“Alison, grow up and get a clue, would you, please? Vince Masterson does not want to have dinner with me.”
“A couple of months ago, I almost walked in on you and Vince doing the deed right out front on that hideous shag rug,” Lucy pointed out, unimpressed with my moral outrage. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that if you decided to follow through on that impulse, it might put things on a friendlier footing. Between us and the co-op board.”
“Why don’t you have sex with him, you think it’s such a great idea.”
“Why would I when you and he have already established such a rapport.”
“You don’t have to have sex with him, Tina, come on,” Alison interjected with a note of pleading. “Just have dinner with him, that’s all, and remind him that we’re really good people and we want to do what’s best for the building and the apartment, we want it to be safe and have it go into the right hands. That’s really what we want, and they don’t have to worry about that.”
“Great, that’s great, I’m sure that will make a big impression on old Vince,” I said, not really caring about any of this, I found the whole scenario so depressing. “My sisters are pimping me out,” I muttered. “That’s great. My sisters are pimping me out.”
“Please stop saying that, it’s just not true,” said Alison.
“You know, Mom would not want this,” I said. “You know that.”
“She doesn’t get a vote,” Lucy said.
“What do you think?” I said to Alison. “You think Mom would want me to do this? Just go have sex with this guy because Lucy thinks maybe that’ll help?”
“It’s because of what she wanted. You don’t know, Tina, Mom wanted—”
“Alison—” Lucy began.
“No, we have to tell her. If we don’t tell her, how will she know?”
“Know what?” I asked.
They stared at each other. Lucy was clearly both furious and calculating, while Alison pleaded with her sad, puppylike eyes. Lucy looked up at the ceiling, like Pontius Pilate about to dip his bloody hands into a plate of water in the picture my mother had on the wall of the living room when we were kids.
“Well, now you have to tell me,” I pointed out.
“Fine,” said Lucy. “Alison, be my guest.”
“Mom called me,” Alison whispered. And then stopped.
“Mom called you? When, like last week? From the grave?” I knew it was mean, but I had had it with both of them by that point.
“Before. Before the grave. But just before.”
“Alison, stop beating around the bush!”
“I’m not, I’m telling you! She called me. She was feeling sick. And she was worried. She felt like she couldn’t stay here, that she was living in someone else’s home. But Bill had left it to her, he wanted her to have it, and she wanted to stay here and be close to him, but she was worried that something might happen to her and she wanted to make a will. She wanted to make sure, make sure that his sons would get their home back.”
This revelation landed with some authority.
“When was this?”
“It was just a few days. Before she died. Like three, even,” Alison admitted.
“And—”
“Yes. She wanted to make a will, but she didn’t make a will. We weren’t sure, we thought maybe she called that lawyer—”
“Mr. Long?”
“Yes, him, we thought maybe she had called him and told him?”
“But we’ve seen his deposition, and it wasn’t there,” Lucy narrated. “They asked him specifically, did she ever make statements to the effect that she felt the property was deeded to her improperly. He said no.”
“So we think she never said it to him. We think she only said it to me, then didn’t do it.”
“And you didn’t tell anybody. You didn’t tell the lawyers or the Drinans. Or me.”
“No, she didn’t,” Lucy said. She went to the refrigerator and with one icy motion opened the freezer door and grabbed the vodka bottle, then pulled the cork out with her teeth. I felt like I was in Russia suddenly. “She didn’t tell anybody at first because she didn’t know what Mom meant,” she continued. “And then when Mom died, we started getting these phone calls about a house—”
“They said ‘apartment,’” Alison added. “But Mom had called it a house. That’s why I was confused. She said it was a house.”
“So you didn’t tell anybody.”
“I told Daniel and Lucy. But they, they said not to tell anybody else. Because if Mom really had wanted to leave it to someone else, she’d had plenty of time to do it. Or she could have called her lawyer. She could have done that anytime. So maybe she was drunk or something. When she called me. And if she was drunk, then she maybe didn’t really mean what she said, and if I told people it would just confuse things.”
“It doesn’t sound too confusing to me,” I said. “You tell somebody—like, Mr. Long, say—that she wanted the Drinans to have the apartment? That kind of statement would make things significantly less confusing. You tell them that and all the turmoil goes away, Alison.”
“Yes, people suspected your unpredictable conscience might choose to see things that way,” Lucy said, downing a straight shot of vodka from one of my few clean glasses. “Which is why people felt that the right thing to do, to protect you and your interests, was to keep it to ourselves.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means sometimes you get on a high horse and sometimes you get on quite a different horse, and no one knows which you’re going to choose on any given day.”
“That’s not what I do.”
“Tina. Your immediate reaction to this story is to run off and tell the lawyers? This is what Mom wanted, so that’s what we should do, ‘it’s not confusing,’ ‘it makes all the problems go away.’ But it doesn’t. It’s hearsay. Alison can’t remember exactly what Mom said. And you weren’t on the phone call, you weren’t even on the call list, so you don’t know what Mom may or may not have wanted. So you can’t testify to what Alison just told you anyway. But if Mom called anyone else?” She shrugged and poured herself another vodka.
