The Carlton Club (31 page)

Tired. Defeated.

“You sure?”

“Yes. It isn’t very good. I need to think about it a little more.”

“OK. Are you feeling any better?”

“Not really. Each morning I hope that I’ll wake up feeling normal, but so far it hasn’t happened. I know it’s just the flu. Everyone has had it. Mine’s simply lasting a little longer,” she said.
Because I can’t really sleep, and I lie awake at night hating my husband for being unfaithful to me. I don’t have the strength to deal with it. I have to leave him, but I don’t have the energy.

“Maybe you should see a doctor this week. You’ll be home Tuesday and Wednesday. It might be a good idea.”

“I know what’s wrong with me. I have a bad virus, and there’s a lot going on,” she added icily.

“What?” What did she mean?

“Anyway, I am going to take some time off the following week. I’m going to spend Thanksgiving in Denver with Mother. I’ll be gone from Tuesday until Sunday.”

James looked at his pocket calendar.

“That means that the only time we’ll see each other in the next two and a half weeks is the Monday before Thanksgiving.”

“I guess so.”

Neither spoke for several moments.

“Why don’t I join you in Denver? At least for a few days?” James asked finally.

“No. I want to spend the time with Mother by myself.”

“Lynne, are you all right?”

“No. I’m not all right. I don’t feel well.”

“That’s all? Nothing else is wrong?”

“No,” Lynne said, exhausted, but encouraged by the concern in his voice. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it was over. “No James, nothing else.”

“I’ll leave the name and number of the hotel in Maui on the refrigerator. And Lynne, please see a doctor.”

Leslie finished her shower just before James hung up. She heard him tell Lynne to see a doctor.

“Is Lynne ill?” Leslie asked. Why am I doing this? Why am I talking about Lynne? Am I trying to end it?

“Oh. She’s had the flu for four weeks.”

The flu, whatever that is, doesn’t usually last for four weeks, Leslie thought.

“What are her symptoms?” Leslie asked.

“Leslie, I don’t want to talk about Lynne.”

“Maybe we should. About Lynne. Or about us. About what’s wrong.”

“What’s wrong with Lynne is she’s got the flu and she hasn’t been able to shake it because, as usual, she pushes herself too hard,” James said firmly. Then he added more gently, “There is nothing wrong with us.”

“No?” Leslie asked, weakening under his gaze, staring into the intense green eyes that said so much and made her want to believe this folly was possible forever.

“No.”

“Oh.”

“One thing wrong. One thing we should have done.”

“What?” Leslie breathed.

“We should have made love on that ferry boat. Remember? Under the stairs.”

“I remember.”

“So, let’s go find a ferry boat and make love. If we don’t find one, we’ll come back here to make love. We’ll do that anyway. I just need to get out, get blown around by the wind for a while, OK?”

“You want me to come?”

“You’re the one I plan to make love with.”

Lynne felt unusually tired and ill as she boarded the nine-thirty flight from LaGuardia to

O’Hare Monday morning. She had slept fitfully the past two nights. On Saturday night, after speaking with James, she tossed and turned, wondering if she could be wrong, hoping desperately that she was.

Finally at six
A.M.
, three
A.M.
in San Francisco, she dialed their home phone number. She let it ring. Twenty rings. Thirty. Each unanswered ring harshly reminded her that she was right.

Lynne thought about the “Monica” chapter that she had left for James to read. It was so foolish. It was a gentle way of telling James that she knew, how hurt she was and how they had to talk about it. It began,
Large tears splashed from Monica’s cornflower blue eyes onto her soft fur. Monica was desolate. She had lost her best friend, Thomas
.

Thomas was Monica’s best friend, and he was also her boyfriend. Thomas was a regular in the Monica books. The chapter, written just for James, described Monica’s suspicion that Thomas had found someone else and her bewilderment that it had happened. She had been so sure of their friendship and their love!

