by Amy Poeppel
“Well,” Robert said, “I don’t know about that.”
“She acted like he proposed or something,” Vicki told us, “like, officially.”
“Pardon?” Robert asked. “Why is everything ‘officially’?”
“I mean a ring, an actual proposal,” Vicki said. “That’s the only thing that would justify anyone acting so rashly.” She stood up and smoothed down the front of her linen skirt. “Where’s the ladies’ room in this place anyway? Is it revolting?”
Robert turned to watch her walk away. “Perhaps I deeed propose,” he said. “Not ‘officially,’ as she says, but of course Kate and I talked about a life together. But then one day somezing occurred to me, struck me on ze back of ze skull,” and he patted his head lightly to illustrate.
“Was it Kate’s suitcase?” I said in my snarkiest voice.
“A realization,” he stated. “It came to me, all at once,” and he snapped loudly. “You understand?”
“No,” I said bluntly.
“No? Then I ask you, George. Yes? If a woman walked up to you tonight, and she wanted to make love, would you do eeet?”
George blinked a few times. “I don’t understand the question.”
“Imagine: Chloe is away somewhere, out of town, and a beautiful woman eeez propositioning you. For sex, oui?”
“Non. That kind of thing doesn’t happen to me.”
“But you would not,” Robert said, pointing a finger at us. “I can tell by looking at you. But when Kate and I were seeing each other and I would go back to Paris on my own, many women approached me, and I always said yes. Every time, weeezout exception.”
“What?” I asked, thoroughly disgusted. “It was more than once?”
“I confess, eeet was often.”
“Oh my God.”
“And then one night after many hours with a Russian sweemsuit model, I got up out of bed, and I asked myself, what eeez the meaning of theees? And then suddenly I knew: Kate deeed not love me. She was not moving to Paris to be with me; she was moving because she needed somezing to do. Paris,” he said sternly, “eeez not just a thing to do.”
“Oh, you poor thing,” I said sarcastically. “But you really loved her, I suppose?”
“Non, I deeed not love her either. I discovered that as well.”
I took a sip of water and put the glass down hard, causing the table to wobble. “What is wrong with you?” I asked. “You couldn’t have had your epiphany, like, six months earlier? Or twelve sexual encounters before?”
“No, but as soon as I understood the truth, I knew we could not go on as before. The next day I woke up refreshed, unburdened, and the moment I saw her, I deeed what I had to do, and I told her everyzing.”
“About the Russian swimsuit model?” George asked.
“Certainly not. There was no need to be cruel.”
“Oh, please!” I said. “You don’t get points for that. You handled the situation horribly, and you were most certainly cruel. Don’t kid yourself.”
“Touché. But why must you always make a situation weightier than eeet needs to be? Life happens ze way that life happens. I don’t see why eeet should to be any more complicated than that. You agree, non?”
“Oui,” said George, “but not entirely.”
“I was not as kind to Kate as I should have beeen, I’m aware of that. But, I was not all bad for her, either; because of me, she did not continue with her studies, which was an excellent outcome,” Robert added. “Work should be fun. I encouraged her to quit because she was miserable with that lifeless, boring job.”
“I agree,” I said reluctantly, “that she needed to find a way out.”
“Ah, so, you see?” Robert exclaimed happily. “Everyzing for ze best. So don’t be angry with me anymore over Kate. We have always had our fights, Chloe, but we always make up, and theees time eeez no exception, d’accord? You know how much you mean to me.”
Vicki returned from the bathroom and sat down. “I think I caught a disease,” she said.
“And the bullet wound?” Robert continued. “Eeez she going to fully recover?”
“Seriously?” Vicki asked. “Are we still on the shooting?”
“I simply want to know if Kate will be disfigured or walk with a limp. She eeez a nice girl, and I don’t believe in eliminating women out of one’s life after the sex eeez over. Why should we do that? It’s very foolish if you ask me. I have fond memories of Kate. So, I’m giving her time to be angry with me, and when she’s ready, we’ll be friends again. I am friends with all of my former lovers.”
“Robert,” Vicki said calmly, “you and I can be friends with all kinds of people, but if you think I’m going to have dinner every other night of the week with random sluts you’ve dated in the past, you are out of your goddamn mind.”
“But why? What is ze problem?”
Vicki took a full breath, all the way in, and all the way out. “You might be French,” she explained, “but I’m very American.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Robert said.
“It means we’re doing things my way. End of discussion,” and she gave him her most stunning smile. Just when I thought they were starting to have a big fight, Robert pulled her close, and she kissed him. I wondered how she would feel if she knew just how incapable of monogamy Robert really was.
“My Victoria eeez like a terrorist, you see?” he told us proudly. “You don’t negotiate weeeth her. You do exactly as she says, and nobody gets hurt.”
“At least I’m myself with you,” she said.
“And I’m myself with you, my love. And I will tell you honestly that when you get that bossy look of a bulldog in your eyes, I can’t decide if I want to walk out on you forever or throw you on ze bed.”
“I don’t look anything like a bulldog, and I’ll tell you honestly that I want to stab you with a fork every time you say something idiotic like that,” she told him.
