All That Was Happy (14 page)

“
You got it on video?”

“
The telescope has an attachment for my
digital vid cam. I captured the entire performance.”

“
Oh, Huntington!” Beckie cried,
grabbing him by the face before planting a fervent kiss on his
lips. This celebratory exchange between them, starting out
playfully, as it did, quickly danced through their souls, lighting
fires everywhere, throwing open the doorways to generous flows of
heated emotions which ran together at the speed of light, uniting
them with the force of the heat until both were caught up in one,
singular, white-hot flame, a flame which soon consumed all the
oxygen in their bodies and forced them to come up gasping for air,
unable to think or speak or even look at each other, the fear being
that their eyes would meet and cause a further explosion which
would consume them completely and forever in an endless
union.

“
I need you to go back downstairs,”
Beckie said. “It’s too soon for me. But after I finish my bath,
maybe we can go to breakfast.”

“
I want you,” Huntington said. “In
every way.”

“
Perhaps we’ve become a gift to each
other,” Beckie said. “But we’ll need to move slowly and
carefully.”

“
We belong together,” he
said.

“
I hope you understand,” Beckie said.
“I’ve just come from a lifetime of doing what my therapist calls
watching the paint dry on walls of my soul--but now I’ve got a
blank canvas--I just need some time to know what picture I want to
paint.”

“
You’re right,” he said. “In the heat
of the moment, it’s easy to get swept away.”

“
It’s not the heat of the moment I’m
worried about,” Beckie said. “I just want to be sure. I’m a little
up in the air right now--I have no home to call my own. But I
promise you, if what we have is real, I’m not going to pass it
up--my mother always told me not to pass up something I loved. I’ve
learned in the past twenty-nine years just how right she was.
Tonight I found something I thought I’d lost--out there, on that
ocean, I found my passion again.”

He got up and walked to the doorway, looking
back one last time at the girl in the shiny silver wrapper.

“
Pretty soon, you, too, will have a
home,” he said.

Chapter
24

“
I can’t do anything about my face,”
she said, “I haven’t any makeup with me--everything is locked up
and under guard in my former home--I don’t see how I can go out in
public like this. I look like the poster girl for the Nicole Brown
Simpson foundation.”

Huntington was on the phone, into which he
mumbled a few words before hanging up the receiver. He stood up and
smiled.

“
You don’t need any makeup,” he
said.

She’d come downstairs wearing one of her new
outfits, a simple blue plaid skirt and white blouse with a draped
sweater and sensible, soft, calfskin shoes with a rounded toe cap
and a flat heel.

“
I’m really not dressed for meeting
Bernie’s lawyers,” she said. “I just didn’t think to have the
Nordy’s girl pick me out a power suit. But how do you like the Ali
McGraw Preppy look?”

“
It’s classic,” he said. “Just like
you. And you don’t need a power suit--what you need is a power
lawyer. I just called a legal beagle friend of mine. Her name is
Lauren Shane--she’s willing to offer us a little free legal advice
before she heads in to the office--but it’s going to cost me
breakfast at the Polo Lounge.”

“
I’m starved,” she said. “How soon can
we get there?”

“
As soon as Mr. Boopers gets back,” he
said. “He’s out inspecting the back alley.”

The Suburban made good time across town and
up Sunset Boulevard before turning into the palm tree’d entrance to
the Beverly Hills Hotel Polo Lounge, getting a jump on the commuter
jam on account of the early hour, and soon they found themselves
seated over fresh brewed coffees beneath a spotlit, pink-linen’d,
demi-table in a booth at one end of which sat Lauren Shane, a
large, bony, bespectacled woman in a red Nancy Reagan suit, her
round, cheerful face topped with a no-nonsense crown of tightly
permed brown hair.

“
Forgive me if I seem a snob for
meeting you here,” Lauren said. “But it’s convenient for me--I pass
this place every morning on my way out to Century City.”

