18. Patty
“I’ve never been a fan of this song,” Patty said with a laugh, looking up at Lyle as he offered her a glass of Prosecco. “It’s just so…” She searched for the word to describe her feelings about “Abracadabra,” but as she was thinking, Burt Ingram stepped up to them and clinked his glass against Patty’s without warning.
“Cheers, Pat,” he said, winking at her. Patty was not a fan of Burt’s, and while he was one of the partners at her firm, he was also one of her least favorite people.
“Patty,” she corrected him, pulling her Prosecco closer to her body as if he might have tainted it by touching his glass to hers.
“Hey, Ingram,” Lyle said, shooting Burt a warning look. “Had a few drinks, have you?”
Burt shook his hips in a ridiculous approximation of a much younger man on a dance floor. He shot Patty a look that was most likely meant to be a come-hither glance, but instead just looked lame and desperate.
“Just a few,” Burt said, chugging his beer from the tall glass in his hand. His cheeks and ears were bright red from the sun, and his wife stood about twenty yards away, watching this whole exchange with a distasteful frown. “But I’m getting warmed up. You staying here for the weekend, Pat?” he asked her, lifting his chin in Patty’s direction as he bit his lip. Patty shuddered.
“I am,” she said, sipping her Prosecco and looking around to see if perhaps Mrs. Ingram might be making her way over to collect her semi-drunk husband.
“Who is staying with your kid?” Burt asked crassly.
Patty could feel the hair on the back of her neck and on both arms stand up. She bristled at the implication that she was a mother before she was a lawyer enjoying a weekend with her firm at a vineyard just like everyone else. Of course she was a mother first and foremost; no part of her would have denied that, but it annoyed her to no end when someone insinuated that she needed to find a babysitter in order to do her job the way a man in an equal position would have. The fact that her daughter was fourteen and not four never entered into the discussion—it was always the suggestion that she was leaving her child alone and fleeing that responsibility that bothered her. Did men get asked this same question? Who was staying with Burt’s kids?
“My parents have flown down from Seattle to spend a week or two with us, and Ruby is thrilled to have them here. They’re taking her to Disneyland this weekend.”
“So you’re single and ready to mingle?” Burt took a step in her direction and popped a hip like he might bump her with it.
Patty groaned.
“We were actually about to head out on a mini-tour of the vineyard,” Lyle said, offering Patty his elbow, which she took gratefully. “Catch up with you at dinner, Burt?” He said it as a question, but Patty could tell that it was not. She let Lyle lead her away from Burt before she breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thank god,” Patty said, letting go of Lyle’s arm. He was a full-fledged partner at the firm, but Lyle Westover had grown to be one of her closest friends—both at work, and in life. It was hard to explain and Patty was loathe to do so; any time someone jokingly called Lyle her “work husband” or suggested anything that even smacked of impropriety Patty shut them down firmly. But for her, she did not need to define her dedication to Lyle, nor did she need him to define how he felt about her.
“Let’s check out the grapes,” Lyle said casually, leading the way as he held his wine glass in hand, sipping the rich burgundy liquid as they meandered. “We don’t need to ask for a tour if you don’t want to.”
“It’s actually quite interesting,” Patty said mildly. “I’d love to listen to someone explain how they turn grapes on the vine into something as heavenly as Prosecco.”
Lyle flagged down the man who had offered to give them a tour earlier and they asked him a few questions, listening as he described the growing process, the way they harvested the grapes, and the methods they used to bottle some of the most delicious wines Patty had ever tasted.
At the end of their half hour chat with the vintner, Patty pulled a camera from her purse. “Would you mind taking a picture of us?” she asked the man.
He smiled at them, wiped his hands on the front of his denim overalls, and took the camera. “I’d be happy to,” he said, snapping a few photos of Patty as she smiled up at Lyle. In turn, he looked at her and made jokes. Their laughter came easy with one another, as did their camaraderie.
Patty took the camera back from the vintner and slipped it into her purse again. “Thank you. And thank you for your time—this was fun to learn about.”
Patty and Lyle wandered on, discussing a case they were both working on (“We’ll bill them by the hour for talking about their case on our weekend away,” he said), and chatting about their children amiably. Zoey and Theodore were both young at that point—six and eight, respectively—and Patty always had stories to tell about what life was like with a daughter who was just starting high school.
