by Robin Spano
NINETEEN
WADE
Wade watched Lucy work the floor. He was pretty sure her résumé was fudged. He’d overheard her asking Jana how much rum went in a rum and Coke, which anyone who’d worked anywhere licensed in Canada would know was one ounce unless it was a double. But she looked a lot like Sacha — which Wade found both comforting and unbearable. He’d keep her around until one emotion won over the other.
“Are you listening?” Richie waved a hand back and forth in front of Wade’s face. “I want to know when we can get this deal signed. I have a promoter interested in doing gigs here. He says he’ll start with Avalanche Nights — and he never works with oldie bands — to show us what he can do. If it goes well, he’ll take Saturday nights regular.”
Wade’s eyes panned the room. Ten p.m. on a Monday and the place was buzzing. Not packed like a weekend, but most tables were occupied and the bar was half-full with regulars. It killed him that Avalanche was making no money. Prices were high enough, business was good enough, labor was cheap enough. It was the rent that was too damn high.
“Saturdays are already slammed,” Wade said. “Maybe the promoter would like Thursdays.”
“Fine, he’ll take Thursdays. But he won’t lift a finger until I’m officially your partner.”
Wade frowned. “Soon, I promise.”
“What’s the delay, dude? Norris told me that without a cash infusion, this bar will be toast in two weeks.” Richie picked up his Heineken and took a long sip, but when he set the bottle back down, Wade saw the level hadn’t fallen much.
“Why would Stu say that?” Wade voiced his thoughts aloud.
“He wants to help you. Said he’d give you the money himself but he’s tapped.”
Wade wondered if this could be true, that Stu Norris was broke. He had expensive taste for a cop, and his wife hadn’t worked in years. But Norris was careful. He’d been Avalanche Nights’ bookkeeper because he was the only one of the three who even cared about balancing their income with expenses.
Wade said to Richie, “I’m waiting to break this to Georgia. She’s . . . well, she was hesitant enough when I went into the bar business. She won’t love it if I take on a partner and start running Avalanche like a downtown nightclub.”
Richie grinned, exposing his designer grill — one gold tooth on the upper right side of his mouth with a small diamond on either side. Wade liked the look. He could never pull it off personally, but it suited Richie.
Richie said, “We don’t have to do club nights. I’m not looking to take over or change the place. Except the waitresses’ uniforms — but you gotta admit that any change is a plus in that department.”
Wade laughed. “Georgia chose those.”
“I bet she did. But seriously, man, you’re the businessman — I want to learn from you.”
“Learn what?”
“How to run a legit operation.” Richie spread his hands and smiled as he glanced around the bar. “You think I want to stay down with the criminals forever? No, thank you. I want to fly in the big leagues.”
Wade smirked. “This bar is hardly big leagues.”
“One step at a time, man. That’s what Billingsley says.”
“You read Bob Billingsley?” Wade wondered if he was racist to feel surprised. “The motivational speaker?”
“Dude’s a genius,” Richie said. “Anyway, I don’t need controlling interest — just a deal where I can’t get screwed.”
The door chime jingled and Georgia walked in. Her long beige coat made her look like a movie star among the Patagonia- and toque-wearing bums in the crowd.
Wade made eye contact and smiled. Georgia took a stool at the bar.
“Okay, let’s do this,” Wade said to Richie. “We’re agreed on terms. I’ll draw up a contract. Give me a couple of days so I can get the legalities right. Let’s meet again Wednesday night and make this official.”
“Sweet.” Richie shook Wade’s hand, and Wade walked off to join his wife.
He pulled up the stool next to Georgia’s. “Long day today?”
Georgia pushed back a long strand of hair, still immaculate after her workday. “This commute is murder.”
Wade frowned. “Maybe we should move back to the city. I can be the one to commute.”
“We agreed to give Avalanche five years. We’re nearly there, right?” She gave him a weary grin.
