The Fixer Upper

by Mary Kay Andrews

  The Monday after the charity dinner, Alex wanted to know how the evening had gone. He told me it was important for “Tony” to understand how important his vote would be on upcoming energy legislation.

  At Alex’s request, I wrote several papers outlining our client’s position on off-shore drilling and other energy-related policy matters. The FBI seized my Day Runner, so I don’t have exact dates or times, but I know we had at least half a dozen more lunch and dinner meetings with Licata in the months before the energy bill was scheduled for hearings.

  The first week of December Alex called me into his office and asked me if I had any plans for the upcoming weekend.

  At first, I thought maybe he was asking me to go away with him. He never really hit on me, but all those lunches and dinners and late nights working at the office, I thought there was something between us. But he was married, and I tried to tell myself I was not interested in a married man.

  I paused in my typing here. Just how honest should I be with Carter Berryhill? He was courtly and honorable and for some inexplicable reason, he seemed to think that I was somebody worthy of his respect. Did he really need to know about my pathetic crush on my boss? Should I admit that if Alex had asked me to go away, I probably would have gone?—God help me. If it came up, I decided, I would tell Carter about my feelings. I prayed it would not.

  Alex told me that Peninsula Petroleum was sponsoring a “fact-finding” retreat down in the Bahamas for the upcoming weekend. I was to prepare a paper about alternate energy solutions being used in the Bahamas. He stressed that I should not tell any of my coworkers about the trip, because he didn’t want to be bothered with petty office jealousies. I should, Alex said, tell my friends that I was visiting my father down in Miami. When I protested that I didn’t like to lie, Alex told me it wouldn’t really be a lie, since we’d have a layover in Miami, and there would be plenty of time for me to “visit” with my father over the phone.

  Alex assured me the position paper was no big deal. “Just hit the high points. You know, maybe three pages, bullet points, like that.” He said he didn’t want Ruby, our office manager, gossiping about our going away together, so he asked me to make all the travel arrangements, including a suite of rooms at the Lyford Cay Resort for him, Tony Licata, me, and one of Peninsula Petroleum’s junior executives, first-class plane tickets, dinner reservations for Friday and Saturday nights, and a tennis lesson for Alex, on Saturday morning. He also told me that if I needed to buy myself some “resort wear” for the Bahamas, I should do that, and charge it on my company credit card since it was a business expense. “Get yourself something foxy,” he told me. “Something that’ll show off those legs of yours.” The way he said it made me uncomfortable then, and it makes me uncomfortable now.

  About the American Express card. In October, I think, Alex gave me a platinum American Express card. It was a company card, to be used when I was paying for dinners, or corporate travel, he said. But the other associates didn’t have one, Alex explained, so I should keep it quiet, because we didn’t want to stir up any interoffice drama. Everything would be direct-billed to Hodder and Associates. To be honest, I was ecstatic about being given such a perk. I did buy new clothes for the trip, but I ended up putting all of it on my own Visa card.

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell Carter about the cocktail dress I bought for the trip to Lyford Cay. The memory was just too painful. I’d spent hours looking for just the right dress, something so fabulous Alex couldn’t help but see me as more than just an office flunkie. It was a coral-colored silk chiffon slip dress, with a deep V-neck and a flirty little ruffle at the hem, which was, as Alex requested, several inches north of my knees. I had high-heeled metallic gold sandals to wear with the dress. The saleswoman at Saks told me the dress must have been made for me. “With your coloring, you should never wear anything except coral,” she’d said.

  I had everything all planned out. I’d wear the coral dress for dinner Friday night. Licata would be there, and the Peninsula guy too, of course, but once Alex saw me in that dress, he would forget all about business. What an idiotic fantasy! And thank God nothing had gone as I’d planned.

  31

  I was hungry. I hadn’t had any breakfast, or more important, any coffee. I ground some of my precious French roast beans, and while the coffee was brewing, I fixed myself some cheese and crackers. I sat back down at the table with a sigh and reread what I’d written. I dreaded writing about the trip to the Bahamas. I would have liked to have forgotten the trip ever happened. But it had, and Carter Berryhill was right. I needed to remember it—and every little detail of what had gone on down there. I nibbled on a saltine and started typing again.

  Alex was emphatic that I should tell nobody about the trip to the Bahamas. I met Alex at Reagan National that Friday morning, and Representative Licata showed up at the gate just as we were getting ready to board. I asked Alex about the Peninsula exec whose trip I’d also booked, but he just said the exec had to cancel at the last minute.

  When I greeted Representative Licata, he eyed me up and down and told me how much he liked my outfit—and he insisted I was to call him Tony for the rest of the trip, which I had no intention of doing.

  Our flight left D.C. at nine thirty A.M, and as soon as we were seated, Licata ordered Bloody Marys for all three of us. I barely tasted mine, but by the time we got to Miami, I could tell Licata was already buzzed.

  When we got to the hotel, Alex announced that he and Licata were going to head over to the golf course to see if they could get a “walk on” tee time. I’d thought we were going to have lunch together so I could present Licata with the paper I’d prepared. I guess Alex could tell how disappointed I was, because he had me give him the paper, and he promised he and Licata would discuss it while they played.

