The Candidate

by Lis Wiehl

  She’s back up on the platform and now Josh is swinging from the other platform and Erica swings out and gets her legs over the bar and releases her hands and swings by her knees and there’s Josh, reaching out for her—reaching out his arms for her—and she grabs his hands and he pulls her off the bar and he’s holding her and she’s swinging free and then he says, “Gonna let you go,” and he does and she bounces down into the net.

  Erica hugs Josh when they’re both down on terra not-so-firma, and she hugs the instructor and she looks up at the trapeze—I can’t believe I actually did that. Then they’re back on the Vespa, and now they’re at Josh’s townhouse on impossibly romantic Bank Street in the West Village.

  “I live on the parlor and lower floor and rent out the top two floors. I mean, how much space does a bachelor need?” he says as he leads her in.

  The parlor floor is a series of three large high-ceilinged rooms that ends in the kitchen, which overlooks a captivating rear garden. The walls are home to a striking collection of colorful folk art and old advertising signs. And, of course, there’s a shoe the size of a canoe, a six-foot pencil, and a coffee cup that could double as a small lap pool.

  “I made us a little crab salad for lunch,” Josh says, opening the fridge. He sets out the salad, which looks delicious, sticks a baguette in the oven, opens a selection of cheeses and sets them out on a cutting board, and pours Erica a glass of his amazing homemade lemonade. Something about his ease, his manner, his compact physicality, his curly mop, his warm smile—and of course the trapeze—combine to make Erica feel tingly and alive. Her blood seems to be running a little faster; the world looks fresh. She’s met her fair share of men in her life, but she’s never met anyone quite like this exuberant iconoclast.

  Yes, thoughts of Greg intrude on her idyll, but with each day the hurt lessens—and she gives Josh a lot of the credit.

  They load up their plates and then head out the kitchen door and down a flight of steps to sit at the garden table surrounded by ivy, lilies, and grasses.

  “Josh?”

  “Yes?”

  “That was a blast!”

  They grin at each other—the attraction is snap-crackle-popping.

  “Okay, so you know quite a bit about me. I’d like to know a little more about you,” Erica says. “Like the basic hometown stuff.”

  “You asked for it. I was born and grew up in Bayside, Queens, a perfectly nice working-class neighborhood. Both of my parents were public school teachers; I have three sibs, so money was tight. We were a happy, even joyful family—but my folks made it clear from day one that they wanted us to get good educations and good jobs. It was unspoken, but they didn’t mean as teachers—they wanted us to move up the financial ladder. So there was pressure there. I was a cut-up, in school plays, loved to sing and dance. I wanted to go into show biz, but boy, was that discouraged. I stuffed it and went to CCNY law school. You know the rest of the story. Miserable at work. Quit. Married a princess who lost interest the day I turned into a frog.”

  “Who’s laughing last?”

  “That’s how I look at it. But I wish her well. She’s Lisa’s mother; she married some Wall Street guy; life goes on.”

  And they eat and laugh and chat and Erica feels a sense of perspective. Yes, she’s involved in an important investigation that she has no intention of letting go of, but there’s a danger that it could consume her, tie her in psychic knots, just about eat her alive. She has to remember that she has a life and a child and now maybe a nice guy. Sitting in his enchanting Greenwich Village backyard, she feels a tentative happiness.

  “Okay, this is great, but I have to speak my piece,” Josh says. His face grows serious and there’s a hint of insecurity in his eyes. “I find you incredibly attractive, Erica, and I want to kiss you.”

  Erica can’t contain the broad smile that spreads across her face. “Oddly enough, I feel the same way about you.”

  And they lean across the table and kiss. And it’s the first of a dozen—oh, at least a dozen—and by the time Erica climbs into her Uber an hour later, she’s walking on sunshine.

  When she arrives at her building fifteen minutes later, Greg is standing on the sidewalk in front, waiting for her.

