The Pact

by Jennifer Sturman

  The frustration of not knowing was making me crazy. It was all too cryptic for me. I dealt with numbers and facts, earnings releases and stock prices. The nuances of human emotion—well, if I had that figured out, surely I would have a more fulfilling love life at the very least. Emma’s stated desire not to tell me what had been behind the entire fiasco only rendered me insatiably curious. I’d held my tongue for so long, and now I’d had the barest glimpse of the surface of the truth. Surely I had a right to know, after everything that had transpired, what it was that Richard had held over her to force her into a union of which she so clearly wanted no part.

  I gazed out the window, trying to figure out how I could get Emma to open up. It was after four, and although it would stay light out until well past eight, the sun was beginning its slow descent, casting a golden sheen on the lake and gilding the tops of the pine trees that fringed the shoreline. It would have been a beautiful wedding, at least aesthetically, if it had been actually taking place. I imagined us all here in Emma’s room, helping to zip up each other’s dresses and going through the requisite oohing and aahing over Emma’s gown from Vera Wang.

  Emma seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “You know, the funny thing is, I would have preferred a really small wedding. Just family and close friends and a string quartet playing Mozart and Vivaldi. Up here, of course, just minus a few hundred guests. No three-ring circus with tents and bands and caterers galore. Just us.” Emma looked past me, through the window and out toward the lake as if she were picturing the scene she’d described.

  “I sort of always thought that’s the way it would be, too,” I answered. I didn’t say that I’d also always thought that it would be Matthew waiting for her at the end of the aisle.

  “And instead, here I am, a widow, before I’ve even been married.” She giggled. “Do you think I have to return all the gifts?”

  “I don’t know. Surely there’s a chapter in Emily Post that tells you how to handle such a situation?”

  “Yikes. I don’t think even Emily ever contemplated a chain of events quite like this.”

  “Interesting. There’s probably a real market opportunity here.”

  “Etiquette for unthinkable events?”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Maybe we should put together a book proposal. I have some connections in the publishing industry. I could make a few calls and hook us up with a deal.”

  “We’d be on the bestseller list in no time.”

  “Not to mention the talk show circuit. Too bad Oprah cancelled her book club. Maybe she’ll resurrect it, just for us.”

  “I think she usually stuck to fiction, but who knows? Maybe she’d take a look.”

  “Hmmm. I wonder what I should wear?”

  “For our appearance on Oprah?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m thinking casual but chic.”

  “That’s probably a good call. There’ll probably be a lot of ancillary revenue opportunities, too. Product endorsements, American Express ads, the works. Remind me to send in my resignation to Winslow, Brown on Monday.”

  Emma laughed. “What about dismantling the establishment from within? How are you going to do that if you’re no longer an employee?”

  “Good point. Do you think we could maybe work on the book in our spare time?”

  “Like you have any. I’m surprised they let you out for an entire weekend.”

  “Drat,” I said, thinking again about Stan’s fax.

  “What?”

  “There’s something I need to take care of for work. It seems to keep slipping my mind.”

  “Maybe your mind’s trying to tell you something. After all, there’s no such thing as an accident.”

  I started to laugh at her words but stopped before I’d started. If only the police didn’t feel the same way. Emma must have been thinking the same thing, because she was suddenly silent. Her fingers went back to their nervous fiddling with her ring, and she pressed her lips together in a tight line. I knew her well enough to recognize that she was trying not to cry.

  “Okay, Emma. What the hell is going on?” I asked, throwing tact and subtlety to the wind for yet another try. “I heard you two just now. What do you have to do? What was Matthew talking about?”

  “Oh, Rachel, it was nothing,” she protested. “Really.” But she kept her gaze resolutely fixed on her hands.

  “Come on, Em. You’re a rotten liar. I know that’s not true. There’s something important you’re not telling me about you and Richard. You know, I heard you last night, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You and your father. Arguing on the porch at the club. He was practically begging you not to go through with the wedding.”

  “You heard that?” She finally raised her eyes to meet mine.

  “Yes. It was an accident. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

  “I know you didn’t. You wouldn’t do that.”

  “Come on, Em. Tell me, already. There must be something I can do to help.”

  “I can’t tell you, Rachel. I told you that before, and I mean it. You just have to trust me on this.” She managed to sound both sad and exasperated at the same time.

  “I do trust you. I know that you’d never do anything to hurt anyone.”

  “No. I never do, do I?”

  Emma looked away and ran a hand through her hair. “I should probably go downstairs. The police must be ready for me by now.” She slid down from the bed and crossed to the closet, pulling out a pair of sandals. I watched in silence as she slipped them on and headed for the door.

  “Emma, wait. Maybe you shouldn’t do this alone.”

  She stopped and turned back to face me. “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe you should have a lawyer with you or something,” I suggested gently.

  “Good Lord, Rachel! How many times do I have to tell you? I didn’t do it.”

