Careless People

By William Hauser M.D.

Careless People is a story of family and friends living in Corona del Mar, a small beach community in Southern California. It is set in a time when Orange County was transforming from quiet fields of orange trees into large developments and busy freeways.

Life is about growing and changing, but when it threatens to destroy their personal and family values, will they have the strength to resist? Cindy Gorham is a mother struggling to balance family life with her own need for independence. When her new friend, Grace Brougham, enters her life, she is motivated to explore her own interests and passions. Grace introduces Cindy to Jack Miller, the handsome owner of Green Dolphin Realty. He convinces her she has the potential to become a great salesperson.

New housing tracts in the hills of Newport Beach are paving the way for financial success as “new money” pours into the area. Jack Miller’s magical charms cast Cindy on a trail in pursuit of wealth, liberation, and love. Soon after, though, Cindy finds the road she is on inevitably leads to greed, eroding ethics and ultimately murder.

Careless People is a cautionary tale of misplaced trust and priorities. It is a story of characters longing for simpler times, but they find it is hard to hold on to the past while reaching for the future. Like Dorothy found out in the Land of Oz, there’s no place like home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781645315056

Book preview

1

I’ve always been uneasy with causality and beginnings. Looking back at what happened, our real motives remain mysterious to me. It seems that things were fixed somehow, preordained, and there was nothing that any of us could do to change them. I see now the causes lay hidden in the circles of time, in the fixed and forgotten relationships of our lost childhoods, those screened remembrances, the first and unyielding attachments of the heart. Yet, too, it’s a story of my friends and me, a story of careless people from Southern California and how we became caught up in its explosive growth and deceitful dream so that the murder, when it came, could have been anticipated, indeed expected, given the fabrications of our lives and hearts.

And now, I recognize that even before I met Grace Brougham or Jack Miller and their friends, there had been a large part of me I never understood, which like a dumb mouth lay patiently waiting to be heard. And despite its promptings, I purposely damped it down when it imposed; I had enough to do in my everyday life coping and caring for those I loved. I never took the time to find out what it was. Perhaps I was afraid of what I’d learn.

I’ve lived in Orange County, California, all my life. I’ve heard it called a great sludge and smerge of Los Angeles, a place without an identity of its own, but I’ve always suspected that such carping came from the bite of the first frosts of winter crimping the finger and toe joints of the envious Eastern writers, the intellectuals and sophisticates who’ve never experienced life here. They’re afraid to, I think, afraid they might like it and, like so many others, never want to leave.

Looking back, I remember as a child coming to the Newport coast from the heat of inland summers. Orange groves covered the land from the sea to the mountains, and the air was clean and fresh and sparkled in the sun. We came down to the sea as a family and picnicked on the beach below the cliffs where Tom, my husband, and I built our first house. Those early days at the ocean were long, lazy, and easy and went so quickly, we were reluctant to leave. And as we drove back slowly in the gathering dusk to our home in Tustin, the San Gabriel Mountains loomed up above us white and shining in the eastern skies and faded slowly into the purple of the clear night air. And all the way home, we smelled the fresh scent of oranges. Sometimes, the blossoms from the trees lay so thick and heavy, they covered the ground like snow, peaceful and white. That’s the Orange County I remember and love. It’s gone now. Housing tracks replaced the orange groves, smog fills the air, and our home in Tustin was torn down for the Santa Ana Freeway overpass. I try not to go back there anymore. It’s part of the past.

This is a ranky age, interested in the quick fix, the hook and click of easy explanations and endings, and I belong to my times. But I had to experience it and live through the ordeals in order to be able to understand it, to be able to change into the new stronger person that I now am. Still, while it was happening, it was terrifying. We seemed prompted by some misplaced biological urge, like lemmings floundering foolishly into the sea or those huge sea crabs which are sometimes found dead and dying, pulled by the tides of the moon and an inborn destructive impulse, miles inland from the safety and refuge of their homes in the sea.

It all started in the late summer of that terrible and wonderful year when I first met Grace Brougham. I remember it well because I was pregnant for the second time and unhappy. I’m Cindy Gorham. This is my story.

*****

You have it all, my husband, Tom, said to me. We were sitting outside on our back patio. You have everything you could possibly want, but you still complain. I just don’t understand. I don’t understand you at all.

Tom looked at me like I was an insoluble and irritating medical problem, an intractable bleeding ulcer or a recalcitrant fever of unknown origin. He knew that something was wrong, that he was expected to take care of it, but what was wrong and what he was expected to do were beyond him, at least for the moment. He leaned over the round glass table and looked at me intensely but with dispassion.

