by Joy Fielding
“What do you think I’ve been doing all week?” Heather asked, managing to sound indignant.
“You mean other than sleeping till noon and lying around in the sun?”
“For your information, I’ve spent hours on my laptop, looking at what jobs are available in my field, trying to find something for someone with my qualifications,” Heather lied, pretending not to notice the roll of her father’s eyes. “It’s going to take time. There’s not a lot out there right now. Look at Paige. She’s been unemployed for months. I don’t hear you complaining about her.”
“First of all, Paige isn’t my daughter, much as I wish she were.”
“Great,” Heather muttered under her breath, hating her cousin more than ever.
“Secondly, she was a casualty of a New York takeover, not her own irresponsibility.”
“You saying I’m irresponsible?”
“You’re the one who left work in the middle of the day.”
“I had a very good reason for leaving the office that afternoon,” Heather protested. “I’d just found out that Noah—”
“Noah,” her father scoffed, his hands waving dismissively in front of his face, as if warding off a pesky fly. “Another one of your wise decisions. As if going after your cousin’s boyfriend wasn’t foolish enough. Did you really think that a man stupid enough to cheat on someone like Paige wasn’t going to cheat on you, too?” He shook his head. “I can’t believe a daughter of mine could be that dumb.”
Heather’s eyes filled with angry tears. “I am not dumb.”
“Then prove it. Let me call Walt Simon and tell him you’ll interview for that job.”
Heather looked from her father to her mother, then back to her father. “There is no way I’m working as a fucking teller in a fucking bank. So you can take your fucking job and shove it up your fucking ass.”
“Oh, Heather,” her mother said as the color drained from Ted Hamilton’s face.
“Okay, then,” her father said, with infuriating calm. “I’m afraid you leave us no choice.” He paused, whether to collect his thoughts or for dramatic effect, Heather couldn’t be sure. “I’ll arrange to have some money transferred into your account, enough for first and last month’s rent on an apartment, plus enough to tide you over for a few months. Hopefully by the time your money runs out, you’ll have found a job suitable for someone with your qualifications.”
Heather looked toward her mother. “I can’t believe you’re letting him do this.”
“You have till the weekend,” her father said. “If you haven’t found a place by then, well, maybe you can persuade one of your brothers to take you in until you do.”
“I don’t need till the weekend,” Heather said. “I’ll be out of here this afternoon. In fact, you won’t ever have to see me again. How’s that?” She spun around on her heels, then fled the room, bounding up the stairs to her bedroom and slamming the door behind her. “Fuck you!” she cried, cursing her father, her mother, Noah, and Paige. Precious Paige. The daughter her father had always wanted.
“Heather, please,” she heard her mother call. “Be sensible.”
Heather sank down on the bed, her body shaking with rage. She had no idea where she was going to go or what she was going to do.
Only one thing was certain: she was way past sensible.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Chloe stood amid the chaos of her mother’s small, furnished studio apartment, wondering where to start. There was stuff everywhere. Discarded underwear littered the scuffed hardwood floor. Glitzy dance costumes were flung across the open and unmade sofa bed like sequined pillowcases. Dozens of fashion magazines were stacked up against the walls like unpruned vines. Used tissues and scrap pieces of paper lay crumpled in every corner. A moldy, half-eaten sandwich sat on the counter of the tiny galley kitchen, beside a pile of unwashed plastic dishes. “Holy cow,” the building supervisor exclaimed when he’d unlocked the apartment door to let Chloe inside. “Garbage chute’s down the hall,” he’d added without prompting. “Good luck.”
Her first thought was that robbers had broken in and tossed the place, then vandalized it when they could find nothing of worth. Her second thought, which came to her when she stumbled over an empty vodka bottle, was that no robbers had been necessary. Her mother was more than capable of making a mess like this on her own.
And leaving it for someone else to clean up.
Still, Chloe couldn’t remember any of the places she’d grown up in ever having been this bad. This was like a tornado had swept through, as she’d described it to Paige, texting her in horror as soon as the super left, adding, I’ll be here all night.
I’d come help you, Paige had texted back immediately. But I’m giving this online dating one more shot, and I’m on my way to the hairdresser at this very minute, followed by a mani-pedi and a bikini wax.
You go, girl, Chloe had messaged back. She’d removed her own picture and profile from the dating sites she’d joined to check on Matt soon after posting them. Maybe one day, when her divorce was final, she’d work up the courage to actually try them. Right now, even the thought of dating terrified her. Matt had been the only man in her life since she was fourteen years old, the only lover she’d ever known. What would it be like to have another man’s hands on her body, to feel another man inside her?
“Oh, God,” Chloe said, banishing the thought and setting her mind to the task at hand. She started with the kitchen, emptying the fridge and the cupboards and drawers of their contents, and throwing everything that couldn’t be recycled into one of the heavy-duty plastic bags she’d had the foresight to bring with her, garbage bags being one of the few items her mother didn’t seem to have lying around. She dragged the bag to the door of the apartment and opened it.
