The Queen of Hearts

by Kimmery Martin

  “I never really noticed they’re all facing toward the moth—” I began, then stopped. “Wait. Where’s Emma?”

  A search ensued. It really was very crowded here; we’d had no idea when we left the house for the Arts Ball that uptown would be overrun by costumed millennials. Drew, in an effort to avoid valeting at the Ritz, had insisted on parking in his personal space at Elwood Capital, but the garage turned out to be crammed with illicit vehicles, thereby necessitating a long slog from another parking structure farther away. I was fairly certain the Halloween frolickers must have come as a surprise to Hattie McGuire, too, since she and Reg were about as hip as dentures. But some advance warning would have been helpful, since strolling multiple city blocks in four-inch Jimmy Choos was a serious commitment.

  We located Emma. She’d been waylaid a block back by some LGBTers who were convinced, probably because of her staggering height, that she was a man in drag. “. . . and I couldn’t look that fantastically dewy if I had a hyperbaric chamber in my boudoir,” one was gushing in admiration.

  “Darling,” Wyatt said, bestowing a fabulous air kiss on Emma, who looked petrified, “I hate to tear you away from your people, but we really must scoot.”

  “What’s he got that I haven’t?” the person muttered as we strode (limped) away.

  “Buckets of money,” Wyatt called back over his shoulder. “Obviously.”

  The Arts Ball, when we finally reached it, was worth the walk. Outside the hotel the tuxedoed and gowned couples formed a sinuous line snaking from the covered entrance all the way down the block. The theme this year was “Pompeii and Herculaneum,” so all along the line there were servants in tunics waving gigantic palm-frond fans over the partygoers as they inched toward a fantastic fifteen-foot-high volcano at the entrance. Roman aqueducts defined the borders of the line, with running water gushing into two lush pools representing the famed Roman bathhouses.

  The line slowly advanced. A photographer dressed as Pliny the Elder stopped each couple as they neared the volcano to snap a photo for the local society magazine. “Friends, Romans, countrymen, give me a smile,” called Pliny, his camera flashing well before we had a chance to rearrange our startled faces.

  We reached the volcanic entrance. The twenty-eight members of the Arts Council board clustered around the doors, clad in togas—not a universally flattering look, especially on hairy older businessmen—handing out small gold bags stuffed with gift certificates to upscale restaurants, boutiques, and sports venues. Wyatt peered into his. “Acceptable,” he pronounced.

  We stepped into the hotel lobby, where more togas materialized with glasses of champagne and wordlessly ushered us to a tucked-away set of elevators. There was a backlog here, naturally, so we trudged up the stairs to the fourth floor—Emma and I grimacing with every step—until we reached a vast glass atrium sandwiched between buildings. The interior had been transformed by rows of roofless columned buildings representing the ruins of Pompeii, and an even larger volcano jutted out from the elevated stage on the loftlike area at the rear of the space, this one spewing some kind of red bubbles. We gaped.

  “Who has the time to build this stuff?” wondered Drew, accepting a miniature crab cake from a passing tray.

  Next to Drew, who had femurs of NBA quality, Wyatt looked like a chubby fifth grader. He waved off a group of elegant beauties from the club who were beckoning him to the dance floor.

  “Because I’m African-American,” he commented, “everyone makes two assumptions, only one of which is correct: that I can boogie and that I’m hung like a forty-ounce beer can.”

  I fell for it. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you dance,” I mused.

  Wyatt lowered his chin and made meaningful eye contact. “That’s because I’m an appalling dancer,” he said.

  Emma rolled her eyes and dragged him off, both of them returning a moment later with glasses of champagne. She handed one to me and clinked hers against it. “Thank you for talking to Boyd,” she whispered. “For the first time in months, I think I might survive this.”

  Optimism suffused me along with the alcohol as I downed my glass. “It’s going to get better,” I said. “I feel good about next week. This could be over.”

  A tiny cloud passed over Emma’s face at my injudicious words. I could read her mind: It will never be over. Before I could speak, she took a decorous sip of her drink, but then abruptly upended her glass, guzzling the champagne in one swoop. “Wow,” she said, reeling a little. “Wow, wow.” I burst into laughter.

