The Wicked City: A stunning love story set in the roaring twenties

by Beatriz Williams

  THEY’D HAD SEX ON THE very first date. Not because she’d fallen headlong in love over the course of chicken saltimbocca and a decent Sangiovese at some red-sauce Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side, but because Ella was young and inexperienced and Patrick had that natural ability to close a deal. She’d met him a week earlier at work, back when Patrick was finishing his analyst gig at JP Morgan, and her firm had been called in to sort out a mess. A little flirting led to an invitation for the following Saturday. He was handsome and smart and engaging, wore the invisible coating of a man who was going places. She said yes. After dinner and a long walk, they went to his apartment and discovered a rapport. Some common interests, a shared affinity for numbers and puzzles. Started kissing on the sofa. Ella got caught up in the excitement and forgot she was supposed to hold back on a first date.

  The sex itself was short and unremarkable, which she always regretted. Shouldn’t your first sex with your future husband be monumental? Shouldn’t you experience every moment, every kiss and touch and lunge, with the consciousness that you were having sex with the last person you’d ever have sex with? Wow, that was amazing, Patrick had said, rolling away and shucking off the condom, heading for the bathroom, and Ella lay there and thought, That was quick. But instead of shooing her home, he came back to bed and said—toying with her hair, sizing up her breasts in his palms—Who knew you were such a hot package, sweet Ella Dommerich from Parkinson Peters? They got to talking, had sex again, and within a couple of weeks they were calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend. And then May arrived, and they were officially in love. The sex got much better, sometimes seriously hot, before it slid inevitably into a certain territory of staleness and routine, reinvigorated occasionally by weekend trips to luxury resorts, but maybe more satisfying for its very predictability. At least Ella had thought so. Clearly, Patrick had not.

  “LOOK,” PATRICK SAID EARNESTLY, SWITCHING into deal-closing mode, “you can’t just ignore this forever. We’re married. We have to talk sometime.”

  “I need time to process this.”

  “It’s been four weeks. I don’t even know where you’re living.”

  “I’m in the Village.”

  “Ella,” he said, cajoling, lowering his voice to that old intimate croon of his, looking down at her soulfully, “please. Just coffee or something. I miss you. Every single minute, I miss you. Just seeing your face right now.”

  Ella’s face, right now, was hot and red. She wanted to yell, Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you stuck your dick inside a prostitute, but she was Ella, not her mother, not her sister or her aunt Viv. Instead, she whispered, “Well, it’s been hard for me, too.”

  “I know. I know. What I did, it was unforgivable. So I’m not asking you to forgive me. Just—just coffee, okay?” He glanced around the lobby. “Not here. Somewhere we can talk.”

  Ella hiked up the strap of her shoulder bag. “Patrick. I don’t know. I don’t know if I can talk to you yet. I really don’t.”

  He touched her elbow. Closed his eyes briefly, like he was praying for guidance, like his feelings were too much for him to bear. Or so Ella had always thought, when Patrick did his closed-eyes thing, usually at moments of high emotion, like when she accepted his proposal and when he first told her he loved her. Except now Ella wondered if he’d really felt anything at all. Whether he closed his eyes to disguise instead of reveal. Wasn’t there just the slightest whiff of the theatrical about those checked eyeballs? Something studied, the way you might consider how to express an emotion, instead of just expressing it?

  “Please, Ella,” he said. “I swear, it hasn’t happened again. It won’t happen again. It was a stupid, stupid mistake I will never make again. Therapy, whatever it takes. I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. If you just give me the chance to start over and prove myself. Just coffee.”

  Ella’s mouth froze. She was aware of curious glances, of the way people were stepping carefully around them, like dogs around an invisible fence. Her skin was so flushed, she couldn’t think.

  “Ella, it’s me,” he said. “It’s Patrick. Remember our honeymoon? That beach on Capri? I want that back. I just want to be your husband again.”

  Ella stepped away from the familiar smell of his clothes. “Fine,” she said. “Coffee. Tomorrow afternoon, the Starbucks around the corner, on Broad. Three thirty.”

