by Sally Mason
“Not exactly.”
“Okay, we’re lied to, but we’re still given a tangible product: the movie. So the transaction isn’t fraudulent, is it, although it is predicated on a series of falsehoods?”
“I suppose not.”
“In the case of this book there is also a deception. Viola Usher does not exist. But the book does. Therefore the readers, although they are buying the novel from somebody who is not real, still get a book that is. No blame no foul.”
“True. But I’m saying that I wrote the book.”
“If your brother were to acknowledge authorship of the book would it change the transaction? Would the readers not still get a book in exchange for their money?”
“Yes. I mean, no. I think . . .”
He laughs.
“It’s all about masks, Bitsy. Some are sinister, dark, like those of an executioner or a bank robber. Others are harmless, even delightful, like those worn to a masked ball. The mask you have chosen to wear falls into the latter category. Your pretence, I would say, is nothing more than a little harmless froth.”
“You’ve made me feel a lot better.”
“I did nothing. I merely held up a mirror.”
“Well . . .”
He stands and waits as she battles to her feet.
Then he clasps her hands in his.
God how she longs to fold into his arms, breathe in the musky maleness of him.
“I’m very grateful to you, Bitsy. This is a marvelous gesture.”
“The Foundation has changed my life.”
“No, you have changed your life. All we provided was a safe space.”
He leads her toward the stairs.
“I sense you’re about to get booted out of your comfort zone, Bitsy. Just remember: in the midst of all the movement and chaos that is to come, keep stillness within you.”
He raises a hand in farewell and then turns and disappears into the shadows.
Bitsy floats rather than walks down the stairs and even the scornful look from Una, curled up on the sofa with Carlos, can’t dampen the wild soaring of her heart.
15
It’s after 2 A.M. when Jane stops the rental car outside her apartment building and drags herself into the lobby toward the elevator.
Once she got Bitsy Rushworth’s signature on the contract Jane had fired up the Honda and headed straight back to Manhattan, the long drive and her lonely apartment more appealing than another night of bedbugs in East Devon’s Sugar Maple Inn.
The girl who stares back at her from the mirror of the elevator as the doors start to slide closed looks drawn and gaunt, her black hair a greasy helmet, and is that a zit she sees incubating in the corner of her mouth?
Jane leans in close to the mirror, grimacing, trying to get a better look at the pimple when the doors shudder open again and Tom Bennett bolts in.
If Jane thinks she looks rough, Tommy boy looks as if he was dragged down Broadway tied to the rear of a car.
He’s wearing a hoodie and a soiled T-shirt over jeans and sneakers.
And he smells of sweat and something sour and chemical.
“What the hell are you doing here, Tom?” Jane asks, lunging for the elevator buttons.
He blocks her and crowds her against the back of the cabin as the doors close and the elevator rises.
“Get away from me,” she shouts.
He raises his hands.
“I just need to talk to you, Janey.”
“No. Stop this elevator and let me out.”
“I’ve been waiting since yesterday, down in the street. Where the hell were you?”
She has her phone out.
“I’m dialing 911.”
He wrenches the phone from her hand.
“Tom! Jesus!”
He fends her off and thumbs the phone, opening her photo gallery.
As she watches Tommy deletes the pictures she took of him and his little freak show.
“How do you know I didn’t already transfer those to my iPad?” she says as he finishes and throws the phone at her.
“Because you’re too dumb to do that, remember? It was always: Tommy, how do I do this? Tommy, how do I do that?”
His voice an ugly parody of hers.
Staring at this terrifying stranger she wonders how he gobbled up nice, even-tempered Tom Bennett.
The elevator pings as it reaches her floor.
Jane sprints out expecting Tom to follow her.
But he stays in the elevator and gives her the finger.
“Have a nice life, you boring little bitch.”
The doors close and Jane finds herself shaking and crying as she fumbles with the locks and finally gets herself into her apartment.
The place has never seemed so empty.
She heads for the kitchen, dumps her shoulder bag on the counter and washes her face in the sink, drying herself on a kitchen towel.
The bedroom and its en suite bathroom are a no-fly zone right now.
Jane opens the fridge and finds a bottle of Heineken.
She uncaps it and as she takes a slug she’s a kid for a moment, sitting on the porch on a summer night with her father, a small town sportswriter, listening to hissing old vinyl recordings of Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor and George Carlin, her father allowing her a sip of his favorite beer, the two of them laughing like drains.
She’s almost tempted to call him, her old dad, and cry on his shoulder.
But his heart isn’t good these days and she’ll just freak him out, so she resists the impulse.
These are wounds she’ll have to lick alone.
Jane thinks of Tom and realizes how lucky she was to make that impulsive decision to fly home and surprise him on his birthday.
If she hadn’t she would have married him.
She shudders at the thought of what her life would have become.
Jane chugs back the last of the beer and feels a little of her moxy returning.
She takes her iPad from her bag and powers it up, opening her photo gallery.
