Chapter Seven
Taylor was waiting for me in his office. I’d dressed carefully for the occasion; when you walk into a situation not knowing what to expect, what you wear is part of the conversation. Tailored skirt, silk shirt, good shoes, gold earrings. A uniform, but a nice one. I’d even gone in for what used to be called a foundation garment when we swore off them (forever, we thought, in our optimism) in the sixties and seventies. Now they’re called body shapers, but the task is the same.
Taylor smiled at me so warmly I almost turned around to see who was standing behind me in the doorway. “Becky,” he said, as if my presence were the most delicious sort of surprise. “Come in. Have a seat.”
I looked around at that. There was something different—the office was clean. In fact, it was very clean, and there wasn’t a file in sight. I was puzzled, but I began to relax. Unless he was a world-class sadist, his tone hadn’t sounded like bad news. I sat.
“The others will be here in a few minutes,” he said, still beaming. “I wanted to fill you in before they got here.”
I didn’t know if I was supposed to know who the others were, but I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. I had a sudden brief urge to throttle my daughter and her sloppy message-taking. Voice mail definitely, before the day was out.
“You’ve been holding out on us,” Taylor said, as if that were an adorable thing to do. I’d been waiting for this conversation for six years, and now I didn’t know what it was even about. “How long have you known Bobbie Crystol?”
I tried not to gape. I knew it had to be some mistake—the appreciative tone, all this collegial warmth. “Bobbie Crystol?” I asked, like some obtuse parrot.
“Yes,” he said encouragingly. “Doctor Bobbie Crystol. The anti-aging guru, if that’s the right word.”
I felt dismayed. Of course I knew who Bobbie Crystol was, now that he reminded me. Her book, You Don’t Have to Die, had made every bestseller list from the Times to the La Jolla Light. You’d have to have been comatose to ignore the kind of media hype she’d received. But while I knew of her, I didn’t know her, not in the way he obviously meant. I hadn’t even read the book. That combination of zealotry and showmanship didn’t appeal to me. “More séance than science,” as one reviewer put it.
Although I wasn’t eager to disillusion Taylor and forfeit all this unwarranted approval, I knew I had to say something, fast. “I’m afraid I—”
The phone buzzed on his desk, and he lifted a finger to signal me to wait. “Taylor Anderson,” he said crisply into the receiver. He listened for a few seconds and then frowned. “Give me two minutes, and then show her in. Offer her some cappuccino, or whatever she’d like.”
He put down the phone and looked at me. “She’s here early, so we won’t have a chance to go over the game plan. Now, you’re nominally in charge, but I know you won’t object if I back you up. You don’t have the experience yet to handle a major client entirely on your own. And if you don’t mind, I think it might be a good idea to get Melissa Peters involved too. But of course that’s up to you.”
My mind could only absorb one phrase from what he’d said. “I’m in charge,” I repeated.
He smiled as proudly as if I’d won the Nobel Prize, or maybe just the lottery. I would have given a lot to have earned that smile. “Dr. Crystol asked for you specifically. I’ve explained to her that she’ll need a team to handle all of her legal matters, but after today, you’re the billing attorney.”
“She asked for me?” I knew I was sounding less than quick-witted on this topic, but I couldn’t help myself.
“Yes, and I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that if we handle this right, it could be worth a lot of money to the firm. Not only is there a great deal of ongoing legal work, but the publicity is priceless.” He gave me a little wink, the closest he had come to being playful. “I guess I don’t have to add that there are substantial rewards in line for an associate who brings in a client like this,” he said. “Nice going, Becky.”
It didn’t seem the optimal moment to tell him that I couldn’t imagine any possible reason why Dr. Bobbie Crystol would ask for me to work for her in any capacity, including janitor, and that in all probability this entire construct would come tumbling down as soon as she realized that she had, in all probability, made a colossal mistake in identity. I was trying to frame some graceful explanation that would extricate all of us from this embarrassing situation when Wendy opened the door. “Right through here, Dr. Crystol.”
