An Independent Woman (2 page)

“Everything. The vote is Friday. If they can run it in Thursday's
World
, that would be perfect, and that would give the media time to pick it up and quote from it. Just anticipating what you would say, I spoke to three radio stations. Two of them will read your column, in full, through commuter time.”

“Bless you,” Barbara said. “My dad used to say that I spend my life spitting into the wind, something no sound sailor does. But sometimes, just sometimes, the wind turns.”

“Yes, it does,” Dianne agreed.

T
HAT AFTERNOON
, sitting on her desk, Barbara's old Olympia typewriter appeared to welcome her. No word processor for her; she and the ancient Olympia knew each other.

She had just finished a long telephone conversation with Carson, and the idea excited him. “It's about time the City came to its senses,” he said. “Build up Dianne in your story. She's a wonderful woman. Tell her I'll give it front page, two columns, with a banner headline. Barbara, this city is an armed camp. Every man and woman in L.A. wants a gun. We run half a dozen ads a day for shooting instruction. You're right on the nose.”

“Fifteen, sixteen hundred words—will that do?”

“Write yourself out. If it has to be cut, I'll cut it—very carefully.”

“And how are you feeling, dear man?”

“Good. A little stickiness in the chest, but that's the junk food I'm eating—doctor says it's gas—”

“Oh no,” Barbara protested.

“I watch my weight, work out every day. I haven't gained an ounce. And I'll be in San Francisco Friday night. Dinner and other things?”

“We'll see.”

She was still writing at midnight, her desk covered with stacks of material from Dianne's office: details, statistics, homilies. Her back ached, but the material lured her on: who produced handguns, how they were sold, the political power of the National Rifle Association, the technical changes in guns, the handgun machine pistol, handguns and suicide, handguns and family quarrels. How could she leave out the story of how Dan White walked up to Mayor George Moscone, a man Barbara respected and believed in, and deliberately shot him to death with a handgun? And Dianne Feinstein—Carson wanted a lot about her, of course; she won elections, unlike Barbara Lavette.

At three o'clock in the morning Barbara went to the kitchen for her fourth cup of coffee, and at six o'clock, with the gray light of dawn seeping through the blinds, she finished the two-thousand-word piece and fed the sheets into her fax machine, trying desperately to remain awake. The fax machine was a gift from Carson and it was then so unusual that a local magazine had run a story about the only household in San Francisco with a facsimile processor.

Then Barbara climbed the stairs to her bedroom, tired to the point of utter exhaustion. It had been years since she had worked the night through, and she fell asleep almost instantly. At twelve noon the telephone rang four times before she could shake herself awake, pick it up, and respond rationally:

“Ms. Lavette?”

“Yes.”

“Felix Colone.” Colone was the managing editor of the
World
, a dyspeptic, skinny little man who had grudgingly accepted Barbara's place as a columnist. “I have to tell you, Ms. Lavette, that we can't run your story. This is a town where every other citizen has a gun—and I'm referring not to the ghetto or the barrio, but to Hancock Park and West Los Angeles and Beverly Hills. In so many words, your article projects a policy that will do nothing and only offend.”

Taken wholly aback, Barbara shook her head to clear it. There was no use arguing with Felix. “Let me talk to Mr. Devron, Felix,” she said coldly.

“You can't. I'm serving in his place. Mr. Devron died last night.”

“What!” Then her voice failed her, and she sat for a long moment, staring at the telephone. “What are you saying?” she managed. “Is this some ugly joke?”

There was no sympathy in Colone's hard-edged voice. “Hardly a joke, Ms. Lavette. Mr. Devron had a heart attack after dinner last night. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital but they were unable to revive him. He passed away shortly after ten. And by the way, Mrs. Devron gave orders this morning that your column be terminated immediately. If there is anything I can do for you, let me know.”