  CHAPTER 34

  ERICA STOPS COLD ON THE curb, not trusting her own eyes. Is it really Greg? Yes, it is. And seeing him—so handsome, so fit, his skin tawny and burnished by the Australian sun—instantly rekindles something inside her. Raw physical attraction, yes, but also a surge of tenderness. She was in love with this man. Is she still? Can they get back what they lost? Can she forgive him? Erica struggles to get her bearings.

  Greg crosses the sidewalk to her. “You look shocked to see me.”

  “Sydney is a long way away.”

  “Too far.” He reaches out to hold her, and an image of Laurel Masson flashes in her mind; she tenses up and takes a step backward.

  They stand there with so much to say and nothing to say. Part of Erica wants to invite him up to her apartment to fall into his arms. Another part of her wants to slap him across the face.

  “Can we talk?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Would you like to go to a café or . . . ?”

  “How about the park?”

  “The park is good.”

  They walk in silence, entering the park at Seventy-Second Street and finding a bench in Strawberry Fields, the garden dedicated to the memory of John Lennon, who was assassinated across the street in front of the Dakota apartment house. The centerpiece is the circular Imagine mosaic—and although it’s only yards from the hustle and bustle of the city, there’s a quietude here that Erica finds renewing. At this moment, however, quietude is the last thing she’s feeling.

  “Erica, I came back to apologize. I made a terrible mistake. But I can’t face losing you.”

  She turns on him. “Maybe you should have thought of that before you slept with Laurel Masson.”

  “Don’t I know it? I kick myself a hundred times a day. You have to believe me, Erica; she means nothing to me.”

  “You still work together, don’t you?”

  “We do. But I’ve made it very clear to her that it’s over.”

  “You’re going to go back to Sydney. You’re going to get lonely. She’s a beautiful woman . . .”

  There’s a pause, and then he turns and looks at her with those soulful green eyes. “Let’s go down to City Hall on Monday morning and get married.”

  Erica jerks back on the bench, as if pushed by an invisible hand. They could be married in less than forty-eight hours. Man and wife. On second thought, it’s the twenty-first century—let’s make that “woman and husband.” Husband who cheats. Within months of their being separated. Then she remembers their history—Greg’s support during her early days at GNN, his bravery that fateful day in Miami, when he was shot and gravely wounded. His kindness and strength and bemused irony. The smell of his pine soap. Her confusion deepens. She’s no longer sure what she feels.

  “I’m not ready to take that step, Greg. You know I’ve been through this before. And Dirk at least had the excuse of my drinking for his affair.”

  “You can’t forgive me?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Greg.” She looks down at her hands: they’re intertwined, curled and twisted together like a knot. “Trust is . . . it’s easy to lose and hard to regain.”

  “Oh, come on now. I didn’t commit a murder.”

  He doesn’t get it.

  They sit there in silence for what seems like a long time. Greg is sorry, but his apology feels perfunctory. It’s as if by flying back and showing remorse and proposing a City Hall marriage, his affair would be erased. But it isn’t. She feels betrayed and humiliated and deeply hurt. She remembers the night she realized he was sleeping with Laurel Masson, the way her stomach hollowed out, her world hollowed out. Trust doesn’t come easy to her—how could it when she couldn’t trust her own mother and father? To have it stomped on, publicly really,
when you consider that tweet of Greg and Masson arm in arm. Erica feels a flash of anger. “I was on a date today,” she says.

  “I don’t think I need to know that. But, lucky guy, okay, lucky guy. What more can I say?”

  And now Greg looks a little lost, like a kid, a boy who has been hurt and doesn’t understand why. And Erica, for the first time since she saw that tweet, feels a rekindling of her deep affection for him. He’s a good man. The man she was going to marry. Her throat tightens. Being a grown-up is so complicated and so sad and sometimes we hurt each other when maybe we don’t need to.

  Greg leans forward, elbows on his knees. He takes a deep breath and says, “The network goes live in six weeks. I can’t possibly get away before then. Will you at least wait until I come back before making any final decision?”

