The War of the Roses: The Children (10 page)

Recovering, she rose from the table and came back with a coconut cake and two long glasses filled with a dark brown substance that she identified as chocolate chantilly. She placed the cake plate and the glasses of chocolate on the table and proceeded through her litany about ingredients. He watched her cut the cake and move one of the chocolate chantilly glasses in front of him.

He dipped his spoon into the chocolate and let a gob of it melt in his mouth. It permeated through his taste buds and, despite his attitude toward food, it did give him a momentary lift.

Somehow, Tweedledee had materialized on Evie's lap. Evie ate her chocolate chantilly and then went to work on the coconut cake, sharing it with Tweedledee. Josh forced himself to finish the piece that she had cut for him.

“It was wonderful, Evie. Wonderful. Just being with you has been of great help.”

They moved back to the living room and again sat on the couch. He had offered to help with the dishes, but she would have none of it.

“I have found,” Evie said, her chubby hands clasped about her expansive middle as if still in thrall to the food that she had ingested, “that good people sometimes do bad things.” She paused for a long moment, holding back tears.

“Like Mom and Dad,” he sighed. “And now me.”

They exchanged glances and she took a few deep breaths and brushed aside an errant tear with the back of one hand.

“But you're still here, Josh.”

He reached out, took her hand, and kissed it.

“Dear sweet Evie,” he whispered.

“And Josh. You both must not do anything that will hurt your children. We both know too much about that, don't we?”

“It may be too late,” he sighed.

“Far from it,” she insisted.

He was silent for a long time. Evie always saw the glass as half full.

“Thank you, Evie,” he said. “For being my sister.”

Later, as he drove home, mulling over various ideas for tomorrow's confrontation, he felt suddenly nauseous. He stopped the car and stepped outside to vomit. With the undigested food gone, his pessimism returned in force.

Victoria called Gordon Tatum as soon as the house was empty. She hoped that he would not notice the tremor in her voice.

“Victoria,” Tatum said pleasantly at the other end of the phone. “This is a surprise.” Smooth as silk, with apparent utter disregard for the agony she was going through.

“Surprise? But Gordon….” How she hated to speak his first name. “You said I should call you tomorrow, meaning today, and here I am.”

“I'm delighted,” Gordon said.

She worked her way through a long pause in the conversation. Delighted? He's torturing me. She forced herself to get on with it.

“Have you thought about the matter we discussed yesterday?”

“A great deal, Victoria.”

Again there was another long pause, this time at his end of the line.

“Did you make any decisions?” Victoria blurted.

It was, she knew, a statement of desperation. If he had made a positive decision regarding Michael, it would have foreclosed on her plan. She had not, of course, put much stock in such a miracle happening.

“I really feel we must discuss this further.” There was a long pause. “Face to face.”

“I was hoping you would have, you know, reconsidered….” She felt tongue-tied for a moment.

“I'm mulling it… Victoria. And I am looking forward to our further discussion.”

“Yes, of course,” Victoria said, forcing a sense of pleasant expectation. She tried to put a smile in her voice.

“I have an idea, Victoria. This is very fortuitous. I have some errands to do that will take me in your direction. We can talk in the car. I have to sign some papers in my lawyer's office in Tarrytown. Should last no more than fifteen minutes. And I can have you back in a couple of hours. Why not meet me at the north end of the Country Mall parking area? Say about ten? Does that suit you?”

“If it will help, Gordon. Of course, I'll be there.”

“Wonderful, Victoria. I'm really looking forward to our discussion.”

“So am I,” Victoria said. She slammed down the phone. “Bastard,” she cried aloud, hearing the echo ramble through the empty house.

***

Yesterday had been a nightmare for Victoria. Michael came home from school pale and depressed, his eyes swollen with crying, which greatly upset Emily. She was also involved in her own major crisis. She had been picked for the chorus for the annual Easter musical play, which might not have been a problem, except that her friend Annie was picked for a starring role. Both children needed big-time soothing, and she had saved Michael for last.

She had picked up Josh's message about having dinner at Evie's house, which stirred up some glowing embers. Evie, in Victoria's mind, was a train wreck waiting to happen and Josh could refuse her nothing. She was a stone around his neck. Nevertheless, Victoria was loath to interfere. The bond between them was too strong. At the very least, she had managed to diminish Evie's influence on the children. For that she was thankful. But anything that went on between Evie and Josh was worrisome.

