She tucked her chin in close to her chest, ran her fingers through her spiky hair, and when she looked up, her cheeks were wet. “You don’t need this,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “I think you should go.”
“Cassie,” he said. It came out in a whisper, sounded far more intimate than he’d intended.
For a while, her breaths came in short little puffs. When she spoke again, her voice was strained. “You need to be there for your kids,” she said. “There’s nothing more important than family, okay?”
“Not much of a family these days.”
“Don’t say that,” Cassie said. She looked up at him, eyes fierce. “You don’t fucking talk that way, ever.” Something had flared up inside her, like a whole book of matches, and then subsided almost as quickly. But who could blame the woman, having so recently put her father in the ground? And then he remembered why.
“Sorry,” he said. “It hasn’t been easy for the kids, and I’m not exactly doing my job.”
“How’d she die?” Her voice was soft. “Their mother.”
He took another sip. A quick scene played in his head, jittery, badly spliced film. The pebbles of glass strewn throughout Laura’s hair. The spiderwebbed windshield. “I don’t like to talk about it.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Natural question.”
“No, you’re—crying.”
He realized that he was, and as he turned his face, embarrassed, cursing the booze, she got up from her chair, came up to him. She put a small warm hand on his face, leaned close to him, and put her lips on his.
Startled, he backed away, but she moved in closer, pressed her lips against his, harder, her other hand pressed against his chest.
He turned his head away. “Cassie, I’ve got to get home.”
Cassie smiled uncomfortably. “Go,” she said. “Your kids are waiting.”
“It’s the babysitter, actually. She hates it when I come home later than I promised.”
“Your daughter—what’s her name, again?”
“Julia.”
“Julia. Sweet name. Go home to Julia and Luke. They need you. Go back to your gated community.”
“How’d you know?”
“People talk. It’s perfect.”
“What?”
“You living in a gated community.”
“I’m not really the gated-community type.”
“Oh, I think you are,” she said. “More than you know.”
42
LaTonya’s twelve-year-old daughter, Camille, was practicing piano in the next room, which made it hard for Audrey to concentrate on what her sister-in-law was saying. LaTonya was speaking in a low voice, uncharacteristically for her, while she removed a sweet-potato casserole from the oven.
“Let me tell you,” LaTonya said, “if Paul didn’t have a steady income, I don’t know how we’d get by with three kids still in the house.”
Audrey, who’d noticed the kitchen piled high with cartons of thermogenic fat-burning supplements, said, “But what about the vitamins?”
“Shit!” LaTonya shouted, dropping the casserole to the open oven door. “These damned oven mitts have a hole in them—what the hell good are they?”
Thomas, who was nine, ran in from the dining room where he and Matthew, eleven, were allegedly setting the table, though mostly just clattering the dishes and giggling. “You okay, Mom?”
“I’m fine,” LaTonya said, picking up the casserole again and putting it on the stovetop. “You get back out there and finish setting the table, and you tell Matthew to go tell your father and Uncle Leon to get off their lazy butts and come in to dinner.” She turned to Audrey, a disgusted look on her face. “Once again, I’m ahead of the curve.”
“How so?”
“These thermogenic supplements. Fenwick is a backward, fearful community,” she said gravely. “They do not want to try new things.”
“And now you’re stuck with all these bottles.”
“If they think I’m paying for them, they’ve got another think coming. I’m going to ask you to read the small print on my agreement, because I don’t think they can get away with it.”
“Sure,” Audrey said without enthusiasm. The last thing she wanted to do was get involved in extricating LaTonya from another mess she’d created. “You know, the money isn’t the worst part,” Audrey said. “I mean, it’s not easy, but we can get by.”
“Not having kids,” LaTonya pointed out.
“Right. It’s dealing with Leon.”
“What the hell does he do all day?” LaTonya demanded, one hand on her left hip, waggling the other hand to cool it off.
