Emerald Aisle (8 page)
WHEN DOLORES GOT A CALL from Bianca Primero asking her to lunch, she had no idea who she was. “I'm an old friend of Dudley's.” Something about the way the woman said this both annoyed Dolores and excited her curiosity. She allowed herself to be coaxed, but after she accepted she did not tell Dudley. She had the feeling he would tell her not to go.
The selection of Dayton's Tea Room might have been meant as ironic, but Dolores didn't mind. She would have gone to McDonald's to find out who Bianca Primero was.
She was a surprise, an older woman, nice as pie at first. Dolores might have been having lunch with an aunt.
“It was wise not to tell Dudley,” Bianca said after several minutes of idle back and forth chatter.
“How do you know I didn't?”
“Because you're here.” She lit a cigarette in an elaborate ritual, bringing the manager on the run.
“You can't smoke here, ma'am! This is a smoke-free restaurant.”
“Even in the kitchen?” She blew smoke at him and then tapped the cigarette out in her bread plate. She handed it to the manager. He took it, paused, tried to smile, turned and left. “Ass.”
“Would you rather go somewhere else?” Dolores asked.
“I will certainly never come back here. Have you ever been here before?”
“No”
“It is a favorite haunt of young matrons, I'm told. Perhaps you will see a lot of it in the future.”
“Perhaps.”
“So what has Dudley told you of me?”
“What would he tell me?”
“How we met for instance.” Bianca smiled. “One Saturday morning in Highland Village, in a gallery. He was admiring a sentimental beach scene, mother with children, soft blues and yellows and whites.”
“No, he didn't tell me. Why would he?”
“I bought the picture.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Oh, come now. Why are we having lunch together? It's the passing of the baton, is it not? I don't mean to be crude. Do you find me old?”
“You look marvelous.”
And she did. Dolores had been studying the woman across from her. That she was older than Dudley was clear, but she certainly was not
old.
Her suggestion was that Dudley had come under her spell, but perhaps it was the other way around. Acting the good sport, might be just that for Bianca Primero.
old.
Her suggestion was that Dudley had come under her spell, but perhaps it was the other way around. Acting the good sport, might be just that for Bianca Primero.
“Why, thank you.” But then she seemed to wonder if the remark had another significance. There was a not quite visible change in her manner. “You do not find me too old for Dudley?”
Dolores's breath caught at the implication of the remark. “Don't you?”
“The important thing is that he does not. I suppose he has told you that everything is over between us?” She smiled a radiant smile. “I authorized him to tell you that. I didn't tell him I would deny it, but then he doesn't know we're meeting, does he?”
“I will tell him everything.” She could hardly wait to talk with him about this strange lunch and stranger conversation.
“Lunch with his old flame?”
“Is that how you think of yourself?”
“Isn't that how you think of me.”
“I don't know what to think of you. I had never heard of you until you called. What was the purpose of asking me to lunch?”
“Well, I thought I might offer to share Dudley with you if he should marry you.”
Dolores just stared at the woman.
“That doesn't appeal to you?”
“It's absurd.”
“Then again Dudley and I might marry. In that case I would be less broad-minded.”
“Don't you have a husband?”
“Yes. But I could have another.”
Dolores had thought of herself as a woman of the worldâshe was successful in her work, in charge of her lifeâbut she felt reduced to gawky girlhood by this woman in whom the normal effects of age had been surgically removed. She sensed a wickedness in Bianca she had never before encountered. It was malicious and pointless. She was suggesting that Dudley had been her lover but she did not speak of love. Had Dudley been her amusement? Now she was annoyed by the prospect of losing him.
But it was her own position that Dolores was forced to consider. She had been asked to lunch by an older woman who effectively claimed to have been Dudley's mistress. But it was the woman, not Dudley, she despised. Her womanly impulse to forgive Dudley almost surprised her. Of course this woman would lie and pretend that what had been still went on, but she was desperate. For her
Dolores felt no forgiveness. It seemed obvious to Dolores that, if anything had gone on between them, Bianca had seduced Dudley. Dolores felt suddenly full of the wisdom that comes from being a woman. What children men are, and how easily they are led about. And how easily a woman can abuse the power she has over them.
Dolores felt no forgiveness. It seemed obvious to Dolores that, if anything had gone on between them, Bianca had seduced Dudley. Dolores felt suddenly full of the wisdom that comes from being a woman. What children men are, and how easily they are led about. And how easily a woman can abuse the power she has over them.
Dolores barely touched what she had ordered and insisted on separate checks. She would take nothing from this woman.
“You must be dying for a smoke.” It seemed a way to end it.