I put on my best meet-the-client smile. I’d seen Bobbie Crystol fleetingly on television, so I knew she would be tall and vanilla-blond, with an operatic sense of style and a manner to match. I extended my hand and stepped toward the door.
And was enveloped immediately in a cloud of hand-painted silk. “Becky,” Bobbie Crystol said, embracing me as if I were the last Godiva chocolate in the world. “How marvelous to see you again.”
Because my face was buried in silk, I couldn’t see her very clearly, but there was something just a little familiar about her voice. Please, God, I implored, squeezing in a prayer before she released me. If I know this person, please let me recognize her. It will be so embarrassing if I don’t.
But I didn’t. She had an oval face, flawless skin, and eyes too blue to be natural. She looked about a decade younger than I did, and gravity had not yet begun its evil work on her form, which was encased in a flowing tunic top and matching pants that had probably set her back a month’s worth of my salary. She wore big shiny earrings reminiscent of Christmas ornaments on steroids.
She smiled, showing a very large number of very white teeth. “You don’t recognize me, do you?” she said.
I flirted briefly with the idea of trying to fake it but rejected it as too risky, as well as unlikely to impress. “Well,” I began apologetically, “I’m afraid not…” I could almost feel Taylor wincing, although Dr. Crystol still absorbed the lion’s share of my view.
She released me and stood back, giving me a better panorama. “Thank God,” she said. “I would have been so mortified if you had!”
Hope, which had momentarily flared up when Dr. Crystol seemed to recognize me, flickered out again. She might be fortune’s favorite, but she was evidently a few cards short of a full deck. I answered her with the sort of friendly wariness I’d perfected as the firm’s receptionist. “Oh, yes?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “Think Holcombe Hall, Becky. Does that help you remember?”
Holcombe Hall was the dorm I’d lived in as a freshman in college. Could she have been someone’s younger sister? I mentally traveled down its dingy corridors, following the scuffed tiles and acoustic ceilings, opening the doors of memory. I stopped, horrified. Not—
Dr. Crystol was watching me closely. So was Taylor, but I was lost in the past more than twenty-five years before.
It couldn’t be.
I lifted my eyes to Bobbie Crystol and she nodded, smiling. Delighted, in fact. “That’s right. Barbara Collins.”
No wonder she’d been thrilled that I hadn’t recognized her right away. The Barbara Collins I’d known had been an overweight, peevish premed student, bright enough to succeed ably in class but not original enough to be labeled brilliant. There was very little resemblance to the svelte, dynamic creature who’d turned herself into a mega-celebrity mind-body-spirit guru whose shtick was eternal youth. If we’d lived in seventeenth-century Salem, they’d be piling the kindling around the base of the stake for sure.
I didn’t know what to say. “I can’t believe it” didn’t sound quite right. “Why me?” didn’t sound like a good idea either, but it’s what I was thinking. The Barbara Collins I remembered hadn’t liked me in the least, certainly not enough to do me any major favors.
Maybe it was bad chemistry, maybe it was the antiquated and cruel phone system, which (in the days before anyone had a phone in her own room) alerted whole corridors to who was (and wasn’t) getting outside calls through an elaborate code of
blaring tones. I remembered, in the distant way you do when something is no longer relevant, like finger painting or sex, that my phone used to ring a lot, and Barbara’s didn’t.
Or maybe it was something I did or said or wore. I remember noting the animosity and snide remarks with amusement, which in retrospect I hoped I hadn’t let show. It was college, and there were other fish to fry. There was always somebody who didn’t like you. No big deal.
Still, even your friends didn’t usually look you up out of the blue after a quarter of a century to drop riches and rewards into your lap. More likely it was some classier version of Revenge of the Nerds. Anyway, what difference did it make? This was a gift horse far too big to look in the mouth.
The “horse” was clearly expecting a gracious response, which I, gathering my wits, attempted to muster. “I’m overwhelmed,” I said, which was true. “You look fantastic.” I turned to Taylor. “Dr. Crystol and I went to school together.”
He smiled disbelievingly, as if I’d claimed Leo DiCaprio as an intimate.
