She was suddenly conscious of her breathing. It was too loud. Victor could probably hear her breathing from ten feet away, and he’d know she was afraid. She held her breath for a moment, quietly forcing the air out of her nostrils.
“No, we wouldn’t, would we?” Victor said. He reached up and touched one of his front teeth, wiggling it with his finger. He’d said “we,” Nico thought, watching him in horror and relief. That meant she was probably still in the game. If she was, she had to finish this up quickly, before Victor got distracted again or pulled out his tooth.
“The lawsuit will be all over the papers,” Nico said. “Glynnis is very public, and very vocal. Everyone will be interested, and she won’t hesitate to tell her side of the story.”
“Banging her own drum,” Victor said, still wiggling the tooth. “That’s what celebrities do, isn’t it? It’s a disease. They get addicted to the attention. It happens to children too, according to Dr. Phil. There should be a time-out room for celebrities.”
Nico smiled, and swung her foot a little. It was going to be okay after all, she thought, feeling as if color had just come back into her world. When Victor started talking about his favorite television shows, you knew you were okay.
“Should we do it before or after they file the suit?” Victor asked.
“We ought to do it immediately,” Nico said. “Since Mike is going to be named in the lawsuit, if he’s no longer employed by Splatch-Verner, it makes their case look silly. Plus, we can probably salvage the relationship with Glynnis without making it look like we’re caving in to her demands. If we move quickly, no one will be the wiser.” This was the speech she’d been preparing for days.
“Righty-ho, then,” Victor said, standing up to indicate that the meeting was over. He rested the thickened, gnarled knuckles of his left hand on top of the desk for balance. “We’ll do it this afternoon. At four o’clock.”
“Thank you, Victor,” she said, rising.
“I hope you’re available,” Victor said, with his customary relish. “I want you to be in on this. In fact, I want you to deliver the news.”
* * *
NICO SAT STIFFLY ON the backseat of the Town Car as it drove slowly along the East Drive in Central Park. It was not yet five o’clock, but the park was full of people. People pulling dogs on leashes, people on bicycles and Rollerblades (Rollerblades! Nico thought, did people still do that?), people running, walking, even riding in those horse-drawn carriages that should probably be outlawed. Those poor horses, she thought, as the cab swerved around a carriage. She peered out at the horse, trying to judge by its face whether it was happy. She couldn’t tell—its eyes were blinkered—but it was bobbing its head up and down, like one of those animals people put on the dashboards of cars, with heads on a spring . . .
Her phone rang. “Did you do it?” Seymour asked eagerly.
“Oh God, Seymour,” she said, with more emotion than she intended. She glanced at the back of the driver’s head to see if he was listening. “It was hard,” she said, frowning as if this were Seymour’s fault.
“But did you do it?” Seymour asked.
“Did I have a choice?”
“So you did it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And?”
Nico suddenly felt angry. “Like we planned, Seymour. Like I told you it would happen. That’s all.” She ended the call and pressed the button to lower the window. Soothing warm air rushed into the car. Why did the drivers always crank up the air-conditioning as soon as winter was over? she wondered. It was a man thing.
But that wasn’t all.
She dialed the number to her house. Seymour answered. “Seymour, Mike . . .” She was going to say “cried,” but thought better of it. “He was upset.”
“Yeah?” Seymour said. “What were you expecting him to be?”
“Upset,” she said.
“So there you go,” Seymour said.
She hung up in frustration. She wished she could explain to Seymour, make him understand the unexpected emotional violence of the day. Not to mention the confusion, fear, and guilt.
