Part 13 (1/2)

'You haven't wronged me, Oliver. I only went where my feelings took me.'

'Then you are a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t.'

She had come to talk about Eve, but had been waylaid. A bubbling sob began to rise in her chest and she turned away.

's.h.i.+t,' he said. 'Let's have some wine.' He lifted his gla.s.s and she followed. He was the first to spit the wine out on the ground.

'That lousy little b.i.t.c.h. Somehow she managed to get into the wine vault.' He threw the gla.s.s over the cliff and smelled the mouth of the bottle. 'She's gone and poured vinegar in it. Vinegar in Chateau Latour '66. a '66'. Can you believe it?' He took the other botde, uncorked it, and sniffed. 'Oh, what a b.i.t.c.h,' he cried, flinging the bottle into s.p.a.ce. It crashed below. 'She's probably scuttled all of it. Every good bottle. The Margaux, the Cha.s.sagne Montrachet '73, the Chateau Beycheville '64 and '66. If she touched the Rothschild, I'll murder her.'

He looked at Ann, who was frightened now. She struggled up and moved away from the edge.

”It's only wine,' she said lamely.

'Only wine,' he shouted. He kicked the remaining botde over the cliff, sending the food after it. 'Lafite-Rothschild isn't only wine. Not a '59.' His face flushed a deep red. 'I don't understand you, Ann. If you loved me, you'd understand.'

She started running down the path, confused, hoping his anger would abate by the time he returned to the car. She sat there a long time, waiting, wondering what all this had to do with love.

20.

'You should have left the wine alone, Barbara,' Thurmont lectured. 'The wine, we all agreed, was his. Not in dispute. What you did only complicates things.'

'It was only a half case of the Latour. That's all I touched. I could have really- been a rat and pulled the plug. That stuff has to be between fifty-four and fifty-seven degrees. I could have pulled the plug and ruined all hundred and ten bottles. That's if I was really a rat.' She was determined to remain calm.

'Goldstein is threatening to take us to court for violating the separation agreement.'

'Well, invasion of privacy was a violation and where did that get us?'

'He was restrained. That helps the case when we get down to the real arena.'

'I think he's done it again.' She was smug now, proud that she had learned to be unflappable. They were not going to grind her down. She was more determined than ever.

Thurmont had looked up at her over his half gla.s.ses. / She smiled sarcastically, enjoying the situation. They all think women are dumb, she huffed to herself.

'I'm positive he's picked the lock and been inside my room. I'm absolutely positive.'

'Are you hallucinating now, Barbara? The court doesn't deal in that kind of information.'

'I know he's been there.''That's not enough.'She left Thurmont's office unusually buoyed. He had been discouraging, especially when she had explained that she had ruined the wine because he had destroyed her plants. If he was such a smart lawyer, he would have included the plants in the agreement. She wondered again if it wouldn't have been a better idea to find a woman lawyer. A woman lawyer would understand. But then again, most judges were men and it would be like playing Russian roulette. She was certain that they all worked hand in glove, conspiring together to keep women in their place.

Whatever the consequences, the fact that he had actually discovered the ruined wine under the most-hoped-for circ.u.mstances elated her. So he was having trysts with Ann, she thought gleefully, little country outings. And she had spoiled one by ruining their wine. Even Eve's intrusion had not diminished her joy.

'I put her up to it, Mom. I just don't want to go to camp. I really don't know who to go to if I have grievances.' Eve had confessed, revealing how efficient the household communication system operated. Oliver to Ann and Eve to her. Goldstein to Thurmont. A round robin. She didn't care, reveling in her a.s.sertiveness and success. The French Market was demanding more and more pate, pate, and her chicken and her chicken galantine galantine had made a big hit at any number of big parties. She was making it. She was unstoppable. A winner. And she was certain she would win her case, although Thurmont had warned her not to become too successful until the divorce action came to court. had made a big hit at any number of big parties. She was making it. She was unstoppable. A winner. And she was certain she would win her case, although Thurmont had warned her not to become too successful until the divorce action came to court.

'Why didn't you come to me?' she had complained to Eve, but in her heart she knew this was a rote response, the expected one.

'Because you've got other things on your mind at the moment. Things are bad enough. I didn't want to complicate your life.'