“It’s true,” Barbara—Dr. Crystol—told him, clearly delighted by his incredulity. “We were in the same class.”
“In that case,” Taylor said, holding a chair for our client with as much panache as the Scarlet Pimpernel, “you are certainly an excellent advertisement for your own program.”
Not to mention liposuction, a platoon of well-compensated plastic surgeons, and, I was virtually positive now that I thought back, tinted contact lenses. Meow. Still, I thought I was entitled to a little cattiness since Taylor had implied she looked practically young enough to be my daughter. It didn’t help in the least that it was perfectly true.
“What I don’t understand,” Taylor continued, looking at me curiously, “is why you didn’t know your classmate had become so famous.”
What could I say? Because she used to be everybody’s idea of somebody with no activities under her name in the yearbook? There was no nice way to explain it. Come to think of it, it was surprising that news of the transformation hadn’t trickled down. That’s what alumni magazines are for, after all. “Well, I, uh…”
Dr. Crystol rescued me. “I left after two years,” she said firmly. “I transferred to UCLA.” I hadn’t known—or noticed—that, a fact I was not about to admit. “I’ve changed my name, and, as Becky will tell you, I don’t look the way I used to either. My mother still gets my old alumni magazines at her address, and that’s how I found you, Becky.” She smiled at me, and Taylor and I both smiled back. “My publicity materials are purposely vague about my past, although if anyone cares to look it up, of course I don’t mind. I reinvented myself, and that’s the way I like to present myself to the world. I’m Bobbie Crystol now,” she said, stressing the name for my benefit in case I should be so gauche as to slip and call her commonplace Barbara. The earrings flashed and clinked a little, as if to second the motion.
I thought of Mark Lawrence, the psychiatrist I’d seen when I went through my divorce, and of how much I’d enjoy telling him about this situation. Unfortunately, I’d reached the point of impecuniousness some time ago when it was a wild extravagance to pay someone to listen to your stories, but nevertheless I thought he’d like it. Though I’d always felt a little shy of him, he wasn’t one of those impassive therapists who never reacted to anything you said.
“Perhaps you two should get together for lunch and catch up on the old days,” Taylor said, throwing us at each other like a matchmaker. “You must have a lot to talk about.” He was hardly to be blamed if he thought we must have been bosom buddies in the sweet mists of our youth. How else to explain the choice of a first-year associate to hand your legal business to?
“That would be lovely,” said Bar-Bobbie, now and ever after to be Bobbie, if that’s what she wanted. She consulted her watch. I refused to check whether it was a Rolex or a Patek Philippe. “I’m not free today. Tomorrow? One o’clock? I think I’m free, but if I’m not I’ll have my assistant get back to you.”
I didn’t have an assistant, but at any event I was certainly going to adapt my schedule accordingly. I said I thought that would be lovely too.
“Then shall we get down to business?” Taylor asked. We all beamed at each other as if this were a splendidly original idea. “We are a full-service law firm, so perhaps you could tell us what your needs are at this time, Dr. Crystol.”
“Bobbie, please.” She crossed her legs, showing pink toenails on her sandaled foot. I could see that Taylor was having an effect on her not dissimilar to that of walking past a bakery and catching the fragrance of fresh-baked cinnamon rolls. Her body inclined ever so slightly in his direction, following its instincts. I wondered if there were a Mr. Dr. Crystol, and if so, what he was like.
“Well,” said Bobbie, “naturally my business affairs are such that I already have representation. Largo and Longueur, in New York.”
I could almost hear the air go out of our inflated hopes. “Naturally,” murmured Taylor. “A very fine firm.”
“Naturally,” I said, Taylor’s echo.
“But…” She hesitated.
“But?” Taylor prompted.
“This is confidential, of course?”
“Of course,” Taylor and I, the lawyer chorus, said together.