Under the table, George squeezed my hand, hard.
“I believe you,” Robert said. “Nonezeless you know perfectly well that Kate eeez not a random slut, and I plan to see her and attempt a reconciliation. If I fail, then I fail. But when I succeed, we will be better for it. No one needs more enemies than necessary in the world. Even a terrorist knows that.”
“Fine,” Vicki said, sighing. “Out of respect to Chloe, I’ll try to make up with Kate, get us back on speaking terms, anyway. Maybe someday she’ll get our children into that fancy school of hers.”
“Children?” I asked.
“I’m living eeen Victoria’s apartment now, deeed we tell you already?” Robert asked.
I was floored. “You moved to New York?”
“Too much flying back and forth, landing in JFK, a véritable nightmare. I couldn’t bear eeet any longer. And Victoria, she couldn’t tolerate the distance between us. Theees beautiful woman becomes wildly suspicious if she calls and doesn’t hear back from me in precisely five minutes. She once sent me fifty-four text messages in the course of one hour. I counted. I thought to myself: I can, of course, keep my apartment in Paris, and I can work as well from here as anywhere else. And eeef I move in with her, that will shut her mouth for good.”
“I don’t know about ‘for good,’ ” she said. “My next demand is that you have to quit smoking all over my expensive upholstery, or I’ll send you straight back to Paris.”
He looked startled and then suddenly laughed at her. “That eeez not going to happen. So you can get all red in the face like you do and throw yourself on the floor and cry like a baby, and you can even send me back to Paris. You asked me to move, and I moved. I never said I would give up cigarettes, and I won’t do eeet.”
“We’ll see about that,” she said firmly. “You might look sexy when you smoke, but you won’t look sexy to me when you’re dying of emphysema.”
“I’d rather be dead, darling, than quit.” He took her hand and kissed it.
“I’m so confused,” George whispered.
“So, Robert,” I said suddenly, deciding I was through keeping secrets, “that’s a pretty big admission, to say that you cheated on Kate over and over again with who knows how many swimsuit models. I’m just curious, how often do you cheat on Vicki? Is it weekly, or monthly, or what?” I waited for an eruption.
“Oh, sweetie,” Vicki said to me, like I was a child afraid of monsters in the closet. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Cheat on her?” Robert asked. He looked truly baffled by the question.
“If he did, it would be all over, and he knows it,” she said, and she leaned back and punched Robert hard on his arm.
“Oww, I wouldn’t dare, never,” he laughed, rubbing his bicep. “No, I would never behave that way with her. Do you know what theees insane woman would do to me?”
“Make you very, very sorry,” she said.
“She would castrate me. She would murder me in cold blood,” he said. “And you, Chloe, you will give the eulogy at my funeral. And in that moment I hope you will be glad that before my untimely and violent demise, you and I were on speaking terms again. I, for one, am extremely happy to have you back eeen my life where you belong. You are toujours compliquée, but you know I love you just as you are.” He grabbed me and hugged me hard, bumping his big head squarely into mine. “Pardon, cousine,” he said, handing me an ice cube from his water glass.
“I’m not at all complicated,” I told him. “It’s everyone around me causing problems.”
“What problems?” he asked. “We’re having a marvelous time together, non?”
“Whatever,” I said, giving up any further attempt to make him understand. “Your accent seriously sucks,” I added.
“Now zat eeez categorically false. I have beeen told I have no accent.”
“You’ve been lied to.”
“George,” he said with the softest “G” possible, looking for an ally, “tell her my English sounds like British aristocracy. I speak as eeef I am ze love child of Hugh Bonneville and Princess Diana.”
Vicki saved George by sticking to the topic of killing Robert. “I hope you know that no one will go to your funeral because I’ll bar the door.”
“How will you bar ze door to my funeral from your jail cell?” he asked.
“Jail? I’m not going to jail. I’ll outsmart the police.”
“Chloe, after she kills me, you will have this woman arrested. Swear it. Your allegiance eeez to me.”
“No, Chloe, tell him. You tell him you expect him to pay the ultimate penalty if he betrays me or disrespects me in any way. He listens to you.”
It seemed they both had their hands full. At that moment I had to admire Vicki for her tenacity and passion, and, whether I liked it or not, I knew I had no choice but to love Robert who, with all of his many flaws, was part of me, and all there was left to do, I realized, was to have hope for them. Kate was right—they did make sense together. And I was and would always be a fixture in each of their lives, whether they were together or not, dysfunctional or madly in love, happily single or miserably lonely. What a surprise it was to find myself truly wanting it to work out for them.
“Vicki can be very determined,” I told Robert. “You may lose more than a few battles with her. And I know neither one of you likes to lose.”
“I am willing to accept defeat from time to time,” he said, “but only because she eeez a magnificent and terrifying opponent.”
“Enough about us,” Vicki said. “We want to hear about you. Tell us all the ways the two of you are going to save the world together, while we selfish people are busy enjoying ourselves. When did you meet anyway?”
“They’re scary,” George said to me as we walked home that night, “but you matter to them; they’ll never give you up.”
“I know,” I agreed. “So I guess we’re keeping them?”
