Are You Happy Now? by Richard Babcock Page A

blue Hawaiian shirt and a television tuned to CNN with the sound off. While Lincoln sips a Bloody Mary, waiting for the vodka to stiffen his bones, he watches video of the disgraced ex-Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich, who has made another appearance that morning on his media tour to proclaim his innocence. The boyish face, the mop of hair, the sad, pleading eyes—doesn’t he realize that the whole world knows he’s a crook? Yet, he natters on, making his ludicrous case. He has a way of acting hurt, surprised,victimized, but without rancor—like a wounded soldier who didn’t realize until the moment of impact that the enemy was using real bullets. Sitting at a bar at eleven in the morning, Lincoln envies Blago’s clueless certitude.
    By the time he’s finished his second Bloody Mary, Lincoln has vowed to be more proactive with his life (yes, he uses that clichéd neologism with himself, even though he has struck it from every manuscript that ever crossed his desk). To start with, he’ll get ahead of the game on a possible civil suit by checking his homeowner’s insurance, as Detective Evinrude advised. But the actual document is in a file cabinet in the condo he bought with Mary. She still lives there, but she’s in Sedona by now. Lincoln can’t even remember who the insurance carrier is, let alone the salesman on their policy. No problem: summoning his new firmness of purpose, Lincoln decides to call Mary and get her to call the superintendent to let him into the apartment.
    Sitting at the bar, Lincoln dials her cell. She picks up after six rings, sounding breathless and not pleased to hear from him. Lincoln gets right to the point.
    “Why do you need to see that ?” Mary demands.
    “A possible liability issue.”
    “What?”
    Even with the separation, it stuns Lincoln how easily they slip back to the annoyed skepticism that characterized their conversations toward the end. “It’s nothing. Just call the super for me,” he says impatiently. “He knows I’m not living there, so he’ll get suspicious if I ask him to let me in.”
    “Linc, you’ve got the goddamned key. Let yourself in.”
    “Oh.” He somehow assumed she’d changed the locks. “OK. Just wanted to check with you.”
    “I’ve got to run, Linc.” A pause. “I’m going mountain biking.”
    “Wow. Have fun.”
    “Bye.”
    “Bye.”
    Lincoln orders a third Bloody Mary, trying to recapture his resolve. She’s OK having me paw through the apartment, he thinks. At least she has nothing to hide.
    Working off the Bloody Marys, Lincoln walks west along quiet side streets until he comes to Mary’s building, their old building. Taking a calming, deep breath, he unlocks the front door, then climbs the stairway to their apartment. Since that awful afternoon, he’s only been back once, to pick up clothes, and now he wonders whether Mary has changed things, eliminated all markers of life with him. Inside, however, he finds the place almost exactly as he left it. They bought the apartment three years ago, and Mary took the occasion to exercise her decorating taste—sort of country French (reproduction, of course) with accents of Olde Chicago gleaned from the city’s carelessness with its architectural heritage (a section of stained glass recovered from a leveled West Side church, a gargoyle saved at the last moment from the exterior of a doomed Loop building).
    Lincoln goes directly to the little-used office in the second bedroom and riffles through a file cabinet until he finds the homeowner’s policy. It’s dense and legalistic—the definitions alone take up several pages. Better just hang onto it for later study. He closes the file drawer and glances around the room. The sleek, white desk is piled high with books, magazines, and bills, just as before. Mary’s laptop is missing, but she probably took it to Sedona. Lincoln’s small collection of workout weights, idle since before his marriage, sits against a wall. The light brown