“Good. Some of my patients are famous, very famous, and require the utmost discretion. I’ve acquired a clinic in Mexico, which I hope to transform into the premier longevity spa in the world. In time I would hope to add others as well. So there will be real estate and tax issues, and of course, since we are a nonprofit corporation, there are compliance issues as well. I’m looking for someone in Southern California to represent my interests in these areas. Later, perhaps, there will be even more. I like it here, and I might be moving my base of operations to La Jolla.” She tore her gaze away from Taylor with apparent difficulty and looked at me. “Does that interest you?”
I knew what I was supposed to say without the benefit of Taylor’s piercing, encouraging look. “Certainly,” I told her.
“We work with excellent firms in Mexico,” Taylor added.
“Good, because that’s one of the reasons I’m here,” she said. “When I bought the clinic, the red tape got out of hand, and the bribes have been endless.”
“I’m sorry to say that bribes—la mordida—are inevitable when you do business in Mexico,” Taylor said, with a First World sophisticated chuckle. “The trick is knowing whom to pay and how much, so you get what you want in the end.”
“This is what they teach you at Harvard Law School,” I joked.
Taylor smiled faintly.
“You went to Harvard?” Bobbie asked, all but batting her eyelashes at him.
He inclined his head modestly.
“What kind of clinic?” I asked.
The ornaments swung in my direction. “Shark cartilage,” she said, without blinking. “For cancer.”
I’d heard this called “the great white hype” in medical exposés. It ranked up there with coffee-grounds enemas (another South of the Border favorite) as a target for ridicule. “And, ahem, will you be continuing that sort of treatment?” I asked her.
Taylor was frowning at me, but I wanted to know how bad things were.
“Of course not,” said Bobbie. “There’s no medical basis for those treatments whatsoever.”
I let out a small sigh of relief. I mean yoga and aromatherapy are one thing, but deceiving the desperate is something else.
“We have something much more effective than that to offer our patients,” she said, her voice rising a little in pitch. “We harness the immense power of the mind and spirit to the latest in scientific innovations to not only heal the body but extend the life cycle well beyond the norm.”
“Very impressive,” Taylor said neutrally. He was not the mind-body-spirit type; even I could see that.
“You’re skeptical,” Bobbie observed. She didn’t sound annoyed. “I’m used to that. I’ll send you some literature explaining what we do, and mayb
e the two of you would like to come to one of my presentations. I’m giving a seminar at the Convention Center next week.”
“I’ll try to be there,” I assured her.
She looked at Taylor expectantly. “Taylor?”
His face momentarily took on a harassed look, which he wiped off just as quickly. “Why not?” he said.
“Excellent,” Bobbie said, smiling complacently. “Now why don’t I give you these documents to review?”
I wondered if attendance at the seminar was some kind of test. Since we’d apparently passed so far, I felt I should clarify something before we went any further. “Bobbie,” I told her, “I really appreciate your contacting the firm in some way because of me, but you aren’t restricted to using me for your work. You know that there are more experienced attorneys here too, all of whom will be very happy to work with you.” I felt I owed her that much. I would already get credit for bringing in the client, even if I didn’t do any of her work.
“Becky, that is so—”
“Am I late?” Melissa Peters appeared at the door, all teeth and eagerness, in a skirt so short it was less suggestive than demanding. “I’m Melissa Peters,” she said, striding into the room energetically, bristling with expertise. I felt instantly slothful and inert. “I’ll be helping with your legal work, Dr. Crystol.”
I waited for her to say, “Please call me Bobbie,” but she didn’t. She turned her body slightly. “How lovely to meet you, dear.” She turned back to me. “I understand that there are more experienced lawyers. I expect you’ll get any help you need. But I’d like to make it clear that I’m here because of you, and I hope you’ll take the leading role in handling my work.”
I took back every mean thought I’d ever had about her and had to restrain myself from planting kisses on her sandals. “Thank you,” I told her.
“Dr. Crystol—” Melissa began.
“I’m sorry,” she said grandly, “what was your name again?”
“Melissa. Peters.”
“Oh, yes.” She flashed Melissa a brilliant I’m-pleased-with-everything-I-see smile. “Do you think you could get me another cup of that delicious cappuccino?”
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