Free The Women by T. C. Boyle

that trailed prettily over one shoulder. “No, no,” Leora murmured, her lips pursed and her eyes fixed on her. “You want to make an impression.”
     
    “You like it? You do? Really?” Miriam felt a flood of satisfaction and for a moment forgot the underlying purpose of all this. They were going to lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel, yes, but that was just a diversion from the real meat of the day—the interview with the attorney and just what that meant. “You know, this brooch—and the cameo, see the cameo? It’s meant to be the Three Graces, Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia—isn’t that darling? Brilliance, Joy and Bloom. This was all my mother’s and her mother’s before her. My jewelry”—she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and saw a tall regal woman staring back at her, the sort of woman who could fend for herself, fetch attorneys, fight Frank Wright till he was sorry he’d ever been born—“is my one real hedge against the worst. If I have to go begging, at least I’ve got something to fall back on.”
     
    “And the ring? Is that the Cleopatra ring?”
     
    “So legend has it. I don’t know the whole story, nobody does, I suppose, but it had been in my husband’s family—his grandfather had it from a jeweler who’d dealt in all sorts of antiquities, especially Egyptian. It’s supposed to be a scarab, you see? They say Cleopatra wore it as a talisman to keep her lovers faithful.” She laughed. “As if anything could control a man when the urge comes over him. But did you know I almost sold it in Paris when the war broke out? There was a man from the museum there, very charming, very persuasive, but I just couldn’t part with it. And I’m so glad. It’s my most important piece.” A smile now, rueful, a delicate delicious infusion of the lips with blood—and she could see Leora was skeptical, or maybe jealous, maybe that was it. Jealous, but doing her best to hide it. “It’s my ring of vengeance, darling. And don’t you think Frank doesn’t know it.”
     
    As it turned out, William Siddons Barker III was very happy to see her, though he sympathized with what she was going through, of course, and it was a shame, a real shame (she broke down in his office, she couldn’t help herself, even with Leora at her side), and he assured her that he would do everything he could for her. He was true to his word. Through his Chicago associate, Frederick S. Fake, 17 he was able to get Frank to drop the suit by threatening to counter-sue on the grounds of physical cruelty—yes, and how would that look in the papers, WORLD FAMOUS ARCHITECT BEATS WIFE—and they moved on from there, very slowly, step by faltering step, toward the inevitable.
     
    It hurt her. Every day it hurt. Who was he to throw her over? She was the prize here, not he. And she wrote him to that effect, letter after letter, alternately damning him and reminding him of the passion they once shared, a passion that towered above the petty loves and conventions of the masses—nine years his mistress 18 and never a complaint out of her, or barely, barely a whisper—and she called long distance whenever the rage boiled up in her, just to hear the iron in his voice and listen to his pathetic rationalizations, to berate him and scream and sob and curse over the wire till all the operators’ ears from Los Angeles to Spring Green must have sizzled like fat in a pan.
     
    He was adamant—there could be no reconciliation. There was no question of it. On that he wouldn’t give an inch. Still—and this puzzled her—he went out of his way to be reasonable when it ultimately came down to reaching a compromise. More than reasonable: generous. Him, of all people. Frank, who considered an invoice a kind of memorial only and who wouldn’t pay up even if he had the money right in his pocket and the sheriff was at the door. And when they did finally agree some four months later on a divorce settlement—$10,000 in cash, $250 a month