  “I know you didn’t. That’s not what I meant. It’s just that it might be best to have someone there to protect you, to help you—”

  “Enough, already! Jesus, first Matthew and now you. When will you realize that I’m not an idiot, and I’m not a child? I can take care of myself, dammit.” She stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

  CHAPTER 18

  I’d never seen Emma so angry and I felt terrible—ineffectual and obtuse. All of my probing and prying had accomplished nothing except to bring out a temper in Emma I’d never known existed, much less seen aimed at me. This was the only time in all of the years we’d known each other that she’d even yelled at me. Something was desperately wrong in her life, and not only wouldn’t she tell me, she thought I was condescending to her.

  I felt foolish, too. I’d spent much of the day playing amateur detective, trying to piece together the events of the previous night, assuming that if I could get to an answer, I could manage the situation. But I hadn’t been managing anything except a gross display of hubris—I’d just been fabricating scenarios that implicated my closest friends in Richard’s death. I was a fool, and I wasn’t a very good friend, either, projecting my idle suspicions everywhere I looked based on conversations I hadn’t been meant to hear.

  I hoped again that Jane was right—perhaps there was a very simple, very innocent explanation for everything. Regardless, I should probably stop meddling, before I pissed off anyone else for no reason with my blundering arrogance.

  Dejected, I stepped into the shower to rinse off the lake water, checking for any sign of a tan line as I toweled myself off. No such luck. There was a patch of pink on my right ankle where I’d missed a spot with the sunblock. It went nicely with the bruise that had spread like a rainbow across my instep, a colorful blotch that was black in the center and rimmed with a purplish-navy-blue that faded into greens and yellows at its outer edges. The good news was that I wasn’t going to have to squeeze either of my feet into satin pumps that had been dyed seafoam-green to match my bridesmaid’s gown. Instead, I put on my sundress and sa
ndals again and combed my wet hair, leaving it loose to dry. I fastened my grandmother’s locket around my neck and slipped a cardigan over my shoulders.

  I left Emma’s room and went to Jacob’s study. I was a lousy friend and a rotten detective, but I was pretty good at my job, and, unless I wanted to screw that up, too, the time had come to stop procrastinating and work on Stan’s new deal. I checked the fax but the pages in the output tray were smudged and unreadable, completely in keeping with everything else that was happening that day. I threw them in the trash and opened up the machine, removed the toner cartridge, and gave it a good shake before replacing it. Then I picked up the receiver and dialed OS again.

  When Cora answered, I explained that the fax hadn’t come through clearly the first time around, and she agreed to resend it. That done, I glanced around the room, looking for something to keep my mind from trains of thought that might further offend any of my friends. I crossed over to the bookshelves and scanned the titles. Mr. Furlong’s taste ran to history and biography, but I found something more interesting tucked discreetly into a lower shelf. It was an oversize tome with glossy photographs, designed to grace coffee tables and proclaim to guests that the house in which it sat was an erudite and cultured one. For the Furlongs to display it in such a way would have been tacky, at best—it was a complete retrospective of Jacob Furlong’s work.

  I took the book and settled onto the sofa, idly flipping the stiff pages. I didn’t know much about art, particularly not about abstract art, but many of the paintings were achingly beautiful. When Lily came into the room, I was so deeply immersed that I gave a start.

  “Rachel, darling. So sorry—I didn’t realize anyone was in here.”

  “I’m just waiting for a fax to come through from the office,” I explained. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “Oh, no, thank you. I just realized that I’d scheduled a cleaning crew to come on Monday, and there really won’t be any need for it. I couldn’t find their phone number, but Jacob has a phone book in here.” She opened a desk drawer, removed a Yellow Pages, and began leafing through it. “Oh, dear. I left my reading glasses in the other room and the print is so small—would you mind looking it up for me?”

  “Not at all,” I said, joining her at the desk. She gave me the name of the service, and I found the listing and printed the number on a scrap of paper.

  When I turned to hand it to her, Lily had bent to examine the title of the book I’d left on the sofa. “Ah, Jacob’s retrospective,” she said. “They put that out after the big show at the Museum of Modern Art last year.”

  “It’s very impressive. I saw the show, too.”

  “Yes, it was a lovely exhibit. MOMA’s always been very good to Jacob.” She changed the subject. “And how are you, Rachel? Things have been so hectic that we haven’t had a chance to catch up.” She moved the book aside and perched on the sofa, readying herself for a good girlish chat. Apparently the discussion we’d had at lunch didn’t count. It was a relief to see her so relaxed, so normal, after her earlier behavior.

  “There isn’t much to tell,” I confessed. “My life is really dull.”

  “That’s because you work too hard, dear. Emma’s always talking about how they have you there until all hours. You must be terribly important.”

  I laughed. “If you only knew. I don’t even qualify as a cog in the wheel.”

  “You’re too self-deprecating, darling. You’re a brilliant young woman—they’re lucky to have you.”

  “I wish they felt the same way.”

  “And are there any young men or have you just been hiding yourself away in your office?”

  “Nobody worth mentioning.”

  “It’s odd, isn’t it? New York is such a big city, but it can be hard to meet people.”

