“I want you to be so bleary eyed all day in court that everyone wonders what the hell went on last night.” And he got his wish. She was half asleep and she couldn't get him out of her mind she was so hungry for him. She never seemed to get enough of him anymore, and all through the trial, she was lonely for him, but it was too important to screw up and she kept her nose to the grindstone constantly. It went on till late May, and finally, in the first week in June, the verdict came in. It went just the way she had wanted it to, and the press gave her high praise as usual. Over the years, she had earned a reputation for being rigid, tough, conservative, merciless in court, and brilliant at the cases she tried. They were nice reviews to have, and it often made Harry smile when he read about her.
“I'd never recognize the liberal I knew and loved in this, Tan.” He grinned broadly at her.
“We all have to grow up sometime, don't we? I'm thirty-one this year.”
“That's no excuse to be as tough as you are.”
“I'm not tough, Harry, I'm good.” And she was right, but he knew it too. “Those people killed nine women and a child. You can't let people get away with something like that. Our whole society will fall apart. Someone has to do what I do.”
“I'm glad it's you and not me, Tan.” He patted her hand. “I'd lie awake at night, worrying that they'd get me eventually.” He hated even saying it, and he worried about it sometimes for her, but it didn't seem to bother her at all. “By the way, how's Drew?”
“Fine. He's going to New York on business next week, and he's bringing the girls back with him.”
“When are you getting married?”
“Relax.” She smiled. “We haven't even talked about it since I started this case. In fact, I've hardly talked to him.” And when she told him about her success before it hit the press, he sounded strange.
“That's nice.”
“Well, don't get too excited. It might be bad for your heart.”
He laughed at her. “All right, all right, I'm sorry. I had something else on my mind.”
“What?”
“Nothing important.” But he was that way until he left, and he sounded worse from the East, and when he got back to Los Angeles, he didn't call her at all. She almost wondered if something was wrong, or if she should fly down to surprise him and get everything on the right track again. All they needed was a little time alone to sort things out, they'd both been working too hard, and she knew all the signs. She looked at her watch late one night, trying to decide if she should catch the last plane down, and decided to call him instead. She could always go down the next day, and they had a lot of catching up to do after her two months of grueling work. She dialed the phone number she knew by heart, heard it ring three times, and smiled when it was picked up, but not for long. A woman's voice answered it.
“Hello?” Tana felt her heart stop, and she sat there endlessly staring into the night, and then hurriedly she put down the phone.
Her heart was pounding hideously, she felt dizzy, awkward, disoriented, strange. She couldn't believe what she had heard. She had to have dialed the wrong number, she told herself, but before she could compose herself to try again, the phone rang, and she heard Drew's voice, and suddenly she knew. He must have known she'd called and now he was panicking. She felt as though her whole life had just come to an end.
“Who was that?” She sounded half hysterical, and he sounded nervous too.
“What?”
“The woman who answered your phone.” She fought for composure but her voice was totally out of control.
“I don't know what you mean.”
“Drew! … answer me … ! Please…” She was half crying, half shouting at him.
“We have to talk.”
“Oh, my God … goddammit, what have you done to me?”
“Don't be so melodramatic for chrissake…” She cut him off with a shriek.
“Melodramatic? I call you at eleven o'clock at night and a woman answers your phone, and you tell me I'm being melodramatic? How would you like to have a man answer you when you call me here?”
“Stop it, Tan. It was Eileen.”
“Obviously.” Instinctively, she had known.
“And where are the girls?” She didn't even know why she had asked.
“In Malibu.”
“In Malibu? You mean you're alone with her?”
“We had to talk.” His voice sounded dead suddenly.
“Alone? At this hour? What the hell does that mean? Did she sign?”
“Yes, no … look, I have to talk to you.…”
“Oh, now you have to talk to me…” She was being cruel to him and now they were both beginning to sound hysterical. “What the fuck is going on down there?” There was an endless silence which he couldn't fill. Tana hung up and cried all night, and he arrived in San Francisco the next day. It was Saturday and he found her at home, as he knew he would. He used his key and let himself in, and he found her sitting mournfully on her deck looking out over the Bay. She didn't even turn when she heard him come in, but spoke to him with her back turned. “Why did you bother to come up?”
He knelt beside her and touched her neck with his fingertips. “Because I love you, Tan.”
“No, you don't.” She shook her head. “You love her. You always did.”
“That's not true.…” But they both knew it was, in fact, all three of them did. “The truth is that I love both of you. That's an awful thing to say, but it's the truth. I don't know how to stop loving her, and at the same time I'm in love with you.”
“That's sick.” She continued to stare out at the Bay, passing judgment on him, and he tugged at her hair to make her look at him, and when she did, he saw tears on her face and it broke his heart.
“I can't help what I feel. And I don't know what to do about what's happening. Elizabeth almost flunked out of school, she's so upset about us, Eileen and me. Julie is having nightmares. Eileen quit her job at the OAS, she turned down the ambassadorial post they tried to tempt her with, and she came home, with the girls.…”
“They're living with you?” Tana looked as though he had just driven a stake into her heart, and he nodded. He didn't want to lie to her anymore. “When did all this happen?”
“We talked about it a lot in Washington on Easter week … but I didn't want to upset you when you were working so hard, Tan…” She wanted to kick him for what he'd said. How could he not tell her something like that? “And nothing was sure. She did it all without consulting me, and just showed up last week. And now what do you expect me to do? Throw them out?”
“Yes. You should never have let them in again.”
“She's my wife, and they're my kids.” He looked as though he were on the verge of tears but Tana stood up then.
“I guess that solves it then, doesn't it?” She walked slowly to the door and looked at him. “Goodbye, Drew.”
“I'm not leaving here like this. I'm in love with you.”
“Then get rid of your wife. It's as simple as that.”
“No it's not, goddammit!” He was shouting now. She refused to understand what he was going through. “You don't know what it's like … what I feel … the guilt … the agony…” He started to cry and she felt sick as she looked at him. She turned away and had to fight to speak above the tears in her own voice.