Cassandra's Plan

Cassandra Phillips / May 27, 1996, 8:14 p.m.

The bar stank. Why do people drink American beer? Why do people drink beer? I hate places like this. And I wouldn't even be here if David hadn't . . . Oh, fuck him. Fuck him for what he's making me do—for making me what I've become.

And where the bloody hell is Justin? Always late, the little shit. And why on earth did he have me meet him in this tweedy hole? He knows I hate being south of 14th Street. As if there's any chance of David seeing us . . . and what if he did? What he's doing is a lot worse.

Here he is at last. Look at that shy-but-eager-puppy look on his face. There are some people whose faces you'd like to remold out of sheer mercy. He sits down in front of me.

"Gee, Cassandra, it was nice of you to come all the way down here. I just didn't want David to—"

"Yes, yes, I know," I interrupt. "He won't. He never comes down here. Neither do I."

"I really like this place," says Justin. "And do you know, almost right next door is this really neat old tavern? Actually, it's not a tavern anymore, but it used to be. Fraunces' Tavern—not Frances, Fraunces. Samuel Fraunces was a black guy—can you believe it, a black guy owning a tavern in the eighteenth century—and that place hasn't changed much in two centuries. I think maybe the wainscoting is—"

"Justin, I'm not a tourist. I don't care about that goddamn tavern. Nor this one."

His teeth come together with a click. "Oh, I'm sorry . . . we could go somewhere else maybe. I know a place—"

I close my eyes and breathe deeply. Very softly: "I don't want to go anywhere else, Justin. Let's just do it here, okay?"

"Okay." Chastened-but-still-eager-puppy look.

"Do you want to buy me a drink?"

He gets more eager. "Sure! What would you like?"

"Scotch on the rocks."

He calls the waitress over—or tries to. She takes a while recognizing Justin's spasmodically half-raised hand as anything but a mild epileptic fit. Finally she comes by.

"Scotch on the rocks for the lady and . . . um, I guess a tom collins for me."

The waitress goes away without a word.

"You know," Justin says, "it's already pretty hot. Gee, New York just doesn't get any spring. From winter right into summer just like that!" He claps his hands together; he winces a little, as if the impact was more violent than he had expected. "I love tom collinses, only I really should have asked her to put vodka instead of gin in it. That makes it a vodka collins, doesn't it? Maybe I should call her—"

"Justin, shut up."

Teeth click together again.

"Justin, you know that I want you to do something for me."

"Sure, Cassandra. I'd really like to. It's really an honor for me to do something for—"

"Shut up. I want you to do something you may not want to do. But I really need you to do it, Justin. I really do. I don't have anyone else to turn to." It nauseates me, but I try to look earnest and pleading.

"You just name it, Cassandra. I'll do anything . . ."

The waitress comes by with the drinks. I wait until she's gone. No one else is close by, and anyway the tavern is so noisy that conversations two tables away can't be heard.

I reach into my handbag. There is a big, heavy object wrapped in a newspaper. New York Post. I knew it was good for something.

"Take this, Justin."

"What is it?" He takes it from me. "Gee, it's heavy, Cassandra. What is it?" He begins to open it.

"Don't do that."

I whisper it between my teeth, reaching over to stop his hands from unwrapping the parcel.

"What is it?" He takes to whispering himself, so softly that I can barely hear him in the noise of the place.

"It's a gun. I got it at a pawnshop on East 14th Street."

The eager-puppy look finally gives way. He's a scared and confused little puppy now.

"What . . ."

"I want you to kill my husband."

*

Cassandra Phillips / May 27, 1996, 8:23 p.m.

"Gee, Cassandra, are you crazy? Why . . .?" He can't even finish.

"I just want to, Justin. Do I have to tell you every little thing?"

"Cassie"—I hate people who call me Cassie—"I think you might want to tell me this little thing. I just don't get it. Why? And why me?"

I sigh heavily. For once Justin isn't going to do what I tell him just because I say so. I suppose I owe him some sort of explanation.

"Why? Because David is fucking around—and I mean that literally—with that little bitch Lauren, his 'old flame'! And why you? Because you're the only friend I've got who'll do it. Okay? Is that enough?"

He is trying to digest all this, and it seems to be taking him a while, though it seems pretty simple to me. Finally he decides to take one thing at a time.

"How do you know that he's . . . um, I mean, about David and Lauren? You didn't actually see them, did you?"

"I saw them with hands clasped and gazing soulfully at each other at Cafe Europa," I spit back at him. "God knows how long it's been going on. Maybe weeks, months—years, for all I know. I don't think he ever stopped loving her. Christ, he's known her since she was a child. Anyway, Justin, our marriage is over—and it would be over even without this." Suddenly I'm very tired and don't want to talk any more.

