Immortals Read online

  “That poor schnook.” He postured again. “I’ve got a young man here, miss, who doesn’t think his girlfriend would go for this car, and I’ve been telling him it’s such a good deal, he would be foolish to pass it up. But he’s afraid it’s a”—Drake turned to the imaginary customer—“what did you call it, sir? A family car?”

  “I remember. You practically twisted my arm to say the right things.”

  “Well, you said, ‘It’s nice.’ What kind of a thing was that to say?”

  “The truth. It was nice, but not much more. It was a station wagon,” she added, arms out for emphasis. Her nightgown slipped off her smooth left shoulder.

  “At least I got you to say the gearshift was cool. Cool!” He turned back to his imaginary customer. “Did you hear that, sir? Cool, and that’s from a”—he turned back to Cynthia, still reenacting the scene that had taken place more than fifteen years before—“you go to college here, right?”

  “So that’s what you were doing? Finding out who I was and where I lived. Sneaky, Drake Edwards, very sneaky.”

  “You didn’t turn me down when I came by to ask you to dinner,” he pointed out.

  No, she thought, she didn’t. What beautiful dark eyes he had, she thought, and he had that firm “I know who I am” look that most college boys lacked. Drake was the first really mature man she had known. The others were still on the way to becoming someone or something.

  He swept me off my feet, she thought. But it was fun, and how could she ever forget the looks on her roommates’ faces? It was worth going out with him for that alone.

  One date led to another. Drake had energy; he seemed unstoppable. This man will become rich and famous, she thought. He was driven, ambitious, but not so monomaniacal that he was oblivious to her needs. Most other men she had dated spent most of their time talking about themselves. Sometimes she felt as if they saw her as just another ornament to wear on their arms, a mark of conquest—not that she was ever an easy prize.

  But Drake was different. He always considered her feelings first. From the start they were simpatico. His mood was dependent upon hers. If she was depressed, he would spend all of his energy working at cheering her up.

  “I can’t be happy if you’re not happy, Cyn,” he told her. And he would cheer her any way he could, including gifts of flowers or deliveries of stuffed animals.

  She laughed, remembering.

  “What’s so funny?” he said, unbuttoning his pajama top. He was heading for the bathroom. He was hoping a hot shower would awaken his sleeping muscles and restore at least a semblance of youth and vitality to his worn and battered body.

  “I was just recalling Mom’s face when she came to visit and saw all those stuffed animals you bought me. ‘You could open up your own store! Why don’t you get rid of a few?’ ” she said.

  “Why didn’t you?” he asked. “I did go a bit overboard.”

  “Not to me. Each one was special, each one represented a memory. Mom didn’t understand.”

  Cynthia had to wonder. Was her mother as much in love with her father as she was with Drake? Maybe it wasn’t possible for two other people to love each other as much and as completely as she and Drake did.

  “I was a bit crazy in those days,” Drake confessed. He smiled to himself, recalling. “It was fun, though, being impulsive, uncaring. No mortgage payments, car payments, not worrying about the water heater leaking,” he added, smirking.

  “Everyone has to grow up sometime, honey,” Cynthia said, rising.

  “You mean everyone has to grow old,” he corrected. He went in to stand dumbly under the shower.

  Mornings had a debilitating sameness to them these days, Drake thought. Schedules wore you down. You became imprisoned by the clock, subdued by minutes and buried in hours. He had to finish breakfast by seven-forty, be out the door by eight o’clock the latest to drive to Goshen and board the commuter bus into New York. Falling off schedule meant he would be two hours late for work, and that meant staying at the office later and not getting home until eight-thirty at night.

  But this was the sacrifice he and thousands of others were making so that their families could live in a nice environment while they worked in the city. What we do for our children, he thought, and he sped up the morning rituals.

  There was never a question about Drake and Cynthia having children. They hadn’t dated a dozen times before they started to talk about a family. They agreed that two children would be enough.

  “If only we could be lucky and have a boy and a girl,” he had said, and they were.