“I’m sure I’ll have a million questions for you when the kids get to be that age,” Lyle said, taking the last swallow of his wine and holding his empty glass up in the golden evening sunlight. “You’ll have conquered the teenage years by then.”
“Mmm,” Patty said, smiling noncommittally. Lyle’s wife, Susan, was at home that weekend with Zoey and Theodore, and while Patty had met her several times, the two women weren’t terribly close. There was something untrusting about Susan that always put Patty on the defensive, though Patty knew she posed no threat whatsoever to Susan’s marriage, and she believed in her heart that deep down, Susan knew this too.
In fact, Patty and Lyle had gotten as close as they were by sharing some of their deepest secrets—the kinds of things that only good friends can share. It had started one evening as she took a client out for drinks at the Bel Age Hotel and had run into Lyle there. He was sitting in a dark corner of the bar at a velvet banquette booth, one arm around a much younger man. They were sharing a bottle of champagne, and Lyle’s tie was loosened and hanging around his neck. His full mustache twitched in recognition as he and Patty made eye contact. Lyle had tipped his head and indicated that they should meet out in the hallway.
Standing next to the bank of pay phones that night, Patty listened with mild curiosity as Lyle explained his situation: married to Susan, college sweetheart. Years of infertility followed in quick succession by two children they adored. He’d always known he’d liked men, but it was unacceptable when he came of age—his parents would have disowned him. No college money, no family, no idea what to do. He knew it was wrong to go behind Susan’s back, but they had long ago stopped being intimate, and to his knowledge, all she cared about at that point was a comfortable home, money to fund the kids’ sports and ski trips, and a solid future. She had her hobbies, he had his.
Patty had nodded and listened, as any good lawyer knew how to do. There was no point in arguing or cross-examining; Lyle wasn’t her husband, after all, and he was being completely up front with her. At one point, his eyes filled with tears and he begged Patty to forgive him. She knew as she set a calm hand on his shoulder that it was not she he was begging for forgiveness, but everyone in his life: his parents, his children, his wife, his friends, his coworkers.
And because Patty had a heart for such things (after all, her own sister had been wildly in love with her best friend Ellen at one point years before), she whispered the words Lyle wanted to hear: “It’s okay, Lyle. It’s alright to be who you are. No one needs to forgive you for that.” What she couldn’t speak to was his duplicity towards his wife and children, but that was not her business. From that point forward, what was her business was being Lyle’s friend. No person in Patty’s life would go unloved because of such a silly and arbitrary thing as who they loved. No way.
They parted ways that night after Lyle walked back into the bar to find his date gone. Patty had paid the tab for the clients she’d brought to the Bel Age and gone home to Ruby.
At that point in her life, she’d already given birth to Trixie and lost that beautiful baby, watched her beloved husband die of a heart attack right before her eyes, realized she was alone in the world to raise her young daughter, and pulled herself together enough to put her law degree to use. She’d been through a lot, and Lyle’s secret truly did not faze her. She offered him her unconditional friendship and support, and he, in turn, became something of a protector at work. Whereas before Patty had been given some of the toughest cases and tasked with some of the worst grunt work—all appropriate for someone as low on the totem pole as she was—Lyle began requesting her to join him on more high-profile cases, taking her along for meals that were expensed and allowing her to work on her cases at home at night while Ruby slept. Gone were the nearly all-nighters in the office, relying on the fax machine there to spit out documents from all over the world at all hours. Lyle insisted that the firm install a fax and a computer in Patty’s home office, which had changed everything for her in terms of being able to work at home in her robe and slippers at midnight, versus sitting around a conference room in the wee hours with the other junior members of the firm.
But befriending Lyle hadn’t been something Patty had done to gain fringe benefits; she actually quite liked the man. His sense of humor was droll, and his delivery of punchlines dry and direct. He’d been raised by British parents who’d relocated to Los Angeles, and that heritage showed in nearly everything he did. Truth be told, Patty adored him.
“Care to do the starlight wine tasting tonight?” Lyle asked her as they wandered through the rows of grapes together. Patty was strolling along behind him, admiring the way the long, golden fingers of sunlight reached between the grapevines and brushed Lyle”s shoulders.
