“Thanks, Gina!” she yelled, pulling open the heavy glass door and waving her bag spastically in front of the aluminum pole that controlled the basement’s elevator bank.
I’m going to make something of today, she thought, stepping into elevator G. She told herself that every morning. Lou was thirty-seven years old and this was her very first job. She’d spent her whole life as somebody’s wife, somebody’s trophy. Married first at seventeen to the ninth Earl of Southumberland, Charles Molton, who died four years later in a fatal Formula One racing accident; then again at twenty-five to Alexander Lucas, from whom she was just recently finally and officially divorced, this was her first real year as an adult on her own.
Up to now she hadn’t minded; she’d never known anything else. Lou’s mother, Aurelia Beaton Mauve, Marchioness of Dorset, had spent her entire life simply throwing parties, and she’d been more than approved of; she’d been downright celebrated. The Mauve family’s greatest hope for Lou—with her horsey teeth and booming voice—had been to marry well and become as accomplished a hostess as her mother, ideally with someone who had far more pounds sterling in the bank than her own father. Well, she’d done that, and now that her own girls were old enough to head off to school, she’d been wondering if there was more to life than just spending other people’s money.
The opportunity at RAGE had come at the perfect time. Her contract was just for six months, but now that she’d had a taste of shaping the zeitgeist, she never wanted to stop. Lou was determined to figure out a way to stay on the RAGE masthead—Paula had told her they intended to eventually promote Cat, but Lou was certain she could find a way to stay. Just before she reached the forty-sixth floor, she told herself: You are not going to waste this opportunity. You’re just as good as everyone else in this building. The doors slid open. She marched purposefully through the marbled lobby and into the cubicle maze. It was time to get to work.
After Cat skulked into the office, she started on the to-do list she’d compiled the day before, barely making it uptown to Per Se on time for the promo lunch for Delvaux. She was so hung over that she almost couldn’t remember what it was like to be sober. She left the lunch early and took a cab back to Cooper, locking her office door before crawling under the desk.
With the chair shoved out of the way and her sunglasses on, the underside of her desk wasn’t half bad. She stuck her legs out, tried to assume corpse pose so she wouldn’t overly wrinkle her dress, then promptly passed out.
Forty-five minutes later she felt her phone buzz on the floor next to her. Shit. I’m sleeping on the floor, she thought before looking at the screen. It was Hutton. Dear Lord, please don’t let him come storming in here. Long gone was the fantasy where Hutton barged into her office and bent her over the desk. If he was at Cooper now, she would have to go outside, dig a hole, crawl into it, and die of embarrassment.
She managed to answer just before the call went to voicemail.
“Hello,” she said through a sigh, hoping she sounded world-weary and mysterious instead of ready for her first AA meeting.
“How are you?” he asked in a voice that seemed clipped and neutral.
“I’m alive,” she said. “I’m embarrassed, but I’m alive.”
“That’s good.”
“Did you find out what was in the products?”
“Not yet.” His voice definitely did not contain a single ounce of flirt.
“Am I in trouble?”
“No,” he said, sounding distracted. “I’m going to have to call you back.”
He hung up.
Well, I guess that’s that, she thought. He’s over it. She let her head fall back down onto the office carpeting. It smelled like vacuum cleaners, like the accumulated dust of a thousand and one boxes of printer paper. Cat let out a long breath and willed her body to expel every ounce of her hangover into the ether.
For a fleeting moment she became vaguely paranoid that Hutton had somehow found out she’d spent the night before boozing, snorting, and licking a bartender. Not that she was ashamed—far from it—but it seemed prudent to maintain a certain kind of facade with the kind of man who joined the NYPD to make a difference. At least at first. But the only person they could know in common was…Bess, she remembered. She reminded herself to bring it up in the future.
Her computer buzzed. Cat dragged herself into an upright position, trying to quietly roll the chair back into place as she awkwardly hoisted her body into it, catching a whiff of herself as she landed in the chair; god, was she sweating beer? She looked at the monitor, the bright screen hurting her eyes.
bess.bonn: hey, lou doesn’t know how to use chat
catono: ?
bess.bonn: beet dye in home upholstery!