  That’s not really asking for very much. Goodness knows, Erica has a busy couple of months coming up. She nods. He smiles. The mood between them lightens. “You must have terrible jet lag,” she says.

  “It is awfully light for the middle of the night.”

  Erica puts her hand on his and squeezes. “I miss you at work.”

  “That’s not where I want you to miss me, but I’ll take what I can get. What are you working on?”

  “Something important.”

  “Say more.”

  “Well, I’m hitting more walls than I’d hoped, so I may be on a wild goose chase, but in a nutshell? I’m not sure Mike Ortiz is fit to be president.”

  “You know, I’ve never been that impressed with him. He’s wooden and rote, and doesn’t seem like the brightest crayon in the box.”

  “His wife, on the other hand, is terrifying.”

  “Hey, I’ve got a couple of ears here if you want to avail yourself.”

  Erica realizes, with something of a jolt, that while she may not trust Greg with her emotions, she trusts him completely when it comes to work and her investigation. She gives him a quick overview.

  When she’s finished he’s quiet for a moment and then says, “You know, where there are this many unanswered questions, there’s usually fire.” He turns to her, his animation growing. “It really sounds to me like something very creepy happened to Ortiz when he was a prisoner. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. What was done, who did it, and why are three big unknowns. The stakes here really couldn’t be higher. And when you’re dealing with ambition on this scale, well, ruthless is a mild word for what people will do. You have to be very careful for your own safety, Erica. Assume they know everything you’re doing. And call on me 24/7. You’ve got a tiger by the tail. And it’s a rabid tiger.”

  Erica feels a fear rat scurry up her spine. But then again, danger is part of the job description. “Yeah, I think I should head home and do some more digging.”

  Erica and Greg walk out of the park and down two blocks to her building. They reach the entrance and turn toward each other.

  “Thank you for coming,” Erica says.

  “I’m coming back.”

  Part of Erica still wants to fall into his arms. Part of her doesn’t. It all feels unresolved, but looking at the vulnerability in his eyes, what she feels most strongly is tender regret.

  Back in her apartment, Erica sits at her computer and Googles Dave Brennan, the former marine who led the workshop on Chinese afterlife mythology that Peter Tuttle took just before he killed Markum. Brennan has a website that details his spiritual growth and awakening after he returned from the Iraq War and suffered PTSD. Casting about for meaning and solace, he developed a profound interest in Chinese religion, spirituality, and mysticism. There’s a phone number, and she calls and gets his voice mail. His voice is resonant and spectral, even hypnotic. Erica leaves a message.

  CHAPTER 35

  CELESTE TOOLS HER MERCEDES DEEP into the lush, wooded landscape of northwestern Marin County, past the tony suburbs of Ross and San Anselmo and Fairfax, through rustic Woodacre and into Nicasio, where the last vestiges of suburbia give way to vast stretches of undeveloped hills and forests and streams and curvy roads that lead to hidden shacks and castles tucked into the folds of the landscape. She turns off Nicasio Valley Road onto Old Rancheria and continues until she comes to a tall and imposing metal entrance gate.

  She presses a button and smiles at a camera, and the gate swings open and she follows the serpentine track up and up, through brown hills dotted with stands of pine, oak, and eucalyptus, until she rounds a bend and there it is—revealed in all its beauty and strength and promise: Eagle’s Nest.

  Headquarters. Or, as the world knows it—Lily Lau’s weekend house. Celeste feels that familiar surge of adrenaline as she enters the compound.

  Rising power.

  She parks in the spot reserved for her. Lily is so thoughtful that way. In every way, really. Celeste gets out of her car and looks around, inhales the fresh country air, approvingly notes the discreet coming and going—at the periphery, of course, never in the sanctum sanctorum—of several black-clad Chinese men and women, unsmiling, laser-focused, knowing how great their responsibility is to the future.

  She looks at the view west, out toward the Pacific—it just keeps going, past Hawaii, to the future.

  Rising power.

