by Lis Wiehl
The restaurant, famous for its mahi-mahi sandwiches, is thick with tacky tourists; it’s loud and chaotic, and just blocks from the office of Pierce Holdings. Celeste finds the hubbub amusing—it’s fun to observe the masses in their element.
She spots Lily as she approaches the restaurant—she’s hard to miss. Tall and striking with jet black hair and pearly skin set off with glistening red lipstick, she’s wearing a white shirt, a thin black men’s tie, and a dark suit that fits her toned body like a second skin. Her limbs are long and she moves with a lithe, powerful grace. The stupid little tourists stop and watch as she walks by. They’re not used to Chinese superstars in Loserville, Indiana.
Celeste and Lily smile at each other, and Celeste feels that frisson of excitement that Lily always elicits in her. They’re partners in . . . what would you call it? Rewriting history? That sounds so immodest, Celeste thinks. But it’s the truth.
Lily sits down. “Would you like something to eat?” Celeste asks.
Lily waves off the suggestion—she and food have a tenuous relationship. “How did it go with Sparks?”
“It was going well. Then my mentee took the dogs for a walk, and Jasper was run over and killed.”
“I’m sorry, Celeste. I’ll send you a replacement.”
“I’ll stick with two for the time being—the yapping was getting on my nerves. So Sparks left early. But not before leaving an impression. She’s very smart.”
“Intelligence is a two-sided coin.”
“And very curious.”
“Another mixed blessing. Look what happened to that poor cat. Speaking of mice, how is Mike doing?”
“He’s behaving.”
The two women exchange tight smiles. They were in their early thirties, their plans already hatched, when Mike came into their sights. They’d been casting around for the right figurehead—someone attractive, electable, and malleable. A modern-day Ronald Reagan. Someone they could nurture and . . . mold. Congressman Mike Ortiz seemed like the perfect vehicle for their ambitions. And so Celeste went to that fateful fundraiser. She wore a tight black dress and just enough bling to make her sizzle, and introduced herself, wide-eyed and admiring. Of course he knew who she was, what she could do for his career with her wealth and network, but no one was faking the chemistry. They made a dinner date for the following night. It was the shortest dinner on record—why, they practically ran from the restaurant to Celeste’s Russian Hill penthouse, desire pulsing between them. The following morning, when he left for some dull community meeting in his district, Celeste immediately called Lily. The trap had sprung. And the rest, as they say, is history. No, herstory. No, no, theirstory. Lily and Celeste. Celeste and Lily.
“That suit is sharp. Tom Ford?” Celeste asks.
“Tom Ford is for wannabes. Dries Van Noten. I flew him over to fit me. I ordered three.”
“I wish I could get away with an outfit like that. But I’m not sure it would fly at my next Iowa pig roast.”
“Aren’t you going to have to come up with some recipes for deep-fried hot dogs?”
The two women laugh, a secret shared laugh, a laugh filled with scorn and dark corners. Hidden corners. They sit in an easy triumphant silence for a moment.
“So, what are we going to do about our feline friend?” Celeste asks.
“We need her and want her—up to a point. But we have to watch her carefully. Closely. The eyes—and ears—have it.” Lily stands up and scans the scene with a look of bemused noblesse oblige. Let them eat mahi-mahi. “Give me twenty-four hours.”
Celeste watches her as she strides away. Celeste hates weak, emotional women. Quivery little cows. They disgust her. Lily, on the other hand, she idolizes. Her sangfroid has sangfroid. Even though they’re the same age, Lily is really her mentor, her teacher. She took Celeste by the hand and led her into . . . a brave new world.
Then some obese creature in a sparkly sweatshirt approaches.
“I love your husband!” the woman screeches.
Please, dear God, don’t let her touch me. Celeste wants to say: Get off the feed bag, you oinker. What she does say, with a warm smile, is, “So do I.”
“He’s going to be pressss-ident!” the woman cries, a small chunk of half-chewed French fry flying out of her mouth.
Celeste smiles serenely and says, “Yes. Yes, he is going to be president.”
