Schmidt Delivered (23 page)

I see.

All of a sudden he wanted to pull his knees up to his chest, stick his head under the pillow, and pretend that he wasn’t there and this thing wasn’t happening to him. Nothing could be more natural. This passionate girl and the Viking bodyguard with brutally strong, huge hands of such astonishing gentleness when he wasn’t out to hurt, why he was the dream partner for all the things she ached to do—dancing, scuba diving, the triathlon, and other pleasures she had not even
thought of, hang gliding, perhaps, and motorcycle races. And in bed. Although they may not have done it yet in bed, only on a blanket stretched out on a dune or in the back of the Ranger he drove when off duty. There was no way he could keep her from Jason. She wasn’t out for money, his or Mike Mansour’s, or that of any of Mike Mansour’s sleek associates who hadn’t lacked opportunities to whisper to her at parties or to wander off to a corner of a vast deck, out of sight, out of hearing, and back up the proposition with a sudden and expert caress. If she was sleeping with Jason, the ignominy was in what they had just done, in the services she didn’t refuse. But perhaps she wasn’t sleeping with him; it might all be only in her head and his own. Not getting into bed naked, not letting him get inside her, these might be forms of purification and prayer and not her way of being straight with two men at once.

Carrie, he said, you’re seeing a lot of Jason.

No, I’m not. He’s traveling with Mike Mansour.

I know that, sweetie, I mean when he is here. And you’re talking to him a lot. He certainly keeps you informed! What’s going on between you? Don’t be afraid to tell me, just this once I’m not going to blow up.

Jesus, Schmidtie, aren’t you ever satisfied? I guess I didn’t make you feel good just now, huh?

You did, honey, but you know that we aren’t making love the way we did before.

Yeah, I’m keeping you out of my rear end!

This was said glumly. She moved as far away from him as the width of the bed allowed and, though the game wasn’t
over, switched channels until she found women’s wrestling. There was a box of graham crackers on the night table beside her. She stuffed one after another into her mouth and chewed with her mouth open.

Oh, Carrie.

What’s the matter? You’re hurt because I told you what you really like? It’s OK to do it, but I’m supposed to be ashamed to talk about it?

Honey, each time you told me you wanted to. You said that’s what you did with Mr. Wilson. Am I wrong?

Yeah, and now I don’t want to. You want to know why I let you? Because I know that’s all you want. Out of my whole body!

He breathed carefully, not trusting the self-starting action of his lungs. A moment of inattention, and he would be dead. And with the man, with Mr. Wilson?

You lay off Mr. Wilson. He showed me the ropes. I did everything he said. Now leave me alone.

Then she added, and he heard in her voice that she was crying, It’s OK. You can read. I’m going to sleep.

He heard her sob in the middle of the night, when he woke up because his bladder felt full, and tried to put his arms around her, but she pushed him back saying, You leave me alone or I’m getting out of this bed, so that he crept to the bathroom, making sure he was very quiet when he passed water as though there were a stranger on the other side of the door, got a sleeping pill, and returned to bed holding it between his fingers, not willing to take it before he knew that she was all right and there was nothing he could do for her.
She was in fact breathing quietly. Unless she was pretending, she had dozed off. He took his pill and didn’t awaken until eight. It was past the time for her to get up, since she had a class that started in one hour, but he saw that her alarm clock wasn’t in its usual place. That meant she had swept it under her pillow, so she wouldn’t hear it. He wasn’t going to interfere. Missing a class usually didn’t matter to her all that much. For him, it was a question of life and death to speak to her without another outburst. He couldn’t go on as he was, not after last night. Such a crust of resentment and bitterness when he had thought they were friends, with nothing but goodwill between them. He ran his morning errands. In the mail, among the bills and brokerage statements, there was a letter from Charlotte. It would have to wait until later, when he hoped he would feel calmer. Working toward that end, he squeezed the oranges and set the breakfast table. Then he waited, staring at the newspaper.

Finally she appeared, her face sullen and puffy as though she had not slept at all.

You let me oversleep.

I know. I thought you needed the rest.

Some rest. I needed to get to my class.

