he was now more attractive than ever. The sleek, self-satisfied sheen of young wealth that Lee found profoundly unappealing was being tempered by the loss of his boyish softness, the emergence of sharper, more manly features. To her and, evidently, to the female lawyers and the secretaries on the beach who trekked across the sand in Woodleigh Huber’s wake in order to be introduced.

Of course, a woman’s having a winner for a husband does not mean her heart freezes in the presence of other men. When Lee finally spotted Will and Maria on the wood steps that led to the beach, she was chagrined at the insistent
thump-thump-thump
in her chest.
Thump!
Will’s here! In white shorts, no less—wow, does he have great legs!—and a yellow shirt, with a blue sweater tied with casual perfection around his broad shoulders. He looked as if he had stepped out of the pages of one of the debonair men’s magazines Jazz read but had neither the guts nor the panache to emulate.
Thump,
too, because of the woman beside him.

An exasperated
thump,
because Maria really was as advertised. A knockout. No, more. She looked like someone wonderful to know. White pedal pushers, simple white shirt, a plain straw hat, holding Will’s arm with practiced intimacy. A warm smile. Will waved. Lee waved back.

“That’s got to be him,” Jazz said.

“Who else?” she replied, smiling.

“And
her
,” he added. “Holy shit!”

Lee behaved as if she were amused by her husband’s reaction
to Maria Parkhurst. But it is hard to be truly amused at the sight of one’s husband googly-eyed over a six-foot-tall, amber-colored, hollow-cheeked beauty, especially when that beauty is on the arm of your great pal, your boss, the second man you think of as, somehow, yours.

Up close, however, Maria was not beautiful, merely fabulous, with almond-shaped hazel eyes and full lips that thrust forward slightly, as if in a kiss. Lee was nervous that Jazz, smitten by Maria, might act foolish, but his manner was perfect and his patter above reproach. She should have known better than to doubt Jazz’s social skills, she later reprimanded herself. She did note, however, that he was aiming an inordinate number of four- and five-syllable words at the headmistress when shorter ones would have done fine. Their discussion was fairly straightforward and—so as not to affront Will’s Republican sensibilities—innocuous about what the G.O.P. campaign strategy might be against Jimmy Carter. Such purposely inoffensive conversation did not require “eventuate” and “dissimilitude” on Jazz’s part.

Fortunately, he calmed down later, reverting to short, friendly words, as the four of them made their way to tables set up on an awninged patio where an early dinner was being served. “How long have you two known each other?” he asked Will and Maria. Lee wanted to pat him on the back: Good work! Will, not surprisingly, remained mum.

Maria answered: “It seems forever, doesn’t it?” Will managed to incline his head: Yes, it does. “Let me think. Twelve years, I believe.” Her elocution was so perfect it made everyone else sound as if they were talking through huge globs of mashed potatoes. Upper class, but brisk, not with elongated, isn’t-life-too-too-tedious vowels. Every word she uttered sounded perfect. And to make it worse, Lee thought—as she stood beside Maria, feeling excessively squat—the woman was nice. Maria disengaged
her arm from Will’s, turned away from the men, and focused on Lee. “I’m so glad to have the chance to meet you. Will is enormously fond of you.”

Lee was about to say, The feeling is mutual, but felt that would be too corny, so she settled for: “Thank you,” even though she knew she should have come up with a more graceful response, considering the company she was in.

Maria, meanwhile, was peering along the length of the buffet table. Lee assumed she would turn up her nose at the plebeian food—hot dogs, burgers and a vat of chili—but Maria grabbed a plate. “He used to feel terribly isolated.” She plopped two hot dogs onto buns, added sauerkraut and mustard, then helped herself to a hamburger. Why did Will feel isolated? That’s what Lee was dying to ask. Because beneath his savoir faire he was shy? “How do you think chili will look on my shirt?” Maria asked. “Oh, what the hell: I’ll chance it.” Isolated because he was a black working in a largely white world? “Could you pass me a spoonful of those chopped onions, please? Thanks. Oh, look! German potato salad! You know, you’re his first friend in that office. I’m not talking about the usual collegial relationships. You’re a real friend.”

