Bertrand Court (11 page)

“How do you feel this morning?” Marcus asked, not looking up from the screen.

“Too much wine.”

She walked over to his filing cabinet and opened the drawer that held their credit card receipts. Robin barely used her personal credit card, so it wasn't hard to locate the receipt for Marcus's jacket. The fatter envelope traced all her purchases for the family: the new set of pots and pans from Williams-Sonoma, expensive yoga pants from Lucy for herself, gymnastics classes for Sydney, and tuition to basketball camp for Justin. How could she have been so blind to what was going on with Marcus? Why hadn't he confided in her? Marcus didn't know how to ask for help. She should have pushed harder when he started to wear his worry on his face. When she'd tried to comfort him initially, he'd just said that he was sad about losing his father. She'd known there was more to it all along.

She felt him standing behind her, and she whispered, “Please don't say you're sorry again.”

“I won't.” He sounded defensive, as if she'd called him a bad name.

“I'm going to run an errand, okay?” She turned around to face him, but they both avoided eye contact.

She went to the hall closet and retrieved a Nordstrom shopping bag. When she entered the kitchen, she discovered that the jacket was not hanging over the chair. “Marcus?” she hollered.

“What's wrong?” he said, rushing into the kitchen.

“Where's the jacket?”

“I put it in the dry-cleaning basket. I think you did the best you could with the stain, babe. I'll take it in later.”

“Don't do that. Then we're stuck with it for good,” she said too sharply, and kissed his cheek to make up for her impatience. He needed her support right now, she had to remember that.

“Okay, Robin.”

“I'll be back soon,” she said, and waited for Marcus to slink back to his office. Then she rescued the jacket from the dry cleaning, put it in the Nordstrom bag with the receipt, and slipped out the back door, her wet hair dampening the collar of her shirt.

The car practically drove itself to the mall. Her stomach growled fiercely as she walked into Nordstrom, past the lingerie mannequins and up the escalator to the men's department. A young man in a black suit played “Just the Way You Are” on the grand piano adjacent to the kids' department, and the song mixed with the din of the store, jangling her last nerve.

She recognized the saleswoman as soon as she stepped into the coat section. “Hi, Shelly,” she said.

“I remember you!” said Shelly with a big smile that revealed her professionally whitened teeth. She seemed flattered that Robin recalled her name. “Tell me, tell me, how did your hubby like the jacket?” she asked, as if they were in cahoots.

Robin's eyes filled with tears, and she took a deep breath. “I actually have some sad news.”

“Come here.” Shelly guided Robin away from a salesman talking loudly with a customer.

Robin followed her, and when they reached the cash register, she let Shelly take her hand. “My husband won't be wearing this coat,” she said, sniffling.

Shelly squeezed Robin's fingers.

“Our family has suffered a devastating loss.”

Shelly's own eyes teared up, and Robin could see the layers of eye shadow she'd expertly applied to her upper lid. Robin had never gotten the hang of eye shadow.

“Oh, God. I'm so sorry,” Shelly said.

“This is too painful of a reminder.” Robin held out the bag.

Shelly took it, stuck her hand inside, and retrieved the receipt. “Give me your card, sweetie.”

Robin handed over her credit card slowly, hoping that Shelly wouldn't remove the stained garment from the bag.

Shelly fished her reading glasses from her breast pocket and began pecking away at her computer. “Do you want me to put this back on your card?” she asked softly.

For a second, Robin doubted herself. She didn't want Shelly to have to absorb the cost of the ruined jacket. Shelly didn't deserve to suffer for Marcus's mistakes. That was wrong. But then again, Nordstrom's return policy was so generous that they likely threw away hundreds of items they couldn't resell. She bit her lip. “No, I think I'll take the cash, if that's okay.”

“Of course,” Shelly said, and she pulled $342.63 from the register.

“Thank you,” Robin murmured, taking the cash. The weight of the wad of bills made her feel safe.

Shelly came around from behind the counter and hugged Robin hard.

Robin returned the hug gratefully, surprised that she could gobble up affection from someone to whom she'd so blatantly lied. She liked Shelly's perfume, a mix of citrus and jasmine.

When Shelly eventually released her, Robin thanked her again and went back down the elevator. She loosened her fist around the cash and pulled her wallet out of her purse, thinking that this money would buy a week's worth of groceries and a new gymnastics leotard for Sydney. Then she dropped the wallet back into the bottom of her bag, slid the cash into the front pocket of her jeans, and walked out of the store with her hand clutched to her thigh.