Cindy, he said, it’s just a stage you’re going through. He put his right forefinger to the rim of his glasses and pushed them back so that his eyes tightened into a squint. You’ve always wanted children, he said, and Jennie needs a brother.

He stood up and walked over to the fence by the lemon tree. He was lean and tall and dark and walked with a slight stoop, which might have come from too much studying or the burden of other people’s problems.

Oh, Tom, I said, it’s not like that, it’s not the children. In the glassy mirror of the surface of the table, I could see my own face. Pretty with blue eyes and red hair, but my mouth was taut in a pout, and I could see tiny wedges of strain between my eyes. I’m happy with things. It’s just that…that… I searched around inside myself for the right words, the right phrase. It’s just that I want you to treat me as…as a person. Someone whom you have respect for, someone you accept and acknowledge. An equal. I massaged my forehead, the tiny echelon of strain lines faded. I love you, I said. You know that. It’s something else. I want to be myself, to be respected for who I am, for myself.

Jesus, Cin. Now Tom was rubbing his forehead. You sound like something out of a book. Women’s liberation, Christ. I’ve always taken care of you, haven’t I? We’ve had it pretty good. Pretty damn good. You’ve got a house by the ocean in Newport Beach, a lovely daughter, a husband who loves you. Tom went on like that for a while, and I nodded my head as I listened. He was right. We lived in Corona del Mar (Spanish for Crown of the Sea), the best area in Newport Beach, and we were happy. Our house on Goldenrod stood just above Big Corona Beach, and from our bedroom windows I could see the sun set over the ocean. I knew I had everything I had always wanted as a child: a loving husband, a wonderful daughter, good friends, material success. It should have been ideal. You’re at a difficult stage in your pregnancy, Tom said. Nothing seems quite right. But it’s only a stage, you’ll see. I love you, Cin. He opened his hands wide in a gesture of capitulation. I love you. Things are going to work out.

But, Tom— I began in exasperation, and then I gave it up. Maybe I was unreasonable. I knew I was lucky to have a man like Tom. He’d always been a loving and caring father, a wonderful man most of the time as well as being one of the most respected internists in Southern California. He was just over his depth for the moment. He didn’t really understand me or my needs. I thought to myself, Tom’s right. Things will work out. And then I began to say it out loud. Tom, you’re right. I— but the doorbell rang before I could finish, and it was too late. Things had started in motion, and we were carried by their tides.

Christ, Tom said, I forgot to tell you, Cin. I asked George Brougham to drop by and bring his wife. He’s the new surgeon at Memorial. He came from Mayo and the University of Washington. You remember. I told you about him. He wrote that excellent paper on thyroid dysfunctions. I did not remember, and besides, it was already too late. Tom opened the door, and there stood the Broughams.

I hardly remember George Brougham from that visit. Oh, he was a good-looking man, sandy blonde hair, a sweet smile, dressed in a beige shirt and slacks, but all I could see was Grace—Grace Brougham. She dominated the picture then, as she would later when her magic ways caused so much to happen. Dressed in a lemon yellow skirt and blouse, she looked stunning: long blonde hair and deep green eyes, a lovely figure and long tanned legs I could have killed for. And she looked so young! I could have been insanely jealous, but Grace seemed so sweet and disingenuous, she easily won me over.

And from that day on, a pattern evolved between us. Whenever we got together with the Broughams, the men would huddle together and talk medicine, and Grace and I would be left alone with each other, but I wouldn’t resent it as I usually would when Tom left me with the doctors’ wives at boring medical parties. I had finally found someone I could confide in, someone who understood.

I feel fat and ugly and uncomfortable, I said to Grace. We sat under the magnolia tree on the back patio. I almost wish that I wasn’t pregnant, I’m so miserable with this one.

I looked anxiously over at Tom to see if he had overheard me, but he was deep in conversation with George Brougham.

So the lesion was malignant, I heard George say. I think I got it all, and the guy’s going to do okay. Have you read Rosenberg in The New England Journal? He said—

I can hardly stand it! Grace exclaimed. She leaned back in her chair. I get so sick of medicine all the time, I could kill George! Cindy, let’s you and I sneak off to the beach tomorrow. We’ll have some time to ourselves, and we can talk.

I’ll bring my daughter Jennie, I said. We can meet here and walk down to Big Corona.