Her hand trembling, Barbara put down the telephone and stared mutely at nothing. She felt the tears begin and she felt the tears on her cheeks, but inside there was only emptiness, as if she, too, had passed away with Carson. Then the anguish boiled into anger. Her Carson could not have died of a heart attack. She knew the man, every inch of his splendid body, every muscle, every reflex. He was the man who had run the decathlon and won the gold in the Olympics. He had been her husband; they were divorced, and after the divorce he fell into a wretched marriage, and then they became lovers. She recalled how he would pick her up in his arms, as if she were a child—and she was no child, but a solidly built woman of five feet and eight inches.

Grief was not new in her life, but this was not simply grief. She was sixty-seven years old; Carson had been a gift of life, as she felt it, the last gift. Her mind raced crazily. Carson's wife had no love for him, but she would not have divorced him or the Devron fortune—which she would have done anything to have without Carson. His death—as Barbara saw it at that awful moment—liberated his wife and took from Barbara all the hope in the world.

She steadied herself as well as she might, found the number of Mount Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, and asked for Dr. Hazelthorpe. He had practiced surgery with her son, Sam, at Mercy Hospital in San Francisco, when they were both residents; and often Sam would bring him to her house for dinner. She got through to the hospital, told them that it was an emergency, and in a few moments was connected with Hazelthorpe in the doctors' dining room.

“Barbara? Yes, of course I remember you. I was going to call you, but I've been in surgery all morning.”

Let it be his excuse
, Barbara thought, and said to him, almost bluntly, “I love Carson. How did he die? I must know. Carson was strong and healthy. How did he die?”

“Barbara, this happens to men who appear to be in good health—and sometimes to athletes. As I understand it, Mr. Devron came home from his office and went out to run at a nearby track. He did this several evenings a week before dinner. He collapsed at the dinner table, a massive coronary occlusion. He was dead when the ambulance got there.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes, that's how it happens.”

“Did his wife call the ambulance immediately?”

“She was at their beach cottage. As I understand it, the butler called the ambulance. Mr. Devron was eating alone. They called me when he came here, but there was nothing we could do. It was too late.”

Barbara put down the telephone, her hand trembling.
It was too late.
Everything was too late.

I
T WAS AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER
that Eloise Levy appeared at the house on Green Street. Eloise was Barbara's dearest and closest friend, but more than that she was a part of the tangled relationship of the Levys and the Lavettes that had begun over eighty years ago, when Dan Lavette and Mark Levy became partners as shipowners. She was a daughter of the Clawson family, as well known in San Francisco as the Lavettes, and she had married Thomas Lavette, Barbara's older brother. She was a gentle, generous woman, and the marriage had been short and cruel. Divorced, she married Adam Levy, Mark's grandson. Her second child, born of her marriage to Adam Levy in 1948, Joshua by name, had fought in the war with Vietnam, lost a leg, and a few years after his return to California, had taken his own life.

She and Barbara were knit, not only by their fondness for each other, but also by the series of tragedies that both of them had endured. Each was privy to the thoughts and hopes of the other, and when Eloise heard of Carson's death on a morning news report, her first thought was to be with Barbara.

Now, when there was no response to her ring, she used the key to the house that Barbara had given her years ago. Inside she called Barbara's name softly and then glanced at the kitchen and Barbara's study, still littered with the books and papers of the night before.

“Barbara?”

She went up the stairs and to the bedroom, opened the door quietly, and saw Barbara sprawled on the bed in her nightgown, face buried in a pillow. Eloise's immediate fear was that Barbara had taken her own life, although she would have sworn that Barbara could not do such a thing under any circumstances. Her mind flashed back to the day when she and Barbara had found her son Joshua dead, his wrists cut.

Her voice rose in a shriek. “Barbara!”

Barbara stirred, turned over, and sat up, her face tear stained, her eyes bloodshot, her hair in a tangle. Rushing to her side, Eloise embraced her, and for a minute or so, the two women clung to each other.

“What time is it?” Barbara managed to say.

“Almost two.” Eloise went to the window and drew back the drapes. Sunlight poured into the room.

“Two o'clock,” Barbara whispered. “How did you know?”

“It was on the radio. I drove here as soon as I could. Are you all right?”

