An Independent Woman (8 page)

D
URING THE PAST SIX MONTHS
, perhaps, half a dozen times, Philip Carter, minister of the First Unitarian Society on Franklin Street, had noticed a tall white-haired woman at the Sunday service. He knew all the members of the congregation, but there were always a few new faces, friends of members and often people who came of their own accord, some out of need and some out of simple curiosity; and when it was possible, he tried to say a few words to the newcomers. But this particular woman usually arrived only minutes before the service began. She would take one of the rearmost seats, and she would leave as soon as the service concluded.

He asked Reba Guthri about her. Reba was the assistant pastor, fiftyish, stout, encyclopedic in her knowledge of the congregation, and Carter's barrier against total confusion.

“Have you ever spoken to her, Reba?”

“Once, yes. No desire to become a member; curious-spectator species. I thought you would recognize her.”

“Should I?”

“She's rather notorious—no, no, that's the wrong word. I don't know what the right word is. She's one of a kind. Her name's Barbara Lavette. As a matter of fact, she was headlines last week, but of course you don't read the interesting stuff. You recognize the name?”

“Dan Lavette's daughter?”

“The same. I made a very gentle pitch to her.”

“And what did she say?”

“Perhaps—someday.”

“Interesting,” Carter said. “When we have time, you must tell me about her.”

“We never have time,” Reba Guthri said, and turned to the small circle around her and their endless questions and needs.

But Carter found his own answers. Two Sundays later the tall white-haired woman remained standing at one side of the entryway until most of the congregation had drifted away. Then she approached him and said, “Could I talk to you, Mr. Carter—somewhere private?”

“Yes, certainly. Come into my office.” He led her into a rather plain book-lined room: a desk, some chairs, and a few portraits and paintings on the walls.

“My name is Barbara Lavette.”

He nodded and smiled slightly. She appeared to be ill at ease, and he wondered what he might do to relax her. “Won't you sit down, please?”—pointing to a chair facing his desk. He was a tall, lean man, long faced, with iron gray hair and dark eyes.

“I've been here half a dozen times,” Barbara said. “I'm not a Unitarian—well, in terms of religion, I don't know exactly what I am. I was baptized at Grace Church, but I haven't been there for years.” She shook her head and smiled. “I must admit that I came here first on a Sunday when it was raining cats and dogs, and I ducked inside and sat down in the last row. I liked what I heard, and I came back several times. I guess you noticed.”

He nodded. “Yes, I noticed. As a matter of fact, I asked Reba Guthri about you. She's my assistant, and she knows everything about everybody, more or less. She holds that I never read the interesting parts of the
Chronicle.
We keep a file of the paper, so I went back and read the story.”

Relieved that she wouldn't have to go through the details, Barbara said somewhat apologetically, “I know you don't have anything in the way of confession, but I have to talk to someone about it—and I know I have no right to come and beard you about this—”

“You have every right. Please.”

“Thank you. I won't bore you with all the details. This is what was not in any of the stories.”

“Would you like something to drink, Barbara? May I call you Barbara? No one here calls me Mr. Carter. I'm Phil to everyone.”

“Certainly.”

“I have coffee or Coke or plain water.”

“I'll have water, if it's no trouble.”

He rose from behind his desk and took a cup of water from the cooler. “Please go on.”

“Well, as I said, this was not in the papers. The man—Robert Jones is his name—he's a black man, a college graduate and a civil engineer who hasn't worked at his trade since graduation for reasons that are more or less obvious—well, he turned to burglary. He picked the lock of my front door and woke me at two in the morning. No rape or any threat of rape. We talked. I told him where the jewelry was, in my bedside table.”

She paused, and Carter said, “Why not in a vault?”

“I suppose I don't care enough about things,” she replied, and Carter reflected that she certainly did care about clothes, dressed as she was in a longish pleated beige skirt and an ivory-colored cashmere sweater. “I always felt that if someone needed the jewelry badly enough to steal it, then let him have it or anything else in the house.”

She paused again, and Carter waited.

“He said something.”

“Yes?”

“I have to use his words. Please forgive me. He said, ‘You liberal do-gooders give me a pain in the ass. It's burning out there, and you sit here with your fuckin' jewels. So thank you for nothing.'”

Carter did not react at all to this, and Barbara sighed. “I shouldn't have come here,” she said. “I have no right to lay this on you.”

“You have every right.” She was silent for a long moment, and then Carter said, “But you didn't call the police.” There was something in her gray eyes that Carter felt was searching him for what was inside of him.

“No. That's the crux of it. He took everything I had in the way of real jewelry, and that included a heavy gold signet ring. It had a sort of leopard carved on it, which was Pop's corporate seal, and his name was engraved inside the ring. It was left to me in my father's will. I told him—”

“Jones?”

“Yes, I told him that if he left me the ring, he could have the rest.”

“You actually told him that?” Carter asked.

“Yes.”

“Did he threaten you? Hurt you in any way?”

“No. He had a gun. At least, I thought it was a gun, but it was a plastic toy. You don't think very clearly under such circumstances.”

“And the jewelry was actually worth more than a hundred thousand dollars, as the paper said?”

“I suppose so.”

“And he left you the ring?”

“Yes. He flung it on my bed.”

Carter was silent for a while, and Barbara started to rise. “No,” Carter said. “Stay a bit. I think we have more to talk about.”

“I'm taking up too much of your time.”

“That's what my time is for. You're a rich woman, Barbara, and you can afford the gift—if that was your intent.”