And there they are, those disgusting pictures, some impulse getting her to transfer them from her phone while she sat in Starbucks yesterday morning.
See Tom, she says aloud.
I can do it.
Sucker.
Before Jane can talk herself out of it, she creates an anonymous Yahoo email account, finds the addresses of Batton, Barstow and Klinch (the triumvirate of gods who rule over her ex-fiancés law firm) and attaches four of the juiciest pictures of Tom Bennett at his play date.
Jane hesitates for just a moment before she hits send.
“How ’bout them apples, Tommy?” she says out loud, channeling her dear old dad again.
Then she is suddenly exhausted, literally too tired to undress.
Jane falls face down on the couch and just as sleep claims her she thinks of Gordon Rushworth camping in his sister’s living room and she feels an unexpected (and unwanted) sense of kinship.
16
When Jane, feeling bleary and tired after the restless night on her couch, enters the Park Avenue offices of the Jonas Blunt Agency she is confronted by all the staff, led by the imposing figure of her boss himself, standing to applaud her.
Jonas walks over and kisses her on both cheeks, then he puts an arm around her shoulders (she always feels like a child beside him, fitting snugly into his armpit) and says, “Come with me, my conquering hero.”
He leads her past her cubicle to a corner office, the door of which—as he promised—sports a darling little sign saying: JANE COOPER – AGENT.
He pushes the door open and she sees the desk positioned before a sweeping Midtown vista.
“All yours, darling.”
“Thank you, Jonas.”
“Needless to say, you’ve also nudged yourself up a few notches on the pay scale.”
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
Jonas slumps on the sofa that occupies a corner of the office.
“Before I leave you
to get settled in, let’s have a quick pow-wow about this big fish you’ve landed.”
Jane takes a chair opposite him.
Jonas says, “What’s she like, this Mindy?”
“Bitsy.”
“Bitsy! Okay, first order of business, that name has to go. What’s it short for, anyway?”
“Elizabeth, I believe.”
“Elizabeth Rushworth. Mnnnn, that’s a little staid. How about Liz? Liz Rushworth? A bit racier, what do you say?”
“Yes, but it’s a little, well, unfriendly isn’t it?”
“You think so? Unfriendly?”
“A bit intimidating. The name of an investigative reporter or a scientist.”
“Then what would you suggest?”
“How about Lizzie?”
“Lizzie Rushworth,” Jonas says, closing his eyes, repeating the name as if he’s tasting a vintage wine. He blinks and says, “I love it! It’s peppy and saucy, but a name that gets you smiling as you say it. Perfect.”
“Good.”
“What does she look like?”
“Well . . .”
“Don’t doll it up, Janey, just give it to me straight.”
“She’s around forty. Short and skinny, with mousy hair going gray. When I met her she was dressed by Costco: a shapeless sweater, badly fitting jeans and no-name sneakers.”
Jonas shudders.
“God, how awful. Is she redeemable?”
Jane nods.
“Yes, I think so. But she’ll need a serious makeover, top to toe. And a new wardrobe.”
“When is she arriving?”
“Her train gets into Penn Station around 6:30 this evening.”
“Okay, tell her to go directly to The Pierre, I’ve reserved a suite. Then spend the day with her tomorrow getting her transformed. I’ll schedule the media for the following day.”
He sees her expression.
“Darling, I know you landed her and you’ll be there every step of the way, but this is too big for you to fly solo. You just let me do what I do, okay?”
“Of course, Jonas, I understand.”
He flashes her a blinding smile and bounds to his feet.
“Exciting, exciting. When we take this book out to auction there’s going to be a frenzy of note.”
“Just one thing,” Jane says.
“Mnnnn?”
“Bitsy—Lizzie—has a brother. Gordon. He’s going to be traveling with her, as a kind of chaperone-cum-advisor.”
“Fine, get him a room at The Pierre. Nothing too fancy.”
“The thing is, Gordon is also a writer and Lizzie only signed with us on the understanding that whoever publishes Ivy publishes his book as well.”
Jonas frowns.
“You agreed to this extortion?”
“I’m sorry, what option did I have?’
“Understood, understood. Have you read his book?”
“The first few chapters.”
“And?”
“It’s terrible. He’s striving for David Foster Wallace by way of Jonathan Franzen and falls horribly short.”
Jonas makes a dismissive gesture.
“No worries, leave it to me. Whoever gets Ivy will gladly do a limited release of his abortion. What’s a couple of thousand copies going to cost them? They’ll never even let them out of their warehouse.”
He’s heading for the door.
“Oh, I almost forgot. I had a word with a very nice new lady editor at Exeter Press this morning. She’s just dying for you to send that bleeding heart memoir of yours over. That doctors in distress thing.”
Jonas winks at her and is gone, leaving Jane with her head spinning as she sits behind her new desk, staring out over Manhattan.
Can things keep on going so well?
No, she fears.
