An Independent Woman (20 page)

“Go ahead.” She cracked the eggs and dropped them into the bacon grease, thinking that once more would not kill him.

Silent, he sat with his eyes half closed. Barbara felt that he would fall asleep at the table. Then he shook his head, like a shaggy dog freeing itself of water, and she thought of what Philip had said about karma. In a world where few doctors still made house calls, Joe drove up and down the Napa Valley and often over to the Sonoma Valley to deliver a baby or to put together a broken body. Time had not been good to him. His stomach bulged; his eyes were red from lack of sleep.

“Joe, go ahead and tell me what's on your mind,” she said, filling his plate with bacon and eggs and taking toast from the toaster. She had anticipated what he was going to say.

“It's about the wedding.” He was hungry, and he ate as he spoke. “I understand that Freddie is paying for the wedding. That hurts me. I can pay for my daughter's wedding. I hear that you put Freddie up to this. You shouldn't have done that.”

“Twenty-five thousand dollars plus. Joe, you can't afford that. It's good for Freddie's soul.”

“I don't give a damn about Freddie's soul. It's my daughter and my responsibility. I know how Sally blew this all out of proportion—well, Sally is Sally, and let it be. But I'm going to pay for it.”

“Don't blame Sally. Eloise wanted it this way. And it's not only May Ling's wedding. It's mine as well, and I don't intend to allow you to pay for anything.”

He perked up at this. “What do you mean, your wedding?”

“I mean that it's to be a double wedding. May Ling is marrying Harry, and I'm marrying Philip Carter.”

“No. When did that happen?”

“It's been happening.”

“Why didn't I know about it?”

“Because it was just decided. Are you going to pay for my wedding, Joe? I can understand how you feel—but this was never Eloise's intention. Joe, let it be. You've been doctoring Eloise and Adam and everyone else at that winery for years and you never send them a bill, and when they send you a check, you return it.”

“Barbara, they're family.”

“Then let them be family. What happened last night?”

“A third-trimester abortion. The child's brain was outside its skull. God, I hate those things…”

He finished eating. She steered him upstairs to the guest room, pulled off his shoes, and loosened his tie. “One hour,” he mumbled. “Then wake me. Call Sally and tell her to cover for me.” He fell asleep even as Barbara stood there.

O
NE EVENING A FEW DAYS LATER
, Freddie drove Judith Hope to her parents' home in Oakland. It came about in this manner:

He had said to her, “I want to meet your parents.”

“Why?”

“I'll tell you why. You agreed to come to the wedding at Highgate. You'll meet my mother and father. That's perfectly normal and natural, considering the way I feel about you.”

“And how do you feel about me, Freddie?”

“I love you. That's how I feel about you. If you were a white woman, I'd know your family by now. I don't see why it should be any different because you're black.”

“Suppose I feel it's different? I'm not a white woman. Suppose I had no father and my mother did day work and she lived in the Oakland ghetto?”

“You would never permit your mother to do day work. I know you well enough to know that. You told me your father is a successful dentist. You told me you go there every week on Friday for dinner. I want you to bring me along and for them to expect me to be with you.”

Eventually she gave in, and now they were on their way to Oakland, Freddie bearing a package of four bottles of wine as his dinner gift. The house, a modest white front-hall colonial, was by no means in the ghetto, but on a pleasant hillside; and Judith's mother, a plump woman in her fifties, opened the door and greeted them, kissing her daughter and taking Freddie's hand with a smile. Dr. Hope, behind her, a large, full-bodied man, was unsmiling. He nodded when Judith introduced Freddie and he shook hands with him, murmuring something that Freddie did not get.

They went into the living room, simply furnished with a couch, two armchairs, and a television set. There were photographs and some prints on the walls, and there were more photographs on a small piano. A coffee table was loaded with chips and a dip and a bowl of crudités. Freddie offered his gift of wine without going into its origin. Mrs. Hope asked what he would have, and since she was pouring white wine, he agreed that he would have that, although he had no taste for white wine and had brought Cabernet with him. Judith suggested that he might like red wine, but he shook his head firmly.

