The War of the Roses: The Children Read online

  Eventually, the children developed a healthy curiosity about Evie’s many male friends, and Victoria and Josh’s explanations became increasingly less believable. How many interchangeable uncles could there be? Besides, Victoria had also come down with a galloping case of digestive rebellion and had begun to lobby for fewer family exchanges.

  While not happy about the growing estrangement, both Josh and Evie understood Victoria’s attitude and did not make it an issue between them. This did not mean that there wasn’t occasional tension between Josh and Victoria on the subject of Evie, but it never reached a level of confrontation that could not be resolved by either talk or deliberate avoidance.

  Josh had never ceased to marvel about how differently their parents’ terminal behavior had affected Evie and himself.

  Although he had learned a great deal about food and its preparation from his mother, he took no obsessive pleasure in its ingestion. That, too, he could trace to the traumatic effects of the terrible war between his parents. Although he had not been present, he had heard about the pâté that his mother had made out of the hapless Benny, his father’s adored pooch. Although Josh had long forgiven her this particular excess, it had left its scars. Pets, in every form, were barred from his household, and eating for him was more a ritual of survival than an exercise in sensual pleasure.

  For Evie, the reaction to this seminal event in their lives had been completely counter to his own. Aside from her passion for food, Evie shared her apartment with a Siamese cat named Tweedledee, sparing no expense to keep her well groomed, and, like her mistress, overnourished.

  With deep regret, Josh had seen many of their parents’ antiques fall to the auction hammer. Items such as the carved nineteenth century armoire, the rent table, the leather Chesterfield, the Hepplewhite secretaire, the jappaned commode, and the elaborate crystal glassware were disposed of one by one to keep Evie financially afloat.

  Miraculously, the much worn Sarouk blue-and-red Persian rug had escaped the auction block, although, owing to its condition, its present value was suspect.

  She had also managed to hold on to the high Chippendale bed, which had for years taken her weight with or without lovers, although Josh knew that the day would soon come when even that would go. Indeed, he half expected that that would be one of the pressing subjects of her urgent visit to the coffee shop and he was right.

  “Not the bed,” Josh had exclaimed. “Oh, Evie. That too?”

  “It’s no tragedy, Josh. I had the use of it for nearly twenty years.” She laughed, her chins vibrating. “Very good use.”

  “You really don’t need my approval, Evie. It’s yours.”

  “Not really, Josh,” she said pleasantly offering him a jelly doughnut. He shook his head. Shrugging, she took one of them in her pudgy fingers, lifted it, and took a dainty but generous bite. “It’s part of our heritage.”

  “All of it was part of our heritage, Evie.”

  She was right, of course. But he saw it more as that other heritage of pain and loss. It was their bond and their agony. He could never erase the memory of Evie and him standing together, arms around each other in the morning rain, looking into that grave that was swallowing their yesterdays. Despite all their parents’ flaws, they knew that they had been loved beyond judgment and reservation. To lose that, Josh had discovered, was the greatest loss of all.

  “I just wanted to tell you so that you wouldn’t be surprised when you found it gone, and to apologize,” she said. “I know how you disapproved of me selling all the other things.”

  “That’s not what I disapproved of, Evie. It was giving so much of the proceeds to your friends.”

  “My boyfriends, you mean. But they gave me such pleasure. They deserved it.”

  He suspected then that her latest, Alfred, had either left or given notice. He calculated that Alfred, a pleasant man who sold furniture at Bloomingdales, had been with her four years, sparing Josh the worry of her well-being.

  “Alfred’s gone, isn’t he, Evie?”

  “A lovely man.” She took another bite of the jelly doughnut and gracefully removed an errant crumb from her upper lip. “Yes, he’s moved to Florida. Hates the weather here.”

  “Why don’t you join him there, Evie?”

  “You know how heat affects me. I’m perfectly content where I am. I’ll find another beau, Josh. No need to worry about your little Evie.”

  “Easier said than done,” he sighed.

  “Such a dear brother,” Evie said, caressing Josh’s arm with a pudgy hand.

  “I hope you get a good price for the bed,” Josh said, patting her hand. “But please, Evie, you must be more careful with your money. It doesn’t last forever.”

  “I wish I was as good a manager as Victoria,” she mused.

  “A tall order, Evie. I don’t know what I’d do without her.” Victoria handled every detail of their finances.

  “I just wanted you to know about the Chippendale bed, Josh dear,” Evie said, polishing off the last of the doughnuts. He felt heartsick. Food might, by Evie’s lights, be love, but it was also her assassin.

  He got up and kissed her on both cheeks.

  “Give my deepest love to Victoria and the children,” she said.

  He turned away, barely able to contain his tears.

  ***

  Although he knew Victoria awaited him with bottled-up emotion, she showed sensitivity and understanding about the pressure of his job. From the beginning, they had scrupulously analyzed their roles and apportioned their labors accordingly. Every move was carefully considered with a view, always, to preserve and enhance their relationship as a married couple, then as parents. They had committed themselves to the concept of a family, a family fortress, each member interdependent on the other.

