Honest Addict, Chapter Four

4

The restaurant had been booked solid for two weeks. A number of would-be diners stood hopefully in the bar, their necks craning toward the maitre d’ in the expectation that space would magically open up. For most of them, this possibility would never materialize. Because of their vanity and frugality, they didn’t realize how easy it really was to get a table. But Peter did.

He approached the host podium with the bill palmed in his hand. Jeanette stood beside him, looking truly beautiful in her low cut blouse and the short skirt that showed off her slender yet shapely legs.

“I take it you do not have a reservation,” the maitre d’ said haughtily.
“As a matter of fact I do,” Peter replied. “It’s under the name of Franklin, Benjamin Franklin,” he said, using that stupid, know-it-all tone he had seen applied in the movies for similar situations. He placed the bill in the gatekeeper’s palm.
“Well,” the maitre d’ responded, pondering the situation. “This is going to get me in very much trouble in twenty minutes when the next wave of reservations arrives. But what the hell. They didn’t give me anything.”
He escorted Peter and Jeanette to a nice two-top by the window. “Bon appetite.”

The Royal Stag Roadhouse was one of the best restaurants in Marin. “Five star comfort food,” their slogan declared. The menu had an array of dishes, many of them featuring exotic game meats such as venison, guinea fowl and boar. The elk loin in a red wine reduction with roasted winter vegetables was a particularly good seller. Of course, the restaurant also offered a wide variety of traditional dishes featuring more pedestrian flesh such as halibut, chicken, pork and steak. Jeanette had wanted to visit for ages. Peter hoped they would have a nice night out.

The evening started well enough. They ordered a couple of cocktails to begin, Peter a gin and tonic, Jeanette a vodka-cranberry. Before he was halfway finished with his libation, she flagged down the busboy and ordered a second: never a good sign. But he chose to ignore this portent and focus on making things pleasant. And for a while they were.

“How are things at work?” she inquired.
“Not well,” he replied. “I hate everybody at that place. It’s a den of iniquity. There’s not a good soul left working for the firm. Did I tell you they fired Gerald Jankovic last week?”
“No. What did he do?”
“He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“That’s awful.”
“Yes.”
“So why don’t you quit? Is it the money?”
“Not really. I have enough socked away. My condo is all but paid for. I could probably live for several years without working if I planned it out right.”
“So why don’t you? And while you’re at it, why don’t you move in with me?”
“At your Mom’s place? In Tiburon?”
“Why not? Quit your job, move in with me, even rent out your condo for extra income. We could travel the world together, do whatever we want. We’re young. Let’s take advantage of that. It would be an adventure.”
Peter smiled at the thought of it. “It certainly would be that.”
“You still love me, don’t you?” she asked. And as she did so he looked deeply into her beautiful face and became enamored all over again: the chocolate brown eyes and hair, the European visage, the omnipresent smirk, even her slightly large front teeth. Somehow it was all so perfect and made the years fall away. For a second he felt sixteen years old again.
“I have always loved you and I always will,” he replied sincerely, though with a nuance to his answer that she could never understand.
“So?”
He sighed. It all sounded so good. But he already knew how the story ended, the impossibility of their full-time cohabitation. “I don’t know, hon. It’s something to think about.”
“Shit,” she said, annoyed. “I know what that means.”

The night continued, but in a decidedly different direction after this exchange. He ordered the white truffle risotto with quail and a Caesar salad, she the Copper River salmon and lobster bisque. After he consumed his third drink and she her fourth, they started in on a bottle of expensive chardonnay. It tasted of butter and apples and had a bouquet of wildflowers. It was gone before their entrées arrived so Peter ordered a second. It was about halfway through the risotto that things got ugly.

“I’m sick of this fucking wine,” Jeanette exclaimed with a flourish of her hand that knocked a water glass off the table. “I want a real drink!”
“Take it easy, babe,” Peter said in his most soothing voice. “Why don’t you wait until we get home? Then we can drink until the sun comes up, I promise.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? That way you wouldn’t have to fuck me tonight! No. You’re not getting off that easy.” Tears began streaming down her face. Her sobs were heavy, coming from a place deep in the pit of her stomach. “My mother is gone and you don’t love me. What’s the point of it all?”