Dr. Hope, his voice deep and throaty, asked where they had met, and lying smoothly, Judith said they had been introduced by Art Brown at the Fairmont. Dr. Hope said he had never been to the Fairmont, and Judith reminded him that she had taken him and her mother to the Fairmont on her mother's fiftieth birthday. He grumbled that it was different, Judith being a celebrity. Freddie, trying to measure Dr. Hope by his denial that he had ever been to the Fairmont, against Judith's declaration that he had been there, decided that, like his daughter's, Dr. Hope's thinking took two paths. Being at the Fairmont meant walking in with his wife, both black, whereas Judith lived with one foot in another world.

Mrs. Hope said, “Five minutes. I can't have you late to the table,” and disappeared into the kitchen.

“She's doing chicken with dumplings,” Judith explained. “She's a wonderful cook. When she puts the dumplings into the boiling water, they have to be out and on the table to the minute.”

“Mrs. Hope's from South Carolina,” Dr. Hope said, as if that were the final word on her cooking.

The food was delicious, tiny carrots and greens to go with the chicken. Dr. Hope opened a bottle of the Cabernet that Freddie had given them and said that he didn't go along with this nonsense that you drank only white wine with chicken. “The chicken doesn't know the difference, and in my world, wine is red.” He had finally opened up and was talking directly to Freddie.

“I couldn't agree with you more,” Freddie said. “I thought the Chardonnay you served before was delicious, but for me, wine is red wine—especially a Cabernet.”

Judith watched Freddie and her father with interest. So far she had said little, except to reply to her mother's questions about the food. “Mama, your food is delicious, the very best in the whole Bay Area. You always ask me, and I always tell you that.”

“But you eat in all those fancy foreign restaurants.”

“None of them can hold a candle to your cooking.”

Judith had become something Freddie had never seen before. The glamorous model was gone. Dressed in a pleated blue skirt and a white pullover, this was a child with Mama and Papa, behaving very properly. She had removed the bright fingernail polish that was a part of her usual costume and she wore no makeup. Her only jewelry was a small gold cross on a thin gold chain around her neck.

After dinner they returned to the living room, and Judith helped her mother bring in a tray with coffee and cookies. Dr. Hope opened a box of cigars, took one for himself, and offered the box to Freddie, who didn't smoke cigars, though he was tempted to take one just to enhance the relationship. As the better part of valor, he refused.

“Not a smoker,” Dr. Hope rumbled. “Good thing. No good for the teeth. No good at all.”

“I have a matter of great importance to me,” Freddie said, “that I would like to discuss with you, Dr. Hope, and with Mrs. Hope, of course. It concerns your daughter, Judith—”

Judith was suddenly alert and waiting.

“—and my feelings for her. I would like to ask for her hand in marriage and your permission to do so.”

Judith sprang to her feet and shouted, “How dare you! How dare you come here with that idiotic speech without telling me! We're leaving—right now!”

“Sit down, girl!” her father snapped. “Just sit down and keep a still tongue in your mouth. You're not going anywhere. Just sit down and behave.”

To Freddie's amazement Judith sat down, looking daggers at him.

“What this young man has done is perfectly proper. Proper, and I respect it. We live in a time when these small amenities of decency are forgotten. Now he and I are going to talk, and you will sit there and listen. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Papa,” she answered succinctly.

Mrs. Hope said nothing, only breathing deeply and trying to appear sympathetic to all sides.

“Now, son,” Dr. Hope said to Freddie, “how old are you?”

“Forty-two.”

“Old enough to know your own mind. I gather you've been married before?”

“Yes. I'm divorced,” Freddie said.

“Any children?”

“A little boy. He's four years old. His mother has custody, but I see him frequently.”

“Was that a court decision?”

“No, sir, it was my decision. His mother's a wonderful woman—it just didn't work.”