The emotional violence . . . she shivered. What nobody understood was that it was like real physical violence, which bore no resemblance to the fake violence you saw on TV or in the movies. She remembered one time when she and Seymour had been at a small bar in the West Village, and a fight had broken out. Seymour’s immediate reaction had been to take cover under the table, but she had been too stunned to move. She was shocked by how actually violent human beings could be when they crossed the boundary of personal space, even though the fight was practically nothing—a couple of guys taking a few swings at each other and knocking over some chairs and a bottle of water. But it was enough. “Get down!” Seymour screamed, grabbing her wrist and pulling her under the table. For a second the thought crossed her mind that he was a wimp—he ought to be fighting—but that was insane, and she suddenly realized how fragile and vulnerable they were. Once someone broke through that boundary and made contact, were you ever the same? Could you ever forget? And grabbing her arm, Seymour had urgently pulled her out of the bar and onto the little triangle of sidewalk in front, where they had looked at each other and collapsed into sobs of laughter that they couldn’t stop for at least half an hour.
But what had happened to her today was not, she thought, something Seymour would ever understand. There was triumph in it, but triumph at a cost. You could achieve, but you paid a price for those achievements. It was the kind of thing a husband didn’t really want to know about, and only your girlfriends could comprehend.
“He cried, Wendy,” she’d whispered into the phone earlier, when she was out on the sidewalk waiting for her car to pull up. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“I know,” Wendy said. “It’s always amazing how quickly they crumble when the pressure gets to be too much. We have all these ideas about men, but they’re all wrong. Men are just weak little frightened people with penises attached. When Shane cried, it was awful. It was like suddenly he wasn’t the man anymore and I wasn’t the woman. And I realized I was going to have to learn how to become a new kind of woman, living without all those clichéd ideas about what men and women are supposed to be.”
Nico nodded. “I felt like such a shit. And then he attacked me. He said I was Victor’s handmaiden, a bitch. I didn’t mind the bitch part so much, but being called a handmaiden?”
“You’ve never been a handmaiden in your life,” Wendy snorted. “We’re the kind of women who have handmaidens. And they’re called men.”
“But that’s what everyone’s going to say. They’re going to call me Victor Matrick’s handmaiden . . .”
“So let them,” Wendy countered. “It’s just a way of denigrating you because you’re a woman in a position of power, so they can feel better about their own lousy lives. We have to stop worrying about what other people think about us. There’s all this judging going on all the time. It’s the yes-but—is she a good mother, businesswoman, wife? Who cares what other people think, Nico? They’re not inside you. They’re not walking in your shoes. We do the best we can—and better than most—given the circumstances that we deal with. And that’s really all we can do. I, for one, have decided to give up the guilt. I can’t do everything, and I don’t want to. And I shouldn’t be expected to either.” She took a breath. “Christ, Nico,” she muttered. “You do everything. And really well. You’re an exceptional person. You’ve got to share it, and if it means some people don’t like it, tough. You are now the president and CEO of Verner Publishing, and God knows that goddamned company is lucky to have you!”
And that, Nico thought, was the kind of speech you would only ever hear from a girlfriend.
The car took the curve around a patch of green lawn, stopping at the light at Seventy-second Street and Fifth Avenue. How pretty it was, Nico thought—the green grass and the budding trees against the elegant gray buildings of Fifth Avenue. Everything was going to be okay, and why shouldn’t i
t be? The day was, in a sense, like giving birth to a child—harrowing, sweaty, frightening, jubilant—requiring every ounce of your strength, but eventually, you did forget about it. You blocked all the bad parts out of your mind, and when you looked at your child, you understood how much it was worth it.
And just like childbirth, no one ever explained how painful attaining this achievement was really going to be. It was something you had to go through yourself to understand—although, to be fair, childbirth probably was a lot harder. But when it was over, you had a beautiful baby. Whereas in this case, when it was over and Mike was being ushered out by security and Victor was shaking her hand, she suddenly realized that she now had Victor Matrick, and she was probably going to be stuck with him for the rest of his life.
For as long as he shall live, she thought wryly.