  “Why not today?”

  “Because I have a meeting today, Patrick. A very important meeting with the head of the department.”

  She turned around and made for the elevator bank, drinking down her latte so no one would see that her lips were trembling with the lie she’d just told.

  AS IT TURNED OUT, SHE couldn’t have made a coffee date that afternoon anyway, or even a meeting with the department head. Right after lunch, her cell phone rang with the news that a pipe had burst in her apartment.

  Wonderful, she thought. My wonderful life.

  And yet. That little surge of pleasure that hit her blood at the sight of Hector standing in the middle of her flooded kitchen, wearing the same gray T-shirt as that night she’d first visited his apartment, conferring with the super and somebody in stained clothes who was probably the plumber? Not un-wonderful.

  Then she noticed the rest of the kitchen.

  “Oh, my God.” She set her bag on the counter and stared at the water puddling around her heels.

  “Wet vac’s on its way,” said Hector. “I lifted as much stuff as I could onto the tables and counters. The furniture’s not looking great, though. The bed’s all right—it’s high enough up—but the sofa’s got a skirt …”

  Ella didn’t really care about the furniture. She’d bought most of it off a showroom floor near the Flatiron, the cheapest she could find. She stared at the bed, which she made tight every morning, sheets and quilt tucked in hospital corners under the mattress, duvet stacked at the foot. Thank God. Imagine the humiliation of an unmade bed at a moment like this. “But what happened?” she said.

  “Pipe burst,” said the super, in the voice of a man talking to a very stupid female.

  “I can see a pipe burst,” she said, “but which pipe? Where? How?”

  “Under the sink,” said Hector. “Some of the plumbing’s pretty old, from when the building was first converted from a boardinghouse into apartments, right after the war. The joint just gave way. Rusted out. Want to see?”

  “Not especially.”

  “The good news is, I can make you a whole new kitchen. Roll up the carpeting and replace any floorboards that couldn’t take it. Refinish, good as new.”

  She looked up at his face, which was obscenely cheerful. “You sound as if you’re happy about this.”

  “Ah, but I’ve been wanting to get my hands on your kitchen for a while now.”

  “That sounded kind of pervy.”

  “Only because your mind’s in the gutter, as usual.” He turned his head to the door, where a steady banging announced the arrival of the wet vac, up several flights of stairs. “Here we go. Get you dried out in a jiffy.”

  ALL RIGHT. YES. SHE WAS falling a little in love with Hector, in a totally platonic way. What wasn’t to love? He had an adorable dog. He was smart and funny and absolutely brilliantly talented. They had a frisson between them—a pleasant, easy, undemanding frisson—but he hardly so much as touched her, because of Claire.

  Ella had met Claire last weekend, after trudging home from Sterling Bates at six thirty on a Saturday evening. Claire and Hector had knocked on her door right after she changed into her pajamas and invited her upstairs for pizza and wine and a movie. Ella had inspected those valuable hands and proclaimed them stunning. The rest of her was pretty, too. Petite and curvy, in comparison to Ella’s angularity, with a gamine French face like Winona Ryder. And she was clever and funny and charmingly self-deprecating about the hands thing. She held them up to the light and said, Would you believe I have to insure these things? In case they get caught in a car door
or something?

  Well, they were terrific hands. Long in the fingers, smooth in the skin, delicately curved nails trimmed to a perfect eighth of an inch. No veins popping out anywhere. (Yet, Claire sighed.) The three of them arranged themselves on a piece of furniture that could only be described as a rustic sectional, Hector and Claire together on the long side, Ella on the short side with Nellie on her lap, and watched a movie on video. The English Patient. Claire’s choice. “He wouldn’t see it with me in the theater,” she said, pursing her lips, curling a sidelong look at Hector. Not quite a pout.

  He spread his hands. “I had a gig!”

  “You had a night off every week.”

  “Had to catch up on my sleep, right? Anyway, you saw it with Heather.”

  She threaded her arm comfortably around his elbow. “Not the same thing as seeing it with your boyfriend.”

