“It’s beautiful,” I said.
Jack said softly, “Billy’s disruptive.” Jack returned the fishing pole to the corner. He pushed his chair to the desk, continuing in a quiet tone, “The school told us if he doesn’t get under control next year, they can’t — you know, we’ll have to move him.” He sat down heavily. “It’s a private school. Supposed to be the best—”
“Amy told me the school was good,” I said. “Stick doesn’t have to know anything about my helping out. Would you like me to talk to Amy, maybe have Billy see some of my colleagues? They deal with truly crazy kids — it’d be refreshing for them to see a fine young boy who’s just acting up a bit.”
“You think that’s all it is?” Jack’s green eyes, small against the puffi-ness of his face, looked openly into mine for the first time. The appeal was sweet. He may not have known how best to defend his son, but he wanted to.
“Probably,” I said. “You can’t really blame him. I’d kick anybody who tried to teach me how to polka.”
We parted friends. My childish trick had also worked. As I came out of Jack’s office, Halley nearly bowled me over. She reared back, eyebrows up, her apparently profound surprise expressed so promptly she failed to make it convincing. “Rafe! What are you doing here?” she asked. “Gossiping,” I said with a smile. “And you?”
She gestured to the same manila envelope she had shown me in Andy’s office. “I was gonna get some feedback from Jack.”
“Better hurry,” I said, walking away. “He’s going to lunch with a fly fisher.”
“What?” she called.
But I didn’t stop. I called Amy Truman that afternoon. We met for coffee in Tarrytown, an hour before she was due to fetch Billy from school. Jack had alerted her about my interest. Feeling she had his permission, she opened up completely. After ten minutes, and one prompt, she widened the discussion from the subject of Billy’s woes. I liked her. She was a Louisiana native whom Jack met on a sales trip and courted for a year before they married. Her father was a doctor, her mother a music teacher. She had a degree in education and was working, when they courted, in the local public school in charge of the reading readiness program for kindergarten. That was part of the reason Billy’s learning problems were especially humiliating and, of course, so apt an arena in which to rebel. Dealing with their two-year-old girl, Billy’s problems and Jack’s heavier travel schedule left her feeling overwhelmed. Naturally, she blamed herself for Billy’s reading problems. “I pushed him too hard, tried to get him to read too early, and now see, I’ve gotten just the opposite of what I bargained for.” With her strawberry blonde hair, her lively blue eyes, her trim figure and generous smile she should be keeping Jack interested but I was no longer in a shrink’s office, blind and deaf to her world. I knew what she was up against. Her essential decency put her at a disadvantage. She mistakenly thought that by taking care of Jack’s children and providing a safe port he would feel love and gratitude. Instead, he felt she was safe. Meanwhile, at Minotaur, Jack was supplied with danger and excitement and triumph too. Not poor grades and messy diapers, not the constricted talk of suburban shopping and PTA meetings, not the same easily conquered body that, to his touch, was probably thicker and flabbier than the one he had wooed on humid bayou nights. Anyway, she was a fish he had already caught.
Within forty minutes, she returned three times to the theme of how rarely she and Jack were alone together, what with all his traveling and Billy’s troubles and their two-year-old girl. She complained about Jack’s work and then scolded herself for complaining. After all, she mumbled shyly, this coming year was a big opportunity for Jack.
I took a guess, commenting, as if I knew, “You mean, the big promise Stick made to Jack about the future if Centaur goes well.”
“So you know.” She smiled and slapped the table. “See that? I told Jack. I told him Stick isn’t blowing smoke. And, of course, you know about it. Jack tells me Stick really leans on you. He’s very jealous. Says you get a private meeting twice a week. He’s only got Mondays.”
“Jack’s right to be cautious,” I said. “Promises are just promises.” She looked grave. And nodded earnestly. “Right, of course. I just meant, you know, I feel — I mean, Jack’s done wonderful work for—”
“Jack’s done a superb job. Stick knows that.” I covered her hand with mine. Her pale blue eyes, at that moment washed out by the sunlight falling on them, looked at me without reserve. I let all of myself go out to her, copying my new teacher, beaming love and devotion without fear of embarrassment or rejection — or the scruple that it wasn’t sincere. “Listen. You need to take care of yourself. Jack can handle his job. You need him to help with his children.”
“Right,” she nodded. “That’s right.”
“Men have a tendency to think that their work is all-important. That the people who love them should drop everything and help. That the job isn’t just a job, it’s the future, it’s security, it’s love, it’s being a good person. But, you know, in the end, it is just a job and it’s not gonna love him back.” I slipped my fingers under her palm, and held her hand, squeezing a little. She returned the pressure. “If he doesn’t start taking care of you he’s a fool.” I let go. She swallowed, her freckled cheeks flushed pink, and her pupils widened. “I’ll get you a reading tutor and I want you to make an appointment with a family therapist.” I wrote down the name of one I knew well on a napkin. I had confidence that Amy was conscientious enough about her family, and tough enough, to make Jack go with her and Billy for counseling. I suspected that was the only way to get a fly fisher into therapy. I gave her the napkin.
“Thanks,” Amy said, carefully folding and putting it in her purse.
I reached for her hand. She gave it to me willingly. “You and Jack need to take care of your marriage and Billy will be all right. Know what I mean?”
Amy nodded, her mouth set, ready for a fight. “Yes,” she nodded. “I think I do.”
I winked. “Okay. I’m single, you know. Tell Jack if he won’t show you a good time, I will.”
She smiled. “I’ll tell him, Doctor. I’ll be sure to tell him that,” she said and winked back at me.
After she left, I used the coffee shop’s phone booth to report to Stick that I had recommended a good reading tutor to the Trumans, that their son’s problem was trivial, and that I was impressed by Jack’s loyalty to the company. I emphasized to my boss — because that’s what Theodore Copley had become, I realized, in spite of the fact that I provided less than full disclosure of my actions on his behalf — that he shouldn’t let on to Jack I had performed this service at his prompting. “He would be alarmed,” I said.
“Well, we don’t want that,” my fearless leader said. “We want Jack to feel relaxed. He’s doing a terrific job. By the way, Rafe, is Thursday night okay for you to play doubles?” I had become his regular partner against a variety of opponents, usually business competitors. “Sure,” I said.