And right on cue her cell phone bings and she sees a text from Tom, who she has done her best to keep out of her thoughts on this day of success.
The message is to the point: Die bitch.
Jane shoves her phone away and looks out over the city she has come to love.
Is it just the Tom debacle causing her anxiety?
No, she fears, it is not.
And the gnawing certainty that she is conspiring with Gordon Rushworth, that his sister is just his beard, takes some of the shine off the day.
17
Gordon sits watching the industrial parks that litter the outskirts of New York City blur by in the failing light, lulled almost to sleep by the motion of the train and by the wine he’s been consuming since lunch.
He’s going to have to reign in this drinking of his during the next few days of what Jane Cooper, talking on the phone earlier, described as “a process of limited media exposure.”
He hasn’t shared his suspicions with Bitsy, but he’s pretty sure that this means that his dowdy sister is going to be tossed to the slavering Manhattan media wolves.
He’s done his best to prepare Bitsy, spending the last few hours of travel going through Ivy with her, getting her as familiar with the damned thing as if she wrote it herself.
Bitsy may be an underachiever but she’s a quick study and he’s confident she knows the book well enough to fake being the author.
But it’s her nerve—or lack thereof—that worries Gordon.
How convincing will she be?
Bitsy, back from the bathroom, sits down opposite him, looking even more wan than usual.
“I’m terrified, Gordon,” she says, giving voice to his own fears.
“You’ll be fine.”
“No, I won’t. You know me, I can’t lie.”
He stares at her for a few seconds.
“Then why did you agree to do it, Bitsy?”
She avoids his eyes, watching an ugly smear of passing suburbia.
“I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
“You’re right,” he says. “You can’t lie.”
He reaches across and touches her knee.
“What’s going on, Bitsy?”
She shakes her head, then she looks at him, a stricken expression on her face, and it all comes tumbling out about how she has pledged money to a bunch of New Age charlatans.
“And if I don’t do it,” she says, “the Quant Foundation will disappear. And it will be my fault.”
Gordon bites back the venom he wants to spew.
No, what business is it of his how his brainwashed sister chooses to spend her money?
Keeping his face expressionless and his voice level he says, “So, overcome your trepidation and do it, Bitsy.”
She hugs herself.
“I’m really scared.”
“This Quant person, didn’t he give you any . . . any techniques to deal with anxiety?”
“There is a sequence of breath work. I tried to do it in the toilet, but I was quite overcome by the smell in there.”
Gordon has to laugh and after a moment his sister joins him.
“It’s a game, Bitsy, like we played when we were kids. Dress up, or whatever. It’s just pretence.”
“I don’t remember playing many games.”
“No, me neither. We didn’t exactly have that kind of childhood, did we?”
She shakes her head.
“No.”
“Even more reason to make up for it now. Tell yourself that you’re Viola Usher. That you woke up one morning bursting with a story to tell.”
“Was that how it was for you, Gordon?”
He shrugs.
“I wouldn’t want to bore you.”
“Please,” she says, “tell me. I want to hear.”
So tells her about Suzie Baldwin appearing to him—his sister the only person in the world he could ever share this with.
“Oh, Gordon, that is so wonderful,” she says.
“Is it?”
“Yes. You carried Suzie with you, in your heart, all these years. That’s so beautiful.”
“Well, she did pretty much disappear when I hit thirty. I thought she was gone fore
ver.”
“That’s when you decided you were an adult, Gordon, wasn’t it? That you needed to put away childish things?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, Suzie was your muse. You should feel very privileged.”
“I don’t know about muse, Bitsy. She was more a midwife, helping me to give birth to some misshapen bastard child.”
She stares at him and shakes her head.
“You don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
“Get how good Ivy is?”
“It’s crap, Bitsy.”
“No, it’s powerful and engaging on an emotional level. Not everything has to be about grand ideas and philosophy, Gordon. You should be proud of it.”
“Well, I’m not.”
She stares at him.
“What?” he says.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Ask.”
“Everybody’s in that book—all the people who had an affect on your life. Except me. I’m not in there, am I?”
“No, you’re not.”
“Why?”
“Well, save for Suzie, all the characters in the book are people who wronged me in one way or another. Writing it was my bit of childish revenge on them.”
He smiles at her.
“You never wronged me, Bitsy. Ever. So take your absence as a compliment rather than a slight.”
She seems mollified.
“So?” he asks. “Are we going to do this thing?”
“Yes,” she says. “I suppose we are.”
“That’s the spirit,” Gordon says and relaxes back in his seat, watching the saw-toothed skyline of Manhattan rise into view.
18
Jane, knocking at the door of Bitsy’s suite at The Pierre, is unsurprised when Gordon Rushworth answers.
What does startle her, just a little, is that she’s pleased to see him.
“Hello, Jane,” he says. “Don’t you have all kinds of posh book events to attend?”
“Your sister’s my priority right now,” she says, following him into the suite.
