“You let her?”
“I would have let her pay the whole thing, but you would have known then.”
“And did Mom know?”
“Yeah.”
The compassion Laura had felt minutes before was gone. Her feelings could only be described as an overall emotional shutdown followed by a boiling rage that burned white hot from the inside out. So intense was the sensation that the backs of her thighs tingled, adrenal glands firing as if she were the slowest camper in a bear attack. It was fight or flight. Fight or flight. Fight or flight. The path out the door looked good, but Ruby was right there and ready for a verbal beating.
“You know what they call that?” Laura asked, pulling a longer, sharper scalpel than she intended. “When you have sex with someone and take money?”
“Don’t you even!”
“Well? You never thought about that? It never occurred to you while you were ‘falling in love’ or whatever, that this rich bitch could spare a little for you in exchange for—”
“Shut up!”
“You never showed any interest in women until you go broke, and then it’s Thomasina Wente?”
Ruby stood up and wielded her finger like a weapon, jabbing and thrusting, speaking through tight lips with a voice that cut at the edges and bulged at the centers, her volume just below the threshold for making a scene. “You tell me you didn’t want to have Jeremy because he’s gorgeous and rich. There’s no present in that package, and you know it.”
Laura slouched. Her sister didn’t know she’d kissed Jeremy, making the words even more hurtful.
Ruby, seeing her opening, continued, “You judge women by how much money they make and how hard they work. And you think Thomasina was privileged and didn’t work hard, but what you don’t know is that she judged herself as harshly as you did. She felt completely inadequate. Why do you think half these girls are the way they are? It’s because they know what they’re doing is too easy, and inside, they’re not fulfilled, and they’re scared all the time they’re not good enough, and they don’t know how to get better. You’d throw up and starve yourself too, just to feel like there was a job to do and you were doing it. You especially. You’d turn modeling into a seventy-hour-a-week gig."
“I feel terrible now. Are you done?”
“No.”
“Can you at least tell me about White Rose? Or Pandora? Or whatever, instead of telling me how hard it is to be a model? Because really, I’m convinced. If society would just give them the opportunity to clean toilets for a living, they’d take it in a second.”
“God, you make me so mad!” Ruby looked as though her adrenal glands were the ones firing on all cylinders.
Though Laura didn’t feel bad for egging her on, she did detect the need to dig the conversation out of a hole while she was on top. “What was going on with Thomasina and Bob Schmiller? I thought they were sleeping together, but then…”
Ruby laughed so loud it was an interruption.
“What?”
“Even if Thomasina had ever slept with a man in her life, which she never did, Bob wouldn’t be that man. Oh, my God, what on earth made you think that?”
Laura told her about the phone message and the trip to Germany. Then she told her about Meatball Eyes and her job as Ivanah’s assistant.
Ruby sat down, seemingly cowed. “You’ve been trying to help me this whole time.”
“Well, yeah. What did you think? I was going to let Uncle Graham and Detective Cangemi do all the work? I mean, talk about paper pushing.”
“I should have told you everything right away. I was trying to protect Thomasina, but God, that was so stupid.” She rubbed her eyes.
“Was the White Rose Foundation legit? Or was it a tax haven or something?”
“Tax haven? Do you even know what that is?”
“Rubes, if you don’t stop dodging and start talking right now, I won’t forgive you. Ever.”
So Ruby told the story and twirled her spaghetti, shoveling it in with bread while lunchtime came and went, and the room cleared out like a bathroom with an overflowing toilet.
While Laura had been working the past six months, doing patterns for Jeremy and putting together her own line, Ruby had also been busy.
Indeed, she had been doing what she was partnered to do: generate good will, attend parties as the smiling face of the company, and hobnob. She had also been falling in love, which Laura forgave her for because, unlike her, people didn’t usually plan their personal lives around a convenient time for their business.
Her lover, closeted lesbian supermodel Thomasina Wente, who had knocked her off a runway six months earlier for motivations that got more and more complex the more Laura learned about her, had been trying to set up a post-modeling life. The woman’s mid-thirties were creeping up on her like a centipede that looked small and slow until it got close and one realized it had a hundred legs to run with, and she didn’t want to be known as an heiress gifted with money and looks who lived and died by both of those. She wanted to make a mark, which Laura saw as an ego trip worthy of someone with the heiress’s gifts, at the same time as she felt the sting of bitterness that Thomasina’s money and beauty allowed her to do more of what Laura thought she should be doing herself.
Coming from what used to be a poor country smack in the middle of one of the richest continents in the world, and having lived off the backs of the poorer class, Thomasina wanted to do something that fell within her power. Had she been a farmer, she would have taught them to farm. If she had been a plumber, she would have gotten the slums fresh water. But she was a model, and thus, she wanted to help beautiful, poor girls become beautiful, rich girls.
“They’re not just poor,” Ruby said. “They get pulled into prostitution when they’re twelve. I mean, internet porn sites are all Eastern European girls, and the former East Germany is the worst.”
“You are talking about a bunch of crap you don’t know anything about.”
