The Idea of Him

by Holly Peterson

  The gold art deco clock behind me clicked 4:00 P.M. I stood on the landing of the staircase rising from the entrance floor, my eyes level with the main dining room, which was empty and silent. All the tables were set with low bouquets of hot pink peonies in sterling mint julep cups. Crystal cylinders with fresh candles circled the centerpieces, unlit for now. After a full two minutes, a waiter walked past quietly and purposefully. Then nothing. Stillness. The chieftains and priestesses of industry were long gone, keeping our meeting safe from rubbernecking. Georges the maître’d only presided over the power lunch and would surely be gone by now. Over to my right, in the red, book-lined bar, the bartender dried off the insides of champagne flutes with a crisp white napkin in preparation for the evening rush.

  My mission was now clear: get Jackie’s information and use it to properly confront Wade. He and I were the real players in this drama, and the secondary characters around us could no longer distract me. From the midstaircase landing, I could see Jackie’s extraordinary legs wrapped around a barstool. She ordered a drink and combed her fingers through her streaked blond hair with her eyes shut. Letting out a huge breath, she looked annoyed, as if everyone and everything and every goddamn man clawing at her were one big nuisance.

  I closed my eyes for a moment to gather my strength and walked over to the bar. Jackie actually smiled slightly when she saw me. She was luminous in a white Ralph Lauren sheath dress, as if Marlene Dietrich’s crew had lit her perfectly. A suede tan Gucci bag with some kind of animal antler handle lay on the black marble bar counter. Where the hell did she get the cash to look so good? I sat down next to her.

  The bartender walked over to us. “I’m sorry, miss, we aren’t open for an hour, but I can—”

  “She’s with me, Robby,” Jackie said. “Give us a little break and get her a cup of tea or coffee. Or maybe even a shot of something strong. From the look on her face, she needs one.”

  “A cup of tea, please, and also, a glass of chardonnay, thanks.” I figured I needed both an upper and a downer to deal with this confrontation.

  Jackie looked at me intently. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, but before we do, you are going to have to at least attempt to trust that what I’m telling you is true,” she said, putting me immediately on the defensive.

  “I trust only that you helped me once here with Delsie Arceneaux.” I looked at her young face, trying hard to read her. “Why did you do that? That could have been to get me conveniently on your side. What are you after?”

  “I said that to Delsie because you’re good at your job and you deserved it,” she answered, pulling her hair into a messy bun with a clip, her blond streaks almost white with the afternoon light shining in through the paned windows behind her. All at once I thoroughly hated her and found her completely beguiling.

  I shouldn’t have been nervous to say the following, but I was. “Let me get straight to the point: Are you sleeping with my husband? Usually it would mean something that he ran off to you in our laundry room in the middle of our party. Let’s just put that on the table.” My voice cracked, hopefully not revealing too much about how anxious I felt inside.

  “Don’t forget I looked you in the eye across the room at the party and motioned to you that something would be going on in the back of the apartment and turned my head to communicate that you should go back there.”

  She did do that. I nodded very slightly, not wanting to give her anything, but, yes, she did warn me she’d be headed back there. And she did insinuate that Wade would be going too, which he promptly did. I had to grant her that.

  “Okay,” she continued. “So why would I signal to the wife if I was trying to bang her husband in the middle of her home?”

  “Not sure. I do find the whole thing a little confusing, I admit. One reason you got me here.”

  “Glad I got you here, because nothing happened that night in the laundry room except him catching me looking for something. And I’m telling you, you need to watch out; there are things going on with these men who lunch here every day that you don’t understand.” Not a sign of weakness in her voice, not a quiver of her lip. I had to channel her, or copycat her at the very least.

  “C’mon, Jackie. What is going on really? I’m not ready to say I’m going to believe that you and my husband never—”

  She interrupted and threw a loose snake of hair over her shoulder. “All right then, let’s cut to it: I’ll never lie to you. Did you hear me just now?”

