She Took My Arm As If She Loved Me (11 page)

“I understand you completely. Secrets are really private and nice.”

“Bearing down on them. Solving a riddle for parents or convincing some greedy ex-father to pay up, even if he's hanging out in the French Quarter in New Orleans where he thinks nobody—”

Xavier sighed regretfully. “Karim told me about you.” Deep sadness, almost like a yawn. “Said you were the most truly talented solo practitioner in San Francisco, in the entire Bay Area, a really stubborn entrepreneurial individual—”

“I'll bet that's what he said.”

“But said I should try anyway.”

There were various ways to express my annoyance with Xavier, even with Priscilla for something that wasn't really her fault, trying to do the right thing for all of us, introducing him to me. My way was to insist on paying the check, but the classy asshole had already had a word with Chad and the bill was on his tab. Another entrepreneurial individual, that Xavier.

Karim shrugged dramatically, grinned happily as I left, heading back and around, up the Kearny steps toward the entrance to my office. It was a double shrug and grin, chocolate sprinkles on top, intended to do for both Xavier and me. Xavier crossed the terrace to join Karim for an après-lunch bit of fellow entrepreneur bonhomie.

*   *   *

I came out of the world's splashing and thrusting. Xavier lived in the eddies, inherited space. I had won a statistical miracle to be a lawfully wedded husband; we had a blessing son; why drift into Xavier's shallow pool when I could dive in my own stream? Decent reputation. Business okay. I could afford to say no to a friend of Priscilla, her fellow docent, because we didn't need to move up from a Honda Civic to a BMW, not even to an Accord; and I didn't care for the lean, ever-young lad with the surprising acquaintanceship with Karim Abdullah.

Priscilla didn't mind at all. “What need have we to climb into the upper rungs of the middle class?” she inquired.

“He's a creep, your friend—only my opinion, of course.”

“But you respect the opinion of yourself.”

“Thanks a lot. I wouldn't have guessed he knows Karim. This town, nothing surprises me.”

She explained that Xavier hung around a lot. He liked to be in touch. She laughed and pulled my shirt straight.

“But the poor boy, I like him even if you don't, it's the charm of—”

“Of what?” I asked, impervious to Xavier's charm.

Priscilla gave it a long full think, brow furrowed, very earnest, and I loved her also for her ability to cut through to the heart of things, even if she was sometimes reluctant to do so. For me she would do it. “He's known far and wide as harmless. The charm of being charming, I guess. What's intriguing maybe is the unknown depths and neediness, unlike your depths, which are at least known to me, dearest. He's so used to getting his way and not being satisfied.”

“I see why he's a friend of Karim's.”

“Explain, please.”

“Well, anyway, I have a conflict of interest about Xavier. I know his friend Karim too well. I've said no to him too much.”

“Do PIs have conflict of interest?”

“Now they do.”

“Explain all the above, please, dear. I want to understand you through and through. You have to explain the whole little list of everything you just said, start there, how about that?”

While Jeff napped down the hall, Priscilla and I had a family conference on the floor in front of the fireplace. There was no fire, it was still daytime, but it was a spot with memories for us both. We tended to fall together here. We had a sweet half-sleepy afternoon talk. I told her I really didn't like Xavier. I told her I even preferred Karim, a sleaze gone public and unashamed. She laughed. She enjoyed my company. Oh, my business was doing well enough and, besides that, I adored my wife.

A little later, after a lot of thought and a couple of reluctant sighs, she continued a conversation she seemed to be having with me but without my full participation. “And then about Karim … I think there's something else I should tell you.”

Married men learn to beware the sound of these words. I snapped out of afternoon low-blood-sugar doziness. I was on guard, stomach fluttering, more alert than I wanted to be. I asked what the “something else” was.

“Oh, not
that,
” she said, highly amused. “What do you think of me?”

I wasn't sure what to think of her.

“But in a way, even if it isn't another man—really, Dan, don't start that one—but in a way, yes, but not what you're thinking. Let me explain.”