“And you do? Why don’t you look into it before you shoot it down? Because who was Thommy pissing off? I mean, she told me she had girls she pulled out of the worst situations. There was a fourteen-year-old who had been bought by three brothers—”
“What did she do with them?” She interrupted to avoid gory details, which she didn’t need keeping her up at night.
“She brought them to safe houses like convents, and she was trying to set it up so they’d be placed in jobs here. But there were people who didn’t want her doing it because they make a lot of money grabbing girls off farms and on their way to school.”
“You told the cops all this?”
“Of course.”
Laura was comforted for a second. Maybe two. Then she realized the cops weren’t going to do anything based on the ranting of an accused designer, and Uncle Graham’s fondest desire would be to get Ruby off and move along to the next billable hour. Maybe that should be Laura’s fondest desire. Maybe she should just go back to the drafting table, do her work, and let Thomasina’s attempts to unravel all her bad press die with her.
“Are you going back to the showroom? Corky’s totally overwhelmed.”
“Yeah. It helps to be busy.”
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
“Not that I can think of. But I promise that if you ask another question and I can answer it, I will. And right away. And without leaving anything out.”
“Okay, go away. I’m tired.”
They hugged, and Ruby trotted toward Broadway. Laura headed for the 40th Street office, thinking maybe she’d work on Fall or prep Spring production. She passed the jobbers with their windows of slinky, out of style fabrics, and the sandwich places inserted between them. She walked the line of shadows in the sidewalk, avoiding cracks like a kid, getting in the way of everyone in a hurry to get where they were going. Laura wasn’t in a hurry, she had something on her mind, and it was the erasure of an assumption she’d been making.
If Ruby was to be believed, and
she was because she wasn’t so blind or stupid as to dismiss Thomasina’s affair with Bob if she thought there was the slightest possibility it had happened, then the message meant something totally different than she’d thought.
“Baby Bean. I’m back and I missed you. You’re right about everything. I sent something home for you.”
If she skipped the obvious romantic implications of “Baby Bean,” the I missed you really didn’t have to be anything more than a missed meeting. It could refer to a missed meeting at Marlene X or something the day before, not necessarily a romantic yearning.
You’re right about everything. He was returning from the former East Germany, where both his wife and Thomasina were from. Was there some different idea of the reality out there that had caused a disagreement between Ivanah and Thomasina? And Bob had gone to check the details? For him to take off to Europe, it must have been something for which he had either a financial or emotional investment.
I sent something home for you. Maybe not a gift. Maybe a person. Maybe he’d sent someone back to be Ivanah’s assistant.
Meatball Eyes must have been the latest girl to get a job on the White Rose repatriation program. Bob and Ivanah must have been investors. Bob went to check stuff out in Europe while Ivanah trained Meatball to be a bad interior designer. How many were there, and what were they doing? She guessed if she were a more important person, she could go to the State Department and ask a few questions, but she was a small fish, and she’d likely wind up answering many more questions than she asked.
She called Ivanah with a white lie prepared. Buck Stern picked up.
“Hi, Mister Stern?”
“Buck, please.”
“Okay. I hear Ivanah’s birthday is this weekend. We wanted to surprise her.”
“I believe Mister Schmiller has something prepared in the way of a dinner.”
“Yeah, okay, but I was talking to Senator Machinelle and she wanted to amass her clients for a bigger thing. I was wondering if there was someone I could talk to about contacting them? Getting them all in the same room, well, it would be a party, that’s for sure.”
He gave a little laugh. “Let me give you her assistant’s number.”
It was that stinkin’ easy. When she called the number from a bench in Central Park, watching the garmentos go by, a young girl with an accent answered, “The Ivanah Schmiller office.”
“Hi, um, this is Laura Carnegie. I was looking for Ivanah’s assistant?”
Pause, then, “Oh, we met.”
“At Baxter City?”
“Yes.”
Laura performed an involuntary and embarrassing fist pump. “I was wondering if I could talk to you about a surprise party for Ivanah?”
Meatball Eyes gasped with delight. “I love this! We can meet, but I’m going to be in East New York all day looking at a space. This is for the artist, Franco Finelli. The sculptor, he is gorgeous, have you met him? And rich, too. He makes big, big coffee cups with coffee in them. Ten feet high.”
Good God, Meatball Eyes was a chatterbox. She was going to be a fantastic fount of information.
“I’ve never been to East New York. Why don’t I meet you out there?”
“Oh, it is absolutely awful! I can’t wait! I’ve been here two weeks, and already everything is so exciting!”
CHAPTER 17.
Laura often forgot there were areas of the city in the last reaches of the train system, like fingers straining to stretch south and east. She would call it the subway system, but the farther out she got, the more she took her ride above ground. The Outliers. The Edges. The blank, white places on the map that may as well have been Baffin Bay. They were suburbs that weren’t really suburban by any other standard in America. But in New York, it was as close to sprawl as had ever been built. The only way to get to the address Meatball Eyes listed was to take the L train to East 105th Street, which she had never heard of, and walk a mile or take a bus. It was going to be a long ride to get to a juicy conversation that would be loaded with details. The prize was certainly worth the cost of admission, but she didn’t want to go out there alone. The reason everyone forgot the double-fare zones is because poor people lived in them.