The door across the hall opened almost simultaneously. Chloe found herself staring into the sleep-filled eyes of a skinny young man wearing precariously low-slung sweatpants and no shirt.
“Hey,” he said with a smile, running a hand through his almost shoulder-length brown hair.
“Hey.” Chloe estimated the boy’s age as maybe nineteen or twenty.
“I thought I heard someone rattling around in there,” he said.
“Sorry if I disturbed you.”
“That’s okay. You a friend of Jennifer’s?”
“Not exactly. I’m her daughter.”
“Mothers and daughters can’t be friends?” he asked with a smile, as if no answer was required. “I can see a resemblance, now that you mention it. I’m Ethan.”
“Chloe.”
“Nice to meet you, Chloe. I really like your mom. She’s cool.”
Chloe nodded, unsure how to respond.
He rubbed his hairless chest. “Haven’t seen her in a while.”
“She’s in Las Vegas.”
“Yeah? Another one of those dance competitions?”
“Actually, she got married.”
“No kidding! Wow. Does that mean she’ll be moving out?”
Chloe nodded. “I’m here to pack up her things.”
Ethan peered over her shoulder into Jennifer’s apartment. “Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
Chloe’s phone rang. She pulled it from the side pocket of her jeans and checked the caller ID. “Excuse me,” she said to Ethan. “Matt, hi.” He was scheduled to pick the kids up from day camp this afternoon and keep them overnight. “Is there a problem?”
“No problem. Just checking to make sure Josh is good to go.”
“Yeah, his earache seems to have cleared up.” She smiled goodbye to Ethan, stepping back inside her mother’s apartment.
“Do you want some help in there?” he asked as she was closing the door.
“You mean it? That would be so great.”
“Who’s that?” Matt asked.
“I’ll go put on a shirt.”
“You’re with some half-naked guy?”
Chloe laughed. “Not exactly.”
“What exactly?”
Chloe decided to ignore the proprietary tone in Matt’s voice. There was no point in disturbing the delicate truce they’d established by reminding him that such things were no longer his concern. Being Matt, his temper was bound to get the better of him occasionally, but he’d been making such an effort. Better to humor than upset him, she decided, especially when there was nothing to get upset about. “I’m at my mother’s,” she explained. “Believe it or not, she eloped to Las Vegas, and this kid who lives across the hall from her just offered to help me get her stuff together.” She broke off when she realized Matt was no longer on the line. “Matt? Matt?”
“Something wrong?” Ethan asked, reappearing in a maroon T-shirt with a gold Harvard logo.
“Looks like we were disconnected.” Chloe returned the phone to her pocket. “You go to Harvard?”
“I’m smarter than I look,” he said.
Chloe laughed. “I’m not so sure. You really want to do this?”
Ethan shrugged. “Got nothing better to do.”
“Well, then. Let’s get to it.”
They spent the next two hours packing things up and throwing things out.
“The place looks much bigger once you get rid of all the junk,” Chloe marveled, plopping down on the now cleared-off sofa bed in the center of the room, and wondering what to do with the well-worn sheets. She could throw them out or offer them to Ethan. He’d already volunteered to take the dishes, the towels, and the old portable TV. What he didn’t want, he said he’d take to Goodwill. “Looks like we’re almost done,” she told him, amazed by what they’d accomplished in a relatively short period of time. “You’ve been a godsend. I can’t thank you enough.”
A suitcase crammed with her mother’s costumes and clothes stood at the door, holding it open, allowing some much-needed air into the apartment. She’d take it to FedEx in the morning, she decided. She was too tired to do it now. There wasn’t a part of her that didn’t ache.
“What do you want to do with these?” Ethan asked, pulling a large cardboard box out of the closet and withdrawing several small statuettes.
“What are they?”
“Dance trophies,” he said, offering them up for her perusal. “About a dozen of them. First place in the tango; second place in the waltz; first place in the jitterbug. What’s a jitterbug?”
Chloe laughed. “Believe it or not, that’s before my time, too.” She took one of the trophies from Ethan’s hand and studied it. Thousands and thousands of dollars spent to win a trophy that was worth maybe five dollars at most. Still, when was the last time she’d come first in anything? “I didn’t realize she was that good.”
“She’s great,” Ethan said, joining her on the bed.
“How do you know?”
“I went to see her once.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. A few months ago, a competition at the Park Plaza. One of those Spanish dances. She invited me and a couple of my friends. We thought it’d be good for a laugh, you know. But she was genuinely good. I was impressed. You’ve never seen her dance?”
“No,” Chloe said, rotating her neck from side to side, hearing her joints creak. Her mother had never invited her.
“Your neck stiff?” he asked.
“My neck, my shoulders, my back.”
“Turn around,” he said. “They tell me that I’m very good at this.”
Chloe swiveled around on the bed, as Ethan’s hands moved to massage her shoulder blades. “Oh, my God. That feels sensational.”
“It’s a gift,” he said with a laugh.
Chloe felt the muscles at the base of her neck responding instantly to his firm but gentle ministrations. “Oh, my God,” she said again. “You have no idea how good that feels.”
“Knock, knock,” came a voice from the doorway.