  Stuart was born fourteen months after they had their official wedding. He took after Cynthia’s side of the family: cerulean eyes, hair as bright as sun-kissed hay, a fair complexion with a patch of freckles under each eye. But he had Drake’s congenial personality. He was outgoing and eager to socialize. When he was four he enjoyed sitting and listening to Cynthia and Drake and their friends, and by the time he was eight he was contributing to the conversation. One of his elementary school teachers had the nerve to write, “Stuart suffers from diarrhea of the mouth” on his end-of-year report. Cynthia stormed into the elementary school and demanded a meeting with the principal and the teacher, who later apologized, but she insisted that Stuart had a problem keeping quiet.

  When Cynthia returned home and told Drake about it all later, he only shook his head.

  Debbie was born three years after Stuart and was slightly underweight. She would be forever known as “the peanut” as far as Drake was concerned. She had Drake’s rich dark hair and hazel eyes, but she had Cynthia’s diminutive features. Debbie was soft-spoken, but as precious and as huggable as a teddy bear. She doted on Drake. From the day she could walk she had listened for his entrance and run into his arms to be swept up and kissed.

  “Peanut!” he would cry.

  Cynthia gently pleaded with him to stop calling Debbie that.

  “When she’s a teenager she’s going to hate it, honey. Boys won’t take her seriously,” she warned.

  “Are you kidding? Look at those eyes. She’s going to break hearts, leave them shattered throughout the halls because she won’t love anyone but Daddy. Right, Peanut?”

  Debbie was quiet, Cynthia thought, but she was shrewd. She saw it in the way Debbie shot her a knowing look before she turned back to Drake and nodded. Maybe Drake was right. Maybe Debbie would be a femme fatale.

  Cynthia usually had no difficulty getting her children up and ready for school. She had them both seated at the dinette table by the time Drake came down for breakfast.

  The Edwards family had a modest three-bedroom, two-story, colonial-style home with a downstairs office-den, living room, dining room, kitchen, and breakfast nook. Their home was in Sandburg, a small upstate New York community that was suddenly booming because of the rash of commuters who spread over the landscape. Drake said it was the greatest thing that could have happened to real estate values. Their house was worth at least ten to twenty thousand more because of it.

  “Morning, everybody,” Drake said. Cynthia grimaced at the way he was limping when he came down the stairs. He saw the look on her face. “Still a bit stiff,” he explained.

  “Hi, Daddy,” Debbie cried. Drake kissed her and mussed Stuart’s hair.

  “Hi, Dad. Dad,” he said quickly, “today’s my class meeting to organize the party for Saturday. You’re still going to be a chaperon with Mom, right?”

  “Check,” Drake said. “Make sure they play something from our generation, though, okay?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked at Cynthia. “ ‘Camptown Races’?”

  “Oh, Drake.” She poured his coffee, but before he could bring the cup to his lips the phone rang. Everyone turned toward the wall where it hung. “No one calls this early unless there’s something wrong,” Cynthia declared.

  “No way to find out without answering,” Drake said, and he got up. “Hello.” He listened and then shook his head to indicate it wa
sn’t anything bad. Cynthia breathed relief and coaxed Debbie to finish her cereal. “Yes, you’ve got the right Drake Edwards. Well, I do have a pretty tight schedule here, so I can’t talk . . .” He listened. Cynthia raised her eyebrows and looked at him as he turned his body away.

  “Well, I do remember a Harris Levy. What’s it called? I don’t know, I . . . one moment,” Drake said, and he put the receiver down to get his date book from his briefcase.

  “What is it, Drake?”

  “Someone named Paul Stoddard wants to take me to lunch.” He snapped open his briefcase and checked his date book quickly. Then he returned to the phone. “Yes, I can make it. Twelve-thirty at the Grand Hyatt. Fine. See you then.” He hung up the receiver.

  “Who’s Paul Stoddard? What did he want?” Cynthia asked quickly.

  “I don’t know him, but he says Harris Levy recommended me, and whoever Harris Levy recommends they take seriously.”

  “Take seriously for what?”

  “A position at their firm.”

  “What firm? Who’s Harris Levy? Why would you be interested in another job?” Cynthia fired her questions in staccato fashion.