“He watches a lot of TV and he drinks,” Audrey said.
“You see, I knew this would happen. We spoiled him growing up. The baby of the family. Anything he wanted, he got. My momma and me, we waited on him hand and foot, and now you’re paying the price. You hear what I hear?”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly.” She shouted, earsplittingly loud, “Camille, you’ve got twenty more minutes of practicing, so don’t stop now!”
An anguished, garbled protest came from the next room.
“And you don’t get any supper until you’re done, so move it!” She glowered at Audrey. “Honestly, I don’t know what’s wrong with her ownself. She pays me no mind at all.”
Dinner was meat loaf, macaroni and cheese, collards, and sweet-potato casserole, everything heavy and greasy but delicious. Leon sat next to his sister at one end of the table, LaTonya’s husband at the other, the two squirming boys on one side facing Audrey and Camille’s empty place.
The sound of the piano came from the living room, sporadic, sullen. Brahms, Audrey recognized. A pretty piece. A waltz, maybe? Her niece was struggling with it.
Thomas squawked with laughter over something, and Matthew said, “Fuck you!”
LaTonya exploded: “Don’t you ever use language like that in this house, you hear me?”
The two boys fell instantly silent. Matthew, looking like a whipped puppy, said, “Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s right,” LaTonya said.
Audrey caught the younger boy’s eye and gave him a mildly disapproving look that was still, she hoped, filled with auntly love.
Leon was stuffing his face meanwhile. He said, “I wish I could eat supper here every night, LaTonya.”
She beamed, then caught herself. “Is there any reason you can’t get yourself a job?”
“Doing what?” Leon said, dropping his fork dramatically. “Operating an electrostatic spray gun at the Seven-Eleven, maybe?”
“Doing something,” LaTonya said.
“Doing something?” Leon said. “Like what? Like what do you think a guy with my skills can do here?”
“Your skills,” LaTonya scoffed.
“How do you think it feels getting laid off?” Leon said, his voice rising. “Do you have any idea? How do you think I feel about myself?”
“I’ll tell you how I feel about you sitting around doing absolutely nothing,” LaTonya said. She cocked her head. “Camille,” she shouted, “what are you doing?”
Another muffled cry.
“We’re all eating in here,” LaTonya yelled. “We’re likely to finish dinner without you, rate you’re practicing.”
Camille screamed back, “I can’t stand it!”
“You can yell all you want,” LaTonya bellowed. “Won’t make any difference. You’re not getting over on me.”
“Let me talk to her,” Audrey said. She excused herself from the table, went into the next room.
Camille was weeping at the piano, her head resting on her elbows atop the keys. Audrey sat down at the bench next to her. She stroked her niece’s hair, lingering on the kitchen, that kinky hair at the nape of her neck. “What is it, honey?”
“I can’t stand it,” Camille said. She sat up. Her face was streaked with tears. She looked genuinely upset; it was no act. “I don’t understan
d this. This is torture.”
Audrey looked at the sheet music. Brahms’s Waltz in A Minor. “What don’t you get, baby?”
Camille touched the music with a pudgy, tear-damp finger, making a tiny pucker.
“The trill, is that it?”
“I guess.”
Audrey nudged Camille over a bit and played a few measures. “Like that?”
“Yeah, but I can’t do that.”
“Try this.” Audrey played the trill slowly. “Down an octave.”
Camille placed her fingers on the keyboard and tried.
“Like this,” Audrey said, playing again.
Camille imitated her. Close enough. “That’s it, baby. You got it. Try it again.”
Camille played it, got it right.
“Now go back a couple of measures. To here. Let me hear it.”
Camille played the first two lines of the second page.
“Boy, are you a fast learner,” Audrey marveled. “You don’t even need me anymore.”
Camille smiled faintly.
“When’s your recital?”
“Next week.”
“What are you doing besides this?”
“Little Prelude.”
“Beethoven?”
Camille nodded.
“Can I come?”
