Adolfo suits in red or green, with Faith having opted for a Betsey Johnson quilted peplum jacket and skirt in soft gray. At the last minute, she’d grabbed a felt hat with roses from Charivari. It was festive.
Emma was waving from her table, and Faith hurried over.
Doubles was a private club and an invitation to one of their holiday lunches was a coup. Fun and familial— without the complications that family events often brought. And Emma had been right: With the buzz of conversation and a spirited performance, complete with sleigh bells, by the West Side Madrigalists, they could safely talk about anything without fear of detection—especially since the seat next to Faith was empty.
The first thing Faith noticed was that Emma was beginning to show the strain of the last weeks. She’d pulled her hair back and her face looked pinched and tired. She was wearing makeup, yet she still looked pale. She was picking at her cuticles again.
Faith had missed the first course and the waiter was serving lamb chops. They looked good—rosy, not overdone.
“How did they get in touch with you? What did they say?” she asked Emma.
“By phone again. Late in the afternoon. After I saw you. It was so quick, I barely had time to take it in.
Just, ‘Same time, same place. If you don’t happen to have the cash, bring jewelry.’ Then whoever it was hung up. I was terrified. Michael was home, working in his study. Thank God he didn’t answer the phone.” Again a Sunday, at a time when the spot would be deserted.
Emma looked anguished. Faith turned, so that anyone glancing their way would see more of Faith’s quilted back than Emma’s face.
“It’s the hang-up calls. I can’t stand them, and now maybe they’ll stop. I wrote another note saying this is absolutely the end.”
“From now on, if you hear anything at all from them, anything, call me. Leave messages at home and work. I check them all the time. Maybe I should get a beeper.”
“Delicious. And so much fun to catch up with everybody. Did you see all those yummy desserts?” Emma answered quickly—now flushed with the effort—when the woman next to her suddenly remembered her manners and turned to say a few words to the guest on her other side. Having satisfied this social obligation, she turned back to the other conversation, having apparently not noticed Emma’s untouched plate or total lack of catching up.
“Eat something,” Faith ordered. “And try to smile.” Obediently, Emma the good girl cut off a tiny piece of meat and choked it down.
“What jewelry did you give them?”
“I had the money.” Emma sipped some of the white wine at her place.
“The odd ten thou just lying around?” Faith was incredulous. The rich really were different.
“After you told me they probably wouldn’t stop, I took some more out—just to be on the safe side.” Emma Stanstead wouldn’t be on the safe side unless Faith could figure this all out, but if it made her feel more secure to have stacks of Ben Franklins under her camisoles, so be it.
“I was very careful to notice everything so I could tell you, but there wasn’t much to notice. It was a different cabdriver, but I wrote his number down anyway.
And there wasn’t a soul at the construction site. Luck-ily, I had the garbage bags left over from the last time.”
Lucky, lucky, lucky. Faith sighed. She had to get back to work. This was neither the time nor the place to tell Emma about Harvey Fuchs and Faith’s new suspicions about a Harvey-Todd Hartley combo. It was much more likely than anything involving Arthur Quinn. Agents didn’t murder their clients. It was bad for business.
“I’m going to hit the ladies’ room, then be on my way. Tell Michael everything, please. Get some sleep, and call me.” She felt like a physician.
Emma didn’t address the first part of the prescrip-tion. “I am tired. There’s so much going on.” Faith gave her a swift hug and walked across the room. The dessert buffet had been set up on a large round table in the middle of the dance floor. Bird-boned women were circling it, taking “just a taste” of the fabulous-looking concoctions on their plates: St.
Honore cakes, almond tarts, pecan tarts, blueberry crisps, creme brulees, praline souffles. Everybody loves dessert.
Poppy Morris was in the ladies’ room, reapplying her makeup with a practiced hand. She looked striking, as usual; her suit by whomever was apple green and made all the rest at the luncheon look unoriginal.
“Faith, dear, how lovely to see you. I was going to give you a call after the party. It was wonderful, and I’m so impressed. You’re a very clever girl.” She patted the low seat next to her and Faith sat down. For a moment, Poppy was intent on her lip liner; then she glanced about the room. Apparently, the sole other occupant, a woman of a certain age applying rouge to cheeks resembling crushed tissue paper, was not someone Poppy cared about overhearing their conversation.
“Emma looks terrible. Do you know what’s bothering her?”
Faith had dreaded this moment, predicting it when Poppy had fixed her with her gimlet eye the moment she walked through the door.
“I think she’s tired. They go out so much, and she has all these other things—her charity work, political events.”
Poppy wasn’t buying it. “She’s always had those.
True, it takes a great deal of stamina to be married to someone in politics, but she doesn’t entertain much.
It’s merely a question of showing up and behaving pleasantly.” Clearly, Poppy felt her own role as trend- setter much more demanding—and important.
Faith knew she had to give her something else.
Poppy wasn’t buying fatigue.
“Well,” she said drawing the word out, “I know she’s
worried about not getting pregnant.” Nothing to hurt Emma in this revelation, and she hoped her feigned reluctance would convince Poppy that this was all that Emma was worrying her pretty little head about.
Poppy snapped her Chanel bag shut. “I knew it! And she simply makes it all worse by agonizing! Not that I’m in any hurry to be a grandmother at my age.” She managed to make it sound as if forty were still a speck on the distant horizon.
Faith nodded in agreement. “She told me the doctor said she should relax, but I imagine that’s hard when you want something as much as this.”
“I don’t know why she’s having all this trouble.
With me, all you had to do was lay a pair of men’s trousers across the bottom of my bed and there I was.
Not literally, of course.”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Morris. I know where babies come from. My mother explained it all to me when I was in third grade by using Del Monte pear halves—
womb, et cetera. Emma knows, too, because I told her myself.”
Faith still remembered their joint shocked wonderment and giggles. She’d never been able to eat those pears again—not that she would now, in any case.
Poppy stood up and smoothed her skirt. Once more, she glanced around the room and for the moment, they were alone.
“Michael’s going places, and he’s the perfect husband for Emma.” She gave Faith an air kiss and stepped back. “You know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my daughter—