  “I heard you. I’m not sure I believe you, but I heard you, yes.”

  She looked down for a moment and tied her straw into a loop. “I repeat: I’ll never lie to you. Your instincts are right. Something did happen between Wade and me.”

  My entire chest cavity hurt.

  She went on. “I’m not talking about the laundry room that night, I’m talking way way way before that. And while I take due responsibility for it, he was driving the train.”

  She admitted to an affair just like that? To the wife? I pressed her. “You’re admitting outright you slept with my husband?”

  She nodded, her eyes showing kindness toward me; clearly she didn’t enjoy having to confirm this news. I’m not ready to say I had anything but animosity toward this woman, but she did seem to be strangely in sisterhood with where I was just then.

  “How did it happen?” I managed to say. The thought of Wade in bed with this beauty felt just as painful as Wade in bed with the photo assistant years earlier. I pursed my lips, blowing out air slowly as if it would extinguish the intense hurt inside.

  “It just happened. And now meeting you, I’m honestly really sorry about it. I need to say that to you.” The last part she said very deliberately and slowly and I felt in that moment that I believed her.

  “Are you in love with my husband?”

  “No.”

  “Is he in love with you?”

  “Most unfortunately, he was at some point.”

  I thought about his kissing the kids and me at night, acting the all chipper husband and daddy. Then I thought about him passing out before any chance of sex entered our bed. No wonder—he’d already had sex hours before. My chest tightened a notch further than I thought possible.

  “And not anymore?”

  “Nope.”

  I had to know. My voice was weaker than I wanted when I asked, “Then how did it all begin with Wade?”

  “It’s complicated.” She placed her elbow on the edge of the bar and touched the bottom of her chin lightly with the tips of her fingers. I stared into her eyes and tried in vain to figure out where her extraordinary composure came from.

  What was it that Wade saw when he looked at these same eyes and thought, This, I can crack, or, even, This, I love?

  “You were having a love affair with my husband for a while?”

  “I believe you need to have feelings to be having a love affair. No? Whatever happened with Wade, it’s now over. You can be reassured of that at least.”

  “You sure of that?” That notion of it being over between them softened the body blow I’d just received. I wasn’t ready to leave him, and so I felt a false, momentary comfort knowing maybe my husband was back to being all mine.

  “Whatever was going on didn’t end with hurt feelings or rage, because, frankly, I didn’t care that much, and he moved on.” She took a long, cool sip of her drink—by the smell of it, a gin and tonic—and set it down delicately. Jackie went on, changing the subject. “We both know that the country is in a financial mess because so many of the men and women in this very room running huge investment banks and huge multinational corporations think they can screw the country over for their own greedy gain.”

  “What are you figuring out exactly?” I asked. “Murray’s finances? Surely not Wade’s.”

  “Hello? Everyone’s finances are off in these unstable times. The question is, What do you resort to when the finances are off?” she answered. “Do you pull up your bootstraps or do you skirt the law?” She placed a f
inger lightly on my arm. It was much hotter than I would have expected. “Did you find something on his desk? Did you look?” she asked.

  “Quite a lot on his desk, as a matter of fact.” I wasn’t about to give up the company report to a woman who just admitted to an affair with Wade.

  “Like what?” Jackie asked.

  “Actresses in rehab. Mobsters in Monaco. My husband is in the storytelling business. He reads research given to him as support material for articles he publishes. If he has Pablo Escobar’s Interpol case file on his desk, that doesn’t mean Wade was or is dealing cocaine.”

  “That’s it, huh?” She played with the lime on the edge of her drink.

  “Not that I would give you anything anyway since he’s my husband and I don’t have any proof that you are for real. But, tell me, what the hell are you alluding to?”

  She stopped me by placing her full hand on my arm. “I study a lot about how the people in this room interact.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Do you have a business degree, Allie?”

  “No, do you?” I scoffed condescendingly.

