[35]

Victoria, 1989

Rowan wanted to sit in his Adirondack chair on the Core Sound and read. He wanted to take his yacht, the Rebecca, out on the water and watch the seagulls and the pelicans swoop overhead. He wanted to drive his Alfa to Manteo Island and eat lunch on the waterfront. He wanted to make love to his beautiful blond Patty-Cake wife. He wanted to extricate himself from the anti-tobacco furor that grew daily so that he could do all the things he wanted to do.

Instead, he spent four months in 1989 meeting with attorneys from Atkins and Thames, testifying on the effects of QR66, “telling the truth.” He was tired of being a tobacco chemist, tired of telling the truth, tired of telling anything, for that matter. If it will end sooner, let me lie. Just let it be over. He didn’t know he was a scapegoat.

In November he flew to Chicago. He was exhausted and feeling old. Back in North Carolina, Patty flew to Puerto Vallarta by way of Raleigh and Dallas. She said, “Just for the week. We’ll both get home at the same time. Then we can have missed-you sex. I will miss you.” She smiled. “It’ll be over soon. Don’t worry.”

“You could come with me.”

She weighed the options. “Puerto Vallarta or Chicago? Sorry, pal.” She kissed him on the cheek. “You’ll do great. When all this is over, we’ll spend a month in Mexico.”

She was his rock.

In Chicago, he met with Atkins and Thames’s attorney, Victoria Petersen. He smacked his forehead on the table. They sat in a large conference room. “Why am I here? I can’t take this anymore.”

She said, “There are multiple lawsuits. I was under the impression that everything had been clearly explained to you.” She was a twenty-something up-and-comer. She wore glasses, her hair in a tightly wound bun, an oversized jacket. She’d look better in something fitted, he thought. Her figure wasn’t bad.

He finished testifying in two days. Patty wouldn’t be home for five.

Could he still entice a twenty-something woman to bed?

He booked a suite at the Knickerbocker and plied Victoria the attorney with chocolate and champagne. He slid off her flats. She explained, “I don’t wear heels. They make my corns ache. I’ve got this thing.” He plied himself with champagne. He massaged her feet, her back, her inner thigh.

They had sex in five different positions. Victoria said, “You’re the best lover I’ve ever had.” Rowan didn’t know that Victoria Petersen had been a wallflower in college. She’d only had three men before him, and one was her second cousin.

He bought her a tailored suit before he flew home. “This will look great on you.”

She said, “Thank you.”

“I probably won’t see you again.” She’d seen the wedding ring, but he showed it to her again.

“I understand. You’re happily married.” She wished him a safe flight before he left the suite. Their suite. She called her dad at home in Morgantown. She didn’t tell him what happened. Instead, she said, “I’m lonely,” which was his cue: He said, “You’ll find the right man. You deserve someone extra special. You’re a princess and you should be treated accordingly.” Victoria looked at herself in the mirror. She looked at their bed, at the half-eaten strawberries, at the fitted suit he’d bought her, at the new high heels that didn’t hurt her feet. Rowan said I was beautiful. He said, “If I weren’t married. If I didn’t already have a family …”

He reminds me of my dad, not in a sick incestuous way, but in a normal, every-woman-is-looking-for-her-father kind of psychological way. Maybe he’s my prince.

She’d never had an orgasm before Rowan.

A week later, Victoria telephoned Patricia Burke. She explained what had transpired between herself and Rowan. She was very descriptive, saying, “I think I love him.” Adding, “If it weren’t for you, I think he’d marry me.”

Patty said, “You can have him!”

Patty Burke would never be made a fool. Rather than confronting Rowan, she plotted her exit. Telephoning banks, attorneys, airlines, and Mediterranean villas for rent, she built up her resolve. She loved Rowan. This wouldn’t be easy.

After Victoria the attorney telephoned him at home the first time, Rowan told her to stop. He even used profanity, which was not in his makeup. She telephoned again. He wrote a short letter to Victoria the attorney: I’m not leaving my wife ever. I made a mistake. I love my wife. I’m sorry if I misled you.

In January, Rowan was where he wanted to be—finally—on the back deck of their Cedar Island home, sipping a mug of coffee, feeling relaxed for the first time in a very long while, when Patty said, “I want a divorce.”

At that exact moment, a gull defecated on Rowan’s hand. “Fuck!”

He said, “Patty-Cake, don’t do this! I need you.”

She said, “There’s bird shit in your coffee. Good luck with that psycho.” No matter her feelings, this relationship was over. “See you in court.”

Patty-Cake left in a taxicab already waiting in the driveway.

Rowan was alone.