“Who?” she asked, thinking that if he didn’t get over this mood and get on with the sex, she’d have to leave before they could do it.
“You know,” he said accusingly. “Your husband.”
“Seymour?”
“Yeah. Seymour,” he said, as if it pained him to even say the name.
He was jealous! she thought. Jealous of Seymour. If he only knew . . .
“No, I didn’t,” she said.
“Because of me?” he asked.
“Yes, darling. Because of you,” she said.
It wasn’t because of him, but he didn’t need to know that. It was ironic, Nico thought wryly, that her conjugal relations with Seymour constituted a bigger and more shameful secret than her illicit affair with Kirby.
She and Seymour hadn’t had decent sex for at least three years.
They’d often go for months without having sex at all, and when they did, it was obvious to both of them that they were doing it out of obligation as opposed to desire. But actually having sex was the least of it. They barely even touched, save for the occasional tight pecks they gave each other, or when their bare feet happened to touch in bed. Seymour always squeezed his toes against hers for a second, and then pulled away. She knew they were supposed to talk about it, but there was something about Seymour’s manner that didn’t invite those kinds of intimate, couple discussions. She could guess what he would say anyway: “I’m not that interested in sex. It doesn’t have anything to do with you, but I’m not going to do something I don’t feel.” She suspected that unraveling the mysteries and motivations behind his attitude about sex (and sex with her) would be painful and damaging to their marriage, so she just let it be. She was confused and hurt at first, but eventually the months slipped by, and she’d found that she didn’t miss it so much. She told herself that she could live without good sex, especially when there were so many other things to do that were more important. And then Kirby had come along . . .
It was about ten-thirty at night, and she was sitting in the back of a Splatch-Verner Town Car, going home. It was a damp, cold evening—there had been rain earlier, and the temperature had now fallen below freezing, leaving the streets glistening under the white glow of the streetlights and shop windows. She rearranged her long dark sheath, pulling her full-length mink coat more tightly around her. She’d been at a black-tie gala to raise money for education, and Kirby had been there. Not at her table, of course—that would have been far too risky. But Susan Arrow, the P.R. doyenne, had been more than thrilled to seat Kirby at her table—gorgeous young men being in short supply at these events. In December, Nico had arranged for Kirby to meet Susan, the idea being that she might be able to help him with his acting career. Susan and Kirby had developed a casual friendship, and from there, it was natural for Kirby to suggest to Susan that if she ever needed an escort, he was available. And so there sat Kirby at the next table, with no one the wiser that Nico was quietly responsible for engineering his presence.
Nico let her head fall back against the seat. She had only managed to talk to Kirby twice during the evening, and only for a few seconds. But that wasn’t the point. She wanted her lover to see her in all her splendor—with her hair piled on top of her head, and with the diamond-and-ruby necklace she had bought for herself three years ago, when she’d earned a half-million-dollar bonus, clasped around her neck.
“You look beautiful,” Kirby had whispered, as she’d leaned over him to say hello.
“Thank you,” she’d whispered back, touching him briefly on the shoulder.
But it wasn’t just her external appearance that she wanted him to acknowledge. She wanted Kirby to understand who she was in the world and how high she had risen. She wanted him to see her there, in context, seated at the head table, next to Victor Matrick. And later, up in front of the podium, receiving an award for her efforts to raise money for computers in classrooms . . .
She wasn’t ashamed of wanting to impress her lover, especially since she couldn’t impress her husband, at least not that way. Seymour refused to attend these events with her, saying he didn’t want to be seen as Mr. Nico O’Neilly. That had hurt once as well, but she had gotten over it. There was no point in dwelling on things that, when closely examined, were not much more than a case of a slightly bruised ego.
She shifted in her seat, finally allowing the full importance of the evening to settle over her. Seymour hadn’t been there, but it didn’t matter. He would still be pleased with her, especially when she told him what had gone on at the table with Victor Matrick and Mike Harness.
Her eyes narrowed gleefully as she stared out of the tinted window at the towering shops that lined Fifth Avenue like glowing yellow icebergs. Should she call Seymour and tell him the good news about what Victor had said to her? No. The driver might overhear, and he might gossip to other drivers. You couldn’t trust anyone, she thought. She’d seen careers ruined over indiscreet boasting. It would be far better to tell Seymour in person. He might have a fire going, and then she could take off her shoes and they could discuss what had happened.
She allowed herself the tiniest smile, recalling the moment at the gala dinner when Victor Matrick had turned to her and said quietly, “I’d like you and Seymour to come to St. Barts for the weekend.” She immediately understood that this was not a social invitation but a secret strategy meeting, which needed be conducted out of sight of prying eyes, and for a second, time stood still. She glanced over at Mike Harness. Mike was pushing a large piece of bread into his mouth (the food at these dinners was always inedible), and looking annoyed with the fact that he’d been seated next to Selden Rose’s date—an attractive young woman in her early thirties whom Mike no doubt considered of no importance whatsoever.
And Nico thought, “Mike, baby, you’re about to get fucked over.”
And she was going to be the one to do it.