The maitre d’ approached the table with a concerned look on his face. Peter did his best to intercept him before he made the situation worse.
“Don’t bother” he said, waving his hands in the air. “We’re okay. Sorry about the outburst. But everything’s fine.”
“Sir,” the maitre d’ insisted, “we cannot have language like that in this establishment.”
Jeanette started laughing manically, pounding her clenched fist on the table. “Get the fuck away from here you...wetback,” she exclaimed. And then, apparently amused by the humor of her comment, she began laughing uncontrollably once again.
“I will have you know that I am a Spaniard from the city of Madrid. And I will not be spoken to in such a manner.”
“Well, you look like a wetback to me. A spick.” And as she pronounced the s spittle flew from a small pool of saliva that was gathering on her lower lip.
“That is it. I want you both to leave right now. Leave and never come back to this restaurant.”

Peter rose from his chair begrudgingly, knowing there was no rectifying what had just transpired. Jeanette also got up, but was so drunk she had to lean on Peter for support. He reached in his wallet and pulled out several hundred dollars, which he offered to the offended host.
“I do not want your stinking money,” he said, his greed now overwhelmed by humiliation and disdain. “I only want you to leave.” They slouched toward the exit, the weight of a hundred disturbed, disapproving glares burdening their journey.

***

Jeanette passed out within five minutes of arriving home, leaving Peter only the bar and his thoughts. He poured himself a Hennessy and sat down on a plush leather club chair in Eugene Rutherford’s famous study, a long, dark room filled with antiques, awards, an impressive library of first edition books and an immense record collection, comprising jazz, popular music up to about 1972 and an almost complete discography of classical music. Although everything else about the house had been altered after his death, Carol had seen to it that the study was never touched, that it remained as a tribute to the man she had loved so much, a man twenty-two years her senior. It was very fitting.

Peter got up and fingered the records; he was one of the only ones left who still did. He removed an ancient looking copy of Beethoven’s Symphony Number 4 and put it on the very clean but old United Audio turntable. Below he flipped the thick power switch on the impressive looking Macintosh tuner and soon the melancholy music emerged from speakers hidden in the walls. The sound quality was amazing for such old technology: clean and crisp and full, with only the occasional small hiss associated with vinyl. Even this imperfection added something to the listening experience.

He walked around the room, viewing the many framed certificates, letters and photographs on the walls: evidence of a life that had mattered, or at least that was the impression that the decorator was trying to convey. Perusing the room was an old habit of his, one he never tired of. As always, it was hard not to be impressed. There were letters of recognition to Rutherford signed by Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Regan, an honorary degree from Brown University, and numerous pictures showing the great man surrounded by other great men. But it was on the west wall that Peter located his favorite photo. It featured Eugene sitting in the middle of a deep booth in a restaurant at Caesars Palace Las Vegas – this fact was evidenced by a sign that was visible in the background. On his left sat Dean Martin and on his right Frank Sinatra. All three men held drinks in their hands and wide smiles on their faces: the portrait of good living. Rutherford had been an avid gambler, Peter reminded himself.

Peter had come into Jeanette’s life only a year after the old man had died of lymphoma. The family of two was still in shambles emotionally, and Jeanette was probably worse off than Carol. Of course, it wasn’t the norm for a fifteen year old girl to have a father of seventy. Still, it was obviously quite difficult for someone her age to lose a parent. Although he had never met Rutherford personally, he knew more about his intimate life than almost anybody outside the family. Incalculable were the hours he had spent over the years listening to mother and daughter reminisce about the husband and father who was so well known to the world. They only rarely discussed his many accomplishments, and even when they did they focused mostly on his philanthropic pursuits and not his great financial triumphs. The majority of the time they talked about what a good man he had been, his love of life and family, and the aura of optimism he bore wherever he went.

These reminiscences seemed to emanate from a long passed epoch in Peter’s mind. But the memories never felt so far off when Carol had been alive. Even a year ago, when she had first been diagnosed with cancer, the dynamic of their triangular relationship was elementally the same as always. And in a way, as long as Carol was alive Eugene was still alive as well, his spirit, culture and way of life carried in the heart of the woman who still introduced herself as his wife. Now everything was different. There was no real link to the personal world that Eugene Rutherford once inhabited. The last connection resided with his daughter, his only living child, who seemed determined to annihilate what was left of her existence and tenuous hold on the past.

