The hab theory, p.35
The HAB Theory, page 35
The roast, which had been on the sink sideboard thawing, she now put into the meat tender in the refrigerator. Just as she thudded the heavy door closed, Carol Ann reentered, wearing a fresh white jersey blouse and, quite obviously, still no bra. Marie was going to say something about it but changed her mind, knowing Carol immediately would say that none of her friends wore bras anymore. She didn’t want to get into that hassle again now. She merely nodded her permission when Carol asked to go to Peggy Dinito’s house until about eight. And then she too, like Billy, was gone.
Marie moved about downstairs, straightening a cushion here, realigning a picture frame there, sitting down and picking up a magazine and then throwing it down almost at once. She went to the basement, sorted some dirty clothing and tossed a load into the washer and got it going, then came back again to the front room. She was procrastinating and she knew it. Difficult things are always easy to put off.
“Marie!” It was John calling from his den. “Would you please fix me another drink?”
“You can come down and fix your own damned drink!” His voice had been a trigger and she was shocked at the sharpness of her own reply.
Grant came down at once, frowning, and he started to speak while he was still on the stairs. “What’s wrong with you, anyway, Marie?”
“That’s my question. What’s wrong with you?”
“With me? What makes you think anything’s wrong with me?”
“I don’t think it, I know it. And you know it, too.”
His expression changed subtly and his eyes became masked. He made an effort to keep the ring of puzzlement in his voice. “Honey, I haven’t the foggiest notion what you’re talking about.”
“Ohhh!” It was practically a growl and she moved up to face him, standing tensely only inches away from him on the thick carpeting at the bottom of the stairs, her fists tight and fingernails digging into the palms of her hands. “Damn it, John, don’t you waste that injured innocence on me, you hear? I don’t buy it!”
“For Christ’s sake, Marie! If you’ve got something on your mind, then spit it out and quite beating around bushes. I’ve got things to do.”
“I’ll just bet you’ve got things to do. I’ll just bet you have!” She wanted to plunge ahead, to confront, accuse, berate, but she couldn’t make her tongue bring out the words. Not yet.
“I don’t know what you’re leading up to,” he said, his brief flare of anger fading to a level coldness, “but I can’t say I care for your attitude.”
“My attitude?” She changed the emphasis. “My attitude? Let me tell you something, Mr. John Charles Grant, the attitude that’s at issue here is yours, not mine. And your actions along with it!”
He regarded her for a long moment and was on the verge of a retort when the telephone rang. Marie was closest to the telephone stand and she took a couple of steps to snatch it up.
“Hello!” Her voice was scarcely less sharp.
“Hello, Mrs. Grant?” It was a woman’s voice. “Is Mr. Grant there, please?”
“Who’s calling?” The harshness in her voice, now laced with suspicion, was very clear.
There was a brief pause on the other end and then the woman continued. “This is Hazel Tierney, Mrs. Grant. Secretary to the President. President Sanders would like to speak to Mr. Grant. Is he there, please?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” She was instantly contrite. “I’m sorry. Excuse me, please. One moment.” She held out the receiver to him. “A friend of yours wants to talk to you. The President.” She remained standing there as he put the phone to his ear.
“This is John Grant, Mr. President … Oh, hello, Mrs. Tierney … Of course…” He waited quietly, his eyes not meeting Marie’s stony gaze, and then, “Good evening, Mr. President. I hope you’re well? … Yes, sir. It’s Mr. Boardman’s solution, or at least his basic outline for it. I’ve been studying it ever since talking with Mr. Gordon. It’s much different than anticipated. It’s rather drastic, in fact, but he said in his notes that it’s the only hope … Well, I don’t know that I am, Mr. President, but evidently Mr. Boardman was convinced of it. I don’t think you want me to outline it here for you, do you? … Yes, sir, of course. Whenever you want me … That’ll be fine, Mr. President. I’ve given Mr. Knotts a Xerox copy and I’ll bring along Mr. Boardman’s file on it, although it’s pretty weighty. He wasn’t a very accomplished writer. I think, though, that I can give you a pretty fair breakdown of what he’s envisioned…” He paused for a longer period, listening carefully. “I think, Mr. President…” he hesitated and then went on, “Thank you. It’s just that it may be better, sir, if you alone heard Mr. Boardman’s plan at first … To a degree it is, sir … Yes, sir, I was planning on doing that, with your approval … I’ll be there, Mr. President … Good night, sir.”
He hung up the telephone slowly, nibbling at his lower lip, then pressed a button on a phone caddy, which sprang open. He ran his finger down a list of numbers, stopped on one, and picked up the phone again. While he was punching out the numbers, he spoke to Marie without looking up.
“Have to leave at once. May be in Washington for — Hello? … Yes, please. When is the next flight to Washington, D.C.? … Right … That’ll be fine … Reservation for one, please. Coach.” He gave his name, address and phone number, received confirmation, and broke the connection. He continued what he was saying to her as he checked another number, this time in the phone book — the toll-free Sheraton reservation center — and punched out a new set of numbers, “for four or five days. Maybe longer, depending on what the President needs … Hello? … Yes, I want reservations, please, a single, beginning tonight for at least four days at the Sheraton Park in Washington, D.C. … That’s right … Yes, guaranteed. Arrival in about three, four hours … Yes. Thank you.” Again he gave name, number and address and hung up.
