Rage of Angels
They went to The Half Note to hear avant-garde jazz in the Village, and peeked into the windows of the small art galleries.
Adam loved sports. He took Jennifer to watch the Knicks play, and Jennifer got so caught up in the game she cheered until she was hoarse.
On Sunday they lazed around, having breakfast in their robes, trading sections of the Times, listening to the church bells ring across Manhattan, each offering up its own prayer.
Jennifer looked over at Adam absorbed in the crossword puzzle and thought: Say a prayer for me. She knew that what she was doing was wrong. She knew that it could not last. And yet, she had never known such happiness, such euphoria. Lovers lived in a special world, where every sense was heightened, and the joy Jennifer felt now with Adam was worth any price she would have to pay later. And she knew she was going to have to pay.
Time took on a different dimension. Before, Jennifer’s life had been measured out in hours and meetings with clients. Now her time was counted by the minutes she could spend with Adam. She thought about him when she was with him, and she thought about him when she was away from him.
Jennifer had read of men having heart attacks in the arms of their mistresses, and so she put the number of Adam’s personal physician in her private telephone book by her bedside so that if anything ever happened it could be handled discreetly and Adam would not be embarrassed.
Jennifer was filled with emotions that she had not known existed in her. She had never thought of herself as being domestic, but she wanted to do everything for Adam. She wanted to cook for him, to clean for him, to lay out his clothes in the morning. To take care of him.
Adam kept a set of clothes at the apartment, and he would spend most nights with Jennifer. She would lie next to him, watching him fall asleep, and she would try to stay awake as long as possible, terrified of losing a moment of their precious time together. Finally, when Jennifer could keep her eyes open no longer, she would snuggle in Adam’s arms and fall asleep, contented and safe. The insomnia that had plagued Jennifer for so long had vanished. Whatever night devils had tormented her had disappeared. When she curled up in Adam’s arms, she was instantly at peace.
She enjoyed walking around the apartment in Adam’s shirts, and at night she would wear his pajama top. If she was still in ed in the morning when he left, Jennifer would roll over to his side of the bed. She loved the warm smell of him.
It seemed that all the popular love songs she heard had been written for Adam and her, and Jennifer thought, Noel Coward was right. It’s amazing how potent cheap music can be.
In the beginning, Jennifer had thought that the overwhelming physical feeling they had for each other would diminish in time, but instead it grew stronger.
She told Adam things about herself that she had never told another human being. With Adam, there were no masks. She was Jennifer Parker, stripped naked, and still he loved her. It was a miracle. And they shared another miracle together: laughter.
Impossibly, she loved Adam more each day. She wished that what they had would never end. But she knew it would. For the first time in her life, she became superstitious. There was a special blend of Kenya coffee that Adam liked. Jennifer bought some every few days.
But she bought only one small can at a time.
One of Jennifer’s terrors was that something would happen to Adam when he was away from her and that she would not know it until she read about it, or heard about it on a news program. She never told Adam of her fears.
Whenever Adam was going to be late he would leave notes for Jennifer around the apartment where she would come upon them unexpectedly. She would find them in the breadbox or in the refrigerator, or in her shoe; they delighted her, and she saved each one.
Their last remaining days together raced by in a blur of joyous activity. Finally, it was the night before Mary Beth was to return. Jennifer and Adam had dinner in the apartment, listened to music and made love. Jennifer lay awake all night, holding Adam in her arms. Her thoughts were of the happiness they had shared.
The pain would come later.
At breakfast, Adam said, “Whatever happens, I want you to know this—you’re the only woman I’ve ever truly loved.”
The pain came then.
15
The anodyne was work, and Jennifer immersed herself in it totally so that she had no time to think.
She had become the darling of the press, and her courtroom successes were highly publicized. More clients came to her than she could handle, and while Jennifer’s chief interest was in criminal law, at Ken’s urging she began to accept a variety of other cases.
Ken Bailey had become more important than ever to Jennifer. He handled the investigations on her cases, and he was brilliant. She was able to discuss other problems with him and she valued his advice.
Jennifer and Ken moved again, this time into a large suite of offices on Park Avenue. Jennifer hired two bright young attorneys, Dan Martin and Ted Harris, both from Robert Di Silva’s staff, and two more secretaries.
Dan Martin was a former football player from Northwestern University and he had the appearance of an athlete and the mind of a scholar.
Ted Harris was a slight, diffident young man who wore thick milk-bottle spectacles and was a genius.
Martin and Harris took care of the legwork and Jennifer handled the appearances at trials.
The sign on the door read: JENNIFER PARKER & ASSOCIATES.
The cases that came into the office ranged from defending a large industrial corporation on a pollution charge to representing a drunk who had suffered whiplash when he was bounced from a tavern. The drunk, of course, was a gift from Father Ryan.
“He has a bit of a problem,” Father Ryan told Jennifer. “He’s really a decent family man, but the poor fellow has such pressures that he sometimes takes a drop too much.”