I sensed that he expected me to challenge him about the last point he'd made. I didn't.
He tapped his wristwatch with his fingertip.
"You have a flight to catch. I will be pleased, now, to sign your paper before you go." He slid the permission form from the center of the table and aligned it in front of him.
"I am grateful for your interest in my… family. Please give my greetings to Dr. Raymond Welle when you see him." He fished a pen from the pocket of his chinos and scrawled his signature along the bottom line.
I slid the paper into my satchel.
"Thank you," he said.
"What you are doing-it gives me a small measure of hope.
For my family, for me, this has been a wave that never breaks."
I thanked him.
"Should we have the opportunity to talk again, we can talk about my other daughter. Satoshi. She is at Stanford, in California. She is studying zoology.
She hardly remembers living in Japan, I think. You should consider talking with her as well, you know? She knew her sister in ways that I never would."
"She would be agreeable?"
"Of course. Let me write down her phone number for you. I will tell her you will call."
Ten minutes later I was on board the 747 that would take me back to Denver.
Only after I'd walked the length of the jetway did I glance at my boarding pass and notice that my seat had been upgraded to first-class. On board, the flight attendant couldn't tell me why I'd been moved in front of the curtain, and suggested with a crooked smile that I not "question fate that comes in the form of sunshine."
It seemed like good advice. My suspicion, though, was that Taro Hamamoto had pulled a string or two.
After a moment's contemplation I decided I was more grateful than suspicious, and eagerly accepted the champagne I was offered by the flight attendant with the wisdom and the crooked smile.
PART THREE. A Fool's Errand
A few years back, during a late spring when I was between wives, I attended a large, formal wedding reception at the Phipps Tennis House in Denver. I remember arriving at the affair mostly cynical and leaving mostly drunk. The buddy who drove me home afterward accused me of hitting on the maid of honor without success-and without honor, for that matter.
The facility where the event was held remained a bit of a blur in my memory. My recollection was of a huge Quonset-hut-like structure with a glass roof. The building itself was constructed of red brick and covered with green ivy-a monument that a family with too much money had erected shortly after the turn of the last century to indulge its interest in court sports and to express its disdain for the vagaries of Colorado weather.
At the wedding reception I'd done most of my drinking in the gardens adjoining the huge tennis house. I remembered the gardens fondly for the abundant shade.
I also recalled that a pair of nickers had been using nearby down spouts and gutters to drum a staccato advertisement for mates. Or perhaps they were after sexual partners-gladly, I don't know enough about nickers to make the distinction. I did recall that their insistent percussion had mitigated my enjoyment of the Mumm I was downing at a pace I would later regret.
Although I don't remember many details from the afternoon of the wedding reception, I am pretty certain about two things. One, I never set eyes on the mansion that day. And two, the couple who were married that afternoon years ago are now, sadly, divorced.
* * * It was the Phipps Mansion and not the tennis house that was my destination on the Friday in June after I returned from Vancouver. The mansion and its adjacent play structure had been bequeathed by the Phipps family to the University of Denver. The university routinely made the facilities available for community uses that ranged from weddings and bar mitzvahs all the way to the elegant proceedings of the Summit of the Eight industrialized countries.
The spectacular buildings were also used for occasional political gatherings in support of presidents, governors, and sundry state and local politicians.
My instructions from someone named Trish in Representative Welle's office in Washington, D.C." were to arrive at the front door of the mansion at 10:45 and to be sure I was carrying identification. Approaching the mansion in my car, I drove past two black-vested valets who were hijacking vehicles at the entrance to the tennis-house parking lot. I didn't slow, instead continuing up the hill in the general direction that I expected to find the manor.
It wasn't hard to spot. The mansion is a grand Georgian structure that commands a pleasant knoll not too far south of the tennis house. The redbrick home looks down both front and rear-and both literally and figuratively-on an expansive neighborhood that has grown up around it on what the Phipps family probably once called "the grounds." I was deterred from entering a long circular drive up to the mansion by two large men in gray suits who I surmised had not been hired for their facility at traffic control. I smiled at their stern warning to move on and continued around the block, driving a long, looping route that rolled up and to the west before circling back behind the tennis house.
I was in a nice neighborhood. On a street shaded by stately elms I parked across from a brick-and-stucco house that looked like a country hotel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and in front of a vaulting A-frame that would have done Aspen proud. I decided to forgo the services of the valet because I'm cheap and also because I didn't want my car to be boxed in by the cars of the attendees of the day's fundraising event. I knew I would be exiting early. Trish had informed me that my meeting with Representative Welle was pre luncheon only.
She had asked me if that was clear.
I told her I thought it probably meant that I wasn't staying for lunch.
Yes. Trish and I had been on the same page.
In that morning's editions the Denver newspapers had reported that political supporters of Dr. Welle were going to pay one thousand dollars each to attend a pre lunch reception at the tennis house. I could only guess how much the two dozen or so who had been invited to luncheon in the dining room at the mansion afterward would be paying-or, more likely, had already paid-for the privilege of tearing puglia with the congressman.
Some memory fragment from the long-ago nuptials I'd attended suggested that I could cut through the gardens of the tennis house from near the spot where I'd parked my car and thus considerably abbreviate my walk to the mansion. I followed some catering employees past a redolent Dumpster, through a ratty wooden gate, and into the familiar tennis-house gardens. I listened for the percussive evidence of flickers. None around. From the tennis-house gardens I wandered up some brick stairs and through a charming wrought-iron-and-brick portico into the formal gardens on the north side of the mansion.
Although the flowering plants weren't at their peak, they hinted at what was to come in July and August. The grape arbors offered shade, and the abundant rose gardens were in perfect early-summer form. The cherry and apple trees showed the beginnings of a summer of good fruit. Upright junipers spaced like soldiers at parade rest protected the perimeters of the huge garden.
I wished Lauren were with me. She could tell me what some of the perennials were.
One of the two gray-suited men from the end of the driveway spotted me wandering the paths of the gardens. He apparently didn't think my stroll was a good idea and jogged up the driveway and across the lawn to tell me so.
"I have an appointment with Representative Welle," I said in response to his query about whether he could help me find my way.