Chapter 26 Truth-Telling
Truth-Telling
Margaret’s day did get worse.
Around nine o’clock that night, just minutes after she finished talking to Walt, who would return the following day, the phone
rang again.
Charlotte was calling, and she was drunk.
The background noise of clinking glasses, music, laughter, and the buzz of conversations punctuated by an occasional shout
was so loud that Margaret had to repeat her question twice, practically yelling into the receiver.
“I said, where are you?”
“Ohhh,” Charlotte said, stretching out the word, then laughing. “I thought you asked how I was. Not where,” she slurred, tongue so thick she sounded like a dental patient whose novocaine injection hadn’t worn off.
“The answer to how I am is, absolutely hammered. Sloshed. Blotto. Three sheets to the howling wind.”
“Yes, I figured that out. But where are you?”
“Well, yeah, that’s kind of the problem. Someplace in the city? But I’m not sure. I can’t find my car or my keys. If I could
just figure out where they are, I’d drive myself home, but—”
“No, no. Don’t do that, Charlotte. Just stay put. I’ll come and get you. Is there a waiter around? Flag somebody down and
let me talk to them.”
After a bit more urging and repetition of instructions, Charlotte handed the phone off to a bartender, who gave Margaret an address in Georgetown and promised to exchange Charlotte’s martini for strong black coffee and keep an eye on her until Margaret arrived.
It took Margaret well over an hour to change out of her pajamas, enlist Beth to babysit, consult a map to figure out where
she was going, and find a parking spot in a decently lit location that wasn’t too far away from the bar. Walt would have thrown
a fit had he known she was traipsing around Georgetown at night by herself.
The bar was crowded, loud, and dimly lit, its walls paneled in dark wood. A piano player was pounding bravely away in a corner,
but no one was listening. Cigarette smoke hung in the air like a summer haze, so thick it made Margaret’s eyes sting. She
blinked and squinted, trying to catch sight of Charlotte. After wading into the scrum of lushes standing three deep at the
bar, a friendly man named Steve, the same bartender she’d talked to on the phone, pointed her in the right direction.
Charlotte was sitting at a corner table in the considerably quieter upper level, slumped in a chair and staring grimly into
a coffee cup. When Margaret sat down, Charlotte lifted her head, looking sad but unsurprised to see her. Clearly, the buzz
was beginning to wear off.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Margaret dismissed the apology with a quick shake of her head. “I’m glad you didn’t try to drive home. You still don’t remember
where you left the car?”
Charlotte screwed her eyes shut for a moment, thinking. “Maybe the Willard?” She pulled a cigarette from a pack lying on the
table.
“The Willard Hotel? Near the White House? How did you end up here?”
“Not sure. Guess I took a taxi? I don’t remember now.”
“What were you doing there in the first place?” Margaret asked. “We talked yesterday, and you didn’t say a thing about coming
to DC.”
Charlotte lowered her eyes, lit the cigarette, took a drag, and blew out the smoke.
“I met up with Lawrence.”
Margaret gasped. “Charlotte, you didn’t. Please tell me you . . .”
“It’s not like that. What do you take me for, Maggie?”
The intensity of Charlotte’s glare and the accusation in her eyes pulled Margaret up short, left her feeling disloyal but
also confused.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have . . . But will you tell me what happened?”
“There’s to be a new exhibition of his work next year, and he had to come down for some meetings at the gallery,” Charlotte
said in a voice as glum as her expression. “He called and said we should meet up for dinner.”
“Dinner? Just the two of you? Didn’t it occur to you that—”
“Of course it did! I’m not stupid, Margaret!”
Charlotte grabbed the coffee cup, took a drink, and made a face before taking another furious puff on her cigarette. This
time Margaret had the feeling her anger was directed inward.
“I said no to dinner but agreed to lunch. Then I suggested I go to the gallery with him afterward so he could introduce me
to the curator. He’s been promising to help pave the way for me for ages. Before the move, when we were still in New York,
he invited me to come to a party in the Village that Clement Greenberg was hosting. He’s a very important critic, and everybody
who’s anybody was supposed to be there. Lawrence said he wanted to introduce me to some people. But then I ended up in the
hospital, and . . .”
Charlotte broke eye contact, paused to pick invisible lint from her sleeve.
“Anyway, that was that. Until today.” She shifted backward in her chair and craned her neck, scanning the room. “Damn, but
I need a drink. Do you see a waitress?”
Margaret pushed the coffee mug toward her. “Have some more of this.”