"But, but"—he's actually blubbering—"why don't you just leave him? Wouldn't that be better?"

I can't believe I'm hearing this. "Better? Oh, you want me just to walk away from this and let David and Little Miss Bitch waltz into the sunset! No way, Justin. I don't work like that. He's wronged me. I don't take this kind of treatment from anybody. Not from anybody!"

My anger seems to have stunned or intimidated him. I think he's afraid to speak—afraid that I'll chew his head off. I probably would, too.

"But why me? How'm I supposed to . . ."

I realize that a different tack is in order. I talk to him soothingly, softly stroking his hands, which are still clutching the newspaper-wrapped object.

"Justin, you have to do this for me. For me, Justin. I know how you've felt about me, and I've always respected those feelings. We've kept in touch all this time, haven't we? I don't forget my friends and my . . . lovers." I have trouble getting the word out. "And who knows? After this thing is over, maybe we could . . ." I really can't go on. I'm about to retch.

His eyes grow large as if he's discovered the relativity theory before Einstein did. He opens his mouth slowly; a little strand of saliva runs vertically between his lips, and I want to slap the side of his head to dislodge it.

"You mean . . . you mean we could . . ."

"Yes, maybe, who knows?" I'd better turn this in a different direction. "But we can think about that later. Will you do this for me?"

He looks at my hands, still stroking his. I think he's really looking at the newspaper and thinking of what's in it.

"I always like to please you, Cassandra. You know I'll do whatever you want." It doesn't sound as if he's really agreeing to things; his tone suggests a "but" coming up.

"Good; then that's settled," I say before the "but" can come out. "And here's something to help you a little."

I slap a fat envelope on the table between us. He doesn't have to look hard to realize what's in it.

"Just to cover any incidental expenses, okay?" I'm starting to get up.

"Wait . . . I mean, how am I supposed to . . .?"

I sit back down. Keeping my gorge down, I stroke his cheek. "We'll worry about that later. Some opportunity will present itself. We'll stay in touch. I haven't worked anything out, but we'll think of something. Won't we?"

"I guess so." His voice is very small. He looks as if he's going to cry.

I get up again. He grabs my arm almost viciously. "But wait! What if I get caught? What do I say to the police?"

Here's my trump card. "You won't get caught, Justin. That's why we have to think this over. And if you do"—I look him right in the eye—"you tell them that I put you up to it. So if you get caught, we go down together."

He looks at me almost reverently, as if I'm a Giotto Madonna that's walked out of a picture.

"But we won't get caught. Will we, Justin?"

*

Lauren Oxley / May 23, 1996, 5:27 p.m.

"It was nice of you to come, David."

"You know I'm always glad to see you, Lauren."

"Yes. I know." I look away from him a bit.

"I'm sorry I had to ask you to meet me here," he goes on. "You sounded so frazzled, so I didn't want to wait, but I had to meet my agent earlier today, uptown." He doesn't seem to want to look at me either.

Cafe Europa is already pretty full. I look across the street at Carnegie Hall and sigh. This is the closest I'll ever be to that place.

I turn back at him because he's starting to make more small talk. It's not like him to do that. "Are you still at NYU?"

"Yes. Still there." I don't want to get into that discussion again.

He doesn't either, so he says nothing. But then he goes on: "Are you doing okay? Is New York treating you well?"

I've never heard him so trite. "I'm fine," I say a little tiredly. I try to steer the conversation in the direction I want it to go. It's hard, I don't even know if I have the gumption to do it, not with him, anyway . . . But who else can I turn to?

But he's jumped the gun on me. "You know, Lauren, it always struck me as funny that you chose to remain here in the city. I didn't think New York was really the place for you." Then, as if suddenly realizing what he's saying—or rather, what the subtext of what he's saying might be—he adds quickly: "I mean, I love having you around, and I wish we could get together more often, but you know, with Cassandra and all . . ." He looks totally miserable.

I really don't want to go on about this, but I figure I might as well settle this thing before moving on. "David, I did try to get out. Remember? Maybe you don't—I don't think we were much in touch then. Three years ago I went back home for the summer—NYU was really nice about it, they gave me three months off and hired a temp—but it didn't work."

"You went back to your parents?" he said with incredulity. I don't wonder.

"Yes, I went back to my parents. Where else was I going to go?" As his look of amazement—mixed, it seems, with a kind of sympathetic horror—persists, I add: "Oh, that part was okay. They've forgiven us . . . well, maybe not you, but they forgave me. I'm their only child, after all.