  Along the far wall of the atrium there was a table with place cards and, next to that, a bar. We meandered in that direction, but progress was slow, since all four of us were stopped repeatedly by effusive greetings from other partygoers. All the women looked lovely. I had managed to score in the dress department: I’d found a spectacular vintage Chanel at Design to Consign, and even though there was a nearly one hundred percent chance somebody here was going to recognize me as a dress consignee, I didn’t care. I wasn’t likely to rewear this one, and I wasn’t going to spend a fortune on something I’d only don once. It was a champagne strapless gown blending almost perfectly with my leonine hair. At home, getting ready, I’d had that elusive sense of pleasure that comes with feeling beautiful: the dress complemented my curves, somehow managing to make me feel both light as air and voluptuous; aside from my tortured feet, I was ready to dance all night.

  Emma wore a skintight rose-colored dress. She looked stunning, but she didn’t appear to know or care. Her sleek blond hair was pinned back, showing off her lovely cheekbones and her aqua eyes, and her full lips were a glistening pale pink. Her heels lofted her to well over six feet tall, dwarfing Wyatt, who declared he didn’t mind: “It is hard,” he observed to Drew, “to object to finding oneself smack-dab at breast height.”

  “Yep,” agreed Drew, grabbing another appetizer.

  I reviewed our table card with interest. The hostesses at these things generally alternated males and females, so you never knew what kind of random conversation would result. So: Blake Porcher; Emma; Buzzy Cooper; me; Jack Inman, who was Emma’s lecherous partner; Caroline Cooper, who had finally mailed me a dry card of thanks for my role in Buzzy’s resuscitation; Wyatt; Tricia Inman, Jack’s beleaguered wife; Drew; and my partner, Mary Sarah. Hattie must have found it amusing to seat the Coopers at a table with Buzzy’s erstwhile surgeons, probably figuring it would generate some lively discussion.

  I looked around. Ancient Rome sprang to life in the elaborate table decor. The chargers were golden coins, expanded to plate size, graced by profiles of some gent with an aggressive nose. The candles rested on Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian pillars made of real plaster. Each place setting offered another beautifully wrapped freebie: gold-plated bracelets made of interlocking Roman numerals for the ladies and similar cuff links for the men. The whole thing reeked of decadent expenditure. Clearly Reginald, who was even more parsimonious than Drew, had not been consulted.

  The party roared around us. Alcohol flowed in rivers out of the open bar, everyone chugging down premium labels with abandon. I wandered outside to a pleasant flower-filled balcony and found myself knocking back bourbon as if I were back in my Louisville school days, which brought on a sudden memory of my friends: fiery Georgia, intemperate and gregarious, now living in Charleston, with a thriving urology practice (of all things!); Hannah, an ob-gyn in California, sweet and maternal, ironically cursed with infertility; and the guys, Rolfe and Landley. Rolfe was a cardiologist, still living in Louisville, but to everyone’s shock, Landley had barged out of the closet after residency and was a nationally renowned ophthalmologist whose husband was a B-list Hollywood actor currently playing the role of a serial killer. Their Christmas card this year featured a bloodshot eye gazing upon a partially opened door with some lacerated limbs hanging out, which stuck out like a humungous pimple on a cover model when I’d hung it alongside the wholesome happy family
cards from everyone else.

  Lost in this reverie—it was somehow sad thinking of my friends as serious adults when they’d once been so cheerfully stupid—I realized I must have missed the call to be seated for dinner; the people around me had all dispersed. Okay: nothing awkward at all about standing by yourself pounding a bourbon and looking wistful.

  I pivoted toward my table and smacked into someone, knocking my drink and spilling the remainder onto the front of my dress. I stifled a curse, and started to apologize.

  “I cannot believe it,” the someone said, his voice instantly, achingly familiar. “You are still—literally—running into men?”

