The Court Read online

  The children were gathered up to meet their uncle. They appeared to be less than enthusiastic. Aaron, tall and pimply, carried a worn Bible in his hand. His long stringy hair had been tied at the back of his head. He mumbled something about Jesus and left. Rachel, “Cha Cha” to her friends, eyed him provocatively. She had developed too fast. They would have trouble with her. She was petulant when she was informed that she was housebound and would serve as babysitter for her four-year-old sister. Jerry Green knew that but for his presence an all-out family war would have exploded. But it was contained, concealed within snapped words and hard looks. The little girl, Emily, was a charmer, but they all were at that age.

  The children had eaten their dinner earlier. Aaron had departed and Cha Cha reluctantly lead her charge to the family room and a quiet evening of television.

  “Hey, Adele, tell him about our surprise.”

  Adele had seated herself in one of the chairs. “Your surprise, you mean. I’m not sure it was such a hot idea, Hank.”

  “Nothing’s a great idea to you, Adele.” He turned to his brother. “You were asking about the old crowd, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I figured you’d be interested so I arranged for some folks to drop by for some after-dinner drinks.”

  “Who?”

  “Guess.” His brother’s face seemed to lose its age in his animation. His features somehow seemed more near the face of the brother Jerry Green remembered.

  “Oh, just tell him,” Adele said, getting up. She turned to Jerry Green. “He always likes to play games. I have to finish some things in the kitchen.” She flounced out. The extra weight was especially evident as she walked. Her once lovely legs were thick, almost masculine.

  “Remember Jimmy Whales?”

  “Sure.”

  “He was your best friend, right? All the way through school.”

  Jerry Green nodded.

  “Well, he and his wife … I don’t think you’ve ever met her … are coming.”

  Green felt a flush of excitement as memories were unlocked. He conjured up the picture of the red hair and freckled skin.

  “Not only did I line up your old best friend, I snagged your old girlfriend, too, how about that?”

  Suddenly Green felt close to panic. “Regina?” It was almost a whisper.

  “Sweet Regina. None other. Like I told you the other day, she’s a widow. She’s a nurse and she teaches at the college. Still looks damn good too. She was very excited about seeing you.”

  Jerry Green finished off the second drink. Like the first it had been strong. He felt his head swimming. “Anybody else?”

  “Oh, I contacted a couple of other people. You’re still popular. They wanted to come but they just couldn’t make it. Hey, how about another one? Adele will kill me, she thinks booze kills the flavor of her food. But between you and me, sometimes that’s a good thing.”

  Green was going to refuse but the shock that he would see Regina again sharpened his anxiety. He didn’t want to get drunk, but he felt he just might need one more drink. He held out his empty glass to his grinning brother. Hank left to get the drinks.

  As Green sat alone in the living room he reflected on the fact that none of them had even come close to mentioning the last time they were together. The memory of that incident lay like an invisible wall between them. He wondered if they would ever talk about it. He knew he would never bring it up. Some things were better left alone.

  * * *

  Physically Jimmy Whales hadn’t changed. His hair was still red, although a bit muted. His skin was just as fair and freckled. He looked youthful with the same bright blue eyes and that half smile, so well remembered, still perpetually fixed on his pleasant face. But the old energy, the remembered lust for life had flown. Despite his appearance, Jimmy Whales had become an old man. During the evening Green had tried to recall memories of their youthful adventures, but every time escalating feelings or wonderful recollections were killed by Jimmy Whale’s preoccupation with the woes of his business. No matter what the subject, somehow Jimmy always managed to return to the somber, almost desperate world of his car dealership. He had taken over his father’s business and it had become the only thing in his life. His wife, a tired-looking woman who had heard all of Jimmy’s woes before, tended to drink a bit too much. She said nothing important or revealing, just nodded and tried to be pleasant.