  There’s the main house, surprisingly not massive—Lily is too classy for one of those nouveau monstrosities—designed in the timeless style of Frank Lloyd Wright, wood and glass, long and low, at one with the land. It’s cantilevered over the ridgeline, and evokes an eagle about to take flight—in search of prey. And then, arrayed around a graceful central courtyard, are the three “guesthouses.” Guesthouses indeed.

  Celeste stands there in the cool northern California sunshine feeling as if she is on the cusp of greatness, as if all this—Eagle’s Nest, the sun, the sky, the breeze, Lily, their work together—is part of her destiny, her charmed and dappled life, a life that will earn her not only unimagined power but a unique place in the history books.

  To the naked eye, of course, all this looks like nothing more than evidence of Lily Lau’s success, drive, and professionalism. She’s so clever: to provide cover and give her an excuse to spend time away from the Ortiz headquarters in the city, Lily has set up a satellite campaign and fundraising office in one of the guesthouses.

  Rising power.

  Celeste can sense, can feel the hum of history being written, right here, right now, and each time she visits and the election grows closer, the hum is slightly higher pitched—as the dawn breaks and the new world order begins.

  Rising power.

  Celeste strides into Lily’s house—Lily, oh Lily! The inside is open and immaculate and lined with redwood planks, the grain perfectly aligned piece-to-piece to form a continuous pattern—the painstaking workmanship evokes the ancient traditions of the Chinese temples. The house is a work of art. But everything Lily creates is a work of art. Including the future.

  Rising power.

  How foolish America is, squandering its moral authority and trillions of dollars fighting unwinnable wars in the vast messy sandbox of the Middle East. While China keeps its head down, sticks to its knitting—how Mummy loved that expression!—and spends its billions buying influence in every developing country on the planet. But Beijing is after a bigger prize. The biggest prize of all.

  Where is Lily? The house stretches out in front of Celeste, one vast room that ends in a wall of glass that looks out on the sculpted evergreen garden—another work of art—and then the infinity pool that hangs off the edge of tomorrow.

  There she is; there’s Lily, outside, on a chaise, reading something on her iPad. Celeste’s pulse quickens, as it has quickened every single time she has seen Lily since that first time—that fateful Silicon Valley day twenty-five years ago—when she spotted her across the classroom in Introduction to Chinese History.

  “Lily!” she calls, unable to keep the urgency, the excitement, out of her voice. Lily turns and smiles and raises her hand in a small wave. Celeste joins her in the garden. Lily’s wear
ing a geometric black shift that looks like it was designed by an architect. She’s so chic. And it comes to her so effortlessly, not like all those straining SF socialites drowning in tulle and tooth whiteners. “What are you reading?”

  “Stephen King. I want him on a stamp.”

  “That shouldn’t be hard to arrange. When and if.”

  “If?” Lily narrows her eyes.

  “I mean when, of course, when.”

  There’s a pause, and it’s filled with Lily’s expectation. Celeste reaches into her bag and takes out a small jewelry box. She hands it to Lily and holds her breath as she opens it. It contains an Art Deco ring—two rectangular rubies surrounded by black jade. Lily examines it and Celeste waits—still, after twenty-five years—for her approval. Lily slips it on her finger and holds it up to the light.

  “It’s lovely, Celeste. Thank you.”

  “It was my aunt’s. Cartier. She left it to me. Red and black are your colors.”

  Lily stands up and looks at Celeste. Then she lifts the shift over her head and drops it on the chaise. She’s wearing a sleek one-piece molded to her tall, lean lithe body. She really is a goddess among us.

  Lily does a couple of slow sensual stretches and then she walks over to the pool and dives, a perfect dive—sheer grace, another work of art. She does a half dozen laps and climbs out of the pool and smooths back her inky hair and stands there looking out toward the Pacific. Then she turns and smiles at Celeste, crosses to her, and takes her face in her hands; her long, cool fingers cup Celeste’s cheeks. And she leans in . . . close . . . closer . . . and whispers, “Let’s get to work.”