Who Would You Choose? Read online

  “To wish you have a good rest,” he said, by way of a toast, with glass lifted toward her, “and that you enjoy your vacation. And to tell you that I’ll miss you.”

  And that was that. She felt she’d gotten over a difficult hurdle and was glad Jerry wasn’t making a fuss about her being away. From there on, the subject shifted and they talked about trivia. The weather on Cape Cod, and whether her flight down was uneventful—Jerry hated those tiny planes, but she thought they were cute—and what to do about his secretary who’d forgotten, again, to renew one of his magazine subscriptions.

  They were eating their scallops and drinking their wine when a group of diners at a table in the far corner apparently finished their dinner and got up to leave. Four men, finishing what appeared to be a business dinner. They all looked serious and thoughtful, and seemed to have weighty matters on their well-coiffed heads. On the way to the door, they passed Marge’s table. One of the men stopped, said to the others, “You go on back to the office. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  Neither Marge nor Jerry had noticed that Jerry’s opposing counsel, Sam Packard, and his team of co-counsel had, like them, chosen to have dinner that night at the Brahma House. But with Sam pausing at their table, he had to acknowledge that he and his adversary were all there together.

  An awkward moment for Marge. To say the least.

  But the two men were cool and professional. These chance meetings were not so unusual in the downtown financial district around the courthouses and in the rather rarefied restaurants they frequented, and they both knew how to leave the courtroom behind them when they met socially.

  “Nice to see you again, Marge,” he said. “And you, too, Jerry. A lot more pleasant here than where we were this afternoon.” He smiled at Marge. “Your boyfriend here gave me a hell of a run today. Your cross of our last witness, Jerry, that was tough. We’ll be up late tonight handling that one.”

  “We aim to please, Sam.” Jerry shook his head at the praise; he knew it for the “aw shucks” ploy that it was. He knew he’d hardly laid a glove on that witness. “But you had him well-prepared.”

  Sam said to Marge, “Have you ever seen Jerry at work in court?”

  “A couple of times. I usually don’t understand what’s going on.” She hoped her voice sounded normal. She was feeling completely at sea, with these two men being so cordial with each other.

  And then Jerry said, “Listen, Sam. Would you like to join us? Have a glass of wine. It’s a nice white from the Loire. And you and Marge can catch up a little.”

  Sam looked toward the door and saw that the other men had already left. He seemed to give it a quick thought, and then said, “I don’t want to interrupt your dinner.” Why did that sound like a “yes”?

  “No problem. That’s okay with you, Marge. Isn’t it?”

  What could she say?

  “Of course. Please join us.”

  He looked once more toward the door. “Okay,” he said. “They won’t need me for a little while.” He pulled over a chair from a nearby table. And laughed. “Ten minutes, anyway.” The waiter came and poured a glass for him. He held it up as though for a toast. “Here’s to old times,” he said. He turned to Marge and very seriously he added, “It really is good to see you again, Marge.”

  She felt she must be blushing. Or turning very pale. Something. It wasn’t possible for anyone to be as nervous as she felt without something showing on her face.

  “How long has it been?” Jerry asked. “Since high school?”

  Together, they both said, “Twenty years.”

  And they both laughed.

  “I wish I’d known Marge back then,” Jerry said. “Has she changed much?”

  Sam looked her over, as though examining something very special.

  “Yes, I think she’s changed.” Then he gave Marge a big smile. “Can I tell him, Marge?”

  “I don’t see why not. I don’t remember anything too awful.” This was like a test. Was Sam Packard still the good guy, the honorable guy she remembered from twenty years ago?

  “I have to tell you, Jerry. She seems all grown up now. But she was such an oddball back then. Every day, she was in the most outrageous get-ups. Or the most interesting. Or the most beautiful. You never knew, one day to the next, what it would be. But it was clear that she was trying out all the different personalities that clothes could express. Did she tell you, Jerry? She started out writing a fashion column for our school newspaper. It was a terrific column, the highest rated of everything in the paper. And then, after I left, she was its editor in chief. There was no question, the fashion world was where she was going to wind up.” Then he looked so fondly at Marge, even Jerry had to notice. “But you said you were going to be Lady Fair’s editor in chief by the time you were thirty, and you really did get to do it. Your dreams were so big, so very big for such a young girl.”

  “Most people at school didn’t think I could do it.”

  “You proved us all wrong.”

  “You didn’t think I could do it, back then.”

  “No, actually, I didn’t.”

  “I remember.”

  “I do, too. And I’m sorry. I owe you an apology.”

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “I owe you one, too.”

  “So,” he said. “Are we even, now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Even Jerry realized he was outside this conversation. They were talking about something that was not being shared with him.

  Marge looked at her watch. She stood up abruptly. “Listen, you guys. This little jaunt down memory lane has been great, but I have a plane to catch. Sam, it was good to see you again. And Jerry, I’ll let you know before I get back.”

  The two men stood up, too. They both looked surprised by the suddenness of her move.

  “Where are you going?” Sam asked.

  “Not telling. Just giving myself a vacation for a few weeks.” And she collected her carry-on from the coat check and she was gone.