Lynne was glad that James hadn’t read it after all. It made her seem pathetic and hurt. As she listened to the phone ring, unanswered because her husband was in someone else’s bed, Lynne’s true feelings crystallized. Anger.

Her inevitable confrontation with James would not be through an imaginary calico cat. It would be direct. She was leaving him as soon as she regained her strength.

On Sunday, Lynne worked, flying from New York to Atlanta to Orlando and back to New York. Sunday night she didn’t sleep well, either, but this time she didn’t call to check on James. She knew.

It was a short flight from New York’s LaGuardia Airport to O’Hare Field in Chicago, but it was breakfast time and a meal was scheduled. It meant that the flight attendants had to move quickly and efficiently.

As senior flight attendant, Lynne worked the first class cabin. Despite the short flight, two entrees were offered: Belgian waffle with sausage links or cheese omelet and fruit. Lynne had taken drink and entree orders before takeoff. Even before the seat belt sign was turned off, she was in the galley preparing the meal service.

As Lynne reached for the hot coffee pot, the feeling hit her. The galley swirled, her head swirled and her world swirled. She was vaguely aware that she was falling, but she couldn’t prevent it. Something very hot touched her thigh, accompanied by grayness and swirling and nausea. A sickening thud echoed and re-echoed in her head.

The passenger in the first row witnessed the episode but couldn’t unfasten his seat belt quickly enough to break her fall. He was at her side, calling for help, within seconds.

The other first class passengers, another flight attendant and the copilot huddled in the small galley watching Lynne struggling with consciousness. Her face was white-green. Her blond hair was matted with blood over the right temple where she had struck her head as she fell.

A passenger who was a doctor arrived, instinctively reached for her radial pulse and asked for a damp cloth to put on her forehead.

Lynne could hear his voice. She understood that he was speaking to her, but she couldn’t answer him right away. The nausea and the whirling still swept through her in overwhelming unexpected waves. She tried to focus, but the faces were blurred.

“Something hot on my leg,” she said finally.

Lynne had spilled the pot of hot coffee when she fell. The doctor examined her legs, as much as was possible given constraints of the crowd and her privacy. He could see enough to tell that most of the burns were first degree, painful but not terribly serious. Fortunately the coffee had not been boiling.

“Please get some towels soaked in cold water for her legs. As soon as we can get her up, we’ll need to remove her skirt and nylons and bundle her up in a blanket,” he said to the other flight attendant. “What’s her first name?”

Lynne’s badge said Mrs. L. Stevenson.

“Lynne.”

“Lynne? Can you hear me?”

Lynne nodded slightly. The cold towel on her forehead and the cold towels on her legs helped. So did lying very still on the floor.

“How do you feel?”

“Sick. Whirling,” Lynne whispered. “Better.”

“She’s been sick for weeks, Doctor. The flu. But she’s kept working.”

“Lynne, open your eyes. Good. Follow my finger.”

Lynne’s eyes moved from side to side.

“Does that make you feel worse?”

“No.”

She doesn’t have nystagmus, he thought. He said aloud, “I thought it might be an inner ear infection that sometimes follows a viral syndrome, but there’s no evidence of it. Has this ever happened before?”

“No.”

“Do you remember your heart pounding or fluttering before you fell?” Her pulse had been steady, but a little weak, since he had been feeling it.

“No.”

“Did you eat any food that seemed bad to you?”

“Airline food you mean?” Lynne answered, her strength returning. And with it, relief. And a little humor. “No, nothing that seemed bad.”

“Are you pregnant?”

“No, not me,” Lynne said a little wistfully.

“Ulcers? Stomach pain? Bleeding?”

“No.”

“Have you been eating normally?”

“No. This flu has made me sick. I’ve lost weight.”

“Maybe it’s only a virus with dehydration, but, young lady, you need to be checked. For now, I see a little pink in your cheeks where the green used to be. Want to try sitting up?”

One of the other flight attendants, Carol, helped Lynne into the bathroom, out of her coffee-drenched clothes and into a dress that Lynne had packed in her overnight bag.