Camille smiled again, this time a happy grin. “You think you have time?”
“I’ll make time, baby. I’d love to. Now, hurry up and finish. I’m getting lonely at the table without you.”
Paul looked up as Audrey entered the dining room. He was a pigeon-chested man with sunken cheeks, a recessive gene but a sweet-natured guy. Camille was back at the Brahms, strong and enthusiastic. “I don’t know what you threatened her with, but sounds like it worked,” he said.
“She probably pulled out her handcuffs,” said LaTonya.
“Probably her gun,” Leon mumbled. He seemed to have calmed down in the meantime, retreated back into his old, monosyllabic self.
“No,” Audrey said, sitting down. “She just needed a little help figuring something out.”
“I want an ice cream sundae for dessert,” the younger boy said.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” said LaTonya. “Right now it’s looking awful grim for you.”
“How come?”
“You got more than half your meat loaf left. Now Audrey, what are you working on these days?”
“It’s not dinner-table conversation,” Audrey said.
“I don’t mean the gory details.”
“I’m afraid it’s all gory details,” Audrey said.
“She’s working on that murder of the Stratton worker got murdered down on Hastings,” Leon said.
Audrey was amazed he even knew what she was working on. “People aren’t supposed to know what I’m doing,” she told him.
“We’re all family here,” said LaTonya.
“Right, but still,” said Audrey.
“No one’s going to say anything, my saditty sister,” LaTonya said. “You think we know anybody? This guy fell off the edge, that right? Get into crack and other poisons like that?” She cast an evil eye at her two sons.
“I met the guy,” Leon said.
“Who?” said Audrey. “Andrew Stadler?”
Leon nodded. “Sure. He kept to himself, but I talked to him in the break room once or twice.” Leon reached for the macaroni and cheese and shoveled a huge lump onto his plate, a third helping. “Couldn’t meet a nicer guy.”
“A troubled man,” Audrey said.
“Troubled?” said Leon. “I don’t know. Gentle as a lamb, I’ll tell you that.”
“Really?” said Audrey.
“Gentle as a lamb,” Leon said again.
“I’m done,” Camille announced, entering the room and sitting down next to Audrey. She found Audrey’s hand under the table and gave it a little secret squeeze. Audrey’s heart fluttered for a moment.
“Took you long enough,” said LaTonya. “I hope you learned your lesson.”
“You sounded great,” Audrey said.
43
Nick got in a little earlier than usual, got a cup of coffee from the executive lounge, and checked his e-mail. As usual, his inbox was cluttered with offers for Viagra and penis enlargement and low-interest mortgages, the subject headings inventively misspelled. The putative wives and sons of various deceased African heads of state urgently sought his assistance in transferring millions of dollars out of their country.
He thought about this woman, Cassie Stadler. She was not only seriously attractive, but she was unlike any woman he’d ever met before. And she—who, of course, had no idea what he’d done—was clearly as attracted to him as he was to her.
No message from the Atlas McKenzie guys—the mammoth deal that had unaccountably fallen through—but that didn’t surprise him. He was going to have to confront them on it, find out what the reason was, see if there was a way to sweet-talk them back on board.
Marjorie wasn’t in yet, so Nick placed the calls himself. It was 7:10 A.M. The Atlas McKenzie guys were usually in by then. Ten digits away. Not a lot of work to press those ten digits on the telephone keypad. How many calories did this take? Nick imagined a tiny scrap of the twiggy cereal Julia wouldn’t eat: that many calories. Why wouldn’t he place his own calls?
The woman on the other line was really sorry. Mr. Hardwick was still in conference. Nick imagined Hardwick making throat-cut, I’m-not-in gestures.
There it was. That was a reason not to place your own calls. To spare yourself the humiliation of dissembling secretaries. The smile in the voice that accompanied the sing-songy formula I’m sorry. The micro–power trip of putting one over on a CEO. Fun for the whole family. He wondered whether the waitress at Terra really had spit in his arugula salad. She’d brightened a little when she brought it out, hadn’t she?
