The Idea of Him (6 page)

While he was coming to quick terms with the idea that he'd finally found an attractive woman who cared about his world of nonstop news and gossip, right away, I knew that I too certainly liked the idea of this Wade Crawford man before me. He fit a need, like a square peg into a square hole. His enthusiasm for life and work would soften my losses: my father in a plane to the ravages of an untimely blizzard and James to a burning obsession to save every child on the other side of the world.

New York glimmered around us that night, the way it can when spontaneity falls perfectly into place. After dinner, Wade escorted me to two downtown parties filled with cigarette smoke and writers. Someday I hoped to be like his writer friends who wrote long magazine stories and books that they'd mined from their souls. It was clear from every angle that Wade's nonstop joie de vivre was more than contagious. He was sheer fun, and full of the possibility of escape, of renewal even.

He dropped me at my stoop at dawn, kissing me tenderly on the lips and disappearing into the early morning glow. As I watched him bounce down the street, all I could think was that he had Daddy's electricity and confidence. And that suited me just fine.

 

NOW I THREW
the photo on the side table, my heart tightening. Next I did some more sifting through his desk to look for something a young girl could categorize as “unsafe” and a clue to his affections for this same girl. No jewelry receipts, no trips to swanky hotels in South Beach, no damaging Monkey Business photos. Was it possible my wifely hunch was off? Was Jackie honestly trying to help me at the bar?
And
in my own laundry room?

Around Wade's work alcove, I only found celebrity snapshots amid journalistic projects I knew he was working on—cocaine dealers in Tijuana, photos of well-known American CEOs at an exclusive conference in the Rockies, and a draft piece about a society murder in Argentina linked to the grandson of an SS Nazi officer—but nothing seemed secret or nefarious. Or they all seemed secret and nefarious, but that was the nature of Wade's work: find twisted stories that drew people in.

And then, something hidden inside a book in his right desk drawer—an annual company report on Luxor computer chips—caught my attention. Luxor, a growing computer networking company, wasn't the kind of flashy story Wade would usually go after. It was suspicious purely because it seemed so mundane. Was he investing someone else's cash? The one thing any wife in any regular situation would think was normal to see in her husband's desk—a company annual report—I found disturbingly abnormal.

It had rattled me enough that I unfolded the gum wrapper in my back pocket and sent Jackie a text.

ME:
It's Allie. Is this Jackie?

About thirty seconds later she texted:

Find anything?

ME:
No. Nothing at all.

JACKIE:
Can we meet? Tudor Room tomorrow?

Meet with a woman I'd like wiped off the face of the planet? Problem was the admonition she delivered as she exited the laundry room rang in my ears and I'd have to understand what she meant before she got whacked. Next, I froze. This was way too early. I had no business contacting her. I don't know what I was thinking by texting her so rashly.

ME:
Tomorrow no good.
Just wanted to know this was you for sure.

I googled her immediately, but I couldn't find any information on her. No digital footprints at all.

I sensed only this: Jackie Malone used her sexual appeal to drive men over the edge. What she did with that power once they were plummeting, I did not know.

9

No Choice but the Grindstone

The cold light of day sobered my brain as I sat at my desk a week later. I was doing my best to focus on the screen in front of me, open to a blank page, the cursor pulsing like an impatient suitor. At least this was something that was all
mine,
not a writing task to boost a demanding client's career or image. Two months earlier, I had gathered my courage and submitted an old script I'd left for dead to a Tuesday night screenwriting class at New York University. I'd assumed I'd get rejected, but to my surprise, I got in, and this week's assignment was in danger of being late if I couldn't concentrate and begin it.

I'd write a few sentences of dialogue, but when I couldn't find the word I was searching for, my marriage angst would cloud my head instead, and then the beaming faces of our two children would break my heart more. A week had passed, and I hadn't made a move yet to meet Jackie. I wanted to lie low, find clues, consider my actions before I jumped too fast. Asking Wade how he knew her would yield another obfuscation until I could prove something solid.

I was very tempted to text Jackie again and meet her. She might say something to use as a comeback when Wade denied doing something with her. I also had to figure out what her bizarre warnings meant, if anything.

Yet, if I contacted her, how would I be able to tell if Jackie were lying? Was she possibly just blowing my husband in there? Maybe this wild-goose chase to find documents was nothing more than a game of distract-the-wife.

One thing was certain: I had to face the fact that I'd been feeling on edge with Wade—I believe now because I felt him pulling away. Before we were in sync; now he and I weren't. He made the motions, he'd kissed my ear at a party in a sexual way like he wanted me so badly, but then when we were alone, he was too tired and spent. Part of me was used to winding him up and letting him go. Yet this clarity slowly signalled something new: he was either having an affair or just didn't feel the same about us. I felt hurt and confused and angry and more than a little aggressive toward this Jackie woman.