  Both had acted contrary to their expectations. Josh’s fear of entanglement stemmed from the awfulness of his parents’ demise. For his parents—for reasons he would never understand—terror had replaced tranquility and hate had replaced love. They had turned on each other like predators over carrion, causing a bizarre mutual death scene. The weapon had been, of all things, a crystal chandelier. He could never ever look at a crystal chandelier without a chilling reaction.

  Until Victoria came into his life, Josh did not think it possible that he would ever overcome his reluctance to risk marriage. He and Victoria considered it a miraculous irony that both of them were blindsided by attraction strong enough to erase their unwillingness to find a mate.

  Contrary to what was now politically correct, Victoria had given up her law practice when Michael was born. By then, Victoria had eschewed morally ambivalent negligence law as a career choice and was working for a large law firm on Wall Street. Because she was giving up a lucrative salary, her resignation was met with raised eyebrows. Nevertheless, with skill and good management, she had parlayed their net worth into a secure nest egg, and Josh’s excellent earnings were more than enough to support a fine suburban lifestyle. One day, they had both agreed, when the heavy early load of child nurturing was over, Victoria would return to the practice of law.

  Because of the destructive nature of their parent’s experiences, they had amplified the essence of their marriage vows beyond merely “love and honor” and “until death do us part,” to the absolutes of honesty, openness, truth, and, above all, faithfulness. They allowed themselves to believe that such virtues, if practiced by their parents, might have avoided all subsequent horrors. Currently, most if not all of these bedrock virtues were being badly betrayed by Josh’s behavior. As a result, guilt and self-loathing were eating him alive.

  Before getting into the shower, he placed his cell phone in the charger to cover his story, then inspected his shirt for any telltale stains. He had contrived a costume of white cuff-linked shirts with a kind of attached shallow priest-like collar, which he wore to work under shapeless Italian jackets.
/>   It was, he knew, a deliberate creative director’s ploy to emphasize his individuality, a kind of armor to allow him the distance and mystique of eccentricity, which, in his business, translated into the perception of talent. It was, he knew, a benign form of deception, at the heart of the advertising game he played so well.

  Satisfied that he had obliterated all clues, he threw the shirt in the hamper, sniffed his jockey shorts—they were brand new and slipped on after the tryst, a deliberate caution to mute the scent of any residual body fluids. He imagined a faint sign but not enough for danger and flung it after the shirt. Only then did he step into the hot shower soaping himself raw to remove any tangible signs of Angela Bocci.

  God, how I hate myself, he cried in his heart, emphasizing this heavy burden of conscience by vigorously soaping the root cause of this problem. You Lobo, he whispered, slapping his penis, hoping humor might restore his equilibrium. You made me do it.

  Cleansed of all microscopic evidence, he baby powdered himself, slipped into pajamas, slippers, and robe and padded down the hall to the bedrooms of his sleeping children. He watched them for a moment from the doorway, then entered and planted kisses on their cool foreheads. The act punished him further, bringing tears to his eyes and a lump to his throat.

  Taking deep breaths to stem a sudden pang of anxiety, he moved downstairs to the den where Victoria lay curled on the couch. She offered him a troubled look and handed him the glass of Glenfiddich, half of which he polished off in a single gulp, hoping the surge would chase the panic.

  “You look pale, Josh.”

  “I’m bushed,” he replied, sinking flatly into one of the easy chairs opposite the couch. The den was spacious, with exposed beams and high ceilings. It offered a calming effect with its polished cherry wood panels and floor-to-ceiling book shelves. They were filled with his prized collection of books on advertising art and her leather-bound sets by Victorian authors. Above the bookshelves in the space between the shelves and the ceiling nestled her colorful collection of Victorian straw hats.

  His wife had filled every available surface with her collection of Victoriana knickknacks, inkwells, porcelain vases, angels, and cobalt blue bells that she had lovingly acquired over the years. Lined up on the mantelpiece were more of her knickknacks.

  These displays were not limited to the den. Throughout the house were framed “fashion plates” of that era. When her mother came to visit on Christmas, she would often heap vocal criticism on what she called “a pack of old junk.”

  The pièce de resistance was the oil painting of Queen Victoria in her prime that hung over the fireplace. Josh had bought it for her on their honeymoon in England. In an odd way, he considered it a not-too-subtle attack on Victoria’s mother, who had never been told about her daughter’s visit to her estranged father.

  Victoria was, after all, as her father had revealed, named after this long-reigning royal. No psychiatrist was needed to explain the obsession. It was a validation of sorts, a link to absent and unknown antecedents. In an upstairs closet, she had a collection of Victorian dresses, which she would occasionally try on in the privacy of her bedroom. Early in their marriage, such episodes had been a sexual turn-on, especially for Victoria. Josh viewed it as a harmless eccentricity.

  Josh understood it perfectly and had his own less extensive but equally heartfelt nostalgic exercise. He had retained those few still-intact Staffordshire figures that had been his father’s pride. Scattered among the books were what was left of his collection of Napoleons and Shakespeares, as well as a prized Neptune that had escaped the carnage.

