I couldn’t picture Ned ever being that considerate, but I was glad he was. “I guess that explains why Jack bought the house across the street from you,” I said.
Kitty nodded. “Jack was planning to get married—”
“He told me about that.”
“—and he and Ned thought it would be nice to raise their families close by. Things haven’t quite worked out that way yet,” she said with a forced laugh. “But anyway … why didn’t you tell Jack who you are?”
“Because it didn’t belong on a first date,” I said.
She nodded slowly as I swiveled in my chair. “Okay. All right. I get it. So let’s drop the subject for now … but I meant what I said. You and Ned have to learn to get along.”
Like that would ever happen. “Gorgeous necklace,” I said to change the subject.
“Thank you. It’s an early birthday gift from my miserable husband.”
I gulped. I just couldn’t get away from him. “When’s your birthday?”
“This weekend,” she said. “My parents are hosting a party for me at their summer home in East Hampton … on Saturday at seven. I was planning to invite you, and even after what happened this morning, I still hope you’ll come. You can bring your friend Tina as your plus one again. It’ll be casual attire, so something like a sundress would be fine. And no gifts, please.”
I tapped my fingers on my thigh. “I’d like to come, Kitty … but I doubt I’m welcome anyplace Ned will be. And he told me not to bring Tina around anymore.”
She walked toward the doorway. “Both of you are welcome,” she said. “Ned doesn’t make all the rules.”
Later, she gave me a monogrammed invitation printed on ritzy stationery, but I held off on my RSVP. I didn’t want to think about the party or Ned or the disappointed look on Jack’s face. I focused on my work, and I was feeling proud of myself when Kitty left at five and I’d finished everything on my to-do list. I left a research memo in her office, went back to my cubicle to pick up my purse, and answered the phone when it rang.
“I need you upstairs,” said a nasal voice.
My eyes shot toward the caller ID: Caroline Stone. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t you understand English? I … need … you … upstairs,” she said slowly, like I was dim-witted. “My assistant had to leave, and there’s a mountain of filing to be done.”
She had to be kidding. I was ready to pass out. I wanted to go home and nurse my wounds with the most fattening and sugar-filled ice cream available. “Then I guess your assistant will be busy when she returns,” I said.
“Or you’ll be unemployed. Make up your mind.”
I was trapped, and I was sure Caroline loved it. She probably savored and relished and ate it up like candy. “I’m sure what happened with Jackson Lucas this morning has absolutely nothing to do with this.”
“Jack,” she said musingly. “Oh, yes … I believe my brother mentioned you put out for his best friend on your first date.”
“Ned’s a liar,” I said. “And at least I can get a first date.”
That was harsh. I didn’t care. It shut her up, but not for long.
“Your work is waiting,” she said. “I’m on my way to Gramercy Tavern, so Ainsley will show you what to do before she leaves for the night. Get it done or don’t come back tomorrow.”
She slammed down the phone so hard that it made my ear buzz. I kicked the side of my desk and threw my purse onto my chair, wishing there weren’t a few other people working overtime, so I could scream and possibly destroy something expensive. Instead I just stomped toward the lobby, where I waited for an elevator while I texted Tina so she’d know I was going to be home late. Then I called Tony to tell him I’d take a cab tonight.
“I’m on my way to Gramercy Tavern,” I muttered as I dropped my phone into my purse. I was sure Caroline would stuff her face with fine dining while I ate stale Doritos from the vending machine.
Her office was empty when I went past. So was Ned’s, but a lamp on his desk was on and his blazer was draped over his chair. I found Ainsley waiting for me down the hall, and she led me to a conference room that had walls made of mahogany wood and brass lamps in every corner. There was also a long shellacked table covered with stacks of documents.
“Here’s our challenge,” she said, tucking her bob behind her ears.
I dropped my purse on the floor with a thud. “I object to your word choice.”
“Oh, this project isn’t so bad. I’ll give you a hand.”
“No,” I said. “I appreciate the offer, but you should leave. It’s late.”
