by Megan Mulry
“What’s the matter, Miki?” Isabel looks genuinely worried, more on her own behalf than as a sign of concern for my potential sadness. Nothing is worse for an aspiring teenager than being mortified by an accompanying adult. She is already like her mother, I think with a smile: letting me have it. I finish drying my tears and pat Isabel’s bare knee two times to reassure her.
“Sorry about that. Nothing’s the matter. Don’t you worry.”
“I’m not worried,” she replies easily. “I just don’t want you to freak out. Landon’s not worth it.” She looks at her paper and then back up at the ceramic wall sculpture as she speaks.
What a pal. “Yeah. Well, not that you care about my tender sensibilities, but if you must know, I wasn’t crying about Landon.” That seems to get her attention. Her pencil pauses.
“Well? Then what were you crying about?”
I whisper (in what I think is a pretty cool tone of teen complicity), “I think I have a crush on someone.”
Isabel rolls her eyes. Exactly like her mother. “Oh, Miki. Crushes are so over.”
I laugh and kiss the top of her strawberry-blond head, then resume the calm, restorative motions of looking up at the wall, then back at my paper, as I do a fairly good depiction of the Matisse.
Crushes are so over. Out of the mouths of babes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Vivian calls me at work Monday morning and asks me to meet her for lunch at the Polo Lounge.
“Seeing you drunk and naked on Friday night was a treat—as always—but you and I need a proper sit-down, Mik.”
I sigh. I know she is going to ask me all the hard best-friend questions, and I am not sure I’m ready.
“Quit stalling and meet me there at one,” she presses.
“Ugh. Fine!”
She hangs up on me before I have a chance to change my mind.
Vivian is flipping through the latest copy of Women’s Wear Daily while she waits for me to arrive. I am not much of a lady-who-lunches type, but Vivian totally is. The nails. The hair. The impatiently kicking Louboutin.
I lean down and kiss her on both cheeks, an inside joke that we both started, mocking how phony the gesture is, but we’ve never stopped doing it. So, as often happens, we have become portraits of what we formerly ridiculed. She gives me a quick extra hug, looks deep into my eyes, and says, “I’m so sorry about your dad. In the midst of all the recent mayhem, I don’t think I’ve really said it outright.”
“Thanks, Viv,” I say as I sit down.
“But you’re good, right?”
She, of all people, knows the last thing I want is some gory emotional autopsy. I nod. “It was a drag, but it was fine. It was good, actually—I mean, that I was there when it happened.” I pull my napkin onto my lap, and she nods once to let me know she is listening but isn’t going to push.
Vivian pauses before closing the magazine. “I mean . . . would you look at this guy?”
I look across the table and down at a montage spread of fashionably dressed couples and eye-popping headlines: PIPPA IN TROUBLE AGAIN! THE FALL OF ROME!
My heart feels like it is tumbling out of my chest. Right there in front of me—with Vivian’s perfectly manicured, bright-red fingernail tapping repeatedly over the image—is a picture of Jérôme Michel de Villiers with his . . . his . . . brand-new . . . fiancée.
“May I see that?” I ask, trying to sound casual. The waiter comes over just then, so my shock is lost on Vivian. She is launching into her very specific requirements for the preparation of her salad (basically, everything on the side, in separate containers) while I stare in stark disbelief at Rome holding another woman, his soon-to-be-wife other woman. He holds her just like he held me, close and inside, protecting her from the elements. Aziza Mahdi. She looks fantastic. She’s Somali, apparently, tall and exotic, but also youthful and adoring. The way she looks at him—dear god—like he’s her savior or something.
Vivian is finished with her lettuce lecture, and, without looking up, I tell the waiter I’ll have the fish of the day. After he walks away, Viv grabs the magazine back.
“I mean, seriously, could he be any hotter? He’s like a frickin’ pirate. And four graduate degrees? And speaks five languages or something. And he’s rich as anything. And just look at his wife—”
“Fiancée,” I correct, with far too much vehemence.
