Michael is quite worried about her. Madeline wants to take her to some sort of clinic. Part of it is that she’s consumed with not being able to have a child.
Madeline is convinced that she’s worked herself up to the point where she can’t, simply from stress. And Emma is getting very thin. Madeline thinks she may be taking some sort of diet pills.”
“What she’s saying is that she thinks Emma is on drugs and/or anorexic,” Faith fumed, any kind thoughts she’d cherished in the past about Emma’s godmother vanishing like Cinderella’s coach. “I’ve seen quite a bit of Emma lately. You know I catered a party for her, and she and Michael have been at other events I’ve done.
She invited me to one of the Doubles lunches.”
“Oh, what fun. I went on Monday. Don’t get angry, Faith. I wanted you to know what people are saying.
Perhaps Emma is depressed. Infertility is very, very hard on a woman.”
“Please do me a favor. When you hear things like this, especially anything to do with drugs or an eating disorder, deny it on good authority.”
“The good authority being . . .”
“Me. I can tell you with absolute certainty that Emma is not on drugs, purging, or more than normally depressed about their inability”—Faith stressed the word
“Thank you. I was sure you’d know.” Her mother left, leaving a Gallic melange of Arpege and Gauloises hanging in the air.
Emma disoriented—clinically depressed. Emma on drugs. Faith piled dishes noisily and crumpled napkins that had been tossed carelessly about. It was totally unthinkable—wasn’t it?
This was a new thought. An insidious thought. Could Emma have made the whole thing up? Faith’s head ached. She had sent her staff home, then stayed at Chat’s, drinking champagne with her aunt and a few of her closest friends. Now she was trying to find a cool spot on her pillow, turning it over and over. Images from these last weeks were tumbling, too—spinning about in her mind like numbered lottery balls before the drawing. Yes, she’d seen the blackmail threats, but there was a computer and printer in the apartment, tastefully enclosed in an antique secretary in Michael’s study, his home office. Easy access for Emma. And the telephone calls. Emma had deleted one phone message and taken the next call herself. Faith had only Emma’s own reports of all the hang-ups. She’d dropped off the cash herself—alone. Feeling slightly feverish, Faith turned on the light and got up. The inside of her mouth was all fuzzy. She panicked. What if she was coming down with something! She couldn’t be sick now! Advil and Pellegrino—that’s what she needed. She hadn’t
had that much to drink. Maybe her body was trying to tell her something. Something like slow down. Well, she could do that in 1990. Not now.
She was hungry, too. That was what this was—a hunger headache. She hadn’t had the time, nor inclina-tion after that big deli lunch, to eat much. She opened her refrigerator, which, unlike those of her peers, who either ate out or dialed in, contained real food. She grabbed some Gruyere, Westphalian ham, butter, and mustard—moutarde d’ancienne from Fallot. Grainy, spicy, the essence of Dijon. Soon a croque monsieur, the French version of a grilled cheese sandwich, was in the frying pan. Either the Advil had kicked in or simply the smell of food was enough. Her headache was almost gone.
But why would Emma concoct this whole thing?
Faith put the sandwich on a plate and poured some more mineral water. The cheese had melted and the outside of the sandwich was crisp and golden. No, Emma hadn’t made this all up. Faith thought of Lorraine’s body being zipped into the bag by the police.
She pictured Emma’s fearful face. This whole thing was not the product of an overactive imagination or a disturbed psyche. It was, unfortunately, only too real.
Christmas was only three days away. It fell on a Monday this year, which meant all the parties, especially office parties, were over. Have Faith had a large luncheon on Saturday, a smaller dinner that night, a number of take-out orders and platters, but no more big events.
Faith was making supper for her own family on Christmas Eve, before the eleven o’clock service. Chat and her grandmother would be there. Hope said she might
be bringing Phelps. Christmas dinner the following day would be bigger. Besides relatives, there were always extras—people in the parish who had nowhere else to go. Over the years, they had become family, too.
There was always this lull in the city before New Year’s. The streets belonged to the tourists who poured in from all over the globe to gaze up at the tree, see the Rockettes at Radio City, and stand in line to get into Mama Leone’s or the one remaining coin-in-the-slot Horn and Hardart Automat on East Forty-second Street. Poppy Morris’s crowd headed for balmier places with white sand or colder ones with fresh powder—making sure they were back in time for the right New Year’s Eve celebrations. Faith had three parties that night, fortunately all on the West Side. She planned to dash between two of them, leaving Josie in charge of the third. Then she was closing to give everyone a break. She’d be busy overseeing the move.
At work, they had already started to pack up some of their equipment. When Faith arrived after an early lunch with her grandmother and Hope, Josie was busy dividing utensils—those they’d need over the next week and those they wouldn’t.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go home for Christmas?” Faith asked. They’d been through this before.
“You could leave tomorrow morning—or tonight even.”
“I know I’m expendable, but I want to go the week after and stay. My family is all excited because they’re going to get two Christmases this way. Besides, I want to have a good long talk with your mother. Does she know the hours you keep?” Josie was coming for Christmas dinner.
“Just what I need, an industrial spy,” Faith commented wryly.
They spent the rest of the day packing and preparing the luncheon and dinner for the next day. The menus were simple. For the lunch, they’d start with fennel soup garnished with pomegranate seeds, then a Scandinavian recipe Faith had picked up for a fish mousse with shrimp sauce, followed by a variation on that old New York favorite, Waldorf salad [see the recipe on page 281], or a simple mixed green salad, and for dessert, mocha buche de Noel. For the dinner, she was preparing a reprise of the roast beef that had been so popular at the Stansteads’ and Aunt Chat’s.
“I don’t know if I can make another meringue mushroom. These French logs are getting on my nerves,” Josie complained. “Why don’t we give them some sweet potato pie instead? I have a great recipe—laced with a little bourbon. Give the guests a kick.”
“I know what you mean,” Faith agreed. She had no idea the rich French pastry would prove so popular, but when New Yorkers adopt something, they adopt it wholeheartedly, and this year it was buche de Noel.
“Write down the pie recipe. I’ll make some for Christmas Day.”
“
“I’m not sure,” Faith said. She’d been feeling edgy all day. Her headache last night had not been a precur-sor to any illness, but it did presage a kind of malady of the soul. She couldn’t get Lorraine Fuchs out of her mind, couldn’t get away from the feeling that she had failed—and was failing—the woman. And all day, she’d been worried about Emma. Obsessively wonder-222
ing what was going on. She couldn’t call when Josie was there. She was also missing Richard. Or someone like Richard. She should be going out tonight, but when she thought of possible substitutions, she lost her enthusiasm.
“Your honey not back yet?”
“No.” Faith managed a smile. This was ridiculous.