Nick felt a little acid come up his gullet as he stared at the silver-mesh fabric panels in front of him. There were certain things that money and position protected you from. There were certain things that it didn’t. When his driver’s license needed renewing a couple of years ago, he didn’t stand in line at the DMV, the way he once had to. The CEO of a major corporation didn’t wait in line at the DMV. Some young staffer from the corporate counsel’s office did, and it got taken care of. Nick couldn’t remember the last time he’d waited in line for a taxi at an airport. Senior execs had cars; you looked for the guy holding a sign that said CONOVER. And senior execs of major corporations didn’t haul their own baggage. That got taken care of, too, even when Nick was flying commercial. But when the weather was bad, it was bad for you too. When your car was stuck in traffic, it didn’t matter what your company’s valuation was; traffic was traffic. Those things were the Levelers. The things that reminded you that you lived in the same world and were going to end up in the same place as everybody else. You thought you were a master of the universe, but you were just lording it over a little box of dirt, the tyrant of a terrarium. Having a kid who hated you—that had to be a Leveler too. And so was sickness.
And so was death.
Next he tried MacFarland—that was the name of the Nixon look-alike. But his assistant apologized: Mr. MacFarland was traveling. “I’ll be sure to let him know that you called,” MacFarland’s assistant told him, with the bright artificiality of someone from a casting director’s office. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.
Twenty minutes later came the faint settling-in noises, the heavy vanilla smell of Shalimar: Marjorie was in.
Nick got up, stretched, stepped around the partition. “How’s the novel coming?” He tried to remember the title. “Manchester Abbey, was it?”
She smiled. “We did Northanger Abbey a few weeks ago. This week is Mansfield Park.”
“Got it,” Nick said.
“I think Jane Austen wrote Northanger Abbey first, but it didn’t come out until after her death,” Marjorie said, turning on her computer. She said distantly, “Amazing what comes out after people die
.”
Nick felt as if someone had touched his neck with an ice cube. His smile faded.
“Persuasion did too,” she went on. “And Billy Budd, which we read last year. I didn’t know you had such an interest, Nick. You ought to come to our book club.”
“Let me know when you decide to do the Chevrolet Suburban Owner’s Manual—that’s what I call a book,” he said. “Listen, I’m expecting a call from those Atlas McKenzie guys. Hardwick, MacFarland. Let me know when they’re on the line. Wherever I am, I’ll take the call.”
Nick spent the next couple of hours in conference rooms, two back-to-back, bun-numbing meetings. There was the supply-chain-management team, whose seven members had reached an important conclusion: Stratton needed to diversify its suppliers of metallic paint. They were bubbling with excitement as they reviewed the considerations they had taken into account, like they’d discovered penicillin. Then there was the industrial-safety team, which always had more lawyers than engineers, more concerned about lawsuits than limbs. Nobody came to spring him. No message from Marjorie.
He gave Marjorie a questioning look as he made his way back to his desk.
“The Atlas McKenzie people—they were supposed to get back this morning?” she asked.
Nick sighed. “I’m beginning to feel like I’m getting the bum’s rush. I phoned first thing today, you know, and they said Hardwick’s in conference, MacFarland’s on the road, they’ll get back to me.” Then again, they were supposed to return his call from yesterday too. Apparently they had other priorities.
“You think they’re trying to dodge you.”
“Could be.”
“Want to get them on line?” Marjorie looked sunny but sly. It was a good look.
“Yup.”
“Let me have a go.”
Nick took a few more steps toward his desk as Marjorie made a couple of phone calls. He couldn’t hear everything. “That’s right,” she was saying. “United Airlines. We’ve located the lost baggage, and he gave us a cell number to call him at. James MacFarland, yes. He seemed frantic. But the clerk must have written it down wrong…”
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