A Woman's Place Read online

  Angela, our receptionist, who was on the phone when I walked in, waved me a big greeting, pointed to the receiver, and mouthed the name of the sales rep from one of our largest suppliers. I mouthed back a no and hurried into the inner office that Brody and I shared. Within minutes, our secretary, Vicki, poked her head in to say a quick welcome back.

  Angela had been with us for three years, Vicki for five. Both women were in their late twenties, and while neither was a close personal friend, both knew Dennis and the kids.

  I didn’t say a word about what had happened. Eventually, they would learn about the divorce. If they never learned about the custody order, that was fine by me.

  Vicki hung on the door frame for several minutes, asking about my trip, before returning to her computer. With Brody gone to meet with the graphic artist who did our ads, I had the office to myself.

  Desperate to do something about the mess I was in, I told Angela that I didn’t want to be disturbed and dialed Dennis’s office. He had a small suite in a luxury building on the far side of town. His secretary answered.

  “Hi, Jenny, it’s me,” I said as I had hundreds of times before. “Is my husband around?”

  There was a pause, then a too-fast, “Uh, I’m not sure. Let me see—”

  “It’s urgent. Please put me through.”

  Dennis came on. “Yes, Claire.”

  “We have to talk.”

  “My lawyer told me not to.”

  “Mine probably would, too, but this is between you and me. We’re adults. We can talk things out. Dennis, I have to see the kids.”

  “No.”

  “I’m not a danger to them. You know that.”

  “I’m not talking with you about this.”

  “But you’ve made your point,” I begged. “I hear you now. You want a separation. Okay.”

  “I want more than a separation.”

  “Okay. We can discuss it. You and me. We don’t need lawyers or a judge involved.”

  “They’re already involved.”

  “But we can end it. We can tell them we’ll handle it ourselves. We can work this out between us, Dennis. We always have in the past.”

  “Right.”

  “I’ll listen now. Really I will.”

  There was a brief silence, then a firm, “I’m hanging up now, Claire. My lawyer is Art Heuber. Have your lawyer call him.”

  “I’ll give you money, if that’s what you want. Just don’t shut me off from the kids. I love them. They need me.” I paused for a breath. No sound came from the other end of the line. “Dennis?”

  Dead silence. As in disconnected line.

  “Dennis?”

  Nothing.

  Dismayed, I held the phone in my hand for another minute before replacing it in its cradle.

  Seconds later, I picked it up again. Knowing that the children weren’t home, I left word on the answering machine that I would call them later. Then I called Kikit’s allergist. He assured me that she was fine, and that while he was concerned that we didn’t know what had caused her attack, he wasn’t rushing to order more tests.

  “We’ve done so many,” he said, “and they were conclusive about what sets her off and what doesn’t. I’m still not convinced she didn’t just eat something she shouldn’t have.”

  I agreed. Typically, that was what young children did. To order more tests would only compound the trauma. Better to simply reassure her and watch her more closely.

  Not that I could watch her closely from a distance.

  Determined to move the process along, I spent a while gathering financial information on WickerWise, but gathering information on Dennis’s work was harder. Most everything was in the den at home—our checkbook, bank statements, paid bills. I had the tax forms that we had filed jointly the April before and added those to a large manila envelope marked “CGR Private.”

  Turning to WickerWise work, I emptied my briefcase of papers from the trip. There was information to be reviewed on our possible franchisee in Atlanta, notes from my interview with her, references and credit ratings to be checked. There was data on the abandoned Buckhead service station where I wanted the store, information from nearby shopkeepers, calls to be made to the demographics expert we consulted before opening each branch. Brody would need the revised figures the contractor in St. Louis had given me after seeing our plans, and we would have to review the decisions we had made and the orders submitted at the show in High Point.

  But I couldn’t concentrate on any of it now. My mind kept returning to Dennis, and to Johnny and Kikit.

  I gathered those papers together, set them aside, emptied my in-box and spread its contents on the desk. From the looks of it, the phone hadn’t stopped ringing during the two weeks I had been gone. There were calls from sales reps, many of whom I had seen at the show, calls from advertising people, calls from our own franchisees. There were faxes on fabric deliveries—on the delay of fabric deliveries—to our Pennsylvania plant. There were franchisee orders to review and approve, as well as those for the two stores that we owned ourselves. There were decisions to be made on who of our people would be attending the International Gift Show in New York in January.

  I studied one paper, then another, and a third, but I didn’t know what I was reading. My mind couldn’t focus. Doing something with my hands felt right.

  So I went into the workroom and changed into the ratty jeans and sweater I kept there. The jeans were worn thin at the knees, but soft as doeskin and familiar. I needed familiarity. I needed softness. I needed the musty, dusty, dried woodsy smell that permeated this space. I needed to do something physical, to see progress, to feel in control.

  There were two pieces, actually, a matching rocker and table. Both were in need of repair and new paint. The very first step would be to comb each piece from top to bottom in search of broken weavers and remove every last one.