  “Whoa.” Drake shook his head. “All I said was I would meet the man for lunch. I don’t know any more than you do, but since he’s buying . . .” He shrugged and sat down. He gulped his orange juice and swallowed the vitamin Cynthia had left beside it.

  “Do you know Harris Levy?” she asked, sitting down herself.

  Drake paused and thought as he started to pour some cold cereal into his bowl.

  “The only Harris Levy I can recall—and you know how good I am with names—was a friend of Dad’s who worked with him when he was selling those World Book Encyclopedias. But it can’t be the same Harris Levy,” he added, and he poured his cereal.

  “Why not?”

  “That guy was at least twenty years older than Dad. Dad died, what . . . twelve years ago? That would make Harris Levy close to a hundred. Can’t be the same one,” he repeated.

  “Why can’t he?” Stuart asked.

  “Because this Harris Levy is regional director of this firm’s Connecticut office, and even George Burns doesn’t have that much energy.”

  “Then who is he, and how come he recommended you, Drake?” Cynthia asked.

  “I don’t know, honey, but you know that saying about looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

  “What happens, Daddy?” Debbie asked, wide-eyed.

  “You smell the horse’s bad breath,” Drake said, and he grimaced. Debbie squealed with laughter, but Cynthia stared, not sure why it all made her feel so anxious.

  The commute was a dull nightmare, especially on rainy days. The weather was supposed to improve by mid-afternoon, but there was nothing as dreary as sitting on a bus with other commuters, most reading the papers or catching up on work they were supposed to complete before arriving at their offices.

  No one else at Burke-Thompson, Drake’s insurance firm, lived where he lived. Most lived in Connecticut, a few in Jersey, and a very lucky few in Manhattan. Old man Burke lived in Queens, and his son-in-law partner, Larry Thompson, lived in Yonkers and had a mere half-hour commute from home to office.

  Drake had been with the firm for nearly twelve years and had been honored with the title Agent of the Month six times, each time bringing a plaque and a small raise in pay. Last week Larry Thompson had suggested Drake was up for a vice-presidency soon. That would give them a few thousand more a year, and Cynthia could go ahead and renovate the kitchen. Of course, a vice-presidency meant more responsibilities, more hours, more paper pushing, which meant more stress. Stress, Drake was well aware, aged you faster, and if there was one thing he didn’t need to do, it was to further accelerate his biological clock.

  But what was he to do—turn down a promotion when it finally came? Funny how life puts you in a corner, he thought as he sat back and closed his eyes. The light chatter and the hum of the bus’s engine nearly put him to sleep. He did fall into a deep daydream, imagining himself winning the lottery and retiring before it was too late to enjoy retirement. He wished he could spend more time with his children.

  Drake was worried about Stuart, worried that he wasn’t manly enough, wasn’t enjoying his boyhood enough. He was growing up too fast. Drake was determined that his son would go out for the eighth-grade basketball team next year. Schoolwork and student government were fine, but he needed exercise; he needed the physical side of life as well.

  His daydreaming and his worrying made the commute seem much shorter than usual. After they pulled into the station Drake walked quickly to the subway and made his stop in record time. He was at the office just before nine-thirty. Tina Patterson, the receptionist, was just getting herself situated. All the men in the office drooled over the shapely twenty-year-old redhead who paraded about in tight skirts and sweaters. Drake certainly wouldn’t disagree about how attractive she was, but he didn’t find himself panting and longing for her as intensely as the other men in the office did. Maybe that was another sign of aging, he thought sadly.

  “Morning,” Drake called as he walked by. She gave him a big, warm smile, bigger than she gave the others because he didn’t pay her as much attention. He tried to explain that to Marty Collins.

  “Don’t let her see how interested you are, and she’ll be easier to get,” he advised.

  “Easy for you to say,” Marty replied. “You’re married, getting it regularly.”

  “So get happily married,” Drake responded.

  “That’s a contradiction in terms,” Marty quickly replied.