Wade took Georgia’s hand. “I’ve been offered an amazing deal.”
Georgia’s hand remained limp in Wade’s. “Is that why you were talking with Richie Lebar just now?”
“I know he’s not your first choice. And I understand why. But the kid’s reading Bob Billingsley. He’s trying to make something of himself.”
“Billingsley? Are you serious?” Georgia pushed her mouth into something between a smirk and a sneer. “I mean, don’t get me wrong — he has impressive marketing skills. But he’s a quack — he’s peddling one plus one equals two and selling it as the great new equation. If Richie buys that shit, it makes me less impressed by his intelligence.”
Wade tried to remember if Georgia had been such a snob when they’d met. If she had, she’d hidden it well.
“That’s kind of what you want in a partner, though,” Wade said. “Someone who will work hard, but who won’t be able to outsmart you.”
Georgia rolled her eyes. “You remind me of a teenager trying to borrow his parents’ car. You’ll keep coming up with a new argument until I say yes. Except I won’t say yes.”
“Without Richie, I have to close. It will take even longer for your parents to get their money back.”
“Please. My parents have written that money off.”
“I haven’t. I’m planning to pay them back if I have to write jingles for twenty years to do it.”
Georgia’s eyes darted to Wade’s. “Don’t write jingles again. You hated advertising.”
“I know, but it pays well. We’re only twenty-five grand short of making this payment. Richie’s offering fifty thousand for twenty-five percent.”
“Twenty-five grand, hmm?” Georgia took a deep breath in. “Seems like such a low number until you can’t raise it.”
“I can raise it. You just won’t agree to the terms.”
Georgia squeezed Wade’s hand tight. “Don’t worry if this fails, Wade. I’ll support us until you find a job you can feel good about.”
“Like what?” Wade knew he sounded morose. He couldn’t help it.
“You could teach guitar in high school and play gigs where you can get them. Good things happen when you’re at least trying to pursue what you love.”
“Can you at least consider Richie? He wants to bring live music into Avalanche. Blues bands, jazz bands. And Avalanche Nights. It’s the perfect setting for that.”
“Oh, Wade . . . My instincts are screaming no bloody way. But I want to see you thrive again — be the long-haired dude I married.” She fingered the hair behind his neck — which was becoming more like a mullet each day. “Not that I liked the long hair. But you were happy then. We’ll figure this out.”
Man, Wade wished he were in love with her.
TWENTY
MARTHA
LaGuardia security waved Martha on. She plied one foot at a time back into brown patent loafers, packed her laptop and iPad into her rolling briefcase, and headed for the lounge.
She felt strange, out in public for the first time in nearly two weeks, eyes on her from all directions. Though she normally passed through this airport several times a week, it felt foreign today, like she was seeing its kiosks and gates, learning its security regulations, all for the first time.
Several of Martha’s colleagues resented being herded and scanned through with the masses. Some flew private if they had their own money. Geoff Kearnes, as governor of Georgia, had a jet his constituents paid for. But Ma
rtha felt that was hypocritical — using power the people gave you to live in an exalted world beyond their reach.
She smiled bitterly when the thought crossed her mind that she had not been raised to feel so egalitarian but had picked up this way of thinking — accidentally — from Sacha.
Martha saw a Starbucks and rolled her bag up to the counter. Instead of ordering her usual black coffee, she heard herself ask for a chai latte. Sacha’s favorite. Martha stared absently as the barista made the drink.
She couldn’t get Daisy’s allegation out of her head. If Sacha had been smuggling LSD, where the hell was the daughter Martha thought she knew? If the adult Sacha was so far removed from the child Martha remembered, how much of a leap was it that she might in fact have taken her own life?
Daisy must be lying about the drugs.
Martha fished her BlackBerry from her pocket to compose a message to Ted. He was her assistant, but also her liaison to her campaign manager and to pretty much everyone else in her work life. She stopped typing when the chai latte appeared at the end of the counter. She clicked No to Save Draft?