“Please do.”

I was sitting up on the floor in front of the cold fireplace. She sat up also. She reached for my hand. “Come on, come on. You look like you're ready for a jungle battle to the death.”

“Sorry.”

“Okay, your humble and eloquent apology is accepted. Just listen to me now. I've heard that in certain lines of work, creative things like investment banking, the movies, the private investigator business, there exists something they call the ‘big score.'”

I'd heard of such.

“And in a tribute to you, if only you'll take it that way, I think you not only deserve one but also are capable; if you'll take the time to listen to your loving wife—you are fully capable. That's why I married you, I knew it right off, you're nice, you're fun, you sincerely liked me, and your big score was sure to come your way when you simply decided to reach for it, like a true American. Of course that's not the only reason I married you.”

“Thanks.”

“Soulfulness is nice, too.”

“I'm still listening.”

“I'm still conversing. And as your true American wife, surely I deserve to get what you promised me—what you seemed to promise—and to help you along the way because it's for you and me and now it's for Jeff.” Her eyes were gleaming in the late-afternoon light. She liked taking charge, and since I didn't know what she was doing, she was entirely in charge. “For us,” she said.

She waited for agreement or disagreement. All I offered was waiting. She moved right along, saying, “Karim.”

“Shit,” I said.

“No, just listen to me. He's terrifically impressed with your talents. He likes your independence.”

“He likes my clean record.”

“Dan, he's
fond
of you. He has that wonderful ethnic tendency to fondness.”

“Whatever the hell that means. So the two of you have been having meetings about your mutual fondness.”

She made a little exasperated sound. She was leaning against the cold fireplace screen. She shook off the irrelevancy, the jealousy, the general off-balance behavior of a husband, in order to get to the point. “We've met a few times. In public, I assure you. If I flirted with him just a tiny, it was only to work my womanly wiles on your behalf. Young mother. He was touched by my plight, Dan.”

Terrific. A chance for Karim to spread his fondness around the neighborhood.

I asked if she made herself pathetic for him. No, she did not. Her plight was to be optimistic, cheerful, undaunted, a young wife and mother whose husband was this close—
this
close—and she made a graceful little gesture with thumb and index finger. It made me think of someone talking about the size of a prick. “This close,” she said, “if only he'll reach out to accept the big score that would make everyone feel so much better, plus pay the future bills that will come due.”

“You're not satisfied with your standard of living? If not Xavier, then Karim can help?”

“Oh dear, how stubborn a man can get. Especially my beloved husband. Put it this way, Dan—halfway I'm prudent, I think of schools for Jeff and the future and maybe some nice things. We don't have to get specific, but a car that goes vroom, vroom? With a rag top?”

“That's pretty specific. Do you have the color red in mind?”

“—and halfway I'm a red-blooded American girl who knows her husband can provide the best, the very best. We've had our fun, Dan. Now it's time for you to reach.”

“For what? Vroom, vroom?”

“You can be so much more.”

“A money launderer? A drug courier? Maybe the arranger of hits?”

She shrugged. My tone was so negative, so unnecessary. But Priscilla was a woman who respected her own power, and therefore she could recognize my tone but not be daunted by it. “I wouldn't, surely, Dan, ask the father of my son to do anything—would I?—that isn't exciting and challenging and probably the kind of dancing on the edge that's at least as safe as the parachute jumping you used to do in the army. Dan, you remember—we were on Mount Tam having a picnic—you told me how military parachutes were really small and you came down really fast and it was like jumping from a second-story window? And you really enjoyed it?”

“I was nineteen years old.”

“Would you just listen to him, Dan? Pay attention? For me, too?”

Her eyes were both dreamy and bright and her face was flushed. It was as if we had just made love. Anyway, Jeff was about to wake up. We could hear him stirring.

