Will’s visit with Edwina Phillips left him with melancholy. Such sadness and waste in the wake of unbending male righteousness. Doug Bartlett’s family made any unbalance in his own seem trivial. He was predisposed to being agreeable toward Doug, so when Emmy’s cousin called him that evening, he immediately committed to spending the following afternoon at the River View Country Club. It was the last place he would have expected to find himself.
     The street door buzzer interrupted Will in the middle of emptying the dish drainer. He had wanted to tidy up before Doug arrived, but only managed to get his dishes washed. He had been wrestling with the Eugene article, trying to remember why it was important to dredge up the protest movement, trying to forget that he if he hadn’t gone to Eugene for research when he did, everything he was doing now would be different. Let the apartment go to hell and who was he trying to impress with his housekeeping, anyway.
     Will buzzed Doug into the building and opened his door. He went back into the kitchen to finish up. When he heard Doug’s tread, he called. “Come on in, Doug. I’ll be right with you.”
     Doug stood in front of Will’s bookcases, reading spines.
     “Enjoying my library?” Will asked.
     “You have quite a collection. You obviously read a great deal.” There was some admiration in Doug’s voice. “I’ve never been much of a reader. I have my interest areas, as you know, but fiction, poetry and all these subjects–A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. Never heard of him.”
     “I don’t imagine it’s the sort of history that would interest you.” Will couldn’t help himself. “Please have a seat, Doug. Make yourself at home.” Will gestured toward the couch. “Can I get you anything? Water, tea?”
     Doug sat in one of the straight back wooden chairs that faced the windows, though the curtains were drawn to keep out the sun. He rested his finely manicured hands on his knees. “I’ll have a glass of water. I walked over. I know it’s just a few blocks, but in this heat…”
     “I know what you mean. This apartment isn’t exactly air-conditioned, either.” Will drew water for both of them from the tap and returned to sit on the couch.
     Doug was taking in the paintings and photographs on Will’s living room walls. “I don’t know these artists,” he said.
     “Probably because no one does.” Will smiled. “They are gifts from friends, students, except the photos. They’re mostly mine.”
     “They’re very good. The photos and the paintings.”
     Will shrugged. “They please me. That’s all that matters to me. I don’t collect paintings, I enjoy them.”
     “As it should be,” Doug agreed. “Shall we go? I’ve reserved time with a really fine masseuse at the club. Afterward, I thought we might have drinks and dinner.”
     “Look Doug, I can’t possibly afford this and I feel…I don’t want to be obligated.”
     “Nonsense. I’ve got way too much money. Don’t you believe in the redistribution of wealth? Let me redistribute some your way.” Doug stood up.
     Will swallowed his discomfort. Doug seemed so eager to spend time with him. Is he buying my friendship? Doesn’t he have plenty of friends? No one who knew Emmy, though.
     On the way out Doug stopped in front of a black and white photograph of the Bartlett House that hung near the door. Emmy was standing in front of the gates in her 40s era coat and black beret looking solemn and mysterious. Doug’s face shifted. For a moment, he seemed to Will to be disoriented. “Who’s that in front of the house.” His voice was constricted, a hoarse whisper.
     “It’s Emmy. I took the photo this spring. Early April.” Will touched Doug’s arm. “Are you okay?”
     Doug closed his eyes. There were beads of sweat on his forehead. He passed a hand over his eyes. “Yes,” he said, his voice recovered. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
     The masseuse was everything that Doug had promised, and more. Will drifted in a haze of well being listening to the Japanese bamboo and rock fountain that bubbled and sang in the center of a circle of massage cubicles separated by sliding paper walls. The cubicles radiated out from the center fountain, which could only be partially glimpsed through bamboo artfully placed to assure privacy. Will’s masseuse informed him that it was open to the sky in summer and covered with skylights in winter. It was ingenious in its simplicity and beauty.
     Later, as Doug and Will sat on the River View Club’s verandah, their drink glasses sweating on the table between them, Will considered how it was that a blue-collar boy from Providence, Rhode Island, ends up in companionable silence with the lone remaining scion of a provincial timber baron in Portland, Oregon. Every city, Will thought, is layered and where the layers meet a mixing occurs. The country club set hasn’t disappeared–it still exists. There’s Doug, living proof. The individual members of this set weave into the top of the next layer–public appearances at fashionable bars in the better hotels, at the theater, box seats at the ballpark and Rose Garden. In the airport, on their way to first class, they breathe the same air, their shoes trod the same soundless carpets until the curtain that protects them from seeing, and being seen, is drawn. They move, generally, from island to island certain of their rightful place in the sun, if they choose, in the shade, if they wish–never by force–always by choice. Wealth purchases many kinds of freedom–not the least of which is the freedom to live in a world of your own design. But humans, being imperfect, create flawed designs and even isolation from the mass of people cannot separate anyone from human attributes. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, family, or lack of it defines the person. Those frail relationships, the agony of the ego, always some misery on every plate. Will was feeling some satisfaction with the line of his thought and wondered if he could excuse himself long enough to record the gist of it. But the pocket notepad he usually carried was at home on the kitchen counter. Perhaps he could borrow…
     “Doug, I thought that was you.”
