Jerry might be getting indicted.
“Great,” he said. “You? How’s Luna’s father?”
“Really good.”
He didn’t know if she was referring to her job, or Marty Spiegel the legend, and he didn’t probe.
“Happy to hear it. Cass, I gotta get on the train. I’ll text you a picture of Puddles later with a copy of today’s newspaper so you won’t worry.”
She laughed her Cass laugh. She was naturally more of a chuckler, letting out a “haha” from the back of her throat that sounded like she was throwing him a bone. But every now and then, she truly giggled, and it was light and giddy and as airy as freshly spun cotton candy. Getting that laugh was a mark of success. He recognized this feeling of victory not only in himself, but in the faces of those around Cass who could also make her laugh—Percy was the most capable, but also Jemima at times, even his little sister. His wife would laugh more often if she could learn to laugh at herself.
From the train he texted Brett to ask about her son. He was fine, a nap and a lollipop seemed to have done the trick, and she asked if everything was okay on his end. Doggy drama, he wrote back.
I had a great time, she wrote. There were no ellipses, but he felt the effect of one. Thoughts left unsaid were often weightier than words spoken out loud.
Me too, he wrote back, but didn’t suggest making another plan.
She sent him a smiley face emoji with hearts for eyes and he was immediately reduced to being a teenager again—not that such forms of communication existed when he was pimple-faced and hormonal, but in feeling that every word and gesture exchanged mattered, that he couldn’t just speak with ease, even though it was all so silly when you took a thirty-thousand-foot perspective. He’d felt young and virile in Brett’s bed, but this was a different kind of déjà vu, the kind that made him grateful his high school years were behind him. Maybe it was her habit of making sad puppy dog eyes at him, the way she looked at him like he needed coddling. Being around her made suppressing the Daniel episode more difficult. He realized that was another reason why he’d never shared the story with Cass. Because then he’d have to look at her and know that she knew what he was capable of at his worst. So he’d kept it to himself, even if it meant he wasn’t as up-front with his wife as he should have been. At least now he knew, after finding the L.A. job materials, that his wife was no open book either.
* * *
♦ ♦ ♦
LAUREL WAS BACK in his office the next day, after scurrying rapidly down the hall when he’d gestured for her to come inside. She looked petrified, closing the door behind her without him saying to do so and bracing herself stiffly.
“Is it the SEC?” She was whispering again, eyes bulging from her head like a bullfrog.
“No, no, nothing like that. You can relax,” Jonathan said. “I need your help with something non–work related. Have a seat. Or rather, come around here.” He motioned for her to join him on his side of the desk.
“I’m something of a Luddite when it comes to social media,” he explained. “I have a Facebook account, but I barely check it. Let me ask you something. If I look for someone on Facebook, will they know that I did?”
“Depends,” Laurel said, obviously relieved this was purely a social call. This was something she could handle—a favor she could easily pay forward from her generation to his. “They say you can’t tell who looked you up, but I think you can because the most random people that I’ve met only one time will get suggested to me as friends and I think the only way that would happen is if they searched for me. So I’d say if you don’t want someone to know you tried to see their page, don’t search for them.”
“Got it,” he said. “Thanks so much.”
“Although,” she said, and her eyes now lit up like fireflies, “you could try Instagram. If the person doesn’t have their privacy settings on, you can see their pictures without them knowing. I’m sure of it.”
“Okay, how do I do that?”
“Give me your phone.”
He handed it over and her index finger feverishly punched at his screen, a look of concentration on her face like she was performing laparoscopic surgery. Russell had suggested that during his temporary single status he should dabble with younger women. “Twentysomethings love finance dudes,” is what he’d specifically advised. It hadn’t seemed particularly appealing when he’d said it, and now, watching Laurel at work on his iPhone, he believed it would be like trying to find common ground with a different species.
“Done,” she announced proudly, handing back the phone in her open palm like a tray of hors d’oeuvres. Pure alien.
“Who are we looking up?” she asked, hopeful that her role in the mission wasn’t yet complete.
“Nobody, now,” he said. “I’ve got to get my Q2s ready for Jerry. Just show me how this thing works really quick.”
She took the phone back from him and placed it on his desk, and the two of them watched the screen as she navigated him through Followers and Following and searching for tags, people, and places.
“Simple,” he said. “I think I got it.”
“All right, but let me know if you need anything else.”
She slowly backed out of his office and when she was safely a few yards down the hallway, he typed in Cass’s name. No entry matched, which wasn’t surprising because neither of them were huge social media people. As far as Cass was concerned, there was no one she wasn’t in touch with that she had any interest in finding, or having find her (read: people from Hazel Park). He too kept a low profile, and so while the two of them wasted some amount of time surfing the web, they weren’t sucked into the rabbit hole of posting and stalking like many of their friends.
After the Cass search turned up empty, he successfully found Brett Eddison. Member since 2013. Thirty-eight pictures. He scrolled through and found most of them were solo shots of her son: Lars in a swing, on his grandparents’ boat, at baseball practice, in a class play, blowing out birthday candles. Brett was in a few of them but there was no trace of Lars’s father. Her feed had the distinct essence of something that had been sanitized, like a crime scene. He buzzed Laurel at her desk.