WOULD YOU RATHER?

Nikki Chamberlain, November 2002

L
ately Nikki finds herself one weather system behind. Yesterday it was cold, and Emma's teacher admonished her for sending the child to school in shorts. Today it's balmy, and Nikki smells like sweaty wool. To cool down, she holds a glass of ice water against her cheek while she watches for Georgia. The past few times they've met for their monthly dinners, the sitter didn't show or Tad forgot to come home early, and Nikki arrived frazzled and apologizing profusely to Georgia, whose general unflappability only made her prattle on more.

Raindrops the size of cashews pelt the window, snaking down tall sheets of glass painted with faded red letters that read “Rodeo's,” the hot spot of their youth. Too early for the mariachi band. She rifles through a wooden bowl for an unbroken chip, relishing the taste of oil and salt on her tongue. Tad, the fat-gram zealot, stopped eating chips when he became addicted to triathlon training. She needs to call him before the girls go to bed.

“Hi, Nik.” She loves Tad's voice; it exudes both authority and playfulness, almost a twinkle, as if he could run a perfect press conference one minute and crack you up with a well-told joke the next. As he has.

She detects the sound of
Lizzie McGuire
playing in the background, annoyed that Tad's chosen to plunk Sophie and Emma in front of the television instead of engaging them with a puzzle or a game. He's probably reading
Triathlete
magazine or doing push-ups or his back exercises. She selects her words carefully. “Hi, honey, just wanted to let you know where I put Sophie's antibiotic.” She tries to sound helpful instead of nagging.

“Kitchen windowsill,” he replies, slightly winded, probably from the push-ups.

Well, at least he noticed the bottle. “Good day?” She uses the noncommittal tone she's practiced with the girls when she wants them to give her more than a grunt. She doesn't ask if he sent out any résumés or made any follow-up calls. Doesn't offer up any leads she's shaken down from her old colleagues on the Democratic
Leadership Council.

“Fine.” His voice is tight.

She can picture the defensiveness creeping into his eyes, as it does whenever she tries to help him resuscitate his career. “Kiss the girls. Goodnight, sweetie.” She hangs up before he can answer.

Tad. She fiddles with her wedding band. He lost his in the gym locker room last spring and never bothered replacing it. And two weeks ago, when they dined at a pan-Asian restaurant with a big dairy lobbyist, a friend of a friend of Nikki's who ended up not hiring the “way overqualified” Tad, he revised the lore of how they met. He said he almost missed meeting Nikki because he was groping around the beer-soaked floor of a Capitol Hill bar with a pretty brunette, helping her find a contact lens. Minor, really, but he'd never used the verb “groping” or the adjective “pretty” before. These details gnaw at her more than the missing wedding band.

With the help of a little sangria, she ushers the emerging Tad unpleasantness into the recesses of her consciousness, periodically glancing at the hostess stand in search of Georgia. The restaurant is practically empty, except for a young woman — roughly Nikki's age when she and Georgia lived up the street and referred to Rodeo's as “the Cafeteria” — sitting two booths over, encouraging a middle-aged man to ply her with margaritas. The girl, serviceably pretty, wears pointy shoes and a gray wraparound dress that might have looked nice on Nikki once. Every few seconds, her hand darts to her hair — blue-black like Nikki's — and brushes it from her eyes. This isn't one of those ego-stroking career-advancement dinners Nikki used to endure when she could still leverage her cleavage and tight skin. No, this girl is intrigued. She laughs too loudly at his jokes; her cheeks redden when he touches her wrist, which he does often, with the ringless fingers of his right hand. Nikki knows her laugh and his touch.

Fifteen years ago, on a cold March night, shortly after Nikki and Georgia had settled into their first post-college apartment, Nikki waited for Georgia at an Irish bar one block down from Rodeo's, at 17th and S. Now it's a tapas restaurant. She'd been working for the Murphy Group advertising agency for two months when her boss informed her of their St. Patrick's Day tradition: employees were expected to make an appearance at the Irish Times to drink green beer and act inappropriately with colleagues.

The men wore kelly-green ties decorated with four-leaf clovers or leprechauns. Nikki wore her new black pumps, which were torturing her feet, and an Ann Taylor suit, a micromini, a fashion must in the late eighties. Lucky for Nikki that she had nice legs.

