Then Came You

guests and half a dozen bridesmaids, all featured in the Vows column in the Sunday Times, but I had to admit that India had done it nicely. They’d said their vows in front of just forty people, on a Sunday morning, in one of the St. Regis’s smaller ballrooms. Afterward there’d been a cocktail party with sushi stations and dim sum, a champagne toast, and a small, dense chocolate wedding cake with pale-pink fondant icing and praline frosting underneath. In the photograph I handed to Kate, India was smiling, wearing a knee-length white silk dress, pale golden shoes, and a single apricot rosebud tucked behind her ear. “And I’ve got these,” I said, handing Kate a folder of printouts from when India had been in the news in connection with her PR work: the statements she’d given on behalf of a client who’d drunkenly backed her Prius into an SUV, then called the other driver white trash before racing through the parking lot and off into the night (“Miss Lowry would never use such language, and we fully expect her to be exonerated,” India had said); the quote she’d given while turning away a reporter at the gates of a magazine-launch party on Independence Island (“‘Invitation-only,’ said Independence’s publicist, glam stormtrooper India Bishop”).

Kate examined each piece of paper, one finger tapping gently at her chin as she looked over the picture, the clippings, the sheet I’d typed up with the words BIOGRAPHICAL DATA centered at the top, the photocopy of India’s driver’s license that I’d made after sliding it out of her purse while she was in what had been my mother’s dressing room, where the masseuse who came twice a week kept a folding table. Kate kicked off her flipflops, turned to a fresh page in her notebook, and then leaned forward.

“When I start these types of investigations, I always tell my clients to be careful what they wish for,” she began. “There’s a few possibilities I can see. One is, we could find out that this woman is exactly who she says she is.”

“She’s not,” I said.

“Or we find out that it’s all a lie — her name, her age, where she says she’s from and what she says she’s done. We could learn that she’s really a lesbian whose three previous husbands all died under mysterious circumstances and that she’d been stalking your father for years before she finally got her hooks into him.”

I found myself nodding unconsciously. That was more like it.

“We’ll build a dossier — pictures, documents, computer files, e-mails — but you should be prepared for the possibility that your father will shoot the messenger.” I must have looked like I didn’t understand, because she continued, “He could get mad at you, not at India.”

“Maybe,” I said. My fingers had gone to my pleats again. I made myself fold my hands in my lap. It was hard to imagine my father getting mad at me, if I’d be the one to save him from heartbreak, not to mention public humiliation. If India left, it would be in the papers, and people would laugh, they way they’d probably been laughing when my mother had run off with the Baba. There’d been snarky blind items on the gossip websites (“WHICH zabillionaire’s better half has ditched spawn and hubby and high-tailed it to New Me-hee-co in the company of her guru, an extremely flexible yogini who’s been helping her unblock her chakras, if you know what we mean, and we think you do?”). I would do whatever I could to spare my father that laughter… and, maybe, spare myself another year like the one I’d endured after my mother had left. I’d keep him safe, and keep my family’s fortune intact.

“Can I ask,” Kate said, running her fingers through the fringe of the blanket that hung over the back of the couch, “why you’re doing this?”

I didn’t answer. Of course I couldn’t tell her how awful it had been after my mother took off. I’d just met her, she hadn’t signed a confidentiality agreement, and I’d never told anyone what that year had been like. But before I had a chance to say anything, the door swung open and a tiny woman balanced on black leather booties shaped to look like horse’s hooves came stomping into the office. She wore a green leather miniskirt, black lace leggings, and a bottle-green velvet blazer. Her hair was piled on top of her head, and her eyes were shadowed with sparkling silver powder.

“Oh, Jesus,” said the hoof-footed woman, narrowing her eyes at Kate. “Did you wear your pajamas to work again?”

“They’re not,” Kate said, swinging her legs onto the floor and sliding her flipflops onto her feet. “I asked.”

