Jay Smith merely said, “Ida, I’m apologizing for not calling when your husband died, but would you do me a favor and let Stephanie live with you?”
Just like that.
She replied no, she didn’t think she wanted any roommates at this time.
And he thanked her politely and hung up.
9
There was always a lot of talk about the “magnetic” personality of William Bradfield, or the “magnetic field” around the man. Well, in the fall of 1978 those magnetic filings-his chums and protégés and secret lovers-weren’t all lining up according to positive and negative influences.
Susan Reinert was doing something that no woman had ever done to Bill Bradfield. She was giving ultimatums. It could have been that she felt more independent now that she had a modest inheritance. It could have been that, as she reported to her therapist, she’d finally had “more than enough.”
According to Roslyn Weinberger, when Susan gave Bill Bradfield an ultimatum he got very angry. Then he calmed down and pointed out that if he walked out on Sue Myers it might prove fatal.
“She’s hysterical, unstable, and God only knows what she might do,” he argued.
But this time Susan Reinert wasn’t buying. She said, “Sorry, that won’t work. Not anymore.”
And she told the psychologist that now she was able to withstand the litany of excuses, rationalizations and arguments that in the past had always confused her and resulted in an agreement to be patient and let one of his schemes cook a bit longer.
This time she said, “No way. Good-bye, then.”
And she meant it. And he knew it.
He humbly suggested that if he could have just a little more time he might “ease Vince Valaitis into a relationship with Sue Myers,” thereby allowing for less trauma when he left home.
She managed a little derisive laughter over this one since it would be about as probable as “easing” Jay Smith into holy orders. And at last it appeared that Bill Bradfield was going to cave in. He told her that he was indeed moving out of Sue’s apartment and into his parents’ home as a show of good faith. He outlined some major plans, and for the remainder of the school year, he said, he would simply have to extricate himself from his financial arrangements with Sue Myers and make ready for a new life.
Susan Reinert told Roslyn Weinberger and Pat Schnure the hot news that could not be announced until Sue Myers was completely out of the picture: she was marrying Bill Bradfield in the coming summer of 1979.
Susan Reinert’s old friend Sharon Lee got married in December and Susan Reinert went to the wedding. The wedding was at Sharon’s parents’ house near the shore. The weather wasn’t very cold and the morning after her wedding Sharon and Susan took a stroll along the beach. Susan Reinert told her friend that she and Bill Bradfield were being married in the coming summer, and that they intended to take her children to England with them.
The secret had to be kept from the children, Susan said, because she didn’t want them in a position of having to lie to their father. She feared that her ex-husband Ken might suspect they were going to live in Europe and try to stop her from taking the kids. Susan Reinert had picked up some very secret ways.
Sue Myers suddenly found herself in need of an attorney. In one of his more bizarre moments Bill Bradfield told her that he was going to present her with a “cohabitation agreement” that she must sign and that she should “trust” him. And now Sue tried to decipher the scheme behind the scheme.
Having lived with Bill Bradfield for five years and having been his lover for fifteen, she immediately started thinking about the famous palimony case in California involving actor Lee Marvin. The theory behind the cohabitation agreement was that if two people parted by mutual consent, with a full disclosure of each partner’s assets, the agreement couldn’t be overturned at a later time should one party have a change of heart and want a bigger share.
Why did Bill Bradfield and she suddenly need this in their life? she asked.
Well, it seemed that he feared that Susan Reinert had gone and named him as beneficiary on a small insurance policy, and if Jay Smith were actually to kill her, Bill Bradfield might become the subject of enormous scandal because of that silly insurance policy.
“I want to protect you from scandal,” he told Sue Myers.
“And how will signing an agreement protect me?” she wanted to know.
Because, he said, he might be drawn into a sticky civil lawsuit involving the Reinert heirs, and Sue Myers as his live-in companion might be subject to a piece of the liability as though she were his wife. This way, she’d escape the whole mess, attorney fees and all.
“And would you stand to inherit insurance money?” Sue Myers asked Bill Bradfield. “If something happened to Susan Reinert?”
“Out of the question,” he said. “I’ve simply got to convince that neurotic that gestures like this are futile. She’ll go to any lengths to draw me into her snare. I simply despise the woman.”
And that, Sue Myers believed utterly. She was convinced that he truly despised Susan Reinert. And she would never change that opinion. So Sue Myers made herself an appointment with an attorney and never told Bill Bradfield about it. The lawyer told her that the whole thing sounded absurd and that she should not be talked into signing such an agreement under any circumstances.
When she talked to an outsider about such things, they all did seem insane. She wondered if she needed a psychiatrist rather than a lawyer.
Bill Bradfield also told her to get out of town for Thanksgiving because Jay Smith often “killed on holidays,” and he might be unable to control the former principal. Sue Myers started to object, but thought it less stressful to humor him. Sue Myers was beginning to feel that she was watching this on television. She couldn’t walk away without seeing how it would end.
In one of her many search-and-explore missions, Sue found what she called his “jogging diary.” Bill Bradfield, the world’s foremost keeper of notes, enjoyed jotting down his ideas and brainstorms when he returned from his morning jog. He probably thought that at least these were safe from prying eyes. But she was able to get a fast peek at the jogging diary one morning when he was in the shower.
His diary entry confirmed to her that maybe for once he was telling the truth, and that even if he’d been sleeping with Susan Reinert in the past, he was now simply trying to elude her clutches.
The entry read: “I’d like to kill Susan Reinert.”
If Sue Myers feared that Bill Bradfield might be seeing Susan Reinert on Thanksgiving weekend, she needn’t have. At a later time she learned that he’d traveled to Boston over that holiday. And, as it turned out, she had someone else to worry about. Bill Bradfield was visiting Rachel who had left Annapolis and moved on to Harvard for graduate study.
After the Thanksgiving weekend had ended and Jay Smith had not knocked off Susan Reinert or anyone else, Bill Bradfield took credit for keeping Jay Smith “under control.” The word “control” surfaced frequently in conversations with Bill Bradfield.
Sue Myers began seeing a sex therapist in Bryn Mawr to learn if she could ever hope to experience sexual desire again-assuming that she survived whatever was to happen, his mental breakdown or hers.
She wondered if there could be sex after William Bradfield.