She checked her watch. “It’s only just after five. I don’t usually leave before eight. Ned always has something for me to do, and I never refuse because he’ll be a valuable reference when I job-hunt after I graduate. He’s already promised to say the most glowing things about me. Come on … the sooner we get started, the faster we’ll finish.”
Her positivity was a weird mix of annoying and admirable. She said the documents belonged in a file room two floors below, so we loaded everything into boxes and made multiple trips before we started sticking papers into folders. We’d been slaving for three hours when I noticed that Ainsley’s eyes had gone glassy.
“What time did you come to work this morning?” I asked as I stood beside a filing cabinet and she sat on the floor with her legs crossed under her skirt and a folder on her lap.
“Six,” she said, carefully placing two metal prongs through a hole-punched contract. “Or maybe five thirty … I’m not exactly sure.”
I reached down and swiped the folder. “Go home. You’ve done enough.”
She put up a fight, but I pushed her out of the room and onto an elevator. Then I went back to finish the job, which took until ten thirty. By then, my neck ached and I couldn’t wait to go home. I’d left my purse in the conference room upstairs, so I rode the elevator to the corporate division and walked past empty offices with open doors and vacuum cleaner lines on the carpets. Ned’s door was the only one shut, and there was a strip of light underneath. I got my purse from the conference room and passed his office again on my way back to the elevators. I was a few feet away when I heard a crash.
I backed up and opened Ned’s door. A broken lamp was lying on the floor and Darcelle Conrad was on the desk, her blond hair dangling from the edge. Her skirt was pushed to her stomach, her blouse was open, and Ned was on top of her with his shirttails hanging out and the waist of his pants around his knees.
“Jesus Christ,” escaped my mouth.
Darcelle’s lips were on Ned’s. Her eyes opened and her hand sprang to her blouse, which she clutched to cover her naked chest. He looked over his shoulder at me; I spun around and dashed into the corridor, hearing commotion as I hurried away—Darcelle’s anxious voice, Ned angrily shushing her, his office door banging shut. I sped up when I heard his footsteps rushing in my direction and turned to find him zipping his pants.
I didn’t need to see that. I cringed and shifted my eyes toward the lobby, where a lady pushing a cart filled with cleaning supplies seemed to be getting ready to leave. Just tell Kitty I hope she feels better real soon, Darcelle had said when I ran into her in the elevator, and now I knew she was even phonier than her hair.
Ned grabbed my arm and twisted me around. The space between his nose and his mouth glistened with sweat, and his upper lip curled into a sneer. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Caroline had the bright idea to make me work all night,” I said.
“That was my idea. But you were supposed to be downstairs.”
“Why?” I said. “So I wouldn’t know you’re screwing your wife’s friend?”
His eyes shot toward the woman in the lobby, who was now pressing an elevator button on the wall. Then he shoved me into an empty office with tall windows that overlooked the city. “I guess you think you’ve got me now, don’t you?” he growled as he knocked the door closed with his foot. “Is that what you think, Savannah?”
I y
anked my arm free and perched my hands on my hips. “How do you do it?” I asked. “How does a pompous sleaze like you get two beautiful, accomplished women to fall into your trap?”
“I don’t know,” he said, rubbing his cleft chin. “Maybe it’s my good looks and my big—”
“Name? That’s what you meant, right? If not, I’ll puke on your overpriced shoes.”
He took a step back and gave me a smug smile. “Actually, that isn’t what I meant.”
I shook my head and raised my voice. “I was right this morning when I said you were disgusting. You’re also an unbelievable hypocrite. You tried to humiliate me at Jack’s house when I’d done nothing, when all the while you’re whoring around on Kitty. You don’t even have the decency not to do it right under her nose.”
“What I do,” he said, drying his upper lip with his sleeve, “is none of your business.”
“But it is Kitty’s business. From the moment I met her, I knew she was too good for you. Thanks for the confirmation.”
He smoothed his crinkled shirt. “She loves me,” he said.
“She loves a phony version of you that you’ve tricked her into believing is real. And what do you love about her, Ned? Is it just her parents’ tax bracket?”