  Regina Kelso was different. She was thinner than he remembered, and her attractive legs seemed even longer. Unlike Jimmy Whales, she had aged, but it seemed to have magically improved her appearance. She was a bit thinner in the face and even that accentuated the delicate structure beneath her still-unwrinkled skin. She was lovely. Her long blonde hair was gone, replaced by a short businesslike cut. But the hair itself was just as fine and blonde as in years past. Her large green eyes hadn’t changed, except that now they were gently accentuated with sparse but artfully applied makeup. Her eyes were just as intelligent and as full of laughter as he had remembered. During the evening he kept stealing glances at her, vividly recalling the warm relationship they had shared, that soft beauty of youthful love. She was still just as appealing. He found it difficult to concentrate on Jimmy Whale’s stories of the do-or-die struggle connected with moving unwanted makes of automobiles, trucks, and sports utility vehicles.

  His brother, Hank, tried valiantly to turn the conversation to other things. But Hank was older than the others and they had no shared experiences except those impersonal community happenings in the past.

  Regina said very little. He often found her looking at him. Hank and Jimmy Whale’s wife both were drinking two for every one consumed by the others. It was having its effect. Mrs. Whales slipped into extreme quiet, her eyes half closed. But Hank was becoming loud. He started recounting stories about friends his own age, exploits of fellow football players and athletes. Adele began to snap at him as his stories drifted from merely off-color to disgusting.

  “Well, this certainly has been a real pleasure.” Jimmy Whales looked over at his wife. She had a placid, distant expression on her face. “But I have to get to the office early tomorrow. I’m trying out a new man for service manager. If you get the wrong guy he can ruin your business. It takes a certain type; half-technician, half-con man. And they don’t fall off the trees either.” He was about to launch into another tale of car merchandising when Adele stood up.

  “Jimmy, it seems we never see each other except at shopping centers anymore.” Her tone left no doubt that the Whales were about to leave. “Maybe when your business eases a bit, you and Marie could come for dinner.”

  Marie Whales just nodded.

  “Yes, that would be nice.” Jimmy Whales helped his wife up. “Well, it’s been a real kick seeing you, Jerry. You look great. I always knew you’d go far.”

  “It was good seeing you too, Jimmy.” Jerry Green shook his old friend’s hand. The man he faced was not really the boy he had grown up with. Somewhere a change had taken place. The red hair and the face were the same, but the personality he had known and loved had long ago departed, washed away by the everyday stresses of adult living.

  “Hey, Regina,” Hank said as she started to get up. “Don’t go.” She had come with the Whales. “Stick around for a bit. Jerry will give you a ride home. That’s if you think he can be trusted.” He laughed.

  “Jerry can always be trusted,” she said smiling. “But I do have an early class. And I should get home and see if my children left anything still standing.”

  “I have to go in a few minutes myself, Regina.” Jerry Green felt as if his face was flushing. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to drive you home.”

  Her eyes seemed to be laughing in quiet amusement. “Like old times?”

  Suddenly he remembered the prolonged kissing at her door. It had been the only time when she would permit herself an expression of real sexual passion. Safety was just behind the door so she could abandon all reserve. The promise of those wild kisses had always exci
ted him. He knew he was undoubtedly coloring now. “Desirable,” he smiled, “but not probable.”

  She laughed. He wondered if she remembered those long goodnights too.

  “All right. I’ll stay for one more drink,” she said, “but then I really have to go. There’s a constant war between my fifteen-year-old daughter and her twelve-year-old brother. They need their mother as a referee.”

  After the Whales left, the atmosphere was even more strained. Adele clearly disapproved of Jerry taking Regina anywhere. Adele had a rigid code, and Jerry was a married man. But she said nothing. Hank didn’t seem to notice Adele’s displeasure. He was visibly drunk now and loudly recalling a high school game when they couldn’t see the markers because of the snow.

  Regina seemed relaxed and quite in command of the situation. If she sensed Adele’s disapproval she gave no notice.

  Hank mumbled something about refills but stumbled and almost fell on his way to the kitchen. Adele snarled and Hank replied in kind.