CHAPTER 11
WHEN ERICA GETS BACK TO her hotel, she heads to the fitness center and does a half hour on the treadmill and then takes a quick dip in the pool. As her body moves, her mind stays fixed on the Ortizes—she feels her concerns about them growing into an obsession. Mike Ortiz’s reaction to the death of the dog was bizarre. It was as if he had no emotions to draw upon, almost like a robot. But even a robot would be programmed to at least display emotion. And Celeste, equal parts charm and calculation. And their life in that huge empty house—how many rooms do two people need? It’s all so antiseptic and ordered and controlled—but in the end, no matter how hard we may try and wrestle it into something pretty and predictable, life is messy, nasty, and brutish.
Erica goes back up to her room and orders a salad for dinner. She could go down to the dining room, but that would mean sitting there alone—the object of whispers and stares and intrusions. As if she were on display. She would feel self-conscious and even lonelier. She calls Jenny.
“Sparks’ residence.”
“Becky?”
“Hi, Erica.”
Erica’s not sure how she feels about Becky’s answering the phone that way. “Listen, there’s no need to say ‘Sparks’ residence.’ I prefer a simple hello.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I just thought it sounded classier, more grown-up or something.”
Girls from poor backgrounds often overcompensate like that. Erica used to do it all the time during her difficult first year at Yale—mimic a phrase or inflection that she heard come from a rich classmate’s mouth. Becky is trying so hard.
“Not a big deal. May I speak to Jenny?”
“Of course, she’s right here.”
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, sweetie. What are you doing?”
“I’m playing Scrabble with Becky.”
“That’s terrific. Who’s winning?”
“I am. But I think Becky is letting me win.”
“Not true,” comes Becky’s protestation in the background. They both laugh, and Erica feels a tinge of jealousy. But mostly she’s glad that Jenny sounds happy and stimulated. And how cool that they’re playing Scrabble.
“Where did the Scrabble come from?”
“Becky bought it. Listen, Mom, can I take tennis lessons? My friend Lisa from school is taking them and she invited me.”
“Of course you can, honey.”
“The first one is on Saturday, so you can come and watch.”
“Can’t wait.”
“I better go, Mom. It’s my turn and I think I have a big word.”
“I love you.”
Erica hangs up. She doesn’t know which is worse—having Jenny lonely and missing her, or having her engaged and treating her mom like an interruption. She smiles to herself—being a mother is a complicated dance. And Erica has never been the most graceful hoofer.
As soon as she hangs up, Erica’s mind goes back to Mike and Celeste Ortiz. What was it Mike said: The months I spent in that Al-Qaeda prison changed me. Deeply.
Erica gets up and strides around her suite. She’s got a pebble in her psychic shoe, and she knows she won’t be able to rest until she can shake it out. She wishes she could hash it out with Greg. Everything was easier with him around. She’d call him, but it’s the middle of the night in Sydney.
To feel some connection with him she picks up her iPhone and checks his Twitter feed as she paces. There’s nothing recent, so she checks the Australian Global News feed. What she sees makes her stop in her tracks. There’s Greg, in what looks like a nightclub, standing next to a beautiful young woman. Erica can’t quite make o
ut if his arm is around her waist. He’s definitely had a few drinks. The tweet reads: LAUREL MASSON AND GREG UNDERWOOD CELEBRATING OUR FIRST TRIAL BROADCAST #PSYCHEDINSYDNEY.
Erica feels her stomach hollow out. She sits in the nearest armchair and studies the picture. Both Greg and this Laurel Masson are smiling broadly, exuberant—from success, yes, but there’s more. Their body language is unmistakable, their shoulders touching, heads leaning toward each other. Erica’s shock gives way to hurt. Greg is clearly attracted to another woman. How far has that attraction gone?
Or is her imagination running away with her? It could all be completely innocent. The network has reached a milestone, and they’ve all earned a few drinks. A few drinks.