When she’d left Victor’s office the first time that morning, after that disturbing scene in which she’d been worried that she was going to be the one who was fired, she’d gotten into the elevator and found that her heart was pounding, and her underarms felt soaked with sweat. She wasn’t clear on how it had happened, but she was shaken by the side of Victor she’d seen. The unpredictability, the sheer unreasonableness of the man—it was like dealing with a large animal that operated only on instinct. And for a moment she’d been frightened for herself—what if she ended up like Victor Matrick? There was no telling what he might do to her, or the kinds of moral challenges he might test her with in the future—he had nearly tried to force her to talk about Wendy’s divorce. It wasn’t simply that she had new business challenges ahead, but that there would be emotional and psychological issues at stake as well. But by the time the elevator had glided down to her floor, she had decided that she could handle them, that she wanted to take on the challenge. And then she had walked down the hall and found Mike Harness sitting in her office.
Waiting for her.
So it was the same as it always was, she thought grimly. Mike knew. She didn’t even act surprised to see him. “Hello, Mike,” she said, walking around him to take a seat behind her desk. She hit a button on her computer and the screen sprang to life.
“I thought maybe we could have lunch today,” Mike said. He was holding a pen in his hand, and he kept clicking the top of it.
He was still technically her boss, and she couldn’t technically refuse. “Let me see if I can rearrange my schedule.” She pressed the intercom button. “Sally?” she asked. “Can you bring in my diary, please?” Mike remained sitting in her office during the entire proceeding, as if he wanted to make sure that she wasn’t going to try to get out of it.
They had lunch at a brightly colored touristy place where people in publishing went when they didn’t want to be seen.
“I’m disturbed by these rumors, Nico,” he said, inserting a tortellini into his mouth. Mike’s skin was the color of old wood—he had just returned from a long weekend in St. Barts, he said. She nodded. She had ordered veal piccata, and wasn’t going to have more than a few bites. “I am too,” she said. She signaled to the waiter for more sparkling water. “But they’re only rumors, Mike. How could I leave Bonfire?”
“Someone once said that the New York Post knows more than the CIA,” Mike remarked.
“That’s probably true,” Nico said, “given recent worldwide events. But the CIA doesn’t need to sell newspapers—and the Post does. So there you go,” she added.
“Yeah,” Mike said suspiciously. “There you go.” He paused. “I want you to keep one thing in mind,” he said. “I found you. I brought you over to Splatch-Verner in the first place. Without me, you basically wouldn’t exist.” He shrugged. “You know I make it a policy to be honest with my employees. You’re not that creative. You’re highly detail-oriented, I’ll give you that. But you need more than that to run the entire division.”
She smiled. Was he threatening her? There was, she thought, a very particular type of person who always tried to take credit for other people’s success, while managing to put them down in the process. An egotist, a person who always had to put themselves on the center of the stage, even if the play wasn’t about them. Don’t do this, Mike, she thought. Don’t make this unnessarily ugly for yourself at the end. And because it didn’t matter anymore, she said aloud, “You’re right, Mike.” Then she changed the subject.
Mike had a teenager from an early marriage who was about to graduate from high school. They talked about the pros and cons of various universities. Every time Mike tried to change the subject, she brought up college again. It was evil, but there was no other way to handle it, and so they parted at the elevators with Mike knowing, but not knowing anything specific.
You’re dead, she thought, as the elevator doors closed behind him.
At four o’clock, Victor Matrick’s secretary, Maureen, called.
“Victor would like to see you in his office,” she said.
She walked into Victor’s office a minute before Mike. “Ready, Nico?” Victor asked. “This is going to be just like Dr. Phil.”
Nico had never seen Dr. Phil, but she couldn’t imagine that it could ever be so brutal.
Mike entered seconds later. As he stepped through the doorway, there was a brief second when his face registered surprise and shock, followed by a moment in which his eyes darted back and forth, like an animal that suddenly finds itself in a cage. Nico was standing by Victor’s desk, and Mike must have wondered if she and Victor were in this together, or if she and Mike were both in trouble with Victor. Either way, his strategy was to disassociate himself from Nico by ignoring her. He walked by, deliberately avoiding her gaze, and sat down in front of Victor’s desk.