She ate and drank in silence. He kept quiet too, smoking a cigar until she had finished.

Sweetie, he said, we didn’t go to sleep happy last night. You cried in the night. Couldn’t we talk about it? Try to fix whatever is wrong?

She was hesitating. Then she said, It’s like I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to tell you. You’re good to me,
and Jesus, Schmidtie, I love you. But everything is such a mess.

You do love me?

He knew that was a stupid question, but his need to be comforted was so urgent he hadn’t been able to stop himself from asking it.

Yeah, I love you. Come over here.

She took her elbows from the table, turned in the chair so she was sitting sideways in it, and wiggled out of the sleeves of her bathrobe so that she was naked to the waist.

It’s nice and toasty in this kitchen. Come on, you can kiss me and touch me. Isn’t that better?

It was awkward to lean down, so he pulled a chair up alongside hers. If only he could drown inside her, make the points of her breasts penetrate into his own flesh. He tasted in her mouth the savor of each thing she had eaten: the Rice Krispies with brown sugar, the croissant she liked to save for the last, the orange marmalade. You make me so happy, he whispered into her curls.

You make me feel good too. Shit, I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. I didn’t want any of this. I don’t know what to do.

About what, honey?

About the way I feel. Like I said. I love you, you’ve been good to me, but I’m not like you and you’re old. I mean you’re OK, and in good health and everything, but Jesus, Schmidtie, you’re older than my dad. Then I meet Jason, because you take me to see this rich guy he works for, and right away it’s there. He’s the kind of guy I could really be with, and he feels like that too, and what are we supposed to
do? I don’t know. Hey, you want to see why I’ve been wearing pj’s to bed?

She put her arms back in the sleeves of the bathrobe and untied the belt. Look, she said, pointing to where the hair started.

There they were, right above the mons, a blue
C
interlaced with a blue
J
, with a red heart as background.

I didn’t want you to see it. We had it done by this real cool guy in Riverhead, after the triathlon. Jason has one too, only bigger, over here.

She pointed to a spot high up on the thigh.

Sort of cute, isn’t it?

Very, he said, feeling oddly distant from her and from himself. It’ll show, I think, when you wear a bikini.

Yeah, that’s the idea. You know, like rings.

She began to sob again and reached out for his handkerchief. It’s so hard, Schmidtie, you wouldn’t believe it.

What is hard? Love?

What to do, don’t you get it? Like if Jason and I want to get together, he’s got this job as Mike’s head of security, so what’s he going to do about me? I’m the girlfriend of the guy who’s the best friend of the boss. How does that make me look? And like I told you, I still love you.

He was beginning to see. Downstairs love crossed by an upstairs-downstairs arrangement. It didn’t really matter, but he asked anyway: Are you and Jason lovers? I mean do you sleep with him?

Judging by the look she gave him, he was every bit as obtuse as he had feared.

Honest, Schmidtie, I’m in your bed every night, aren’t I? I lay him when I can. That isn’t any too often. Anyway, I don’t want to get you guys mixed up. You see what I mean?

I do see. Does he love you? Do you want to be really together, for instance get married?

He says he does, she said, looking down in what he took to be a display of modesty that could not be taught and was as entirely beautiful as all her grace.

And you?

She smiled.

All right, said Schmidt. This is very hard, but I think it can be sorted out if you both really want to. Meanwhile, do you think you want to go on living here, with me? Can you?

You mean I can? I thought you were going to tell me to get out. Like good-bye to this house and all that. You know. No more college or car. You really mean I can stay here?

I do.

Even if I’m with Jason, like I told you? Hey, Schmidtie, listen to me, if you let me stay, you and I can still be together. Like fool around. You know, like last night. That’s OK with me. I won’t be a bitch, I swear. Jason knows I love you. It’s just different. The way I love him is different.

Extraordinary excitement and disbelief: he wondered whether he could think straight. Therefore, for Christ’s sake, don’t rush. Who are you anyway? The morals police? Grab the offer. She’ll be in your house and in your bed. Nothing else matters. The shame of it isn’t your business.

You can definitely stay, he told her. Let’s just act natural and be nice to each other. All right?

