under her three strands of pearls to push at respectability. Her studied beauty only served to fuel my budding suspicion. She sat front row, of course, a mirror-image son on either side. As each eulogist descended the lectern, she stood, extended a hand and presented her smooth cheek for a condoling kiss.
Howard and Camille never qualified as a heaven-made match. She comes from old money, from the oil well-drilling, ranch-owning, dove-hunting elite of the self-contained municipality of Alamo Heights that occupies central San Antonio. Alamo Heights—City of Beauty and Charm, it says on the green population signs marking the town border. I’m not kidding. It’s a preciously insular world, populated with folks who affectionately call their town The Bubble. They’re people proud to have never set foot out of Texas, direct descendants of the gang that invented Fiesta—the ten day, faux-Mexican Mardi Gras imitation that celebrates their claim to privilege with parades, coronations and costumes costing tens of thousands of dollars, while simultaneously providing greater San Antonio’s Latino population the redoubtable opportunity to honor the brutal defeat of their ancestors at the 1836 Battle of San Jacinto.
The man Camille had set her sights on marrying during their Alamo Heights high school days, the man who had been starting quarterback to her head cheerleader, who had been smiling Duke for her Fiesta Duchess debut, opted instead to jilt her on the eve of their wedding. In a quick, face-saving move, Camille seduced Howard, her taciturn cowboy of a professor at Trinity University. Although the seduction earned her a passing grade in Chem 101, the pleasure of the revenge was short-lived.
After the service, I found a place to take in the crowd behind an obscenely large floral arrangement near the doorway of the chapel foyer. I couldn’t resist peeking at the card: “Camille dear,” it said. “Deepest sympathy to you and the boys. Richard Kleinberg and family.” What? Jews don’t send flowers! Jews donate to good causes! And just how inclusive did my husband intend that “family” to be? I slipped the card into my pocket for my Freud action figure to analyze. I’d brought Sigmund’s plastic likeness, a birthday gift from Alex, along as a talisman. It’s a little habit that, I’m embarrassed to admit, has proven helpful on numerous occasions.
I was looking for a private moment with Camille to introduce myself, offer my sympathy and get a close-up read of her person. She wasn’t hard to spot, standing near the exit, holding court with a group of well-heeled types. I’d just found my opening, when a man sidled up to her. He put his forehead to hers and his arm around her waist, his hand settling a little too comfortably on her hip. She looked at him like a first love and kissed him lightly on the lips. Was he the high school sweetheart, none other than Mr. Alamo Heights Quarterback auditioning for a comeback? I thought of Howard and the coffee. I thought of Camille’s kiss on his head. My suspicions were confirmed. I‘d been leading Howard to the slaughter, encouraging him to be vulnerable, to express his tender feelings to a woman incapable of a like response. A sour taste filled the back of my throat.
There was no call for condolence here.
I slipped out the chapel door to be slammed by hundred-degree-plus heat. It was another in the series of unseasonably cruel days of that early summer, the kind of June day that engenders profound dread for what August holds. Steamy waves rose off the parking lot, and the soft asphalt sucked nastily at the tips of my Diego di Lucca spike heels. It was a long walk to my car, and I had a lot to think about.
There was no denying that Camille Westerman looked happy. Way too happy. There was also no denying that she’d threatened to divorce Howard and that now he was conveniently dead. Some people have all the luck, I thought, getting their wish and sympathy to boot. My assessment was ugly, excusable perhaps in my circumstance by someone who understands human psychology. Most people in bad marriages do consider that an untimely spousal death would be a softer blow than divorce. There was also no denying Camille had suitors. It vaguely crossed my mind that even Richard might be interested, but I dismissed the idea.
By the time I made it to my car, I was sweating and had worked up a substantial outrage at the merry widow Camille. The hot door handle seared my hand. I dropped my key, which bounced and landed so far underneath the car that I had to get on my hands and knees to retrieve it. I groped, remembering Richard’s adage that only fools and Yankees buy black vehicles in south Texas. There were runs in both knees of my sticky panty hose when I got up.
A leering, fat-faced security guard, who had obviously found entertainment in my ordeal and exposed behind, called from his campus golf cart.
“Need help, ma’am?”
“I need a lot of help,” I said, slamming myself in.
I didn’t consciously set out to go by Howard’s house after the service, but there are only three exits from the west side of the Trinity University campus and Bushnell Avenue was the closest. The Westermans’ estate sits on the wide shady block of that high-class street running between Shook and McCullough, the very same block that contained Richard’s penthouse away from home. According to Howard, Camille had never forgiven him for insisting they live in Monte Vista so he could bike to work, complaining for twenty years about being forced to live in exile an entire mile across the Olmos Dam from her Alamo Heights friends.
The Westermans’ wrought-iron gate stood uncharacteristically open that day, the driveway cluttered with vans from Dinners by Design Catering and The Rose Shop. Preparations were well underway for the unofficial get-together of the people who really mattered to Camille, a list I was not on, of course. Something about the sight of those party preliminaries inspired me to do my own investigation of Howard’s workshop.
I drove past the house and tucked my car in front of an old Chevy pickup, obvious property of one of the three Mexicans grooming the yard of the Westermans’ neighbors. The man wielding the leaf blower along the curb, a tiny desiccated hombre in a brown plaid shirt and huge straw hat, pretended not to notice me, but politely idled the motor when I passed.
“Buenos dias,” I said.
“Buenos,” he answered.
I walked through the gate as though I had reason to be there. The house, near invisible from the street, loomed like a displaced British manor. The smell of charcoal and grilling beef and peppers, carried by what little breeze there was, added to the oppressive heat. As I got close, I heard the clatter of silver, the chinking of glasses and an urgent effeminate male voice shouting orders in broken Spanish. In a huge elm tree on my left, a dense flock of grackles did their best to imitate the sounds. Their cackles seemed to mock me.
Hoping to go unnoticed. I used the delivery vans for cover until I could slink along the hedges by the side of the house. I don’t know what I expected or wanted to see. From a distance, the remodeled servants’ quarters that had been Howard’s home laboratory looked intact except for a couple of barricades and runs of yellow crime scene tape that half-heartedly segregated the place. As I got closer, I saw the blown-out windows, and an acrid chemical odor hit me. Around back, the walls were gone, revealing a devastated dollhouse done in the smoke grays of twisted metal, broken glass and melted plastic.
The sight, the smells, the relentless fuss of the grackles overcame me. I went to my knees and ran my hands over the lush St. Augustine grass. Head down, I mouthed the opening lines of the Kaddish, the mourner’s prayer. Then I saw the bits, there at the root line. Bits of glass, stucco, wood, bits of ceramic Mexican tile. The brush of the stiff green blades on my palms vaguely comforted me. In slow motion, my thoughts went to Howard—how I’d become fond of him and hoped to help him. And then to Richard, about how I’d not always hated him. There had even been times I’d loved Richard, but I never believed he loved me. I hadn’t