“Well, Victor,” Mike said, perversely jovial. “What’s this about?”
Victor pushed his tattered mane back from his forehead. “Nico says you’re about to be sued.”
“Nico?” Mike looked at her, feigning astonishment. Underneath the surprise was hatred. “What the hell does she know?”
“More than you do, apparently,” Victor said mildly.
“For what?” Mike asked dismissively.
“Breach of contract. Glynnis Rourke,” Nico said.
“Glynnis Rourke is a no-talent nut job who can’t even make it to a meeting on time.”
“I’ve got the e-mails. From you to her. You called her stupid . . .” Nico said.
“And she is . . .”
“Think about how that’s going to look in the papers.”
“Who cares?” Mike retorted.
Nico shrugged. “Why have a public scandal when we can avoid it?” she asked.
Mike looked to Victor for help, but he wasn’t giving any. He looked back at Nico. “What are you? A fucking traitor? You go behind my back to get information—”
“It came to me. We’re lucky—it could have easily gone to someone else. Someone on the outside . . .”
“What kind of a bitch are you?” Mike asked.
“Mike . . .” Victor said mildly.
“Oh, I get it,” Mike said, nodding. “You’re Victor’s handmaiden now. The little virgin who does Victor’s dirty work. The ice-handmaiden.”
“You’re out, Mike,” Nico said.
“What?”
Nico sighed. She crossed her arms over her chest, leaning back slightly against the edge of Victor’s desk. Mike never should have sat down, she thought; without thinking about it, he had automatically put her into the position of power. “That’s right,” she said. “You’re out—I’m in.”
Mike started laughing uncontrollably. “You can’t fire me,” he said, in between gasps.
Victor wiggled his tooth. “She can,” he said. “And she just did.”
And then Victor did a terrifying thing. He stood up and, stretching open his mouth, he leaned over the desk and roared.
Holy shit! Nico thought. She took a step back in alarm, accidentally knocking Victor’s paperweight of New York City off the edge of the desk, which she lunged for and automatically caught in both h
ands. Mike’s laughter turned to silent shock; he leaned back in his chair in terrified confusion. From where he was sitting, staring into the black and seemingly endless interior of Victor’s mouth, it must have been like looking into the jaws of a lion. “What the fuck, Victor?” Mike shouted. He twisted out of the chair and onto his feet. “What the hell are you doing? Why the hell are you doing this to me?”
Victor had returned to his chair and his usual Santa Claus demeanor. “Because I can, Mike,” he said.
“I don’t understand, Victor,” Mike said. He held up his hands. His eyes were tearing; his nose was red and swollen. “I’ve been with you for twenty-five years . . .”
Victor clapped his hands together. “End of chapter,” he said cheerfully. He pressed the intercom button. “Can you send in security, please?”
Mike turned to her. There was a whitish streak down each cheek, where the trail of tears was beginning to wash away the self-tanner. Some men would never understand the proper use of cosmetics, Nico thought. “Why did you do this?” Mike asked. “I made you.”
She shook her head. She felt soiled. What a dirty, disgusting little scene they had played, and all for Victor Matrick’s benefit. Well, she was in it now, and there was no getting out. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Yeah,” Mike said, nodding his head. “If you’re not now, you will be.”
What else was he going to say? But nevertheless, she felt a thick rope of fear travel up her insides and wrap itself around her heart like a snake.
Two security guards met Mike at the door. One tried to gently put his hand on Mike’s arm, but Mike brushed it away angrily. “I’ll escort myself out, if you don’t mind,” he said.
“Well,” Victor said, holding out his hand. “Congratulations.”
Nico replaced the paperweight on Victor’s desk and took his hand. It was cold, like the hand of a dead person. “Thank you,” she said.
“I think that went well, don’t you?” he said. He leaned over and spoke into the intercom. “Maureen,” he said. “Can you get me an appointment with that dentist? I think my veneer is about to fall out again.”