“Well, whatever, fiancée. She’s like Iman, for chrissake.” Vivian looks up. “You okay? Don’t you think he’s hot? In your state of drunkenness on Friday, you certainly had plenty to say about his supposed hotness.”
Vivian has always been like this. Ever since she was thirteen and I was ten, Vivian has always been boy crazy.
“Sure, he’s fine.” I take a sip of water to stall.
“Fine? I’ll say. He’s damn fine. What’s up with you?” She looks at Rome one more time, makes a clucking sound of appreciation, then folds up the magazine and tucks it into her way-too-expensive handbag. Then she stares at me with those laser-beam best-friend eyeballs. “What gives?”
“He’s a client.”
“Did you start an escort service while I wasn’t looking? What do you mean, he’s a client?” We both laugh, and I try to look out toward the piano player and set the conversation in another direction.
“How’s Isabel doing on piano?” My tween goddaughter is already showing amazing musical promise. Most parents love to bore people with their children’s soaring accomplishments. Not Vivian. Not today, at least.
“Nice try.” She takes a sip of water, then her eyes widen. “Oh my god. Have you actually met him? In real life?” Her eyes are shining as if I might be able to introduce her to Rome in time for prom.
“Yes. I met him in Saint Petersburg. His company, Cla—”
“Clairebeau. I know, I know! Go on—I don’t care about any of the CV stuff. What is he like?”
“You’re unbelievable.”
She rolls her eyes and takes another sip of her water. “You’re totally trying to change the subject. He’s obviously all that if you can’t even talk about him without blushing.”
“I’m not blushing. Cut it out.”
Vivian raises her eyebrows and shrugs. Point taken.
“Okay, okay. Yes, I met him. Turns out my father did business with him and I needed to renegotiate the terms of a three-year contract that had come up—”
Vivian is shaking her head right to left, letting me know she stopped listening sometime around renegotiate.
“What?” I ask, trying to be normal, which is so not possible.
“Backtrack. Are you crazy? You met him? What is he like? I want details! He’s like a modern-day Renaissance man. Apparently he has this huge art collection—including one of the Matisses with the palm tree in Nice—and a place in the South of France that’s to die for, and he’s a major donor to that human-rights coalition, or whatever it’s called, where his fiancée works.”
I try to look away again, because I just don’t know how to make sense of all the lofty qualifications and accomplishments that Vivian is describing and then to make them fit into the friendly, charming man I was with in Russia. Even now I can picture him with perfect clarity, laughing on the bridge, smoking a cigarette. At night, I relive the feeling of him pulling me close against him while he slept. He still feels so real.
And now he is engaged.
Fuck.
Vivian stops talking, and the silence yawns between us. Usually when we get together, we fill every breath with updates and juicy bits of gossip. Her silence is unnerving.
“Oh. My. God. You slept with him,” she whispers, but it sounds so loud to my ears that my shhhhhhh reply is like a hiss. Several heads turn in our direction.
“You broke up with Landon for him, didn’t you? Oh my god!” Her voice is quieter but still high-pitched. She takes another sip of water, and he
r eyes brighten again, like I am a really good movie script and she has won the option.
“Stop it. I never . . .” Well, what can I say? She’s my best friend. I can’t outright lie to her. But I don’t want to tell her, either. Obviously, it really is nothing after all, and if I start talking about it, that will mean it is still something. And really, it is none of her business. “Oh, all right, so we fooled around. But I did not break up with Landon because of Rome.”
She represses a squeal behind her napkin, then chokes a little when she tries to talk. “Rome? You call him Rome? I can’t believe you finally get in touch with your wild side a week after Landon asks you to move in with him. Priceless.”
The waiter has just taken the order of the table next to us, and Vivian practically trips him to get his attention. “Two martinis. Pronto.”
“Yes, Ms. Steingarten. Right away.”
