Best Intentions (7 page)

As I hand over my driver's license, have my bag scanned and, after some confusion, punch in my floor at the C bank of elevators, I wonder once more what I'm doing here. The potential client, David Forrester, must have heard about the takeover but been too polite to cancel. When I pointed this out to Carol, she insisted I go nonetheless, convincing me that landing Forrester as a client will be an auspicious way to introduce myself to Merdale. She had first met him a month ago at a cocktail party in Southampton to raise money for Parkinson's disease, and though we rarely take on individuals—there are plenty of others who specialize in crisis management for indicted CEOs and politicians caught in New Jersey motel rooms with hookers of indeterminate sexual identity—he broached the subject with her. A hedge fund manager, he had recently been getting roughed up quite a bit in the press. Despite my misgivings, I read up on Forrester. He is the kind of man I usually despise on principle, though I cannot say precisely what that principle is—it would require a more nuanced understanding of Wall Street than I actually possess. I only know that hedge fund money has infiltrated the city like golden silt; it lies beneath the town houses and the private jets, the personal
chefs and the exotic safaris, you can see it in the women's lineless faces on the Upper East Side and their daughters with their Prada bags at age twelve. It has changed the very meaning of wealth in a city already cleaved by monetary differentiation.

The elevator lets me out on the thirty-second floor and, stepping into the vast space surrounded by wraparound floor-to-ceiling windows, I feel suspended in midair, floating weightlessly amid miles of endlessly unpunctuated sky. The receptionist, a young woman with pitch-black straightened hair and a carefully honed stylishness bordering on aggression, leads me down a hallway of offices partitioned by glass and carefully designed seating areas meant to facilitate a sense of community but which appear never to have been used. All is transparency and exposure, as if privacy has been relegated to the past, a nostalgic but failed notion. There are no corners to hide in here, no doors to shut that can't be seen through.

She deposits me at the corner office, wordlessly vanishing as David Forrester rises to greet me. “Lisa, thank you for coming. I realize this must be a crazy time for you.” He smiles easily, as if I am doing him a great favor. He is over six feet tall, with a body that suggests he plays tennis or racquetball or whatever it is men like him play to offset the business lunches, the deals done over expense-account dinners replete with thousand-dollar wine bills. His longish dark-brown hair and wire-framed glasses give him the air of a New England college professor rather than a financial genius known for his moral relativity.

“I appreciate your taking the time,” I reply, as we sit on opposite sides of his oak desk, blatantly out of place amid so much determined modernity.

“Carol is your biggest fan. I'd be silly not to follow her advice.”

“I hope she didn't pester you into this.”

“Only in the most charming way.”

“You know she sold the company?”

He nods. “Yes. I realize that things are in a state of flux, but I have always believed in getting to know talent whenever the opportunity arises. If you wait for perfect timing for anything in life you
will be a very old, very poor, very frustrated human being.” He stops, offers up that easy smile once more. “Good Lord, I must sound like a two-bit business Buddha to you.”

“Not at all,” I reassure him. “But I thought timing was everything. In finance and relationships.”

“Considering I've been far more successful in the former than the latter, I will defer to you on that score.”

“At your peril,” I reply.

David laughs. “Carol was right.”

“About what?”

“You.”

“Did she make a convincing argument for you signing up?”

“I believe that's your job.”

I flush. “Of course. In that case, let me proceed.” I begin to rattle off the benefits of Merdale, making much of it up as I go. While I speak, David rests his elbows on his desk, listening patiently. His forearms, emerging from his rolled-up shirtsleeves, are sinewy and firm. I notice he is wearing a Swiss Army watch, as much of an affectation as a Rolex and yet somehow not quite as offensive.

“Merdale does good work,” David assures me when I am, to the relief of us both, finally done. “As I told Carol, we have corporate PR for most of our needs and I've never been one to seek out personal publicity.”

“But?”

“I'm sure you're aware that a lot of the press about me has not exactly been glowing.” An ironic smile forms slowly across his features. “As long as it doesn't impact business my proclivity is usually to let people believe whatever they damn please about me. At the moment, though, I am about to announce a new fund that I don't want to see hobbled by ill-founded rumors. There's too much at stake.”

