old hatbox, opens it, tucks the wig under the straw hat inside, and replaces the box. Her heart is thwacking in her chest. In the bathroom she picks up a glass and drops it. It shatters with a hollow sound that echoes off the room’s tiles. She carefully picks up the shards of broken glass, leaving several on the floor, sharp and menacing. Deep in the bottom of the bathroom closet, on a shelf filled with half-used tubes of sunblock and hair conditioner, she stashes the vials Dr. Halpern’s nurse gave her.
She heads for the kitchen. The door to Charles’s domain is open, and she walks down the hallway. His outer office is deserted; the door to his inner office is closed. She listens: silence. She knocks lightly. “Charles?” No reply. Just as she’s about to open the door, it opens from within and Emma emerges.
“He’s gone out for a walk,” the young woman says.
What was she doing in there? And with the door closed? Anne looks discreetly over Emma’s shoulder. Everything looks in order. No Charles.
“Just my luck. The one day I get home at a decent hour. How’s everything going here?”
“Just fine, for me. I hope I’m making things easier for Mr. Davis.”
“I’m sure you are.” Anne eyes Emma. She’s wearing a hint of makeup; she never did that when she was temping at Home. And those startling green eyes are so round and luminous.
“I saw the article about you in In Style,” Emma says.
“Oh, God, they made me sound like a cross between Martha Stewart and Donatella Versace.”
“Half the women I meet think you’re the Messiah.”
“That’s my cue to say something terribly cynical and witty. But I won’t.” Anne has an ironclad rule never to condescend to her customers.
“How’s everything at the office?” Emma asks.
“Chaotic.”
“I hope that problem worked itself out.”
“What problem?” Anne asks.
“You got a phone call that seemed to upset you. I think it was my second day working at Home. Anyway, it was raining.”
Anne looks at Emma for a moment. Who is this girl? She walks past her, into Charles’s office. She picks up his pack of Marlboros and takes one out, but doesn’t light it.
“Unfortunately, many calls upset me these days. Home is about to go on-line. Getting there hasn’t been easy. I probably should have kept you. You were good.”
“It was a wonderful opportunity for me.”
“Yes. And now you’re here.”
“I’m here.”
Emma looks as if she’s about to say something more and then thinks the better of it. What the hell was she doing skulking about in Charles’s office?
“I was just on my way out,” Emma says, gathering up her things. “Good night.”
“Good night,” Anne says. As she watches Emma walk down the hallway, Anne decides she wants her out of her house.
Back in the kitchen, Anne pours herself a glass of wine and finishes it in three sips. One glass won’t hurt the baby. Hell, her mother swears she drank two gin and tonics every night when she was pregnant with Anne. She opens the fridge and checks on the chicken she’s marinating in beer and curry and horseradish. They’ll eat at the small table in the library, at the window overlooking the park. She’ll put on Coltrane. And after dinner she’ll run Charles a hot bath…
The kitchen phone rings.
“Hello.”
“Why haven’t I heard from you, Annie? I’ve left three phone messages and two E-mails.”
“Need you ask?”
“Don’t give me that crap. You think my job is a day at the beach? I’m a vice president of a television network, cookie honey sweetie baby.”
Anne laughs-who else could make her laugh at this moment?
“I miss you, Kayla.”
Kayla Edelstein is Anne’s best buddy. They were roommates at Stanford, two eighteen-year-olds from opposite ends of the continent who joyously discovered that they shared a sense of humor, passionate liberal politics, and enough drive to light Cleveland. After graduation they moved to Manhattan together, shared a basement apartment off Riverside Drive, dated and sometimes bedded a series of gorgeous young men, and dived full-tilt-boogie into their careers. Anne got her first job as an editorial assistant at Vogue, Kayla hers as an agent’s assistant at William Morris. Within three years Kayla relocated to L.A., where her rise has been steady and sure. She’s currently head of development for the country’s second-largest cable network. The two friends speak at least once a week and make sure they see each other three or four times a year.
“So how are you?” Kayla asks in a voice that says, Don’t try to bullshit me, kiddo.
“Good.”
There’s a long pause.
“All right, it’s been a lousy couple of weeks.”
“I’ve seen the reviews. Is he totally flipped?”
“Pretty much. I know you think he’s a bulldog, and sometimes he is. But he feels things more acutely than most people. He can’t help himself. It’s part of what makes his work so good. And so difficult for him.”
“Why don’t the two of you come out here, lie by the pool in Santa Monica for a week? You need to get out of that town.”
“Charles is throwing himself into a new book. It’s the best thing. He knows he’s capable of more than Capitol Offense. I don’t care about his sales anymore. I just want him to tap into that magic again; I want him to be great again.”
“So do I, Annie. What about your website? Am I going to love it?”
“You’re going to way love it. It’s the coolest. Sales are going to go through the roof.”
“Why do I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me?”
“Because you have a very vivid imagination.”
“If I had a very vivid imagination, would I be in television? What I do have is intuition, and it tells me you’re holding back.”
Anne drums her nails on the countertop. Should she tell her best friend about the shards of glass waiting for Charles on the bathroom floor?
“Maybe I should come out there for a couple of days,” Anne says.
“Pretty please. I could use you right now. I just dumped Fred.”
“But you adored him.”
“I adored his demented sense of humor and the way he nibbled my inner thighs. What I didn’t adore was the fact that he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.”
“You told me he wasn’t like that.”
“ He told me he wasn’t like that. But my intuition didn’t believe him. So I made some discreet calls and met this fabulous call girl-slash-private eye, Sorbonne grad, could be running Paramount but has this Jane Bond lifestyle she loves. Anyway she lured old Freddy into a zipless fuck, and believe me, it wasn’t hard. Best five grand I ever dropped.”
“I’m sorry, Kayla.”
“I’m not. I’m thrilled. Saved by the babe.”
“But you really liked the guy.”
There’s a long pause and Anne can almost hear Kayla’s bravado fizzle.
“Yeah, you’re right, I did. He was so funny. And nerdy. I guess even geeks can be shits. Oh, Anne, I’m thirty-seven and I’ve never had a stable relationship,” Kayla says in a voice that’s starting to crack.
“You will, honey, you will. And, hey, what about our friendship?”
“You’re right. And fuck it-self-pity is the biggest bore.”
“Damn straight. Remember our solemn oath: We will never feel sorry for ourselves. We will always have a cleaning lady, and-”