  As a sentimental gesture, he had purchased another set of boxers, figures of the eighteenth-century combatants Cribb and Molineux, that had brought his parents together for the first time at an auction in Cape Cod. They faced each other in imaginary combat, Molineux the black man, Cribb the white, in a glass box especially made to protect them.

  Periodically, Victoria would devote a day or two to dusting, cleaning, and often rearranging the various objects in her collection. She never trusted the job to cleaning ladies.

  The den, which was by far the house’s most dramatic and dominant room, had been chosen as their designated place of family gathering, reflection, and refuge, and so far it had served its purpose handily. It was also the central point for their stereo system, which played through speakers strategically located throughout the house. They both enjoyed classical music. At the moment he could hear the strains of Chopin’s polonaise.

  “Maybe you’re pushing too hard,” Victoria sighed.

  “I’m fine,” he said, brushing her sincere worry aside. “Now tell me what happened at Michael’s school.”

  Victoria had a narrative style that left no detail expunged. She described the Crespos and Mr. Tatum, mimicked their words contemptuously, and provided an analysis of her own reaction and possible scenarios for further action.

  He listened patiently, watching her, marveling at her still-lovely alabaster skin, unblemished and white against her black hair, the bangs deliberately cut imperfectly, giving her a perpetually wind-blown look. He had always admired her chiseled nose, slightly off-center smile, and her almond-shaped eyes with their hazel irises, which burned as vivid as emeralds in the bright light.

  She was tall, her posture straight as an arrow, with a lithe, efficient body, small breasts, and flat stomach, which miraculously resisted extra flesh. She had the movement, style, face, and figure of a young Jane Fonda lookalike, a comparison that she dismissed although he could tell it pleased her immensely. Knowing he had betrayed this lovely unsuspecting woman for the past six months made him ache with remorse. It was a violation of such enormity that the very thought of being discovered was enough to trigger the shakes and nausea. He was sick at heart.

  Glenfiddich in hand, he listened to her narrative with a conscience so burdened that he felt as if a gargantuan weight was pressing painfully on his chest.

  “He says the Crespo girl is lying.”

  “Then let’s leave it at that.”

  “One would think a mother has a sixth sense about these things. I know my child and I know the atmosphere in which we have raised him. Trust is everything in this house.”

  He felt his stomach tighten and a backwash of liquor singed the back of his throat. He could barely nod his agreement.

  “Everything,” he managed to croak.

  “Any doubt might destroy his trust in us.”

  She stroked her chin and squeezed her eyes shut.

  “We must never do that.”

  “I will not confront him again. No more. Nor will I allow the Crespos to intimidate us. No way. Their child is obviously a border hysteric. They raised the question of expulsion, which infuriated me. Never will I let that happen. Never.”

  She was obviously deeply troubled by the event at the school.

  “I wish I had been there with you,” he said. “You shouldn’t have to go through this alone.”

  Later, lying beside her in bed, tears seeped out of his eyes and ran down his cheeks. He could not carry the burden of Angela any longer.

  Angela was one of the most talented designers on his staff. Even in her initial job interview he could see by her samples that she had a flair for design. She had showed him some of her paintings as well, and he was astonished by her skill and imagination. He hired her on the spot. At the time, his only consideration was her work. Her gender was immaterial. He had hired both men and women, and nothing beyond their work had ever entered his mind. With regard to the women, sexual stirrings were as far away as Mars. Then why?

  Angela was married, the mother of two young girls. She lived in a row house in Brooklyn with her husband Dominic, who was the manager of a men’s clothing store in Queens. The Boccis were one of those very close-knit middle-class Italian families. While she worked, her mother cared for the kids. Nothing in her background could provide a clue t
o her subsequent behavior.

  She was only marginally pretty in the conventional sense, with black curly hair cut short, a high arched Roman nose, cupid lips, and a thin earnest face. Her body was, despite birthing two children, hard and tight. Yet, no one would take her for possessing such an aggressive and explosive sexuality.

  “To the whole world, I’m a nice Italian girl. I’m a good mother. I’m a model spouse. I go to church. I go to confession. On the outside I’m a very traditional breeder wife with a typical macho Italian husband whose brains are in his dick and who treats me like an entitlement. He is totally ignorant of my talent and my inner world. I play my part. Who would suspect?”

  She had said this wiping her mouth with a tissue as he hiked up his pants in his office, feeling like he had just stuck a knife in Victoria’s heart. The fact that she had been the aggressor was hardly a reason to absolve himself of all blame. He had been an ardent participant.

  They had been looking over her concept for a hosiery ad, sitting together on his office couch and she had reached out and rubbed his thigh.

  “This is not smart,” he had told her, removing her hand.

  “What has smart got to do with it?” she had said, looking at him with large Mediterranean eyes. “I want this.” Again she put her hand on his thigh.

  “I’m not looking for trouble.”

  “Do you think I’m looking for trouble?” She giggled. “Here’s what I’m looking for.” She began to stroke him.

  “Don’t, Angela,” he said, but he did not remove her hand.

  “You see. We’ve got his attention.”

  “We’re putting ourselves in jeopardy,” he whispered. But by then he was already yielding, feeling the pleasure take hold.

  “From the moment I saw you,” she said. “This is what I wanted.”