Oddly, though obviously he was going to be away again, Marie found a grain of comfort in it. This was all so spontaneous that there was no way it could be something involving the woman named Anne, and that alone was encouraging. There was still a smoldering anger within her that urged her to pick up the conversation where it had broken off at the President’s call, but he seemed to sense she was about to speak and he shook his head savagely.
“No more talk. Not now. I’ve got to move.”
He went upstairs and she stood there alone, not knowing whether to follow or not, feeling if she did she might not be able to refrain from plunging them disastrously into the conversation again. She heard him moving about between his den and their bedroom and finally she was able to convince herself that now was the time to maintain silence. The period he would be gone on this trip would give her an opportunity to formulate in her own mind how the ultimate confrontation should take place. A carefully thought out course of discussion would be better than one like now, when both parties were simply wading in, not knowing where they were going and letting the conversational chips fall where they would. That could be utterly disastrous. After about five minutes she walked heavily upstairs and came to a stop in the bedroom doorway, leaning there against the jamb, silently watching him pack.
The clicking of the latches on his luggage as he snapped them closed seemed to put a period to the mood prevailing between them. He looked up from the two-suiter and briefcase, his expression pensive, somewhat sorrowful.
Her words were not entirely steady. “You haven’t had anything to eat.”
As if on unspoken command they came to one another and embraced, tightly, silently, the contact speaking more eloquently than words possibly could have at this time. Marie felt the tears flowing but couldn’t stop them, knowing they were coursing down her face to his neck and then down into his collar. He felt them, too, and his arms tightened around her. His whisper into her hair was hoarse.
“I love you, Marie.”
“John. Oh, John! Always love me. Please, Always. I couldn’t bear it if you didn’t.”
Their kiss had a tender saltiness, and when they broke from it he reached out and with his middle finger gently touched the corner of her eye, let his finger slide across her closed eyelid and down her nose, pausing on her lips, reaching her chin and uptilting her head again for another brief kiss.
Her arm around his waist, his around her shoulders, they walked slowly downstairs side by side. At the door he kissed her again and said “I’ll call,” and then he was gone.
8
As he drove away from the house on Bobolink Terrace, John Grant’s forehead was deeply lined and a muscle in his cheek just above the heavy jawline alternately swelled and relaxed. A wave of love for Marie filled him and he felt that in all their years of being together he had never loved her more than at this very moment. She was all and everything that a man could hope for in a mate. He wondered at himself— at how he could do what he had done to her, at how he could be so deeply in love with her and at the same time be at least as equally in love with another. He wondered how he could perpetrate the deceit, with its interwoven web of lies, for he always had considered himself an honorable man, with his word being his bond. Where was his honor now, his honesty?
Time and again he had attempted to analyze his own actions, his motivations for them, his persistence in them. Long ago he had come to the conclusion that he was not in any way justified in what he was doing, and so he did not look for such justification. He was honest enough with himself to know what the erosive results of that would be: he would begin to look for fault in Marie, for anything, irrespective of how insignificant, which could be magnified in his own mind until it became an unbearable situation and then that unbearable situation would, in effect, become the justification for all this. No, that was something he would not, could not do.
He turned onto Dempster, heading for Edens Expressway, still deeply steeped in thought and driving automatically, wisely keeping his speed low in deference to the distracted state of mind he was experiencing. He thought of the joy that life with Marie and the children had resulted in over the years, and the thought that what he was doing was clearly jeopardizing that happiness caused a constriction of his abdominal muscles. He thought, as well, of the incredible happiness he felt with Anne, and the simultaneity of loving two women struck him again with a stab of fear, because despite his love for Marie and his life with her, he no longer could envision his future life without Anne’s being a part of it.
The scene with Marie had shaken him. No clue had been given to what had set her off and he harkened back to recent events to see if there had been any moment of carelessness on his part which would have given rise to suspicion in Marie that he was unfaithful to her. He could think of none and so continued to bear the knot of worry within him of what this was all about. He had no doubt that if Marie ever learned about Anne she would immediately confront him and deliver that fateful ultimatum: her or me. He frowned, realizing that, in a manner of speaking, this was the very ultimatum he had recently received in the note Anne had written to him in which she had said, “You can’t be husband to us both.” But, God, how could he ever make a decision between them? It would be easier to decide which of his two eyes he wished to retain.
Now, with the green and white signs announcing the upcoming Edens Expressway, and with his heart still abundant with the flood of love for Marie, he pulled to a stop by a telephone booth in a shopping center to call Anne. He had long since given up trying to figure out how he could do something like this. He knew no answer to that question, only that he was powerless to stop it.
“Ready for your reward, Lovely Lady?” he asked when he got her on the line.
“I’ve had thoughts about that.” Her voice was throaty, low.