Have you read Leopold’s newest paper? I heard Tom say. It’s outrageous! He thinks that the autoimmune phenomenon from T cells is…

There they go again, Grace said. More shoptalk.

They’re really too much. I wish Tom paid as much attention to me as he does to the thyroid gland.

I know how to get their attention, Grace exclaimed. I’m a pancreas. She squinted her eyes up and stuck out her tongue. No, that won’t do, she said. I’ll be a gallbladder. She tugged her ears down and pulled her mouth wide with her fingers.

No, no! I laughed. You’ve got to be sexy. It’s the endocrine glands that are in. Be a thyroid gland!

Blup, blup, Grace said. She stuck her tongue out and touched her nose. Blup, blup.

No. I was laughing hard. You have to be a parathyroid gland. That’s where the big money is. Be a tiny parathyroid gland with a rare and strange disease so that they can cut you out and examine you and put their name on you. The men had stopped talking and looked at us with concern. You’ll get their attention, I said. They’ll be famous, and they’ll love you forever.

We had their attention then, and Grace and I became friends on that first day. It seemed so innocent and predictable at first, but events began to carry us with them on their flow, and it wasn’t until much later that I became aware of the strange undercurrent of tension and attraction which was woof and warp of my relationship with Grace Brougham.

Grace and I met the next day at noon. It was the week after Labor Day, I remember. Gathering our things, we walked with my daughter, Jennie, down to the beach from the house on the sea cliffs and settled on the warm sand and began to talk.

It isn’t really anybody’s fault when a marriage doesn’t work, Grace Brougham said to me. You have to decide what you want. Go for it, and not be discouraged if it doesn’t work out.

The late-afternoon sun filtered through her long yellow hair, which blew like corn silk in an easy wind. She smiled at me. Green eyes, white teeth, and red lips. She wore a new periwinkle blue bikini which showed her deep tan and full figure. She looked divine.

I shouldn’t be telling you this, I said. Tom and I should be able to work things out, but—

Don’t be so serious, Cindy, Grace said. You’re just going through a stage. Besides, it’s in the air. There are a lot more divorces than marriages this year. Everyone I know is getting divorced.

Well, that’s part of it, I agreed. On our block on Goldenrod alone, there have been three divorces in the last six months. People I’m close to, as well as just neighbors. It’s scary. I pushed the hair back from my forehead. I was unhappy and depressed, fat and foolish nearing my fourth month, and I felt a low burn of anger kindling inside me. It’s not just the times, though, I said. It’s Tom and me as well. We just don’t communicate anymore. We’re not as close as we used to be. And, well, it goes on and on. I guess I’m just a bit itchy. I feel a little trapped sometimes. Don’t you?

Oh, I know just how you feel. I’m turning thirty in two months. Sometimes, I feel life is just passing me by. I love George, and I’m happy, but there has to be something better than just being Mrs. Doctor. I didn’t go to college just to get pregnant and—

It gets better, Grace. Jennie’s growing up so fast. She’s a lot more fun and—

"I know you’re right. I’m just itchy. There’s got to be something more, something better. Maybe an affair—"

You wouldn’t.

I might. I’d never want to hurt George, but I might.

I pulled back a little. Grace could say what she felt, but it scared me. It seemed to prompt me to make me see myself in a different light. Was an affair the answer for my discontent? I had been idly reading Joyce’s Ulysses that summer, trying to fill some gaps in my education, and I had brought a copy with me. It wasn’t exactly beach reading, and I’d been having trouble with it. I remembered a passage; why, I’m not sure. But I brought the book out and read it aloud to Grace. "Her power to enamor, to mortify, to invest with beauty, to render insane, to incite and aid delinquency. Joyce is comparing women to the moon. I can’t help but feel that sometimes I’m just like that. I feel so changeable at times. Like the phases of the moon."

Do you really think we’re like that? Grace’s turquoise eyes sparkled. Do you think we cause that much trouble?

I smiled back at her. No, I said, but Tom does. Whenever he gets mad at me, he says he wants me to see a psychiatrist, some fellow named Liebman in Laguna Beach. Tom doesn’t communicate at all with me, but he thinks I should talk to a psychiatrist. That’s not all, I said. "He thinks I incite and aid delinquency."

"And render him insane as well? Grace smiled again. She broke out laughing. Men! How do we stand them? They’re so awful."

I continued reading aloud. "Her arid seas, her silence: her splendor when visible: her attraction when invisible."

We’ve just become friends, Grace said. She could always impulsively express her feelings. I’ve never felt so close to anyone. I can’t imagine you and Tom splitting up. You seem to have an ideal marriage.