“As all right as I'll ever be, I suppose. I need a shower, Ellie. I have to get dressed.”

“I'll make some breakfast. You have to eat.”

“Just coffee.”

“No, no.” Eloise wouldn't have that. They had the closeness of partners in pain. She went to the kitchen and fixed bacon and eggs and brewed fresh coffee. She recalled a weekend that Barbara and Carson had spent at the winery, and the walk the three of them had taken up the long slope to the top of the hill that overlooked Highgate, the long rows of vines stretching down beneath them, and the old, ivy-covered stone buildings of the winery nestling under red tile roofs. Carson was almost ecstatic that afternoon, bemoaning the fate that had tied him to a newspaper rather than to a winery and telling the girls that this is where he was meant to be and live; and certainly he could have done so if ever he'd had the strength to break loose from his family. He and Barbara had been married a few months before, and already their union was fraying at the edges. Yet Eloise remembered what a splendid pair they were— Carson, the Olympic athlete, with his tall, well-tuned body and his thatch of blond hair; and Barbara, long limbed and free striding, five feet, eight inches—the two of them dwarfing Eloise's five feet, three inches, Eloise being a round, gentle little woman who almost had to run to keep up with them. They had been so full of youth and confidence and strength; and now Eloise's hair was white, and Barbara's hair was almost white, and death had come to her again.

Barbara, dressed in old jeans and a brown shirt, looked at the platter of eggs and bacon and buttered toast in dismay. “Dear Ellie, I can't eat. I'll have some coffee.”

“All right. And then perhaps you'll eat something.” She poured coffee for both of them. “And you must come home with me and stay in the Valley with us. It will be good for you. You'll be surrounded with people, and they'll bother you to confusion and take your mind off everything, and the children will be delighted because Aunt Barbara is there…”

Barbara was now munching the toast, carried away on Eloise's river of words.

“Adam and Freddie are battling away like cats and dogs—”

“Freddie and Adam? I don't believe it.”

“Oh yes. You know, Freddie takes off every winter for the wineries of Europe, and this time he brought back a case of Imperial Tokay, from the gardens that once belonged to the emperor Franz Joseph. It tastes like elixir of the gods, and he brought a bag of seed. He paid a thousand dollars for the case and another thousand for the seed, and he had to bribe all sorts of people to smuggle them out—which, you know, is typical of Freddie—and Adam says we can't grow it in the Valley and that every California Tokay he's tasted tastes like—well, I won't use the word—and anyway Adam hates sweet wine, and Freddie brought in the argument that when Jake and Clair bought the winery for a song in 1920, the only business they had was sacramental wine for the Jews and the Catholics and the Episcopalians—and it just went on, and for two days they didn't speak to each other—”

In spite of herself, Barbara was caught up in Eloise's outpouring of family gossip. “And are they going to grow it?”

“Heaven forbid! Freddie apologized to Adam—for what, I don't know—and we drank the Tokay every night after dinner, and Freddie gave a bottle to Candido as a peace offering—you know, that wretched business with Freddie and Candido's daughter—and Candido, who never saw a bottle of wine at a thousand dollars a case, won't open it but is saving it for his daughter's wedding. Adam, as a gesture toward Freddie—you know, Barbara, Adam is a very sweet man, and I think his anger at Freddie was more because of the way Freddie treated Carla than about the Tokay—and anyway Adam went to the university and consulted Professor Hermez, the dean of the vintner school, who agreed with him that only the soil around the town of Tokay in Hungary could produce the wine, but pleaded for a handful of the seed for their experimental garden—which Freddie provided—so everything is healed and the professor came to dinner and drank two glasses of the Tokay and declared it one of the great privileges of his life. So there you are.”

Eloise was far more intelligent and complex than people gave her credit for, and Barbara didn't know whether she had formulated her story deliberately or not, but it caught Barbara up in the life of Highgate, which was stocked well with her memories, and she said yes, she would come, she'd love to come.

“And you'll be there in time for dinner—please, Barbara.”

“Yes, I can be there in time for dinner.”

“And you're all right now—enough to drive alone?”