Everything's Eventual

hateful little phrase, one I couldn't wait to stop using.

   'Do that, and call me back if there's a problem.'

   I called John Ring, who hemmed and hawed enough to justify his retainer (not outrageous, but considerable) and then said he supposed a meeting was in order 'at this time.'

   I hung up, settled back in front of my computer terminal, and wondered how I was possibly going to be able to meet Diane again without at least one cigarette beforehand.

On the morning of our scheduled lunch, John Ring called and told me he couldn't make it, and that I would have to cancel. 'It's my mother,' he said, sounding harried. 'She fell down the damned stairs and broke her hip. Out in Babylon. I'm leaving now for Penn Station. I'll have to take the train.' He spoke in the tone of a man saying he'll have to go by camel across the Gobi.

   I thought for a second, jiggling a fresh toothpick between my fingers. Two used ones lay beside my computer terminal, the ends frayed. I was going to have to watch that; it was all too easy to imagine my stomach filling up with sharp little splinterettes. The replacement of one bad habit with another seems almost inevitable, I've noticed.

   'Steven? Are you there?'

   'Yes,' I said. 'I'm sorry about your mother, but I'm going to keep the lunch-date.'

  He sighed, and when he spoke he sounded sympathetic as well as harried. 'I understand that you want to see her, and that's the reason why you have to be very careful, and make no mistakes. You're not Donald Trump and she's not Ivana, but this isn't a no-faulter we got here, either, where you get your decree by registered mail. You've done very well for yourself, Steven, especially in the last five years.'

   'I know, but—'

   'And for thuhree of those years,' Ring overrode me, now putting on his courtroom voice like an overcoat, 'Diane Davis was not your wife, not your live-in companion, and not by any stretch of the imagination your helpmate. She was just Diane Coslaw from Pound Ridge, and she did not go before you tossing flower-petals or blowing a cornet.'

   'No, but I want to see her.' And what I was thinking would have driven him mad: I wanted to see if she was wearing the green dress with the black speckles, because she knew damned well it was my favorite.

   He sighed again. 'I can't have this discussion, or I'm going to miss my train. There isn't another one until one- oh-one.'

   'Go and catch your train.'

   'I will, but first I'm going to make one more effort to get through to you. A meeting like this is like a joust. The lawyers are the knights; the clients are reduced, for the time being, to no more than squires with Sir Barrister's lance in one hand and the reins of his horse in the other.' His tone suggested that this was an old image, and well- loved. 'What you're telling me is that, since I can't be there, you're going to hop on my nag and go galloping at the other guy with no lance, no armor, no faceplate, probably not even a jockstrap.'

   'I want to see her,' I said. 'I want to see how she is. How she looks. Hey, without you there, maybe Humboldt won't even want to talk.'

   'Oh, wouldn't that be nice,' he said, and came out with a small, cynical laugh. 'I'm not going to talk you out of it, am I?'

   'No.'

   'All right, then I want you to follow certain instructions. If I find out you haven't, and that you've gummed up the works, I may decide it would be simpler to just resign the case. Are you hearing me?'

   'I'm hearing you.'

   'Good. Don't yell at her, Steven. That's big number one. Are you hearing that?'

   'Yes.' I wasn't going to yell at her. If I could quit smoking two days after she had walked out—and stick to it—I thought I could get through a hundred minutes and three courses without calling her a bitch.

   'Don't yell at him, that's number two.'

   'Okay.'

   'Don't just say okay. I know you don't like him, and he doesn't like you much, either.'

   'He's never even met me. How can he have an opinion about me one way or another?'

   'Don't be dense,' he said. 'He's being paid to have an opinion, that's how. So say okay like you mean it.'

   'Okay like I mean it.'

   'Better.' But he didn't say it like he really meant it; he said it like a man who is checking his watch.

   'Don't get into substantive matters,' he said. 'Don't discuss financial-settlement issues, not even on a 'What would you think if I suggested this' basis. If he gets pissed off and asks why you kept the lunch-date if you weren't going to discuss nuts and bolts, tell him just what you told me, that you wanted to see your wife again.'

   'Okay.'

   'And if they leave at that point, can you live with it?'

   'Yes.' I didn't know if I could or not, but I thought I could, and I knew that Ring wanted to catch his train.

   'As a lawyer—your lawyer—I'm telling you that this is a bullshit move, and that if it backfires in court, I'll call a recess just so I can pull you out into the hall and say I told you so. Now have you got that?'

   'Yes. Say hello to your mother.'

   'Maybe tonight,' Ring said, and now he sounded as if he were rolling his eyes. 'I won't get a word in until then. I have to run, Steven.'

   'Okay.'

   'I hope she stands you up.'

   'I know you do.'

   He hung up and went to see his mother, out in Babylon. When I saw him next, a few days later, there was something between us that didn't quite bear discussion, although I think we would have talked about it if we had known each other even a little bit better. I saw it in his eyes and I suppose he saw it in mine, as well—the knowledge that if his mother hadn't fallen down the stairs and broken her hip, he might have wound up as dead as William Humboldt.

I walked from my office to the Gotham Cafe, leaving at eleven-fifteen and arriving across from the restaurant at eleven-forty-five. I got there early for my own peace of mind—to make sure the place was where Humboldt had said it was, in other words. That's the way I am, and pretty much the way I've always been. Diane used to call it my 'obsessive streak' when we were first married, but I think that by the end she knew better. I don't trust the competence of others very easily, that's all. I realize it's a pain-in-the-ass characteristic, and I know it drove her crazy, but what she never seemed to realize was that I didn't exactly love it in myself, either. Some things take longer to change than others, though. And some things you can never change, no matter how hard you try.

   The restaurant was right where Humboldt had said it would be, the location marked by a green awning with the words GOTHAM CAFE on it. A white city skyline was traced across the plate-glass windows. It looked New York–trendy. It also looked pretty unamazing, just one of the eight hundred or so pricey restaurants crammed together in midtown.

   With the meeting-place located and my mind temporarily set at rest (about that, anyway; I was tense as hell about seeing Diane again and craving a cigarette like mad), I walked up to Madison and browsed in a luggage store for fifteen minutes. Mere windowshopping was no good; if Diane and Humboldt came from uptown, they might see me. Diane was liable to recognize me by the set of my shoulders and the hang of my topcoat even from behind, and I didn't want that. I didn't want them to know I'd arrived early. I thought it might look needy. So I went