So Pretty It Hurts

“There’s just one very important detail you’re not privy to,” he said, his voice tight with anger.

“And what would that be?” I asked.

“This is totally off the record?”

“Yes.”

“We couldn’t have been having an affair. I’m not capable of having sex with anyone.”

Chapter 11

Cap’s comment flabbergasted me. The guy radiated virility. And he was married to a younger woman who seemed like she’d demand her fair share in the sack.

“Oh,” I said awkwardly. I mean, what was I supposed to do—ask him point blank what was up (or not up) with his package?

“You don’t believe me?” he asked.

“No, that’s not true. I’m just trying to process the information.”

“Wait here,” he said unexpectedly and slid off his stool. Oh, boy, I thought, he’s not going to drop trou and show me what’s the matter? But instead he strode toward the door of the still-empty restaurant and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He was calling someone. I hoped it wasn’t a libel lawyer.

While he spoke to the person on the other end, several red-nosed customers hurried in, looking happy to have escaped the cold. What in the world was he doing? I wondered. Cap’s guest would surely be here any second, and we wouldn’t have any more time to talk.

“All right,” he said after returning to the bar. “I made arrangements for you to speak to Whitney—right now.”

He grabbed a cocktail napkin from a stack toward the back edge of the bar and scrawled down his address with a chubby Montblanc pen.

“Whitney?”

“Yes, she’s waiting at our apartment—and she can explain everything.”

“Why are you going to so much trouble? One minute you’re threatening to sue my ass off, and the next minute you’re sending me up to your apartment.”

“Because I can’t allow you to go down this ridiculous road. Whitney will tell you what’s going on and why it would have been impossible for me and Devon to be having an affair.”

A few minutes later I was in an overheated cab, headed toward the West 60s. I couldn’t believe this latest turn of events—but I certainly wasn’t going to pass it up. The apartment turned out to be in a supermodern condo building near Lincoln Center, the kind with a huge, gleaming brass and marble lobby. My ears popped a little as the elevator hurled me toward the forty-third floor.

I didn’t really have time to envision what the apartment would look like, but if I had, I probably would have guessed it’d be a nice, pretty spacious two-bedroom, purchased in this kind of building because you get more for your money here than in a fancier address on Park or Fifth Avenue. I would have been wrong. As soon as Whitney opened the door, I could see enough from the gallery-style entranceway to know that I was in a jaw-dropping apartment that took up most of the floor. The air was fragrant with the smell of something sweet baking somewhere on the premises.

“Come into the living room,” Whitney said curtly and turned abruptly, suggesting I should follow. She was wearing brown tweed slacks, short-heeled leather boots, and a satiny off-white blouse with so much sheen I could almost see my pores in it. Her blond hair was pulled back with a brown suede headband. More Westchester County than Texas today.

The room she led me to was huge, large enough to include several seating areas, and was decorated in cream, ginger, and minty green tones. The walls were covered with faux Impressionist landscape paintings, and the coffee and end tables were loaded up with expensive-looking accessories—silver bowls, alabaster balls, and books about Tuscany and the Aegean Sea.

But none of that really mattered anyway because the best thing to gaze at was the view. There were floor- to-ceiling windows on three sides of the open living/dining area. It felt almost as if we were in the cockpit of a plane.

“I’m only doing this, you realize, because Cap asked me to,” Whitney said, taking a seat.

“Well, I’m very curious to hear what Cap wanted you to share with me,” I said. I took a seat, too, though as Whitney’s eyes followed my movements, I sensed she was worried I might stain the fabric.

“Cap is horrified about what you’re suggesting—that either one of us had anything to do with Devon’s death,” she said. “Admittedly, Devon could be difficult, but she’d been Cap’s client for many years, and he was very fond of her. And though I wouldn’t have called Devon and me—what’s the expression everyone uses today, bff’s?—we had a good rapport. In fact, we went to a spa together several weekends ago.”

“Nothing kills a good rapport like sexual jealousy, though?”

“Cap was not having an affair with Devon.”

“Because he had some kind of sexual problem?”

“First and foremost because we’re very much in love. But, besides the point, is the fact that he couldn’t physically anyway. It’s horribly embarrassing for us to have to talk to you about this but if we don’t, you’ll print ugly speculations in that dreadful magazine of yours.”

I could see her cheeks coloring up as she spoke. She pressed one of her hands to her chest.

“Are you okay?”

“I have asthma. And it can flare up when things become unpleasant.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you,” I said. “But I’m really just interested in the truth, not idle speculation. I want to get to the bottom of things.”

She cast her eyes downward as the tip of her small pink tongue slipped out and touched her top lip. Finally she glanced back up at me.

“Cap has lupus. He’s been suffering from it for over a year. We are very hopeful that with God’s help and the best doctors in New York, his condition will improve. And right now all the signs are pointing to a full recovery.”

“I’m happy to hear that.”

“But until that recovery is complete, Cap can’t fully function as he once did—because of a combination of the disease and the medication. There’s no way Cap could have been having an affair with Devon. It’s not physically possible.”

I flashed on a phrase I’d once read in Gloss: emotional adultery. Or what you could call head sex. You form an intense bond with someone who isn’t your partner, and though it may not involve a physical relationship, you share your deepest feelings and secrets with that person and eventually hope to take it to the next level.

“Isn’t it possible for two people to be smitten with each other without necessarily consummating it?” I asked. “Some of the great love stories in history would fit into that category.”

She made a sound that was something between a laugh and a snicker.

“That wouldn’t be Cap,” she said. “He’s a very sexual man.”

“I appreciate your candor,” I told her. “Like I said, I’m just trying to figure out what really happened. Certain aspects of the weekend just seem disturbing to me.”

“What do you mean by disturbing?”

“Well, for one, someone ran around scratching our bedroom doors with a branding iron during the middle of the night.”

“I have no idea who played that awful prank,” Whitney said. “Maybe someone with a mean sense of humor—