"It wasn't that. It was just . . ." I look around the place trying to find some inspiration for the words I want. I don't see anything except men in suits, well-dressed women with Lord & Taylor or Bloomingdale's bags, and efficiently discreet waitresses everywhere. Thank God ours has chosen not to bother us after putting a pot of tea down in front of us. "It just wasn't the same. I couldn't go back—I've changed too much. I changed without even knowing it. It was awful . . . so provincial and—and small-town. You know, I thought that's the way I was." I laugh abruptly. "Well, that's right, at least. It's the way I was."

David has been nodding at intervals. I think he's changed even more than I have.

This has to stop. I don't want to talk about this. I shake my head vigorously, maybe a little frantically, as if there's a bee entangled in my tresses.

"David, I'm in a jam." There. It's out. Part of it.

His intense look turns to a kind of hesitant fear. "Jam? How? Why?"

"Look, it's kind of a long story, okay? Well, maybe not—maybe a very short story. I'm not going to go into details."

I take a deep breath. "You remember a guy at Columbia named Jud Wynn?" I say no more.

David expects me to go on, thinking that it was a rhetorical question, or a question that I myself would answer. I don't. I want him to answer it.

He racks his brains. "Wynn? That scumbag? I haven't thought about him for years. Just as well, too. What could he possibly want with you?"

"He both has something and wants something." David seems to be losing patience, and I don't blame him: this is not coming out very easily.

"All right, look, David, I'll tell you. I did a really stupid thing in college. Beginning of my junior year. After we . . ." I bite my tongue. Don't get into that. Don't. Not now.

"I posed nude for a porno magazine."

There. It's out.

David's expression of expectation mingled with fear is frozen on his face. It's like he didn't hear me, or that I suddenly started speaking in a language he didn't know.

"Wh-what did you say?"

"You heard me, didn't you? I don't need to say it again." I look down at the tea. Neither of us has taken any of it. It's very cold.

"Why . . . did you do that?" he says very quietly.

"Oh, God, David, don't ask me that!" I say it so loudly that, even in the clamor of the place, several heads turn. "I just did. I was stupid. I didn't really know what I was doing. I thought it was a way of . . . rebelling, maybe. Being my own person. Getting away from my parents." How could I forget that horrible summer I spent at home after sophomore year? I wasn't going to say, "Also to get away from you." I don't suppose he would appreciate that.

"Anyway," I go on rapidly, "somehow Jud got the negatives. He's in the porno business now, you know."

"No, I didn't know. How do you know?"

"Because"—I hiss this very softly but very firmly so that no more heads turn—"he called me up and said he had the fucking negatives, that's how! And now he wants me to work in a porno movie or he'll turn the pictures over to my parents!"

I'm starting to shake. I've been leaning forward, almost in David's face, but now I slowly sit back in my chair. I don't look at him.

"Oh, my God." He sounds sick.

"Yeah. It's bad. Real bad." I look up. "David, I can't hurt my parents like that. I've hurt them enough already." Shouldn't I have said "We hurt them enough already"? Let it pass. "You've got to help me."

"How? I mean . . . how?" He's blubbering. "What can I do?"

"Can't you talk to him? Do something to get the negatives back? Just see if you can talk him out of it! Maybe . . ."—I really don't like to say this, but I have to—"maybe give him some money."

He ignores that for now. "Well, what's to stop him from getting a copy of the magazine and showing it to your folks?"

I shake my head. "That was a fly-by-night rag that probably didn't circulate for more than a month or two. I mean, it wasn't Penthouse or anything. You'll never have heard of it. It was sixteen years ago, God knows. But I have to get those negatives away from him."

I hate to play this kind of emotional blackmail, but I have to. I grab both his arms, which have been clutching the edges of the table, and look right into his eyes. "David, please . . . For all the things we've been through over the past twenty-odd years— I must still mean something to you, don't I? You still care for me?"

First he avoids my eyes, then he looks back at me. "Lauren, of course you mean something to me. More than I can say. More than you can even know . . ." He looks away again.

"Then you'll do it?" I hate the eagerness and pleading in my voice.

"Well . . . yes, I mean . . . I'll do what I can. I'm not sure what I can do. What if this guy won't listen? He was already lowlife back in school. Now he must be a real sleazeball."

I fish in my purse. "Just try. It's all I ask." I hand him a slip of paper. "Here's his number. Just call him up and see what you can do." He takes the paper grudgingly, as if it might be poisoned.

"God, David, you don't know how much better I feel. Even though nothing may come of this, at least it good to know I have a friend." I mean all that.

"You're more than a friend, Lauren. You always will be."

He bends forward and gives me a long kiss on the lips. It's the first time in sixteen years that he's kissed me like that. I don't expect it. I can't even say anything.

He gets up hastily, as if he knows he's done something he shouldn't have. "Sweetie, I have to get home. I'll be in touch, okay? I promise."

He throws some money down and leaves.

He hasn't called me "sweetie" in sixteen years, either.