The Darlings

by Cristina Alger

  Paul shifted in his chair, trying not to look bemused. “Given my performance in Vail, sir, I’m not sure that bodes well for me.”

  “Ahh, we’ll make a skier of you yet, Paul,” Carter said solemnly. “Point is: These markets require agility. If we’re going to survive, we’re going to have to stay flexible.”

  “Indeed.” Paul concurred, wondering if he was in over his head. It was a done deal now. Maybe it had always been, and everyone but Paul had the prescience to understand that.

  “It’s going to be hectic around here for a while. You’ll have to hit the ground running.”

  “I understand.”

  “Take a day or so to think it over, if you like. Come back to me when you’re ready and we’ll talk compensation. And Paul?”

  “Yes, sir?” Paul said, jumping to his feet.

  “Call me Carter, for chrissake. I was just going to say, think up a title for yourself while you’re at it. General Counsel, SVP; don’t care what it is, as long as you don’t come off sounding like a member of the Windsor family.”

  In his first few weeks of work, Paul was surprised to discover how big an operation Delphic actually was. He felt as though he had opened the back of a giant clock: The bullpen computers buzzed, the conference rooms sparkled, secretaries slipped quietly up and down the halls like well-oiled gears. Even the day before Thanksgiving it hummed along like a machine. As Paul swiped in through the large glass doors, a rush of filtered air and kinetic energy hit him. The lights were on and a few associates sped past him down the hall. Paul was surprised to see so many people at work. He nodded to Ida, Carter’s secretary, who was talking into her headset. She signaled him over with one hand, like an air traffic controller bringing him in for a landing, and he waited in front of her cube as she wrapped up her call. The firm’s mascot, a gleaming bronze lion, stared at him with unmoving eyes from across the hallway. The statue stood perpetual guard over Carter’s office, a gift from Carter’s lawyer, Sol Penzell.

  “Terry’s out today,” Ida said crisply, when she hung up. She gave Paul an efficient smile. “I’m filling in for her. Anything you need, you just give a shout.”

  “Thanks, Ida,” he said. “I appreciate it.” He turned toward his office. His was the next door down from Carter’s. Paul still found the proximity vaguely unnerving.

  “Oh, Paul,” Ida called. “A woman from the SEC named Alexa Mason called for you. She said it was urgent.”

  “Alexa Mason?” Paul stopped and turned around, his hand still on the door handle. “This early? Did she say what about?”

  “She left a voice mail. She said she’s working with David Levin. She told me to say that.”

  Paul nodded. “Thanks, Ida. I’ll get back to her.”

  “Do you need her number?” Ida asked, but Paul had already shut the door.

  In the safety of his office, Paul closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His shoulder blades rose and fell gently against the wall. The message light on his phone flashed an insistent red. It elevated his heart rate just to look at it.

  I’m not ready to talk to anyone at the SEC, he thought. Even Alexa.

  He sat down at his desk and, after a minute, turned the phone to face the wall so that he couldn’t see the light.

  By noon, Paul had worked his way through a stack of agreements that needed his sign-off. Since most of the senior management was out of the office, he had kicked off his loafers and was sitting crossed-legged on his desk chair. He had forgotten Alexa’s call, or, at least, pushed it to the recesses of his mind.

  Outside his window, the November sky had turned to silver. The few pedestrians he could see on the sidewalk below were swaddled in hats and coats, their faces tucked up behind lengths of fabric. Paul regretted not having his scarf. They were predicting that the snow would hit earlier than expected; a shiver of excitement passed through his body as he checked the weather report online. One thing he loved about New York was the sharpness of the seasons. There was something electric about winter coming to the city. It was gritty and cold but also wondrously beautiful. The dark army of trees on Park Avenue came alive with lights at night; the store displays on Fifth Avenue were gaudy and gorgeous, as were the throngs of holiday shoppers that clogged the sidewalks. Snow in New York turned quickly into a blackened slush along the curbs, but for the first brief moment, it would dust the sidewalks like confectioners’ sugar and transform the city’s skyline into a perfect, tiered wedding cake.

