“You can return it with my suit,” I said. “And I’ll be glad to throw that shirt away for you.” I stood up to look him straight on. “I’m sorry, Eric.”
“Next time, just tell me if you’re mad.”
“You’re acting stupid, and that always makes me mad.” We stared at each other. “I’m trying to keep you out of trouble.”
He was cooled off, and Katie started eating again. “Don’t throw my shirt away. I like it.”
“It’s putrid. Let Katie take you shopping sometime.”
“Then I’ll look like you!” That was almost worth another plate of spaghetti.
“I’d be glad to,” Katie said, calming the turbulent waters. “It would be fun. We could try something different.”
The prospect of some attention and nurturing appealed to him. “Okay. I could try it.”
“I’ll pay for it,” I said. “And it’ll give Katie something to do.”
We took the phone off the hook, and I called the phone company to change our number. No one had found my cell number yet.
Friday morning I went running. When I got back, Katie had gone out with friends, and I settled in my office and read. Bleak House, by Charles Dickens. It’s about a rich man’s death and what happens to his money.
I sailed that weekend. I spent Friday night on the boat in the marina, and Katie came down Saturday, and we went out into Long Island Sound. There was plenty of wind but the waves were short and choppy, and I faced into them to keep the boat from rocking. We read while the sky was clear, and talked about her friends and a little about maybe taking a trip to Europe later in the fall. She tried to stay away from anything to do with money, which limited the subjects.
I merely enjoyed the breeze and motion and hearing her voice and watching the waves. There are so many colors in the water.
When the weather shifted and clouds started piling up in the southwest, I abandoned my torpor and tacked south across the wind toward Block Island. We watched the rain from across the water.
I could have as easily gone north toward home. “Let’s find somewhere to stay tonight,” I said.
Everywhere, sails were scattering, fat sheep in a blue field escaping a pack of hungry squalls. The boat picked up speed, and the storm had no chance of catching us.
When it finally reached us we were ashore, behind a huge window, eating shellfish and drinking wine, with the marina churning below us. Then we went back on the water, just a little way out, for the sunset and the stars, and finally we slept in the boat rocking quietly beside the pier.
4
Sunday morning I cleared the harbor, heading for home, and there was no way to delay it. The breeze was directly behind us.
Katie had been breathtakingly patient, but now she finally inhaled. “Rosita said there have been twenty more calls since yesterday.”
“I thought we were leaving the phone off the hook.”
“I told her to start taking messages again.”
The weekend had been filled with all the happiness money could buy, which was the kind I liked best. Avoiding Monday was something money couldn’t buy.
“I told the phone company to change our number.”
“It takes three days. You can run, Jason, but you can’t hide.”
“They’re not after me. They’re after my wallet.”
“Do you know what you’re going to do when we get home?”
“Yes. I’ll take a shower, have lunch, and call Fred.”
“What will you tell him?”
“I don’t have that part figured out yet.”
“Let me know when you do.” Fred was inescapable, and she wasn’t worried. It was another gorgeous day, and if I’d taken the boat on another tangent somewhere, she wouldn’t have minded. Instead I cut a straight gash through the waves.
I knew a third of the names on Rosita’s list, I knew of another third, and from the messages the last third left, I knew their type.
“I want to meet Melvin’s board members,” I said to Fred on the phone after lunch. “The officers, or whatever. Pick five names to give to Pamela, and she’ll arrange it.”
“My secretary can arrange the meeting.”
I wanted to stay in control. “No, give Pamela the list. But you should be there. And I’m not committing to anything, Fred.”
“I understand.”
“I still plan to be rid of it.” Every time I said it, it meant less. “But I want to do it responsibly.” That would be a new way for me to do anything.
“Of course, Jason. But keep your mind open.”
“It’s so open you could drive a truck through it. It even feels like someone has. I guess I need someone to give me a list of what I own.”
“That would be George Elias. And by the way, has Clinton Grainger called from the governor’s office?”
“You know he has. Lots of people have, but his secretary was first.”
“Yes, I called him immediately after you left on Thursday. We need to discuss your meeting with him, and soon. We should do that tomorrow morning.”
“Did you hear anything I just said?”
“That you are keeping an open mind.”
Dinner was a standoff with Katie. She knew that time was on her side. I was meeting with Fred and with the board members. She just wanted to hear that we were really going to Disney World.
“It won’t be that hard,” she said. “You can hire people to do everything for you.”
We usually eat in the formal dining room. It had been annoying to me at first until I got used to sitting at the head, Katie at my left, the other ten places stretching off into the distance. We never entertained. Katie liked the room, though. Royal blue walls and rococo ornamental plaster, tile floor, Windsor chairs. It made up with elegance what it lacked in geniality. It made a person feel like a king.
“It’s the being, not the doing.”
Philosophy was not the ground she wanted to fight on. “I talked to Angela this afternoon,” she said.
“How is she?”
“She feels very alone.”
“You need friends to not be alone, and she doesn’t want friends. Or she’d at least have to be willing to talk to people,” I said. “Maybe you should have lunch with her.”
“We are tomorrow. I suggested it. Does she get to stay in the house?”
She meant the question to sound innocent, but did she have her eye on the Big House? It was only a matter of time. “All the properties are part of the estate. But Angela has exclusive use of the main house as long as she wants, and she can use any of the other houses.”
“Good. I’d hate to think she’d have to move.” Angela would be a good distraction for Katie.
I excused myself and went looking for my book. I don’t always read so much. I was just in greater need of escape.
But I couldn’t read. After a while I was back in my office. Pamela had me all fixed up with Fred at nine o’clock, with George Elias for lunch, and with the board members at three. Clinton Grainger was open Monday night.
“How did you know that?” I asked the sweet voice on the telephone.
“I talked with his secretary,” she said. “Fred suggested it. I told her you were still very busy with your own people and it would take a couple days for you to be ready for outside meetings.”
