Have You Met Nora?

by Nicole Blades

  Silence.

  Nora went straight to the farthest corner of the whistle-clean bathroom with all its white and height and steely, modern edges, and she squeezed her body tight into the space where the glass and wall met, her forehead pressed against the cool of it while she angled her face to look out the window and steady her mind. Nora only dragged this photo out when she was at the lowest point on her rope, deciding whether to let go or pull herself up again.

  The picture was from that long-ago Christmas, one of the first in the Westmount mansion. In it, posed by the lavish, heavily decorated tree, stood a smiling young Nora, her mother, and the Bourdains. It was the photo Nora used to love, the one she had pinned to the corkboard above her frilly, pink-and-white-everything bed in her pink-and-white-everything bedroom in the Bourdains’ basement. There were two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a cozy nook off the side of the small, basic kitchen down there. It was the basement, Nora knew, but no one in the house ever called it that. It was the flat according to the Bourdains, and our place to hear Nora’s mother tell it. Warm and reasonably bright, it was a considerable step up from where Nora and her mother came. Although Nora’s memory of their cramped, crappy beginnings was limited—they moved in with the Bourdains when she turned six—she could still recall, with a woeful precision, the moldy, dank stench soaked into the walls of their old fall-apart-ment.

  Three years after that photograph was taken, it was folded into a tight square and shoved into the toe box of an ugly shoe Nora had long outgrown. The picture needed to be out of her sight, its specialness completely destroyed, after that one vile summer evening when Nora went to Dr. Bourdain’s fourth-floor study with a message from her mother: “Will your company tomorrow require something more substantial than the trimmed sandwiches with the tea?”

  Nora, then a freshly turned nine-year-old who rarely paid close attention to her mother’s directives, jumbled it. She skipped over the longer words, boiling it down to what she felt was the crux: “Do you desire more for your company tomorrow?”

  Dr. Bourdain, a man of great intellect and refinement, knew what the girl meant, but he didn’t reply. Not right away. Instead, he let his eyes linger on Nora, on her lanky body, for too long. Instead, he asked Nora to go into the alcove off to his left and fetch a book shelved low on the built-ins. Instead, he sidled up behind her as she stooped, and brushed then pressed his pelvis on Nora’s shoulder, on her head, sweeping her thick, wavy hair from one side to the next. She felt the sick twitching in his dress pants against her ear, her jaw. Nora froze, unable to process anything beyond the books’ titles on their spines. She kept her eyes locked on them. And as the speed of his repulsive rubbing increased, Nora could only recite the titles in her mind on a slow loop.

  The Flowers of Evil. In Search of Lost Time. The Red and the Black. Notre-Dame de Paris. Remembrance of Things Past.

  Looking down at the photograph now, the creases dingy, worn, and cracked, Nora could still make out the top part of Dr. Bourdain’s face behind the black ink splotch. She shook her head, disgusted at herself anew, thinking about the countless times she nearly tore the picture to crumbs or burned it or threw it down a sewer grate. But it was always nearly, almost, not all the way, because she knew that obliterating the picture did nothing to erase what happened. All of it—the scrape of his calloused palms along her inner thighs; the set-in stench of tobacco on his clothes; the low, persistent rumble in his heaving chest as he twitched and trembled behind her—it was never going away.

  Nora swallowed hard and reached for her phone, still balancing on the narrow edge of the tub. She stared at the web page for a moment before squeezing her eyes shut and swallowing once more. She scrolled down to the bottom of the short post, the same one that had haunted her for the past eighteen hours, and quietly—barely moving her lips—read the last lines again: Dr. Bourdain is survived by his loving wife, Elise, and adopted daughter, Nora (estranged). He was preceded in death by his parents, Jacques P. Bourdain and Odette V. Bourdain, as well as his brother, Anton J. Bourdain. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be sent to the Montreal Heart Institute.