I sat silent for a long moment. A sailboat entered the rock jetty that ran from the sea into Balboa Bay and the harbor. The boat’s white sail floated slowly down behind the dark rocks and disappeared. Far in the background on the horizon lay the long low-purple profile of Catalina Island. It was very peaceful, and just then…

"Snap and pop! It’s on the line, a man’s voice called out. It’s a winner!"

From behind us, a sudden cheer came up from the volleyball courts below the parking lot. A volleyball came rolling across the sand and bounced against my knee. I turned and saw a handsome dark-haired man in yellow shorts waving at us.

Hi, Grace, he called. Just throw it back, thanks, he said to me.

Great shot, Jack! someone cried from the crowd gathered around the court.

The man in the yellow shorts turned, smiled broadly, and called out, "Issss everybody happy?!" And the crowd responded with good-natured laughter and happy cries.

I stood up and rolled the ball back to him. He smiled his thanks, waved to us, and went back to his game. He was very tanned and had dark black hair and a strong, muscular build. It was hard to guess his age.

That’s Jack, Grace said, Jack Miller. He owns that big new real estate company in Newport, Green Dolphin. Isn’t he handsome! I keep trying to get George to buy something from him, but he always puts me off. Someday I’m going to get Jack Miller to help me get what I want.

He’s awfully good-looking, I said, but I returned to my preoccupation with my marriage. Maybe it’s just the timing. I’ve read where even the best marriages have their rocky periods. Maybe we’re just going through ours.

Again, a cry came up from the crowd behind us. Great shot!

Right on the line, Jack.

"Winner!" I heard the deep voice call out.

Awesome. Cheering and applause filled the air.

I don’t care what you say, Cin, Grace said. You’re both too intelligent to let your marriage go. It’s going to be okay. You’ve got everything going for you.

I don’t know…it could happen. We love each other, but Tom has a wandering eye. I did not look at Grace. I just didn’t want this pregnancy. It was all Tom’s idea, and now he blames me for everything. Calls me moody, wants me to talk with a psychiatrist I—

"I wouldn’t think Tom had a wandering eye. He seems so stable, so rooted somehow. He’s never had an affair, has he? Grace, alive with curiosity, interrupted me. I just can’t believe he would get himself involved with anyone. He’s so self-assured and confident."

I don’t think he has, at least not that I know of. He’s just restless. He’s still all medicine, but I recognize the signs. I felt we were getting into something I didn’t want to talk about, something that had been inside me too long, and I had to let it out.

Do you think he will? she prodded.

Will what?

Oh, have an affair. Grace looked impatient. Do you think Tom would have an affair? she repeated. What would you do? Would you leave him?

No, I said slowly, no, I wouldn’t leave him, but I’d make him pay for it.

What would you do?

It isn’t going to happen, Grace, I said. But if it did, I’d never let on I knew. I’d work it out somehow, but I don’t think I’d ever forgive him.

If George ever did anything, I’d scratch his eyes out, Grace said. She grew tense for a moment and then drew in a long deep breath. But I feel restless myself. I know that feeling.

Far down the beach toward the southern promontory, a rise of gulls spread itself into a slow-shining coil, wheeling high and turning into the wind above the cliffs.

It’s getting late, I said. Maybe we should think about getting back.

I looked down the sands to where Jennie sat talking to her friends. Her red hair, just the color mine had been at her age, shone bright in a coppery halo, and I smiled to myself as I watched her lazily turn over on her side and smile at me. Fresh and bright as new mint money, Jennie was my special one, just now slipping into adolescence, not quite into moods but freshly budding and having trouble with our old familiarities.

Whatever problems Tom and I have, I said quietly to Grace, we’ll be able to work them out. We have too much to lose. I said this very softly.

What?

I said that whatever happens, Tom and I will stay married, I spoke louder. You’re right, Grace. Tom and I do have a good marriage. We’ll make things work.

I know you will. Grace reached over and touched my hand.

Let’s pick up, I said. It’s nearly time for dinner, and there’s one thing I’m certain of. Tom always wants to eat on time.

Again, loud cheers came from the volleyball court. "Winner! Jack Miller’s deep voice called out. Snap and pop! Winner."

We began to pick up our things and started up the hill to home. I had always been a shy person until I met Grace Brougham. I did not see that it limited me in many ways, but Grace was so natural and unaffected, she easily cut through my reserve. Now I recognize the first signs of inhibition. And I go out of my way to meet new and different people