  Ella turned away to watch the opening credits. Juliette Binoche in the field hospital or whatever it was, wounded men pouring in, shellfire. She’d seen the movie last year at the Ziegfeld with Joanie, right before Joanie left for Paris (Patrick was away on business), and while Joanie had loved it—loved Ralph Fiennes in his Tiger Moth or whatever it was, loved Kristin Scott Thomas and her upper-class beauty, loved the whole vintage star-crossed lovers thing—the film had left Ella unsettled. Disconnected. Maybe because she still thought of herself as a bit of a newlywed, maybe because Patrick was away. She wanted Kristin Scott Thomas to remain true to her husband, even if he was a dud. She wanted Ralph Fiennes to—well, she wasn’t sure—resist temptation or something. Not to steal another man’s wife. She wanted the marriage to endure, she wanted that vow to remain sacred.

  Now, of course, things were different. And maybe the movie would feel different, too; maybe it was the kind of movie that meant one thing when you were happily married, and something else when you were not.

  Either way, she didn’t have much chance to find out, because Claire was a Movie Talker. Had something to say about Juliette Binoche’s hair, had something to say about the green of Kristin Scott Thomas’s eyes. Nellie fell thoroughly asleep in Ella’s lap, not even twitching, and Ella stroked the dog’s ears while her own right leg went numb under the dead weight pressing against some nerve or another.

  “Hey.” Hector reached behind Claire to tap her shoulder. “She’s not bothering you, is she?”

  For a moment, Ella thought he meant Claire. “Oh, no. I’m used to it,” she replied, thinking of Joanie, who also had plenty to say about whatever was on the screen.

  “Okay. But you can kick her off, if you want. She’s not really supposed to be on the sofa.”

  “Oh, come on,” Claire said. “You let her on the sofa all the time.”

  Hector didn’t reply, just gave Ella a sheepish look and returned his attention to the screen before them, and Ella went on stroking Nellie’s ears while the dog snored and drooled into her pajamas. At one point, Hector silently handed her another slice of pizza. Refilled her wine. Claire refused both—alcohol was bad for the skin, she said—and reached for the tube of Neutrogena hand cream on the coffee table, next to the pizza box.

  When the movie was finished, Ella had risen and stretched and said she’d better head back downstairs and get some sleep. Thanks so much for the pizza. Left them lounging on the cushions, talking about the movie, which Claire adored. Great to meet you, Ella! Claire called cheerfully, in the voice of a girlfriend who knows she has nothing to fear.

  And she really did have nothing to fear, because Hector was full of banter but never once made a pass of any kind, even the ambiguous kind that you could take up or ignore at your pleasure. Last night, for example, he’d called her cell phone and asked if she would come up and hear something he’d just written. She’d listened in awe. Drank a little bourbon. Laughed and took over the piano while he played trumpet. At one point he stopped and asked, without warning, whether she’d talked to her husband yet. She said no, she wasn’t ready.

  You gotta talk sometime, Sherlock, he said. Can’t put a thing like that off forever. Then put the trumpet back to his mouth and played some more. Something slow and midnight, while a bit of moon slipped around the edge of the window to touch the points of his face. She’d slipped back downstairs a half hour later, warm and happy, conscience clear, not so much as a peck on the cheek. Just a nod from the blue shadows near the piano, and a reminder—the one he always made—to let him know if she needed anything.

  WELL, NOW SHE NEEDED SOMETHING. She needed a new damn kitchen, and someone to remove the ruined carpeting in the living room.

  Which Hector was doing right now, as a matter of fact, exhibiting the kind of enthusiastic male relish for destruction that reminded her of her brothers and their Lego sets. “Breaks my heart when they cover up floorboards like this with cheap ugly-ass poly fiber,” he said, tossing another section in the hallway. Whipping out the X-Acto knife for another barbaric slice.

  “Seriously, you don’t have to do this,” Ella said.

  “Actually, I do.” He straightened and winked. Grinned like a lightning bolt. “Pays the rent.”

  “It’s not carpentry, though.”