“Where there's smoke ⦔ Bianca lifted her brows and Dolores half expected her to waggle them, like Groucho. She was glad to make her escape.
“OH, MY GOD.” DUDLEY CRIED, when Dolores told him about the lunch, as she had promised Bianca she would.
“She is a pathetic creature.”
“She is evil. You should never have agreed to see her.”
“I had to see her.”
He looked at her. “Yes, I suppose you did. But never see her again, she means to destroy us.”
“How on earth could she do that?”
He fell silent and took her hand. “Of course she couldn't. You're right.” He tried to take her in his arms.
“Let me catch my breath.”
It was an excuse not a reason, and they both knew it. Dolores looked at him in silence before finally speaking. “Dudley, you let me think that you were unattached.”
“Unattached?”
“Not emotionally committed to someone else.”
“What did Bianca say?”
“The question is, Why didn't I hear it from you?”
He stepped back and nodded. “You're right. I was wrong not to, but I thought I was unattached, as you put it.”
“More like detached?”
“It is true that I was once close to Mrs. Primero ⦔
“Mrs. Primero! Is that how you address her?”
He tried a little laugh, not as unsuccessfully as he had feared. “The perks of age.”
“Is she as old as she must be?”
“Dolores, what are you getting at?”
“That you've been involved in a long-term affair with Bianca Primero.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“It's not true?”
“Not in the way you put it, no. Dolores, whatever it was, it's all over. I never claimed to be a monk, did I? Do you think I could be interested in anyone but you now? The past is the past. Did I have a fit when I learned that you had been engaged to marry before? How did I take it when your discarded fiancé came strutting into our life ⦠?”
“Dudley, it is hardly the same thing.”
But he could see that the moral imbalance between them was being corrected. He moved close to her but did not attempt to take her in his arms. “The point, Dolores, is now. I have not lived the life of an altar boy. But wouldn't it have been odd if I had told you about Mrs. Primero? Falling in love is like general absolution, Dolores. It sweeps away the past.”
She let him take her in his arms then, and he held her close. He almost trembled with relief.
He was of course in a dilemma of his own making. He should have cast Bianca off long ago, chalking it up to experience. For that matter, why hadn't she tired of him? Even now, when he seemed more enmeshed in her web than ever, he could not believe that she really cared for him. Divorce Primero and marry him? That was just a play in the game whose stakes had become more interesting when Bianca had somehow learned of Dolores. Amy?
How sweet she would find it to triumph over a young and beautiful woman.
How sweet she would find it to triumph over a young and beautiful woman.
It had been a mistake to suggest to Dolores that Bianca meant to destroy them. He must diminish her importance not increase it. She was a youthful indiscretion, that was his story. But then why was she asking his fiancée to lunch?
The point where a simple solution was possible had long since passed. Before Dolores, he could have broken away and there would have been nothing Bianca could have done to hurt him. Tell a story of being betrayed by Dudley Fyte to the senior partners of Kunert and Skye? The suspicion might have been a feather in his cap to the old roués on the corner offices. Now she could undermine his engagement to Dolores.
It was an added annoyance that Larry Morton was still in town. Even if he'd left, he would be returning to join a firm even more prestigious than Kunert and Skye. Dudley did not like the way Dolores acted with Larry. An easy camaraderie had been reestablished, seemingly a return to their undergraduate days. But it was then that they had become engaged and had reserved a date for their wedding at Sacred Heart.
“I wonder about taking that date,” Dudley said.
“Why! I am still battling for it.”
“It could be a jinx.”
“You don't believe that.”
Her hand on his arm, her shoulder against him, dismissed the subject. But he didn't like feeling like a substitute sent in to take the place of Larry Morton at Dolores's side before the altar of the basilica. Had Larry told her of seeing him with Bianca?
It had been in a bar crowded with commuters yet to flee for their trains. Bianca was loving the crushed excitement of the place, prelude
to their attending a play he did not want to see. His times with Bianca had become command performances, invitations he did not dare refuse, although any menace was covered over by her increasingly affectionate manner. She clung to him in the bar and looked up at him with eager, possessive eyes. And then, suddenly, there was Larry Morton next to them. Dudley greeted him quickly, a preemptive strike.
to their attending a play he did not want to see. His times with Bianca had become command performances, invitations he did not dare refuse, although any menace was covered over by her increasingly affectionate manner. She clung to him in the bar and looked up at him with eager, possessive eyes. And then, suddenly, there was Larry Morton next to them. Dudley greeted him quickly, a preemptive strike.
“Dudley, how are you?” Larry was holding his glass high, out of range of elbows. He looked at Bianca, then at Dudley, waiting for an introduction. He seemed to have lost all urgency to push on through the crowd.
