The Best Laid Plans (21 page)

“I don’t care what we have to pay in overtime, you have to have this warehouse job and our offices in the building around the corner finished by Friday. My wife will absolutely kill me if I don’t move my work out of our apartment by next week.”

Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit shit! There might be other husbands in the city whose wives will kill them if they don’t get their businesses out of the middle of their living rooms, but how many can charm the pants off the workmen with Peter’s calibrated tone of obsequious authority? Still, even if the landlord was offering an amazing deal on the rent, what are the chances in hell that BUBB and the Veronica Agency would end up renting space in the same building? I can barely make out the forms of two figures at the top of the staircase. I turn before they can see me to race back to the third floor. Then just as I reach for the doorknob, I stumble. “Damn, my heel broke!” I squeal.

“Need any help down there?” Peter calls.

I try to control my breathing, which all of a sudden is alarmingly fast. “No, thanks,” I squeak, trying to disguise my voice. “Everything’s okay.” Then, as quickly as possible given my shoe situation, I hop back to the office and slam the door.

Inside, Sienna’s hunched over her laptop, chuckling. When she sees me, she quickly snaps the cover shut, as if she has something to hide.

“Thank goodness you’re here,” I say, collapsing into a chair and telling her that Peter’s in the building. “Peter, who has no idea that I’m working, let alone what I’m doing, is here, directly above us. What are we going to do?”

“Wow, are you sure?” Sienna sounds more interested than alarmed by the coincidence.

“Of course I’m sure. After twenty years I know what my husband sounds like. And I know what he sounds like when he’s really mad. As in, ‘Tru, we’re in the same office building and you’re running an escort agency?’ This is my worst nightmare!”

“No it’s not. Worst nightmare, let’s see, Naomi decides to never move out of your house. Or better, Paige tattoos Brandon’s initials across her belly button—in thick, big, black letters,” Sienna says swirling an imaginary B in the air.

I’m trying my best to have a Zen moment, but I may have to make it a Xanax one. I look over at Sienna, who’s totally calm. “Why are you so relaxed?” I complain.

“Because you’re going to have to tell Peter about the business sometime and it might as well be now. Listen, I know when we started I said that you could keep this whole thing a secret, but I think that was bad advice. He’s your husband, you need to tell him. Think how upset he’ll be if he finds out before you tell him.”

“Paige and Molly have already figured it out—the part where you and I are working together, anyway. I told them we’d opened a temp agency.”

“Good, that’s what you’ll tell Peter, too. Although I really think you should tell him the truth. Peter’s not a prude, he’s a businessman. I think he’ll be impressed that we’re addressing an untapped market.”

“You mean,
undressing
an untapped market.” I open the door and peek into the hallway, then before anyone—such as Peter—can see me trying to see if he’s there, I slam it shut. “I’ll tell him soon, really, I’m just waiting for the right moment.”

“Unless you run into him first in the building.”

“There is that,” I say, realizing that the construction noise seems to have finally stopped. I glance at my watch. “It’s after six. The workmen must have finally left for the night. I’ll just give Peter a call.”

I pull out my now and forever fully charged cellphone. Peter answers on the first ring.

“Hi, honey,” he says. “Sorry, I’m a little winded, I just walked down a flight of stairs. Hold on a sec, I’m leaving an apology for the people in the office below ours. The super told me the noise from our renovation is driving them crazy.”

I look up, and sure enough, a folded sheet of white paper is being slipped under the door. The door, which my husband is standing on the other side of, less that five feet away.

“Peter’s there, right outside,” I whisper. I wave my arms frantically and mouth the words
no talking
. The last thing in the world I want is for Peter to hear a noise in here and decide to meet the new neighbors.

“I, er, what?” I ask Peter, trying and failing to make conversation with my husband, who has no idea that it’s his nearness that has me tongue-tied.