“Whatever they are, they’re about one step up from sweatpants,” said the lady, pulling a bottle of water out of her fringed leather hobo bag. A rabbit’s foot, dyed green, was clipped to its strap. She held out her hand to me. “Janie Segal.”

“Of the carpet Segals,” said Kate. “My partner.”

“Could you not tell people that?” said Janie. “Not when you’re dressed as a homeless person. It doesn’t reflect well on my taste.”

“I’m Bettina Croft,” I said, feeling a little dizzy.

Janie lifted her arched eyebrows. “Of the Marcus Crofts?” She raised her fist. I’d seen enough TV to know to bump it lightly with my own. “Respect.”

“Bettina is a client,” said Kate, looking flustered.

“Cool,” said Janie, getting up. “Holler if you need me. Actually, don’t holler. I’m going to have a disco nap.”

She trit-trotted away. The heels on her boots narrowed until the part that actually bore her weight was barely the thickness of a sewing needle. Amazing. “Janie works nights,” said Kate, sliding into the rolling chair behind her desk.

“Ah,” I said.

“Back to business.” Kate pulled a contract out of a desk drawer, and I skimmed it, then took out my checkbook and glanced at my watch. They gave associates an hour for lunch at Kohler’s, and while I was confident that my bosses would indulge me if I was ten or fifteen minutes late, I didn’t like to take advantage. The only reason I’d gotten the job, I was sure, was because my mother had used Kohler’s to sell some of her things before moving to the ashram: they’d handled the auction of her pearls and her cocktail rings and the little Monet, a painting of a pond with lilies washed in lemony sunlight, which my dad had given her as a tenth-anniversary gift. There’d been two hundred applicants for my entry-level job, my supervisor had told me, and that was without Kohler’s even advertising anywhere, just word of mouth. I wasn’t sure if her intention was to make me work harder, but that’s what I’d done. Most mornings, I was the first one into the Crypt, a windowless chamber filled with reference books, jeweler’s loupes, and special raking lamps where the junior appraisers did the preliminary evaluations of lots of coins or jewelry collections or paintings we might take on for auction. I didn’t want anyone thinking that I was spoiled or entitled.

“Well, let’s get down to it,” said Kate. “We’ll see what we can see. But meanwhile — and this is none of my business, but I give all my clients this speech anyhow — you should be thinking about what you’re going to do with the information.”

I nodded, but of course I’d already made up my mind. I would find out the truth — that India wasn’t really named India; that she wasn’t really thirty-eight, that she’d probably never been to college and that maybe she’d been married before. Maybe she even had children, starter kids she’d pawned off on someone else so that she could present herself as young and fresh and untainted. I would give my father the facts, and he would, gently but firmly, send India away. Then maybe someday there’d be a knock on the door, and my mother would be there, smelling of patchouli and musk, her feet bare, her hair gray and her eyes soft and regretful. I’ve made a terrible mistake, she’d say. . and my father would open the door and let her in.

I walked back to work, through the soft spring afternoon, and bought lunch from a cart on Forty-eighth Street. “Pretty lady,” said the vendor, scooping the hot dog out of the vat of steaming water.

“Thank you,” I said, feeling myself blush. I’d never learned how to take a compliment, as my mother had more than once pointed out, and I wasn’t pretty. I wasn’t fat, precisely, but I was flat-chested and full-hipped, fifteen or twenty pounds more than what I thought I should weigh. I had nice skin that tanned easily, and all the pieces of my face were fine on their own — my nose, not too big; my eyes, a pretty hazel — but together, they added up to something less than beauty. My best feature was my hair, thick and glossy, somewhere between red and chestnut, that hadn’t been cut since I’d been in high school. From the back, at certain angles, I could look nice, but from the front, I had problems. My teeth were too big. Either that or my lips were too thin, or my gums were abnormally large, or something…

“Miss?” The cart guy was brandishing my dog. “Ketchup? Mustard?”

I shook my head and paid him, putting my change in my pocket and stepping into the air-conditioned, church-