  Nora’s stomach lurched into her throat as she clutched the phone and photograph in each hand. After a long breath, she grabbed the champagne from the floor—the picture wrapped around the bottle’s neck—as she stepped into the tub, took a long swig, and collapsed back into the sunken middle.

  CHAPTER 2

  Still battling a headache and dry mouth from bathtub drinking the night before, Nora almost didn’t show up at The Chestnut. But she knew that flaking was not an option, not with Jenna. She also knew that skipping out on their weekly lunch meet-up would only push her best friend deeper into wedding-jitters-something-ain’t-right theorizing.

  Wednesday afternoons were reserved for Snack Time with Jenna. The snacks were always mini dinners—full-cut steaks, whole pizzas, raw bar towers, burrito platters—and the food themes were always decided upon by Jenna at the start of the month. These were in no way meal replacements. (“Listen, from my G-cup tits to my size-eleven shoes, I’m a Real Bitch, and I eat real food,” she explained, after Nora balked at her habit that first time.) The way it worked was: Jenna would have lunch with the other editors and publishing folks at noon sharp, clockwork, and then an afternoon snack with her best friend, Nora, somewhere “far enough from these Midtown monkeys, please,” which usually meant Brooklyn.

  Nora arrived at the restaurant early and glided over to the bar to order her drink, the one perfect for a Wednesday afternoon: a French 75. And there she stood surrounded by an assorted box of special artisanal Brooklyn hipsters, waiting between the silence and noise, staring out through the window. Although Nora could feel the many eyes on her, this long, corn-silk blond beauty poised like a ballerina about to take flight in a grand jeté, she actively ignored them, pushed them to the blurred periphery, and tried to look unconcerned about anyone or anything. This was a skill she honed in middle school, when stares and sneers were aimed at her almost hourly. She checked the clock on her phone. Jenna was late, which was not her style.

  Nora met Jenna Callaway shortly after moving to New York City to launch her own reimagined life. They were both at an exclusive investment banking event—two of only five women there. Nora was shadowing Vincent Dunn, her ever-fabulous mentor and fashion fairy godfather.

  “Did you get a load of that fucking giant gray tooth?” were the first words Jenna had said to Nora that night. She was in between sips of her short, iceless drink and gawking at a curvy woman hanging off the arm of a saggy, older man. “I can’t stop looking at it. Every time she opens her mouth, I stare at it like it’s going to tell me something about the future.”

  “She’s a toothsayer,” Nora said, surprised at how easy she slipped back into high school mode. She shook her head, slightly disappointed with herself.

  That’s when Jenna unleashed her laugh—a roar, really—and grabbed on to Nora’s shoulder as she folded over, red-faced and hollering, “Oh, my God! Toothsayer! The best!” After more gasps and bellowing, she righted herself and looked into Nora’s face. “Honey, you’re the best. But you already knew that. We need to know each other forever. Let’s go get a snack after this,” Jenna told Nora.

  Jenna was at the event with her editor, hoping to sway a young banker known as the Dog Star of Wall Street to publish his book with them. She was this hard-shelled Texan from old money and oil, with thick brown hair and broad shoulders, a full body, and a healthy cackle to match. Watching Jenna move through the investment banker room, slicing people’s necks with one steely-eyed glance, Nora was instantly transported to Vermont and the Immaculate Heart School. Jenna’s all-black ensemble morphed into the kick pleat tartan skirt, white shirt, vest with school crest, and gray socks pulled to the knee. Even with her curves barely encased in the uniform, Jenna would have still sweat confidence and cool, wearing Clark Kent–style glasses and a fashion-forward short, blunt bang to set off her severe blue eyes. All hard lines and sharp edges, she re
minded Nora of her best friend from boarding school: Emily Beck, the very blond and very rich media heiress, who was the mean, raw, feared flip side to Nora’s kind, sweet, and revered high school avatar. Like Emily, Jenna didn’t leave space for the feelings of others.

  In Nora’s mind, Jenna was going to be fun and temporary. But she continued the night aligned with Nora’s every step, pushing out more statements, no question marks, about their wonderful, freshly minted friendship and about what good things would happen next for the two of them.