Charlotte scowled. “It’s cold.”
Margaret fished three ice cubes from a nearby glass of water and plopped them into Charlotte’s mug, one at a time.
“There you go. Iced coffee. Perfect summertime beverage when you’re visiting a city that was built on a swamp. Very à la mode.”
Charlotte’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “You’re an idiot.”
Margaret nodded, conceding the point. “So,” she prompted, “you were meeting Lawrence for lunch. And then?”
“We were supposed to meet at the Occidental, inside the hotel. When I arrived, the ma?tre d’ passed on a message. He told
me Lawrence sent his apologies, but he had to take an unexpected but very important long-distance call from his agent—and
if I wanted him to introduce us on the phone, I could meet him upstairs. Then he handed me a key to Lawrence’s room.”
Charlotte flicked ashes into a black plastic ashtray.
“Of course, when I came through the door, there was no phone call, no agent. Just a bed, a bucket of chilled champagne, and
Lawrence, wearing nothing but a robe.”
“So instead of lunch, he lured you to his hotel room on the pretext of some supposedly important call. And you believed that?”
“Not really. But I wanted to. Stupid. So, so stupid,” Charlotte murmured, closing her eyes. “And it gets worse. For a moment,
I honestly considered staying. I thought, If I just go through with it, give him what he wants, maybe he will help me. But in the end . . . I couldn’t.”
Charlotte swiped a tear from her cheek and opened her eyes once again, then took a breath, composing herself.
“My marriage is a sham, I know. Howard only married me for the money and has been serially unfaithful from day one. Though
I’ve crossed plenty of lines in my life, that’s one rule I’ve never broken. Not sure why,” she said, shrugging. “Stubbornness,
I suppose. Reverting so gloriously to type would give my parents too much satisfaction, would confirm their set-in-stone convictions
about my lack of character.”
Margaret had listened with a simmering irritation as Charlotte described the circumstances of her meeting with Lawrence. But when Charlotte started talking about her faithless husband and coldhearted parents, Margaret felt herself soften.
“Going up to that hotel room was a dumb, dumb move,” she said. “But I’m glad you left. And no matter what Howard has done,
I admire you for sticking by your convictions, and your vows. But Charlotte, there’s something I don’t understand. Why don’t
you just leave Howard and get a divorce? If all the things you’ve said about him are true, there never was a marriage. Not
really. So why not free yourself from all that and go on with your life? If you did, maybe you could find someone else. Even
if you didn’t, at least your life would be your own.”
Charlotte shook her head. “My parents have been very clear. Doesn’t matter what Howard does. In the event of a divorce, they’d
cut me off without a dime.”
“I understand, but . . .” Margaret leaned in. “It’s only money. Compared to your freedom and self-respect, how important can
it—”
“Oh, don’t be such a fool!”
Charlotte was sobering up now, and the look in her eyes was as sharp as her tongue.
“Honestly, Margaret. Idealism is all well and good in books or movies. But here in the real world, money matters. Even if it didn’t, it’s not the only thing they’ve threatened to cut me off from. They’ll take the kids too.”
“What?” For all she’d heard about Charlotte’s parents, Margaret just couldn’t believe they’d actually side with a cheating
husband over their own daughter. “But they wouldn’t do that. They couldn’t!”
Charlotte leaned back, crossed one arm over her waist, and propped her elbow on her clenched fist, cigarette pinched between
her fingers.
“They would. In a heartbeat.”
“Well,” Margaret said, blinking as she collected her thoughts. “Then you have to fight back, tell the judge about Howard’s
affairs. They’re not going to grant custody to a man who’s been cheating on his wife for years.”
Charlotte arched her brows. “But you think they’ll have no problem granting it to a mother who spent time in the nuthouse?
Who sees a psychiatrist twice a week and has a prescription for Miltown?
Oh, stop being so naive,” Charlotte said, waving her cigarette through the air when Margaret began to protest. “Do you know why money matters?
Because it buys power. Power to influence outcomes and break people, power to bend the world to your will.
And who has the money? The power? The control?
“Men. Sure, every now and again, some clever girl manages to outlive her male relatives and get her hands on the inheritance,
but the rest of us?” She shook her head. “We’ve got no choice but to dance to their tune, use our looks and wiles to convince
those bastards to toss a few crumbs our direction. My mother is right. It is a man’s world. And there’s not a thing we can
do about it.”
Charlotte put the cigarette to her lips. She craned her neck to the right, eyes glittering with bitterness as they searched
the room.