“How are you doing?” Carol called through the door.

“OK. Wobbly. I may need to lie down again.”

There were empty seats in the first class cabin. Lynne lay across two seats, curled up, until she had to sit up for the landing. By the time they landed at ten
A.M.
Chicago time, Lynne felt a little better.

“I’ll take you to the crew lounge. We’ll call James and then arrange to have you deadheaded back to San Francisco,” Carol said as soon as all the passengers had deplaned. “They’re bringing a wheelchair for you. Maybe you should go to a hospital here.”

“No, I’d like to go home. I feel better. I can make it as long as I can just curl up. Oh, I forgot. James is going to Maui today. He’s probably leaving about now. I have no idea how to reach him. He has to go on this trip anyway. Carol, can you see if I can get on something to Denver?”

I can really go home, Lynne thought. Home to Mother.

James arrived at the private terminal at the San Francisco International Airport at seven-forty-five. His identification was carefully checked before he was permitted into the waiting lounge. Yes, his name was on the list, but would he mind providing proof of his identity?

As soon as James entered the private lounge, he understood the need for special precautions. People who flew on their own jets were a different breed. They expected excellence and quality. And they expected security. They were targets: targets for kidnapping and targets for terrorism. They expected protection.

Once in their secure private lounge, they could behave like anyone else, drinking coffee, reading
The San Francisco Chronicle
and
The Wall Street Journal
and watching the morning news shows. They behaved like anyone else, but they didn’t look like anyone else. They looked powerful.

They looked, James realized, like Eric Lansdale. Eric was a nice, very powerful and extremely demanding man. Eric expected perfection, just like everyone else in this exclusive lounge.

James looked for Eric in the lounge, but he didn’t see him. James only saw men who reminded him of Eric. Many men. And one woman.

She stood at the large window of the lounge, gazing out at the fleet of unmarked corporate jets. Their jets were unmarked for the same reason that the men in the lounge didn’t advertise who they were. The jets were identified by numbers only. No names, no logos, no publicity.

The woman wore a yellow and white cotton print dress. Her dazzling golden hair fell to her waist, casually swept off her face by a pair of sunglasses that rested on top of her head. She turned toward James, aware of a new presence in the lounge, as if she were expecting someone.

She registered surprise. He was not who she was expecting, but he was interesting. Handsome. She smiled briefly, appreciatively, before returning her gaze to the airfield.

A minute later, Eric entered the lounge. Eric was with a man whose resemblance to Eric was so striking that James assumed he was Eric’s older brother. As Eric and the other man approached James, James saw the beautiful blond woman begin to cross the lounge, smiling.

“Hello, James,” Eric said. “This is my father, Robert. He has just arrived on the red-eye from Philadelphia.”

“James, I am so pleased to meet you. Eric has sent me the sketches of course. Truly brilliant.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The blond woman joined them.

“Good morning, Robert,” she said warmly. “You look rested even though you must be exhausted.” Charlie meant that he looked wonderful. Robust, youthful. Too young to be Eric’s father.

“Hello,” Robert said, returning her warmth, kissing her briefly on the cheek. Then he sighed and added, “I am tired. I don’t sleep on planes. At least not on other people’s planes. I plan to sleep all the way to Maui if you won’t consider me too antisocial.”

“Not at all. Eric, who’s this? Not the ever dour James?” Charlie asked, deducing that the handsome, sexy man with the green eyes, black hair and seductive smile must be James.

“You’re not, ” James began as amazed by her as she was by him.

“
Ms
. Charlotte D. Winter,” Eric said.

“I’m Charlie,” she said, extending a long, graceful hand to James.

“I’m James.”

The interior of the plane was like a home, beautifully decorated and impeccably maintained. It contained a large, comfortable living room, a formal conference room, a kitchen and dining area, two large bathrooms with showers and four bedrooms. As soon as the captain announced that it was safe to remove their seat belts, Robert withdrew to a bedroom.

