Page 5 - Just Deserts

Prologue

“Well,” Doreen said, “you’ll pardon the cliché, but I’m sure
you’re all wondering why I called this meeting. To tell the truth, I’m
not really certain of the reason. Maybe it’s a kind of reality check: I
want to know if you are going through the same sort of thing I am. I
know we’ve all gone our separate ways, and ordinarily wouldn’t have
any interest in seeing one another, but maybe now we can share
something of value. Does any of this make sense to you?”
Being typical males, we four squirmed in our seats when
requested to divulge our feelings. Gerald finally stirred, wiping a
crumb from his beard and glaring benevolently at us all. “It certainly
does. I could not have predicted the situation in which I now find
myself: feckless, footloose, reckless, rootless. All that money did not,
as folk-wisdom would have it, buy me happiness. But nobody would
understand that—with the possible exception of present company.
Therefore, if this incipient group-therapy session is an attempt to
express our befuddling misery, well, then, I am all for it.”
Lester was not experiencing the same sort of tentative
unfolding of his inner self. “The hell with that! I take total
responsibility for all the stupid things I’ve done since joining the
leisure class. I can only thank the state of California for not giving me
the whole seventeen million in a lump sum: otherwise I might not be
among the living. What kind of lesson would I have to share with you
or anybody else: a fool and his money are soon parted?”
Sitting next to Lester on the sofa, Carlos absorbed some of
the shock waves of the former’s energetic remonstrance. “Hey, if it’s
true confessions you want, I’ve got a barrel full! Winning that money
has been like being in an accident: a lot of lawyers and doctors and
accountants have done very well by themselves as a result. But I’ve
got to wonder about you, Doreen: did you really have nothing better
to do than flush us out of our gilded rat-holes and chase us around
the old familiar ground? I need no reminders of my guilt, and I don’t
want any more gratitude for my charity.”
She blushed a bit, but held her ground. “I have lots of things to do
beside bother you guys. Your reactions don’t surprise me. And I find
it significant that not one of us has married. We are in the same boat:
if we can figure out how to sail it, maybe we can get somewhere more
meaningful than where we are right now.”
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