She had no intention of marrying him until Doran gave her a tongue-lashing. “Think it over? Think it over? Use your head,” he said. “The guy is crazy about you. You marry him. So you stick with him for a year. You come out with at least a million and he’ll still be in love with you. You’ll call your own shots. Your career has a hundred times better chance of going. Besides, through him, you’ll meet other rich guys. Guys that you’ll like better and maybe love. You can change your whole life, lust be bored for a year, hell, that’s not suffering. I wouldn’t ask you to suffer.”
It was like Doran to think that he was being very clever. That he was really opening Janelle’s eyes to the verities of life every woman knows or is taught from her cradle. But Doran recognized that Janelle really hated to do anything like that not because it was immoral but because she could not betray another human being in such a fashion. So cold-bloodedly. And also because she had such a zest for life that she couldn’t bear being bored for a year. But as Doran quickly pointed out, the chances were good that she would be bored that year even without Theodore to bring her down. And also she would really make poor Theodore happy for that year.
“You know, Janelle,” Doran said, “having you around on your worst day is better than having most people around on their best day.” It was one of the very few things he had said since his twelfth birthday that was sincere. Though self-serving.
But it was Theodore acting with uncommon aggressiveness who tipped the balance. He bought a beautiful two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar house in Beverly Hills, with swimming pool, tennis court, two servants. He knew Janelle loved to play tennis, she had learned to play in California, had had a brief affair as a matter of course with her tennis teacher, a slim, beautiful blond young man who had to her astonishment billed her for his teaching. Later other women told her about California men. How they would have drinks in a bar, let you pay for your own drinks and then ask you to go to their apartments for the night. They wouldn’t even spring for the cab fare home. She enjoyed the tennis pro in bed and on the tennis court, and he had improved her performance in both areas. Eventually she tired of him because he dressed better than she did. Also, he batted right and left and he vamped her male as well as her female friends, which even Janelle, open-minded as she was, felt was stretching it.
She had never played tennis with Lieverman. He had casually mentioned once that he had beaten Arthur Ashe in high school, so she assumed he was out of her class and like most good tennis players would rather not play with hackers. But when he persuaded her to move into the new house, they gave an elaborate tennis party.
She loved the house. It was a luxurious Beverly Hills mansion with guest rooms, a den, a cabana for the pool, an outdoor heated whirlpool. She and Theodore went over plans to decorate and put in some special wood paneling. They went shopping together. But now in bed he was a complete bust, and Janelle didn’t even try him anymore. He promised her that when his divorce came through next month and they married, he would be OK. Janelle devoutly hoped so because feeling guilty, she had decided the least she could do, since she was going to marry him for his money, was to be a faithful wife. But going without sex was getting on her nerves. It was on the day of the tennis party that she knew it was all down the drain. She had felt there was something fishy about the whole deal. But Theodore Lieverman inspired so much confidence in her, her friends and even the cynical Doran that she thought it was her guilty conscience looking for a way out.
On the day of the tennis party, Theodore finally got on the court. He played well enough, but he was a hacker. There was no way he could beat Arthur Ashe even in his bassinet. Janelle was astonished. The one thing she was sure of was that her lover was not a liar. And she was no innocent. She had always assumed lovers were liars. But Theodore never bullshitted, never bragged, never mentioned his money or his high standing in investment circles. He never really talked to other people except Janelle. His low key approach was extremely rare in California, so much so that Janelle had been surprised that he had lived his whole life in that state. But seeing him on the tennis court, she knew he had lied in one respect. And lied well. A casual deprecatory remark that he had never repeated, never lingered on. She had never doubted him. As she had never doubted anything he said really. There was no question that he loved her. He had shown that in every way, which of course didn’t mean too much when he couldn’t get it up.
That night after the tennis party was over he told her that she should get her little boy from Tennessee and move him to the house. If it had not been for his lie about beating Arthur Ashe, she would have agreed. It was well she did not. The next day when Theodore was at work she received a visitor.
The visitor was Mrs. Theodore Lieverman, the heretofore invisible wife. She was a pretty little thing, but frightened and obviously impressed by Janelle’s beauty, as if she couldn’t believe her husband had come up with such a winner. As soon as she announced who she was, Janelle felt an overwhelming relief and greeted Mrs. Lieverman so warmly the woman was further confused.
But Mrs. Lieverman surprised Janelle too. She wasn’t angry. The first thing she said was startling. “My husband is nervous, very sensitive,” she said. “Please don’t tell him I came to see you.”
“Of course,” Janelle said. Her spirits were soaring. She was elated. The wife would demand her husband and she would get him back so fast her head would swim.
Mrs. Lieverman said cautiously, “I don’t know how Ted is getting all this money. He makes a good salary. But he hasn’t any savings.”
Janelle laughed. She already knew the answer. But she asked anyway. “What about the twenty million dollars?”
“Oh, God. Oh, God,” Mrs. Lieverman said. She put her head down in her hands and started to weep.
“And he never beat Arthur Ashe in tennis in high school,” Janelle said reassuringly.
“Oh, God, God,” Mrs. Lieverman wailed.
“And you’re not getting divorced next month,” Janelle said.
Mrs. Lieverman just whimpered.
Janelle went to the bar and mixed two stiff scotches. She made the other woman drink through the sniffles.
“How did you find out?” Janelle asked.
Mrs. Lieverman opened her purse as if looking for a handkerchief for her sniffles. Instead, she brought out a sheaf of letters and handed them to Janelle. They were bills. Janelle looked at them thoughtfully. And she got the whole picture. He had written a twenty-flve thousand dollar check as down payment on the beautiful house. With it was a letter requesting that he be allowed to move in until the final closing. The check had bounced. The builder was now threatening to put him in jail. The checks for hired help had bounced. The caterer’s check for the tennis party had bounced,
“Wow,” Janelle said.
“He’s too sensitive,” Mrs. Lieverman said.
“He’s sick,” Janelle said.
Mrs. Lieverman nodded.
Janelle said thoughtfully, “Is it because of his two sisters who died in the plane crash?”
There was a scream from Mrs. Lieverman, a shriek finally of outrage and exasperation. “He never had any sisters. Don’t you understand? He’s a pathological liar. He lies about everything. He has no sisters, he has no money, he’s not divorcing me, he used the firm’s money to take you to Puerto Rico and New York and to pay the expenses of this house.”