“Allie.” Caitlin popped her blond head into my office. “Selena asked me to tell you that Murray wants you in there in ten minutes.” I glanced at the clock in the corner of my screen. How had it become 9:25 so quickly? Now I'd never get any pages polished before class. “Are you okay? Why are your eyes red?”

“Nothing. I'm getting a cold.”

“You sure? You need to talk?” she asked, softly.

“There's no news. I left early this morning.”

“Was he out again?” she asked, fuming.

“Yes, gambling I guess, or entertaining.”

Caitlin snorted. “Like there's a difference?” She put her hands on her hips. “And you still haven't filled me in on the laundry room episode last week. Why was he hidden away in the middle of his own friggin' party when he's usually the guy holding court?”

“It's too long a story, Caitlin.”

She walked to my desk and splayed her arms out on the other side of it, with her chin resting on my computer screen. “One thing you have to tell me. What exactly is going on or not going on with you two? You and Wade look like robots together every time I see you. Believe me, I study you guys. I keep telling you that.”

I put my head in my hands. “I love what I loved about him from day one: his irreverence, his magic touch with kids, but I just feel out of sorts with him right now. It's weird, like I'm questioning some things . . . it's nothing. We'll be fine.”

“Questioning what? Your love for him?”

“No, but you know Wade isn't easy to be married to; he's so all over the place all the time. The flip side of that is I love how exciting he is, but suddenly I'm thinking about things I'd shut out before.”

“Like what?”

I straightened up my back. Caitlin always pushed so hard on everything, there was no use resisting. “Like way back when, even on our wedding day, maybe, perhaps, I may have seen some things I didn't really digest.”

“What the hell? What did you see back then?”

“His hand on my bridesmaid's rear end for starters.” I laughed slightly; somehow it seemed ridiculous in that instant of lucidity. Every few days during that spring I felt something click, like those lenses eye doctors roll down over eyes to test and then sharpen the patient's vision. With each slow click, everything comes into focus a notch better.

“No!” Caitlin walked over to my desk and crossed her arms. “Really? Back then? You never told me that.”

“Well, I was putting on my veil in an anteroom and I saw him ushering Kathy Vincent down the hall and his hand was practically on her butt and I just thought, ‘Oh, gee.' But then I just plowed forward into unholy matrimony. I couldn't begin to process that.”

“And you think the girl from the party and he are . . . and you should be suspicious always after the cheating with the photo assistant during the breast-feeding moment?” Hard to fool Caitlin, not that the dots would be that difficult to connect for a sixth grader. Maybe I just hadn't wanted to.

“Well, kind of like maybe I've been in a blur with work and kids and now he's just distracted and not that focused on me and . . .” Click.

“Listen, Allie, when you marry an ego like Wade, there's a limit to the intimacy you are going to feel. You weren't overlooking that one. It's all about him. You had to know
that
going in.”

“It's like I don't rock his world the way I used to.”

“Does he rock yours?” Caitlin sounded weirdly like she hoped he didn't.

This was the seminal question of the day I wasn't ready for. It literally stung. I felt an acidic chemical shoot up my body, tighten my heart, and give me an instant headache. Caitlin laid it all on the line right then and there in a way I'd never really let myself fully consider.

How and when did he rock my world?

What did this guy actually give to me? For a horrible, terrifying, very honest moment, I thought to myself:
Was I just wanting and needing to rock his so much I don't even know the answer?

“Caitlin, I don't know about rocking my world. Of course he has or did or does at times,” I blurted out to convince both her and myself. “I'm so distracted by catering to his man-baby needs and getting the kids fed while I'm handling every Murray explosion to be able to answer that honestly right this second.”

“He's fucking around again, isn't he?” she asked. “I will literally chop off his dick if he is.”

“Jesus, Caitlin! You didn't listen to what I just said!”

“I certainly did, but I'm not so sure that you did. How can you say one day you love his magic touch and the next that it's so hard to be with someone like him?” She perched on the desk's edge and looked straight at me. “Are
you
fucking around?”

“Don't be crazy,” I answered, rubbing the pain out of my forehead and wishing she would leave.

“There is definitely something that you're hiding from me.” She looked at me long and hard. “You have to tell me. I live for this stuff, you know that. There's none in my life, God knows.”

I smiled at her. “It'll happen soon for you when you're not expecting it, Caitlin. He'll just pop out of nowhere.”

“Wouldn't know it if it happened, haven't had a guy even look at me in a year,” she said.

“What are you talking about? Guys like you; you just don't see it.”

“No, Allie. You don't get it: guys don't like me. I'm the fun best friend, not the one they want to take home.”

“Well, then we'll work on it.” I glanced at her bulky shoes and thick, muscle-y thighs peeking through her skirt. “We'll soften your look a little or something. I promise he's just around the corner. Let me just deal with the monster down the hall first.”

I grabbed a pen and paper and quick-stepped down the short hall to Murray's corner office.

 

SELENA, A CURVACEOUS
Colombian woman, and one of the only beings on the planet who didn't fear Murray Hillsinger, nodded me in with a roll of her big eyes and a pursing of her huge shiny lips lined in dark pencil. My boss was clearly not in a good mood. All I needed.