“Hi, Stu,” Laura said into the phone as she made her way to the blue trains. “What are you doing for the next couple of hours? I have a potential story on philanthropic immigration.”
“You just made that up,” he said.
“No, you did.”
They met at the 14th Street platform. He was leaning on a pole, and when her train pulled in, his hair blew all around. He hadn’t cut it in months, and while she blamed Tofu for everything about how he’d changed, she forgot about the girlfriend just then and appreciated the man’s hair. It made him look like a little boy, even with the scruff on his jawline. Having kissed Jeremy, she felt as attractive as she ever had, which gave her the distance she needed to see him, and every other man, as if they were hers to be had, long-necked girlfriend or no.
Then Laura noticed that particular girlfriend standing on the other side of the pillar. Once she thought of taking the trip out to meet Meatball Eyes, she’d been looking forward to the adventure, and to some answers about Thomasina’s life and death. She also admitted that she’d been looking forward to a couple of hours with Stu, whom she didn’t realize she missed until she saw his blond hair flying around in the train’s wind. The trip to East New York was looking less and less like fun as the seconds ticked by.
“Hey,” Stu said. “You remember Tofu?”
Tah-fuh. Of course. Laura tried not to sneer because the girlfriend looked so cheerful and happy. “Of course. Good to see you again.”
“I can’t wait to see you two in action. Stu’s been talking about what you guys did with the Gracie Pomerantz murder, and I thought it was so exciting!”
“I didn’t do anything,” Stu said. “It was all Laura.”
Tofu smiled, in what seemed an indication of encouragement, but her eyes were cold, hard stones.
“I looked up the address,” Stu said as they traversed the tunnels to the L train. “It looks like an old strip mall. Cutting edge, that guy.”
Laura grumbled. She didn’t care anymore. Stu and Tofu were holding hands. She was more annoyed at herself for caring than either of them. She’d given him up, so she had no business wanting to blow a two-foot hole right through his skinny little girlfriend.
“I read about East New York,” Tofu said. “It’s so far, and I can’t believe it’s even in the city, I mean, a borough. That’s really where the poorest of the poor live. It’s like that’s where the ninety-nine percent happens, isn’t it?”
Oh, great. Not only was she a brick of calcified bean protein, she was a chatty Patty.
Tofu switched sides to be next to Laura. “I was telling my dad all about Stu and how he went with you to Staten Island to meet a mobster. Pops looked at him differently after that.”
Code: My family likes him.
She continued like a playing card clothes-pinned to bike spokes. “It was hard before, you know, because of the activism. We don’t have that in Greenwich. Dad takes it personally.”
Code: I’m rich.
“He had someone all lined up for me. Not someone who cared about social justice, believe me, but I think, since Stu got the New Yorker job, he’s making some headway with Pops. Right, honey?”
Code: I have plenty of other men. They’re rich, too. But I chose Stu, and I have so much to offer him that you don’t.
Stu looked eager to change the subject. “I filled Tofu in on all the deets, and she feels like this might be somewhere where she can do some good.”
“Yeah, okay, except that someone was already murdered, so it’s not a jaunt for Miss Polly Pocket.” Oh, damn. Too harsh. Too direct. “So,” she said to Tofu, “you left her at home, right?”
Tofu smiled, which was unfortunate, because Laura was pretty sure she was down a couple of points after a called foul. Tofu was going to be hard to beat.
When they got on the train, there was only one available seat. Stu stood beside it in such a way as to make sure everyone knew it was his, but he wasn’t sitting in it. Then he motioned for Laura to sit. She knew better than to argue feminist politics with him. He’d been raised to be a gentleman with every ridiculous affectation that went with it. Stopping him would be like asking rain to come down, but be a little less wet, if you please. So she thanked him and motioned for Tofu to take it. Tofu wouldn’t. So they all stood, and a guy in a plaid biker jacket sat there.
“So,” Tofu said with a fat smile and an arched brow, “who are we meeting?”
Laura wanted to kick her. “What I learned from last time is that if you want to find out why someone was killed, you have to find out what they were doing in their life.”
“If you read more,” Stu said, “you probably would’ve already known that.” That might have been an insult if it didn’t simply prove they were close enough to tease each other.
“Experience is better than reading.”
“Touché.”
Big points. In a better mood, Laura turned back to Tofu. “This girl we’re meeting might be the only one who can, or will, tell me how a foundation for abused girls in Eastern Europe and a second rate modeling agency relate to each other. Because Thomasina was involved in both.”
“Okay, I got it.”
“This is going to be awesome,” Laura said, “even if I end up having to throw a party for Ivanah.”
When they got to Broadway Junction, most of the passengers cleared out, so standing looked stupid. They sat together, with Stu and Tofu holding hands in the front-facing seats perpendicular to the window and Laura opposite them. The train trundled to an outside track, and the afternoon sun blasted in through the window.
“I never understood the window seats when I was little,” Laura said, “because I’d only ever seen trains in tunnels. So when I was like twenty, I went to a boat excursion out of Sheepshead Bay, and on the train there, I could see the houses and backyards and streets out the window of the D train. It was better than television.”
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