After she left for her lab class, he hesitated over the red wine remaining in the bottle he had opened the previous evening, poured himself instead a bourbon, and reached for a knife with which to slit the envelope of Charlotte’s letter. His hands were trembling. He put the knife down, looked around the kitchen where everything was in its place, quite in order, and tried again. There were two printed cards inside it. The one on top was some sort of variant on the change-of-address form. It announced,
urbi et orbi
, that as of a date that was more than a week past Charlotte again resided at the apartment that had been hers and Jon’s. The telephone number was the one he knew. She could also be reached there by fax. It didn’t say where she was moving from. The fax number was new, and, having underlined it to remind himself that he should enter it in his address book, Schmidt set that piece of cardboard aside. The other one was an announcement that Jon had become a member of a firm in New York with five name partners, four of them apparently Jewish and one Italian. This had to be good news. He threw the card into the wastebasket. Schmidt didn’t think that he knew the firm—he would have to ask the W & K librarian to send him information about it—but surely Grausam, the first of the names, was the fellow who was always listed as appearing on Bar Association bankruptcy programs, and the Italian, Mazzola, was the divorce lawyer. Well, they had gotten themselves a first-rate bankruptcy litigator—indeed, an excellent all-around litigator, if Jack DeForrest was to be believed. Wood & King had also started out small. One lawyer, the venerable Mr. Wood! Perhaps, before long, Jon and his new partners
would be giving Wood & King a run for their money. It was not exactly the kind of outfit Jon Riker had aspired to when Schmidt recruited him at Yale, but what the hell, he was damaged goods and lucky to have someone willing to take a chance on him. Schmidt took it to be one of those firms where the partners eat what they kill. Riker would have to find clients. The best sources, when you leave a top firm, are your former colleagues, who will send you cases that are too small or have a tight budget, and an occasional good project from an established client they can’t take on because of a conflict—unless they want to make points with a big firm, by referring the client to it instead, which means they take the risk that the big firm may snatch the client and keep him. One had to hope that Riker still had friends left at W & K in spite of the unanimous vote to throw him out. Possibly some partners who felt guilty about what they had done. Schmidt examined the envelope again, went so far as to shake it. No, there wasn’t a personal note sticking inside it, nothing, absolutely nothing, not a word.

Fine. This was like a discharge in bankruptcy, artfully arranged by his bankruptcy-specialist son-in-law. There wasn’t a thing he had to do—except to write down that fax number, which was of doubtful usefulness to him since he did not own a fax machine—and there wasn’t a thing anyone was asking of him. He had entered a state of expanding personal freedom. Another libation was definitely in order. The brown liquid had not yet touched his lips when the telephone rang. Who could it be—Mr. Mansour’s assistant? Mr. Blackman’s assistant? Some surly voiced retired cop soliciting contributions
for the conference of retired police chiefs? Oh no, surprise, surprise! He recognized the voice of Renata Riker at once but waited until she had identified herself before pronouncing a greeting.

Aren’t you thrilled, she asked.

He lied, About what?

Charlotte. Jon. Both of them! You were so right, Jon has got a job, a partnership with a New York firm he likes. I am so happy! I don’t think I was any happier when he made partner at Wood & King. And he and Charlotte have gotten back together. Oh, Schmidtie, this is so good, so right. Are you going to come into the city to celebrate?

My dear Renata, I have received the news from you only this very minute, and I haven’t heard anything about a celebration. In fact, I was just sitting here, having a quiet drink.

You mean they haven’t called you?

They haven’t.

It was pleasant to get back on the solid ground of unchallengeable facts.

That’s bad, very bad, but you’ve got to forgive them, it’s been such a whirlwind. Of course, they were hesitating—I mean Charlotte was hesitating because Jon had no doubts—until the partnership came through, and then, the last couple of weeks, you can imagine! So many plans to make, organizing the reentry into their old life. They were very nervous about how their friends would react.

Of course.

All I can say is that I told them to call you, and it’s my fault that I didn’t make sure it was done. Please, please, don’t sit
there thinking bad thoughts. Bad thoughts have such power! Schmidtie, we’re one family again.