“Can you delete pictures from Instagram?” he asked.
“Of course. It would be terrible if you were stuck with everything you posted forever. I thought you weren’t going to do that now,” she teased.
“You got me, Inspector Gadget,” he said, and slid the receiver back into its place.
Online images were so easily expunged, much more so than physical pictures and mementos. Of course it was natural to erase pictures of an ex from a Facebook profile or Instagram feed where hundreds of people, maybe more, would review your life as recorded in pictures and captions and determine that was who you were. But what about a physical picture? He and Cass had both decided to hang on to the sonogram image of Peanut (their pet name for the bundle of cells that was supposed to have become their raison d’être) after the termination, but it was private, locked in the safe where only the two of them knew the combination and now their wedding rings served as paperweights. Still, they had chosen to hold on to the painful memory for some reason, and Jonathan wasn’t even sure what that was. What did Brett do with all the printed photographs of Lars’s dad? Torch them one night after her son went to bed? Shove them all in an envelope in the back of a drawer in case one day she got sentimental? His thoughts moved rapidly to Cass.
She wasn’t hugely nostalgic—people avoiding their pasts rarely are—and he remembered watching in horror as she sorted through her things while packing to move into his apartment. Like they were used tissues, she tossed her college face book (the carbon one), a certificate from RISD, and loose photos from opening nights into one of those huge gray trash bins that they’d hauled up five flights of stairs from her building’s laundry room.
“What? The certificate? The pictures?” sh
e asked when he must have let his incredulity show. “I don’t need to keep those things.”
If they didn’t come through this separation together, what would they do with the remains of their marriage? Could their six years be sanitized in the same way an Instagram feed was scrubbed clean of historical hiccups? Their apartment had a dozen photos of them together—black-and-whites from their wedding, candids shot by friends, pictures with Puddles at Christmas—all gleaming, smiling faces surrounded by silver frames that had gotten polished regularly when Manuela was still in play. They would need to divide their things: the coffee table they bought together in Milan, their modest collection of art and tchotchkes, the Christofle silverware from their wedding. Would the pictures end up in a different pile altogether—the up-for-grabs pile? Or would one of them step up and admit to wanting to keep them?
Embarrassed to call Laurel again, he emailed her.
You sure nobody knows if you’re looking at them on Instagram?
Yes! But you will only be able to see their pictures if their profile is public. All celebs are public. Many regular people are too, but some are private. You sure I can’t help you?
No, I’m good. Thanks.
Daniel Rubia-Mendez was one of those people who kept their profile private, Jonathan discovered. It was the first time he’d typed his full name since writing the apology letter that was in both of their sealed academic records.
He was about to return his phone back to his pocket when he remembered that celebs are public, at least according to Laurel, who seemed to know everything about everything in this world.
Marty Spiegel, over three hundred thousand followers, was indeed public.
And there she was. His Cass. In a picture with three other people he didn’t recognize, all grinning like clowns and pointing to a poster for Zombies Attack . . . Again!
She looked tanner, trimmer, sillier. Like she’d gone straight from Hazel Park to L.A., with no evolution of self at Brown or sophistication captured from her years in New York City. It was only a picture and probably whoever was behind the camera had said something funny to get them all to laugh, but he had to admit, Cass looked really happy. It hit him like a sucker punch.
23. CASS
IT TURNED OUT they were a thing.
Marty came back from Toronto, catching everyone off guard by returning a day early. Bare feet propped on desks returned to the ground at lightning speed; personal calls were dropped midsentence. Instead of walking straight to his office like usual, he strutted up and down the aisles of cubicles like a security guard doing rounds.
“Cass,” he said, reaching her workstation. “I’d like to speak to you about School of Rebels.”
“Okay,” she said, searching his face for clues as to where things stood between them, but his expression was a startling blank.
“Now.”
She popped up from her chair, sneaking a glance at her watch. Jonathan and Puddles were landing in an hour and she had planned to leave for the airport in five minutes to meet them. Hopefully this would be quick, or she would just tell him she had to leave. They headed toward his office, Marty a pace ahead of her. At PZA, Percy was fond of linking arms, and they’d amble around the office like school chums ready to break into a skip.
Behind the closed door, Marty reached his hand around her waist and pulled her in for a long kiss.
“I missed you, Cass. Did you miss me?” he asked, the upward lilt of his voice unmistakable.
“I did,” she said. And simple as that, by saying she felt the same way, she was part of a pair that didn’t include Jonathan. It was terrifying and thrilling all at once. She was unaccustomed to having so little agency. It was like reading from a script for the first time, uncertain how to modulate her voice because she didn’t know where the story was going.
“You know, Aidan emailed me your mock-ups of the School of Rebels posters and the web banners. You are a major talent, Cass Coyne. The one you did with the machine guns stowed in the lockers was genius. And I don’t throw that term around lightly.”
She beamed. He had singled out her favorite. It had come to her in the middle of the night and she’d gotten out of bed to sketch it.
