When Stephanie first told him about Nathan Chowdhury’s alleged new project, he’d managed to keep a neutral face.
“I’m not sure exactly what it is,” she’d said. “We were at a party and it was very loud and incredibly hot and, you know, he was classic Nathan, going a million miles a minute in seventeen different directions. Genuine writers. Irreverent but vigorous. Smart but sexy. Bloody brilliant.” She did a decent impression of him and his vaguely British accent, left over from his early years in Kilburn. “Maybe you should call him,” she’d said, a little too casually. “Maybe he needs a content guy.”
“Maybe.”
What Stephanie had described was not a new idea of Nathan’s; it was an old idea of Leo’s. Back when SpeakEasyMedia was generating new sites faster than they could have imagined, Leo had wanted to create a writing hub. Something that would have a separate identity and attract serious writers, fiction and nonfiction, reportage, high-level think pieces. They had to focus on gossip at first because it was cheap and easy and fun and people would read it—but once they had a little traction, a little more money, Leo wanted to balance the gossip and blind items with something respectable. First, they needed money, and gossip was where they’d find it.
Interesting that Nathan who hadn’t been taken with Leo’s idea back then (“You’re describing a gaping sinkhole that will suck up money and not return a proper cent”) was ready to revive the concept. On his own.
“Any specifics?” Leo asked Stephanie.
“No, it sounded very early stage. He did say he was considering acquiring an existing publication to build around.” (Another idea of Leo’s from back in the day.) “He asked for suggestions. I told him to look at Paper Fibres.”
“He can do better than that.”
“Paul’s respected, Leo. I respect him. He could use an influx of cash. And Paul does stuff with the public schools and literacy, and Nathan was also interested in the philanthropic angle.”
“Since when is Nathan interested in philanthropy?”
“Since he got married and had a couple of kids and is probably looking to impress the private school admissions committees. He went to Darfur a few months ago.”
Leo snorted a little. Literacy? Darfur? All he could think about in that moment was a particularly depraved evening at some bar on the Lower East Side one late, late night (early morning? probably) when a bleary-eyed Nathan outlined the SpeakEasyMedia financial model on a series of napkins: how they’d make their first million, how quickly he’d leverage it into more, how many people along the way would bend to his vision—“collateral damage, can’t be helped”—how soon they’d be retired. Leo had sat next to him on the barstool, half listening, while an extravagantly pierced but fetching young musician flirted with him and then leaned against Nathan and then back into Leo, making her interest in both apparent. “Do you guys want to come home with me?” she’d finally said, as the bartender was ushering them out the door. “Both of you?” He’d been relieved when Nathan passed out the second he landed on her sofa. If he was going to engage in a threesome, it wasn’t going to be with Nathan. Pierced, as he sometimes still fondly thought of the musician, kept Leo up until sunrise; she taught him some things.
“I feel like Rip Van Winkle right now,” Leo said to Stephanie. “Like I woke up and everyone became their exact opposite. Paul Underwood’s a literary force. Nathan’s a philanthropist.”
“Yeah, well. Things changed while you were otherwise occupied.”
At first, Leo just pretended to be interested in Nathan’s new venture, a way to kill time while waiting for his divorce to be final, an amusing lark that would keep everyone off his back and halt all the lame suggestions about work. But the more he talked to Paul Underwood, the more he realized the potential sitting there, untapped.
Paul’s content was stellar—Leo was impressed with who and what he was publishing—so was the layout, design, art. But everything else was dismal. The office was chaotic and inefficient, like almost anything in the publishing world. Without even trying, Leo could think of a dozen things they could do immediately to raise the profile and productivity of the magazine and expand in a multitude of interesting ways, starting with a more robust online presence. Social media. A blog. An app! Paper Fibres could—should—publish a handful of books every year. They needed a bigger staff.
