Lucien called Suzanne and described his success. This was going to be a wonderful summer out west.
Then Suzanne called Lucien late one night, so late that Lucien wondered momentarily where he was. He had hung a sport coat on the tall bedpost for dry-cleaning the next day; for a moment he thought the coat had placed the call to him. His bird dog stood and arched her back in a slow stretch, not anxious to start the day in the middle of the night.
“What’s up?”
“I’m sorry to be calling you so late, but I’m in such a state of confusion I can’t sleep.”
“Think nothing of it. I’ve done this to you, often and drunkenly.”
Suddenly a silence from Suzanne’s end of the line was filled with sobbing. Lucien pulled himself up against the bedstead and waited alertly for her to recover. “What is it?” he asked. “Suzanne, what is it?”
“Lucien, I don’t know. I’m going in circles. I’m worn out trying to work and stay ahead of James and I’m just absolutely going in circles. And I miss you. Suddenly you’re strong and I’m a mess.”
Lucien ached sharply. He missed Suzanne too; but maybe he just missed their old hopes, now long in the past.
“What can I do?” Lucien asked. “I’ll do absolutely anything.”
“Don’t hang up on me.”
“I won’t hang up on you.”
“There. I think I’m better.”
“Haven’t you met anyone nice yet?”
“Oh, sure. They’re everywhere. And you?”
“Well, you know all about the Emily thing,” Lucien gasped. “After that I pretty much concentrated on staying fluid, you know. The old moving target trick.”
“Target. You’re darn lucky you didn’t turn into one while she was still there.”
“That’ll be enough of that, Suzanne. This time I mean it.”
“I’m sorry,” she said miserably. Lucien turned the light back off and sat in the dark once again with the silent telephone. They could have been in the same room.
“Why don’t you pick up and come out here for a while?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got relatives all over the place there.”
“Please.”
“You come up with a presentable plan and we’ll see.”
This was the Suzanne Lucien remembered best. Touching, emotional, sweet and predacious. When she hung up, he lay there used and overjoyed. He could barely get back to sleep. There was moonlight. But when he awakened in the morning he was nervous and didn’t want breakfast.
Lucien was doing something very acceptable to everyone: he was making money hand over fist. He wasn’t quite certain why this had such a miraculous effect on his self-esteem. After all, the same old battered soul still lived inside the groomed monster Lucien felt he had become. It didn’t even arouse his cynicism. I have to admit, he thought, they all like me better now that I am a rich SOB. And some of the hollow feeling had gone, too. It was strange not to be desperate. In fact, he rather missed desperation now that it was gone. It had been an old friend and had produced some top fireworks. Lucien knew, though, that he had been allowed to make mankind’s favorite experiment, that of going from some form of rags to some form of riches, overnight. Only he was plagued by the questions: Am I a new man? Why do they like me? Am I secretly the same old shitheel, the same old wino from hell who brought down hurricanes of scorn on himself? Is this an American dream?
· · ·
He began once again to bring Suzanne and James within reach. He asked if they would come back and got a no. He asked if they would just come up and “give it a try.” That didn’t work either. Evidently she was serious about presenting a plan. It was only by offering what was in effect a prepaid vacation that he began to get somewhere. “Let’s keep it fairly short,” said Suzanne. “I don’t want to be there with James when Emily returns. She might have an itchy trigger finger.”
Lucien gave a warm and appreciative laugh, like the sidekick of a talk-show host. “No, no, no,” he said in a rich voice. “I’m afraid we’ve seen the last of her.”
“I’ll bet you’ve got a million more where that one came from,” said Suzanne.
To begin with, nothing is merrier than a Rocky Mountain airport in the summertime. Nothing. Lucien stood among the small crowd awaiting passengers and watched the big jet pivot against the shimmering sagebrush flats and come to the ramp. There were numerous people Lucien recognized in the group, and he nodded genially to them like a man of substance, or at least a man not to be lightly disturbed. Perhaps some of these people remembered the old Lucien and took his current stance as an absurdity.
And then the doors opened. People flowed into the airport from the jet. They kept coming, the strangers. And there they were! James in clownish checkerboard shoes, thick glasses and a frightened grin. Next to him walked Suzanne, the same tall brown-eyed girl he’d misunderstood for so long. In her face the contradictions of this arrival were transmuted into wry cheer. She carried a straw bag and moved James along with a hand on the back of his head.
Lucien was head over heels in love. He had never been so in love in his life.
10
Lucien lit a cigarette. He’d almost quit; then the spring was a success and now he chain-smoked like a foundryman. He was back in Wick Tompkins’s office, secure in its club-like atmosphere with the reassuring clacking of the computer keyboard coming from the next room.
“I thank the Savior for taking my tired feet from the long road of loneliness,” said Lucien.
“You are full of yourself.”
“Well, they’re back.”
“Anything else you’d care to tell me?”
“Yeah, Wick, I was wondering how come I’m so smart and rich.”
Tompkins stared across a pile of uniform green books marked with numerous pieces of folded paper. “It must’ve been something you ate,” he said. “Where’s the little family now?”
“I’m letting them sleep.”
“And, for example, where are you letting them sleep?”
“I’ve got them at the White Cottage, the one with the cabana and wading pool.”
“Why not with you?”
“The truth is, I’m not sure the Savior actually got me off the long and lonely road at all. Suzanne is viewing this strictly as a vacation. I mean strictly. And my boy looks at me very remotely.”
“How long will they be here?”
“Couple of weeks. Maybe more. Y’know, if I pave a glorious trail for their good times. But I can’t just phone this one in. I’ve really got to be on deck. Besides, I’m in love.”
“With whom?”
“With Suzanne.”
“You’re joking.”
“No.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“No,” said Lucien. “It was love at first sight. Last night at the airport.”
“Let me just say this: I approve in a very nonspecific way. Will I be retained as counsel?”
“Yes,” said Lucien. “In due course.” Lucien was no longer hungry. Though he understood it could never last, he felt himself to be autocratic, satisfied and self-absorbed. For him, that made a nice picture. He got up. “I’m going to go,” he said. “It’s after ten. They should be up by now.”
“As you wish,” said Wick. “I have to get in eight billable hours in the next ninety minutes, then go to lunch.”
“You’re like a brother to me,” said Lucien.
“I’ve come to sense that,” said Wick joylessly. “Call me when the roof falls in.”
Now Lucien went to see Suzanne and James at the White Cottage. He came through the gate in the wooden wall that gave the place privacy. Suzanne was in a lounge chair reading, her hair tied back exposing the crooked hairline that Lucien had never appreciated but was one of the many things people always found pretty about her. James was knee-deep in the wading pool. “Good morning!” said Suzanne. She lay the book with its spine up in her lap. Lucien went to the pool, where James tossed water back and forth between his hands, nervously watching Lucien. Lucien dropped to one knee and gave James a small embrace.