Among her friends Lana Brentwood had always been described as a perfectionist, with energy to burn, a good student who always went the extra distance for the straight A’s and to please. And a good listener, often seeing things in others that they thought were hidden and yet having the ability to convey to whomever she was speaking to a sense that for that moment she wanted to hear only from that person. It helped to fend off, or hold at bay, her secret and enormous dread of failure. It made no difference that she had done well at school, won a scholarship to Harvard’s medical school. She wanted to do everything at once, and everything wouldn’t have it, and one day it all tumbled in on her in one exam, an avalanche triggered by one question in her prerequisite arts course: “Man was born free, yet everywhere he is in chains. Comment.” It wasn’t that she felt she couldn’t answer it, but here were so many reasons Rousseau was right, so many that he was wrong. Like a shopper who, feeling suddenly overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices, in the end walks out and buys nothing, Lana broke out in the perspiration of quiet terror, made some panicky notes with which to start the answer, erased them, wrote them down again. Finally she began to tremble and asked if she could go to the washroom. Worse than her fear that everybody was looking at her was her realization that no one was — all too busy, heads bent, answering the question.
She never went back to the room, and following a six-month stint as a student nurse, from which she again dropped out, the rush of failure after came like a series of storm waves battering down an exhausted swimmer as she tried desperately for the safety of the shore, never making it. Her father, John Brentwood, a sixty-five-year-old ex-naval captain, once retired with high honors from the navy and now on the brink of retirement from his post-naval New York Port Authority job, was a man who had led what he called a “no-nonsense” life, one of duty, discipline, and duty. He was for Lana, however, extraordinarily kind when he sat down with her, putting his arm about her, comforting her, telling her that there was more to life than exams and that perhaps she should think about something else where the pressure wasn’t so great.
“Thank you, Daddy, but that isn’t what you told Ray or Robert when they had troubles. You said when the going gets tough—”
“Yes, yes,” he answered. “But with men, Lanny, it’s different. They’re expected—”
“Oh, Daddy!” she said angrily, storming from the room. He made to follow after her but couldn’t get up from her bed as quickly as he used to. “Now, I didn’t mean you’re not equal, honey,” he called out.
“Yes you do,” she said from the kitchen, snatching a tissue, hating herself because for her it was different than for the boys. They hadn’t broken down. Besides, these days women were supposed to be as tough.
“All I’m saying, Lanny,” continued her father, “is that you don’t have to beat your brains out. You can… well, do something else for a while.”
Lana, now that the floodgates were open, that her uptight, high school “girl most likely to succeed” image had been shattered, steered the discussion self-destructively back to her exam failure, indulging in a whining catechism of other petty and/or imagined failures, about how she really hadn’t done anything with her life, about how she was finished before she’d even started. She’d never even had time for boyfriends, no “serious,” lasting relationship. John Brentwood looked over at his wife, Catherine. In an age when condoms were as easy to get as gum and an aging Geraldo Rivera was wrestling on TV with near naked women in mudpits, they were thankful there had been no serious relationships. But they understood well enough what it was she was telling them — that she wasn’t even experienced as a woman. Still, John Brentwood turned it over to his wife to deal with, to tell Lana there would come a time when she was more settled, when she knew better what she wanted, that there’d be plenty of time for men and “that kind of thing.”
“Take a year off,” her father said in his wife’s silence. It was announced with the surprise of a captain with a wounded frigate suddenly recognizing the virtue of a retreat. “Return to port,” he said half-jokingly. “Get your surface vessel out of range of the sub, eh, Lanny?”
“Oh, John,” said Catherine Brentwood. “We’re not in the Persian Gulf. Last thing she needs is to ‘return to port,’ as you put it.”
“Catherine, I was only trying to—”
“I know, sweetie. But what Lana needs is something to do, something concrete. Take herself out of herself. That’s what you used to tell the boys. You still tell David the same thing. Not that he takes any notice.”
“Well,” John Brentwood began, but stopped himself. Lana was flushed, in that difficult mood, for self-pity and vengeance and for asking where was God anyway?
“There you go again,” Lana told her mother, her eyes liquid-bright. “The boys again. The boys are different. The boys are special!”
“We don’t mean that,” said the ex-rear admiral lamely. Sons were so much easier to deal with. “I never meant that.”
“You don’t think I can handle it alone,” snapped Lana. “Well—” She hesitated, lips quivering. “I can. You’ll see.”
What they saw was Lana dropping out of college altogether, going back to her old love of horseback riding, spending hours at the stables.