”That sounds nice,” Patty said, holding her empty Prosecco glass in one hand. She and Lyle frequently sat together at meetings, attended the same functions, and essentially acted like the work-friends that they were. It never bothered her that there was water cooler gossip about the nature of their relationship, nor did she pay any mind to the sly comments she overheard the men make to Lyle. It just wasn”t worth her time. But Susan”s feelings were worth her consideration, and Patty wanted to discuss that with Lyle.
”Hey, Ly?” Patty said, taking a few long strides to catch up with him. ”Can we talk?”
Lyle stopped walking and turned, sensing the seriousness in Patty”s voice. ”What”s up?”
”It”s about Susan,” she said, toeing the dirt beneath her flat shoe. ”I know you don”t like to discuss your marriage,” Patty held up a hand to fend off his words, ”but I think it”s time we talk about her. Last time you brought her to an event I sensed that she was a little frosty towards me, and I”m not keen on your wife thinking that there”s something going on here.” Patty waved a hand back and forth between them.
”She doesn”t think that,” Lyle assured her. He reached out and put one hand on Patty”s narrow shoulder, holding it firmly. ”She knows it”s not you.”
But Patty was unconvinced. ”How do you know? How are you so sure that she isn”t sitting at home right now with Zoey and Theo, thinking that her husband is away on a work trip and sharing a room with me? I can”t stand that, Lyle. It”s not my business how you conduct your marriage, and I don”t even ask a lot of questions, but I don”t want to be a part of hurting some sweet woman who doesn”t know what”s going on.”
”Patty,” Lyle said, giving her shoulder a firm shake. ”She does know what”s going on.”
Patty had been about to say more, but Lyle”s tone stopped her. ”She does? You told her?”
Lyle tilted his head to one side. ”Well, in a manner of speaking.”
At this phrase, Patty”s eyebrows shot up. ”In a manner of speaking?”
Lyle let out a long breath and pulled his hand from her shoulder, running it through his own hair instead. ”She found a letter.”
“A letter?”
“From Abel.”
“From Abel?” Patty clamped her mouth shut; all she was doing was parroting back whatever Lyle said, and what she really wanted was the full story.
Lyle exhaled again. “She was going through my briefcase and hoping to find a copy of the will we’d done recently so that she could put it in the safe in our bedroom. We’d previously had my sister in place as the guardian for Zoey and Theo in the event that anything happened to us, but then my sister went to rehab, and we realized we should probably revise that, and name a new executor while we were at it. Anyhow, she was searching for that, and found a letter from Abel that he wrote after our weekend away together.”
Patty put one hand to her forehead. She’d been nothing but supportive thus far, and she’d even talked practical things with Lyle because she really did care about Susan. She’d urged him to use condoms with his dates, not because he and Susan were still intimate, according to Lyle, but because she wanted him to stay alive—for all of them. She begged him not to meet strange men in unsafe places. Pled with him to remember that no matter who he met up with, he should think of his kids and remember their feelings as he pursued the lifestyle he felt he was truly meant to live. She’d been the very best friend she could be, but this felt like too much.
“Why did you keep a letter from a man who told you that he’d never be seen with you in public?” she nearly wailed, throwing the hand not holding her Prosecco glass into the air in frustration. “You should have thrown that away!”
Lyle looked wounded. “It was a poem,” he said, looking crestfallen. “It was a beautiful poem. No one has ever written anything like that for me.”
Patty felt the wind leave her sails. “Lyle,” she said softly. “Abel took you to a bed and breakfast in a city three hundred miles away because he said he never wanted anyone he worked with to see him with you.”
“It’s because he doesn’t want to be outed like that.”
“No, it’s not,” Patty said, taking a step toward him and looking up into Lyle’s eyes pleadingly. She really and truly wanted him to understand that she loved him and was on his side, but she couldn’t let him live in a fantasyland. “He’d been in a long-term relationship with a man.” They both knew this: Abel, a history professor, had been dating another professor from the math department at USC. “He just didn’t want to be with you.”
At this, Lyle turned and walked away, taking long strides through the grapevines. He cut through them and vanished from Patty’s view.
Patty exhaled. Lyle had been found out by his wife, but she still didn’t know where that put his marriage. Obviously Susan no longer assumed he was seeing Patty, but his wife was still a woman with feelings, and now Patty worried about her even more.