Peter tilted his head back and closed his eyes. What was he to do now? The scene that had erupted at the restaurant was final proof in his mind that he could no longer chaperone Jeanette’s self destruction. But he also felt he had an even greater responsibility now that she was all alone to make sure that she survived into the next year, where maybe she could pick up the pieces of her life and move on. But what of his own personal life? He was still unmarried. Would it always remain so? A part of him desperately hoped that it would. Although he hated to admit it, even to himself, he had a deep distrust and even enmity toward most women.

And how long could he continue working for a company he loathed? The money, no doubt, was great: the previous year he had earned eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But how much did he really need? Was it worth his soul to be rich? There was a time when this question had been much easier to answer. In fact, there had been times in his life when this question could be easily answered both in the negative and affirmative. At twenty-one, his idealism would have declared that nothing is worth sacrificing your humanity. At twenty-seven, his avarice led him to do almost anything in pursuit of the almighty dollar. Now he was thirty-three and realized he had no beliefs anymore, that he knew absolutely nothing at all: not even who he was.

And then the moment of clarity descended, and everything seemed so simple. The horizons expanded. Of course, he thought to himself in that simpleminded way he had during his early experimentations as a teenager with LSD or hallucinogenic mushrooms. Knowing that the inspiration could fade in an instant, he jumped up and sat down at the small secretary desk that was at the far end of the room.

Neither Eugene Rutherford nor his several female assistants had ever used a computer; therefore there was none to be found in the study. Of course, the house had several computers in it now, but Peter felt the need to document his thoughts in this place, and not anywhere else. So he took a piece of what felt like very expensive writing paper and placed it in the old typewriter that sat on the desk: a Remington Standard, Number 2. As he rolled the paper into the anachronistic machine, he was transported back to seventh grade typing class – for a second he could even hear the teacher droning in his head, “letter a…strike, semicolon…strike.” It was the last time he could remember using a typewriter. He wondered if the one in front of him would even function. How long could the ink on the ribbon last anyway?

To his surprise it did indeed work: the letters were thick and dark, making a deep indent on the page. The words flowed from him with ease, though his speed was somewhat slow, as had to be extra careful about not making any mistakes.

Dear Jeanette,
You said tonight that I do not love you. You could not be more incorrect about that. I love you and everything you represent about my time here on earth. I will always feel this way toward you, as long as I have breath in my body and thoughts in my mind. When my father left my family I was barely twelve years old. My own mother’s death six years later left me with you and your mother, who became the only real family I had. Her recent passing has left a scar on my being that will never heal, a scar that I will wear as a badge of honor for the rest of my days.
I know that your pain is incomprehensible. And I know that what I am about to say will only exacerbate that pain. I am leaving you now. I cannot say for how long I will be gone or where exactly I will go, but I have decided on this. I will be far away as you read this letter.
As I have often told you, I abhor hypocrisy. It is probably this revulsion that has kept me from saying or doing something sooner. In this instance, however, I will break my own rule. You are going to do whatever you want anyway, so know that I say this only for my own peace of mind: watching you destroy yourself is a pain I cannot bear any longer. Please seek help. You are all that is left of everything that came before you.
With much love,
Peter.

He pulled out the paper and blew on it to let the ink dry. As he did so, he knew that it would change nothing.

Now he took the cellular phone from out his pocket and dialed the office. His hands shook as he navigated the difficult answering service, but ultimately he did arrive at his final destination: the voicemail box of J.B. Richardson. His message was short but to the point.
“This is Peter Castellano. Due to the disgust I feel in working for this company, I have, after long and thorough deliberation, decided that I will no longer be coming in. I quit. If my accrued vacation pay and vested stock options are not forwarded to me in a timely manner you shall be hearing from my attorney. I wish you the best of luck, especially in finding a more valuable use for your ridiculous life.”

He closed the phone and pondered the irreparability of it all. There was no turning back now.