Folly Beach - Dorothea Benton Frank [83]
“Well, his name was Addison, he killed himself, which I think you know . . .”
“God, no. Actually, I only knew that he was deceased.”
“Yes, well, lemme tell you, committing suicide was the only noble thing he had done in years. Very few people mourned. My children did, of course. But not many others. I don’t miss him one little bit, which surprises me sometimes. That’s not to say finding him wasn’t a terrible shock, but I am sort of over that now. I think. But the reality is that he was such a terrible husband for so long that I am more relieved than anything else. The Tale of Addison Cooper is a really strange story about arrogance and self-deception, but yours is actually more bizarre.”
“Well, it’s not every day that your spouse tries to murder you. What did he do for a living?”
The waiter placed the bill on the table; John glanced at it and put his credit card down.
“He ran a private equity firm and managed a portfolio that was once worth about twenty billion dollars in assets. His friends and former partners think he found out that he was going to be indicted for every crime in the books he cooked but he preferred to die rather than go to jail. How stupid is that?”
“Seems like a drastic way to deal with things, doesn’t it?”
“To say the least. Maybe someday I’ll tell you just how unbelievable he was. And I was so busy trying to keep him calm and keeping things going I had no idea how much trouble he was in.”
John poured out the last of the wine and I took a sip.
“I’ve always thought that life’s a gift, you know?” he said. “I think it’s better to try and work things out, even with the IRS if, God forbid, they came knocking. But then I’ve always been a pretty modest guy in terms of my own ambitions. I just don’t have some burning desire to own a lot of worldly possessions. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like nice things but you should own your stuff, it shouldn’t own you.”
“And you see, that’s where he was, dead center in that trap of defining himself through what he could own, and what he could get away with. I remember the day we were moving into our house in Alpine, which was quite the fantastical over-the-top testimony to Addison’s success. My brother-in-law looked at the house and back to him and said, So Addison? How much is enough? You know what he said?”
“I couldn’t begin to guess.”
“Right? I remember this like it was yesterday. He said, Mark? Enough? Double what I have at any given moment in my life.” I shook my head. “My brother-in-law is a perfectly wonderful podiatrist and he does very nicely, but he just blinked his eyes and let out a low whistle. He looked up at the house and then back at Addison again and slapped him on his shoulder and said something like better you than me, pal. Anyway, my family thought Addison was pretty funny and generally a great guy at first but then something happened to him. He became someone else.”
“And that new Addison wasn’t so great.”
“Not so great? No, he was intolerable but at least he didn’t put poison in my juice. Jeesch! I have to remember to count my blessings.”
“Truly. So not only did you lose your husband, your whole life is now completely different. You weren’t exaggerating that night at the Pig, were you?”
“Not one bit.” I took a drink of water. “Yeah, it’s just me and the Heywards down at Porgy’s. But some of my family is here and that’s awfully nice.”
“I’ll bet so.” He reached across the table and put his hand over mine. “So you’re really feeling okay?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, I haven’t been with another man in decades so I’m a little nervous.”
“Don’t be. I think you’re amazing.”
“Well, I think you are, too. You know, I keep thinking about all the possibilities.”
“You should be really. Who knows? You could be the next Lillian Hellman!”
Well, that wasn’t exactly the response I sort of hoped for. But I took it in stride.
“Or Dorothy Heyward.”
“That’s right. Look, I can help you get started. I mean, I teach creative writing, you know.”
“Would you?