“Can I have some of that?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said, finding the second clean glass and pouring the shot, which I tossed back. It tasted good.
“You mean one of the Drinans,” I said. “You think she called one of them and said that she wanted to do the right thing and leave them the apartment.”
“Whether or not she did, that would be hearsay too. Unless somebody has it in writing, none of it is admissible.”
“Which is why—what? Which is why the co-op board is the bigger problem today?”
“They’re all problems,” Lucy said. “But today the co-op board is the big one, yes.” She poured me another vodka, rather more than I needed. I knew she was trying to get me drunk so I’d go along with her crazy plot, but I almost appreciated the gesture. “Listen, Tina,” she said. “The Drinans are not going to win this. The one piece of evidence they need—that Mom intended to leave the apartment to them—doesn’t exist! So if the co-op board takes some crazy position against us, it won’t do anybody any good. It will just complicate things. You’ll be doing everyone a favor if you can straighten this out.”
“Lucy says Vince is really nice,” Alison said sadly. “She thinks he wants to help us.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” I said. “I was going to make a dinner.”
“You can do it tomorrow,” Lucy told me. “Maybe you could wear that black dress you wore to the press conference at Sotheby’s. You really look terrific in that.”
27
I WENT TO THAT RESTAURANT TO MEET VINCE. WHY NOT? I thought. The honest pleasure I had felt when I saw Alison poking around my mossless kitchen had completely evaporated; I didn’t want to even try cooking now, I just wanted to get away from my sisters. Plus, even though I didn’t know what the dead people who had put all this in motion had wanted,
I knew that handing the apartment over to the building was what they didn’t want. Plus the food would be good. Plus I was out of cash, and under the circumstances Vince would definitely have to pay for it.
“Tina, hi,” he said, smiling, as I walked into the bar. He stood up from his stool and leaned over and kissed me on the mouth, quick but deliberate. There would be no mystery around the assumptions of the evening. “That dress really is stunning; I was hoping you’d wear it.”
“My sister suggested you might feel that way,” I replied. “We aim to please.”
“And you do,” he said, slightly gallant but also slightly creepy. Then he turned to the bartender, who of course was right there waiting for his next command. “A vodka gimlet for the lady,” Vince told him. “And can we have some of those cheese things that keep wandering by? I’m starving.”
Those “cheese things” turned out to be some sort of cheddar cream puff, which was all we ate while Vince poured vodka gimlets into me at the bar.
“Aren’t we going to eat?” I asked, as the bartender delivered my third gimlet. “I’m getting drunk.”
“But you’re so charming when you’re drunk,” Vince reassured me. “I confess I was hoping to get you a little inebriated and then lure you back into that hot tub. I can still see you there, surrounded by naked men. I can’t believe I missed that.”
“A little louder, Vince, I don’t think the entire restaurant heard you. And by the way, I do understand what the intentions of the evening are, but can’t you at least pretend?” I leaned over the bar and spoke to the bartender. “We’re going to be eating at the bar,” I told him. “I’d like a big steak, the best one you’ve got, medium rare.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied discreetly. Vince raised his Scotch glass, which was empty for the third time.
“I’d slow down, Vince, you’ve got a long night ahead of you.”
“I’m looking forward to it. You’ll not escape me again, Tina Finn, and while we’re on the subject, I have a bone to pick with you. Why are you playing so hard to get? I know you like me.”
“Yeah, I love it when people try to extort me into having sex with them. That’s my favorite, favorite thing.”
“If your sister hadn’t interrupted us, we’d have consummated our friendship the first day I met you. Nobody was extorting you then.”
“What can I say, Vince? Somehow the mystery’s lost,” I said, but when I glanced over at him, honestly, I had to admit in my heart that maybe he had a point. His jacket hung beautifully across his back, and his blue eyes considered me with a kind of animal intelligence it was hard not to appreciate. The guy just radiated money and charisma. When he caught on to the fact that I was sizing him up, he grinned, which made him look both better and worse.
“Extortion, my ass,” he said, leaning in and kissing me. This time there was nothing fast about it, and it involved a lot of tongue. On top of the three gimlets, it made me see stars, but I was not ready to hurl myself down the rabbit hole just yet. I pushed him back.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
“I have a steak coming,” I reminded him.
“For crying out loud, I’m jumping out of my skin here,” he informed me. “How long am I going to have to wait for this?”
“I don’t know, Vince,” I said, “but the whining is not doing it for me at the moment. I thought we were having dinner. You need to slow the train down.”
This pissed him off. “You need to be nice,” he said darkly.
“I am being nice,” I retorted. “As nice as I get in situations like this. So what is going on with your stupid co-op board anyway? Lucy was acting like six years of legal hassle is nothing compared to what those jerks might be cooking up.”
“Well, they’re legally evicting you this week, so she might have a point,” he informed me, continuing in the tone of careless nastiness we had both been taking. As soon as he said it, he half regretted it, I could tell, but only because it meant he wasn’t going to get laid until he explained what that idle but utterly specific comment meant.