Lee was so thrilled to hear that her feelings about Will were returned and so grateful that the formidable Maria had chosen to be cordial that it was only near midnight, leaving Val’s room after watching her sleep for about fifteen minutes, then searching for an antacid to combat the effects of the chili, that she realized Maria and Will were perfectly matched. Together they dazzled. Together they were interesting, substantive, articulate. Both were decent and courteous well past the point of genuine kindness. And neither gave the slightest hint of what he or she was really feeling.

“Wait,” Lee said as she climbed into bed. “Don’t go to sleep yet. Tell me what you think about Will Stewart and Maria.”

“I think she should buy a sable coat. She’d look magnificent.”

“She looks magnificent without it.” Lee did not even wait for the loyal, husbandly You look magnificent too. “Do you think they’re in love?”

Jazz kept his teeth together, but she could tell by his flaring nostrils that he was stifling a yawn. “I can’t tell.”

“What do you
think?
” she insisted.

“I think she’s awesome.”

“But does he?”

Jazz turned over onto his side to face her, acknowledging that sleep was not to be his until the conversation was finished. “I can’t tell. For two people who aren’t all that demonstrative, they’re very affectionate with each other. Holding hands, giving each other private looks when they think no one is watching. I guess they’re in love.”

“So why don’t they get married?”

“I don’t know. He works out here and she works in the city.”

“Come on! That’s twenty-five, thirty miles. And they spend a lot of time together. Weekends. She has a house somewhere up in Connecticut, and he’s always going there. And vacations too.” Then she added, in a voice she could hear was too emotional, “They’re going on a photographic safari in Kenya in September!”

Jazz could not suppress his next yawn. “Can we talk about this tomorrow?”

Two days later, Lee took her five o’clock cup of yogurt into Will’s office. He responded by getting a cup of coffee. “How’s the
Yancy
appeal coming?” he asked.

“Fine.” She stirred up the fruit on the bottom a little too vehemently. “I liked Maria.”

“Good,” Will said. Knowing something more of an intimate nature was required, he added: “She liked you and Jazz.” He waited a fraction of a second and gave her: “I liked Jazz too.”

The following week, they went out to a Chinese restaurant, ostensibly to discuss whether she had any thoughts on training the new assistant D.A.’s. But she and Will had been finding some excuse each Wednesday or Thursday for months. Just dinner: Lee could not acknowledge to herself that these evenings were the high points of her week. Their discussions covered a lot of ground: They bickered about politics and delved into legal issues. They discussed everything from how to marinate salmon to their personal lives, although “personal” was a relative term.

Will spoke with respect and affection and some degree of annoyance of his parents, of their ambition for him, and how he felt that no matter how much he accomplished, they were never quite satisfied. He went into some detail about the pain of growing up smart and black but isolated from any black community, a child of servants on the Giddings estate; and of being pressured by his parents to take whatever guff Mr. Giddings’ twin sons, boys his age, dished out. To Lee, the twins sounded like everything Will was not: white, stupid, and incredibly mean-spirited. That was as revealing as he got. When he talked about Maria, it was more travelogue than disclosure: We went here; We ate in this restaurant; We heard this orchestra.

Lee, on the other hand, held nothing back, in part because for the first time, she had a friend who truly wanted to listen and had the time to do so and whom she trusted. She told Will about her early life, not just the outline of it but the texture, about her parents and sister and how she had always felt both her I.Q. and her weight were twenty points too high to allow her to be loved by her family. She confided in him all about her early obsession with Jazz, and they talked about what it meant in the marriage. Will was not just a polite listener; he was a rapt audience. He even relished all Lee’s updates on Valerie: standing up by herself, sitting beside Lee and pretending to read
The New Yorker
aloud—in her baby gibberish—and the gleeful, devilish look in Val’s eyes when she first tasted chocolate.