“Yes, I can respect that. I don't hold with this business of divorce; Mrs. Hope and I have been married thirty-nine years. But I suppose there are times when it's necessary. Now, what do you do for a living?”

“I manage a winery in the Napa Valley. It's called Highgate. The wine I brought you tonight is our product. We specialize in Cabernet Sauvignon, and we like to think that our Cabernet is the best produced in America. We're not the biggest winery, but we do a substantial business.”

“You don't own this winery, or do you?”

“No, sir. I have a share of the stock, but the winery is owned by my father, Adam Levy. He adopted me when he married my mother. My biological father was Thomas Lavette. I still use the name Lavette.”

“You mean Thomas Lavette the banker?” Dr. Hope asked.

“Yes, sir. He died five years ago.”

“And what is your religion, young man? I ask that personal question because your request is a personal one.”

“I'm Episcopalian, sir. I was baptized in Grace Cathedral”—not mentioning that he had not set foot in the church or taken communion since his father's death.

“We're Baptists, but I don't hold any man's religion against him. You understand that if my daughter should agree to your proposal, the ceremony would be held in a Baptist Church. You have no objection to that?”

“No, sir,” Freddie said, “absolutely none.”

Dr. Hope looked at his wife, who smiled and nodded and said, “I think he's a very nice young man.”

“Well, Frederick,” Dr. Hope said, “I believe it's up to my daughter, and I'm sure you will discuss it later. She's a woman of sound judgment, and she knows her own mind. And now I suggest we pour some of that wine you make and drink to the happiness of both of you.”

Judith listened to all of this in stony silence, and when the wine was poured she barely touched it to her lips. When they rose to leave she kissed her father and mother, and when her mother asked her to please wear the warm wrap that had been her Christmas present and not walk around half naked just because it was summer, she said, “Yes, Mama, I will. I really don't walk around half naked.”

In Freddie's car, driving to San Francisco, she stated her feelings in two words: “You bastard!”

“That was pretty harsh.”

“You miserable, revolting bastard! You planned this whole thing. Don't try to deny it. What a cheap, low-down trick!”

“Why, Judith? Because you let me know how much you love and respect them? I want to be your husband. I want that more than I ever wanted anything in my life, and I knew that if the doctor and his wife were against your marrying a white man, my case would be damn well lost. So there it is. Will you marry me?”

“No. Not now. Never.”

“Why? I love you. I think you're the most wonderful woman I have ever known. I haven't looked at another woman since I met you. I can't live without you.”

“Freddie, stop it. I'm black, you're white. Finished.”

“Never is a long time—and you know, I may be a bit flaky, but I noticed from the beginning that you are black and I am white. It makes no difference to me; does it matter to you? There's no prejudice in my family. They will open their arms and embrace you. My mother's the most open-minded gentle woman in the world, and my father will love you. Furthermore, I'm two inches taller than you are, and unless you decide to marry a basketball player, you'll have a hard time finding someone who'll top your height.”

She was laughing now. “Watch your driving, and don't try to kiss me while you're driving. My father warned me never to let a man touch me while he was driving. Freddie, I do love you. I can't imagine why, but I do. Marriage is something else. I don't know whether I'll ever marry anyone.”

“I'm patient. I can wait.”

“My dear Freddie, we live in a world that's divided into two parts, and they're as separate as Europe and America. I've watched people try to cross into the other part, and I've never known it to work.”

“I can show you twenty marriages that I know of, white on white, that don't work, either. My father divorced my mother for a woman he later came to hate. My mother married my stepfather, who is Jewish, and that's the best marriage I've ever known. Some work, some don't work. We have sex going for us, and I swear to God, I'll make it all work.”

“Love isn't something you can pick apart and analyze. I can appreciate the respect you showed my parents, and I think I may even be falling in love with you. But I won't marry you.”

“All right. We'll let that rest for the moment. But you'll still come to May Ling's wedding?”

“Not if I'm the showpiece nigger.”

“I hate that word,” Freddie snapped. “I don't like it from your lips any better than you would like it from mine.”