Martha took a long sip of the latte. For an instant — less than a second — she was with Sacha six years earlier in the Starbucks on Columbus at Sixty-Seventh, tasting Sacha’s new drink of choice — the chai latte — while the young African-American barista grinned at Martha’s order of a tall, black bold — the word coffee left off as implied. Sacha had caught the double entendre first, met the barista’s eyes questioningly, and when it was clear he wasn’t offended, all three had cracked up simultaneously.
That was the kind of stupid joke Martha couldn’t share with anyone again. For one thing, it was mildly racist. For another, who would care?
Martha left Starbucks and rolled her briefcase down the airport hall. She stopped at the door to the executive lounge. On a regular day, she didn’t think twice about waiting for her flight in the more private and comfortable setting. Not to mention more secure. She’d have her iPad or her laptop or sometimes both running, and she’d suffer the lousy coffee they had on offer. But today, Martha hesitated outside the lounge door.
She heard Sacha’s voice challenging her to wait in the uncomfortable row seats with the bulk of her constituents, Sacha’s laugh mocking Martha’s objection that the public seating wasn’t as safe, asking Hasn’t everyone here been scanned through high security?
Martha tilted her case and headed toward the gate.
A young man in ripped blue jeans approached her. He had dark hair that flopped across his face, obscuring his eyes almost completely. His skin was dark, but not dramatically so — Latino maybe, or southern European. Or maybe New York Jewish. “Are you Martha Westlake?” he asked in unaccented English before a Secret Service agent placed his body between the young man and Martha.
The man was craning his neck to meet Martha’s eyes behind the guard.
“Are you a reporter?” Martha asked.
“I have a blog.”
Another Secret Service guard stepped between the young man and Martha.
“Wow,” the man said. “You guys really don’t like the Internet revolution, huh?”
Martha didn’t know what to think of all the new media. Sacha had seen it as stripping down snobbery, making all viewpoints equally accessible, turning the world into a more casual place that was less hung up on decorum. Martha agreed that the Internet was doing those things; she just wasn’t sure the effect was beneficial.
So maybe it was unwise to engage, but it was also unwise to snub the media during an election. Martha was interested enough to say, “Gentlemen, please move aside. I’d like to talk to this young man.”
Secret Service patted the man down, which made Martha feel like a heel. But she had to let them do their job.
Finally, she and the young man were face to face. Martha guessed his age to be around thirty, though he slouched like a belligerent teenager.
He said, “Am I right that you’d be interested in an interview?”
Martha’s immediate urge was to say of course not. Ted arranged her interviews in conjunction with her publicity team. But today, she said, “An interview would be fine. Would you like to come into the lounge with me or are you comfortable out here?”
“I prefer to be out here, with the people.”
Martha resisted an eye-roll. Although the same thought had passed through her head minutes before, spoken aloud it sounded self-righteous. “Let’s walk to my gate.” She took the lead in that direction. “What would you like to discuss?”
The blogger scrambled to manage his bulging shoulder bag while keeping up with Martha’s clipping pace. “My real interest is in your daughter.”
Martha felt her heart stop. Just for an instant. She took a deep breath and said, “I’m afraid that’s the one topic I wouldn’t like to speak about. Politics, anything else — shoot. But my daughter is off limits for now.”
“Fair enough,” the blogger said — softly, which Martha appreciated. “Politics is fine. I presume you’re headed to Detroit for the university talk?”
“Yes.” Martha hoped he didn’t ask about Reverend Hillier.
“Your first public appearance since . . . I mean, in the past two weeks?”
“Yes.”
“Your popularity has risen dramatically in that time.”
Martha cringed.
“From a weak fourth to a strong second. Many think you’re poised to come out ahead of Kearnes, if you can take Michigan.”
“Yes,” Martha said. “I’ve heard that speculation.”