  Suddenly, Paul was itching to leave the office. He put on his headset and dialed Ida.

  “Ida, it’s Paul. Listen, please go home. No one else is here and I doubt anyone’s going to call. You can roll Carter’s line over to me if that makes you more comfortable.”

  “Are you sure that’s okay?” Ida said gratefully. “It’s only lunchtime. I’m happy to stay.”

  Paul was about to wish her a happy Thanksgiving when she said: “Actually, a call is coming in now. It’s Merrill. Do you want to take it?”

  “Sure, just forward it to me. Now get out of here.”

  He switched his phone to line two and put Merrill on speakerphone. “Hi there,” he said affectionately, relaxing back into his chair. “Almost done with work?” Merrill had planned on taking a half day so that she could pack for the weekend. “Any chance you’re stopping by the drugstore on your way home?”

  There was a pause. When she spoke, her voice was hollow, as if the air had been sucked out of her. “Who is this?” she said.

  “It’s Paul, Mer,” he said, snatching up the receiver. His body instinctually flushed with adrenaline; something was wrong. “Ida’s rolling your dad’s calls to me.”

  “I need to talk to him. I called his cell phone, but it’s off. Where is he?”

  “I think he’s driving. What’s going on? Talk to me.”

  Merrill was mute. He could hear the television on in the background. It buzzed like white noise, the sound reverberating on the line between them.

  “Turn on the television,” she said quietly. “It’s on every channel.”

  “What is?”

  “Morty’s dead.”

  “I’ll call you back from the conference room,” Paul said, fumbling beneath his desk to put on his shoes.

  “I have to go. I’m at the office. There’s a deposition.”

  “You don’t need to go to that,” he said, trying not to raise his voice. “You don’t need to do anything if you’re upset.”

  “No, I can’t—I just can’t. I’m sorry; I’m a little overwhelmed right now. I’ll call you later. I love you.”

  And then she was gone, before he could say, “I love you.” Before he could say anything at all.

  WEDNESDAY, 11:20 A.M.

  The day began badly for Lily, with all the hallmarks of a hangover. She awoke with a throbbing headache and the disheartening realization that she had slept in her makeup. Her eyes blinked open, and finding the bedroom saturated with light, immediately closed again. For a minute or two she went still, counting her drinks from the night before like sheep and wishing she weren’t awake. The hangover felt disproportionate to the amount of fun she remembered having.

  Lily always drank too much when she was with Daria. It was possible that Daria was her best friend; at least, Daria was the person with whom she spent the most time, next to Adrian and her mother. Ines didn’t approve of Daria; she described her, arch eyed, as “having an agenda.” Ines was wary of girls whom she perceived as not being from nice families; girls who insinuated themselves into New York society by tactically befriending the right sort of people at the right sort of parties. Women with Agendas: Lily had been cautioned not to befriend them. Women with Agendas were, in Ines’s estimation, more dangerous than gold diggers because they were clever, and because they wanted things that girls like Lily could provide for them.

  If Ines was to be listened to, the world was populated by people waiting to take advantage of Lily. Boys without means were interested in her money. Boys with means were stil
l interested in her money because children of the wealthy lacked a work ethic and wanted a spouse who would make sure their club memberships would never go unpaid and their children would be admitted to the right schools and there would always be pleasant dinner parties and charity events in the evenings. And all women wanted something. Ines felt strongly that women were rarely friends with one another unless they could get something out of it. Female friendships were like strategic alliances: Each party had to bring something to the table in order to maintain equity. The simple fact was that Lily didn’t need anything from anyone. She had money, she had connections, she had beauty and style and a house in the Hamptons. Therefore, she would inevitably be on the losing end of any friendship. Lily found it difficult to find people to spend time with as a result.

  Lily didn’t altogether disagree with Ines’s assessment of Daria. Daria was a shrew. But she was lively and fun and Lily enjoyed her company. Unlike most of Lily’s Spence friends, Daria actually had a job: She ran Investor Relations at a large private equity fund, a job that suited her looks and her Type-A personality and her unwavering commitment to surrounding herself with highly liquid men. Daria knew everyone in New York. It was her job to. And her boundless energy was infectious: It was nearly impossible to feel listless around her. Bored on a Tuesday? Daria had an extra ticket to an art opening and would pick you up in an hour. Single? Daria knew a gorgeous hedge fund manager who had just broken up with his girlfriend. Marital trouble? Daria would escort you to the New Yorkers for Animals benefit and buy you Bellinis beforehand.