“
I’ve never been here before,” Beckie
said. “Everybody eating breakfast looks like somebody important in
the Industry.”

“
Speaking of somebody important, it’s
not my fault I know Huntington,” Lauren said. “So if you ever find
him behaving despicably, don’t lump me into the same category--my
father was a friend of his father--Huntington and I used to play
together as children in his backyard while our fathers drank too
much brandy and made too much money.”

“
You and Huntington are childhood
friends?” Beckie said.

Lauren nodded.

“
Don’t let the red dress fool you,”
Huntington said. “She just wears red to keep the bloodstains of her
enemies from showing--if you really want to sic a lawyer on
somebody you hate, Lauren’s the lawyer for you. She can bleed
anybody dry in two minutes or less.”

“
That’s enough, Huntington,” Lauren
said. “One more word from you and I’ll tell your companion here
about what you really did during your tenure at Goldman
Sachs--perhaps we’ll discuss the time you blew 1.6 million by going
to the can at the wrong time.”

“
It’s a rough business,” Huntington
said. “That’s why I got out. I got tired of the financial bungee
jumping. I much prefer my present life.”

“
Which is what?” Lauren
said.

“
Bartending and working on my tan,” he
said.

The waitperson appeared and attempted to
present menus, but was rebuffed in the attempt.

“
Never mind menus,” Huntington said.
“We’ll just order what we feel like eating and you can sort it all
out. Put it all on my account.”

“
I haven’t got much time,” Lauren said.
“Let’s order and then we’ll talk.”

“
I’m starving,” Beckie said. “I’ll take
the biggest breakfast you’ve got--I’m talking pancakes, scrambled
eggs, bacon, the works.”

“
Make it two of those,” Huntington
said, “but pile on some whipped cream and chocolate chips on
mine.”

“
I’ll go with your zucchini-pumpkin
muffin and one of those little jars of your Tupelo honey,” Lauren
said.

“
Server,” Huntington said, “the above
order is post haste--that means we want it like yesterday.” The
server, used to such imperial decrees from the spoiled clientele
which normally frequented the place, managed a curt not, after
which he spun smartly and made quick steps towards the
kitchen.

“
Lauren,” Huntington said. “I’m a
little worried. I’m trading you this breakfast for your free
advice, but how much free advice are we going to get for the price
of a muffin?”

“
That all depends on what they charge
you for the muffin,” Lauren said. “But speaking of free advice, my
first piece of advice to Beckie would be learn to duck, or at least
get yourself one of those Tai Bo videos. I assume one of the issues
in your divorce is going to be spousal violence?”

“
This is not what you think,” Beckie
said. “I got this last night from a surfboard.”

Lauren sighed. “I understand how afraid you
must feel,” she said. “But there are ways to protect yourself from
your husband during the divorce--remember, once you are less afraid
and feel less manipulated by fear, you’ll notice how many choices
you really have. For the interim, I suggest we bring in a personal
bodyguard to provide some sort of security until we can set a more
permanent form of control in place.”

“
Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh,” Huntington
chuckled.

“
Huntington, why are you laughing at
me?” Lauren said.

“
Beckie’s telling the truth,” he said.
“Last night she hit the surf and got bonked by the board--I got the
whole thing on videotape.”

Lauren threw up her hands. “Huntington,” she
said, “Just because we’re friends doesn’t mean you can continue
your childish pranks with me. After I finish my muffin, I’m going
to show you a whole new definition of violence.”

“
I’m sorry,” he laughed. “It was just
too good to pass up.”

“
I need to know one thing before we
begin,” Lauren said. “Are you two an item?”

The question caught Beckie off guard. Was she
an item with Huntington? What was the answer? She’d grown very
aware in the past few hours just what an effect he was starting to
have on her--for one thing, her life, in spite of the cloud of
divorce hanging over it, seemed to be brightening, somehow--she
found herself looking forward to spending more and more time with
him.

