Fortune Is a Woman (9 page)

“Assistant VP Overseas, Ms. Beaumont.” This announcement stirred her from her thoughts.

Paula’s assistants came with the job and she didn’t know them well or trust them. “Put her on line two. And close that door, please,” she said, waiting for it to be done before speaking.

“Beaumont here.”

“Greetings from Tokyo. Angelo here.”

“Yes. How are things in Tokyo?”

“Hopping. I’m supposed to return next week.”

“Good, we’re expecting you. Is there anything wrong? Why are you calling?” Venus sounded normal. Playful even. Lydia braced herself.

“Well…I was wondering what you would think if I extended my stay?”

“Business or pleasure, Venus?”

“Pleasure. Who’s we?”

Pleasure. Lydia suppressed her annoyance. “We what?”

“You said ‘we’re expecting you.’ Do you mean Soloman-Schmitt? Or you?”

Lydia took a deep breath. Should she even ask?

“Ms. Beaumont?”

“Is this a client or…something other? This pleasure thing?”

“No.”

No. Just no. So she would have to ask if she wanted more information. Just tell her yes or no and be done with it. “Why have you called me, Venus?”

“Because you’re the president. Remember?”

Lydia put her hand through her hair, rested her forehead on the back of it. “Venus…?”

“Lydia.”

She needed her here. That need was not a vice. It was for the security and well-being of the state.

“Ms. Beaumont?”

“What is this about, Angelo?”

“I…I shouldn’t say.”

Rank and vile. Venus Angelo was a scoundrel. “I order you,” Lydia said through her teeth. “Tell me.”

“Okay. It’s…um…about a woman.”

She felt that in her chest.

“Be my first time…as you probably know.”

(I know only that I am the interim president of a Fortune 500 company. I am the interim president of a Fortune 500 company. This is beneath me. I am not going to react.)

“Tell me you don’t want me to do it, Lydia. Tell me to come home.”

“I’m…Ms. Angelo, I’m hanging–”

“Tell me not to.”

The interim president had a sudden urge to scream. And her womb ached. “Venus,” she said, her voice hushed, “I have no right to rule on this.”

“I’m giving you the right, Lydia. So hit the ball.”

Now she was angry again. At four women. That would include herself and the one in waiting for Venus. “Then stay if you must. I’m going to hang–”

“Is that what you want me to do?”

Want. She could feel hands guiding her hips again. “Venus.”

“Say, honey, I don’t want you to.”

A belt was too tight and a button undone. “You’ve never–?”

“Nope.”

Lydia switched the receiver to her other ear. This one was red and burning.

“Lydia?”

“I don’t…you can’t give me the right to…I’m not reacting to this.”

“Yes or no?”

Yes or no? Just tell her yes or no. Or better yet hang up the telephone, because it’s a checkmate. Venus has cornered the king of the shi–

“Say no, Lydia.”

“Venus, goddamnit, don’t do this to me. I’m the intimate–I mean interim–goddamned president of this goddamned corporation!”

(
Silence
.)

“
And I’m married and I passionately, passionately love my wife and I can’t do this. Do you understand me? I just can’t.”

(
Silence
.)

“Angelo? Answer me.”

“Yes, Ms. Beaumont. I understand you. I’ll need an extra week then.”

Lydia cradled the receiver.

“For sheer pleasure.”

Sheer pleasure.

“Yes or no?”

Lydia trembled with rage. She was king of this shitheap. Venus was merely a prince, the prince of the darkness that was filling her mind now that her head was completely drained of blood. “No–you sonofabitch,” she whispered, before slamming the phone in her ear.

_____

It had been her goal to retire at forty. She had felt secure enough at the time. But now forty had passed and Helaine knew she was at Soloman-Schmitt against her will, that the hefty settlement she had paid to Sharon Chambers had set her back enough to thwart those plans. To complicate matters there had been a change in Paula’s fortunes and now because of it and because of her loyalty to Paula, Lydia was destined to become the president of a corporation she had, with some assistance from Helaine, come to absolutely despise. She was, Helaine knew, completely competent to succeed Paula, but she was no longer morally or philosophically qualified.