“See you all in Maui. Eric, I plan to be so rested that I’ll be ready for a game of tennis in the late afternoon.”

“You’re on.”

During the five-hour flight, James and Charlie and Eric studied James’s recent sketches, talked, read, drank coffee and ate the croissants and fruit that had been boarded moments before the plane left San Francisco.

“I didn’t have them board a lunch,” Eric said. “We’ll be at the hotel in Maui by two.”

“Basically, James, Eric didn’t have them board a lunch because Eric never eats lunch,” Charlie clarified, narrowing her eyes at Eric, taunting him.

“Who does?” James asked.

“Just me, I guess,” Charlie said as she reached for another croissant.

“Charlie is actually capable of eating continuously without gaining a pound. She’s always been that way,” Eric observed.

Always, James thought. I wonder how long they have known each other. A long time, he decided. The three of them—Charlie, Eric and Robert—seemed like a family. Eric and Charlie seemed like a little more than a family. Something more than siblings.

After settling in his elegant suite with the panoramic ocean view, James took a nap. He had left Leslie’s bed at five, returning home to pack and to leave the name of the hotel on the refrigerator for Lynne. He noticed the manila folder with the “Monica” chapter. He had time to read it, but Lynne had said no. She was sensitive about him reading her work if she wasn’t happy with it. James left the manila folder, untouched, on the kitchen counter.

Rested and refreshed after his short nap, James decided to sit by the pool and read in the fading rays of the late afternoon sun. They had agreed to meet at six in Eric’s suite. He had time.

“I hope you have sunscreen on.”

James looked up at the sound of her voice behind him. She moved in front of him, blocking the sun. Her face was lost in shadows, but her hair shone brilliant gold as the sun’s rays filtered through it.

“Number six.”

“That’s probably all right especially since it’s almost sunset. You look like you’ve been under glass all your life,” she observed uncritically.

James’s skin was pale, but creamy, rich and smooth. He looks like a marble statue of a Greek god, Charlie thought. Even at rest, lying on the chaise longue, James’s muscles were well defined, and laced with blue-purple veins. Gorgeous, she thought.

“Not all my life. I used to spend summers working in a logging camp, sweating with the guys under the summer sun,” James said.

“May I join you?” Charlie asked, still standing in front of him.

“Of course.’“

James watched her gracefully lower her lovely tan body onto the adjacent chaise longue. She wore a brown one-piece bathing suit. Modest but revealing.

“Eric and Robert are playing tennis.”

“This is better.”

“I think so,” she said, smiling contentedly, stretching. She tossed the mane of spun gold behind her.

“Eric says you have a girlfriend,” Charlie said casually, looking at him.

Charlie watched as a cloud of worry flickered across his eyes.

“Boyfriend?” she asked.

“What? No. I’m married.”

“Oh. Well, he did say he thought you were
involved
. I assumed girlfriend. I guess marriage also falls into the involved category.”

“I guess,” he said, sitting up, looking at her. “Why?”

“Why am I asking you about your personal life?” Charlie paused, considering her own question. Then she said, “Why not?”

James laughed. “That’s fair. What about you? Boyfriend? Girlfriend? Husband?”

“Attorneys prefer to ask questions, not answer them,” Charlie said amiably. “But, fair is fair. None of the above. Not involved.”

“Never married?”

“No,” she answered immediately. Then she said, laughing lightly, “Yes, I was. I’d forgotten.”

“No,” James said, aghast.

“It was a very forgettable marriage. And it was a long time ago.”

“Why did you get married?”

“Because I was angry,” Charlie said slowly, her eyes closed, her body arched elegantly toward the tropical sun.

“Angry?”

“With someone else. Not the poor groom-to-be. I married him to get even with someone else.”

“Someone you loved?”

Charlie nodded her head slowly. Then she turned to look at James and said firmly, “Let’s talk about you.”

“You’re more interesting.”

“We don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“You’re just a happily married guy with no problems?” she asked, her tone implying that she knew differently. She had seen his eyes when she asked about his girlfriend.