“I'm not that rich. My grandfather left me a great deal of money, but I put it into a foundation, and while I'm on the board, I can't use any of it for myself. I earn my own living, books, screenplays occasionally, and my newspaper and magazine work. My house on Green Street was a gift from a dear friend of my father. I live modestly, and I am not an idiot who has delusions that would lead me to give a hundred thousand dollars to a thief. I didn't call the police or make any charges because I could not live with sending a black man like this Jones to prison. I have been in prison, as I'm sure you know. I couldn't sleep or have a day of contentment knowing that I had taken fifteen years of a man's life. The jewels are not worth fifteen years of a human life. But I lied. He stole the jewels, that's the long and short of it. He whimpered that the only work he could find was washing dishes and cleaning toilets. For six months in prison I cleaned toilets!” Barbara's voice choked up. “And I damn well didn't whimper!” she managed, and then stood up to leave.

“Oh, sit down!” Carter said with some annoyance. “You wanted to talk, let's talk. You lied—everyone lies. Without lies, human existence would be intolerable. What troubles you: being a liberal, being decent, losing your jewels? What troubles you: letting down your defenses, talking to a stranger? Would I have surrendered a hundred thousand dollars for fifteen years of a man's life? I don't know; but what you did was an act of decency and morality, and that should end it. On the other hand, there is a hole in your thinking.
You
would not have taken fifteen years of his life if you had called the police. It was his act to steal the jewels, and his moral responsibility. But that doesn't lessen the decency of your action. So you lied. Have you never lied before? Tell me.”

Her eyes brimming with tears, Barbara nodded. “I'm sorry, I cry very easily. I cry at animal pictures. Thank you. I have to go now.” Carter handed her a tissue, and she dabbed at her eyes. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Carter.” And with that, she fled from his office.

I
T WAS STILL EARLY IN THE DAY
, and she hadn't been to Highgate since the robbery. When Barbara got home she called Eloise, who was delighted. “Can you come for dinner? We're having someone you'll be pleased to meet.”

“Who?” Barbara asked.

“No. Let that be a surprise.”

Barbara changed into jeans, a pullover, and walking shoes, packed a dress and a pair of black pumps in a bag, and climbed into her Volvo for the drive to Napa. It was little more than an hour's drive, and she would be there by two, in time for a visit with Eloise before dinner. Thinking about her talk with Philip Carter, she felt a weight had dropped from her shoulders. It was not simply what he'd said, but the practical matter-of-fact manner of his approach to her problem. She had not been to Highgate since the theft, fearing the barrage of questions about the incident.

It was a beautiful July day, cool and crisp, with a clean wind blowing from the Pacific and small white cumulus clouds sailing across the sky; and here she was, sixty-nine, and hale and hearty and looking forward to being with people she loved. It was by no means the worst of all possible worlds.

Eloise, still round and pretty in her sixty-sixth year, was waiting for her. She had confessed to Barbara that she was tinting her blond hair. “Adam won't let me grow old.” Now she embraced Barbara and admired her jeans. “I can't wear jeans. I'm too fat.”

“You're not fat.”

“I am, and I will not worship at this American altar of diet. You eat like a horse, Barbara, and you never gain an ounce.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, my dear, you know what I mean. You're not dainty. I grew up with the curse of being dainty. ‘Oh, what a dainty child! Oh, what a beautiful little dainty child!' I was wearing those damn Mary Janes until I was sixteen. No one ever called you dainty.”

“That's true,” Barbara admitted. “I was all long bones with a bony face and freckles.”

“You should bless the bones. Everyone wants them. Good bones and all that nonsense. We'll put away your things, and then we'll walk and talk. Are you hungry?”

“After what you said?”

In the kitchen Cathrena was making tortillas, rolling the dough into little balls and then patting them out in the old manner.

“I offered to buy her a tortilla machine. She wouldn't have it.”

“Because they are no good.” Cathrena snorted. “Did God want tortillas to be made in a machine? How many for dinner,
señora?
”

Eloise counted on her fingers. “Eight, I think.”

“You think, but you don't know. I cook for twelve.”

“She always cooks for twelve,” Eloise said as they went outside. “Put this on. The sun is strong today.” She handed Barbara a wide-brimmed white straw that she had in her hand. “Now, what is all this about you making a gift of a hundred thousand in jewels to a black thief? I never knew you had a fortune in jewelry. You never wear jewelry.”

“Just what you read in the papers. Who's coming to dinner?”

“You tell me the inside story of the great jewelry caper, and I'll tell you who's coming to dinner.”

“Darling,” Barbara assured her, “there is no inside story. I had a choice between sending a man to jail for fifteen years or insisting that I gave him the jewelry. That left me
no
choice in the matter.”

“But why can't he give them back to you?”

“We'll discuss that another time. Meanwhile, let's walk. It's a glorious day. I want to breathe this air and look at the vines and count the grapes.”

“Count the grapes, indeed.”

“And who is the mysterious guest?” Barbara asked.

“First we'll go to the bottling plant. I have to ask Adam about dinner tonight. He's been in the bottling room all day—can you imagine, on a day like this? Last season, under the influence of Freddie, he agreed to buy a truckload of Sylvaner grapes—you know what Sylvaner is.”

“I think I know—is it Franken Riesling? My dear, I didn't grow up with wines as you did.”

“Forgive me, Barbara! But few people know what Sylvaner is. Adam has such prejudice against white wine—he keeps tasting and tasting. The wine is delicious, but he feels that it's humiliating to buy grapes from another grower. But we have to. The business is growing, and our acreage isn't.”

T
HE WET CHILL OF THE BOTTLING ROOM
made Barbara shiver. Adam kissed her and offered a glass of wine. “Taste it,” he said moodily.