Pepper looked up and said, “Okay.”
Buddy said, “I’ve got way too much going on up here.”
“I understand,” Pepper said.
“There aren’t any decent restaurants.”
Pepper sighed quietly. “Whatever.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
Not looking up, Pepper said, “What am I supposed to say?”
“You might at least fake disappointment.”
“Buddy, honey, if you’re spoiling for a fight, could you just go punch the doorman? I gotta memorize all this mumbo jumbo.”
“Don’t you want us to live together?”
“Sure I do. But I don’t want you to be miserable. It’s not that far. I’ll commute up on weekends.”
“Swell,” Buddy snorted. “Great.”
Pepper took off her reading glasses. “Shall we do an instant replay? You came in the door and announced, like the Holy Roman Emperor, that you weren’t going to live with me in Washington. I said okay. I don’t recall lack of restaurants being the deal breaker in the marriage vows. I was actually under the general impression that Washington is halfway civilized and has decent, even fine restaurants that serve edible food. But recognizing that living there would be an inconvenience to you, I understand and agree. Whatever works for you.”
“You’re such a lawyer,” Buddy said.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” She closed the briefing book. “But if you’re spoiling for a fight, okay. What’s the theme of this one? How I’ve ruined your life?”
“Don’t let me take you away from your studying.”
“Baby,” Pepper said tenderly, “I got to ask you a serious question at this point.”
“Go ahead.”
“Are you aware that from the get-go you’ve been a total a-hole about all this?”
“Oh,” Buddy laughed bitterly, “I get it. Thank you for pointing it out. I’m the asshole.”
“Well, glad we got that settled,” Pepper said, putting her glasses back on and reopening the book.
Buddy said, “How am I supposed to react? Am I supposed to be thrilled that you’re willing to throw away everything that we’ve worked for so hard?”
“Baby. Your wife has been asked to sit on the Supreme Court. How does that amount to throwing it all away? Looky here. We’ve got more money than God. You’ve got more money than the Holy Trinity. I probably won’t even make it past the confirmation hearings. But if I do, you’ll find another judge for Courtroom Six in about twenty seconds. And you got six other shows running. Two of ’em in the top twenty.”
“Right. People jumping off bridges and eating themselves to death.”
“Well, honey, they were your ideas. And you’re making a fortune off ’em.”
“They’re shit.”
“Now, don’t you be too hard on yourself. You’ve brought awareness to the issue of people hurling themselves off bridges. And G.O… that episode about that 750-pound food writer-what was her name, Mrs. Stern?-having to be surgically separated from her sofa, that was right… human. I’ll bet you that touched a lot of chords with large folks who’ll be inspired to get up off the sofa before they fuse with it.”
“It’s all shit. It’s crap. Courtroom Six is a showcase. Without you, there’s no Courtroom Six. Without you, I’ve got no class act. There. Okay? You see the problem?”
“Doesn’t your wife being on the Supreme Court amount to some kind of ‘class’?”
“Is this where I’m supposed to tell you-for the eighteenth time-that I’m proud of you? All right. Great. I am so fucking happy for you.”
Pepper closed the briefing book and shoved it into her briefcase. She stood and disappeared into the bedroom, re-emerging a few short minutes later with an overnight bag.
“All right. What are you doing?” Buddy said, in a tone suggesting he knew exactly what she was doing.
“Going to a hotel,” Pepper said. “That way, if I feel the overwhelming need to be congratulated in the middle of the night, I’ll just ring down to the concierge and have him send someone up to pat me on the back.”
“Go ahead,” Buddy said. “You’ve become an expert at walking away from things. Be my guest.”
“I’ll be the hotel’s guest,” Pepper said, exiting, “but I will put it on your credit card.”
NEW YORK BEING NEW YORK, there was a five-star hotel just a few blocks away, off Columbus Circle. Pepper checked into a suite on the fifty-eighth floor, tipped the bellman, and stood staring out the floor-to-ceiling window at the great black-and-white panorama before her: a million lights, ships tugging up and down the Hudson, the necklace strand of the George Washington Bridge in the distance. All it lacked was Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.
She was relieved to be here and not back at the apartment being nattered at by Buddy. Still she looked for her building amid all the others and found it at the edge of the park. She could make out the windows of their bedroom, and her study. What room was Buddy in now? What was he thinking? I really am an asshole or What a bitch? She didn’t know the answer, and it troubled her, on reflection, that she didn’t. They’d been together now seven years. He’d proposed to her the day the show was picked up by the network. And she’d said yes, automatically, a little joylessly, now that she looked back on it. It occurred to her, for the first time, that her feelings for Buddy might have been a little… self-referential, maybe? Or-she thought on it coldly and clearly-self-reverential. Being on TV does tend to bring out the inner Narcissus. Had they ever actually loved each other-or was it the success they’d brought each other that they’d loved? Confronting this unpleasant, humiliating epiphany, Pepper decided she didn’t want to dwell on it anymore just now. Which, she realized, was confirmation enough of its probable, essential truth. Aw, hell, she thought, you-dummy. You deserve every bit of what you’re getting. Every kick in the butt. It wasn’t ever really a marriage. It was just a damn business arrangement.
Her cell phone trilled. She rummaged urgently in her bag, then saw the call was from JJ.
“Hey,” she said.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
“Nuthin’. How you?” Her Texas accent tended to deepen when talking to JJ.
“Nuthin’ name of Bixby?” JJ had never been a big fan of Buddy. He was generally suspicious of anyone who had anything to do with television, the only exception being his granddaughter.
“He’s being a pain in the butt. But I was the one who walked out. Never done that before.”
“Where are you?”
“In a hotel.”
“Hotel? Where?”
“Around the corner from my apartment. It was either that or whack him upside the head with one of my Emmys. Don’t think I wasn’t tempted.”
“Hell, make him go check into a hotel.” Pwwttt. JJ’s sentences were punctuated by the sound of expectorated tobacco juice.
“Don’t worry. I’m puttin’ it on his plastic,” Pepper said.
“Hope it’s an expensive hotel.”
“Oh, it is. I’m gonna eat all the macadamia nuts in the minibar. That oughta add a thousand bucks to the tab. So, what’s up down there?”
“Everyone’s having a fit and steppin’ in it over this damn border-mining bill,” JJ said. Pwwttt.
A Texas state senator had introduced a bill in the legislature calling for the state to mine its border with Mexico, on the grounds that the federal government had failed to stem the tide of illegal immigrants. It had started out as a symbolic protest, but America being America -and Texas definitely being Texas -the thing had acquired a life of its own. The bill now had so many supporters it looked like it might actually pass in the upcoming session. Pwwttt.
“I guess I feel as strongly about immigration as the next person,” JJ said, “but I don’t know if the solution is to start blowin’ up Mexicans. Be a heck of a mess. But we got to do something. Juanita feels kinda strongly against it.”