“Will,” she said, so quietly he looked up from his hot and sour soup. “What about you and Maria?” The couple at the next table turned to stare, but whether it was because Lee and Will were white woman with black man or because they sensed an important turn in the conversation, Lee could not tell.

“What’s there to talk about?” he asked.

“You know, we’re friends. I don’t hold back. Now maybe the average mature woman or the average shrewd lawyer wouldn’t be so open. But I have absolute confidence in your friendship.”

“Good,” he said, and crumbled the crispy, greasy noodles he usually disdained into his soup.

“I wish you had the same confidence in mine.”

“Lee, you’re making a big deal over nothing. What you see is what you get with me. I don’t have any secrets. There’s no mystery.”

“What about you and Maria?”

He took a slow sip of soup. “I love her.”

“Does she love you?”

He thought about it for a moment. “Yes. But I don’t think we’ve ever gotten to the point where we’re in love with each other, at least not at the same time. That’s why we never married. I guess deep down, we’re a couple of romantic saps. We want it all. That’s that.”

“That’s not that. That can’t be.”

“It is.”

“I want to know how you
feel?
”

“About what?”

“I don’t know. About anything. About not being married. About not having children. About being a Republican, for God’s sake. How could you have retained your sanity during all those years of Silent Majority crap?”

“It’s not that I don’t think about things,” he said cautiously.

“Are you the only person in the world who doesn’t have an inner life?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I want to
know
you. Tell me something I don’t know about you.”

Will put down his soup spoon. “My biggest regret is that I’ve never had children. My secret ambition is to write a book about a case the NAACP brought in ’38, where the Supreme Court ordered the admission of a black into the University of Missouri Law School because the state hadn’t provided a law school for blacks. You want something else? I think tarragon is an overrated herb.”

“You know all that isn’t what I’m talking about.”

“I had a brother who died when he was nine. I was six. Leukemia.”

“I’m so sorry. Was it painful for you?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course it was. His name was Timothy. Timmy.” He looked away.

So they talked about other things throughout the meal, especially about cooking, as they often did, and Will told her how much he liked shopping for food in Chinatown. After they paid the check, he mentioned that he was very serious about going to China for a couple of months to study cooking. Lee was amused. “When are you going to be free for a couple of months?”

“Soon.”

“What do you mean? I can’t believe you’re actually going to take the time—”

“I’m leaving the office, Lee.”

“What?” She didn’t get it. “Leaving the D.A.’s?”

“Yes.”

“
Why?
” He did not answer right away. Lee hugged herself as if she were cold, but it was summer. She felt frightened. I don’t
want to be left alone. Don’t go! Ridiculous! Would any male lawyer feel like this?
Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!
she wanted to plead. What’s going to happen to the two of us? How could Will want to go someplace she wasn’t?

Crazy, her reaction. She knew that. But she could not imagine a morning without Will opening the door of his office at nine-thirty on the dot and her strolling in with a bag with two cups of coffee and the one buttered sesame bagel they shared. Why, after spending his entire legal career at the D.A.’s, would he choose to quit? Especially now that she was there? “What made you decide to leave?” she managed to ask.

“There’s a new chief of Homicide.”

“What? Who?”

“Jerry McCloskey.”

“I don’t believe it!”

“I suggest you do believe it. Huber wants to run for governor in ’82. I’m the one person getting in the way of his patronage plans. With Jerry in there—”

“The man’s a nincompoop, for God’s sake!”

“Well, Lee,” Will said, and he reached out and took her hand, something he had never done before, “he’s going to be your nincompoop.”

The first six months after Will left the office were utter misery, and the next six months were so bad that Lee considered quitting the law altogether. However, she did not want to give Woodleigh Huber the pleasure of replacing her with one of his dum-dum cronies. Also, she sensed neither she nor Val would thrive if she became a full-time homemaker. Oh, it was tempting, but in her heart she knew she would come to loathe fresh-baked bread. She would never finish the complete works of Dickens. And a girl can crochet just so many afghans.