  Jerry Green seized the opportunity to leave. He said he really didn’t want another drink, and that he too had to be up early. Adele made polite noises, the expected things, but Jerry knew that she would be just as glad if this was the last time she ever saw him. Hank was far gone, just mumbling something about family. Jerry Green helped Regina put on her coat and was again impressed at the way she had kept—perhaps even improved—her figure.

  Snowflakes whirled past the outside garage light. A white dusting already covered the ground. He recalled that snow came early in Michigan. He helped Regina into the car. He unlocked the driver’s side and climbed in.

  “Did you think someone would steal the car?” There was amusement in her quiet voice.

  He laughed. “Not really. It’s just a habit. You can always tell us big-city folks, we lock up everything. It’s second nature.”

  “I live in a condo at Lake Wilson. Do you know where that is?”

  “No. I don’t remember a Lake Wilson.”

  “It’s not far from here. It used to be a farm. If I could recall the name of the farmer you would remember, but I can’t. A developer named Wilson bought it and now we have a little city of condos on the shore of a small man-made lake. There’s two rows of units in the development. One row is built along the side of the lake, and the other fronts on a nine-hole golf course.”

  “Sounds nice.” He started the car, switching on the wipers to clean the windshield. He backed out carefully, using the side mirror as a guide.

  “It is nice. I love it, and so do the children. I’m ten minutes away from the campus. The schools are close. It’s all very convenient.”

  “Hank said you’re a widow.” He drove slowly, the snow was sticking and making the winding road slippery.

  “Technically, that’s wrong.”

  “Oh?”

  “I divorced my husband. He died shortly after that.”

  “You had nothing to do with that, I trust?” He laughed but instantly regretted it when he saw her solemn features outlined by the dashboard lights. She was looking straight ahead.

  “It was a very tragic thing. I can talk about it now, although for years I couldn’t bring myself to discuss it. I was carrying a very heavy load of guilt.”

  He made no reply. He was acutely aware of the snow. It was coming down hard, making it seem as if the rest of the world had disappeared.

  “Turn right when you get to the stop sign,” Regina said quietly. She paused for a moment and then continued. “My husband was a schoolteacher. He taught English. After about nine or ten years of marriage he began to experience a personality change. It was caused by a brain tumor, but no one discovered that, not me, not his doctors, no one. You know, it was one of those things where you all agree afterward that you should have known but no one did at the time. Frank, my husband, was a quiet, decent man. Suddenly he became extremely abusive. He went into rages and took out everything on the children and me. It was very bad. I left him, went back to work, and filed for divorce.

  “Frank became much worse. He lost his teaching job. He even landed in jail for assault. He didn’t oppose the divorce and it went through quickly. He had a convulsion about a week after the divorce. They took him to the hospital and he died in the emergency room. They found the tumor when they did the autopsy. The doctors told me that it was positioned so that even surgery wouldn’t have helped. They told me there was nothing anyone could have done for him even if the tumor had been discovered. I’m not sure that was correct. At least we could have made his last days more comfortable.”

  “And so the guilt?”

  “I suppose. I’m a nurse. I should have known, and that’s what I had to carry around, the conviction that I should have known what was happening.”

  “Hank says you teach at the school of nursing now.”

  “Turn left at the blinker ahead. Yes. After high school I went to Providence Hospital’s nursing school in Detroit. They had a two-year program to become a registered nurse. I married Frank and I worked for a while until we had the children. It’s funny, but despite the tumor and the madness, Frank somehow found the money to keep up his life insurance. I’ve often wondered if somehow he didn’t sense what was happening to him. Anyway, the insurance wasn’t a great deal of money but it was enough to allow me to enroll in the university and pick up my nursing degree. And I added a master’s degree. I worked at Sparrow Hospital and I did some clinical teaching. They asked me to join the full-time faculty and I jumped at the chance.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “Jerry, I love it. I don’t think I really can explain why. It’s just something I look forward to doing each and every day. It’s fulfilling for me. And I can work my teaching schedule so that I can be home with the children when it counts. You know, I can remember talking to your father about things and he spoke of the pure satisfaction to be found in imparting knowledge to young minds. I didn’t fully understand it at the time, but I do now.