“Thanks.” She smiles at the waiter, then lets the courtesy evaporate from her expression as she stares back at me. “So . . . you know he’s a total snake, right? A complete player?”
I stare at my water glass.
“Holy shit. Did you fall in love with the French pirate or something? What the hell got into you? I told you you needed to slut it up more in high school! You were supposed to get it out of your system then, when it didn’t matter. Wild oats and all that. Not now, when you’re thirty and . . . well, you’re gorgeous, obviously. But you’re a responsible adult now. You can’t go around sleeping with . . .” Her eyes turn dreamy again, and she completely loses the plot. “Was he just so amazing in bed?”
My eyes must have softened, because she realizes her mistake before I have a chance to answer.
“Forget I asked that! What were you thinking?” She shakes her head and takes another sip of water, then plows ahead. “You were always so afraid of being trampy, like your mother . . .”
At least she gets a smile out of me on that one; my mother may sleep around, but she is still one of the most elegant, sophisticated women on the planet—the idea of her ever being something as pedestrian as trampy cheers me right up. The martinis arrive, and we both take a happy sip.
Vivian continues apace. “It’s just sex, Miki.” She looks down toward her purse as if the French pirate is curled up in there for real, then looks back at me. “I imagine it was pretty great sex. But seriously? That is not the stuff that dreams are made of, sister. That’s the stuff of bad gossip rags and splotchy makeup behind too-big sunglasses snapped as you’re whisked away in the back of a darkened limousine.”
“God. You are so in the right business. Listen to you. The drama.”
“What?” She takes another sip of her vodka and looks all innocent.
“It’s all a big story to you.”
“Look, it’s always a story. If you tell yourself the story long enough, it usually becomes true. If you are in there”—she swirls her hand toward my forehead—“telling yourself that maybe, juuuust maybe, it could be all unicorns and moonbeams with this guy, you will start to believe it. You can pussyfoot around all you want, but hear me now. Rome de Villiers is a wild man. He is the quintessential rake. He is not husband material. This thing with the Somali woman is just the latest in a string of engagements, I’m sure.”
“You think?” I ask hopefully, the martini making me forget that I’m supposed to be getting over the guy, not having some dreamy fantasy about him falling madly in love with me after our one night in Russia.
Vivian scowls at me like I am the stupidest ingenue on the planet.
“Right,” I say with renewed confidence. “He is totally ridiculous. Not even worth talking about. It was nothing.”
I’m a bit shifty-eyed as I take a healthy slug of liquor to strengthen my resolve. I have the conviction (albeit fleeting) that Rome is my good, good friend and he needs my protection. Am I not allowed to feel slightly protective about my new, good friend?
“Oh. My. God.” Vivian is the picture of sisterly despair. “This is ten times worse than wild monkey sex in Saint Petersburg. You’re actually thinking this could mean something?” Viv drains her martini and nearly kicks the poor waiter in the shin as he passes. “Again,” she says, without looking up.
He nods quickly and scurries off.
“I’m a big girl. It was just a fling, nothing life-altering.” Okay. That’s probably a lie.
Now she has her arms crossed and is kicking her pointy high heel in an impatient motion again. “Stop,” she orders.
“What?”
“Just stop. I won’t bring it up again. I can tell that talking about it just puts it back into the realm of possibility for you.”
I take a big sip to finish the first martini just as the second round arrives. I feel better already. Warm and safe. With my best friend. My real best friend. Not my imaginary new best sex friend who is engaged to someone else. My real friend who will be logical and talk me out of these tiny, incipient fragments of hope that—she is right—I have been harboring since he drove away from me on that cool morning on Nevsky Prospect after typing his number in my phone.
“Okay,” I say, fortified. “Let me have it. You left off at rake. I want a complete character assassination. Go!”
At first her insults are like lashes against sensitive skin, but I feel myself hardening as I accept the truth.