So the conflict, turmoil and guilt that Paula was confessing to Dr. Kristenson on the couch this Saturday morning, though different than her own, was striking sensitive cords and if Paula wasn’t so distrustful the doctor would have insisted that she see someone else, someone with no connection to the corporation. But she was sure that Paula would refuse to go elsewhere and the woman wanted and definitely needed professional counseling. Reluctantly then, Dr. Kristenson added to her long list of exclusive clientele, the esteemed president of Soloman-Schmitt.

Today was her second session.

Paula Treadwell was expressing beliefs that are common to people who are depressed. Prominent amongst these themes was the belief that she was being punished by an unseen force. That there were numerous reasons for it including her various infidelities, her moral turpitude and her blind and sometimes blinding ambition. In addition to those matters it was clear that she was afraid, a sensation that, being somewhat foreign to her, had the effect of making her even more afraid. Dickie was, she was certain, not going to make it and though she described as vaguely as possible the concerns she had about the future without him, they were not vague at all to Dr. Kristenson. The Treadwells had been married for twenty-five years. The woman was afraid to be alone. A very human concern.

So Paula Treadwell was a human being, just as Lydia had always asserted. And she was blaming herself for something that human beings just naturally do. They die. In her case, her husband’s prognosis was not a guarantee that he was dying, but he did have only a seventeen percent chance of surviving his cancer, which meant that he was likely to die. As we all are.

If there was a seventeen percent chance that a company’s stock would rise fifty dollars a share by the end of next week, Dr. Kristenson had asked, how many shares would you buy today?

Paula smiled as she left. “Thank you, Dr. Kristenson. I’ll see you next week.”

Liberality

“When lilacs last in the door yard bloomed,” Marilyn Beaumont spouted, “you were but a girl.”

“Yah! I was in my early thirties, mom. Hardly a girl.”

There were no lilacs on the bush now. Summer had burned them away. Autumn had bruised every leaf.

“Well, a girl to me. Helaine really doesn’t know about this?”

“No, still a surprise.”

“Oh, look at these,” Marilyn said, distracted by a row of crumpled peony bushes, their once full blooms crushed and rotted into the ground, too heavy for the spindly plants to bear. Around them stood the remnants of supports she had erected decades ago. “Your father was right,” she said wistfully, “we should have made wire cages for them.”

A second compliment for Dad today. Lydia pretended not to notice.

“And you remember the poppies, dear? Do have your workers be careful near those beds. They’ve got to be over a hundred years old.”

Lydia smiled. Yes, she remembered the poppies. She remembered all of it, like it was yesterday. She held her mother’s arm as they made their way to the other side of the house.

“Of course, they won’t look like much this time of year. I used to let them make heads and then cut them down in July. And see your irises right here? Cut them later. Now,” she paused, taking in the browns and yellows of the spent plants, the crowding weeds, “there’s a gardener in town I trust very much, because, no offense dear, but you’ll need a caretaker. I’m much too old to play in the dirt anymore. My back and all.” She put her hand on it, remembering now how it had become so tender. “This man does the Langley place at the bottom of the hill and some of those newer homes on the other side of the lake. Monstrosities really, but their gardens are just lovely. I’ll bet he can get these beds in order by spring of next year. Prune those plums and cherries so they’ll set fruit again.” She squinted out toward the water’s edge. “Yes, he can. I’m sure of it.”

Marilyn was herself abloom, her daughter realized, happy to be once more in the forgotten gardens of the lake house, happy visualizing the place brought back to life again, with the prospect of Lydia and Helaine living in it, care-taking Eden.

A vision of beauty. But that was a long way off. First, the wraparound porch was rotting into the ground, the roof leaked in three different places, the foundation facing lakeside was unstable at its corner, and the house, which had once itself been as bright and pink as a posy, desperately needed a paint job. Lydia had retained a contractor already and the workers were due next week. Marilyn, knowing this, had rendezvoused with her daughter this weekend in hopes of intervening on behalf of the plant kingdom she loved so much.

“I always apologize to a plant if I harm it,” she said. “With humans I just go speechless.”

Lydia laughed. So that’s where she got it from.