He stared at me. Then he took another step backward to sit leisurely on the edge of a desk. “You think you’ve got it all figured out. So what’s your next move? Are you going to tell Kitty about me and Darcelle?”
“Of course I will. She deserves to know what’s going on.”
He crossed his long legs at the ankles. “Is that what she deserves? Does Kitty deserve to know that one of her oldest friends has been hooking up with her husband? You’re probably not aware of this, but my wife and I have been trying to have children … with no success.”
“I’m aware. She told me about the IVF. But what’s that got to do with anything?”
Ned twisted his wedding ring. “It has everything to do with it. You don’t know what she’s endured … the hospitals, the letdowns, the nights she couldn’t stop crying. She’s gone through months of therapy, and she’s only started to feel better over the past few weeks. So if you tell her just to spite me, you’ll end up sending her right back to the emotional wreck she was. And I don’t want that. Do you?”
Of course he had to complicate everything. Even worse, he made the tiniest shred of sense. “No,” I said. “But I can’t let her live a lie. She should know who you really are.”
His jaw hardened. “Then tell her. Darcelle and I will say you’re making the whole thing up … and Kitty won’t doubt us.”
“Don’t count on that,” I said. “She seems fair and objective.”
“Even so … whose word means more? Her husband and her friend’s, or somebody she hardly knows? You made your opinion of me quite public today, which will be all the more reason for her to think you’re lying. She’ll think you’re trying to get back at me because I stood in the way of your little crush on Jack. Didn’t you learn anything this morning? He didn’t believe you, so why would she?”
I wished I could push him through the window and watch him splatter on the sidewalk fifty floors below. “You’re a sick son of a bitch, Ned.”
He slid off the desk and straightened up. “Maybe,” he said. “But you should give what I told you some serious thought. You’ve probably got the sense to know I’m right. Despite what you might think based on what you saw here tonight, Kitty and I have a good marriage.”
I shook my head. “It only appears that way … because of what Kitty hasn’t seen.”
“Savannah,” he said, “marriage is more complicated than you seem to realize. And believe it or not, Kitty is very happy with me. So do the right thing and don’t try to destroy that.”
Thirteen
My apartment was dark, but a blow-dryer was humming in the guest bathroom. I tossed my keys and my purse onto a table, walked down the dim hall, and passed Tina’s bedroom. Kyle the bartender was inside, sleeping facedown with his arm hanging off the mattress and his knuckles skimming the floor.
Was the moon full tonight? I was running into sex everywhere. I shook my head, went to Tina’s bathroom, and opened the door. She was standing at the counter in a skimpy negligee made of lilac lace, looking in the mirror and styling her hair. The air was steamy from the shower as I shut the door, walked past her, and sat on the edge of the tub.
“A little soon, isn’t it?” I asked, jerking my thumb toward her bedroom.
She fingered the silky bow around her narrow waist. “Don’t be mad, Savannah. I know this is your apartment, but I didn’t think you’d mind if I—”
“It’s not that. This is your apartment, too. What I mean is that letting a man into your bed forty-eight hours after meeting him is a bad idea. It’s never ended well for you.”
She slammed her comb onto the counter. “He’s a nice guy. Don’t ruin this.”
“I’m not ruining anything. I’m being sensible. I don’t want you to get used again.”
“Nobody ever uses me,” she said in her toughest voice, as if that would make it true.
I rubbed my aching neck. “Just take care of yourself, Tina. I worry about you.”
She stared at me for a long moment before cinching the bow snugly around her waist. “I know,” she said as my eyes moved toward a snuffed-out Marlboro Light in an empty soap dish beside the sink.
I glared at her. “I thought you weren’t going to smoke in the apartment.”
She let out a nervous giggle. “The bathroom counts?”
“You know it does.”
She picked up the soap dish and dumped the cigarette butt into the toilet. “Won’t happen again,” she said, and quickly changed the subject. “Guess what? I got an interview for a job at a homeless shelter on West Forty-first. It’s at eleven thirty tomorrow. Maybe I can convince them that I’d be helpful there. I’m not as useless as everybody thinks.”