  Jerry and Sam looked at each other. Jerry said, “No need for you to go. Finish your wine.”

  And Sam said, “A vacation?”

  “She’s been working too hard. She needs a rest.”

  Sam looked very thoughtfully at Jerry, as though measuring him. “She was always a little odd. Hard to understand.”

  Jerry was measuring Sam right back. “Not with me, she’s not,” he said.

  “Well, then. That answers your question. She really has changed.”

  They stared at each other for a long minute. A very long minute.

  Then Jerry said, “Sam, I want to marry that woman.”

  “So did I, once.” Sam lifted his glass. He made a little gesture with it, an acknowledgement that he and Jerry were adversaries in ways beyond the courtroom, and drank it down. “I’ll see you in court, tomorrow morning.”

  And he left.

  Chapter Eleven

  In her window seat, buckled up and coach-class anonymous, Marge took one long, settling-down deep breath and prepared herself for takeoff as the plane taxied to the runway. She had made this trip hundreds of times, yet still, in these moments of the grumbling, growling, still earth-bound ride along the tarmac, she always felt as though the great giant that carried her was gathering its strength, preparing to perform its stunningly impossible feat. There was the pause as it turned onto the runway, the positioning of itself as the plane seemed to take a preparatory breath, and then there was the gathering roar and the huge machine did the magnificent, improbable magic of leaving the earth and taking itself and its passengers up and up and up some six miles or more into the nighttime sky, to cross an entire ocean, with an admiring moon just off to the right ahead of them. No matter how many times Marge made this trip, no matter how much work she was prepared to do while making the crossing, or how occupied she was with t
he chatter of a traveling companion, there were always these first moments as the plane rose up into the sky that filled her with excitement, admiration, and wonder at the improbability of the entire event.

  And this time, as she glanced around her, it added to her pleasure to know that no one knew who she was, or knew what she was doing there. The elderly woman, white-haired and tiny, sitting in the middle seat next to her, was writing some lines into a notebook, a diary, perhaps. In the aisle seat a bearded, long-legged young man struggled to fit himself into the cramped space while setting big, high-tech-looking headphones over his ears. Not since her rookie days had Marge traveled coach and she enjoyed the sense that she was traveling in disguise. She closed her eyes, slipped a sleep mask over her face, took a deep, deep breath, and told herself not to wake up until they landed at Heathrow.

  “Thank God!” She almost said it aloud. “I escaped them all.”

  She felt like a kid again.

  * * * *

  It was the best sleep she’d had in weeks, and the landing was so soft, she felt as though the pilot had been careful to waken her as gently as possible. It seemed to signal that her recovery was now truly beginning. All around her, passengers were checking their phones, letting friends and relatives know they’d arrived. At the gate, she watched the first-class people leave the plane and was so thankful that this time there’d be no reporters waiting for her, no car waiting to take her to the Berkeley Square offices of Lady Fair in Mayfair, no rush of activity to demand every tiniest bit of her energy and attention. Around her, passengers were pulling their carry-ons down from the overhead, already crowding into the aisles, some of them rushing to make a connection, others just rushing to get off and hurry into their busy schedules.

  Marge had no need to rush—indeed, she wasn’t allowing herself to rush—so she waited in her seat until the plane was almost empty. Then she collected her carry-on and left to take the long walk to the taxi stand outside the terminal. She waited her turn for a taxi, gave the driver the address of a place she’d found online, a small hotel just off Bayswater Road, opposite Kensington Gardens. An out-of-the way place, grand in an old-fashioned way and off any track beaten by anyone who was likely to know her or recognize her.

  It was a lovely morning, a little misty in a nice London sort of way, the fog not yet burned off, with early-morning traffic into the city just beginning to gather. She realized that this was the first time she’d made this ride from the airport without being busy with work obligations, and she was able to just look around her. She saw how much had changed since she’d made her first wide-eyed visit, back in her Parsons school days. She’d been so young back then, making her first trip abroad and so eager to see everything. But the years and the work had changed her and she’d lost that freedom to just sponge up every new sight, every new experience.

  Oh, this was going to be a really new phase in her life.

  She peered out at the passing scene, feeling so young again.

  And she thought of Sam.

  She tried not to. She told herself that if anyone should be here with her, it should be Jerry. But what could she do? There was Sam, insisting on being her companion on this adventure, insisting on showing her a good time. Crowding Jerry out.

  “No!”

  “Yes, luv?” said the driver. He tipped his head back to hear her.

  She’d said it aloud, and she was embarrassed.

  “Sorry. No, it’s okay.”

  Talking to myself. I really do need a rest!

  The driver returned his attention to the road, and she kept her thoughts to herself. Thoughts that continued to be about Sam.

  This isn’t good. Not fair to Jerry.

  She tried. She really did. But it was Sam who kept coming back. Sam who looked out of the window with her, and enjoyed what was happening to the old city. Sam who would get a kick out of the way new footprints were being placed over the ancient ones. Who would like that the old and the new were living together. Jerry would have complained that traditions were being trashed. Marge wasn’t sure which way she leaned.