“Better not to mess with people, I learned,” Marilyn added. “They’re more fragile than roses.”

True? Lydia glanced at her. “Mother,” she said softly, “I’ll take good care of your gardens. They’ll be a treasure for Helaine. She loves flowers.” She did a three-sixty and took it all in. The whole yard had become a hay field, a lush meadow. “Even the wild ones,” she teased.

They strolled around the lake after that, the brisk air cooling them as they walked. Afterwards they ate a packed lunch on the decrepit porch and cautiously nipped from a twelve-year-old bottle of white zinfandel Marilyn had found unopened in the pantry.

Twelve years old.

It had been nearly that long since mother and daughter had been to the summer place together and almost never this time of year. To Lydia there seemed a sadness to the occasion. The aging mother, the run-down house, the childless daughter.

Those feelings haunted her throughout the afternoon as the two resumed inspecting the inside of the house and made an inventory of their various other discoveries. Twice she had an inexplicable desire to apologize to her mother. For what, she couldn’t exactly say. Maybe for being too faraway and too busy all the time, or for the grandchildren she didn’t give her, or for her father’s philanderings of which Lydia knew so much more than even her mother did. Maybe it was just watching autumn empty the landscape of all its vitality, replacing it with flashy colors that couldn’t and didn’t last.

Neglect, she mused, after they had completed their mission for the day and she was following her mother’s taillights down the dark country road to the village where they had once all lived together as a family. She and Eddie and Daddy and Mother. Surely that was the reason for her mood she decided: how liberal the seasons had been with the once pretty place, the incredible cruelty of time and neglect, her family’s overwhelming neglect. That’s what had gotten her so down today.

She retired early that evening so her mother wouldn’t feel compelled to stay up late entertaining her. Around midnight, though, she awoke with a terrible longing and used the phone on the night stand to call Helaine. They whispered sweet nothings to each other for over an hour and then finally hung up, both privately satisfied.

Saturday morning, in much better spirits, she returned to the lake house with her mother and, as they had planned, began to tackle the attic situation.

_____

Saturday. Dr. Kristenson had just finished her session with Paula when the phone rang in her waiting room. No Jenny this morning, she answered it herself and was surprised and delighted to hear from Venus Angelo who was back in the states once more, working across the street on a Saturday.

Lunch? Why not? She had wondered if the girl would ever get the courage. Frank’s? Well…all right.

_____

“Lovely,” the astute maitre de mumbled to Helaine when Venus had exited his restaurant. “Problems at home?”

Helaine chuckled. “None. She’s not mine, I can assure you.”

“I see…?”

“Might be in love with my wife, I fear.”

“Oh?” he said, still unsatisfied. “She has good taste. Fanning the fire?”

“A controlled burn, Harry.”

He set her bill on the table and hesitated for a moment. She thought she knew him very well, but she couldn’t decipher his expression this time.

“Then I have to believe you know what you’re doing,” he finally said, “since you are the expert in such matters.”

He was not mocking her, she understood. He was deferring. And reserving. “You’re being way too modest, monsieur.”

_____

The topics were boundless and engaging, but they never once discussed their mates, as Venus would have thought two women having lunch together for the very first time might be inclined to do. Not mentioning them was even weirder to her than babbling endlessly about them.

Good though, because the last thing Venus wanted to talk about was Sebastion. She had seen him only a handful of times since her return from Japan and with his new penchant for pulling all-nighters with god-only-knows who and at god-only-knows where, he had become as elusive these days as the ivory-billed woodpecker. Practically extinct except for a few controversial sightings.

Ditto for Interim President Beaumont who Venus had noticed had somehow developed a pronounced stammer while she had been away. At least whenever she ran into her at work or at the gym or whenever they both attended the same meetings or whenever she had to check in with her by telephone or…Venus now questioned what she had ever seen in her, so convinced was she that the woman was simply an idiot. She would have liked to say to Dr. Kristenson, Do you know what a dork you’re married to? Do you have any idea how obtuse and absurd she can be? But instead they talked about world hunger, peace and social justice, AIDS, malaria, Doctors Without Borders, social democracy versus capitalism, in short, the Kristenson Foundation’s lofty agenda.