“What are you doing? Right now? Can you meet me for dinner?” Peter asks impetuously. “We haven’t been out to a restaurant in months and I feel like celebrating. In fact, why don’t you meet me first and I’ll show you the warehouse and take you over to see the new office?”

“Dinner, I’d love to, let’s go to dinner. But why don’t we wait until the offices are completely finished, that way it’ll be a total surprise,” I improvise, trying to think of a reason—any reason—to get out of going upstairs.

“Okay,” says my unsuspecting husband. “We’ll save the tour for next week. I’ll leave now. Meet me in half an hour at the Hudson Cafeteria?”

“Great,” I say distractedly, eager to get off the phone and for Peter to leave. I hear the shuffle of feet in the hallway and let out a sigh of relief.

“Close one,” I say, telling Sienna to call me the minute she hears a word from any of our gals about how their dates are going.

“Sure thing,” she says, snapping her computer open and burying herself in whatever it was she was doing before I got here. “Have fun with your husband. Where are you guys going?”

“Hudson Cafeteria,” I say, stepping out into the hallway and peeking around the corner to make sure the coast is really clear. “I’ve never been there but I hear it’s terrific. Someone or other was talking to me about it just the other day.”

W
HEN I ARRIVE
at the restaurant, Peter’s already waiting. I look around at the brick walls, soaring eighteen-foot cathedral ceiling, Gothic chairs, and stained-glass windows.

“Like it?” Peter asks, patting the space next to him on a wooden bench at a long communal dining table. “Their website describes this place as ‘an Ivy League dining room,’ but I picked it because I thought the decor would appeal to the medieval scholar in you.”

“The clean stained-glass windows look just right here,” I say, leaning in to give Peter a kiss. Just half an hour ago my husband was making my heart beat faster out of sheer terror that I might run into him. Now sitting next to him makes it skip a beat. Amazing that after all these years his big blue eyes and crooked smile can still make me melt—when I bother to look into his eyes and he bothers to smile, that is. It’s been a long time since we’ve enjoyed a relaxed moment together, but tonight could be the night. At least I hope so.

“You’re a good husband. Sometimes,” I tease.

“Not always, but I mean to be a good husband,” Peter says, cradling his arm around my shoulder and pulling me close. “I’m not very good at saying ‘I’m sorry,’ but I am, Tru. I’m sorry that I was such an idiot about not telling you that I’d lost my job. I’m sorry for letting Tiffany redecorate the bathroom. I’m sorry.…” Peter pauses. “Aren’t you going to tell me I don’t have to keep apologizing?” He laughs.

“Just one more,” I urge.

“Okay, I’m sorry for just about everything that’s happened recently. Except that I married you. And the elevator sex. I’m definitely not sorry about the elevator sex.” Peter slips his hand under the table and rubs it across my knee. “I’m very grateful for you and the girls. Naomi’s heart attack puts everything in perspective. We have a good life, honey. I’m glad that things are back on track.”

“Me too.” I rap my hand against the wooden table, accidentally knocking over the crystal salt shaker. I hurriedly set the shaker back upright, and toss a large pinch of salt over my left shoulder.

“You have to blind the devil while you’re cleaning up the mess,” I say with a smile. I know it sounds silly, but what if it’s true?

Peter laughs. He doesn’t believe in all of my superstitious mumbo jumbo, as he calls it, but he’s willing to indulge me. “Why not?” he says, picking up the shaker and pitching another couple of tablespoons over his shoulder, too. A pretty blond woman walking behind him lets out a little shriek.

“Sorry,” Peter says, turning around to apologize for his poor aim.

“That’s okay, I was just a little surprised,” she says, looking down to brush the white specks off of her chic knee-length black dress and leaning into the man standing next to her,
who’s holding her glittery clutch. She sweeps the last granules off her bodice, looks up, and I echo her little gasp.

“Anna! Anna Bovary!” says the blonde, whom I now recognize as Georgy—my Georgy, the Georgy who works for the Veronica Agency. Now I remember why the Hudson Cafeteria sounded familiar: it was, it is, where Georgy is rendezvousing with her date.