Fuck. Cat opened the CoopDoc marked “beets” and scanned the very brief notes that Lou had made.
positives: non toxic, very strong dye, easy to plant in a variety of climates, can adapt sugar beet plantations, doesn’t pollute soil, no GMOs needed, a sustainable plant’s sustainable plant, if you know what I mean.
cons: looks like period blood??
Cat let out a snort over the last line. Well, if anyone can make me feel better, Lou probably can. Might as well do some work. She punched Lou’s extension into her Cooper landline and unlocked her office door. Within five minutes Lou had pulled up a chair beside her.
It took just forty-five minutes to hammer out the copy for September’s page on eco-friendly fabrics from one of Lou’s pet projects. RED IS THE NEW GREEN, declared their headline. “From the thread and dye, all the way to the packaging, this eco-warrior is using beets—one of the world’s most renewable resources—to reimagine home furnishings.” The accompanying photographs had come in that morning, and the subject of the photos, Lou’s friend Criselda Johnson-Butler—former Photogram marketing guru turned eco-designer—looked like she hadn’t eaten in days. Her arms were overflowing with beets.
“God, she’s as thin as a feral dog,” declared Lou. “I wonder what she’s doing.”
“I’d say ‘eating beets,’ but somehow I don’t think food is involved,” Cat guessed.
“I bet she got a lap-band. I hear they’ll give it to anyone now.”
Cat laughed. “That’s horrible.”
“It’s not horrible!” protested Lou. “Some people just don’t have any self-control.”
“Yeah, obese people. Not size twos.”
“Well, I support whatever elective surgery she wants. That, my darling, is what we call choose-your-choice feminism.”
Cat rolled her eyes. “Yeah. That’s exactly what it means. Like telling the bear performing at the circus that it can ‘choose’ its own tricycle to ride on.”
“Poor bears.” Lou wrinkled her nose. “Jane wanted to go to the circus last week, and Alex’s new girlfriend—she’s vegan, of course—insisted on giving her some literature from PETA. Jane is six. She can barely read, yet she understood enough to cry for an hour, and then she insisted we all sign an anticircus pledge. I pray to god that the next one doesn’t teach her about vivisection.”
“Does your ex-husband always introduce his girlfriends to the kids? Doesn’t that…annoy you?” asked Cat, slightly incredulous.
“Honestly, it’s not usually that bad. They’re so sweet, even this PETA one—the problem is just that they’re all completely witless,” Lou explained. “They mean well, they do, but they’re basically very expensive blow-up dolls. I don’t think it’s affecting my girls too much. I tell them the girlfriends are ‘Daddy’s assistants.’ I do feel for them, though, these poor beautiful women who all think they’re going to be his next wife.”
Alexander Lucas, heir to a multibillion-euro industrial fortune protected fiercely by a variety of boards, attorneys, blind trusts, and two determined ex-wives with five children between them, wouldn’t be getting remarried anytime soon.
“It’s Claire’s girls I worry about,” Lou continued, her voice brimming with genuine concern. “They’re in their twenties n
ow. I wonder if they’re going to have, you know, daddy issues. It was hard enough with me, although they came around eventually. It helps that their mum and I are so close.”
“You and Claire are so cool,” Cat said. “I was actually thinking that maybe we could do a piece on you two—maybe something for the holidays? Maybe the two of you could be a MATRIARCH piece together.”
“I’ll check with Claire. She’s redoing the house in Tahoe to fit the whole gang with enough privacy—maybe she’ll be open to shooting it. It’s got ten bedrooms now.”
Cat glanced at the clock on her computer. The afternoon was flying by. “Shit. It’s almost four. Let’s choose these shots already.”
Their favorite was the one of Criselda pretending to eat a beet; she couldn’t keep the look of wild hunger off her gaunt face with food so near. Cat was sure Margot would veto it, though—too real—so instead they selected a variety of images that showed Criselda in a glamorous white cotton suit reminiscent of a tampon commercial, directing her hardworking and mostly female staff.