“I am Bianca Primero.” A long-nailed hand was extended to Larry.
“Larry Morton.”
“One of your colleagues, darling?”
Morton looked even more closely at Bianca now. Darling? Dudley could have wrung her neck.
“Afraid not, sweetie pie.” He winked at Larry. “We couldn't afford him.”
“Have to get back to Dolores,” Larry said, returning the wink.
“Dolores?” Bianca cried.
But she smiled at him, her eyes narrowed, her gaze inquisitive. Dudley tried not to follow Larry through the crowd. He would give anything to know if he really was with Dolores. A moral standoff? Betrothed couple out with former loves? But getting Bianca out of there was a more compelling objective.
Had Larry told Dolores and she'd remained silent? Dudley prepared a series of possible lies if confronted with the story. Bianca was supposed to be a folly of the past, not a present companion. What was he doing with her in a Loop bar? Could he counter by
saying that Larry mentioned that she was with him? He throbbed with jealousy. Only the guilty are capable of unbridled moral indignation. He decided he would mention it to Dolores.
saying that Larry mentioned that she was with him? He throbbed with jealousy. Only the guilty are capable of unbridled moral indignation. He decided he would mention it to Dolores.
The occasion came when they were in his office, getting ready to go to the conference room where Dolores would explain the use of the combined database she had created for the firm. It was for this that she had been hired by Kunert and Skye, and though this had led to her job as assistant to Dudley Fyte, she was committed to complete it. And she had.
“I saw your friend Larry last night.”
“Oh.” Disinterest. She was arranging overheads in a folder.
“In a bar. O'Callaghans.”
“Where's that?”
“On Michigan. It's close to where he works.”
“What were you doing over there.”
“Having a drink.”
“That's what bars are for.”
He was certain now that she did not know he had been with Bianca. But relief proved allusive. All that meant was that Larry hadn't told her yet.
There was an exclamation from the outer office, and then Amy looked in. “A huge package just arrived.”
“How huge?” Dudley left Dolores and went into Amy's office. The package leaned against her desk. He saw the sender and immediately grabbed the top of the box. He carried it into his office and leaned it against the wall, with the address and sender toward the wall.
“What's that?” Dolores asked.
“God knows.”
Amy stood in the doorway. “Aren't you going to open it. I'm dying to see what it is.”
“Not now. Dolores has a presentation to make.”
He felt that he was escaping when he took Dolores's arm and escorted her down the corridor to her waiting audience, junior partners, the hierarchy of Kunert and Skye. Dudley introduced her.
“I won't pretend to understand all this myself. The great point of having Dolores Torre with this firm is that you and I need not understand the arcane points of computerized legal research. But there are some things we have to learn if we are to profit from the system Dolores has put together.”
The presentation was a model of clarity. Dolores spoke with authority but did not intimidate. Nor did she condescend. Her manner was matter-of-fact, assuming that these successful lawyers could grasp something as simple as tapping into a database that would make traditional ways of doing legal research seem primitive by comparison. Dolores had been working on this system ever since she had come to Kunert and Skye from West Publishing.
Once the advantages of the system were clear, she explained the relatively easy way of using it and then engaged in a colloquy with her pupils. It was a triumph. Dudley waited while Dolores received the plaudits of his colleagues, and then he took her to his office. Before he closed the door, Amy marched in. “Okay. Let's open it.”
She went to the package and before Dudley could stop her, turned it around. In the upper corner, printed with magic marker, was the very legible name of the sender, Bianca Primero.
“Yes, Dudley,” Dolores said, “open it. I'm as anxious as Amy.”
He had no choice. It had become a public event. The paper covered a crate and within the crate was a painting, framed.
“Take it out, Dudley. Let's see it.”
He gripped the top of the frame and began to lift it. When did he first know what picture it would be? Before it fully emerged from the crate, before Dolores and Amy had taken it and propped it against the wall so that they could all see the beach scene with mother and child in blues and yellows.
“It's lovely!” Amy cried.
“A little sentimental, perhaps.” Dolores stood, one leg before the other, head lowered, hand to her chin, looking at the painting. She swung on Dudley. “But what memories it must bring back!”
Amy's presence made it difficult to prevent Dolores from going. She left rapidly, without a further word. After an awkward moment, Amy followed, closing the door after her.
Dudley leaned against the desk and gazed at the loathsome beach scene. This was the picture he had been inspecting in the Highland Village gallery the first time Bianca spoke to him. “Sentimental,” she had said. Was sending the painting a sentimental gesture, or something else? Bianca had no intention of fading from the scene.
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