Lyle stayed in his room at the vineyard’s hotel that night, not coming out for the starlight wine tasting after all. The next day when he and Patty finally saw one another again at breakfast, he sat down across from her on the outdoor patio, sunglasses firmly in place.
“I admitted it all to her when she found the letter, Patty,” he said, pouring himself a cup of coffee from a carafe. “She said she knew something was wrong, but she just assumed I was having an affair with a woman.”
“And?” Patty prompted gently.
“I told her I’d been in love with men for as long as I could remember, and that, yes, I did and do still love her, but only as the mother of my children.” Lyle paused and poured a ribbon of cream into his coffee cup, stirring it with a silver spoon. “And I told her that the only person in my life who knew about it was you, and that you’d encouraged me over and over to be safe, and to come clean to her about it all. She appreciated that.”
Burt Ingram stopped at their table, clad in linen slacks and sunglasses, his wife close behind him. “Morning,” Burt said curtly, looking as though he might say more. “I hope you two have had a great weekend.”
“Fabulous,” Patty said for them both, smiling up at Burt insincerely. “Really nice weekend, Burt.”
The Ingrams move on then, and Patty watched them as they stopped at the table of another partner and his wife, chatting amiably and pointing out at the vineyard.
“So what now?” Patty asked, lowering her voice and placing both elbows on the table as she leaned towards Lyle. “Is she divorcing you?”
Lyle scoffed. “No. She is definitely not divorcing me, Patty.”
Patty leaned back in surprise. “She’s not?” She would have instantly left any man who admitted to her that he preferred the company of men. Or at least she thought she would have.
“No. Susan is perfectly happy with the lifestyle that I provide her. She loves that Zoey and Theo have two parents, and, maybe most importantly, Patty—we’re friends. We get each other. We’ve been together since college. No one knows me better than Susan.”
Patty bit her lip; until Susan found that letter in Lyle’s briefcase, Patty had known Lyle better than Susan had. But it wasn’t worth mentioning at that point.
“I’m happy for you,” Patty said carefully. She reached for the carafe of coffee and topped off her own cup as she glanced at the way Burt Ingram’s wife’s diamond tennis bracelet glinted in the sun two tables away. And really, what did she know anyway? Maybe she should just be happy for them. Ruben had died and left her a single mother after only thirteen years of marriage. Who could say what might have happened between them if they’d had decades together as husband and wife? What compromises and understandings might they have had to come to in order to survive, in order to weather the storm together?
“Thank you,” Lyle said, watching her. “And thank you for being my friend, Patty. Through all of this. Not many people would stand by someone’s side and be as nonjudgmental as you have. I appreciate it more than you will ever know.”
“So…are you able to just date who you want now?” Patty frowned.
“Oh, god no. Susan’s only request is my continued discretion. No one at the firm. No one in our circle, and, preferably, only people I meet outside of L.A.”
Patty nodded and looked around pensively as she sipped her coffee. Arrangements. Agreements. Accommodations. She nodded again. She’d supported Lyle and loved her friendship with him thus far, and she would continue to do so—on one condition.
“I want to have lunch with Susan,” Patty said.
Lyle’s face blanched. “Why?”
“Not to talk about anything that would upset you,” Patty promised him. “I just want to make sure she’s got someone to talk to. Because look, Lyle, you have me to talk to, but she has no one. She isn’t going to call up her mother and chat about you being gay. She’s not having a cocktail with her gardening club and discussing that you prefer the company of men, or mentioning that you have sex with other guys the next time she’s at dinner with her sister. She needs someone who sees her. And I want to be that person. That’s all I’m asking.”
Lyle considered this thoughtfully as he sipped his coffee. When he finally set his cup down on its saucer, he gave a single nod. “Consider it done. Or at least consider it offered, because I will tell her you’d like to have lunch.” Lyle stayed quiet for a long moment. “You know, Patty, there’s truly no one like you. I’ve never met another woman who would befriend someone in my shoes, much less insist on befriending his long-suffering wife as well, just so that she won’t feel alone. You’re something else.”
Patty sipped her coffee again and smacked her lips loudly as she took this in. “I am something else, Lyle,” she agreed. “But what that something is is somewhat undefined.”
He cracked a smile then and they both laughed.
“Oh, Patty,” he said, shaking his head. “My dear Patty.”