“I hope,” said John Brentwood, despairing of his daughter’s future while leafing through the evening newspaper — reading of more trouble in Yugoslavia, Serbs against Croats—“that Lanny doesn’t turn into one of those ‘horsey women.’ “
“And what,” asked Catherine, her hand steady with crochet needle, “is a ‘horsey woman’?”
“You know,” replied John, turning on the remote control TV. “Look at that. Montreux Convention distinctly guarantees us right of passage through the Dardanelles and Bosporus.” There was an inset map behind the TV announcer showing the narrow straits at Istanbul that lead into the Black Sea and the coast of Bulgaria and the USSR. A Bulgarian destroyer had “bumped,” the announcer said, a U.S. destroyer off Odessa on the boundary line of the twelve-mile territorial zone.
“Those Bulgarian bastards,” said John Brentwood, peering over his bifocals. “Ivan snaps his fingers and they play the monkey. Ah—” He waved his hand disgustedly at the TV. “We won’t do anything. Diplomatic notes. Now, if that had happened in Reagan’s day—”
“It might just have been an accident,” his wife commented.
“Catherine,” began John Brentwood exasperatedly. “A naval vessel doesn’t accidentally ‘bump’ another naval ship, for Chrissake!”
“You did once.”
“Damn it, woman!” He tore the newspaper away from his lap. “I did not! How many times have I told you that that son-of-a-bitch sub was snooping on us — trying to get a good noise signature for their goddamned mines — and I surprised him. Cut engines and the bastard couldn’t turn quick enough. He bumped me, goddamn it!”
“Don’t swear. Well, whatever. All they said was it was a Bulgarian ship. We’re getting on fine with the Russians now.”
“Now, yes. I wouldn’t trust those sons of—”
“What were you saying about Lana?”
“What — oh, yes. Well, I just don’t want her turning into one of those horsey women. That’s all.”
“I know lots of men who like horses. And they—”
“Don’t bait me, Catherine. You know perfectly well what I mean. One of those women who won’t go anywhere near anything unless it farts and eats hay.”
“Jay La Roche doesn’t do either. Far as I know.”
“Jay who? That perfume guy?”
“Yes. You remember. You met him at the equestrian ball. The night you were so grumpy. You and that admiral busy jawing about the president’s cuts in defense. I think he’s rather glamorous. And he’s well connected.”
“She’s been seeing him? I mean — seeing him a lot?”
“Quite a lot.”
Brentwood grunted. He was glamorous in a way. Do his little girl good to get out and around away from those damned horses. On the other hand, there was something about La Roche he didn’t like. Haughty — that was it. Millionaires’ club haughtiness. Or was it because the cosmetics magnate didn’t like career service officers? He certainly gave that impression despite the ultrapoliteness. Lot of those people around. Thought being in the service meant you wanted to kill everybody. Young David at college in Washington State had noted the same thing. Some liberal artsy-fartsy types baiting him about “mucho macho.” And with the new palsy-walsy public relations between Moscow and Washington and the defense cuts, it made it even more fashionable to put down those in uniform. Christ, they were still on about Vietnam, and that was an age ago.
“Lanny say anything to you about him?” he asked Catherine.
“No. But I can tell. She spends a lot of time getting dressed.”
“Good God, that’s no criterion. Half the women I know take most of the day getting dressed.”
“Oh, and how many have you known?” she teased. “Quite a few, I expect.”
He ignored it, watching the TV, shaking his head disgustedly. “You see, that’s the sort of thing I mean. This Supreme Court business — women in future being ready for combat. Take ‘em half an hour to get their war paint on.”
Catherine was hooking the crochet needle in an end stitch. “You’re a dinosaur,” she said simply. “But I love you all the same.”
“What happened to that pilot she was going out with from Andrews? Nice young fella.”
“Shirer. I thought you warned her off servicemen — if I remember correctly. Too many billets. Strain on the marriage?”
“Maybe. But I prefer a pilot to a perfume maker.”
“Now, John,” said Catherine, putting down her crocheting. “That’s unfair and you know it. What if I told you La Roche Industries makes a lot of munitions for defense?”
“They do?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“By God, you can be irritating. Wouldn’t make a skerrick of difference anyway. Even if he was making rockets. I don’t like his snooty manner.”
“He’s well-bred.”
“Officers from Annapolis are well-bred, too, but they don’t act like that.”
“You leave him alone. Lana needs all the self-confidence and affection she can get right now. Said so yourself.”
“I won’t interfere, I won’t interfere,” he said, holding up his hands. “All I want is for my little girl to be happy.”
