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124 Chapter Seventeen No More Songs After Stephanie and I returned from Europe, Marvin was loving and attentive and seemed to make an effort to repair our marriage. He did not tell me that he had broken up with Judith, but he was home most evenings, and we spent many a weekend in a condo on Lido Isle, an enclave of Newport Beach, about seventy miles south of Los Angeles. We still owned the condo in Century City, which Marvin said he had bought as an investment. When he told me he had leased this condo a few months ago, I wondered why he had signed a lease for two years, without discussing it with me. A few years ago he had started a business in Costa Mesa, and at that time we had rented Barry Goldwater’s apartment in the Balboa Bay Club. Now there was no such reason. It puzzled me why he spent so much money. On the first weekend on Lido Isle, Marvin surprised me with flower arrangements in the bedroom and the living room, and a small one in the bathroom. I was touched by his thoughtfulness. We bought plants for the condo, hung paintings, making it home. Summer had come, and we spent fun-filled days there with Stephanie and her friends Michelle and Hugi. Steven visited us upon occasion. Friends and relatives from Europe stayed with us. I felt safe in this condo, knowing that Judith lived over an hour’s travel north of us. No quickie escapes to her were possible. We grew to love the condo by the bay, although there wasn’t much of a beach, not more than a narrow band of sand leading to a slim arm of the canal surrounding the island on this side. From here we watched ducks and boats glide by. We liked the foggy mornings best. Then the condo filled with warmth and gemütlichkeit. Yes, coziness. The fog metamorphosed boats into ghost ships. Ships’ horns mourned, sailboats drifted unseen out to sea—known only by the sound of their stanchions clanking. Steffi and I jogged along the strip of sand and came back to a fire crackling in the fireplace, steaming java in the coffee maker, the Sunday paper No More Songs 125 spread over table and floor, with Marvin alternating between the sports pages and reading the funnies to Stephanie. It was October now, and the remodeling of the front garden of our house was finished, but work was still going on in the lower level of the garden behind the house. A Jacuzzi and goldfish pond replete with waterfall were also new additions , now completed. I had hoped we’d go to Lido Isle this weekend, but then Marvin had been gone for the last two days. He left without taking a suitcase and did not tell me where he was going. I worried. He was drinking heavily again, and I was afraid he might have blacked out somewhere. Or maybe he was at Judith’s apartment? Friday afternoon came, and the contractor needed to be paid—there was no Marvin to pay him. Stephanie might have suspected something was wrong, but she still did not know about Judith. By Saturday morning she too began to worry. “Mom, where’s Dad?” “He’s not at our condo in Newport, Steff. I called several times. No answer.” “I want to be with Dad,” Stephanie sulked. “Maybe he’ll. . .then. . ., can you and I go to our condo?” “Well. . .sure, that’s an idea. Get away for the weekend. Go then, get ready.” I left Marvin a note, in case he came home after we had left. As I packed a few things, doubts arose. I thought: Please, please, Powers that be, don’t have him show up at the condo with her. I dismissed the fleeting thought. A while back he once had gone to Santa Barbara for two days without telling me in advance. Maybe he had the urge to go out of town and took Judith. The condo would be a good place for Stephanie and me to relax. Marvin was a man of good manners . He wouldn’t take her to our family weekend-place. No, he would not. The condo was a perfect place. Soon Stephanie and I were on our way. The silver car seemed to know its way, winding west on Sunset, then easing onto the San Diego Freeway, heading south. We sang “Michael Row...

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