Jan Burke: Remember Me, Irene

“So, she’s making her move,” I said. “Let’s see. A San Diego State Assembly candidate…Doug Longmore’s seat?”

Marcy nodded.

Longmore, who had health problems, had recently announced that he would not seek another term. “Has Longmore endorsed her?” I asked.

“Not yet,” she said.

“Well, it’s a little early yet. I suppose Bart Sawyer’s helping her out?” “Yes, he’s been talking to Longmore about supporting Lisa. And Bart’s being…very generous.”

Lisa would need that generosity. A campaign for a State Assembly seat could easily cost half a million dollars-more than double that if the race was hotly contested. “She deserves Sawyer’s support,” I said. “She’s served him loyally for what, now, ten years?”

“Longer than that, I think,” Marcy answered. “She was seventeen when she worked on his first campaign. I remember that, because she was just a little too young to vote for him, even though she was working for him. That frustrated her. But he really inspired her, even then. Bart’s been like a father to her.”

There was a slight pause in the conversation, during which I suppose all of us probably had the same thought: Andre Selman, Lisa’s father, had never been much of a parent.

“You going to fork over a few bucks for her, Irene?” Becky asked.

I held up my hands in mock surrender. “Sorry. Can’t contribute to any campaign and keep my job.”

“Really? Even if she’s running outside of the districts you cover?”

“Really. The Express has a written policy on it. But with Barton Sawyer’s backing, Lisa should do fine. His constituents are in love with him, he’s a helluva fund-raiser, and he’s got one of the cleanest reputations in state politics.”

“So Lisa’s headed for Sacramento!” Becky said.

Marcy laughed. “Filing hasn’t even opened yet, Becky.”

“Still, not bad for a Survivor of Selman,” Ivy said.

Among some of the original members, the notion that SOS actually stood for Survivors of Selman was an old joke. Somehow, applied to Lisa, it didn’t seem so funny. Another small silence ensued, and Ivy blushed furiously. As one who has done my share of blurting out remarks that kill conversation, I felt sympathy for her.

“I guess none of us have done too badly, have we?” I said.

“No,” Becky chimed in, and began to talk about a research grant that one of the other “survivors” had received.

I glanced around the banquet room at the Cliffside Hotel, and saw the faces of a few of the others who had joined the organization not long after it began. A number of them held degrees in law, medicine, and business. There were also artists, writers, homemakers, bureaucrats, educators, entrepreneurs. Their political leanings ran the gamut. But the first women to join SOS all had one thing in common: they had survived a marriage, relationship, or affair with Dr. Andre Selman, professor of sociology at Las Piernas College.

Professionally, Dr. Selman was highly respected in his field. He had not yet come into his own when I knew him. In the mid-1970s, his studies of changes in urban populations were just under way, not yet published. These days, he was one of the college’s most prized faculty members; consulted globally, not only by his fellow sociologists, but by media and moguls alike. Andre Selman was now a man of affairs.

Privately, you might say he had always been a man of affairs. About thirty of the women who were now in SOS had personal knowledge of that fact. Four of them were ex-wives; the rest of us had experienced everything from a few weeks to a few years with him, but got out without the help of lawyers.

Lisa had survived being his child. While I could now laugh at my own foolish decision to become involved with him, Lisa didn’t have a choice.

“Marcy, why isn’t Lisa here tonight?” Alicia asked, as soon as Becky stopped to draw a breath. “There’s all kinds of money walking around in this room.”

“She wanted to come along,” Marcy said, “mainly to see her old friends. But I asked her to wait until after the dinner. She thought I just didn’t want her hitting everyone up for campaign contributions at a fund-raiser for the battered women’s shelter, but that wasn’t it.” She hesitated, then added, “Sometimes, when we all get together, we start talking about her father or her brother. And even though she’s an adult now and even she certainly survived Andre, I don’t think it’s right for her to hear us go on about him.”

“I agree,” said Roberta Benson, who had just walked up. Roberta, Becky, Helen, Ivy, Marcy, and I were the founders of SOS. We had all known Marcy first, because we had all dated her ex-husband. We were also all especially close to Lisa while she was growing up.

Roberta’s a therapist, and Marcy’s remark allowed her an opportunity to wax on about contemporary psychological theories on why a child-even an adult child-should never hear rude remarks between exes.

Not especially interested, I looked around to see a local artist talking to a real estate broker about finding a location for a new gallery. The conversation was just part of the typical networking that goes on at an SOS meeting.

Helen had moved back to the front of the room. Alicia was still too close for comfort, but she had Ivy in a one-on-one now. “My Harold gave me this one for letting him keep his tacky old easy chair in the guest house,” she said, rocking her hand back and forth to catch the light on a diamond. “The chair’s gone now, of course, but…”

Ah, poor Ivy. Alicia had more history to her rings than a Hobbit.

Roberta drew my attention away from them by placing a hand on my arm.

“I wanted to tell you-” she began, but was interrupted by Helen’s call to dinner. “I’ll catch you afterward,” Roberta said. “I need to get in there and try to sit next to Helen. She’s on the board where I work now. But I want to talk to you, too. Can you stick around for a minute after dinner?”

“Sure.”

The group made its way into the dining area, and once we had feasted, Helen stood up and gave a quick speech. Applause followed her report that we had donated a record amount to the shelter and its programs against domestic violence. Nominations for officers for the next year were called for, and I deftly avoided being drafted.

Becky sat next to me throughout the evening. Ivy sat at my other side. Alicia, unmerciful, was at our table, too.

“Andre’s married to his fifth wife,” she said. “That’s five years now, and a record.”

“Alicia, who the hell cares?” Becky said, and asked if I wanted my dessert. It was something that was supposed to be mousse, but looked closer to moose, so I told her it was all hers.

“All I’m saying,” Alicia went on, “is that at the age of fifty-five, he seems to have settled down.”

Becky leaned over and whispered, “Not that the women in this town are safe. Word is, Jerry is just as bad as his old man.”

I had already heard rumors that Andre’s son by his first marriage was a womanizer. I looked over at Sharon Selman, Jerry’s mother. Becky caught my glance. “Not Sharon’s fault, of course.”

“No,” I said, “I guess not. Maybe not even Jerry’s. Andre has kept Jerry as close as he’s kept Lisa distant.”

“Andre’s loss,” Becky said.

“I agree.” I found myself thinking about what Alicia had said. “Becky, Andre had a heart attack five years ago. Think that made him decide to change his ways?”

“Maybe, but Lisa told me that Andre’s on hypertension medication, too.”

“He has high blood pressure?” Ivy asked.

“Yes. Lisa was telling me about all of his prescriptions. The one for high blood pressure-well, my guess is that old Andre may suffer the occasional side effect of impotency.”