*   *   *

Naturally a man capable of a big score did not see the need to rush panic-stricken into mere behavior. Setting things straight with Xavier had been entertainment; but Karim might be pushing my luck. Consideration was called for. I wasn't going to seek him out, confront him with a jumble of charges and reproaches, such as corrupting my wife, which of course was not the case at all. Priscilla was incorruptible by others. Priscilla had her own integrity, the best, the highest, and any corruption she required could be taken care of by her own efforts. I would not pursue Karim. I too could rise to a high standard of independent conduct.

So I grabbed him next noontime on the terrace of Enrico's, where I knew I would find him, around the corner from my office up the Kearny steps, across the street from the second-story parlor,
A-ONE MASSAGE, OPEN
24
HOURS
, which catered to lonely Filipino gentlemen but did not disdain others if they came up to normal all-night massage parlor standards. Karim wasn't involved in this business except for providing the opening lease expenses, accounting services, and the girls.

“Now you're a good friend of my wife?” I asked. This was my version of calm consideration.

“Sit down, sit down,” he said, offering great hospitality, my choice of chairs, his palms open and concealing nothing. “She said she would speak with you—”

“She did.”

“Now we must learn to defer to a woman of her quality, Dan. All men must. Your wife, a quality woman. And I congratulate you.”

“As a good friend.”

He took this comment under advisement. He was busy weighing the facts. “As a close acquaintance,” he offered judiciously. “We both keep your best interests close to our hearts.” Touched his own heart with thick, hair-sprouted, but trimly manicured fingers. Practiced sign language indicating sincerity in case words did not suffice. “Pris-ceela, myself, we are thinking about your future, my friend.”

“You're not going to make deals with my wife, Karim.”

“Would I ever do such a thing? Without seeking full agreement from you? Since only your trust and confidence provide us with all the satisfaction we seek?” He was startled by the hint of duplicity I seemed to suggest; he was shocked, shocked. “My friend, Pris-ceela appreciates to make an arrangement, but only, only on your full behalf, and only if you freely desire what all your dear friends want for you—the best! Surely you must understand that my interest in your quality future equals hers. If you don't fully appreciate my friendship, let me help by assuring you. My respect for Pris-ceela is profound. My admiration for you, Dan, and the respect which follows admiration, is only doubled and redoubled by this quality person in your life who wants nothing more than…”

Than what she chooses to want.

“Than what is right,” he said, completing the thought after a moment of pursed-lip humming to himself. “So we must trust each other more, my friend. Can you accept this challenge? Can you, Sir?”

Karim's profundity of feeling was worth nothing if not communicated in all its great humidity. Hands fluttering to chest, mouth winsome with smiles, black-edged eyes poring over mine with little jumps and starts and then a steady high beam, all the generously proffered bundle of deeply human emotion informed me that this was a man I could truly count on for love, respect, and full employment. He sought to divert me from my Kasdanish slothfulness of spirit. He sought to inspire me with hope and greed. He was preoccupied with thoughts of my best interests. He liked challenges.

As for me, I was still getting used to the best interests of Priscilla as worked out by Priscilla without terrific reference to her spouse. But did her surprising (ambushing) me mean she wasn't right in her intentions, since I had always thought her intentions were both sometimes surprising and certainly right? She saw no reason for me to think any differently, so why should I?

It seemed that my wife was not merely a marvel of intelligent gleam and tenderness; that she was more than the statistical miracle I had found as if by God's help in the middle of my time. She was also an American woman, wanting some fun, wanting some goods, wanting some changes to be made. Others must have seen this coming and encouraged her renewed free choices in life. I was in the great tradition of blind lovers. Suddenly I was a little less blind.

“Please, if we can talk,” said Karim. “Let me report once again…”

I heard the words “respect,” “admiration,” “quality.” I heard the word “deeply.”

“Together you make, what? A truly spicy combination. Perhaps cuisine is not the way to think about learning to accept a higher reward for talent—”

“I had a wife I loved,” I said. “I fell in love with her.”