Nim was startled. "Sure, but why?"
"I may be going away." In her quiet voice Ruth corrected herself. "I am going away. For a week, perhaps longer."
He put down his knife and fork, staring across the table. "Why? Where?"
“Mother will have Leah and Benjy while I'm gone, and Mrs. Blair will come in as usual to clean. So it will just mean you’re having dinner out, and I'm sure you can arrange that."
Nim ignored the barb. He insisted, his voice rising, "You didn't answer my question. Where are you going, and why?"
"There's no need for either of us to shout." Beneath Ruth's composure he sensed an uncharacteristic hardness. "I heard your question, but the way things are between us, I don't believe I should have to answer. Do you?"
Nim was silent, knowing precisely what Ruth meant: Why should there be a double standard? If Nim chose to break the rules of marriage, have a succession of affairs, and stay out many evenings for his own diversions, why shouldn't Ruth exercise similar freedom, also without explanations? On that basis, her declaration of equality-which it clearly was seemed reasonable. Just the same, Nim felt a stab of jealousy because he now was sure Ruth was involved with another man. Originally be hadn't thought so; now he was convinced, and while he knew that give and-take arrangements existed in some marriages, he found it hard to accept them in his own.
"We both know," Ruth said, interrupting his thoughts, "that for a long time you and I have only been going through the motions of being married. We haven't talked about it. But I think we should." This time, despite an attempt at firmness, there was a tremor in her voice.
He asked, "Do you want to talk now?"
Ruth shook her head. "Perhaps when I come back." She added ' "As soon as I work some things out, I'll let you know when I'm leaving.
Nim said dully, "All right."
"You haven't finished your breakfast."
He pushed the plate away. "I don't feel like eating anymore."
* * *
Though the exchange with Ruth-jolting in its suddenness-preoccupied Nim during his drive downtown, activity at GSP & L headquarters quickly eclipsed personal thoughts.
The ruling of the Public Utilities Commission took priority over all other business.
All morning a procession of executives from the utility's financial and legal departments, their expressions serious, hastened in and out of the chairman's office. Their comings and goings marked a succession of conferences, each concerned with the essential question: Without any increase whatever in the rates it could charge customers, how could GSP & L carry out its needed construction plans and stay solvent? the consensus: Without some drastic and immediate cutback in expenses, it simply wasn't possible.
At one point J. Eric Humphrey paced the rug behind his desk and demanded rhetorically, "Why is it that when the price of bread goes up because of inflation, or meat prices soar, or it costs more to get into a ball game or a movie-no one is ever surprised and it's all accepted? But when we point out, truthfully, that we can't produce electricity at our old rates because our costs have gone up too, nobody believes us."
Oscar O'Brien, the general counsel, answered while he lit one of his inevitable cigars. “They don't believe us because they've been conditioned not to-mostly by politicians trying to suck up to voters and looking for an easy target. Public utilities have always been one."
The chairman snorted. "Politicians! they disgust me! they invented inflation, created it, worsened it, keep it going as they build public debt -all so they can buy votes and bang onto their jobs. Yet those charlatans, those obscurers of the truth, blame inflation on everybody else unions, business-anyone, anything, except themselves. If it weren't for politicians, we wouldn't be asking for a rate increase because we wouldn't need to."
Sharlett Underhill, executive vice president of finance and the fourth person in the chairman's office, murmured, "Amen!" Mrs. Underhill, a tall brunette in her forties, capable, normally unruffled, today appeared harried. Which was understandable, Nim thought. Whatever financial decisions were made as a result of the PUC turndown, they would inevitably be harsh and Sharlett Underhill would have to implement them.
Eric Humphrey, who had stopped his pacing, asked, "Does anyone have a theory about why everything we sought was rejected? Did we misjudge the profiles? Where was our strategy wrong?"
"I'm not sure our strategy was wrong," O'Brien said. "And we sure as hell studied the profiles, and acted on them."
Behind the question and answer was a common practice of utility companies-but also a closely guarded secret.
Whenever a Public Utility Commissioner was appointed, companies which would be affected by the new commissioner's decisions began a detailed undercover study of the individual, including a psychiatric profile. The resultant material was pored over by experts in psychology who searched for prejudices to be guarded against or weaknesses to be exploited.
Later an executive of the utility would attempt to strike up a friendship in the course of which the commissioner would be entertained at the executive's home, invited to play golf, share bard-to-get seats at sports events, or taken trout fishing at a Sierra hideaway. The entertainment was always pleasant, private, and discreet, but never lavish. During casual conversations some discussion might occur about the utility's affairs, but no direct favors were asked; the influence was more subtle.
Often the tactic worked in a utility's favor. Occasionally it didn't.
"We knew two of the commissioners would vote against us anyway," the lawyer said, "and we knew for sure that two of the other three were in our corner. So that left Cy Reid's as the swing vote. We'd worked on Reid, we thought he'd see things our way, but we were wrong."
Nim knew about Commissioner Cyril Reid. He was a Ph.D. economist and former university lecturer whose practical business experience was nil. But Reid had worked closely with California's incumbent Governor through two election campaigns and insiders now believed that when the Governor moved from Sacramento to the White House, as he hoped to, Cy Reid would go with him as chief of staff. According to a confidential file which Nim had read, Commissioner Reid was once an ardent believer in Keynesian economics, but had recanted, now accepting that the deficit spending doctrines of John Maynard Keynes had led to economic disaster worldwide. A recent report from a senior vice president of GSP & L, Stewart Ino, who had cultivated Reid, declared that the commissioner had "faced up to the realities of income statements and balance sheets, including those of public utilities." But perhaps, Nim thought, Cy Reid the politician had been laughing at them all along, and was doing so right now.
"During the pendency of the case," the chairman persisted, "surely there were backstage discussions with commission staff? Weren't compromises reached?"
Sharlett Underhill answered, “The answer to both questions is yes."
“Then if compromises were agreed on, what happened to them?"
Mrs. Underhill shrugged. "Nothing done behind scenes is binding. Three of the commissioners, including Reid, ignored recommendations of their staff."
Something else most people never knew about, Nim thought, were negotiations which proceeded, out of sight, during and after public hearings.
Utilities like GSP & L, when seeking more revenue through a rate increase, often asked more than was needed and more than they expected to get. What followed was a ritualistic dance in which PUC commissioners joined. The commissioners lopped off some of what was asked, thus appearing to be vigilant in their public duty. The utility, though seemingly rebuffed, in fact got what it wanted, or thereabouts.