“I don’t think you’re useless, and you know that. They’d be lucky to have you.”
She scrunched her mouth into one corner. “How was your day?” she asked while she absentmindedly organized her makeup. “Did it improve?”
“It got worse,” I said, and then she joined me on the bathtub rim, where I told her about what I’d seen in Ned’s office and his attempt to manipulate me. “I’m not sure what to do.”
“Rat him out to Kitty,” Tina said decidedly as she crossed her legs.
“She might not believe me. Ned was right about that.”
Tina shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe he wasn’t. And if you’re her friend, you won’t keep this from her. A real friend always tells the truth.”
“Yes,” I said, “a real friend always does.”
She shifted uneasily and said she was going to sleep. She went to her bedroom and I went to mine, where I peeled off my suit and sprawled out on my bed and didn’t open my eyes until the next day, when I heard garbage trucks on the street and pots and pans clanging in the kitchen.
“Good morning,” Tina said as I stood in the doorway and she scrambled eggs on the stove while Miranda Lambert blared from the radio. Kyle was sitting at the table, all blond hair and tan skin and muscles beneath a shirt that said Baruch College. “Want something to eat?”
I nodded, watching her sing with the music and cheerfully add pepper to the eggs like she was a stay-at-home mom jacked up on Prozac. I slid into a chair beside Kyle and leaned toward his ear. “I’m warning you,” I whispered, “don’t do her wrong.”
He edged his chair away from me as Tina glided to the table with a pan in her hands, and then she spooned breakfast onto our plates while I prayed that Kyle wouldn’t erase her smile.
*
I sat at my desk an hour later, trying to read but seeing nothing except Ned and Darcelle devouring each other on that desk. I’d always felt sick at the thought of Jamie and Eva Lee doing the same thing, but that didn’t seem as grotesque in comparison. At least they weren’t breaking vows.
My phone buzzed. “Savannah,” Kitty said through the speaker. “Come in here, please.”
My knees were wobbly when I stood up from my chair, but I steeled myself as I walked toward Kitty’s office, trying to find the best way to tell her about Ned and convincing myself that I was doing the right thing. I couldn’t let her continue to be deceived by a philandering man-whore, could I?
I adjusted the lapels on my blazer and walked through the doorway. Kitty was behind her desk, and on top of it sat a vase filled with peonies.
“Like the flowers?” she asked with a radiant smile. She was in a teal dress, her hair was pinned up, and her deep brown eyes glimmered. “They’re from Ned.”
He’d gotten to her first, but I should have expected that. “Of course they are,” I said flatly. “I mean … are they another early birthday gift?”
She shook her head and stroked the diamond circle dangling from her neck. “They’re a congratulations present. I scored an interview with a top politician … I can’t tell you her name because the interview isn’t official yet, but trust me … it’s in the bag. Anyway,” she said, leaning back in her chair, “it’ll be good for Femme, and I’m so happy,” she said as I sat opposite her. “You know … this time last year, I was a disaster. But now…” She looked out her window and smiled at Manhattan. “Everything’s gotten better … and it’s so funny how things change, isn’t it?”
I kept my eyes on her while she admired skyscrapers and smokestacks and puffs of white clouds in the blue summer sky. “Yes,” I said, “it is.”
She looked at me. “Forgive me for babbling. So … you’re coming to my party, right? It’ll be perfect if you’re there. You can’t ruin perfect.”
*
I left Kitty’s office without letting her know about Ned because she was right—I couldn’t ruin what she mistook for perfect. But I wanted to kill Ned for backing me into a corner, sticking me in the middle of a sordid mess, and turning me into a con artist. I hadn’t lied, but hiding the truth was just as bad and maybe worse.
“Where is he?” I asked Ned’s drab secretary five minutes later.
She pointed toward the conference room where Ainsley and I had been last night. I marched down the hall, opened the door, and found Ned sitting at the head of the long table like a king, surrounded by dark walls and glowing lamps. His head was bent over a thick document, and he was scrawling notes in its margins with a silver pen.
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