I knew that arm. I knew that hair. Hadn't I spent months fantasizing that their owner would perish in a tragic accident, leaving me a clear field to console and, eventually, marry her fiance?
"Hey, Polly," I called, struggling to keep my voice steady. "When was this shot?"
"Last night," she yelled back. "At the Mercer Kitchen."
I bent back over the picture with my pulse thudding in my ears. Michelle was supposed to be out of town. That's what Evan had told us. Up in New Hampshire, paddling a canoe and climbing mountains for an outdoor gear catalogue. I straightened up, heading toward the back of the newsroom, where the photographers worked, with the picture in my hand. "Was this cropped?" I asked. Pay dirt. The uncropped version of the shot, which the photographer obligingly printed for me, revealed that skinny, ivory-colored arm was looped firmly around the waist of a handsome man with chin-length dark brown hair. The man was nuzzling the redhead's neck, and he was most assuredly not Evan McKenna.
I racewalked over to Janie's desk and brandished the picture in her face. "Look," I told her. "Look at this."
She looked. "God," she murmured. "You'd think one of his three publicists would tell him not to scratch his ass in public."
"Not the rapper," I said, pointing. "Here. This arm. Right there. Who's that?"
She stared at me. "Oh, fun! Is this like Where's Waldo for adults or something?"
"Look," I said again, and showed her the uncropped version of the picture. Janie studied it carefully. "Oh, my," she said. "Oh, dear." She put the picture aside and walked me back to my desk. "Okay, you need to listen to me."
But I couldn't. I was jittery, bouncing on the balls of my feet. "She's cheating on him!" I said. "And when he finds out...and they break up..."
Janie shook her head. "How's he going to find out?" she asked.
I looked at her. I hadn't thought this part through. "I'll tell him?" I guessed.
"No, you won't. You ever heard the expression 'Don't shoot the messenger'?"
I nodded.
"You know who you are if you tell him? You're the messenger." She pressed her hands together and cocked her index fingers up at my heart. "Bang, bang."
"But...but someone has to tell him. We can't let him marry someone who's cheating on him!"
Janie shook her head sadly and pressed her freshly lipsticked lips together. "Not our job," she said.
"So what do we do?"
She picked up the photograph and tapped its edge on her desk. "We wait," she finally said. "We consider the possibility that he might already know."
I started to shake my head. "Why would he stay with someone who was cheating on him?"
"Remember what I told you. It's the thrill of the chase. The unattainable." She considered. "And let's not forget the make-up sex."
I pulled the picture out of her hands and studied it carefully. Maybe I was wrong. Lots of girls had thin hips and red hair. Even if that skinny arm was attached to Michelle, the fact that she was back in New York, unbeknownst to her boyfriend, and at a party with another guy didn't necessarily mean anything, although it certainly strongly suggested it. But maybe she'd just come home early. Maybe Evan knew all about it. Maybe it was no big deal. Still, I had to be sure.
"Nope, sorry, she's still up in New Hampshire," Evan said, when I called and asked whether his intended might be available to help me pick out an outfit for a product launch party. "I could give you her cell phone." "Thanks," I said, and hung up.
Ten minutes later I was on the phone with Michelle's agency, telling them that I was calling from New York Night and that we were doing a photo spread on new trends in lingerie. "I've got a blonde and a brunette, just need a redhead," I said. "About five ten, a size four--"
"Four?" the booker asked, sounding skeptical.
"Two!" I said. "Oh, and, um, I don't know quite how to put this, but we're not looking for a rocket scientist. The last shoot we did, the model wouldn't stop talking about some Thomas Pynchon book she'd just read."
"Five ten, size two, not a genius," recited the booker. "I'll messenger you half a dozen cards this afternoon."
"That's great. And the shoot's tomorrow morning, so whoever you send, they have to be available and in New York now."
"Got it," she said, and hung up. An hour later I was flipping through a stack of tall, gorgeous, available, nonbibliophilic redheads. Michelle was card number three.
Calm, I told myself, even though I was sweating and flushed and starting to get a headache. I washed down three Advil with a swig of warm coffee as Janie sent the words "Don't be the messenger!" over to my screen nineteen times.