Once Leo decided to put a proposal together, take himself and Paul seriously, and approach Nathan with a multifaceted well-thought-out plan for bolstering and expanding, he started having fun. His mood lifted. He was sleeping better than he had in years, waking up before Stephanie and going for a run in Prospect Park, no matter how cold. He spent his days reading, researching, thinking, and working so hard at times he lost track of time. He’d forgotten how good it felt to be interested, absorbed, stimulated. He made dinner some nights: huevos rancheros, beef stew, French onion soup. “You’re making me fat!” Stephanie complained one night. “Don’t let me have seconds.”
If he could get something going, Leo started to think that maybe he could borrow money to pay his family back and leave his investments intact, maybe even borrow from Nathan. Rebuilding wasn’t unthinkable. He’d done it all before. And if his efforts stopped being interesting? If he stopped having fun? He still had money in the bank. He still had options. Doing some research, putting together his ideas, meeting with Nathan—it would all be, to use one of Nathan’s favorite expressions, “win fucking win.”
Downstairs, the doorbell rang. Leo walked to the front bedroom and looked out the window. Bea was standing on the front stoop, shivering and clutching something in her arms. He went down and opened the door.
“IT’S MY STUFF,” she said, handing Leo a leather case he vaguely remembered buying for her ages and ages ago. “Meaning, I wrote those pages.”
“You still have this,” he said, examining the satchel. “I don’t remember it being so nice. This is nice.”
“To be honest, I haven’t used it in years. I thought it was lucky and then I thought it was unlucky and, well, here it is, here they are, and here I am. Ha.”
Leo examined Bea’s face, tried to make eye contact. She looked stoned. He undid the front straps and peered inside. “Lot of pages in here.”
“I think it’s a quick read. I don’t know what it is yet, exactly, but—” Bea looked uncomfortable. “I was hoping you’d read and then pass along to Stephanie.”
“You want me to read it first?” he said, surprised.
“Yes.” She shoved her hands deep into her coat pockets and looked up at him with a weak smile.
“Like the old days, huh?”
Her face bloomed. She looked eighteen again, eager and bright. “That would be nice. I miss the old days.”
Leo thought of the night of the hospital, Bea leaning close and saying, “I heard something else.” He had an unexpected urge to bend down and hug her, tell her that whatever she was worried about was going to be okay, reassure her the way she’d done for him that night. As quickly as the odd inclination appeared, it was gone and in its place a flash of annoyance. Anger even. When was she going to grow up? He wasn’t responsible for her, for reading her work anymore. “Okay. I’m looking forward to it. As soon as I can. Probably not this week.”
“No hurry. When you get to it. Really.” She wondered what had just happened. One minute Leo was there and the next he wasn’t. Confused, she stood and kept nodding at him until she started to look like one of those bobble-head dolls of Derek Jeter or the pope.
Definitely stoned, Leo thought. “Do you want to come in?” he asked, impatient.
“No, no. I have to get to work. I just wanted to drop that off.” She sighed, and he thought he saw her shudder. “I went to this party at Celia Baxter’s. Lena Novak was there.”
“Shit. She must be a complete nightmare by now.”
Bea gave a wan smile. “She is such a fucking nightmare you wouldn’t even believe.”
“I believe.”
They both laug
hed a little and things seemed lighter again, nice. Bea reached into her purse and pulled out a Ziploc bag of cookies. “I stole these from the party,” she said. “The entire platter.”
“I approve,” he said. “Not a Celia Baxter fan either.” Leo had slept with Celia once, years ago, and when he didn’t return her numerous calls, she’d shown up at his office swollen faced and crying and looking as if she hadn’t showered in days.