  “Oh, close enough. Anyway, I like the company.”

  Ella’s cheeks were already warm from the grin. She looked down at the spreadsheets before her—she’d printed them out hastily before she dashed home—and said, “So what’s the landlord like? Typical greedy bastard?”

  “Not too bad. To be honest, he’s my dad.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. I know, right? Nepotism’s the way to go in this town. How else could I afford the entire top floor to myself?”

  “Because you’re an awesome carpenter?”

  “Nice try. It’s a sweetheart deal, there’s no getting around it. But I put in all the renovation work myself. It was just storage before. Couple of narrow rooms, no plumbing.” He gripped the edge of the carpet section in his hand and started to rip. “Truth is, I could probably afford market rent by now. I just like working with my dad.”

  “Wow. Did you sell some music or something?”

  “Didn’t I tell you? I’m scoring a movie.”

  “What?” she screeched, for the second time.

  “Seriously? I didn’t tell you that?”

  “No, you didn’t tell me that! Are you kidding me? That’s amazing! What movie?”

  “Oh, nothing you’d have heard of. An indie flick. But”—his muscles flexed hard; he took in a breath—“it’s a pretty cool break. What I always wanted to do.”

  Ella stared at the twin columns of figures before her, representing underwriting revenues for 1995 and 1996, broken down by client. Municipalities up and down the Eastern Seaboard, even a few on the West Coast, raising money for schools and parks and community centers and sewer systems and everything else. She had been a newlywed while those revenues were being earned. When those bonds were being issued. Just back from the Amalfi coast. Hunting for a new apartment with Patrick, who was flush and cocky with his first bonus as a managing director. “That, Hector,” she said, “is a bona fide spectacular dream.”

  “Well, you know, if you look at folks like me a century ago, you know, starving composers, we were writing operas. Or trying to, anyway. Look at Wagner. Listen to Wagner. It’s like hearing a film score, parts of it. He was the original score composer. He revolutionized the whole game; he was all about fitting the music to the action, creating a drama out of music. Harnessing the power of music to tell a story. Wagner, Verdi, Massenet, Puccini, they were rock stars. Household names. And now, modern opera, I mean the stuff being composed today, it’s practically irrelevant. Have you heard of The Ghosts of Versailles? Of course you haven’t. People go to movies instead. But the music’s still essential. Try watching a movie when the score’s stripped out.” He straightened and shook his arms out. Stretched his fingers to the ceiling, outlined by the sunshine, and for an instant he was so beautiful, so full of promise, that Ella forgot to breathe.

  “Act
ually,” she said at last, “I’ve seen The Ghosts of Versailles. At the Met, a few seasons ago.”

  “Jesus. I love you.”

  “But I see what you mean. It’s an insider’s critique of opera convention. It’s an opera about opera. I mean, it’s musically interesting, it’s incredibly accomplished, it’s clever and complicated and the production was amazing, but as far as storytelling, as far as reaching deep and moving an audience, not just of music geeks but of human beings—”

  “Exactly!”

  She set down the spreadsheets and stood from the sofa. “Look at me. I’m being a total jerk, just sitting here while you do all the work. Let me help.”

  “No need. It’s my job.”

  She took off her suit jacket. “Music’s your job. Your real job. And the sooner you get back to it—”

  “Nah, I like ripping up carpet. It’s cathartic. Sends me back to the piano like a mad beast.”

  “Well, what if I want to rip carpet, too? Go back to my stupid numbers like a mad beast?”

  He laughed. “Can’t argue with that, Sherlock. Okay, then. Grab a corner.”

  Ella took the carpet in her hands, and it was heavier than she thought. Stiff and waterlogged, unwilling to separate itself from the floorboards below. “So when did you decide you wanted to compose? Or what you wanted to compose?”

  “I don’t know. College, maybe. I guess I knew early on that I didn’t just want to write songs, even though that’s the bread and butter. I wanted to tell a whole story in notes. I wanted to—”

  Hector’s entire body came to a stop midrip. Ella nearly tripped over the slackened carpet.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He looked up. “Nothing.”