  Drake began his day, diving into his work completely as always, making the calls, going over the policies, advising clients about the changes they should have—selling, selling, selling. Or schmoozing, as his father used to call it. You chatter about everything under the sun and slip in your sales pitch subtly, so subtly the client doesn’t even realize he’s being sold. That takes personality, instinctive psychology, talent. And Drake was good at it. No question about that.

  Maybe that was why this Harris Levy, whoever he was, had recommended him, Drake thought when he resurfaced and noticed the time. Why shouldn’t other people be considering him from time to time anyway? He had made his mark in the insurance industry.

  Billy Decker and Marty asked him to join them for lunch. He was going to lie and say he had to meet with a client. Why should they know he was talking to a prospective employer? he thought. It will probably lead to nothing, and rumors will fly for no reason. On the other hand, if Larry Thompson knew he was in demand, he might up the raise in salary and speed up the promotion. Drake opted for the second possibility and told them he was having lunch with an executive from a competing firm. Their eyes widened with envy.

  He laughed to himself as he left the office and headed up Madison Avenue to Forty-second Street. It was only five blocks up and two over to get to the Hyatt—not enough to justify a cab—but the walk on a cool gray May day was taking its toll on his leg. When he caught sight of himself in a storefront window he saw he was actually limping the way he had limped in high school.

  I guess I have to see the doctor again, he thought, and he plodded on.

  During lunch hour Madison Avenue and Forty-second Street became terrifically congested with traffic and people. Many were like him, white-collar workers, men in suits and sports jackets, women in suits and designer clothing. New York was full of attractive women, he thought when one particularly elegant-looking girl, not much more than twenty or so, passed him. Her laugh had a pure, innocent ring to it, and the sound took him back to his earlier days with Cynthia. How do you recapture that feeling? he wondered—that sense of excitement and wonder when something as simple as a walk in the park made your heart pound with anticipation.

  He shook his head, regretting the depressing turn his thoughts were taking. He waited at the light with the clump of pedestrians around him and moved on the green just as automatically, if not as quickly, as the others. He turned down
Forty-second Street and continued to the Hyatt. Once inside, he took a deep breath and relaxed. The cool air, the sound of the piano, the refinement of the polished lobby and the slower pace of the people moving up and down the steps made him feel as though he had just stepped out of one world—a maddening, hot and cluttered one—and into another where people could be . . . people.

  “I’m meeting a Mr. Stoddard,” he told the maître d’. The young man snapped to attention.

  “Oh, yes. Right this way, sir,” he said without checking his chart.

  Drake followed him down the aisle and toward a table in the far corner by the windows that looked out over the street. A man who looked no more than thirty at the most stood up to greet him. He was wearing a light blue Cardin sports jacket and matching slacks with a hand-painted tie. There was a diamond tie pin glittering at the center.

  Paul Stoddard had light brown hair swept up and back in soft waves. Cynthia would love this guy’s deep blues, Drake thought, and he reached for his extended hand.

  “Drake. Glad you could make it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Sit down, please,” he said, indicating the chair across from him. “I always like it here—like the open, bright feeling—don’t you?”

  “It’s nice,” Drake said, looking around. Actually, he hadn’t been there before.

  “Great salads. Got to watch that waistline,” Paul said, patting what looked to be a rather flat stomach. Drake smiled weakly, regretting his own developing paunch. Just like Michael, he was destined to come apart at the seams if he didn’t keep at it. But he often felt like the Dutch boy at the dike, holding it all back with a single finger. It took more and more time at the gym to hold his own as it was, much less improve.

  “So,” Drake said, “what is Leon Enterprises?”

  “Would anyone care for a drink?” the waiter inquired.

  “I’ll have a martini, extra dry. Drake?”

  “Oh, just a mineral water.”

  “Come on, you can have a cocktail. Believe me, this is a special occasion.”

  “If I drink at lunch, I’m asleep by three. Mineral water,” he repeated. The waiter grimaced and turned his shoulder as he jotted down the order. Why were there so many fags nowadays? Drake mused. Paul seemed to be able to read his thoughts. He raised his eyebrows as the waiter left them.