“Elucidate.”
“You’re not going to get out of paying the reward,” she said, “but let’s save that for another time. I can fix us something here and that way we wouldn’t have to take so much time with dinner. I’ve something else in mind.”
“Dear Lady, how shrewd of you to recognize that through his stomach is only one of two best ways to a man’s heart. Am I to assume that your intention is to combine them?”
“That’s a reasonable assumption.”
“I accept the change in plans without hesitation. You will receive your reward tomorrow evening instead. Are you booked?”
“Only with you. Can you get away, though?”
“What about your calendar for the next two or three nights after that, as well. And the days, too. Can Louise Maas run A-C Tours for somewhere between three and five days without making the business bankrupt?”
“You’re serious?”
“I’m serious. I want you to go to Washington with me tomorrow morning.”
She sucked in her breath. “Christ, yes, John. Of course!”
“All right. I’m en route to your place now. There is something you can do while I’m coming. It falls under the purview of your chosen profession. Call O’Hare. TWA.” He gave her the number of the flight and its time. “Cancel that one and make another for the two of us. One that will get us there in time to take our bags to the hotel, get checked in, and give me time to get back to the White House without having to rush.”
“What time do you have to be at the White House?”
“Ten o’clock in the morning.”
“Nine, our time. Hmmm, that’s pretty early but okay, there’s an Early Bird flight on United, so no problem. What about the hotel?”
“Call the Shoreham and make reservations for us there beginning tomorrow. I’ve already made a single reservation at the Sheraton Park, right across the way from the Shoreham. For obvious reasons, let that one stand. It’s guaranteed and it’ll give me a place to check for phone messages that might come from my house.”
There had been just that slightest pause before he said “my house,” because he had nearly said “home.” He was sure Anne had noticed it, but she didn’t react.
“It’s as good as done.”
“And I’m as good as there.”
“Everything’ll be waiting.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
She had not been exaggerating. She met him at the door just over half an hour later wearing a beautiful robe in bittersweet-orange nylon jersey with very simple lines, close fitting, moving silkily across the contours of her body, from widely flared collar to ankles. A belt of the same material was looped at her waist with enough snugness to tauten the material over her breasts and highlight their peak attractions. In a silhouette-halo effect, her long black hair flowed in graceful, softly gleaming curves over her shoulders and back in striking contrast to the orange material. Her feet were bare.
Practically dazzled at the beauty of her, he started to say something, but she stopped him with a long index finger touched gently to his lips. She put her other hand to his face, too, and then let her fingers move with cobweb softness across his cheeks to the back of his head where the fingertips just barely interwove. The clean, fresh scent of her filled his nostrils as she leaned forward very slowly and deliberately, barely touching her lips against his, let the tiniest tip of her tongue flick across the crease between his upper and lower lips. His arms went around her and the warmth of her skin through the smooth material was electric beneath his hands. They pressed more closely together. The kiss became more impassioned, but only briefly, and then she moved her lips to his nose and eye and temple, kissing each lightly in turn. She kissed his ear then, momentarily holding the lobe between her teeth and then releasing it and whispering into his ear so softly that it was a voice heard more mentally than audibly.
“John Grant, with the strength of all I know or am or will ever be, I love you.”
The corners of his eyes became wet and his hand came up, buried itself in her hair and pressed the side of her face tightly against his own. He was brimming with the loveliness of the moment and a part of his mind knew at that instant that come what may, should he live only another year or another fifty, the memory of this exquisite moment would forever remain vibrant and fresh inside. His whisper in the room was equally soft and somewhat unsteady.
“Anne Carpenter, I love you. Now. Always.”
They moved into the apartment, filled with the wonder of their love for one another. They made love. They ate, but he really didn’t know what they ate because he scarcely glanced at his plate. They made love. They talked in soft whispers to one another, but the talk with eyes and hands and bodies was more significant, more memorable, and he hardly knew what his tongue had said or his ears had heard. They made love. They showered together and they lay together quietly. And they made love — beautifully, wonderfully, fulfillingly, each glimpsing the greatest mortal paradise that it is given to man to know.
In the midst of the late night hours, when Anne had drifted asleep close against him, John lay listening to the music of her rhythmic breathing and felt the gentle little puffs of her breath against his skin. In the faint glow from the green-lighted clock dial, a hint of moisture glinted on his outermost eyelashes. He was, at that moment, thinking of Marie.
CHAPTER SIX
The proper and immediate object of science is the acquirement, or communication, of truth…
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Historical events settle down in time like mud in a river and are gradually covered up by new incidents. If the past is not uncovered, studied, and recorded, it will remain in oblivion. The amount of knowledge we possess about the past is only a small portion of the complete story of mankind,
— Andrew Tomas
1
“All right, Mr. Grant, let’s have you begin things with the supposed solution that Herbert Boardman devised. I’ll have to admit I’m a little concerned with the ominous sound you’ve given it thus far. I think we’d better ascertain very quickly just how drastic — your word — the solution is and whether it can be applied practicably.”