After completing the copy and preliminary layout, they sent it off to Production.
“I have one more thing,” Cat asked, pulling up the HW file before Lou could get out the door. “Can you edit this? We have to turn it in next week, and I’m done with my draft, I think.”
Lou looked shocked. “But…I wasn’t that close with Hillary. We went skiing together last Christmas, but that was with a group. I don’t really think I should have the final say on her international obituary. What about Constance?” Lou said kindly, referring to the managing editor. “They seemed much closer. Maybe she’s a better fit.”
“No, you definitely should.” Cat placed her hand on Lou’s arm. “MATRIARCH was your idea. Don’t give it up to Constance. All of these shots are worthy. Really. You can’t make a bad choice. But somebody needs to cut half of them, and I just can’t do it. It might be a tribute, but it’s also a magazine—I need an objective eye to edit the best composition here. And society stuff is your bag.”
Lou nodded. “Send it all over, and I’ll work on it tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Lou. I’m sure you’ll make it look amazing.”
Cat spent the rest of the day with Bess and Molly, researching options for Lou’s RAGE Gaia pitch for the November issue. Lou gave intermittent aid between Skype sessions with Princess Sophie and dialing for dollars over possible sponsorship of the elaborate renovation Sophie’s Bavarian summer castle would need. Cat’s hangover slowly wore off, and by the time she hopped on the subway at 8:00 p.m., she was nearly recovered.
When Cat got home the bell rang with a delivery; Delvaux had messengered over their entire spring collection. For Cat: Please take a closer look. Yours, Ekaterina. Her morning hangover must have read as unimpressed. She smiled and signed for the box. There must have been thirty thousand dollars’ worth of bags in there. Cat unpacked it slowly, examining each piece with care. The briefcase in particular was exquisite. She was pleased to discover it was already stamped with her initials, as was the matching weekend duffel bag.
Cat lit a Diptyque candle and gathered her books from around the apartment, tucking them back one by one into the wall-length bookcase. Hutton hadn’t called her back, she realized as she found a home for a dog-eared copy of I Have It All and So Do You, Margot’s autobiography from a few years earlier. It was just a twenty-four-hour fantasy, she reminded herself, fueled by booze and the way he smelled and a whole bunch of crazy drugs.
Cat wondered how anyone ever managed to make it through the awkward phases of dating into an actual relationship. Andrew, the only serious boyfriend of her twenties, had struggled through three years of long distance, flying into New York once a month while finishing his PhD in Chicago—until the day he was offered a full-time, tenure-track position at Pomona in California. Cat had flat out refused to move to Los Angeles. “I don’t know how to drive,” she’d argued. “I don’t have any friends there, I’ll be lonely, and you’ll be my whole life.”
“I want to be your whole life,” he’d replied.
“Then move to New York,” she’d demanded, unable to admit she was so jealous of his job it would eat her alive, and knowing that this was the end.
“You know I can’t,” he’d said. “You want me to give up my career for you? This is my shot, Cat. Pomona is a really good goddamn job.”
“So I should move and give up my career? Sorry. I don’t think so. Maybe if it was Stanford,” she’d spit back.
After a few more phone calls and one very sad weekend when she flew to Chicago to help him put down his aging dog, they were done for good. Since then Cat’s romantic life had been a succession of weird dates and six-week love affairs with men she respected but didn’t actually like. Now that she’d finally found someone she definitely liked, it seemed that she was the one who wasn’t good enough.
Just eat some dinner and go to sleep, she told herself. It’ll be better in the morning. It’s always better in the morning. She cooked a quick dinner of ready-made udon noodles and poached eggs before climbing into bed with a book. She managed to read ten pages further into Welcome to the Desert of the Real before falling into a peacefully deep and dreamless sleep.