“Take them,” Bea said, handing him the bag. “I have tons more at home.” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and headed off toward Flatbush Avenue, waving her hand a little behind her. He closed the door, opened the bag of cookies, and ate two. He took the leather case upstairs and put it on a shelf. He’d get to it after his meeting with Nathan. This week was all about Nathan.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Behind the wheel of her parked car and in spite of the cold Melody had fallen deeply asleep. She was dreaming about her babies, how solid and steadying their weight was against her chest, on her lap, in her arms. Tap, tap! Tap, tap! Someone in her dream was tapping on a window, wanting to come in. Tap! Tap! Melody jerked awake and as the two figures standing outside the car lowered their grinning faces down to hers, she drew back, embarrassed and confused.
“Too early for naptime!” one of them said. Melody smothered a groan and tried to smile. It was Jane Hamilton, another mother she knew from school, laughing as if she’d just told the world’s most hilarious joke. This she did not need today.
“Save the disco naps for the weekend!” the other woman said. Melody could never remember her name, the one with the oddly shaped curly hair she thought of as the Poodle. Jane and the Poodle were part of a clique (she’d resisted using that word at first but, incredibly, there was no other designation that fit the social stratifications of school parents) who occasionally included Melody in a monthly Mom’s Night Out. The evenings were usually at someone’s house (when Melody would go because the drinks were free) or sometimes at a local bar (when she would not go and hope nobody noted the distinction). Everyone would swill Chardonnay and the conversation would invariably turn into wine-lubricated screeching about sex and how the husbands wanted it too often and bargaining tips for blow jobs.
Melody didn’t want to hear about anyone’s sex life, much less drunk suburban mothers who didn’t even seem to like their spouses—or their children—all that much. Apart from the indecorousness of it all (which horrified her, she would never talk about Walt that way, she would never think about him that way), she thought the women were willfully shallow and tedious. Melody tended to sit through those evenings nearly silent, occasionally laughing along when everyone else laughed or nodding her head in agreement with some of the milder declarations about school: The kids had too much homework; the assistant principal was a bitch; the eleventh-grade English teacher was hot, but definitely gay.
Melody removed her keys from the ignition, grabbed her handbag, and opened the car door, bracing herself against the chill winter wind.
“We missed you at the meeting,” the Poodle said.
“What meeting?” Melody asked, alarmed. She never missed school meetings.
“Oh, she didn’t need to be there,” Jane said. “Plus, it was boring.”
“So boring,” the Poodle said.
“What meeting?” Melody asked.
“The college financial aid thing,” Jane said. “The forms and the requirements, blah, blah, blah.”
Oh. Melody realized with a sinking feeling that when she’d dutifully copied all the parent gatherings from the college counseling calendar into her own at the end of last summer, she’d ignored the workshops about financial aid. How had things changed so quickly? And how had she not remembered that pompous bit of editing sooner.
“I’m sorry I missed it,” Melody said. “I meant to go. Is the information online?”
“I thought you were all set,” Jane said. “I thought you and Walt have been saving for college since your first date or something obnoxious like that.”
Melody squirmed a little to remember how she’d bragged at one of the Mom Nights last spring. She hadn’t explained about The Nest per se, just mentioned that she and Walt had a “college fund” and that they probably wouldn’t need financial aid. She’d regretted the words as soon as they’d tumbled out of her mouth, and now she could kick herself, especially thinking about her offhanded and inaccurate phraseology—we made saving a priority.
“You know what investments are like these days,” Melody said, inexperienced at posturing about money; she was probably the color of a beet. “We might need some help after all.”
“Let me save you some time,” said the Poodle. “You already make too much money and the colleges don’t care about kids from Westchester, so unless you guys are going to declare bankruptcy or somebody loses a job, you’re toast. The whole meeting was a colossal waste of time.”
“They’ll take one look at that scarf and kick you out,” Jane said, gesturing at Melody’s neck and the pretty lavender scarf Francie had given her.
“It was a present,” Melody said.
“It’s lovely,” Jane said. “It suits you.”