“
Never mind the question,” Lauren said.
“It’s written all over both of your faces--now, from what
Huntington told me this morning on the phone, your husband has
seized all of your assets, correct?”

“
Just the house and the car,” Beckie
answered.

Lauren shook her head. “If I were you,
Beckie, I’d give a quick call to the bank and all my credit card
companies--you’ll probably find that all your accounts have been
frozen.”

“
Frozen?” Beckie said.

“
This is how it works, Beckie,” Lauren
said. “Do you know how the military defines a successful attack?
It’s an attack that’s over and won before the enemy even knows it’s
started. By now, you’re unemployed, with no money in the bank, no
functioning credit cards, no place to live, no car insurance, no
health or medical insurance, no nothing. If your husband is allowed
to succeed, the only thing you’ll be left with is his last name,
and I doubt very much you’ll want that by the time this is
over.”

“
But we have no-fault divorce in
California,” Beckie said. “Half of everything is going to
me.”

“
Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh,” Lauren
chuckled, the way the devil might do if he heard a good one. “The
truth is, no-fault is a disaster for women. The reality is, by the
time your divorce is over, you’re going to be on the street for
good.”

“
But Bernie and I have a lot of money.
Our tool business is worth millions.”

“
Beckie,” Huntington said. “You told me
that, for the past six months, Bernie has been working on bringing
the tool business into a co-op. Unfortunately, what he’s probably
done is mortgage up everything you own to raise the cash for the
buy-in.”

The waiter arrived with the specified food,
upon which Huntington and Lauren began to eat with a fair amount of
zeal.

“
Good pancakes,” he said. “Beckie, do
you want some of this whipped cream on yours?”

“
She’s crying,” Lauren said.

Beckie was crying. She’d just been plunged
into a world she didn’t understand, a world in which Bernie had
staged a financial coup and left her twisting in the wind, a place
where, presumably, she’d continue to twist in the coming hours,
weeks, and possibly months to come.

“
Cheer up and eat, Beckie,” Lauren
said. “It may look right now as though the cards are stacked
against you, but perhaps it was time you had a wake-up
call.”

“
I’d just found my soul,” Beckie said.
“I found it last night on a smooth wave. But I didn’t realize what
the cost would be--they say a soul is priceless--well, apparently
they’re right--finding it has cost me everything I’ve earned in the
past twenty-nine years, and then some.”

“
You’re in a fog,” Lauren said. “You’re
disoriented. You don’t know where the boundaries are anymore. But
the war isn’t over yet--this is just your husband’s way of turning
up the heat until you’re so uncomfortable that you’ll do almost
anything.”

“
Bernie’s putting the pressure on,”
Lauren said. “But we can start turning the tables if we work
fast.”

“
We?” Beckie said.

Lauren smiled. “That is, if you’d like me to
represent you,” she said.

Chapter
25

“
Well, I guess that’s pretty much it,”
Beckie said. “My cell phone service has been shut off. Lauren was
right--my credit cards and my bank accounts are frozen. All I have
left at this point is a large straw bag, a small collection of
designer outfits, an old bathrobe, a small dog, and a
gun.”

“
You can’t let it get you down,”
Huntington said. “Remember, Bernie’s lawyers are using these
scorched-earth tactics to wear you down and starve you out. The
real ugliness hasn’t even started yet.”

“
The real ugliness?” Beckie
said.

They were in the Suburban, having left the
Polo Lounge and were heading back to the beach to await Lauren’s
call regarding the upcoming meeting with Bernie’s lawyers, which
would take place in Century City, the legal power nerve plexus of
Los Angeles which, from its location near the ocean on the far
western side of the city, complimented and assisted an equally
powerful financial district about twenty miles to the east of it,
as though the corpus of the city itself, with its several divergent
power centers, was descended from the legendary giant with two
heads, in this case one head being legal and the other head
financial.