The Groaning Board

there.
    “Evelyn,” Veeder said softly. “I’ve
brought someone to meet you.” The woman didn’t respond. He put his palm in the
center of Wetzon’s resisting back and moved her around to the front of the
sofa. “Evelyn,” he said again. “This is Leslie.” He bent and kissed the woman
on her pale forehead, stroked a lock of streaked blond hair back from her
expressionless face. The huge Siamese cat on her lap didn’t move, didn’t purr.
    Evelyn wore a silk floral robe. She
stared out at them with unblinking blue eyes. The same color as the cat’s.
    “Say hello to Evelyn, Leslie.” His
hand remained on Wetzon’s back. He had to have felt her shudder. She shrank
back. Evelyn’s eyes did not move or show any recognition that anyone was in the
room with her.
    Wetzon said, “Hello, Evelyn.”
    Again, the figure on the sofa didn’t
respond. The cat meowed twice.
    “Leslie is a headhunter on Wall
Street,” Veeder said, as if the mute, unseeing woman on the sofa understood
everything. “You would enjoy talking to her, I know.”
    And Leslie Wetzon would have enjoyed
nothing more than to have the earth open up and swallow her. What could he have
been thinking? Why had he brought her here? She could never get involved with
him.
    Elsie returned with a wheelchair.
“Time for bed, Mrs. V.,” she said cheerfully. “No need for you to stay, Mr.
Veeder. We have it all down to a science, don’t we, dear?”
    Because Bill Veeder was lifting his
wife and placing her in the wheelchair, Wetzon’s escape from the room was
smooth. Her head spinning, she sank into one of the chairs at the end of the
long gallery. She heard the timbre of Veeder’s voice, but not what he said.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Come on, Leslie, let’s get you
home.” He pulled her to her feet and out of his apartment.
    She didn’t know what to say. “I’m
sorry—”
    “I wanted you to meet her. Evelyn was
a wonderful, vibrant woman.” His voice was husky. “I loved her very much. I
still love her.”
    “How long has she been...?”
    “Eight years. It’s a form of
Alzheimer’s. She has no idea who I am or where she is.”
    The elevator came and took them to
the lobby, where Veeder asked Scotty to get them a cab.
    On the street, Wetzon said, “I’m so
sorry.” Why was she crying? She brushed the tears away with her fingertips. It
was so sad.
    “Oh, my dear.” He put his arms around
her. “I didn’t mean for you to take it like this.”
    “What did you mean, then?” she
mumbled into the lapel of his blue pinstripe.
    “I simply meant for you to see that
my wife is living, but she’s not there. Do you understand?”
    A cab came around the corner and, in
response to Scotty’s signal, stopped in front of the building.
    “Bill, look—” Wetzon released
herself. “I know what you’re saying, but—”
    “Get in, Leslie.”
    “Good night.” She got in the cab and
all of a sudden he was climbing in after her. He gave the driver her address.
    “Hey,” she protested. “I’m a big
girl. I don’t need an escort.”
    “I know that.” He was looking at her
legs, where her skirt had crept up her thighs.
    So he was a leg man. She sighed and
tugged at her skirt, getting nowhere. What a night. She felt as if she’d lived
three lifetimes in the space of a few hours.
    “Why aren’t you married, Leslie?”
Veeder asked out of the blue.
    “Excuse me, did you say married?”
    “Yes. Why aren’t you?”
    “I like being free. Besides... I see
no happy heterosexual marriages around me. Only my gay friends seem to
have”—she smiled at him—“found happiness.”
    “Evelyn and I were happy,” he said.
“It’s not impossible.”
    “Isn’t it funny? Here you are, a
number one philanderer and you’re making a brief for marriage. Look at Poppy
and Mort. Look at Minnie and Hem. He was raping a sixteen-year-old girl, for
godsakes, probably not for the first time. Am I right?”
    He put his hand on her thigh as if it
was the most natural thing for him to do. “Leslie, I have an attorney-client
relationship with Hem Barron. So let’s just say appearances aren’t everything.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

     
     
     
    “ Nothing
is going to happen,” Wetzon told her escort as they got off the elevator
on twelve, her floor. Bill Veeder was like glue on the back of an address
label. Attractive, sexyglue.
    “Don’t worry. I just want to see
where you live.” His fingers glided over her topknot, down the outer rim of her
ear