She embraced her daughter and kissed her on the cheek.

'What the h.e.l.l are mothers for?'

'I just didn't want to go to camp - that's all. Frankly, I'm afraid to leave you two alone in the house.'

Barbara laughed at herself, at her old image as dependent woman, fearful and una.s.sertive.

'No man pushes your old mom around, baby.' She did a mock Humphrey Bogart.

'He's Daddy.'

'I know, precious. He's your daddy. Not mine.' She laughed again.

'It's no tragedy. Just a plain old ugly divorce action. I think I'm right. He thinks he's right. The judge will decide. So it'll be a little ugly. So what? Why be afraid?' She waved her finger in front of Eve's nose. 'It's a new world out there, honey. And don't you be a dummy when it comes to men. Equal strokes for equal folks. Don't give up what you want for them. That's the lesson for your life. You have a living example before you.' She raised her arms and stood on tiptoe. 'I feel a hundred feet tall,' she said. 'High as a kite. High on life.'

'I've never seen you like this, Mom. So d.a.m.ned content.'

'So, you see? Nothing to worry about. Go to camp. Enjoy.'

In her heart, she forgave Ann. Forgave everything. Show the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds no mercy, she told herself, thinking of Oliver and all the rest of those c.o.c.k heads.

As if to celebrate her newly perceived freedom, she bought herself a vibrator. It had a p.e.n.i.s shape and wide ridges like corduroy along its shaft. The idea of it was almost as delicious as its effect on her private parts, which proved a revelation of pleasure as waves of o.r.g.a.s.mic crescendos invaded her senses. Sometime in the middle of the day, she would announce to herself, Time for happy hour, and would go up to her room and proceed to use her c.o.c.k toy, as she called it. It was better than Oliver had ever been.

'You beautiful little technological miracle,' she would whisper to it when it had done particularly yeoman service. Who needs them?

The high was accelerated by the deepening of spring. The trees along the circle were in full blossom and the view of the park and the Calvert Street Bridge in their spring wardrobe was magnificent. As for Oliver, he was hardly a bother. More like a rodent who was never seen although the evidence of him could not be missed. Sometimes at night she heard him puttering in his workroom, and if she awakened early, she heard him leave the house. As far as she was concerned, he was no longer part of her life.

But she could not shake the idea that somehow his presence had intruded itself in her room. She had learned recently to trust her instincts, to act according to a deep, unrealized, and unarticulated intelligence. It wasn't anything she could pin down with surety. She had carefully inspected the room and her closets, looked under the beds, even into her shoes. At night, when she could not sleep, she reviewed in her mind this feeling, even tried to dismiss it. But it lingered, pervasive and intuitive.

During the day, dutifully, in addition to running her business, she went about the ch.o.r.es of preparing the children for camp. Eve was to be a counselor in training, which mollified her somewhat, in that it represented a euphemism for privileged camper. This meant greater freedom.

'Just be careful, Eve. We don't need any problems with you. Not now.'

'I'm cool,' Eve replied. Mother and daughter understood each other. Josh gave her little trouble. His life revolved around basketball and school. She wondered how she could be so negative toward males and still love her son.

But success bred its own problems and Barbara discovered the meaning of cash flow. She had agreed in the separation agreement not to use any household money for her business. It hadn't made much sense, but she did get her suppliers, the various food markets and wholesalers, to bill her with separate invoices, as Thurmont had instructed.

She wasn't the best bookkeeper in the world, but she rea.s.sured herself that all she had to do was add up the invoices for the purchases, then add up the bills to her customers, and the difference would be, she hoped, profit. She made simultaneous shocking discoveries. Her customers paid her very slowly and since she was so anxious for the business, she did not press them. But her suppliers demanded payment at shorter intervals. To keep herself afloat, she had borrowed from the household money.

'n.o.body taught me anything about business, Thurmont,' she protested when he rebuked her.

'Tell that to the man you buy your meat from.''I did.''And?'

'He cut me off.' The memory fueled her indignation. 'If I hadn't been a woman, things would have been different. He had no confidence. I showed him my bills to customers. He sneered at me. ”That's your problem, lady,” he said. It was the ”lady” that galled me and I threw a handful of chopped meat at him.'

'That was good business.'