My next step was figuring out who Mr. Wavy Hair was. A phone call to the publicist in the picture answered that. "Travis Marx. He's the Pantene man."
The whole day was starting to feel a little unreal. "Beg your pardon?"
"Pantene shampoo and conditioner? He's their hair model. Mr. Pantene. Best follicles in the business. Why? You guys want to book him?"
"Maybe someday," I said. "Who's his agent?" I swallowed more coffee and made two more phone calls. The gullible agent was all too happy to give me the Pantene man's home address, ostensibly so I could send him clippings of ads that had appeared in New York Night. Then it was time to hit the pavement.
In the months since he'd revealed his work as an investigator, Evan had occasionally solicited our help. He'd show up at our front door on Saturday morning in jeans and a baseball cap with a notebook in his hands. "I need you in the lobby of the Algonquin," he'd say, handing me a pair of sunglasses and a man's photograph. "This charming fellow says he's spending his Saturdays doing volunteer work in a soup kitchen. The soon-to-be-ex-wife isn't so sure." I'd sit in the lobby, sipping Diet Cokes and looking for the man, and when the man checked in, glancing furtively over his shoulder, hands trembling as he pulled a wad of bills from his pocket, I'd snap a few pictures, call Evan on his cell phone, and we'd go out for brunch.
Or "Equinox," he'd say. "I can't believe he found a way to work even less," Janie complained, but eventually we'd pull on workout gear (oversized sweatpants in my case, skintight Lycra in Janie's) and gossip on the treadmills until a woman allegedly suffering from whiplash and herniated disks showed up in a hot pink unitard for high impact aerobics. Or "Dalton." That day he'd arrived up at the offices of New York Night at lunchtime with a plastic bag containing a corned beef sandwich, saddle shoes, and a plaid skirt. "You're looking for a girl named..." He consulted his notebook and scowled. "Lockhart. Ugh. Why do rich people give their kids such stupid names? Anyhow. The nanny's supposed to meet her; Mom thinks she's been letting Lockhart take the subway home by herself."
I fingered the skirt dubiously, imagining my winter white thighs underneath it. "Couldn't I just pretend to be one of the mothers?"
"You could," said Evan, grinning at me, eyes sparkling beneath his thick eyebrows. "But that would be a lot less amusing for me." So I ate the sandwich and slipped into the bathroom. ("Do I even want to ask?" Janie inquired as she smoothed on another coat of mascara.) Thirty minutes later I was hanging around outside the school. At three-fifteen little Lockhart breezed past me, a backpack almost as big as she was bouncing on her scrawny shoulders, and headed for the subway, sans nanny.
I thought about asking him why Michelle couldn't help him, why she couldn't be the one on the treadmill, or in the lobby, or in the plaid skirt outside the school. But the answer was obvious. Michelle was the kind of woman you'd notice and remember. As for me, it turned out that I had a talent for invisibility, developed over years of living with Reina. I knew how to melt into the shadows, how to stand quietly in a corner, how to pull up a newspaper and make myself completely inconspicuous. Just say the magic words--My beautiful daughter, Katerina--and I'd be gone.
At five o'clock that night I slid the photograph of Michelle and the Pantene Man into an envelope and presented myself at the midtown offices of a car rental company. By six I was parked across from a limestone building on the Upper East Side,
slumped behind the wheel of a nondescript Neon, staring at the door to Mr. Pantene's apartment. I had a knitted cap pulled low over my forehead, my winter coat to keep me warm, and I was provisioned with a turkey and cheese sandwich and a bag of chips, two bottles of water, a disposable camera, and an empty plastic pitcher in which to pee, should that become necessary.
It didn't. I was ready to wait for hours--all through the night if I had to--but this one was an easy layup, a home run, a touchdown. At nine o'clock that night Michelle and Travis came sauntering down the street, arm in arm, heads thrown back, laughing. She wore a short black-and-white-striped dress that whipped around her perfect thighs and no hat or coat or mittens, in spite of the cold. Maybe she had guilt to keep her warm. Mr. Pantene wore an everyhipster's black turtleneck sweater and black jeans. I watched as Travis held the door open and Michelle whispered something in his ear before slipping inside. I snapped pictures of everything, including his hand lingering at her hip.