“What do you mean, they’re evicting me?”
He looked away for a second, annoyed, but it was too late to take it back. “It’s in the bylaws of the building,” he said, reaching for his drink. He shrugged, like this was common knowledge.
“What’s in the fucking bylaws?”
“What I just said! If you don’t have any legal standing—and you don’t, you have none until they settle all the confusion over the wills—”
“There isn’t any confusion over the wills—”
“You have no legal standing, no right at all, Tina, to be in that apartment—”
“Pete Drinan said it was okay. They had an injunction, but it got removed—”
“They don’t get to say! They have no legal standing either! The building gets to say! And the building wants you out.”
“Why? Why?”
“Because you can’t just waltz into one of the most exclusive addresses and take it over; it doesn’t happen that way.”
“I’m hardly taking it over.”
“You’re living in the Livingston Mansion Apartment. It will not be allowed.”
“Tell that to the courts.”
“You’re gone, Tina. Get a clue.”
“Unless what. I’m gone unless what?” I asked, feeling a little desperate at the sureness of his knowledge of how places like the Edge worked.
“Unless nothing,” he said, laughing now. “It’s a done deal.”
“Then why am I supposed to sleep with you, asshole?” I said. “Why would I do that if they’re kicking me out anyway?” Vince was suddenly caught in the mess of lies he had been telling my sisters and the truths he had been telling me, and his mouth dropped open. It was pathetic. “You can’t do anything for any of us, can you? And you told my sister, you made my sister think that if I slept with you it would make a difference. You got her to sell me out for nothing.”
“No,” he started.
“You’re a fucking piece of shit, Vince,” I told him. And then, louder, as loud as I could, so the whole restaurant could hear me, “You’re a fucking lying piece of shit.” And with that I left.
He caught up with me two blocks later, as I stalked up Broadway. I hate heels—they look great on the exit, but then you can never keep it up; boots are much better in a getaway. Unfortunately, though, I was wearing those stupid heels because I was supposed to look all beautiful and sexy for that lying shithead, which meant I could hardly walk, which meant that lying shithead didn’t even have to break a sweat to catch up with me as I stumbled along the sidewalk.
“Tina, I’m sorry. Tina, stop, just stop and listen to me for a second.”
“No.”
“Yes, come on, I’m sorry. I exaggerated. It’s not true what I told you.”
“It sure sounded like the truth. At least, it sounded completely different from all the bullshit that comes out of your mouth otherwise.”
“They are kicking you out. They had the vote scheduled for today. But my dad couldn’t be there, so they had to reschedule.”
“Liar.”
“I’m not lying. They need a bunch of signatures to engage in legal action, and he’s the board president so he had to be there. So I did tell your sister I’d put in a good word—”
“If I slept with you.”
“Yes, I did tell her that,” he said, having the grace, finally, to be the tiniest bit embarrassed. “But the fact is, even if he votes for you, it won’t make a difference. They have eleven votes against you. Even if I could swing him your way, you’re gone.”
“Well, then who owns the apartment?” I asked.
“It will take them years to figure that out, and the longer it takes the better it is for the building. I mean, they never liked the Drinans either.”
“It doesn’t matter if they liked them or not, it was their apartment!”
“It was the Livingston apartment,” Vince corrected me, quite serious fo
r once. He looked startled; there was something about the import of this whole insane situation that I wasn’t getting. “Those people, they came into the building, they weren’t vetted, they just came in.”
“I think they were born there, Vince.”
“It’s not like citizenship, Tina; it’s not like if you’re born in a building you have property rights. I didn’t think I’d have to explain that to you. And if that first will wasn’t probated? The building has more of a claim than anybody. And maybe they should—you know the story about what happened to the mother, they put her in some loony bin and threw away the key and then she died in there. It’s totally Victorian.”
“It’s a Victorian building,” I reminded him.
“Well said, but why should they get the apartment? It was her apartment.”
“What’s your point, Vince?” I asked.
“My point is, neither you or the Drinans is going to get that apartment, I don’t care how hard you try,” Vince said, all convivial now. “It’s the Livingston Mansion Apartment, Tina! You might have had a chance with one of the minor apartments. But that one, no way.”
“I see,” I said, although I did not.
“Listen,” he sighed, suddenly filled with pity and goodwill toward me, god knows why. “I’ll see if I can buy you some time. I really can put in a good word, and it might keep dear old dad on the fence for a little while.”
“How many times do I have to sleep with you for that whopping favor?”
“It’s for free,” he said, grinning at this. “Come on, Tina, let’s grab a cab, you can’t walk all the way home in those shoes. I won’t bother you. I promise.”
“Your promises,” I sighed, indicating that I didn’t think much of them. But I wasn’t too mean about it.
28
“SO HOW DID IT GO?” LUCY COOED ON THE PHONE THE NEXT morning.
“Just great, Lucy,” I said. “Vince is definitely on board.”
“I knew you could do it,” she replied smugly. “Thanks, Tina. I owe you one.”
Twelve Rooms with a View Page 32