“Good. But she isn’t so little, and sometimes you just have to let go. Let them make up their own minds. Remember what you always said about children — they’re on loan to us. They’re not ours. Best we can do is point them in the right direction and pray.”
“All right, but what happened to that pilot?”
“A fling, I think. It wasn’t long after her breakdown.”
“Wasn’t a breakdown, it was just—”
“Whatever you want to call it. He was someone she liked at the time, that’s all.”
John Brentwood lowered the sound on the TV. “You don’t think she—” There was a long pause. “You know. Do you? With him?”
“I don’t know and I don’t intend to pry.”
On the TV the announcer was reporting more trouble in El Salvador, or was it Nicaragua, more killing during elections — shots of blood-splattered hostages murdered in Beirut in the crazy war that Brentwood had never understood and was plain weary of hearing about. There was also growing support for the president, predictions of more defense cuts about to be announced — even more popular than pollsters had previously thought — and a lot of combat training money being diverted to less expensive electronic “closed-helmet” simulators. And reporters were predicting a major reduction in the number of stealth bombers, from two hundred to one hundred, possibly fewer.
Brentwood was shaking his head — a snappy young female Annapolis graduate was telling a reporter how she thought that the possibility that someday the Supreme Court would go all the way and allow women in front line combat role was just “terrific.”
“Sure,” said Brentwood. “And what happens when you get pregnant? ‘Excuse me, sir, could I please leave the war for six months?’ “ He turned to Catherine. “Honestly, I don’t know what the world’s coming to.”
There was a brief mention that there was a shooting somewhere on the Korean DMZ. “Should’ve let MacArthur over the Yalu,” said Brentwood, getting up from his recliner. Snapping the TV off, he saw under the streetlights a long car — a limousine — pulling up outside his house. He stared at it in disbelief through the blinds; then he saw the chauffeur opening the rear door and Lana getting out, her dark, shiny hair in sharp contrast with the long, white gown and white wrap, imitation fur — she wouldn’t have real fur. “Look at this,” he said, but when he turned around he saw Catherine had left, and heard her getting ready for bed. When he entered their bedroom, newspaper clutched in one hand, the other whipping off his bifocals, Catherine was changing into her nightdress.
“It’s pink!” he announced in horror.
“What is?” said Catherine, taking the comb out of her hair. “Oh, you mean the limousine? Cute, isn’t it?”
“Cute! Like a New Orleans whorehouse!”
“Oh, don’t be such an old stodge. It’s cute. Just a gimmick for his cosmetic company. Shocking pink.”
Brentwood stood there looking at her. “Sometimes, Catherine.. I just don’t understand you.” She wouldn’t be baited and kept brushing her hair.
“Now there’s this thing in Korea.”
“What thing?”
“Another row.”
“That’s not my fault.”
“Ray’s out there somewhere with the Seventh Fleet, remember.”
“There’s trouble everywhere, John,” she said. “I worry about it, too, at times. But we can’t do anything about it, so that’s that.” She slid off her slippers and drew up the covers, patting the bed invitingly beside her. “Come on now, stop fretting. I swear you worry more out of the navy than in it. Besides—” she reached for the lamp’s dimmer switch “—the experts say that despite all the little wars that always seem to be going on, there’s now a greater chance of peace between the superpowers than ever before.”
“Experts,” said Brentwood dismissively. “Experts told us nuclear arms would put a stop to war forever. Everyone would be too scared to let one off. They’re right — so far. Only trouble is, now everybody’s so scared to push the button, we need more conventional arms than ever. So what does the president do? Talk about cuts. I don’t know. It’s crazy.”
They heard Lana come in and then go out again.
“What’s she up to?” he asked.
“Go to sleep. Honestly, you’re like an old woman.”
“Ah — you see? Discrimination. I’ll take you to the Supreme Court.”
An hour later Lana woke them up to show them the engagement ring — Catherine said the diamond was the biggest she’d ever seen. John held his temper, just wanted her to know, he said — and he broke for a moment before going on — just wanted her to know that he’d loved her from the first moment he’d held her as a baby and always would, no matter what happened. As long as she was happy. She threw her arms about them both.
“Thank you, Daddy,” she said, and they were all in tears.
In her bed, Lana dreamed her dreams of the exciting life that lay ahead, while in her parents’ bedroom, John Brentwood struggled to control his temper as Catherine hushed him, ordering him, imploring him, to keep his voice down.
“But goddamn it!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “He never even asked me. Goddamn it, I don’t even know the man.”
“I know, I know,” said Catherine, ever philosophical, trying to calm him. “I’m sure he intends to. But I agree — it wasn’t very thoughtful. But what’s done is done. The main thing is, she’s happy. Besides, that’s the whole idea of an engagement. A trial period.”