  “Meeting people is easy. It’s meeting people I like that’s difficult. How did you and Mr. Furlong meet?” I asked, eager to move the conversation away from my love life, or, more accurately, my lack thereof. The words were no sooner out of my mouth than it occurred to me that her relationship with Jacob was probably not the best topic to bring up right now, but it was too late to take them back.

  She laughed again. “Oh, darling, that was so long ago. You can’t really want to bore yourself with old stories.”

  “No, I’d love to know.” I couldn’t figure out a way to backpedal without sounding awkward.

  “Well, let’s see. It was at a party down in the Village. The hostess was one of those Smith girls with intellectual pretensions, always trying to mix it up with the art world. A friend of a friend of Matthew’s mother, actually. I felt very risqué, going all the way downtown. Matthew’s mother practically had to drag me there. It was a good thing she did—Jacob was at the party. And the rest, I guess, is history.” Her smile seemed a bit sad.

  “Speaking of history, it was fascinating to see how his work has evolved over time.” I was eager for a segue, no matter how clumsy.

  The smile faded, and she was silent for a moment, looking from me to the retrospective beside her. “Yes, well, he’s had a long career.” She traced the image on the cover of the book with a long, tapered finger.

  The fax machine rang once then began to hum. “That must be for you, Rachel,” said Lily, rising to her feet.

  “Unfortunately,” I said. I returned to the fax machine to check the page it was spitting out. This time there were no smudges, but the print was too faded to be read. The toner probably needed to be replaced, I realized.

  “Mrs. Furlong, I’m sorry to bother you about this, but do you know if there’s more toner for the fax machine anywhere? I think it’s just about out.”

  “Toner? Oh, I don’t know. I’ve never understood how that thing works. You should probably ask Jacob. He’s in charge of everything mechanical around here. He’ll be able to help you.”

  “Okay, I’ll do that. Thank you.”

  “Of course, darling,” she answered distractedly. She was replacing the book on the shelf when I left.

  I went downstairs, passing the closed door of the library. Emma was still inside with the police, and I tried not to worry that they seemed to be spending more time with her than they had with anyone else. I repeated Jane’s words to myself like a mantra—there was a very simple, very innocent explanation for everything—as I made my way across the lawns and along the path to Jacob’s studio in the old stables.

  The door to the ramshackle building was ajar, and I could hear music playing within. Beethoven, I recognized. Not the Ninth Symphony, the Ode to Joy, but the melancholy, deliberate strains of the Seventh. I hesitated; I had little experience in interrupting geniuses at work, much less ones whose daughters had just told me they were adulterers. I stopped at the threshold and peered in.

  Little had been done to renovate the interior, but the stalls now held stacks of canvases instead of horses, and the floor was so spattered with paint that it looked as if Jackson Pollock had been there. A rumpled daybed showed evidence of having been slept in, and judging by the stack of books next to it, this was indeed where Emma’s father spent his nights. The aroma of turpentine and linseed oil infused the air along with a faint tinge of pipe smoke. Jacob himself was not standing at his easel but sitting in an armchair, hunched forward with his elbows on his knees. His eyes were gazing sightlessly at a spot on the wall. He looked up when I gave the open door a tentative knock, his startled expression quickly replaced by his usual avuncular smile. “Rachel? Come in, my dear. Do they need me back at the house?”

  “Oh, no, at least, not that I know of. I’m sorry to intrude like this—it’s just that my office is trying to send me a fax and the machine is out of toner. Mrs. Furlong said you would know where I could find some more.”

  “Toner? Sure. In fact, I think I have some in here, somewhere. Hang on a sec and I’ll take a look for it.” He rose from the armchair and crossed to a row of cabinets. The stiffness with which he knelt to rummage through a low shelf showed his age. It was hard to
imagine him with Nina, who was only a few years older than me. Jacob was still a handsome man, but he was also eligible for Social Security. Emma must have been mistaken, I thought. But she had sounded so sure, and there was no reason to make up something like that.

  “Here it is,” he said, holding a box aloft and shutting the cabinet door. “Do you know how to change the cartridge?” He handed me the box.

  “Yes, thanks.” Winslow, Brown may have had an enormous support staff, but I’d fought more than my fair share of late-night battles with copiers, printers and sundry other office machinery.

  “So, everything’s under control back at the house?”

  “I think so. Emma’s in with the police right now, and they’ve talked to everyone else.” It felt wrong to have to be telling him this; surely he should have been up there himself rather than having Matthew act as the surrogate man of the house.

  “Emma’s talking to them? Damn, I thought I told Matthew to come get me when…” I shifted uncomfortably as his voice trailed off. He ran a hand through his hair, disheveling it yet more. “Well, I’ll walk back to the house with you.”

  I waited while he shut down the stereo, and then we proceeded toward the house together, pine needles crunching under our feet. The sun cast long shadows across the path, and there was the beginning of a chill in the air. I was glad I had my cardigan.

  “So, Rachel, it’s been quite a day, hasn’t it?” he said, more of a statement than a question.

  “Not exactly what I’d expected,” I admitted.

  “Nor I.”

  “How’s Emma doing? Is she hanging in there?”