  “Finishing my second year at Wharton at U. Penn, in Philadelphia, right now. As a matter of fact, I’ll have the diploma by the end of the month. But I didn’t grow up anything like the rich kids who were groomed for business. I grew up in a dump of a house with my mom, a single working mother, that’s it, just us two. So don’t go making assumptions about my life just because I’m in business school.”

  “That’s a very good program, but I’m not sure . . .”

  She groaned and pulled out a small Louis Vuitton wallet and fished out a Wharton School of Business ID card. “Good enough? I’m happy to do anything to prove this to you, but I swear I will never lie to you.” Then she reached again into the depths of her bag. Out came a three-subject, big wire-bound notebook with the U Penn seal on the front.

  “All right. So you’re in school. Maybe you understand a spreadsheet.”

  “Yes, I understand a spreadsheet, a capital asset pricing model, and can run a Monte Carlo simulation in my sleep.”

  “Really?”

  She laughed at me mocking her. “Hey, don’t knock my degree. I’m minoring my degree on the entertainment industry and I’ll tell you, the film business you are wading into is a broken business model—something I do understand, and, by the way, that’s more proof I’m actually studying it. One thing’s for sure: the studios are only banking on predictable action blockbusters and the indie market is just dead. You’re never going to make money off a film festival; it’s all about figuring out the distribution channels with VOD, PPV—”

  “Excuse me, VOD? PPV?”

  “Video on Demand. Pay-Per-View. Robert Redford made cash from the Sundance Channel, not the festival. Remember that as you make your festival plans and get all these big shots to invest in it.”

  “Okaay,” I answered, slowly accepting the veracity of her business knowledge. “And now you’re working . . .” I was still trying to figure out how she was always wearing shoes Carrie Bradshaw would weep over.

  “On my business degree until I graduate this month. And some research projects. I work in investment banks in the summers and make a lot of money for someone my age.”

  “And that salary explains all these spectacular clothes and shoes and Gucci bags you seem to have?”

  “My college roommate became a stylist’s assistant for fashion magazines, so she gives me used runway and photo shoot clothes from last season. I’m not as sinister as you think, Allie,” she said. “All these guys and their behavior is just as weird and foreign to me as it is to you. So don’t let last season’s clothes intimidate you or fool you.” She took another slow sip of her drink. “Look, I didn’t grow up in Manhattan by a long shot and I use some strategies to fit in. Don’t tell me you don’t; it’s a survival thing.”

  I thought about how some people acclimatize to New York better and faster than others. After eleven years of living in New York, I never once felt I had an outfit really nailed head to toe. Though I hated to agree with anything she said, I did say, “Point taken.”

  I felt dizzy from too much alcohol on an empty stomach and too much information, some of it crazy painful, coming at me so furiously. The pounding of an early evening hangover started far off in the distant corner of my head. I blinked hard to soak up the tears I felt forming.

  Jackie placed her hands on my shoulders. “You have to keep disciplined in your mind. You must separate your emotions from the concrete facts here and help me help you put them together to protect yourself. Forget your philandering husband, Wade, for a second.”

  “Well, it’s a little hard to talk girl to girl with someone who just told me she slept with my husband. And forgetting my philandering husband is easier said than done. We have a family.”

  “Well, then you at least need to protect yourself and the children. I need to know if you’ve seen any company documents, maybe something called Luxor? It’s a growing computer networking company.”

  I remained mute, remembering that was the exact name of the company report hidden in Wade’s desk, and took a huge gulp of my chardonnay.

  “Has Wade ever been to Liechtenstein, that little principality in Europe where they hide accounts and . . .”

  Now I needed to ask her for some of the meds she was clearly on. “You may be a fabulous business school student, but you’re way off base. And I’m not disclosing anything by telling you that Wade is a business Neanderthal and doesn’t have any extra money. Believe me, I pay the bills.”

  “He’s got something better than that. He’s got access to everyone. And they all want him.”