  Instead, I changed into my bathing suit and sat by the pool all afternoon, reading. Sometime after four, Alex walked up and sat on the lounge chair next to mine. Alex said he and Tony had only played nine holes, and he seemed annoyed by that. He ordered a mojito from one of the waitresses at the pool bar, and we chatted for a few minutes, until his cell phone rang. Alex answered, and I could tell he was talking to Licata. When he hung up, he rolled his eyes and said Tony was bored, and wanted to try something different.

  Alex got up, walked over to the bar, and chatted with the bartender there. When he came back, he handed me a slip of paper with a phone number on it. “Call this gal and set up a wakeboard session for Tony,” he told me. “Tell her the client’s name is Terry. Licata doesn’t want anybody down here to know his real name. He’ll be ready in fifteen minutes. Just have her charge it to your AmEx card.” I agreed, and Alex said he had to go up to his room and return some e-mails and make some phone calls. He said he’d see me at dinner.

  I didn’t have my cell phone in my beach bag, so I used one of the resort’s house phones and called the number Alex had given me. A woman answered. She didn’t tell me her name, and I didn’t ask. I just set up the session, as Alex had directed me to. She asked me how long a session “Terry” wanted. I knew nothing about wakeboarding, but I was pretty sure that after all the drinking and golfing Licata had been doing, he wouldn’t be up for anything too strenuous. I told her an hour would probably be enough time, and she laughed and said she bet he couldn’t go even fifteen minutes. After I hung up, I threw the slip of paper in the trash.

  God, how dumb could I have been? It never, ever occurred to me that I was talking to a madam. It didn’t occur to me to wonder why Alex didn’t set up a wakeboard session for himself, or to wonder why Alex didn’t put it on his own credit card, or why it was okay to make hotel, restaurant, and golf arrangements under Licata’s real name, but not “wakeboard” lessons. In hindsight, all I can say is, Alex was my boss, and I was used to doing as he asked. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

  Our dinner reservation was for seven pm, so I’d spent a leisurely hour getting ready for my big night. I’d pulled my hair up in a French twist, and even broke
open the bottle of Hermès perfume I’d treated myself to in the duty-free shop at the airport. The coral dress, I thought, made me look totally hot. I allowed myself to fantasize about what Alex would say when he saw me in it, and how we would plot to slip away from Licata—maybe for a moonlight stroll on the beach?

  Alex and Licata were sitting in the lobby bar when I went downstairs to dinner. I could tell Licata was nearly wasted. He practically drooled down the front of my dress, and I had to sidestep to keep him from kissing me. We went in to dinner, and Tony proceeded to order another round of drinks. I asked him how his wakeboard session had gone, and he gave Alex a huge wink—“Just what the doctor ordered,” I think he said. Alex brought up the subject of the upcoming energy legislation, but Tony just told him he didn’t want to mix business with pleasure at dinner. There was some talk about golf—Licata was disgusted with his short game, and Alex suggested he take a lesson the next morning with the resort’s golf pro—adding that it would be Peninsula Petroleum’s treat. Tony thought a lesson was a great idea. At some point, a combo started playing. Tony insisted that I dance with him. At first, I tried to get out of it, but Alex gave me a quiet nod, signaling that if Tony wanted to dance, I should dance. It was a slow song, and I was dreading it—Tony had been drinking steadily through dinner, but he turned out to be amazingly light on his feet. After that, I danced once with Alex.

  It pained me to write about the dance with Alex Hodder. The band was playing “Unforgettable” by Nat King Cole. Alex was a perfect gentleman. He complimented me on my dress and told me I was the most beautiful woman in the room. He said he’d read the policy paper, and I’d done an outstanding job with it. I don’t think it was my imagination that he held me a little tighter as we danced, or that his hand lingered on my bare arm, and once, lightly touched my breast. When the song ended, he kissed me on the cheek and told me I was unforgettable. The prick.

  Tony had ordered a bottle of champagne—Veuve Cliquot, the most expensive bottle the hotel offered—and after drinking half a glass, I started getting headachy. When I excused myself, Tony and Alex announced they were going to go out to the pool bar and smoke cigars and have a brandy.

  I did have a little bit of a headache from the champagne, it was true, but I was also secretly hoping that Alex would take the hint and get rid of Tony so that we could have some time alone together after dinner. I went back to my room and waited up—for the call that never came. I wound up falling asleep in my hot little cocktail dress. When I woke up in the morning, the dress was a wrinkled disaster, and I had a nasty little hangover.