“Can you tell me about the fund?” I ask, doubtful that I will understand a single word of his answer.

“It's something I've wanted to get off the ground for a while. We will only put money into green projects, alternative sources of
energy, companies trying to develop better hybrids, that kind of thing.” He pauses. “In case you're wondering, it is something I actually do believe in. What I would like to avoid is having my motives questioned publicly in a way that might overshadow the project and prevent people from investing. For the record, I'm not nearly as evil as people seem to think.”

“I'm sure you're not.”

David glances out the window at a sailboat cutting a lazy white trail past the Statue of Liberty before turning back to me. “Do you know what mosaic theory is?” he asks.

“Kind of.” It's one of those terms I hear bandied about and think I understand but am probably totally wrong about. It's not worth the gamble.

“It's the technique of gathering bits of information from various places and piecing them together to form a supposition that you wouldn't have been able to come up with from a single source. The government is using it in certain terrorism cases.”

I nod.

“The point is, sometimes the conclusion is accurate—and sometimes it's totally off-base. The exact same morsels of information can be put together in various ways. From precisely the same facts you can end up with completely disparate hypotheses.”

“In a way that's what we do,” I tell him, “present the pieces of information you give us in a manner that will create a favorable image to the outside world.”

“Yes, of course. Anyway, the reason I thought you might be right for the project is that I admire the work you've done for Upward Movement.” He smiles. “I did my research on you.”

“So I see.”

Upward Movement is an organization that helps place highly educated immigrants, often seeking political asylum, in jobs similar to ones they had in their home countries. It has been a pet project of mine for the past two years. “That was pro bono,” I remind him.

“This, of course, would not be. Nevertheless, you took an NGO no one had ever heard of and got almost every Fortune 500 com
pany involved. I wouldn't mind benefiting from a little of that expertise. When and if the time is right,” he adds.

“You mean because of Merdale?”

“Yes.”

We agree to speak again after things have settled down a bit and then David offers to walk me out.

He leads me past a shimmering panorama of the Chrysler Building, the Woolworth Building, past ever-busy cranes rendered silent by the thick glass, the cacophony of the city's massive construction reduced to a stage whisper. “Distracting view,” he remarks. “The funny thing is, I've never particularly liked heights.”

I smile. “To tell you the truth, I've been verging on a panic attack since I walked in.”

“I hope it's the view and not the company.”

“Absolutely. But don't you feel vulnerable here? All this openness makes me feel, so, I don't know, unprotected.”

“It has been said we are a target in the sky,” he agrees. “But a little sense of danger is not necessarily a bad thing. It keeps you on your toes, don't you think?”

“I have Manolos for that,” I reply, though I don't, in fact, own Manolos. Well, one pair Deirdre passed on to me after she was seduced by their sale price despite the fact that they didn't fit her (or me) and proved to be beyond even the most expert stretching.

David laughs. He is clearly someone who likes to be amused but is happy to return the favor, a man confident that whatever it is he wants will come his way eventually.

“I'll be in touch,” he promises as we shake hands. With that he holds open the glass door for me to pass through. I can feel his eyes on my back as I walk and, self-conscious, I turn once to check. I catch his eye, then quickly look away, embarrassed.

Back at Steiner, I pass by Carol's office but the door is closed, the lights off. As I walk past the row of desks, I notice people polishing up their résumés, dusting photos and straightening stacks of magazines. We are waiting now, all of us.

I spend the next hour going over accounts and writing summa
ries (though I haven't been asked, it can't hurt). I only hope they don't turn into exit reports. I am just about done when my e-mail pings. I peer at the screen. It is from David Forrester.

In the subject line he has written: Mosaic Theory 2.0. The e-mail reads: “Despite the uses made of it by the government and, as you pointed out, PR, I am far more interested in the potential personal applications of mosaic theory. You can be my test case. I'll start. I make a mean bouillabaisse, fish-heads and all. I would like to teach full-time one day. (I know, I know, everyone wants to teach…after their first twenty million.) At least three things the press has said about me recently are completely untrue but I'm not going to tell you which three…David.”