  “Everyone always wants him. I’m not sure I’m buying this, but I’m listening. Once again, why do you want to protect me?”

  She sniffed loudly and rearranged her shoulders. “My mother got royally screwed financially by a man, and I hate to see it happen to another unsuspecting woman like yourself.”

  “I’m sorry about your mom, but I feel there’s something more at stake,” I insisted.

  Her eyes told me there was indeed something more.

  “And you’re not telling me what that other thing is. Why don’t you fess up, Jackie? We’ve gotten this far. I mean, supposed ex-lover and wife are talking without the husband even knowing. We are as bare as we can be; just go all the way and tell me.”

  We each took a sip of our drinks and placed the glasses on the table in unison. She turned to me. “You’re writing a screenplay, right?”

  “Who told you?”

  “And is your position with Murray Hillsinger’s PR firm your main job?”

  “The screenplay is a pipe dream, not income until it’s done. At least not yet.”

  Jackie then nodded and swiveled the barstool around, preparing to leave. “I’ll get back to you when I find out more myself. But watch that Luxor stock and see if Wade mentions it.” With her skinny white sheath dress clinging to her, she hopped down and leaned into my ear—her breath was hot and fragrant, like the gin she’d been drinking. “Just one thing. You need to write like your life depends on it.”

  With that, she sauntered out of the room like she owned my world. Which, I would later find out, she basically did.

  12

  Left-Field Curveball

  “Everyone thinks their life is a movie. That’s a load of crap. Lives meander. People may be wildly adventurous, lucky or unlucky in love, but birth-life-death does not give you your three-act structure you will need in a script.” At this, our screenwriting professor, the reviled and revered David Heller, New York’s answer to the more famous Robert McKee, jumped from his seated position on the edge of the desk and threw his arms in the air. He circled around my desk chair and pointed at my face.

  “Also, by this Friday I expect, let’s see, Braden, Foster, Greenfield, and Keller to e-mail to the class their first twenty pages. If you go to the multiplex this week and look down at your watch ten minutes in, I guarantee you
something’s happened that throws your protagonist out of his or her comfort zone. So what if I’m an alien dirt farmer, there’s a princess in danger! I’m gonna follow the old dude with the British accent and his pair of robots and join the rebel cause! If your protagonist isn’t taking a risk by page twenty, you’re dead in Hollywood, and dead in this class, so don’t bother sending it in. You follow me, Braden?”

  “Yes,” I said, nodding to show just how closely I followed. I’d used my maiden name, Braden, when I applied for the screenwriting class at New York University a few months back. I didn’t use that name at the job with Murray, but while taking this class, I wanted to make sure I had some independence from the well-known Wade Crawford.

  Heller went back to his desk and turned to the board. “Remember the simple three acts.” I wrote down every word. “Also remember hundreds of students have used my clear-cut methods to—”

  The door opened and Tommy O’Malley barged in. He and I had been sitting next to each other, having coffee with the group after the class, and comparing notes after the previous sessions.

  Two chairs around the circle were still open. He chose the one next to me, looked at me with his bedroom eyes, and sauntered over like Brad Pitt. Heller threw him a glare.

  “Don’t ever forget this is a very competitive class with a waiting list as long as my arm. See that you are all on time.” He then looked at the rest of us, adding, “Now as you can see, I’ve already written on the board Acts I, II, and III.”

  After a brief explanation of said outline, Heller took a sip of water and went on, enthralled by every notion that came out of his mouth. “In the middle of Act I, by page twenty, your problem has to be set up.”

  Tommy scribbled something on a note and passed it to me. It read, So what’s your problem this week?

  I wrote on the back of the same piece of paper. My new script is a mess. I’m not sure I even know. Girl loses boy over baby problems. Yours?

  He scribbled back: Can a tight-knit summer lifeguard crew stay close when real life sets in? . . . St. Elmo’s Fire meets bad economy.