Erica looks over to the bottle of champagne the hotel left next to the fruit and chocolates. She walks over and picks up the bottle, runs her hand down it. It’s not fair, is it? Greg and Laurel—what a stupid name; was she named after a tree?—can have a few drinks and stop there. Erica can’t. She can’t. Once she starts, it’s off to the races—to morning nips and midday cocktails and midnight shots and impulsive acts and crushing hangovers and shame and self-hatred and regret.
But maybe that’s all behind her. She’s been sober for almost four years. She could probably handle one glass of champagne. The gold foil surrounding the cork is so bright, so lively, so fun and full of promise. All she has to do it take it off, ease out the cork, pour herself a glass—just one glass, in the civilized flute—and she’ll be soothed, cocooned in a sweet cushioning haze. Laurel Masson won’t matter.
There’s Jenny in the backseat of the car that terrible night, crying, asking what is happening, afraid and in danger. In danger from her own mother.
Erica’s body flushes with prickly heat and she puts down the bottle. She sits down at her laptop and Googles Laurel Masson. Sure enough, she’s the network’s star reporter. I guess Greg has a thing for star reporters. Innocent or not, he could have been a little more discreet. The tabloids could pick this up. The tabloids will pick this up. Should she call Greg and demand the tweet be taken down? Or is that shrewish? Or embarrassing? She can’t live her life in fear of social media and gossip websites.
Erica feels a headache coming on. Under her confusion and anger is hurt. Pure, simple hurt. It’s too painful. She starts to pace again, trying to get away from the pain the way an animal does, by moving, moving—Keep moving, Erica, keep moving forward. The plush hotel suite begins to feel like a cage, a gilded cage. She’ll call Greg, yes, in a couple of hours when it’s morning over there. She’ll call him and confront him, get this all cleared up. One way or the other. But what if it is the other? What if he is having an affair with Laurel Masson? What if he’s falling in love with her? What if he’s going to leave Erica?
Stop it! There’s nothing you can do right now! You’re just torturing yourself.
Erica grabs her worn deck of playing cards, sits on the bed, and deals a hand of solitaire. As she plays the cards she feels her blood pressure go down, her head clear, and a sense of control, of mastery of her emotions, returns. Work. Work has always been her salvation. As she draws an ace, her other obsession returns, and now she welcomes it.
The months I spent as an Al-Qaeda prisoner changed me. Deeply.
. . . changed me. Deeply.
Erica abandons the cards midgame and returns to her laptop. She Googles Mike Ortiz and then hits Videos. She finds what she’s looking for: a video of Ortiz giving a speech before his humanitarian mission to Iraq and his months as an Al-Qaeda prisoner. Then she finds a video of a recent speech. She goes to split screen and watches them both simultaneously with the sound muted. Yes, he’s changed physically. In the recent video he has more wrinkles and less hair. And his face is slightly less animated and expressive, although that change is subtle. But the biggest change is in his eyes. In the older video they sparkle with life. In the recent video they look oddly blank—like empty vessels waiting to be filled.
CHAPTER 12
ERICA AND JENNY ARE APPROACHING the Sutton East Tennis Club, which is housed in a white plastic inflatable structure that sits under the Williamsburg Bridge at Fifty-Ninth Street and York Avenue. Jenny looks adorable and stylish in her sky-blue tennis outfit with white piping. Becky took her to Bloomingdale’s—which Jenny now calls Bloomies—yesterday to buy it.
Becky also took it upon herself to reorganize the apartment’s kitchen, which—in keeping with Erica’s cooking skills—lacked a laundry list of culinary essentials, e.g., a decent spatula. Erica loves that Becky takes initiative this way—when she’s at work she feels like the home front is covered. She’s even begun to let Becky take over managing Yelena, who now comes in just two days a week.
Erica’s interview with the Ortizes at home was disappointing. After the segment with the two of them, she taped her one-on-one interview with Mike, but Celeste stood just off-camera the entire time—tense, watchful, encouraging, even mouthing answers and generally behaving like a stage mom at a preteen beauty pageant. When it was all over, Erica made a vow to get Mike Ortiz on-camera when Celeste wasn’t in the same room, preferably not even in the same state. Meanwhile, she hasn’t let go of her suspicions, unformed as they are, and is taking steps to confirm or disprove them. She’s asked one of her researchers to put together a tape showing Mike Ortiz in a variety of situations before and after his time as an Al-Qaeda prisoner.