“For what!” John Brentwood asked darkly.
“To give her time to think.” There was long silence between them. “It’s a beautiful ring,” said Catherine.
“Goddamned thing’s big as a missile.”
“Well, I’m sure it won’t kill anyone.”
That had been eighteen months before, and since then Lana had jet-setted about the world, on the society pages from The New York Times to England’s Country Life—it seemed that Jay T. La Roche had an interest in horses after all, at least in buying and selling them, and had acquired some of the best stables in Europe. His ownership of stables, however, was not confined to horses — it also extended to a mistress in Paris and others “flown in” upon request, a shattering discovery that Lana had made only when, being mistaken for his umpteenth secretary, she had been given a telephone message to give to Herr La Roche that Fraulein Bader was vollig gesund— “perfectly clean.” Perfectly clean, Lana discovered through a private detective whose assurances that she was doing the “correct thing” only made her feel dirty herself, meant that Jay’s one-night stands were carefully screened by one of a bevy of doctors, retained solely by La Roche to insure that whoever he was bedding aboard his Lear jet at twenty thousand feet was free of AIDS and/or associated viruses.
Believing he still loved her, Lana had tried to tough it out, hoping he would settle down. She even performed for him in ways disgusting to her but which he insisted upon. He kept upping the ante during the foreplay, an extended ploy which, though she didn’t realize it at the time, was a vicious psychological game he couldn’t lose. If she refused to debase herself further, he told her he could claim sexual incompatibility, a label he made it clear he was personally unconcerned about but one that he could easily use with his army of lawyers to smear her in every scandal sheet and tabloid he owned, and even in some of those he didn’t. It was a label, a potential smear campaign that, for her family’s sake, Lana dared not risk. The very idea of having such things revealed in public was unthinkable to her, so that suing for divorce was simply not an option.
Not long after Mrs. La Roche had left Shanghai, Lana told him she was leaving. While Mrs. La Roche had been there, her son had reined in his more outrageous sexual habits, such as having everything from young schoolchildren to “perfectly clean” whores flown in from Tokyo and Hong Kong.
For Lana, things deteriorated when Mrs. La Roche returned to the States. Jay seemed bent on a catch-up orgy of sexual indulgence the likes of which she had never even imagined and which, she now understood, was one of the reasons why he favored Shanghai and Hong Kong. The Communist police were in his pocket, and the Beijing government needed his hard foreign currency as much as any of his other customers. So confident was he that no challenge she could make would stand up in court unless she was prepared to debase herself in the witness box as well, that he became increasingly contemptuous of her protestations. Her fear only drove him to further cruelties. He had all the money, all the power. He told her he would sue for libel if she said a word, and ruin her family as well in the process.
The end of the marriage came late one night when he had returned home high on a mixture of cocaine and booze, taking her into the bathroom and insisting she do what she could not do, and the beating began. In the morning, still drunk but knowing he’d gone too far, that if she was seen in public like this, his business might suffer, probing questions asked, he had his best cosmetician brought in — the one who had worked on a lot of film stars in his virtually tax-free Hong Kong studios, where his tax loophole umbrella of production companies churned out films for the Chinese market, all about upstanding Communist heroes of the revolution overcoming corruption. The cosmetician spent six hours on Lana, so that by the time the dark-windowed Mercedes took her to Shanghai Airport, her transit through customs and past a sleepy PLA guard merely a formality guaranteed by Jay’s power, Mrs. Lana La Roche, with sunglasses and high scarf to hide the rope burn, was looking none the worse for wear.
He had said he’d send her enough that she could live well on condition that she keep her mouth shut. She said she didn’t want his money.
“All right,” he’d told her. “Then you won’t get it. But—” and then he’d lifted her chin with his lily-white, perfumed hand “—remember this, Lana. You say a word, one word, I’ll have Mommy and Daddy Admiral in the National Enquirer. I’ll make it look like you left me but I wouldn’t eat your shit.” He dropped her head. “Bon voyage. I love you.”
It was even more disgusting than what he’d made her do. Yet, hateful as he was, she somehow knew that the moment he had said it, he had actually meant it.
She stayed by herself in the Manhattan apartment to give herself enough time for the bruises to disappear but knowing she was going to need a lot more time before she made any contact with her parents, with anyone she knew. Unable to sleep, she went to see a doctor, who prescribed sleeping pills. It was the darkest period of her life, and more than once she had the vial of Seconal in hand, staring at the person in the mirror she no longer recognized. Even so, a faint voice, from where she did not know, always stayed her hand.