As I read it again it crosses my mind that this is some sort of test: If I come up with the right answer David will sign on with Merdale. It has been so long since anyone flirted with me that it takes me a moment to realize he might be playing a different game entirely. Sitting alone at my desk, I feel my face heat up.

I am rereading the e-mail for the third time when Petra buzzes to tell me Sam is on the line. I quickly shut it before I pick up.

“Is everything okay?” I ask. Sam rarely calls so early in the day.

“Yes, fine. Listen,” he pauses and I hear him take a breath. “Wells's number two has agreed to see me.”

“That's great.” Actually, I don't see what's so great about it. What he needs is the elusive Wells himself.

“The thing is, he's going on vacation.”

“Okay.”

“He wants to meet with me today.”

“Today? Is he in New York?” I am beginning to sense some sort of setup, much in the way Phoebe gives an endless litany of rationalizations before asking if she can stay up an extra hour knowing that my tendency is to agree just to stop the babbling.

“No. I checked flights. With the time difference I can get out to Chicago, meet with him and still be back in time for Jack's dinner. I'll come to the restaurant straight from the airport.”

“Are you sure it's worth it?”

“Why don't you trust me to know what I'm doing?” he snaps.

“Of course. It's just…never mind. I hope it works out, that's all.”

“I'll see you tonight.”

I'm not sure if he hears me when I say, “Okay,” or, a few seconds later, “I love you.”

As soon as I hear the click I realize that I haven't told him where we are meeting Jack. I pick up the receiver and call his office. After exchanging a few pleasantries with his assistant, Kathy, I ask to speak to Sam.

“I'm sorry, he's not in.”

“Did he leave for the airport already?”

“The airport?”

“For his flight to Chicago. The Wells story?”

“You must be mistaken,” she informs me peremptorily. “There is no Wells story. It was killed.”

S
uspicion crackles and pulls, nags and infiltrates, it coils around your brain, distorting your perceptions, it is the smoke you see everything through that refuses to lift. But a lie, hard and indisputable, freezes in your lungs, its ice spreading through your pores, chilling every synapse; a lie once discovered paralyzes you.

I sit motionless, my hand still on the telephone, futilely trying to arrange my thoughts into a recognizable pattern, but it is as if I am trying to decipher an unknown dialect—the words don't attach to meaning.

A lie does this, too: It opens a door. How do you know, after all, if it is an isolated fact, a tumor still contained, excisable, or if there is more lurking in the body, silent and malignant; how do you know how far it goes?

Sam and I have had our wobbles, we have had our cold wars and our reunions, but in all of our years together I have never caught him in an outright lie. Until this moment I never truly believed that I would. Sam, I always thought, came shrink-wrapped in morality. It was one of the most alluring things about him.

But.

I exhume the pieces I had so recently dismissed, the woman's voice, the midnight phone call, and casting aside the excuses and evasions, examine them anew.

My head spins, a vortex of fear, doubt and anger, leaving me dizzy and uncertain. I feel oddly numb, as if I have gotten a dreaded diagnosis I can't assimilate yet, won't even try because I know once I do, nothing will ever be the same.

I am not ready to confront Sam, not ready to take a step off the precipice to…what?

I don't want to hear the answers, not yet.

So I sit here, digging my nails into my scalp, looking down off the ledge—and stay resolutely still.

Slowly, I become aware of people hovering in the near distance. I glance up to find Petra standing in the entryway with two men I have never seen before. She moves aside and the men enter with a bloated, proprietary air. The smaller of the two steps forward and holds out his hand. “Robert Merdale,” he says.

The last thing in the world I need right now is a Merdale drive-by. I force a smile, too wide, too anxious to please. Beneath the guise of collegiality, they are here to assert their authority, their droit du seigneur.

As I shake his hand, I try to forcibly shift my brain away from Sam, but only fragments of my consciousness come with me.

