Maxi had never seen this enormous villa on Benedict Canyon Drive, where, for the past year, her ex-husband had lived with his new wife. Janet Orson had called and asked if she’d like to have the two lovely pieces of furniture back that she’d given to Jack in their divorce. She wanted to give Maxi a chance to reclaim them, Janet had said, and she suggested that Maxi come by and see if there was anything else of hers in the jumble that Jack had amassed, before all of it went to the auction house tomorrow. Curious, Maxi had ducked out of the newsroom at lunchtime and driven over the canyon.
Maxi didn’t know Janet well, though she had done several interviews with her through the years. She’d called Janet a few times since her marriage to Jack to say she’d just found some marvelous pictures of Jack in a drawer, or some books of his that he might want, and she was sending them over, that kind of thing. She’d always found Janet amiable and courteous.
And Maxi was fond of those two pieces of hers, a Winchester walnut chest of drawers with a serpentine front and carved feet, and a George Bullock mahogany collectors’ cabinet with beautiful inlays that had fifty narrow file drawers. Jack had used them at their house—the chest had been filled with his under wear and the cabinet with his working files—so she’d told him to keep them. Now, she thought, she might as well have them back.
Carlotta let her in, and Maxi embraced the sweet-natured woman. She had always loved Carlotta Ricco, who’d taken such good care of Jack and his family, all his families. Jack used to joke that Maxi married him to get Carlotta. Standing in the foyer now, Maxi peered into the massive living room at furniture and artwork she had lived with in her home in what seemed like another life.
Janet appeared from around the corner, and Maxi pulled herself back to the present. The two women exchanged what seemed to both of them a self-conscious hug.
“Come in, Maxi,” Janet said. “Take a look around; see if anything else is yours. Or if there’s anything else of his that you want, for that matter.”
“How did you know those two pieces were mine?”
“Jack told me. I’d wondered about them, because they’re so different from everything else he owned.”
Maxi scanned her ex-husband’s cumbersome furniture crowded end to end, the antique mirrors leaning against the walls, the boxes stacked everywhere filled with books, tapes, clothing, and odds and ends, all of it the personal effects of superstar Jack Nathanson collected over thirty years.
And his artwork! Bulky, bizarre sculptures on pedestals, cryptic drawings and gigantic paintings on the walls, dark, frightening pieces of Expressionism, bloody, gory scenes portraying people cut in half, phantoms, ghouls, the devil in many forms, human and animal freaks of nature. Most of the work was by noted artists, Beckmann, Kandinsky, all superbly done, and all of it expensive. He even had a Corot, but the darkest, most dour example of that brilliant French Impressionist, a bleak forest of gnarled and decaying trees. Glancing at it on her own living room wall back then, Maxi would chuckle—she’d always figured that Corot must’ve been having a really bad day when he knocked that one out.
And it was voluminous, his art collection—Jack had been accumulating it with fervor since he’d scored with his first big movie and Sam Bloom had turned him on to the joy and prudence of investing in art. Jack never did anything halfway. Maxi could guess how Janet must have felt as she’d attempted to incorporate these grotesqueries into a tasteful, inviting home—a daunting task, Maxi knew, because she’d tried to do the same.
Two men in dark suits were wending their way through the clutter. “Anything with a red sticker is going,” Janet said to them. And by way of explanation to Maxi, “They’re the appraisers from Sotheby’s. It’s all going to auction.”
Janet didn’t seem at all bereaved, but Maxi knew that the shock of violent loss often left loved ones in denial for a time. Still, it was just a week to the day after Jack’s funeral. Soon, it seemed, for his wife to be efficiently and matter-of-factly clearing out his things.
“You’ll find those stickers on most of what’s in the house,” Janet went on to the appraisers. “There’s more in my late husband’s office, and the dining room, the den, bedrooms—”
“We’ll go around and make notes, Ms. Orson,” said one of the men, with the deference due a recent widow.
Maxi felt an odd sensation, being in the midst of Jack’s belongings again. Big, heavy, dark, dreary furniture, Chippendale and Louis-the-Something, oversized, overstuffed, overwrought, cracked here, broken there, shabby in her view, and loads of it, most of the pieces undeniably ugly. Undeniable by everyone except Jack. He’d loved these things. Maxi remembered the day Wendy Harris had looked around their house in horror when they were moving Jack’s belongings in. “What the hell are you going to do with all this shit?” Wendy had asked her. “What can I do?” Maxi had countered. “He loves it, and I love him. And in the scheme of things that really count, a few sticks and bones are unimportant, don’t you think?” Wendy, a confirmed minimalist when it came to furnishings, had just rolled her eyes.
“Are you okay?” Janet asked now, sensing Maxi’s discomfort.
“I… Yes, it’s just… It’s been a while since I’ve seen all this….”
The two women were quiet for several moments. Memories. They both had them. Janet broke the silence. “Come with me,” she said.
She led Maxi across the broad expanse of the crammed living room to four sets of French doors that looked out on a beautifully landscaped pool area. “Let’s sit for a minute,” she said to Maxi, indicating a pair of small, tasteful loveseats that seemed overpowered by the rest of the furnishings in the room.
“I don’t remember these—” Maxi started, as they sat down opposite each other.
“No, these were mine,” Janet said, running a hand gently over the ivory silk upholstery. The two women looked at each other then, and in that moment both realized that they had a lot in common.
“You know, Maxi,” Janet said softly, “I was tempted to call you several times, when Jack seemed his most perplexing. To see what light you could shed on his behavior. But I never did.”
Déjà vu, Maxi thought, remembering the day when she herself had first called Debra Angelo, sorely needing the same kind of enlightenment. There’d been nobody else to look to. Certainly not Sam Bloom, who thought all of Jack’s wives were predators. Not wonderful Julian Polo, who knew the dark side of his client’s movie plots, but not of his home life. Nor had she known anyone in Jack’s family who could help. He’d told her he had no family.
Maxi’s gaze drifted once again to the glut of furnishings in the room. “There’s… just so much of it, isn’t there?” she breathed, to break the mood.
“So much, and so awful,” Janet returned, surprising Maxi with her candor. She relaxed into her comfortable love seat, dwarfed now by Jack’s possessions engorging the enormous room. “I’m selling Jack’s things at auction, according to the terms of his will,” she said. “The proceeds will go to his estate for Gia.” Maxi looked around her at this mini Hearst Castle, chock-full of Citizen Nathanson’s stuff.
“I’m selling this house, too,” Janet said. “I never really liked it.”
“The upkeep alone must be exorbitant,” Maxi said, for lack of anything more cogent to say. Again, this scene, with Janet confiding to her about her life with Jack, seemed hauntingly like when Maxi had first talked to Debra, really talked to her. Jack Nathanson’s wives, Maxi thought. The Club.
“Let’s not even talk about money.” Janet sighed.
“I’m guessing you paid for everything,” Maxi ventured, emboldened by Janet’s willingness, her seeming need, to open up. Maxi was one of the few people who knew that Jack Nathanson was broke when he married Janet Orson.
“Everything,” Janet affirmed.
“You were in love,” Maxi put in kindly. “I certainly knew that feeling—”
“Yes, he was the romantic one, the artistic one, the outrageous one, and heaven knows, I needed that in my very conservative, cautious life,” she said. “Jack was exciting—”
“Were you in love with him?” Maxi heard herself asking.
“Of course,” Janet said. “Weren’t you?”
“Yes. For a while.”
“Me too.”
“How do you feel now?” Maxi asked quietly.
Janet looked out the French doors into the middle distance. “Like I’ve been let out of prison,” she murmured.