  Only, of course, if you were the kind of person who invited her to your house in East Hampton every August and could introduce her to a managing director at Goldman Sachs. Fortuitously, Lily had done both.

  When Adrian had called to say he would meet her at the party, Lily’s first thought was to call Daria. They met for a quick drink first at the Library of the Regency Hotel, a snug bar that was exactly equidistant between their apartments on Park Avenue. The clientele was mostly neighborhood types: older women with shellacked hair and suspended eyebrows, bankers who needed a scotch before going home to the kids. It was a place where two women in formal attire would not be incongruous.

  “All right,” Daria said when Lily arrived, “What’s going on with Adrian?” She had staked out a corner nook with leather couches, ideally located for watching people and people watching her. Daria loved being watched. She cut a sharp figure in a strapless, plum column of a dress (plum was the color of the season, and it looked decadent against Daria’s perpetually tan skin). A fox fur bolero was wrapped neatly around her shoulders. She had tucked a black feather in her chignon, something Lily felt looked sensational on Daria but that she herself could never pull off. Daria’s arms draped languidly across the back of the couch, and she yawned lightly, as if she were so accustomed to wearing a ball gown that it might be just another Tuesday.

  After kissing Daria hello, Lily perched gingerly on the edge of the opposing couch, trying not to wrinkle herself.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” she replied, looking away. As she said it, she realized this was true. “He’s just stuck at work, that’s all.”

  “Is he not coming?” Daria probed, trying to assess the problem. Though she looked stunning—Lily always looked stunning—she seemed not herself. She had sounded sensitive on the phone. This had been the case a lot lately, and Daria wasn’t sure what could be done about it.

  “Oh no, he’ll be there. Just a little late. I didn’t want to walk in alone.”

  With a pinched brow, Daria signaled for the waiter. Lily felt her eyes misting over with tears. She could sense that Daria was growing mildly irritated with her or, at least, tiring of her. And why not: Lily was tiring of herself. She couldn’t explain why, but the inarticulable sensation that something was wrong had been following her everywhere, like a shadow. It lay heavy on her lids in the morning when she woke; it sat with her in the afternoons, gnawing away at her insides as she went about checking her e-mail, having lunch, running on the treadmill. She was becoming a bore.

  “I’m being silly,” she said.

  “Of course you’re not. He adores you. You know that, don’t you?”

  The waiter came with their drinks.

  “Oh, I know. It’s really nothing. It’s not his fault. He’s just a little—I don’t know, distant?—lately. My father’s the same. It’s stressful at their office right now. And Adrian’s off with clients a lot, too, and I’m alone. I hate being alone. It makes me feel needy, you know? I wasn’t like this before.”

  Two middle-aged men, both in red power ties and pinstriped suits, sat down at the adjacent table. They stared predatorily at Daria. One leaned in and whispered something to the other; they both grinned. Daria recrossed her coltish legs and ignored them.

  “Everyone’s stressed right now,” she said. “Jim’s been a maniac, honestly. He takes calls from Asia in the middle of the night. He screams at waitresses who take too long with our food. Last week he bit my head off for ordering too much Pellegrino on Fresh Direct. Pellegrino, honestly. The guy gets driven around in a chauffeured Escalade and he’s bitching at me about Pellegrino. I love your bracelet, by the way. Is that new?”

  Lily managed a weak smile. She held out her wrist. The bracelet was new. Though she knew it was counterintuitive, there was something about the downturn that made Lily want to buy more, not less. She had been shopping a lot lately, with almost reckless abandon. She would “stop in to look” on her way to somewhere else, and somehow emerge with an espresso maker or a pair of espadrilles. She bought birthday presents for no one in particular, dresses without occasion. If the wares were small enough (a pair of earrings; lingerie) she would stuff them in her purse and dispose of the shopping bags and price tags and put the receipts into a wastebasket on the street. The closets were bursting with new things. It wasn’t even that she was hiding them from Adrian; seeing new things, tags still on, made her uncomfortable.