The thought was both sickening and deeply satisfying at the same time. Mike had gone to Victor about the Huckabees meeting after all, she thought, and, as she suspected, Victor had been repelled by his obvious treachery. She touched her napkin to her lips and nodded. “Of course, Victor,” she murmured quietly. “We’d love to be there.”
The car turned onto Sullivan Street, and without waiting for the driver to open the door, Nico got out. A trim man dressed in a ski parka and fuzzy après ski boots was coming down the steep steps of the brownstone, his concentration focused on three small dachshunds attached to retractable leashes. Ever since Seymour had begun breeding dachshunds three years ago (he was hoping to win at least Best in Breed at the Westminster Dog Show this year), he had taken on the pretension of living in the city as if he were some kind of country squire, hence the boots.
“Seymour,” Nico said eagerly.
Seymour looked up, and after a moment’s hesitation, came over. “How was the dinner?” he asked.
Nico reached down to the dogs, who were pawing gleefully at the hem of her dress. Their little claws were as delicate and clutching as spiders’ feet, and she bent down, picking one up and cuddling it in her arms. “Hello, Spidey,” she said, kissing the dog on top of its head. She looked up at Seymour, taking a moment to allow him to prepare for her good news. “Mike’s out, I think.”
“Nice.” Seymour’s eyes widened as he nodded approvingly.
“And . . . Victor’s invited us to his house in St. Barts for the weekend,” she added triumphantly. She gathered her coat around her and went up the stairs.
The town house was five stories high with an elevator and garden in the back. They’d bought it four years ago as a wreck, for $2.5 million, had put $750,000 in renovations into it, and it was now worth over $5 million. Nevertheless, the $1.5 million mortgage, which came out to about $15,000 a month, sometimes weighed heavily on her, especially as Seymour didn’t contribute to the monthly payments. She didn’t resent him for it—Seymour had put in his half of the down payment and renovation expenses, and did more than his share of the work, but when she all
owed herself to think about it, the idea of owing that much money, month after month, was terrifying. What if she got fired? Or got cancer? At the end of the day, careers were moments in time. You had ten, maybe fifteen great years and then time moved on and the world moved on, leaving you behind. Look at Mike, she thought.
But this evening, turning the handle of the door to her own house, she was convinced that everything was going to be fine. Mike might be over, but she wasn’t. You had to strike while you were still hot. And if she got Mike’s position (and she would), she wouldn’t have to worry about mortgages and money for at least several years.
She entered the foyer and felt that sickening sense of triumph again.
The town house was decorated more like a country house in Vermont than a New York City brownstone, with a brick floor in the foyer and wainscoted walls studded with wooden pegs, from which hung coats and scarves. There was the faint smell of baking cookies in the air, which didn’t surprise her—her daughter, Katrina, had recently become obsessed with cooking, and had been insisting that Seymour take her to all the four-star restaurants in Manhattan. She passed through the hallway—they had a live-in couple, who had two small rooms and a bathroom on the right—and into the open-plan kitchen. Seymour had built a glassed-in conservatory in the back, which doubled for what he liked to refer to as his “kennels.” She pressed the button for the elevator and rode up to the third floor.
The third floor consisted of a master bedroom and bath, and, in the back, overlooking the garden, Seymour’s office. Nico went into the bedroom and unzipped her dress. Normally she was sleepy by now, but Victor’s secret invitation to St. Barts was making her restless. She kept seeing Mike’s face, with that mahogany-colored skin, twisted into an annoyed expression. Did he have any idea what was about to happen to him? Nico imagined not. You never did. You suspected, you even entertained the ax as a possibility. But usually you dismissed it. And that was what they (they being her and Victor, in this case), counted on: the element of surprise.
She slipped out of her dress and tossed it carelessly onto a stuffed armchair. For a moment, she felt bad for Mike, but the fact was that the same thing had happened to her once. She had been fired, shockingly and unexpectedly, ten years ago, when she was the editor in chief of Glimmer magazine—and on top of it, she had just become pregnant with Katrina. Two weeks before the hideous event, she’d had a secret job interview to be the editor in chief of another fashion magazine, with a bigger circulation and a larger paycheck, and she’d thought she’d been careful. But she hadn’t been careful enough. One morning shortly after the interview, at eleven a.m., her assistant had walked into her office. She had a strange expression on her face and was holding a piece of paper. Through the open door behind her Nico could see a small crowd gathering. She knew something terrible was happening, but it wasn’t until her assistant handed her the fax, and she stood, reading the words, that she realized it had something to do with her.
“Ratz Neste is sorry to announce the resignation of Nico O’Neilly as editor in chief of Glimmer magazine,” the fax read. “Ms. O’Neilly’s dedication and vision have been much valued at Ratz Neste, but she is giving up her position due to personal reasons.
“Ms. O’Neilly’s resignation is effective immediately. A successor will be named shortly.”
Even after reading the announcement once, she’d still thought, quite firmly and confidently, that there had been some kind of monumental mistake. She had no intention of resigning. The information on the fax would be quickly straightened out, or else it was someone’s idea of a joke, in which case, they’d be fired. But literally five seconds later, her phone rang. It was Walter Bozack’s secretary; Walter Bozack, who was the owner, president, and CEO of Ratz Neste Publishing, wanted to see her in his office.