  As I started, I did what I always did when I worked on a piece, in this case imagined the rocker at its turn-of-the-century birth, sitting in a small room with gauzy drapes waving gently in the summer breeze. The rocker might have held a mother and her infant, or a grandmother and her knitting. Beside it, the table was the showcase for a well-loved leather book, miniature portraits with sober sepia faces, or a tall glass of refreshing mint tea. I heard laughter coming from the house, distant echoes of happiness in sync with the creak of the floorboards beneath the rocker’s sway.

  The image faded.

  So Carmen wanted negative things on Dennis? I could give her negative things. There was the time Johnny came home with a B on a report and Dennis read through it to find out why it wasn’t an A. Or the time Johnny threw an airball in the last seconds of the basketball game and Dennis went on and on about how close the team had been to winning. Subtle criticism, but hurtful. Like Kikit’s lisp, which he imitated until she forced herself past it.

  Would the judge consider him a bad father because of things like those?

  A psychologist might.

  But a judge who was a throwback to the days when men ruled the roost? Not likely.

  I removed piece after piece of broken wicker, picking here, pushing there. I unwove with care, cutting the pieces I removed at staggered spots to make for a more blended repair. How had I learned to do this? I had read book after book, had located experts and watched them work. There was an order to wicker repair, a pattern. Aside from the introduction of synthetic materials, the rules never changed.

  Clean first. Remove the bad. Soak new lengths. Weave in with the pattern. Cut when firm. Repeat as necessary. Dry. Sand. Paint.

  I was an orderly person. I liked having rules and respected them, which wasn’t to say I was a follower. To the contrary. I thrived on pushing rules to their limits. That was why, among other novel transformations, I had once ended up with a Victorian bassinet whose wicker was threaded with new wood beads in bright colors and designs that both my client and her baby adored.

  It was also why I had ended up with a business that had
grossed $20 million last year.

  I hadn’t broken any rules. I did everything Dennis asked of me as a wife, did everything Johnny and Kikit asked of me as a mother. WickerWise came after that, had always come after that. I had simply pushed my own limits.

  Okay, so I was sometimes late, sometimes distracted. All working women were. All working men were. My children hadn’t suffered for it. They knew they were loved.

  So where had I gone wrong?

  Carmen wasn’t able to reach Art Heuber until the very end of the day, and then the news wasn’t good. “They won’t settle. Dennis plans to stick to his claim that you aren’t of a mind to be mothering. He wants the temporary order extended until a divorce agreement is reached. So we need to advance as strong a countercase as we can. He’ll stand by the charges he’s already made and introduce any new ones he can find. Are there any?”

  I shook out my hands. They were bruised from working, but I didn’t feel the pain. They were just cold, circulation gone awry. I was feeling cold all over, numb.

  Did Dennis have new charges against me? “Good God, I don’t know. The charges he’s made so far are crazy. I suppose he could dream up more like them.”

  “Well, you have an idea of what he’s looking for now. Give it some thought. If you’re prepared, so much the better. What we need are smooth explanations for anything he cares to suggest. Are you coming up with countercharges?”

  “It sounds like war.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s how the game is played. We either do it, or we lose. So. Countercharges against Dennis?”

  I sighed my resignation. “Most show insensitivity, not out-and-out neglect.”

  “You say he’s away a lot. How much is for work, how much for play?”

  “He works fifteen, maybe twenty hours a week. No more.”

  “Can you document it?”

  I could access his calendar on my computer. That would tell me when he had appointments and with whom. I could separate business from pleasure, could tally the number of lunches at the Ritz and evenings at Fenway Park. I supposed I could call the golf club and ask for the details of our tab there for the past month.

  I couldn’t believe it had come to this.

  “Can you do it, Claire?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then do it. We have no choice. That’s the kind of evidence he has against you. We have to throw it right back at him. And Claire? Watch out for Brody.”

  I glanced at the door. Brody was on the other side, having returned a while back. Since Angela and Vicki had left for the day, he had been the one to tell me that Carmen was on the phone.

  Given a choice, I would have had him in here with me while I talked with Carmen. And he would have been, if he had been female. If he had been female, no one would have thought twice about his opening his house to me, or driving me into Boston to meet my attorney, or staying close over the weekend to give comfort and support. Friends did that for friends. Especially best friends. But Brody was male. Dennis had made that a crime. I was being punished for something that hadn’t even happened.

  “What does that mean, watch out for him?” I asked, angry now. “I’ve already taken a room at the Royal Sonesta. I’ve already checked in, changed my clothes there, messed up the bed in case Dennis paid the maid to spy. So now I’m at my office, which just happens to be Brody’s too. I can’t very well banish him to Siberia for the weekend.”

  “Maybe you can banish him somewhere else, like to New York or Washington. He called me before. He’s angry at Dennis, feels personally betrayed. He wants to call him. Better still, he says, he wants to go see him. He’s spoiling for a fight. Don’t let him do it, Claire. It’ll make things worse. If Brody does anything, it should be going to some big splashy party tomorrow night and getting his picture in Monday’s paper on the arm of some hot new babe. Get my drift?”