  The satisfaction of a new pair of earrings or shoes had an immediate satiating effect, but one which would be replaced later in the day with a tidal wave of guilt. This is it for the month, she would think furiously. But then a particularly dull Monday would confront her; Adrian would be out of town and her girlfriends were busy and her date book was glaringly empty, and Lily would find herself once again wandering though the aisles of Bergdorf Goodman or Williams-Sonoma or even Duane Reade, hungrily snapping up things she hadn’t known she needed until she saw them.

  “Maybe you’re bored,” Daria suggested, shrugging. “Have you been working lately?”

  “A little. Barney’s is taking our holiday leash line. So that’s fun.” In truth, Bacall was moving sideways, and Carter was unwilling to sink more money into it until the economy picked up. There was still an occasional online order, and there was the Barney’s deal, but at the end of the day, it was still a net-negative cash-flow situation. More of a vanity project than a job. Lily found herself working on it less and less, her productive hours dwindling from nearly full-time to decidedly part-time, then finally to scant, now-and-then hours, the kind tucked away for hobbies or household chores.

  Lily swirled the drink in front of her, watching as the ice melted and wet beads began to form on the outside of the glass. “Do you ever worry about Jim?” She asked casually.

  Daria’s eyes widened. “Worry?” She put down her drink. “What do you know?”

  Lily looked up, and catching the worried look in her friend’s eyes, felt instantly terrible. “Nothing!” she exclaimed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything. Really, Jim is smitten with you.”

  Daria nodded uneasily. She glanced away; one of the middle-aged men at the next table caught her eye. They look like traders, Lily thought. Or hedge fund managers. A little too slick to be investment bankers. Daria smiled back, adjusting her bolero.

  “I was really talking more about me,” Lily added, watching Daria watch the trader. “I know it’s stupid, but sometimes I get nervous wh
en Adrian’s out with clients. Women in this city are shameless. Last week we were at a party and I watched two girls just go right up to him, as if I weren’t even there. Gorgeous girls. Both younger than me. Definitely prettier. Do I sound paranoid?”

  “Yes,” Daria said. “Well, no. I don’t know. I mean, look, Adrian’s a handsome, successful guy. And New York’s a shark tank. There’re always going to be girls around. We’re going to get older and they’re going to stay the same age. You’re going to have to get used to that.” One of the traders answered his cell phone. He stood abruptly and strode out of the bar’s door, into the hotel lobby. Daria’s eyes followed him until he was out of sight, and then she turned back to Lily. “Look,” she said sternly, her hand on Lily’s shoulder for emphasis, “The only thing you can do is look your best and not get insecure. Guys are like dogs: They smell fear. You’re Lily Darling, for God sake. Adrian’s lucky to be married to you. If you don’t forget that, he won’t either.”

  Lily nodded quietly, her eyes downcast. The ice in her drink had melted. It was forming a ring on the table, the cocktail napkin wrapped around it like a giant Band-Aid. “Thanks,” she said, her voice small. “I just don’t feel like myself lately.”

  “Don’t be crazy,” Daria said curtly. She straightened up and signaled for the check. “Come on—what would Ines say? She would tell you to buck up and enjoy the party.”

  “I know. My mother’s a master of appearances.”

  “She taught you well,” Daria said, rising to her feet. She tapped her wrist. “Let’s go,” she said, and offered Lily her arm.

  Ines had indeed taught her daughters a great many valuable things. Most could be filed under the topic heading of style and etiquette. (Never leave the house without makeup; you never know who you will run into. Nice girls wear nice lingerie. Ignore the latest trend if it doesn’t suit your shape. Always send a handwritten thank-you note.) But she imparted grander axioms of wisdom, too, which Merrill largely disregarded and Lily accepted as gospel. With the exception of a long-running disagreement over whether or not navy could ever be appropriately worn with black, Lily had found that Ines was almost always right.