  If she was going to rest and recuperate, this wrangle inside her was going to have to stop! She forced herself to watch the view through the window, to not think about Jerry or Sam or all the nifty things she could be doing at Berkeley Square, and to just get herself settled into the quiet little room she’d taken in the quiet old hotel, where no one knew her, where there was nothing to do but eat and sleep and get her system back in shape.

  * * * *

  The lobby of the old hotel, built in the time of King Edward VII, was exactly as its online photo showed it—with dark woods and high-coffered ceilings, grand chandeliers, great displays of fresh flowers, and an elaborately carved receptionist’s desk. No elevator—a broad marble staircase winding up to the floors above. Marge’s room turned out to be just as pictured, tiny but comfortable, well-lit and well-appointed. It would be her nest away from home. She needed nothing more.

  After a quick shower and change of jeans and tee shirt, she went down to the dining room, had a leisurely breakfast of bacon and eggs, and then headed out into the sunlight. She paused at the top of the stone steps down to the street, blinking a little in the light, and looked right and left, deciding which way to go. This was a part of London she didn’t know at all, but she’d picked up a map at the concierge’s desk so she couldn’t get lost, and she was ready to go exploring. She went down the short flight to the street, let her feet choose for her and walked to the left. Then left again at the corner, and right and left, walking at random, enjoying the neighborhood feel of the streets, no tall buildings here, only small shops and rows of sedate residences, even a Starbucks, and all peaceful. So different from the quick pace of New York. She knew it would be good for her here. She would get better, she’d get her health back, she’d get her sanity back, and she’d stop the adolescent mooning about a high school romance.

  She’d walked perhaps a half hour, checked the street sign at the nearest corner, and discovered she was on Portobello Road. The name was, of course, familiar to her. Everyone has heard of Portobello Road. But in all her many trips to London, she’d never actually had the time to visit this legendary antique and used clothing market. She’d expected something much broader but discovered a long, narrow street, crowded with racks of clothes and food stalls and antique shops, an everyday version of the street fairs familiar on summer weekends in New York. It was a lazy stroll she made, pausing to check out the racks of clothing, reminding herself that she was not working, that she was only a tourist, getting a good long rest from the usual grind. The crowding of people and stalls and racks of clothes thinned out toward the street’s northern end and she turned back, retracing her steps. She bought a falafel from a street vendor and ate it as she walked along. She felt happy. Sunlight, food, and no obligations—surely this was the best medicine.

  She meandered back in the general direction of her hotel and found herself walking along Bayswater Road, with Kensington Gardens to her right. At the Black Lion Gate, she went into the park and wandered about for another hour.

  But why follow her through the rest of the day? Or even the next few days? There is no need. This stay in London was only the first phase in Marge’s plan for her rest and recovery, and it was a very easy plan for her to follow. In fact, she’d decided to have no plan at all and to simply walk and walk and walk, with no agenda and no expectations. To soak up the city and to see it in ways she never had before. To keep the pressures of her work at bay by not letting anyone be in touch with her for several weeks. And to think only happy thoughts. And this is what she was doing, these next days, just walking and walking and walking, exploring sections of the city that were totally unfamiliar to her, sections that were far from the usual tourist sites. Far from Lady Fair and Berkeley Square and the runway venues and the celebrity parties. She was eating foods she’d never tried before. And people-watching in
a way she’d not had time for in years, imagining the lives of folks who passed her in the street, or who sat nearby in the park, or were overheard in restaurants, on a bus, imagining their homes, their families, their occupations. Looking beyond their clothes. Looking beyond how her magazine could use their stories, their possible acclaim, their noteworthiness.

  And gradually she was getting healthier. Which did not mean that the rigid discipline of her adult life had yet returned. Not at all. In fact, all the solitude and freedom from pressure allowed her mind to go wherever it wanted, and it seemed that her mind insisted on going back to that other time in her life, when she was so much younger, and when a crush on a boy could seem to define her very being, and when she hadn’t yet the mature self-control that had forced her to move on from Sam.

  Sam. Sam Packard. There it was. With all her walking and trying new foods and looking at London’s great diversity of people and the multiplicity of their lives, she was unable to keep Sam from accompanying her. He was there with her, whatever she did and wherever she went. She found herself mentally sharing with him each new experience, each new sight, and imagining his responses, their shared interest, their shared pleasure. She scolded herself, but it did no good. There he was.

  It was on her fifth day in London, a Saturday, that everything got turned upside down.

  The day started well enough. As had become her custom, she had breakfast in the hotel’s dining room, scones and jam and coffee and a bowl of berries, and then went out onto the steps to the street. As usual, she had no plan for the day and let her feet take her wherever they would. This morning, they took her toward Kensington Gardens where, instead of going inside, she walked left on Bayswater and continued on all the way to the Hyde Park corner. The day was cool, with some overhanging clouds, and she wondered if she should have brought an umbrella. Well, if it rains, I can always duck into a pub or a cafe to sit it out—there are coffee shops everywhere. This was one of the perks of her uncommitted days, of being free to check out at any time.