  “When you come to the traffic light up ahead, don’t turn, go straight, but be careful, the road narrows into just two lanes.”

  “How about your kids? That must have been a terrible thing for them, about their father, I mean?”

  “Yes, it was. In one way we were fortunate, the change in Frank was very fast. It was a very bad time but it was short, thank God. However, I watch both of them closely. A terrifying childhood experience can lie dormant and then one day pop up as a roaring neurosis. So far, there doesn’t seem to be any harmful residue, but I keep a weather eye on them both.”

  “How long ago was that, Regina, when your husband died?”

  “Six years.”

  They drove in silence for a moment, then he spoke. “Can I pry a bit?”

  She laughed. “Depends. Try it, and if it’s off limits I’ll just ignore you, okay?”

  He knew he should keep his eyes ahead, the driving was difficult, but he glanced over at her. Her look of high amusement seemed to almost taunt him.

  “You’re a beautiful woman, Regina. How is it that you haven’t remarried?”

  She didn’t respond at once, pausing as if composing an answer. “Well, as you can imagine, the shock of the divorce and the death numbed me for quite a while. I have known other women who reacted in similar circumstances in an entirely different way. But I wanted no personal relationships. Then there was school. I had to work part time, take care of two small children, and go to college full time. It was demanding. Nursing is not just popping a thermometer in a patient’s mouth, Jerry. It’s as difficult as being a physician, sometimes more. We really have to know what we’re doing. Anyway, with the years spent in school I had no time for any kind of a personal life. It was on purpose. I had to wrestle with my own problems and hard work was therapy for me.” She stopped speaking and looked out at the snow.

  He waited but she didn’t continue. His headlights glared back at him from the thickening fall of snowflakes.

  “Don’t leave me hanging, Regina. Go on.”

&nbs
p; She laughed. It was the same laugh that used to excite him so when they were young, a sound that held a delicious sensuous promise. It was no song from the Lorelei that lured boats to their destruction, he decided. It was a laugh; low, throaty, and full of promise. He could understand risking a ship for a sound like that, a sound like Regina’s laughter.

  “What you want to know, Jerry, is whether I have any boyfriends.”

  He was about to deny it, but then mutely nodded.

  She giggled. “If you’re looking for stimulation, I’m afraid you’re on the wrong track. My love life is as exciting as day-old bread. I once had a mad two-month fling with a young resident at Sparrow Hospital. He was younger than me. He left me for a better residency in a hospital in Boston. Unlike most nurses I’m not really too fond of doctors, they all seem to acquire a God complex sooner or later. He was the only doctor I ever dated. I never wanted to get the reputation as the official pin cushion for staff physicians.”

  “That happens?”

  “In hospitals it happens all the time. There seem to be a lot of sexy people there. I knew one anesthesiologist who had been married four times in twelve years. He was the hospital’s champion stud. He juggled his time between his latest wife, four nurses he saw regularly, and two society girls who called the hospital night and day trying to reach him. He really needed a trained diplomat for an answering service.”

  “Jesus, and I picked law.”

  She laughed. Again the sound sent a pleasurable chill through him. She was truly an exciting woman.

  “I date two men now. Usually, it’s just for concerts or an occasional dinner. Both are professors. Neither gentleman wishes to become the automatic father of a fifteen-year-old girl and a twelve-year-old boy, so things haven’t become very serious.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  She giggled again. “My God, don’t tell me you haven’t changed? Jerry, you can’t still be jealous after all these years?”

  He tried to laugh, but it didn’t sound convincing even to him. “Mad with jealousy,” he said. “Do you remember when I punched Raymond Sedmak?”