“Of course, as long as you promise you won’t take it upon yourself to clean up any messes they make.”
“Never again,” I vowed. “But I do want to be in their lives, especially for the important, complicated moments, the big events like Robert’s funeral or Vicki’s murder trial.”
“Or something more positive,” George suggested, “like a wedding.”
“It’s a damn good thing you didn’t get yourself shot in January,” Maureen said. “We wouldn’t have had time for this kind of bullshit then.”
“I’m not even complaining,” Kate said.
“Oh, please,” said Maureen. “I broke my toe once and didn’t carry on like you’re doing.” They were making their way up the three steps to the conference room, where Kate had a meeting with the school lawyer.
“I can totally walk without you,” Kate told her. “You’re the one chasing around after me all day. If you want to be my best friend, just say so.”
“You’re a pitiful, cast-wearing, limping, fat-legged version of your former self. And don’t think you can get away with any of that PTSD shit. When this is over, it’s over. And I told you—you remember?—I told you, you wear your skirts too short.”
“You never told me that,” Kate said. “What’s my skirt got to do with it?”
“If you’d had a longer skirt on, the bullet would have had some material to bounce off of. It’s your own fault.”
“Isn’t that, like, blaming the victim?”
“Victim? No one feels sorry for you.”
If the gun hadn’t fired, the crisis would have evaporated very quickly; Hudson certainly didn’t want any negative publicity. However, with a puncture right through the Louis Vuitton, a gash on the side of Kate’s leg, and a hole through the office wall, the school couldn’t possibly sweep the incident under the bloody, vomit-covered rug. Kate understood perfectly well that something serious had happened, but when Henry told her the severity of the charges Kenneth and especially Silvia were facing, she didn’t think it was right. Silvia had suffered a mental collapse, and was currently an inpatient at Payne Whitney, getting evaluated and medicated. Kate felt she’d been punished enough.
Maureen left Kate with the lawyer, who explained the situation from Hudson’s perspective. A gun had discharged in a school zone, even if by accident. Silvia had brought the weapon into the school knowingly and under circumstances that made her no friend to the school and certainly no friend to the admissions department. Her actions reeked of malicious intent. She had broken the law and would now face jail time, along with community service and, of course, money to cover medical costs, pain, and suffering.
“I’m not suffering,” Kate said. “I’m going to be fine.”
“That’s not the point,” the lawyer said. “She held you hostage, and she could have killed you, not to mention a student. You’re owed something, and the school is owed something because she’s damaged our reputation; we’re a school with a shooting incident on our record. Your job of selling this place will be a lot harder next year given that parents really don’t like crazy people shooting guns off where their kids go to school.”
“But I’m telling you, she never planned to use it. She was just a medicated, desperate mess.”
“And him? What’s his excuse?” the lawyer asked. “As soon as he knew she had the gun with her, what prevented him from trying to get her off school property right away?”
“Stress?” Kate suggested.
“The bullet went clear through the wall; what if it had killed a child? And Kate, you got lucky. You could be a quadriplegic in a hospital bed right now, needing around-the-clock care for the rest of your life.”
Kate imagined Angela feeding her with a baby spoon, day in and day out. Angela would give up everything to take care of her, no matter how big a burden she turned out to be. And Chloe would be there, too, buying her stuffed animals and making her pudding.
“And what about Henry?” the lawyer continued. “He’s a husband and a pillar in this school. What if the gun had gone off while he was in the office?”
All the blood that ran down her leg, soaked her shoe, and puddled on the ca
rpet could just have easily been Henry’s. Kate pictured him drenched in it, gasping for breath, and the idea of him dying suddenly brought on an unexpected rush of tears.
“Or Maureen?” the lawyer went on. “What if something had happened to her? I’m not trying to upset you,” he said, passing her a box of tissues, “but you have to consider the heinousness of intentionally bringing a loaded weapon on school premises. A school. Children with no way of protecting themselves, teachers, staff, people you care about. Something much worse could have happened.”
“I understand,” Kate said, trying to dry her face while the tears kept coming. “So what do we do?”
“That’s what you need to think about. These people have a lot of assets, and you’re entitled to compensation. The school is considering its options, and you should consider yours.”
After the meeting Kate slowly made her way to Henry’s office and stood in the doorway. “Silvia didn’t aim it at me. You know that, right? That the whole thing was an accident?”
“We don’t know what she had planned,” Henry said, getting her a chair to sit on and another to elevate her leg.
“She didn’t intend to hurt anyone.”
“I don’t care. She was reckless, and she could have killed you. That’s enough for me. Honestly, Kate, how did you stay so cool? Why didn’t you run or scream for help? I could have done something. I could have tried to help you.”
“No point in both of us getting shot,” Kate said. “What would you have done if you were me?”
“I don’t think I could have handled it half as well as you did. And after what they put you through, I want them to pay, I do. She could have killed any one of us, even if it was by accident. Do you have any idea how furious Pat would be if I died?”
“I know. And I accept that there should be a stiff punishment for what they did. But I’ve been thinking about it, Henry,” she said, “and with your permission, there’s something else I really, really want to get from all of this.”
HUDSON DAY SCHOOL
Dear Claudia,