Ethan jumped to his feet as Matt walked into the room.
“Matt,” Chloe said, pushing herself off the bed, feeling guilty, though she wasn’t sure why. “What are you doing here?” She glanced at her watch. “You have to pick up the kids…”
“I have time. Just thought I’d stop by and see if I could lend a hand.” His eyes moved slowly from Chloe to Ethan. “But I can see no more hands are required.” He smiled. “I’m Matt, by the way. Chloe’s husband.”
“Ethan. Pleased to meet you.” Ethan looked toward Chloe, as if he wasn’t sure whether to sit back down or run. “So, I’ll be in my apartment. Call me when you want me to come get the TV and stuff.”
“Thank you so much, Ethan. For everything.”
“Oh, and Ethan,” Matt called as the boy stepped into the hall. “You can close the door after you.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
It was after five o’clock when Paige finally returned home. Which meant she had less than an hour to change her clothes, apply fresh makeup, and make her way over to Anthony’s Bar for her date with Mr. Right Now.
The afternoon had been a disaster. First, her hairdresser was running late, and Paige had been forced to cool her heels for almost half an hour till he was ready for her, which made her more than forty minutes late for her mani-pedi, which meant that the manicurist had already moved on to her next client, which meant Paige had to wait again, which made her really late for her bikini wax, which proved even more painful than usual. Then her phone died, so she couldn’t even text Mr. Right Now to warn him she might be late, after promising to be there at “six on the button.”
Could anything else possibly go wrong? she was thinking as she hurried past the condo’s concierge toward the elevators.
“Miss Hamilton,” he called after her. “There’s someone here to see you…”
“What? Who?” she asked, returning to the lobby.
“Hello, Paige,” Heather said, rising from her seat behind a large marble pillar and walking toward her, the unmistakable scent of marijuana surrounding her like a stale but overpowering perfume.
Shit, thought Paige. This afternoon just keeps getting better.
“You two have got to be related,” the concierge said with a smile, oblivious to the tension between them. “You look like twins. Guess you get that all the time.”
“All the time,” Heather said.
“Is something wrong?” Paige asked. “Your parents…”
“Alive and kicking. Unfortunately,” she added, not quite under her breath.
Wow, Paige thought. Okay. “Are you high?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Heather said, although her unfocused eyes said otherwise.
“What are you doing here?”
“We need to talk.”
Paige glanced at her watch. “I really don’t have time right now.”
“Make time,” Heather said. “I’m sure you don’t want an unpleasant scene in the lobby, which is freezing, by the way. Do they have to keep it so goddamn cold?”
Paige looked toward the concierge, who was watching them expectantly, his smile starting to waver. “Fine. Okay. Come on up.” They walked toward the elevators. “You’re sure this is necessary?” Paige asked, as they stepped inside a waiting elevator. “I mean, if it’s about what happened with Noah…”
“What do you know?” Heather said, as the doors closed and the elevator started its ascent. “She’s not just a pretty face.”
Paige brought one hand to her nose to keep the sickeningly sweet smell emanating from Heather’s hair and skin at bay. She hoped it wouldn’t transfer to her own skin. She didn’t have time to take a shower. “Look. I’m sure you’ve seen the video. It pretty much speaks for itself.”
“It doesn’t speak for me,” Heather said.
“Okay, well, fine.” Paige gulped
at the fresh air as the doors opened onto the tenth floor and the two women stepped into the hall. “I can’t believe you’re going for the moral high ground here, but…whatever. Just try not to upset my mother.”
“Your mother isn’t home,” Heather said. “The concierge told me she took off about an hour ago.”
That’s odd, Paige thought. Her mother had told her that Harry was babysitting his grandchildren tonight, giving her a chance to stay home and study her bridge notes. Of course, plans change, and her mother might have tried to reach her after her phone died. “Fine. Okay. Come in.” She unlocked the door. “But I really don’t have much time.”
“Big date?” Heather asked.
“As a matter of fact, yes.” Paige walked directly into the kitchen and plugged her phone into the charger next to the landline.
“With Sam?” Heather asked from the doorway.
“No. Not with Sam.”
“With Noah?”
“What? No, of course not with Noah!”
“You’re trying to tell me you haven’t seen him?”
“Not since your father’s party, no.”
“You haven’t talked to him?”
“Why would I? I have no interest in the man anymore, Heather. I think the video made that very clear. He’s all yours.”
There was a long pause.
“We broke up,” Heather said.
Paige sighed. The sigh said she wasn’t surprised. “And you blame me?”
“Who else should I blame?”
“How about Noah?” Paige asked. And yourself, she added silently.
It was Heather’s turn to sigh. “My father says that any man stupid enough to cheat on someone like you would, of course, do the same thing to someone like me, and I’m beyond dumb if I didn’t see it coming.”
“You’re not dumb,” Paige said, feeling almost sorry for her cousin. “And for a supposedly smart man, your father says an awful lot of stupid things.”
Heather’s eyes clouded over with tears.
“Look. For what it’s worth,” Paige said, “I’m sorry you’re hurting…”