“Boring,” James said carefully.

They sat in silence for several moments.

“Tell me about your girlfriend, James,” Charlie said, finally.

James sighed. It might be nice to tell someone about it. Maybe. It would at least be nice to have some time to think about it. He could do that on this trip. He could do it now if Charlie wasn’t sitting next to him asking him.

Something about Charlie, something about her curiosity that was neither idle nor malicious, made him decide to tell her. Maybe it was because she reminded him of Lynne: blond, strong, independent, energetic; but also fragile, easily hurt. He could imagine Lynne marrying someone out of anger.

“Girlfriend isn’t a good term,” he began carefully.

“Lover?” Charlie offered.

“Let’s just call her Leslie.”

James told her about Leslie and the relationship that never quite started or ended in high school. James didn’t tell Charlie about his father, and he skipped the sordid details of his first year of college; but he told her that Leslie sent him a letter that changed his life, and that he saw her again, after nine years, on television in August.

“I saw her, too. I guess everyone did. The entire city,” Charlie said. She vividly remembered the blood-stained face and the remarkable blue eyes that flashed with concern and astonishment and rage. “It made me want to meet her.”

“It made me want to see her again,” James said. “I wanted her to know, finally, how I felt about her. I—we—needed to finish what we began in high school.”

“Finish? Is it finished?”

“No.”

“What about your wife?”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with Lynne.”

“What?”
Charlie sat bolt upright and stared at him. “What?”

“It started before I met Lynne. Leslie had already happened in my life. I wasn’t carrying a torch. If I had been, I would have tried harder to find her, wouldn’t I? And I wouldn’t have fallen in love with Lynne,” James said seriously. “Leslie is my past. Lynne is present, my future.”

“That’s
complete
nonsense!” Charlie exclaimed. “Leslie is in the present. When did you last make love with Leslie?”

James stared at her, but he answered.

“Last night.”

“And Lynne?”

James narrowed his eyes as he tried to remember. When? Before Lynne had gotten sick. How much before? Before Leslie? Since Leslie?

“Lynne has been ill.”

“This gets worse and worse.”

“Not that ill. A bad virus. Enough to make her not interested in making love.”

“That’s pretty bad. Unless of course, the whole illness is just that she knows about Leslie.”

“She doesn’t,” James said swiftly, confidently.

“What if she did?”

“I would never forgive myself,” James said honestly. It would destroy her. She would never understand. Understand what? Why somehow it was permissible for him to have an affair with Leslie? Why he wasn’t really breaking any rules? Not violating any trust?

“She knows, James. She has to know.”

“No.”

“Who are you going to spend your life with?”

“Lynne. I told you that. I am spending my life with her.”

“Does Leslie know that?”

“Yes.”

“So it’s really perfect, isn’t it?” Charlie asked with more than a trace of sarcasm. “Except that your wife is ill and you can’t remember when you last made love to her.”

James was silent. Lynne can’t know, he thought. I would know if she knew. She would tell me. She would get angry. Lynne would do what Charlie would do.

“What would you do if you were Lynne and you found out?” James asked.

“Is she like me?”

“I think so.” It’s probably why I feel comfortable talking to you, he thought.

“I would let you know what I thought of you and your silly rationalization. Then I would leave you. In my younger days, I might have married someone else as quickly as possible.” Charlie watched James, the frown on his face, the concern in his eyes. “James, I believe that you love them both. But you’ve promised your life and your dreams to Lynne. I think you would be devastated if you lost her. You’re playing with a hot, dangerous fire.”

James looked at her.

“You are a wise woman, Charlotte D. Winter,” he said.

“No, James. I am experienced, and some of my most important experiences were painful ones.”

“Do you think you’ll get married again?” James asked. He was ready to shift the conversation away from himself. He had heard what Charlie said. They were words he should have said to himself. Everything she said was true. Still, Lynne didn’t know. It would never hurt her because she would never know.