  The rigorous rattle of ice in the bartender’s shaker broke Nora’s thoughts and pulled her back into now: waiting for Jenna, still. Nora checked the time on her phone again, which in itself annoyed her. She didn’t like to appear perturbed or pressed, so she slid the phone under the square napkin next to her drink. She swept her hair over her shoulder with full flair, allowing her to take a quick scan of the room with her head toss. Her eyes landed on the good-looking black man she had seen at The Chestnut a handful of times over the last few weeks. She noticed him each time. Couldn’t help it. More than dapper or handsome, the man had a soaked-in cool and a captivating energy that rested on his shoulders. Nora would steal looks at him, in his bespoke suits and high-shine polished shoes, firmly shaking hands and slapping backs. She even marked how his beard, tinged with gray, was getting fuller and settling into his face, looking as if it always belonged right there. He would move through the tight backroom with an easy familiarity like he had lived there once before.

  It was always his suits that plucked at her attention most. And this one Nora recognized instantly: blue pinstripe, wool, three-piece, Gucci, Fall 2017. She had placed her hand on the actual fabric years earlier on a stop-off in Florence en route to men’s fashion week in Milan.

  For the last four years, she had worked exclusively with the city’s wealthiest young men—the new guard of founders, investors, owners, and actors—styling them, reinventing them, suiting them up for their best moments over and again; each of them trusting her word and infallible taste, and paying her just as handsomely as she dressed them.

  It was how she got together with Fisher Charles Beaumont. Like anyone living in the Tri-State, Geneva, or London, Nora knew his name. She knew the lofty titles: heir, magnate, famous bachelor, and philanthropist, of course. When he breezed into her atelier alone, no assistants, no handlers, she noticed his eyes first—so bright and adoring. She drifted down to his wide grin and then moved along to the rest of him, studying each element of his spell. She had met him for the first time earlier that week and he was following through on the “see you soon” line he tossed off when they parted. Even with his undeniable swagger, he blushed when they shook hands this time, too. Nora always remembered that. And neither of them could keep a straight face with the sweet glances volleying between them like a worn tennis ball. By the time he asked her out on an official date on their second stylist appointment, Nora knew she was done, smitten, full but still going back for more. She tried to continue on as his stylist, personally pulling looks for him and even flying out to Givenchy headquarters in Paris once to get a pinstripe tuxedo from Riccardo Tisci’s capsule collection of evening pieces for Fisher’s special presentation in Geneva. After that, they both agreed to dissolve their work relationship.

  “You’re firing me, aren’t you?” Fisher said, tilting his head up at Nora. He was lying in her lap as she finger-combed his hair.

  She looked down at him and nodded. “I went to Paris . . . for a suit . . . for you. I don’t do that. For anyone.”

  “But you did,” he said, winking. “For me.”

  Nora playfully pressed her hand into his scalp. “Exactly. This is textbook nepotism. I can’t have that kind of conflict of interest in my business. I take this shit seriously.”

  And she did. Nora knew the fabrics, the yarns and thread counts, and moreover, she understood the psychology of fashion, why these moneyed men chose that pant made of wool from a family-owned mill in Italy; that jacket, a careful blend of wool, viscose, and silk; and the burnished walnut leather of this pair of brogues. Her enviable stylist life had taken her around the globe so much that the sparkle and giddy of jetting off to Italy and Paris and Hong Kong had long since evaporated. Her interests moved over to Fisher, falling in love with him. It almost surprised Nora how quickly it became just work.

  But seeing this particular suit on this particular man in The Chestnut, it was made fresh and new all over again; it crackled, popped, and glistened on him. Nora realized she broke her own hardened rule about staring at other people when the suit—and the grinning man wearing it—started walking toward her. Unlike so many other men who had approached Nora over the years, this one was unflustered. He seemed almost heedless of her beauty, immune to the piercing shimmer of her green eyes or the glow of her skin, and instead just rested his gaze upon her as if she were plain and regular. As far back as Nora could remember—before Fisher, before James, before Wyatt, or even Daniel, the son of the Bourdains’ gardener, and all the other curious neighborhood boys who would routinely sneak Nora through backdoors under the thick dark of night and into the basements of their parents’ Westmount mansions—getting a guy to fall for her was easy. She didn’t need to plan or think it through, it would just happen, fast and fluent.