“In your time away from the public spotlight, have you changed your stance on any key issues?”
“No.”
“Maybe your position on drugs has softened?”
Martha’s chest felt heavy, like the frothy milk from the latte was sticking to the walls of her lungs. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
“Perhaps your daughter’s activities in Whistler caused a shift in, say, your hard line with end users? Or maybe even with smugglers?”
Martha tightened her grip on her carry-on handle. When they arrived at her gate, she leveled her suitcase and locked eyes with the blogger. “I’ve asked not to speak about my daughter.”
“I’m sorry I’ve upset you. I guess there was no nice way to ask that question.”
“Because the question is groundless. How could Sacha waitressing in Canada impact my position on narcotics in the United States?” This was not the tone Martha was supposed to take with press. She hoped the blogger didn’t have a microphone running. The last thing she needed was a sound clip of herself sounding bitchy reaching an audience across the Internet.
The blogger frowned. “You really don’t know?”
Martha perched on a hard row seat. She leaned back, which was even more uncomfortable. “Tell me.”
The blogger sat, too, leaving one seat empty between them. Martha appreciated the space.
“A source told me that Sacha was smuggling LSD. But not for profit. I heard she had an agenda of her own, with the greater good in mind.”
Acid smuggling for the greater good. Martha wondered how she could have missed this. She’d seen Sacha’s idealism as intelligence, as compassion, when clearly her daughter should have been in psychiatric care.
“I’m Lorenzo.” The blogger reached out a hand, which Martha shook because it was easier, and likely wiser, than avoiding him. “Lorenzo Barilla. And . . . well . . . I promise that if you talk about Sacha — just a friendly piece about her life — I’ll keep this information about the drugs out of my blog.”
“Fine,” Martha said. She knew that name. But why? “We can talk about Sacha.”
TWENTY-ONE
CLARE
Clare peeled off the comforter, then immediately pulled it back over her shoulders. Her room was freezing.
She smelled coffee, th
ough. Easily a good enough reason to crawl out of bed and suffer the cold. She chose some thick black sweatpants and a hoodie with the slogan I Think Therefore I’m Single. She padded out to the kitchen.
“Coffee’s made,” Jana said. “I don’t know if you had time to get groceries yesterday, but you can have some of my cereal if you want. Just not my Smarties.”
“Thanks.” Clare pulled a mug down from the cupboard. She was tempted to eat all the hard-shelled chocolates just to see how Jana reacted. But that would definitely be a Clare, not a Lucy, move. Too bad she had to stay in character.
Jana glanced up from her laptop and said, “Nice hair.”
“Is it bad?” Clare hadn’t looked in a mirror.
“Not bad if you’re a strung-out rock star.” Jana turned back to her computer. “Holy shit. I just Googled Sacha’s name and this blog came up. Dude has an interview with Sacha’s mom.”
“Didn’t you say Sacha’s mom was a politician? She must be interviewed all the time.” Clare took a long sip of coffee. It tasted pretty good — not too dark, not too bitter, but strong and thick the way Clare liked it. “Is this coffee organic?”
“Yeah,” Jana said. “And shade-grown. Sacha used to insist on that — something about bird habitats. This is the first time Martha Westlake has been in public in two weeks.”
“Maybe her publicist told her it was time to get back on the campaign trail.”
“Right. What do you care? You never knew Sacha.” Jana clearly didn’t like Clare’s dismissive tone.
Clare picked up the bag of Mueslix and pretended to study the ingredients. “Fine, I’m curious.”
“Why? Because I said you look like her?”
“Maybe. Chopper said the same thing.”
Jana pressed her lips together forcefully, like she was deciding if she wanted to talk to Clare. After a moment, she said, “Did you see the teddy bear in your room?”
Of course Clare had seen it. And picked it up and flipped it over, like she had done with most things in the apartment. But since Lucy wasn’t a cop, she wouldn’t have been quite so observant. “No.”