“He’s a horrible misogynist. He sleeps with every woman he lays eyes on. He’s filthy rich, and who knows how he really got all that money? He’s probably involved with the Russian Mob and arms dealers—”
“Now, now,” I interrupt. “He can’t be a paragon of Human Rights Watch and a duplicitous, money-grubbing arms dealer. I’m not giving you that one. Go back to the misogyny.”
We both feel the effects of two martinis too fast on an empty stomach, and we both warm to the task of discrediting de Villiers. By the end of lunch, I am too buzzed to drive and I decide to reschedule my afternoon meeting with one of my colleagues at USC. Vivian’s driver takes me home in my car, and I collapse into bed at four in the afternoon and sleep straight through until Tuesday morning.
I awake refreshed, rejuvenated, and entirely over the rat bastard Jérôme Michel de Villiers. I go in to work and try to mind my own business.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I admit I’ve been a bit out of it at work. I was jet-lagged after Russia, then distracted by Landon and everything. Voyanovski is taking up a huge part of my time and energy, but when I get called into the department head’s office a week later and see the academic dean of the entire university also sitting there, I snap to attention.
“Bill. Sanjay.” I look at both men in turn, then sit down. I smile brightly as I speak. Neither returns my chipper tone, or even fakes it.
“Here’s the thing, Mikhaila.” No preamble, either. “You’re really good at what you do, and we were really close to offering you the tenure-track position. But, after much consideration, we finally decided to go with Andrew instead.”
Were really close? Past tense? Andrew? Who the hell is Andrew? And what does Sanjay mean by really close to offering? Before I left for Russia—when I asked if it was okay for me to be away for two weeks this close to the final decision-making phase—Sanjay used the words in the bag.
In.
The.
Bag.
“Gentlemen,” I begin with genuine assurance, “I think there must be some mistake. I’m the most qualified person in this field, not just here at USC, but in the state of California. I have the most published papers—”
Bill, the department head, holds up his hand to silence me.
My voice peters out.
“Mikhaila. Not that we’re under any obligation to relay to any applicant the nature of our praise or misgivings, but I will do you the courtesy. You’re uninspired.”
I am dumbstruck. Uninspired? What does that have to do with anything? I strive to be uninspired. I am
ambitiously uninspired! “Bill,” I say carefully, “the type of statistical analysis for which I’ve developed a keen understanding and excellent reputation does not benefit from inspiration. What are you even talking about?”
He stares down at his single manila folder. He is staring down at my rapidly telescoping future, I think lamely. Then he looks up. “You’ve just proven my point. Again, only because I truly believe you show great promise in this field, I’m telling you to take a few months or even a year off and rediscover what fires your creativity. Whatever it is, it will inform your academic performance. Until then, Sanjay supports my decision to keep you on salary as an associate professor. We will review your potential tenure status in one year’s time.”
I am beyond speech. I have spent months preparing a grant application for the upcoming five years and am awaiting only Sanjay’s signature to send it in. The bastard is probably stealing my entire thesis. I stand too quickly, and both men jerk up their heads to follow the unexpected movement. Everything seems so obvious all of a sudden. For so long, I have been clinging to all these ideas of what my life should look like, when the reality can be so much brighter than any idea. Voyanovski Industries is real! I don’t need to live in this shadowy world of academia, tamping myself down all the time. The real thing is right there for the taking, and I’ve spent enough time trying to shoehorn myself into this life. I want that other life! I want to go to my friend’s wedding in the South of France! I want to run my father’s company! I want Rome—
Well, I skip over that last part and toss my long blond ponytail over my right shoulder, take a deep breath, and then almost laugh as I say, “I quit.”
I’m not even doing it out of spite. It feels glorious! I’m not just quitting USC; I’m quitting my entire habit of living life on a Habitrail. These two men have unwittingly shone the light on this golden opportunity. I can actually choose to stop running away from my father’s company and admit that it’s what I really want to do.