They walk into the tennis club and there is Lisa Walters, Jenny’s classmate, and her dad. Lisa is lovely and well-behaved, and Erica feels a swell of pride that this is Jenny’s world now.
“Josh Walters, so great to meet you,” Lisa’s father says. He’s definitely not a buttoned-down Upper East Side type—he has a curly mop of reddish hair and is wearing cool black linen pants, stylish sandals, and a black T-shirt embossed with an image of a Calder mobile. His eyes are twinkly, his smile is dazzling, and although he looks to be in his midforties, he radiates a natural boyish enthusiasm.
The tennis coach leads Jenny and Lisa onto one of the courts. Erica and Josh move to a small seating gallery.
Lisa misses a ball, and Josh calls out, “You almost had it, honey.” Then he turns to Erica and adds, “I don’t think Venus and Serena have anything to worry about.”
“Has Lisa been taking lessons for a while?”
Josh nods. “Her mother is all about tennis and Southampton and getting into Harvard.”
“And what are you all about?”
“Hmm—flea markets and mystery drives and Catskill swimming holes.”
“Sounds like a mixed marriage.”
“Oh, the marriage lasted about as long as it takes to eat an ice cream sandwich in August. Is that a strained metaphor?” He smiles in this self-deprecating way that Erica finds appealing. “I’m all for Harvard, if that’s what Lisa wants. I went to City College and loved it.”
“May I ask what you do?”
“I make things. Big things. Like huge pencils and coffee cups and shoes. I mean really huge.”
“For . . . ?”
“Fun. For fun. They sell well enough to keep me in flea markets, mystery drives, and Catskill swimming holes. And Brearley tuition.”
“So you’re kind of a latter-day hippie.”
“I prefer to think of myself as a man who loves people, loves adventure, and loves being his own boss.”
“Unfortunately, in my business that’s not an option.”
“You’ve done pretty well under the circumstances. By the way, you’re much prettier in person.”
Josh Walters is just so sincere, and he’s bursting with life—there’s no holding back, no game playing, no hidden agenda, no male ego, no self-conscious irony, just an outpouring of goodwill. It’s simple but hardly simpleminded—and so refreshing after the countless complications of Erica’s life and career. This is a man she feels relaxed with just a few minutes after meeting him.
Josh takes out his phone and shows Erica a couple of pictures of his wares—they’re enormous, yes, but also c
harming, whimsical, and slightly surreal. What a fun way to make a living.
“Very cool,” she says.
“I think you’re kind of cool too.”
“I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but I think this is my first cool.”
“Hey, why don’t the four of us go out to lunch after the lesson?”
Erica is a little thrown by the invitation. Clearly there’s some chemistry between them—but lunch? This soon? She’s not a free woman. Is she? Then she flashes on that picture of Laurel Masson and Greg.
Just then Jenny slams a ball across the net, nailing a shot. Erica leaps up and cheers—“Way to go, Jenny!”—pumping her arms in the air, surprising herself with her outburst.
Josh is laughing, loud and loose and free. “That was a great mom moment!” he says.
I had a great mom moment!
“Hey, lunch sounds wonderful!” Erica says. Then her phone rings. “I have to take this. Be right back.” She moves away a few steps and answers.
“Erica Sparks? This is Dr. Martin Vander, the Chief of Neurology at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. I’m returning your call. You said it was important.”
CHAPTER 13
“SO I WAS A LAWYER at a fancy midtown firm, making a small fortune, on my way to partner, married to Lisa’s mom, Park Avenue apartment, place in the Hamptons—put it all together and I was miserable and bored out of my mind.”
Erica, Josh, Jenny, and Lisa are sitting in a nondescript coffee shop that Josh picked because they make “awesome” omelets sautéed in olive oil. The girls are deep in a whispered conversation—Erica loves seeing Jenny engaged with her classmate, forming an easy friendship.