  Thanks to walls of glass, the office space was nearly as open as my workroom. The reception area and Vicki’s office were done in wicker, from computer tables to floor lamps to storage cabinets. The larger office, the one Brody and I shared, had a bolder, richer feel—wicker accessories on rattan desks with glass tops and rattan coffee tables, beside rattan chairs with fat cushions. It was a shameless showcasing of our goods, but why not? More than one photo spread of it had been done for magazines profiling successful businesses headed by women, and the advertising was priceless.

  More importantly, I loved our goods.

  Brody was at his desk, but I doubted he was getting much work done. He was practically lying down in his chair. All that touched it were his upper back, his butt, and his elbows. His hands were balled together and propped up his chin. His ankles were crossed.

  Only his eyes moved when I appeared at the door. They rose within the frame of his glasses to meet mine. He wasn’t happy.

  “Don’t worry,” he grumbled. “I won’t do anything stupid. I’m furious at the guy. That’s all.” His fists fell to his lap. “Why didn’t he say something to me, for Christ’s sake? All he had to do was to open his mouth if he thought I was hanging around too much or doing something I shouldn’t have been doing. I could’ve set him straight. Hell, I’d have backed off, if I’d known he was having nightmares about it.” He tossed his glasses on the desk and pinched the bridge of his nose. “But he never let on. Didn’t give a hint. He was friendly as ever that morning when I took you and the kids to the airport. Maybe he was pissed that I didn’t go visit once the kids got back. Maybe he figured I felt it wasn’t worth it if you weren’t there—and you wanna know something, he’s right. I’d rather talk with you than him any day. I did try calling—actually thought he and the kids would come over for dinner, I’d made steak soup—but I couldn’t get through. The machine was on. I didn’t leave a message. There didn’t seem any point. The kids would only nag him.”

  I had to smile at that. He was right. “They love your steak soup.”

  “Yeah, well, he didn’t need the nagging. I figured if he was out with them, he had things under control.” He put a hand on the top of his head, keeping a lid on, so to speak. “Dennis and I have been through a lot together, lots of years, ups and downs. What’s bad is that he couldn’t ask me what was going on. What’s worse is he was thinking it to begin with. Did he really believe I’d make a move on his wife—not that I don’t love you, not that there haven’t been times when making a move on you sounded just fine—but you’re his. I would never have done anything to mess up your marriage. So what was it he saw between us?”

  “Closeness. Warmth.”

  “It wasn’t like you gave those to me and not to him. You gave him closeness and warmth.”

  Maybe. Maybe not. Certainly not the same way. My relationship with Brody was free and easy. He was that kind of guy. Dennis wasn’t. My relationship with Dennis entailed responsibility. Expectation. “We were married. There’s tension in every marriage.”

  “I made it worse, I guess. Christ, Claire, I’m sorry. I never meant to do that.”

  “Oh, Brody. You didn’t do anything. It was me.” I let the door frame take my weight and folded my arms close on my chest. “I didn’t listen to him. He was trying to tell me things, and I didn’t hear. Those times he talked about moving out, I thought he just wanted to upset me. He knew what buttons to press when he needed extra attention, and that was one. But maybe he meant it. I guess he must have. I should have taken him more seriously.” I squeezed my arms. “It’s only until Monday. Only until Monday.”

  There must have been something in my tone, an inkling of doubt that only a person who knew me as well as Brody did could hear, because his feet suddenly hit the floor. He came to me and folded me in his arms. I didn’t tell him that Carmen wouldn’t approve. I didn’t care if she did or not.

  “There’s a gnawing inside me,” I whispered against his shoulder. “I have flashes of something going wrong and Dennis getting everything he wants and my having to see the kids every other weekend, or something else equally gross.”

&n
bsp; “It won’t happen,” came his voice. “No judge is that dumb.”

  “This one hates women who have careers.”

  “That’s his problem.”

  “It’s mine if he rules against me.”

  “Then we’ll appeal.” He held me back and looked me in the eye. “Dennis’s charges are bogus, every last one. If he wants a divorce, let him have it, but he’s nuts. He won’t do better than you, Claire. Not in a million years.”

  Saturday morning, I met with Carmen. Our main focus wasn’t divorce, but the immediate issue of regaining custody of the kids. To that end, she asked question after question about my daily life, details like what time I got up in the morning, who made the kids’ breakfast, what time I went to work, who did the laundry, shopped for clothes, made doctor appointments. She had to put together a case for my being a responsible and attentive parent.

  But custodial details were only part of it. “The judge will want to know about your frame of mind,” she said. We were in her conference room this time, seated at a table along with the financial information I had brought and Carmen’s ubiquitous yellow pad. “He’ll want to know how you’re handling your mother’s illness, how often you’ll be flying out to see her, whether you’re so upset that you’re upsetting the children.”

  “Of course, I’m upset. She’s my mother, and she’s terminally ill. I haven’t been the best daughter in the world. I haven’t been around as much as I should have been. My sister has borne the brunt of the caretaking, but she and Mom don’t get along. Time’s running out. I have to be available for her now. If Dennis begrudges that, it says something about him, don’t you think?”

  “What I think doesn’t matter. It’s what the judge thinks that counts.”

  “Unless he’s a cold-hearted bastard, he’ll understand,” I said. No matter that he had screwed me once, or that his wife had screwed him. He had to have had a mother, had to know what that was like.