Two hours later I'd had two sets of prints developed, dropped off the car, and made my way back to our apartment. Janie was waiting for me with a bowl of popcorn and a stiff vodka and grapefruit juice.
"All true," I said, sliding the photographs across the kitchen counter.
"You can't tell him," she said.
"I wasn't--"
"You can't, Kate. Here." She handed me the glass. "Drink." She led me to the couch. "Sit. Reflect on what I've told you. Bide your time." I nodded numbly and sipped my drink. "If it's meant to be, it'll be."
"And if not?"
Janie shrugged, slid the photos into a drawer and gave me a kind smile. "You'll always have me."
Janie and I had big plans for New Year's Eve, honed through weeks of planning and discussion. Fancy restaurants were too crowded, takeout was too pathetic, and the one time I'd accompanied her to Sy's place to ring in the new year, I'd felt so out of place (not to mention roughly twice the size and infinitely more broke than the other female attendees) that I'd befriended the coat check girl and spent the entire night helping her hang and retrieve furs.
So this year we were going to Big Wong in Chinatown for Peking duck and dumpling soup. After dinner, we'd go to the Lo Kee Inn on Mott Street and sing karaoke until the ball dropped in Times Square. "With your voice and my choreography, we'll probably get a record deal!" Janie said. (I'd agreed to learn her dance steps but had drawn the line at donning a Tina Turner wig.) After much hesitation, I'd called Evan the week before to invite him. "Sounds like fun," he said, but he and Michelle had plans: dinner and dancing at Windows on the World.
"Have a good time," I'd told him. Janie and I backed up all of our computer files and called our parents to wish them a happy New Year. Then Janie pulled me into her bedroom and handed me a pink sweater and a pair of sparkly high-heeled, hot pink sandals. "You know what my New Year's resolution is? To get you laid."
I frowned at the sweater. "Can't you just decide to lose ten pounds like everyone else?"
She shook her head. "I'm already perfect," she said and pushed the shoes into my hands. "Sy lent me his car and driver."
I pulled the sweater over my head, remembering how the last time Sy had lent her something (specifically, use of his Miami Beach condo for a weekend), Sy hadn't actually known about it until after the fact.
"No, really! I asked him!" she said, steering me toward the bathroom.
I lent her a necklace, beads of Murano glass my mother had brought me back from Italy. She lent me some earrings, platinum and diamond hoops whose cost I couldn't bring myself to think about. We spritzed each other with perfume, toasted each other with the bottle of cheap champagne the owners of New York Night had given us in lieu of a holiday bonus, and headed out into the cold.
By eleven o'clock, we'd completed our Tina Turner medley ("Proud Mary" with a segue into "Private Dancer," complete with Janie in a silver-fringed minidress and complementary wig) and climbed off the stage, sweaty and breathless and fifty dollars richer, to the enthusiastic applause of two hundred liquored-up revelers. "Told you we'd win!" Janie said as we wiggled through the crowd, accepting high fives and glasses of champagne on the way back to our table.
I grinned back at her, then whirled around, glaring. "Did somebody just pinch my butt?" I shouted.
"That was me," Janie shouted back, shaking her fingers joyously. "Happy New Year! I'm going to powder my nose!"
I waved her goodbye and threaded my way through the crowd back to our table, where there were two vodka and cranberry juices waiting.
"From the gentleman at the bar," the waitress said, pointing. I followed her finger and my heart stopped. Unless my eyes were deceiving me and I was experiencing some sort of acute New Year's Eve desire-induced hallucination, Evan McKenna was sitting at the bar, in a tuxedo, without a tie. Alone.
"Evan!" His name burst out of my mouth, a lot louder than I'd intended. Here he was, as if I'd imagined him into being. Only in my daydreams he wasn't drunk, I thought as he got to his feet, staggered left, leaned against a barstool to steady himself, tugged at his cummerbund, and finally lurched to our table. Onstage, a quartet of guys who barely looked old enough to drink launched into "Ninety-Nine Luftballoons" as Evan listed, then righted himself again.