  I looked first at his shoes—black, Italian, very nice—my eyes traveling reluctantly up; long legs, trim waist, NFL-quality shoulders encased in a crisp tuxedo, chalky white predatory smile set in a square jaw that made me want to touch it. Even the skin on his face—faintly golden, faintly stubbled, rent with laugh lines—was at once dear and also repellent, sweeping me up in a vortex of incompatible emotions. Maybe I could satisfy both desires by smacking him.

  “Nick,” I said, feeling heat zoom into my face.

  “Damn,” he said in a low voice. “Zadie. I got your e-mail.”

  “Huh?” I said, and then realized what he meant: he had my e-mail address. He’d sent me a couple of e-mails after I’d ignored his ridiculous chocolate delivery, but I had marked these messages as junk mail, unread.

  “I’ve been hoping you’d change your mind about meeting me,” he said, keeping his gaze steady on mine. “Did you enjoy the chocolate?”

  “Yes,” I said evenly. This had to happen eventually, I told myself. Be polite. Be brief.

  The way he looked at me was unsettling: a rapacious gaze, too familiar, still somehow electrifying after the passage of years. Some people seem to rearrange the air around them when they enter a room, subtly altering the atmosphere until it bends to their will; it was hard to resist having the focus of such a person beamed onto you. Call them charismatic, or compelling, but the end result was these people had the ability to draw you in.

  Despite all that, and despite the undeniable, indefinable sexual pull toward him I’d always felt, I told myself to sprint for the nearest exit. I was older; my life had irrevocably changed. My younger self had thrived on intensity, but now I knew the bottomless, elementary pull of love for my husband and children. I should no longer want to be consumed by the sun when I could bask safely in the glow of the moon.

  Nick was talking, probably sensing this conversation was going to be short-lived. He walked as he spoke, and I followed him. “It’s hard to believe,” he said, “that you are a married mother.”

  “Well, believe it,” I said. “I have a million kids.”

  “You’re still very beautiful,” he said, in a careful, benign tone.

  Best to ignore this. “Do you?” I asked.

  “Do I what?”

  “Do you have children?”

  He looked rueful. “I had a stepchild,” he said. “I didn’t see him much, though.”

  “Did you want children of your own?” Why had I asked that?

  “I didn’t think so,” he said, answering with surprising slowness. “I don’t know; maybe that was a mistake. Never thought I’d be a good father. But now that I’m alone . . .” He shrugged. “Look, Zadie, I don’t know how many chances I’ll have to say this, so I’d better seize the moment. I’ve thought about you a lot over the years. A lot more than you’d believe. From the perspective of someone who’s in his forties, I look back and wonder why I treated you the way I did. I was narcissistic. I was greedy; there are a lot of bad adjectives for me in that phase of life, and I seem to remember”—he smiled—“you applying most of them very creatively toward me there at the end. But”—serious again—“Zadie, I failed to realize how unusual it was, what we had.”

  This was coming more than a decade too late. And it was inappropriate. Impossible not to listen to, however.

  “So,” he said, bowing his gilded head, “for what it’s worth: I’m sorry.”

  “Oh,” I breathed, flummoxed. But whatever response I would have given would forever remain a mystery, because at that moment, over the ringing of some kind of a dinner gong, a voice said, “There you are.”

  I turned. It was Emma.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  CROSSING THE RUBICON

  Emma, Present Day

  The Arts Ball was off to a reasonable start, considering I hadn’t wanted to come. But an unfamiliar feeling had been sweeping through me since the conversation with the Packards this morning at the gym, and since my reverie about Graham after that. It took me a while to recognize it, since it had been such a long time since I’d felt anything positive.

  It was exhilaration.

  Long-dormant endorphins swirled in my brain, flooding me with an alertness I could hardly believe. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to hope, but I couldn’t help it; even a tiny relief from worry felt so enjoyable I surpassed hope and proceeded to actual pleasure.

  I was having fun.

  Maybe Boyd and Betsy would hear my side of things and reject me after all. Maybe the technical explanation of how this could happen, coupled with my vast and sincere contrition, would not be enough. Maybe even Zadie would not be able to persuade them. But even so, I was somewhat freed from the self-loathing and fear that had buried me for months. Just the idea that they’d listen to me—the idea that I could say I was sorry—was a relief.