Despite her attempt at tolerance and understanding, learning about this dinner through the answering machine irritated her. Then she remembered she had cut off her cell phone, which mollified her somewhat. In the end, she was thankful that he had not come home to dinner. She would have been hard-pressed to keep her silence about her own stupid decision and how it had backfired. Josh would have been justly appalled at Tatum's incredible proposition and her equally incredible reaction to it.

She looked at her sniffling daughter. “Emily, you can't think you've failed because one of your friends succeeded. Besides, she's your best friend. You should take joy in her success.”

“I'm as good as she is,” Emily whined.

“What would she have felt if you were picked?”

“She'd be jealous.”

“Like you are.”

“I'm not jealous. I'm mad.”

“Because you're jealous.”

“Mommy, you just don't understand.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don't.”

It had reached an impasse. Nevertheless, Victoria embraced her daughter and sent her off to her room to do her homework. Then, with trepidation, she entered Michael's room. He was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling with swollen eyes.

“I'm sorry, Michael. I didn't think it would go that way.”

“He's going to expel me. I know he will. Why should I get the blame? Madeline also broke the rules.”

She sat on the edge of the bed and put her hand on her son's chest. “There's no sense in discussing the merits of the case. Whatever happens, you did the right thing. You came forward. That took great courage. I'm very proud of you.”

“Mr. Tatum wasn't,” he murmured.

“It will be all right. I promise you.”

“No it won't. Mr. Tatum is very strict. He'll expel me. I know he will.”

She brushed the hair off his forehead and searched her mind for some comforting comment. “Telling the truth never hurt anybody.”

“Well, it hurt me,” Michael said.

“No it did not. Trust me, Michael. I love you with all my heart and soul. I will not let Mr. Tatum expel you. No way.”

“How can you stop him?”

“That's my job, Michael.”

He turned his gaze away from her. She knew her credibility with him was at stake, and she was determined to protect that aspect of her parenting with everything she had.

“Just don't do anything that will make the kids laugh at me.”

“Trust Mom, darling. I promise.”

Michael shrugged. She watched him for a long time. Tears seeped out of the corners of his eyes. She was certain that her pain was as palpable and intense as his. She also knew that she had crossed a Rubicon. Making good on her promise was now etched in stone.

“I have one small favor to ask, Michael. Would you grant me that?” She took his hand, kissed his fingers, and looked into his eyes.

“What is it?”

She felt she was standing in quicksand and it was pulling her further into a morass.

“Just don't tell Daddy. Okay? I don't mean a forever thing. I mean just until this blows over.”

It was, she knew, a violation of the family ethical code. Here she was nibbling away at her vaunted morality. Silence, she once had preached, was also a lie.

“If I get expelled it won't be a secret,” he reasoned, accurately.

“You won't. As soon as we're out of the woods, you can tell Daddy all you want. He has the right to know. But not yet. Okay?”

He nodded and she held him in her arms and kissed him.

“God, I love you, Michael,” she said. “Nothing bad is going to happen to my little boy.”

She was doubly thankful that Josh was not around. It would have been an awful complication. She got into bed early, hoping she could sleep. After a long bout of restlessness in which her mind worked overtime, she drifted off into a dead slumber.

The next thing she knew, Josh was shaking her awake.

“I'd like to talk, Victoria. It's important.”

His voice seemed to come from far away.

“I'm sleeping.”

“It's important,” he persisted.

“Please, Josh. Leave me alone. I need my rest. I have an important day tomorrow.”

She was immediately sorry she had anointed the day with such importance. Thankfully, he did not ask for an explanation.

“I need to know about our finances, Victoria.”

The idea barely penetrated.

“Not now, Josh. Not now.”

“It's important.”

“We'll discuss it in the morning.”

“It occurred to me suddenly. If something ever happened to you, I'd have to take over. I need to know, Victoria.”

“Is that what you discussed with Evie? Nothing good ever comes of your time with her.”

“We both know she's hopeless with money, but it got me thinking. I don't know a damned thing about our finances.”

“That was your choice.”

“I'm thinking of the kids. I was wrong.”

“Tonight?”

Her thoughts had returned to Tatum, the dilemma it posed, and how she had to cope with it.

“My thoughts are elsewhere, Josh. Let me sleep.”

“Okay then, but tomorrow….”

“Of course, tomorrow.”