"Kate," he said, trying for a smile as he collapsed into a chair. Clearly, he'd spent a long night drinking somewhere, and I doubted it had been Windows on the World. He had a baseball cap pulled over his hair. He smelled like he'd been marinating in Scotch, and he looked utterly miserable. "Thought I'd find you here."
"And here we are." I smoothed Janie's pink sweater against my chest. "Aren't you supposed to be at dinner?"
"Supposed to be," he said. His green eyes were bloodshot, and his words weren't quite slurred, but they were definitely a little mushy around the edges. "I like your shirt." He reached out and ran one finger along the neckline.
My heart was hammering in my chest. "Are you all right?" He stared down at the table. "Evan?" I reached out tentatively and laid my hand on top of his. "Did something happen?" His lips trembled. He pressed them together.
"Hey! You!" called a grinning guy in a tuxedo with a forty-ounce bottle of Coors in his hand. "Proud Mary!" he said, and gave me two thumbs-up. I gave the guy a quick smile and didn't remove my hand from Evan's.
"You go on," Evan said, getting to his feet. "I don't want to wreck your night."
"No, no, it's okay, we're done. We did our thing. Our thing is done. What are you doing here?"
He slumped back in his chair again. "Michelle and I were supposed to meet at the apartment at six. She never came home," he said. I swallowed hard and only barely managed to keep a cry of Thank you, God! from exiting my lips. My heart felt as if it were expanding in my chest, growing bigger and bigger and lighter and lighter until it would lift me right out of my seat and I'd float above this smoky, crowded, noisy room, over the chairs patched with duct tape and the fraying carpet, above the stage flanked by two television screens and a smoke machine, through the roof, and out into the clear night sky.
I bent down to murmur in his ear, the very portrait of the solicitous gal-pal, a true friend. "Do you think she's all right? Do you have any idea where she is?"
"I know," he said. He grabbed one of the drinks and drained it in two long gulps. "I know." His voice cracked on the final word, and he barely seemed to notice when I laid my free hand between his shoulders, patting him gently, making soft crooning noises over the karaoke. Remember this, I told myself, feeling the warmth of his skin under his cotton shirt, breathing in the smoky air of the bar, memorizing every mirror and neon light, the smell of fried dumplings and cheap champagne, the sweet scent of the fake smoke they pumped onstage as a tiny Asian girl in a blue satin dress sang. "Once upon a time, I was falling in love, now I'm only falling apart."
"Yeah...well..." He shook his head. My palms were tingling, and my heart was beating too fast. He'd come all the way downtown to find me. Just like Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans.
Evan stared at me with his glassy bloodshot eyes. "Pretty," he said, in a tone I'd only ever heard in my daydreams. His eyelids drooped. "You look so pretty tonight."
We both looked up as Janie cleared her throat. "What have we here?" she inquired, plopping down in her chair and readjusting her wig.
"Hi, Janie," said Evan.
She stared at him. "Jesus. Did you get the license plate number of the truck that ran you over?"
I cut my eyes at her, hoping to psychically communicate the pertinent facts--that Michelle had ditched him on New Year's Eve, that he appeared to have learned of the presence of Mr. Pantene. Unfortunately, Janie wasn't psychic. "What's going on?" she asked, fiddling with the spaghetti strap of her fringed minidress.
Evan flinched, then got to his feet. "Excuse me," he said blearily, and headed off into the crowd.
I watched him as he staggered away. "What happened?" Janie demanded. I told her what he'd told me.
Janie grabbed my hands and stared up into my eyes. "Okay, Kate. You need to listen to me," she said.
I knew what she was going to say--another version of her don't-shoot-the-messenger/don't-shit-where-you-live lecture--and I didn't want to hear it.
"His heart has been broken," she began. "He's lonely. He's hurting. He's vulnerable. By the looks of his pupils, he may be abusing prescription painkillers. Do not--I repeat--do not sleep with him."
"I wasn't going to sleep with him," I said, even though that was, of course, exactly what I'd been planning on doing. This was my shot. On a level playing field, there was no way I could compete with a six-foot-tall redheaded model imbued with the allure of the unattainable. But if Michelle had broken Evan's heart and run off with the shampoo boy, if he was drunk, despondent, and maybe even drugged, then there was a possibility I could stand a chance.
Goodnight Nobody Page 12