     A male voice, vaguely familiar, behind Will. He turned and recognized Connie Crage striding toward them, wearing khaki pants and a polo shirt. Will guessed that Crage had been golfing, was probably a member of this club.
     Will was not surprised at having recognized Connie immediately. He’d seen a lot of that face lately. In photos in Doug’s office, in the news clippings Emmy had saved. Even without those recent reminders, Will was sure he would have known Connie from the city council meeting. The face was familiar, the voice unforgettable. Will remembered how it had projected through the council chambers leaving no one with any doubt about Connie’s opinion or the threat he made to Emmy.
     “Come join us, Connie.” Doug rose from his chair and shook hands with his friend. He turned to introduce Will. “Do you know Will Adelhardt? Will this is my old friend Connie Crage.”
     Will stood up, self-consciously. Not certain if that was the right thing for him to do–cursed himself for caring whether or not it was the right thing.
     Connie’s handshake was vigorous, but not crushing in spite of the man’s obvious strength. He was muscled, not obscenely, but compactly. More LaLane than Schwarzenegger.
     “Pleased to meet you,” Will managed and sat down stiffly. He felt the tops of his ears turning red and was glad he hadn’t bothered to get his hair cut in the last few weeks. Emmy, he remembered, was the last person to cut his hair. His eyes narrowed and he forgot for a moment where he was and who he was with and whether or not he should be embarrassed for not knowing the social protocol.
     “Ah. I thought you looked familiar. Sorry to hear about your young friend,” Connie pulled a chair up to the table and sat next to Will. “You teach high school, am I right?”
     Will didn’t immediately realize that Connie was talking to him. He heard Doug answer.
     “No, Will is a professor at PSU.”
     “Fascinating. Say, I didn’t see you out on the course. Did you have a round?”
     “I don’t golf,” Will said too quickly.
     “Not for everybody,” Connie said. He waved a hand at a waiter who nodded and went immediately into the bar. Connie turned to Doug. “I’ve got a new set of designs from that firm in San Francisco you recommended. You should drop by the office and take a look, Doug.”
      “Pfeiffer and Houston? Good people. I’ll come by next week.”
     “What’s wrong with tomorrow? I’d like to get this thing moving. With the shape that building is in, I don’t think anyone is going to be blocking the project now.” A martini appeared in front of Connie.
     Will watched the waiter move away to take his post beside the open door. Watchful, without hovering. It occurred to Will that Connie was talking about the Bartlett House and the high-rise development Urban Visions was planning for the site.
     “Why don’t I call you tomorrow, Connie. We’ll discuss it then. Right now, I would prefer to entertain my friend here. Say, why don’t you join us for dinner?” Doug asked.
     Connie looked at Will, a question in his eyes. “If you’re certain that I won’t be intruding.”
     “Really,” Will shrugged. “I’m perfectly fine. I don’t fall apart in public anymore.” Everything is lining up for this guy, Will thought. He can move ahead and build whatever he wants to build. Is that motive? The muscles in Will’s back tensed, he shifted in his chair. Will concentrated on the martini glass cradled in Crage’s fingers, very dry, no olive.
     “Well, glad to hear it. I think I’d enjoy some good intelligent conversation over a fine meal.”
     The conversation over salmon en croute and baby vegetables, began with wine vintages, a subject Will actually knew something about. Will knew that he had had plenty of wine to drink when he interrupted Connie praising a certain Gewurtzstremener by commenting that he didn’t think Germans could make a good wine.
     “Do you have something against Germans?” Connie asked.
     “Not at all. My grandfather was old country. I lived in Germany for five years. But I still say they can’t make wine,” Will defended.
     “I was in Germany for a while. After I got out of the military I drifted a bit. Spent some time in Berlin and the Netherlands. Doug’s been there too. Haven’t you, old buddy?”
     “True, but I’m with Will. Give me French or Italian, but leave the German wines off my table.”
     Suddenly, Will felt warm and comradely. Perhaps it is the wine, he thought. No doubt, it is the wine. Be careful, he cautioned himself. Don’t let them beguile you. Today they are your friends, but they are not you, they don’t know anything about you. They don’t have a glimmer of an idea what it is like for most of us. Will began to feel sober, and headachy. He wanted the evening to be over. And from the back of his mind a memory emerged, hadn’t Doug said he’d never been to Europe?