“It’ll probably be the one we’re going to use for the Tribeca Film Festival and for Sundance.” He patted her on the back, now all business. “I’d like you to join the team working on Home Is Where the Heart Is. Their concept is too saccharine. I tore their mock-ups in half at the last marketing meeting.”
“Um, sure. I’m happy to see if I can help. I’m around to meet with them today, I just have to run out of the office for a bit to pick up my dog from the airport. My husband, I mean Jonathan, probably just landed and I know he has to catch a—”
“Cass?” He cut her off, not even flinching at the sound of Jonathan’s name. “Do you have a black-tie dress here?”
July, July, July . . . Which awards show was in July? The Tony Awards had just passed. None of her shows were winners this year, but she enjoyed watching it at home with Alexi. Out of habit, she had scanned the crowd for Percy’s face only to be cruelly reminded that he wouldn’t be there. She continued to rack her brain, heart pounding. The Golden Globes were January and the Oscars were February, but maybe this was something abroad? The BAFTAs? Or something more insidery, like the Directors Guild or amfAR?
She didn’t have any formal wear in Los Angeles and there was no way anything Alexi owned would fit her. She didn’t want to say no, fearing a Pretty Woman scene unfolding if she did: Marty calling the managers at the upscale boutiques on Rodeo Drive, her being treated with the forced courtesy of a charity case as a result. Or he’d just retract the invite and take one of the Bobbseys instead.
“I have something that could work,” she fibbed. “Why do you ask?” She was already calculating how quickly she could get to the stores. If there was no traffic getting to and from LAX (ha!), she could potentially make a quick stop before coming back to work.
“Mr. Spiegel,” came a voice from the doorway. It was Abby, his most sniveling assistant.
“Anything yet?” Marty asked her, looking up from his desk.
“Nothing,” she reported. “I combed every website and magazine. So did Minka and Brie. It’ll come.”
“Call Diller over at Tower Media. Find out what the fuck is going on. Tell him to call his Eurotrash friends and get this done already. It’s been more than a week.”
Cass had no idea what they were talking about, but their mysterious exchange gave Cass the necessary moment to consider Jonathan’s feelings when he flipped on the TV and saw her dangling off Marty’s arm, photographers snapping pictures. She ought to prep him in advance with a text saying he’d asked her the favor of accompanying him because he needed a “civilian” to avoid media spotlight. Jonathan might buy it, the idea of her and Marty together so unlikely that her alternate story was far more plausible. Then there was poor Luna to consider, who would probably faint if she saw.
“Okay, I’ll update you in an hour,” Abby said, and did her backward-walking thing again.
“And Abby,” Marty called out. She dashed back inside. “You need to pick up Cass’s dog from the airport. Better yet, get Minka to do it. Cass will give you all the information in a moment.”
What? Cass literally shook her head in disbelief. Was this meant to keep her from seeing Jonathan or just because he was trying to be helpful? She’d better text Jonathan to give him the heads-up.
“Of course,” Abby said, and retreated again.
“Well, I’m glad you have a dress. I’d like you to be my date to an upcoming event. What do you think?”
“Of course, I’d love to,” Cass said, hearing her words come out in a gush. “When is it?”
“Next Sunday evening at the Beverly Hills Hotel.”
“Can’t wait,” she said, dialing back some of her enthusiasm. “What’s the event?”
> Marty gave her a mischievous wink. “My youngest daughter with Bella, Jasmine—it’s her bat mitzvah. I hope you have another dress to wear to temple in the morning. It’s L.A., so don’t worry if your tits are showing.”
* * *
♦ ♦ ♦
CASS: What the hell do I wear to a bat mitzvah? It’s black-tie.
Dahlia: Excuse me?
Cass: I’ve been invited to a bat mitzvah . . . by someone famous. SOS.
Dahlia: I will not continue this conversation over text. Calling you now.
“Hi, D,” Cass said when her phone rang a second later.
“Can I get some details, please? Whose bat mitzvah? Where are you?”
“I’m in a dressing room at Brentwood Gardens, deciding between a sequined black strapless and a one-shoulder gray lace. Basically a toss-up between looking like a cocktail waitress or a bridesmaid. I don’t need to tell you this is my first bat mitzvah.”
“Back up. Whose is it?”
“Marty Spiegel’s daughter. You know I’ve been working for him, right? Well, we kind of became involved, and he wants me to go with him to his daughter’s bat mitzvah this weekend.”
“You’re serious?”
“Completely.”
“Aren’t you part Jewish?”
“I’m about as Jewish as your freshman-year roommate was Native American. You know how she said she was one-sixteenth Iroquois because of her fifth cousin named Winged Foot?”
“Right.” Dahlia chuckled. “I don’t think Maria DeSouza had much tribal experience in Parsippany, New Jersey. Text me pictures of your options and I’ll figure it out for you. And Jesus, you’re dating Marty Spiegel now? Isn’t his daughter your cleaning lady? Does Jonathan know?”
“Yes, she is, and no, he has no idea, and I’m hoping to keep it that way. I have the perfect dress back home, the silver Valentino I wore to the Tonys, but of course I can’t exactly ask Jonathan or Luna to ship it to me. Hence, my call to you.”
The Intermission Page 26