  I threw back my drink. I was normally very careful about what I ate and drank. I had no background in oncology, or even internal medicine, beyond what we had all learned in medical school, but I believed modern processed diets were chock-full of poorly understood carcinogens, in addition to all the usual artery-clogging fat-bombs. And alcohol: half the interpersonal problems in the world could be attributed to alcohol. Besides, it was in my nature to be disciplined.

  But tonight I was scarfing down everything they handed to me.

  I glanced across the table at Wyatt. I could hear his voice over the din. Flushed and animated, eyebrows raised and both palms extended, he was telling some story from his workweek. He was seated between Caroline Cooper and Tricia Inman, who both tended to be humorless dullards, but even they were unable to resist Wyatt’s charm. He was slaying them. Both of them had thrown their heads back in full-on helpless laughter.

  It was miserable to think of a Wyatt-less world. Right away I would regress back into an uptight iCalendar slave, responding to its pings like a well-programmed fembot. There would be no one to force me to unwind with a glass of wine and a dinner full of bright, charming witticisms having nothing to do with the medical world. There would be no one to stroke my head and listen when things were bad, no one to break into my narrative of woe with outraged denunciations of my enemies. And Henry! The thought of never again seeing his urgent, ecstatic waddle to the mudroom every afternoon at the sound of his father’s car was heartbreaking. How long would it be until he forgot he ever had a parent who changed his voice for every character in a book, who pretended every morning that he’d forgotten how to get dressed without Henry’s help? How long would it be before he forgot a parent could be fun?

  I helped myself to another drink, watching the women at the table as they watched Wyatt.

  The servers were clearing the salad plates. On my other side, the men were leaning toward one another, embroiled in a heated discussion about somebody’s golf score.

  “Drew,” I interrupted, leaning in his direction. “Do you know where Zadie is?”

  “I think I saw her talking to some guy outside,” he said.

  “Oh?” I asked, forcing a casual note into my voice. “What does he look like?”

  Drew shrugged. “He’s tall?” he offered. “Light hair. Kind of intense.” He returned his attention to Buzzy’s booming, boorish voice.

  I
pushed back my chair without a word and hurried to the atrium, trying not to feel Wyatt’s perceptive gaze at my back. She wasn’t there. Ditto for the coat check area, the bar, and the hotel lobby. I finally found them outside, standing near a bench in an enclosed and deserted courtyard beyond the atrium.

  —

  “Zadie,” I said, and nearly lost my balance as I shuddered to a stop.

  “Oho,” said Nick, his handsome face rendered almost ugly as he caught sight of me. “It’s the trauma queen.” He’d abandoned his initial attempts at reconciliation in the face of my hostility; this was an expression I’d grown used to, as he’d evidently begun to wonder why my enmity toward him had not lessened.

  My self-possession kicked in. “Hello, Nick,” I said coolly. I turned my back to him, and lied. “Zadie, Drew was wondering where you are.”

  “I’m comin—”

  “She’s going to be busy for a few minutes more, Emma. Can you make an excuse for her?” Nick smiled at me, but his eyes were furious. It took me a minute to remember how hard I’d had to work to stop him from going to Zadie’s office last week. I’d ultimately had to pull a weapon from my arsenal of the past: e-mail. I hated impersonating her. But Nick was mistaken if he thought he’d coast into my world and threaten my most treasured friendship without me fighting back. I had to separate them.

  “I’m not making excuses for Zadie, as she’s coming with me. Nice seeing you, Nick.”

  “You really don’t want to get into a pissing contest with me here, Emma,” Nick growled, abandoning his fake smile. “Once you’ve crossed the Rubicon, you can’t ever turn back.”

  I faltered, taken aback by Nick’s use of the esoteric metaphor I often reserved in my mind for our initial encounter in med school. But then I forged ahead. I’d already crossed that river, more than a decade ago.

  “Fuck you, Nick,” I said. “We’re leaving.”

  “Fuck me? Fuck me? Why don’t—”