Immediately.
The crowd scuttled guiltily back to their desks. They knew what was going on. No one looked at her as she marched through the hallway with the fax folded in her hand. She kept rubbing the paper against the underside of her thumbnail, and when she got into the elevator, she looked down and saw that her finger was bleeding.
“You can go right in,” said Walter’s secretary—a “Mrs. Enid Veblem,” according to a small placard on the front of her desk.
Walter Bozack jumped up from his desk when she walked in. He was tall and yet uncannily rodent-like. For a moment, she stared right into his eyes, conscious only of how tiny and red they were. Then she spoke. She said: “I take it this is not a joke.”
She had no idea what kind of a state he expected her to be in—tears, perhaps—but he looked distinctly relieved. “No, it’s not,” he said. He smiled. His smile was the worst part about him, revealing small, half-formed graying yellow teeth that barely poked over the gum line—a trait shared by all the Bozack clan, as if they were so genetically inferior, they could barely produce the calcium needed to form full teeth.
But then again, with all their money, they didn’t need to.
Walter came forward to shake her hand. “We appreciate all the good work you’ve done for the company, but as you can see, we no longer require your services.”
His hand was as clammy and weak as a deformed claw. “Mrs. Veblem will arrange to have some men walk you down to your office and escort you out of the building,” he said. And then he gave her another one of his terrifying smiles.
Nico said nothing. She simply stood there and stared at him, blankly, fearlessly, and what she thought was: “I’m going to kill you someday.”
The stare began making him uncomfortable. He took a step backward. Without taking her eyes off his face, she leaned forward and placed the fax on his desk. “Thank you,” she said without emotion. She turned and left his office.
The two men in cheap suits were waiting by Mrs. Enid Veblem’s desk. Their faces were hard and devoid of emotion, as if they did this every day and were prepared for anything. She had a sudden moment of clarity. She could be fired, but she would not be humiliated or embarrassed. She would not be marched through the halls like a criminal sent to the guillotine. She would not pack up her office while these two goons watched, and her staff—her staff—snickered fearfully in their cubicles.
“Call my assistant and have her send my things to my apartment,” she said sharply.
Mrs. Veblem objected. “These two men . . .”
“Just do as I ask.”
Mrs. Veblem nodded.
Nico left the building. It was eleven twenty-two a.m.
It wasn’t until she reached the corner that she realized she had no purse, no phone, no keys, and no money. Not even a quarter to call Seymour from a pay phone.
She stood by a garbage can, trying to figure out what to do. She couldn’t go back to her office—they’d probably already put her on some kind of secret list of people who weren’t allowed inside the building—and she had no way to get home. She supposed she could walk, but her apartment was forty blocks uptown and all the way east, on York Avenue, and she wasn’t sure she could make it in her condition. She was three months pregnant and suffering from morning sickness, though the nausea tended to come on at any time and unexpectedly. She leaned over and threw up in the garbage can, and while she was retching, for some reason she thought of Victory Ford.
She and Seymour had gone to a party at Victory Ford’s loft the week before. The loft wasn’t far, just on the other side of Sixth Avenue, and she and Victory had ended up in the corner talking about their careers for over an hour. Victory was an up-and-coming fashion designer then, and she had that subtle air of confidence and focus that usually indicates future success. Nico didn’t meet many women like Victory, and when they began talking, it was like two dogs realizing they belonged to the same breed.
They were so young back then! Nico thought now, pulling down her panty hose. No more than thirty-two or thirty-three . . .
Nico distinctly remembered showing up at Victory’s loft that morning—the street swaying with trucks, the sidewalks filled with the worn
faces of people who worked in the Garment District. It was a hot day in mid-May, nearly ninety degrees. Victory’s loft was in a building that had once been a small factory; in the vestibule was a row of old black buzzers that looked like they might not be connected. The names next to the buzzers were of obscure companies that had probably gone out of business years ago, but near the bottom was a discreet “V.F.” printed on a small white card.
For a moment, she hesitated. Victory probably wasn’t even home, and if she was, what would she think about a woman she’d just met at a party suddenly showing up at her home in the middle of the day?
But Victory wasn’t surprised, and Nico always recalled how Victory had looked when she’d pulled open the heavy gray door to the loft, because Nico’s first thought had been She’s so beautiful! Her short, dark hair was cut like a boy’s—when you had a face like Victory’s you didn’t need anything else—and she held her body with the ease of a woman who always knows that her figure is attractive to men. Nico supposed she was the kind of girl who could inspire jealousy in other women, but there was something generous in Victory’s spirit that made envy seem beside the point.
“I’m so glad to see you,” Victory exclaimed. In the daylight, the loft was bright and casually bohemian, seeming to suggest the possibility of different ways to live. The reality that she’d been fired began to enter into Nico’s consciousness, but instead of feeling despair, she experienced an odd, floaty sensation, as if she’d stepped into a parallel universe where everything she’d once thought was important no longer mattered.