  This felt different. Strange. Wrong. And Nora was nervous behind it. With each step the man and his suit took, the timbre of her thumping heart got clearer. She would be a married woman in less than a month’s time—a married Beaumont woman, specifically—and that meant something more than taking a new surname. (She had already done that before.) But becoming Mrs. Fisher Charles Beaumont, well, that refinement would bring a greater shift, one that Nora had been wanting throughout all her other lives.

  The Beaumonts of Manhattan were a known and venerable brand. Nora had heard the name for the first time shortly after she stepped off the bus at Port Authority. She read about their black-tie galas and deep-pocket fund-raising events in the Style section of the Times, learning more details about their beginnings with each printed story.

  Wealthy and respected dating back to its storied French pedigree, the Beaumont family sailed stateside as the nineteenth century was nearing its end, settling in New York City and quickly expanding its fortune by adding luxury goods and cosmetics to its steady, if unglamorous, ball bearings empire. Nora was surprised to see the brand names of some of Mrs. Bourdain’s European favorites—the plush leather handbags, expensive lipsticks and fragrances, and even her ever-elegant, flared-hem trench coat—on the list of the Beaumonts’ major subsidiaries. (Of course, with that level of affluence, there is also an assured arm reaching into philanthropy, namely, The Beaumont Medical Institute, the largest private funding organization for biomedical research and helmed by Fisher with his two surviving younger brothers, Irish twins Rockford and Asher, working below him.) For Nora, becoming a Beaumont meant most likely giving up her own stylist business and being a full-time woman of the house like his brothers’ wives. But the other end of the sword meant her life would be whiter and brighter and better than anything she had ever dreamed. She would finally be inside of something, accepted, permanently, and even if disaster (i.e., divorce) visited their union, she would always have the name, the trademark that showed the world she was validated.

  “Hi,” the man said. “I’m Julius.” The name slipped from his mouth, with all of its swagger and chill, and rested on his smooth, brown bottom lip like some homegrown brand of warmed-up honey. He extended his hand into the charged air between them. Nora slid hers into his warm grip. It felt good.

  “I’m Nora Mackenzie. Beaumont,” she said, then stuttering, “well, wait—n-not yet . . . the Beaumont part. Soon, that’ll be it.” Nora closed her eyes and dipped her head as if she had bitten her tongue—wishing she had.

  Julius smiled. “I think I got it.”

  As their handshake lingered, Nora nestled into it, saying his name in her head like a lyric on repeat. She let her eyes rest on him, the
pleasantness of his features and frame, digesting the whole of him. The last time—the only time—she felt such a forceful, frightening pull toward another person was four years ago when she first met Fisher. It was foreign then, this feeling of being drawn in, so intense and out of hand. More compelling than a mere wish, it was a want, to be closer than close, to crawl right under the other person’s skin and live there with them—happy, full, and settled. And what made it truly powerful was that Fisher felt the exact same way about Nora; he professed this on the fourth day of knowing her.

  When she was with Fisher, Nora could loosen her knotted insides and let her thoughts breathe; she didn’t have to keep track of the threads of her intricately woven story. She could tell him the truth (most of it) about her past (most of it) and her indecorous ways. She shared with him her “fast” days with the neighborhood boys before getting shipped off to Catholic boarding school; her reign as honor roll beauty queen while there; her reckless wandering through Manhattan shortly after graduating; even her confession about the sobering threesome she had with Vincent and his bronze god-like fit model back when she first landed the job with Dunn Design—and it was met with what was tantamount to a shrug. Fisher didn’t care about any of it.