I shake my head slowly from side to side and try to keep my cool. “Anna, no, you must have me confused with someone else,” I say steadily.

IQ tests weren’t part of our interview process, but now I’m starting to see that maybe they should have been.

“
An-na,
” Georgy says insistently, pointing back and forth between us, as if she’s a member of a 1950s girl group acting out the words to a doo-wop song. “It’s me,
Geor-gy
, from the Veronica Agency. You know,
I
work for
you.
”

Peter looks at me curiously, but I pretend to have no idea what this crazy stranger is talking about. Then, as she finally gets it, Georgy grins maniacally and tries to backtrack.

“No, yes, of course, how silly, I’m nearsighted, or far-sighted. Anyway I don’t see that well without my glasses, sorry for the mistake,” Georgy says with a wink. A wink so broad that even Stevie Wonder would see that something’s up.

Georgy’s date doesn’t want to attract any more attention. He motions for the hostess to come over to escort them to a different table. “Over there,” he says, pointing to a more intimate area toward the back of the darkly lit restaurant.

“No problem, sir.” I watch Georgy and her agency-arranged-date settle into a cozy spot across the room, as the hostess walks back to us.

“Sorry for the commotion, folks,” the hostess says, rolling her eyes. “I heard everything. Anna Bovary, that’s a good one!”

“Yes, indeed,” I say, reaching for my goblet of cider and taking a big swig.

Peter pulls his hand away from mine and looks at me searchingly.

“Anna Bovary, funny choice,” he says, tracing small imaginary circles with his finger on the table top as he gathers his thoughts—and suspicions. “I’m guessing she’s the mythical love child of Anna Karenina and Emma Bovary. Which is kind of a coincidence when you think about how those are the heroines of your two favorite novels.”

“What exactly are you saying?” I ask, trying not to meet Peter’s eyes.

“I’m saying that I want to know what that woman was talking about. She ‘works’ for you, doing what? What’s this Veronica Agency she was babbling about? You never really told me where you were for those first few hours when Naomi was in the hospital and we couldn’t find you,” Peter says. “But you’re never where you’re supposed to be these days. I’m your husband, I have a right to know what’s going on.”

I press my palms down on the table, and push at my fingertips. Usually I’d be counting to ten or figuring out how to smooth things over. But not now. I’ve spent a lifetime being the good girl, the girl who tries to make everything right for everybody, the anti-Naomi who’ll do anything to avoid a conflict. But now I’m Hurricane Katrina and the levees have burst.

“Well, I’m your wife, I had a right to know what’s going on, too. How could you possibly, how could you have kept it a secret from me that you were out of work? For. Three. Whole. Months. Our savings were gone, you borrowed against the apartment, we were this close to losing our home!” I cry, pinching my thumb and pointer finger together so tightly together that I feel them turning red. “And all the while you were
getting dressed and going off to Starbucks, and I was spending money like we didn’t have a worry in the world.”

“You’re not supposed to have a worry in the world, it’s my job to take care of you!” Peter says righteously.

“No, it’s our job to take care of each other. And you didn’t let me do that. You never let me do that! I’m not the same nineteen-year-old girl who used to schedule her classes around yours or who let you talk me into moving to Park Avenue when I thought it would be more fun to live in SoHo.”

“You know you wouldn’t have been happy in a loft, we agreed. There wasn’t even a supermarket in the neighborhood when you wanted to live there. What were we going to do for groceries—grow vegetables on the roof?”

“Why not? Why not grow our own vegetables, or eat peas out of a can? Or, I don’t know, but something that every other investment banker and his wife in the world weren’t doing. Something original.”

“What are you talking about? Have you gone crazy? How did this argument become about gardening and real estate?”

“Because you don’t listen, you never listen to me!” I say, banging my fist on the table hard enough to send a spurt of cider streaming from my glass.

“Quiet down, Tru,” says Peter. “People are starting to stare.”