  At breakfast the next morning, Licata was none the worse for wear. The men left for their golf match, and I spent the rest of the day at the pool, reading and sunning. I’d gone up to my room to shower and get ready for dinner when I heard a knock at the door. It was Alex. He told me that Tony hadn’t been able to play the full eighteen holes. “He’s whining about pulling some muscle in his back during the wakeboard lesson,” Alex said. “Tony thinks a massage might help.” He handed me a piece of paper; he’d written “massage” on the back of it, and another phone number. “Give them a call and have them send somebody up to his room,” Alex told me. “Use the same name, Terry, and charge it to your AmEx.” Alex left, and I called the number, and a woman answered. I think she just said Relaxation Therapy, or something like that. I know she didn’t tell me a name, and I didn’t ask. I gave her Tony’s room number at the hotel. She did ask me if there was anything special he liked. I thought she meant massage technique. So I told her he’d hurt his back. I gave her the AmEx number, the same as I’d done with the wakeboard instructor, and I hung up. Alex eventually told me that he and Tony had decided to order room service and discuss the upcoming bill. He apologized and told me to enjoy my dinner. I ordered room service, and didn’t see either of them again until the next morning, at checkout.

  My cheeks were flaming as I recounted the last night of the trip to Lyford Cay. Alex Hodder had set me up. He’d used me as a pimp for Tony Licata. I’d been so hurt that night, it hadn’t occurred to me to wonder why Alex couldn’t come down for dinner. With what I knew now, I was sure he and Tony Licata had enjoyed some kind of kinky three way with a hooker named Tiki Finesse, which I had booked and paid for with my company-issued AmEx card. Tiki hadn’t been the only girl getting screwed on that trip, but she was the only one who got paid.

  My cell phone rang. It was Carter. “Dempsey?”

  “Oh, Carter, hey,” I said. “I was just finishing up my notes about the weekend down in the Bahamas. You were right. I did remember a lot more than I had before. I’ll just save everything I wrote, and I’ll be right over.”

  32

  Carter Berryhill was sitting at the desk in the reception area of his office, frowning down with distaste at the computer there. His white hair was neatly combed, but his bow tie was slightly askew, and he was coatless, with the sleeves of his heavily starched dress shirt rolled up to the elbows. His glasses were perched on the very tip of his long, elegant nose.

  “Oh, Dempsey,” he said, when I walked in the door. “Thank heavens.” He stood up and ushered me into his office.

  He took his jacket from a wooden hanger on the back of the door and shrugged into it. “You’ll have to excuse me, my dear,” he said. “Scott, our receptionist, is late coming back from lunch, and the phone’s been ringing off the hook, and my printer is out of ink, and I thought I’d just use his printer because I can’t seem to replace my ink cartridge, but Scott uses some word-processing program that I cannot fathom.”

  He sat down behind his desk and straightened his tie. “Don’t ever grow old, my dear,” he said. “That’s my advice.”

  “You’re not old.” And he wasn’t, I decided. He was debonair and charming, well dressed, well read. And if I hadn’t already developed a crush on his son, I probably would have fallen madly in love with Carter Berryhill Senior.

  “Well,” he said, “so you’ve finished the assignment I gave you?’

  “I have,” I said. “If you’ll show me where to set up my laptop, you can take a look at what I’ve written.”

  “Right over there,” he said, pointing to a conference table in front of a picture window that looked out on the square. I plugged the laptop in and pulled up the document I’d ruefully labeled hoddergate.

  “Why don’t you let me take a crack at replacing your ink cartridge while you read,” I asked.

  “You’re an angel of mercy,” Carter replied. He handed me the ink cartridge, and we switched places.

  It took me less than a minute to get Carter’s printer working again. I sat back in his desk chair and watched while he read what I’d written.

  “Hmm,” he said once. And then, a few minutes later, he shook his head. “The swine!” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was referring to Licata or Alex Hodder. Carter had a yellow legal pad, and occasionally he’d stop and scrawl something on the pad. It took him fifteen minutes to read everything, and when he was finished, he read it again, and took more notes.

  “Interesting,” he said finally.

  “I guess you’re wondering how a person with any brains at all could have been so stupid,” I said, staring out the window to avoid meeting his eyes. Carter, I was sure, was smart enough to read between the lines—and to extrapolate all the stuff I’d left out of my tale of woe.

  “No,” he said slowly, tapping his pen on the legal pad, “I’m just wondering about that piece of paper Alex Hodder gave you with the massage therapist’s phone number. Tell me about that. What did the paper look like?”

  I closed my eyes. “It was like, sort of a square, maybe lightweight cardboard?”

  “Yes. Not really a slip, as you described the paper he brought back from the bar, when he had you set up Licata with the wakeboard instructor.”

  “No. Bigger than that.”

  “Good. Anything else?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut tight again, and tried to put myself back in my hotel room.


  “Alex had just come from the golf course,” I said, picturing him in the bright green Lyford Cay golf shirt he’d worn that day. He’d had a matching green golf visor, and I could see the golf gloves sticking out of the back pocket of his pants.

  “Did he write the phone number on something you had in the room?” Carter asked.

  I had to think about that.

  “No. He pulled the paper out of his back pocket,” I said. “He’d already written on it.”

  I opened my eyes. Suddenly, I could see the paper quite plainly.

  “It was his scorecard!” I told Carter. “From the golf course. It had his name, and Tony’s, on the front, and I remember noticing that they’d quit playing after the twelfth hole.”

  “Tony’s back was allegedly bothering him, you said in your notes,” Carter observed. “Do you remember what you did with the scorecard? After you called to set up the ‘massage’ for Tony?”