“I don't give a shit who he
thinks
he is,” Murray roared into his phone as I entered. He waved me to the straight-backed chair next to the black leather couch where he tended to hold court. I crossed and recrossed my legs while his tirade continued. His yellow tie dotted with little purple crowns didn't quite cover his belly, which protruded in a horizontal glob over his belt. “You gotta say what I tell you to say publicly or you're screwed. Plain and simple. I hate to state the obvious, but the cover-up is always worse than the crime, buddy. Just admit your mistake and move on. Otherwise you're toast. Trust me, that's what you're paying me for. I'll get a good reporter to take your mea culpa. Someone important. I know: I'll get Delsie Arceneaux to do it for you. Sound good? She'll be gentle.”

Arrayed on the coffee table was Bouley Bakery's freshest assortment of chocolate croissants and buttery Danish and muffins, delivered daily the minute Murray arrived. As he listened to the diminished soul on the other end of the line, he gestured toward the coffeepot for me to pour him a refill. I felt like a stewardess.

Murray suddenly threw the phone down the length of the couch, grabbed a giant blueberry crumb muffin, tore off the top, and bit a large section from it, spraying balls of sugar everywhere in the process. “I'm so happy Delsie is ready to emcee the Fulton Film Festival media lunch, and some panels. It's like some light went on for her after your pitch and she's excited. But now we gotta create even more buzz. Remember I got Max Rowland to invest in the festival, so he'll have his jail buddies break my kneecaps if we mess this up.”

“Okay,” I said and wrote
more buzz
on my notepad. Murray always liked people to take notes, no matter how simple his demands. He knew damn well the buzz we were going to find was already in the pipeline. The Fulton Film Festival was practically running itself.

“Whatever you have, I'm not impressed, it's not enough for Delsie or Max—”

“Murray,” I interrupted. “Why did you get that criminal Max Rowland to invest in a do-gooder festival like ours and put extra pressure on us to please him as well? I'm managing so many projects I don't know if I have the time to . . .” My home situation was sapping so much energy out of me that I could barely listen to his commands, let alone execute them.

“Bullshit. You got spunk and intelligence.” He counted these attributes on his fingers without releasing the raspberry pastry in his grip. “You like to argue. Delsie likes that. I like that. I need to be told when I'm off base.”

For the past ten years, Murray had never once listened to me when I told him he was off base. I put down my pen.

“So what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to promise me everything will go okay with the festival.”

“First of all, as much as you'd like me to be, Murray, I'm not your mommy. And second, why do I have to go it alone? Why can't you be more involved?”

“You are to deal alone with Max on festival business; I'm not doing it anymore. Have a pastry. You're too goddamned thin.”

Why was every man in my life acting like a little child who had to have everything the way he wanted just now? Maybe I courted them. That thought depressed me as I thought about making an effort to expunge the next generation of too many man-babies. I decided I'd let Blake handle his friend issues on his own and give him praise when he did.

I turned to Murray. “You
have
to talk to me about the other business with Max Rowland; he's a felon so I deserve to know you are being careful, or I refuse . . .”

Selena peeked into the room and said, “Sorry, Mr. Hillsinger. Your mother. Line two. You know how she reacts when I say you're in a meeting so the light will be blinking until you pick up.”

“Shit!” Murray slammed the table. “Never satisfied. She's working on me now to go to the Venice Film Festival at the end of summer, thinks she's a film expert because her son has a few fuckin' famous clients in Hollywood.” He picked up the receiver and completely changed the tone of his voice. “Yes, Ma.” He sounded like a little boy and slumped his shoulders. “Yes, sure, Ma. I'll work on it. I thought you'd like the idea of Boca with your girlfriends again, but Venice it is.” He slumped deep into his sofa at her latest request. “No, Ma. You know the hotels are all booked. No, Ma. Doesn't matter what they say, the Cipriani isn't the only good one, but, yes, Ma, I'll try to get you a room, but please remember if I can't deliver for you, it's because it's been booked for celebrities for a year now.”

He had to pull the phone away from his ear as she reacted to that bit of news.

“Ma, I'll try to get you in. I'll call you later.” Pause. “Yes, I love you.” He put down the receiver.

“How come you look like a dejected eight-year-old every time you talk to her?”

“Because she terrifies me, that's why,” he admitted in total defeat. “She purposefully asks for the hotel that's booked out five years in advance. They want Clooney and DiCaprio in the Cipriani that week, not my mom in her fuckin' fanny pack and Mephisto shoes! Jesus.”

I looked at the explosion of crumbs in front of me and shook my head. “Do you want me to write something specific for Delsie's speech at the festival?”

“You decide what to put in it. You wrote those great environmental speeches when I hired you. A kid out of college who writes speeches with that much impact, I want going full tilt on this.”

“Okay, Murray. And there were a lot of people I wrote them with; it wasn't all me.”