Hutton hadn’t expected Callie to come by his office after their early-morning breakfast, if only because she usually slept all day. But when she knocked on the doorframe—squeezing the shoulder of the dumbstruck officer she’d convinced to bring her through security straight to his office—he’d just dialed Cat, who picked up and said “Hello” at the exact same time that Callie purred out a “Hey there” in her low voice.
He pointed to the phone and tried his best to sound officious, keeping his voice steady and clear while Callie stood in the doorway obviously eavesdropping. Cat sounded exhausted anyway, like she couldn’t wait to get off the phone either, so he hung up quickly.
“What’s up, Cal?”
“I found your keys on my floor,” she said. “I thought you might want them back.”
Hutton reached over the desk and Callie dropped the keys into his outstretched palm. “Thank you,” he said. “They must have fallen out of my bag. You didn’t have to come out here. I could have met you on my way home.”
“I’m actually going to Newark. I got an audition for a music video in Nashville and a new girl took my shifts for me.” She pointed to the rolling suitcase next to her in the hallway. Hutton watched three of his colleagues stop behind Callie to stare at her backside, their hand gestures and facial expressions crude.
“I’ll be back on Monday. Wanna hang out?” she asked. The trio spontaneously grew into a group of five. One of them held up a cellphone and took her photo. Annoyed, he stood up and motioned her into his office, wheeling her suitcase through the doorway. One of his colleagues flashed him a thumbs-up. Hutton closed the door in reply.
“I can’t Monday.”
“Tuesday?”
“Can’t.”
“Wednesday?”
“Can’t. I’m in it, Cal. I think this case is big.”
She stared at him for a second, then nodded and grabbed the handle of her suitcase. “See you on the other side,” she replied. Callie opened the door to his office and walked through it without looking back, blowing through the cadre of leering officers down the hall like they were seeds on a dandelion.
Hutton stayed at the office until his warrant to search the Cormorant storage facility was approved. He picked up a pizza and a six-pack of beer, then spent the rest of his Wednesday going through Hillary Whitney’s belongings until he found what he was looking for.
Chapter Seven
When Cat walked into the ladies’ room before her Thursday morning production meeting, she turned on the tap and left it running as she walked to the handicapped toilet on the end.
Managing editor Constance Onderveet was attempting to vomit discreetly in the first stall. After a few awkward run-ins and knocks during her first month on the job (“Are you sure you’re okay?”), Cat had learned
to take her coffee mug into the restroom and stick it under the tap to “rinse” in order to drown out the noise while she peed. Hearing other people throw up inspired the same in Cat, but unlike Constance, she truly despised vomiting.
When she returned to her office, coffee mug in hand, Molly and Bess were waiting. The three women sat down around Cat’s desk, which was littered with index cards, agate paperweights, a brick she’d spray-painted gold, and a half-dozen rose-tinted college-ruled legal pads.
“I can get you a clean coffee mug, you know,” Molly said. “You don’t have to keep rinsing the same one.”
Bess laughed. “Cat rinses the coffee mug because she hates the sound of people doing…bathroom things.”
“Who are you, Monk?” asked Molly. “What do you do in public, just hold it ’til you get home?”
“It’s mostly the barfing,” Cat admitted.
“Uh, you guys went to prep school, too,” Molly replied. “How did you not get used to that?”
“Yeah, but we went to Miss Sawyer’s,” Bess explained. “We didn’t have the performative additive of men on campus. We ate real food, played sports, spent a lot of time outside.”
Molly looked confused. “That sounds like lesbian summer camp.”
“I think it was healthy,” Cat said.
“But how did you get into college?” Molly asked. “Didn’t you need to be, you know, the best or whatever? I’m not saying bulimia makes you ‘the best’; it’s just, you know…a real type A thing to do. Like…being organized.”
Neither Bess nor Cat had an answer for that. Lou knocked on the door and popped her head in.
“Are we set?”
The three ladies nodded, gathering up their notebooks and folios before walking into the conference room to meet with the production staff. They spent a few hours coordinating details for photo shoots in the upcoming weeks before heading as a group down to the cafeteria.
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