Merdale's fingers are tiny, soft and perfectly manicured. “It's wonderful to meet you,” he says. He has a slight lisp overlaid on a flat mid-western accent. He might be married with three children but I have my doubts. “And this is Mick Favata.” Behind him stands a bald, barrel-chested man with a bulldog face pockmarked with the ragged scars of ancient acne. The three of us sit down at the round table.

“I just wanted to introduce myself,” Merdale begins, “and tell you how happy we are that you will be part of our team. I've watched you from afar and I want to assure you that you are one of the assets we are most excited about getting,” he says, as if I have been acquired along with the furniture, the database, the client list. He glances over at Favata. “Mick has agreed to come on board to help out for a while. Do you two know each other? Mick was the head of Harcourt PR for years. He can bring a fresh eye to the table.”

I'm not quite sure what any of this means but I do know that it's not exactly a vote of confidence. “That's wonderful,” I reply.

Merdale begins a round of getting-to-know-you blather meant to show that he cares, really cares about me as a person, and I give rote answers to his queries about how many children I have, where I went this summer, how long I've been with the company, all the preliminaries we both pretend to be interested in as we edge closer to the point, whatever that might be. I am in the middle of answering his question about how assistant duties are divvied up when my phone rings. Petra picks it up and I hear her tell whoever is on the line that I am in a meeting.

“You were saying?” Merdale prompts me.

I stare blankly at him. I have no idea what I was saying. We are not off to a good start. “Sorry.”

I try to recoup but before I can pick up whatever weak train of thought I'd been clinging to, Favata begins to speak in a gruff voice. “Robert has asked me to have a look at some of the accounts, see how we're approaching them, if we can improve in any way.” He pauses, leans forward on his elbows, the sleeves of his blazer pulled tight against his thick arms. He could use the next size up. “Let me assure you right off the bat that I don't want your job. I'm just happy to come in and help in any way that I can.”

I was unaware until this moment that I needed help. “That's great.”

I glance over his shoulder at my phone but the message light remains stubbornly unlit.

“I don't want to keep you from anything,” Favata remarks snidely. “We can talk more tomorrow.” It sounds more like a threat than an invitation.

The minute they leave I turn to Petra. “Who called?”

“Someone from HR. They needed your benefit info. I took care of it for you.”

I had no reason to think it would have been Sam. “Thanks.”

I can feel Petra watching me, waiting for a postgame analysis of my meeting, but I'm in no mood. I smile wanly, tell her I have a lot of catching up to do and return to my desk.

For the next few hours, I go through all my accounts, trying to
find the weaknesses before Favata does. I vacillate between feeling defensive—they are all fine—and seeing only mediocrity.

But beneath it all, I am waiting. For a plan of action, for my own nerve to return.

For an explanation that I know in my heart does not exist.

As I pick at a salad for lunch I stare at the dress hanging from my door that I brought to change into for the evening. It seems like a lifetime ago that I pulled it from my closet, held it up before the mirror, excited about the dinner, looking forward to it.

Claire calls to tell me she and Phoebe got home safely.

I talk briefly to Marissa, the latest in our ever-changing roster of babysitting NYU students.

I call Deirdre at the store but Janine, her assistant manager, informs me that she is out for the afternoon.

I call Nina Stern, a friend in the business, and learn that Mick Favata left Harcourt just over a year ago. There were some unpleasant rumors of an affair with a woman in the London office that went seriously awry, though no one uses the term
harassment,
at least not out loud. Some say there were payoffs made, confidentiality agreements signed. “Does he want back in the game?” I ask.

“He always wants in. But Robert Merdale's the only one about to give him the opportunity. This is his last chance. A word of warning,” Nina says. “Be careful. Favata's a thug. And he and Merdale are fishing buddies.”

“Great combination,” I mutter.

I check my horoscope online.

I stare at my computer screen, unable to concentrate.

Forty-five minutes pass, an hour.

I open David Forrester's e-mail and read it three more times.

Finally I write, “You are either a benevolent serial monogamist and benefactor of worthy causes or a ruthless loner who likes to win at any cost. Which?” I pause and then, before I can think about it, I hit “send.”