She suffered silently through the night, her mind churning madly, far from their financial matters. She forced herself to confront the outer limits of her own vulnerability. She had actually gone biblical in her search for the right path to take, citing God's injunction for Abraham to sacrifice his own beloved son Isaac. If Abraham had been a mother, she had reasoned, God would have had one bitch of a crisis on his hands. Not even God could induce a mother to sacrifice her son. She would have figured a way to save him, as Victoria was doing at that moment. She was, after all, keeping her thoughts in context, dealing with the devil himself.

Finally, she slipped back into torpor. If Josh spoke again, she didn't hear it.

***

In the morning as she prepared breakfast, she noted that everyone looked pale. Questions were answered with grunts.

“Remember what we talked about last night. Our financial situation.”

“I remember.”

“I want to have more responsibility about our finances, Victoria. Is that too much to ask?”

“Too much, Josh? I welcome it. You should care about such things.”

“Well then, I need to know where everything is.”

“For years I begged you to participate. Now you want to know immediately.”

Sour faced and grumpy, the children kissed their parents and went off to catch their respective school buses.

“They both look angry,” Josh remarked.

“Probably stayed up too late waiting for Daddy to come home.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“You could have told me earlier about having dinner with your sister.”

Above all, she needed some deflection, choosing the old standby, her annoyance with Evie and her relationship with her brother.

“Not that again, Victoria. She needed to talk and I had to be there.”

The deflection worked. The subject of Evie had a Pavlov's dog effect. Josh always reacted to it in the same way.

“Down to the last antique, is she? You want to know how to handle money and what did you do? Throw away your inheritance on a glutton.”

Why am I doing this, Victoria asked herself, knowing her answer: to keep my mind off what I have to do.

“No. No more,” she said. “I apologize, Josh. I'm very edgy this morning. Forgive me.”

“Could we go over it now?” Josh asked. “The finances.”

“Now? This minute?”

“I want to know.”

She noted that his look was determined.

“It's all in the computer,” she said. “All our investments down to the last penny.”

“Well then, show me.”

“Not now, Josh, please. I have things to do.”

“When then?”

“Tonight. How about that? I promise. Actually, I'm really happy you want to get involved. You're right. Something could happen to me. Then where will you and the children be?”

“Exactly.”

“Tonight, okay?”

She kissed him on the lips and headed up the stairs. Finances were the farthest thing from her mind. She had to get dressed for the day's main event. Even the details of dress had been carefully worked out. Tatum was, after all, an older man, nearly twenty years her senior. His looks, which were distinguished, even handsome, were hardly a saving grace. She was dealing with a version of the devil and her stomach was in knots.

After showering carefully, she put on a plaid pleated skirt, high socks, loafers, a cashmere sweater, a discreet necklace, and not too much makeup. She then dabbed herself with her best perfume. Her outfit was a far cry from her workaday clothes.

“You look like a kid,” Josh would say on the occasions when she wore the outfit she had chosen. “Turns me on.”

“It's only an illusion,” she would respond. “Probably feeds your Lolita fantasy.”

“Are you wearing little white panties?”

“See for yourself.”

***

She drove to the specified parking lot, parked at the north end at five minutes to ten, and waited nervously in the car for Gordon Tatum to arrive. The north end of the lot, as she suspected, was deserted. It was meant to take the parking overload on busy days. The choice of place suggested that Tatum had either done his research well or used this area as a meeting place before. She did not delude herself into believing that she was Tatum's first victim.

Despite her nervousness, she did feel an odd thrill of sinful conspiracy. This was a totally unique experience, completely against the grain of everything she believed in. She had even worked out a mental state that might carry her through the process with the least amount of pain and humiliation. Relying on cunning and singleness of purpose, she was determined to steel herself against any outrage and indignity and transform herself into a mere spectator hanging in space, observing, listening. She saw herself now as the lioness who would fight to the death to protect her cub.

His black Cadillac suddenly pulled up beside her SUV. He waved and smiled, and she stepped out of her car and entered his on the passenger side. She could feel his eyes studying her as she got in.

“You look like a pretty Scottish lass,” he said as he maneuvered the car through the town streets, then headed onto the open road. She sat beside him demurely, legs together, hands clasped on her lap, her handbag on the floor between them.

“Soon the buds will be bursting, Victoria. Don't you just love spring in the country? Stirs the heart, doesn't it?”

He was, she noted, remarkably dignified and self-possessed, considering what she believed he had in mind. For a fleeting moment she wondered if she had misinterpreted his action.

“Yes it does,” she replied, feigning interest. He was obviously a man used to an audience. When he spoke, he turned to face her, offering his benign smile and pleasant façade.