At one time, Melody had wanted nothing more than to be friends with these women, would have loved nothing else than to bump into them in town and have them admire something she was wearing. Now, she wanted to run and hide. Their conversations made her want to scream. They complained about money, while breathlessly recounting expensive house renovations (How many blow jobs for a Sub-Zero? she wanted to ask) or recent European vacations (How many for a trip to Paris? Ten? One?). And then, invariably, they’d look at each other and shrug and say, “luxury problems,” cackling like some modern skinny-jean-wearing equivalent of Marie Antoinette’s court.
That kale juice you’re drinking is six dollars! Melody wanted to say. Your kitchen is the size of my entire downstairs! They made her so angry and anxious, she’d gradually learned to avoid all of them. She fingered a corner of her pretty scarf and looked at her watch. “I’d better get going,” she said, gesturing to the consignment store behind them. “I have to duck in here before I go home.”
“Nice,” Jane nodded approvingly. “A little retail therapy.”
“We just had a pleasant chat with Walt, too,” the Poodle said.
“Walter?” Walt was supposed to be grocery shopping and not in the village where the only food stores were very precious and very expensive. “Where?”
“He’s with Vivienne,” Jane said, pointing across the street.
Melody was grateful in that moment that she’d had so much practice not visibly reacting to these galling women because she was able to keep her face calm.
“Right, of course,” she said. “See you later.” As she hurried, her heart was pounding so hard she thought it might cross the street ahead of her. She thought, in the moments before she charged through Vivienne’s door, that this must be what it was like to catch your husband with a lover; in flagrante delicto was the phrase that popped into Melody’s head, a flagrant offense. Betrayal. This is how Victoria must have felt after Leo’s accident, Melody realized, experiencing a tiny flash of empathy for the woman who had never even been civil to her. And as she stepped up on the curb, careful not to slip on the slightly icy walk, she knew she’d rather catch Walter in an amorous embrace with Vivienne, would rather he have Vivienne bent over the table in her office that was covered with local maps and magazines and restaurant coupons and be taking her from behind than this—calmly sitting at her desk in plain sight at Rubin & Daughters Realty. Vivienne Rubin was the Realtor who’d sold them their house.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The first time Simone kissed Nora, furtively in her family’s kitchen where they were momentarily alone because Louisa was down the hall in the bathroom, she moved swiftly, before Nora understood what was happening and retreated before Nora could object—or respond or acquiesce or participate. That afternoon, when Simone heard Louisa’s footsteps in the hall, she casually went b
ack to spreading almond butter and jam on brown-rice cakes. Nora couldn’t fathom how Louisa could be oblivious to the new charge in the room, not even notice how the molecules in the kitchen had briefly combusted into something intoxicating and scalding and then quickly resettled into the familiar tableau: bowl of polished apples on a butcher-block island, marble counter with a six-burner range, gleaming teakettle with a plastic whistle in its spout shaped like a little red bird. Behind Louisa’s back, Simone smiled beguilingly at Nora, who was consumed for the rest of the afternoon by one thought: Again.
Sometimes Nora and Louisa babysat the little boy across the street, and what he loved most was for them to each take one of his hands and walk across the front lawn, swinging him by the arm, high into the air. Again! he would shout, gleeful, the minute they reached the perimeter of the yard. They’d turn around and go back in the other direction and before they even reached the fence on the opposite side, he’d start yelling Again! Again! When he’d see them in the street, he’d start bouncing in his stroller. Again! he’d yell, waving at them. “Tomorrow, Lucas!” they’d call. “We’ll play tomorrow!” There was never enough Again for Lucas. No matter how many times Nora and Louisa swung him across the front lawn, until their arms were tired and their shoulders sore, no matter how they tried to refocus his attention with cookies or the swing or by playing peekaboo, when they stopped, he would cry and cry.
After Simone, Nora knew exactly how he must have felt. Thought that the sensation he must love when being lifted off the ground, propelled forward by some bigger, outside force, the swinging, the swoop of belly, the weightlessness, the sense of flying, it had to be almost sensual, a little-kid precursor to pubescent desire, lust, hunger.
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