She tried not to glaze over as she listened to an account executive describe in detail how he was house-training his new black lab; she asked perfunctory follow-up questions, all the while keeping one eye open for Georgia. She'd just had another fight with Nate, her college boyfriend, who was moving to Moldova in June. Peace Corps. He mimicked her feminist diatribes (she was an insufferably enthusiastic women's studies major) while he watched her slide into her short skirts and pumps each morning. Thinking about Nate made her angry and sad and nostalgic for the time when they both believed that Nikki wanted to spend three years in some underdeveloped country doing good. She needed a drink.

“I'll have a Maker's Mark, please. And a 7UP.” She smiled at the bartender, who winked at her and turned away to fix her drink. She downed the whole thing in four gulps.

“That's a mean cocktail for a lovely young lady like yourself.” Jack O'Dell, senior vice-president of the Murphy Group, gave her that pre–Monica Lewinsky head-to-toe once-over. She'd noticed him before; he was Frame Guy, a hot, fiftyish, mildly weathered sort dressed in a fishing sweater and faded jeans, a dead ringer for the model in the picture frame she bought last Christmas. She had pet names for lots of the people who worked for the Murphy Group: I'm Not Your Mother cleaned out the office fridge every Friday, bitching and moaning the whole time; Q-Tip cleaned his ear with a paper clip and then scraped the wax onto his desk calendar; and Boner Man — well, no explanation necessary.

She tilted her head slightly to one side and looked directly into his eyes, a play she'd stolen from the January issue of
Cosmopolitan
. He had big, square white teeth and a dimple in his chin, slightly darkened by some recalcitrant stubble.

“What's your name, kid?”

“You have a kind face,” she said. That was the Maker's Mark talking, not
Cosmo
. Idiot. Why did she say that? Even if it seemed true?

“Have I now?” he said with a smile.

“Nikki, I'm Nikki O'Neill. No relation to Tip,” she added lamely.

“Let's get you another drink, Nikki O'Neill, no relation to Tip.”

It wasn't hard to get him talking about himself, but then Nikki had always known how to listen to men, make them feel understood, heard. And contrary to Nate's accusations, she didn't do it just to suck up; she was really interested.

Two drinks later, Jack was telling her a story about his first client, a grumpy old tire dealer out in Falls Church. “He had piles and piles of ad money from Goodyear, just sitting there waiting for someone to help him spend it.” His eyes lit up.

“That's the Reliable Tires account?” Nikki knew every account in the agency, inside and out.

“You do your homework.” He nodded with approval, touching her sleeve. “I'll be back in a minute.”

Nikki watched him walk toward the men's room. He moved like an ex-football player, stiff in the shoulders, lumbering, but with a healthy dose of confidence in what his body could still do. She had forgotten all about Georgia (and her toes, which ached like she'd just visited a foot binder), until she felt a tug on her sleeve.

“Sorry I'm late. Got stuck editing for the neurotic producer.” Georgia removed her glasses and wiped away the condensation that had formed from the heat of the bar.

“Here.” Nikki pointed to an empty bar stool next to hers. Georgia had once told her that she hated standing in crowded places because she was so short that she always felt like she had her nose in other people's armpits. She detested going out in general, preferring to sit at home and read a Jane Austen novel. Nikki liked to do both; she'd had a premonition that she would meet her mate at a party. She loved Nate, but he was no Mr. Darcy.

Jack returned from the bathroom, running his hand through his thick head of gray hair. Nikki hoped that Georgia wouldn't notice his wedding band, but of course she would.

“This is my roommate, Georgia. We met in college. Same dorm.” Okay, Nikki, slow it down. Stop talking so much. Less is more. “Colgate. Colgate University. In Hamilton. New York. Upstate.” Shut up, for Christ's sake.

Georgia gave Nikki one of her Georgia looks, as if she could see right into her brain. Nikki shrugged. God, she was just flirting, having some fun. Sometimes she wished Georgia would flirt a little more, maybe even care about the guys she brought home, like the news photographer with shoulder-length hair who sat at their kitchen table now and then, slurping milk from a cereal bowl. It was almost as if she was completely happy sitting on the sidelines, watching Nikki get drunk and stupid, watching crime victims cry and politicians woo in the news stories she edited.

“Well, Nikki, I'll leave you in Georgia's hands, then. Welcome to the Murphy Group.” Before he turned toward the door, he snuck a peek at her legs, which she had twisted around each other like a couple of Twizzlers.

Georgia followed his glance, watched him leave, and gave her friend another look.

“What?” Nikki shifted on her stool.

“Would you rather have a Pap smear or a root canal?”

Nikki laughed. Would You Rather was a game they'd started playing their freshman year of college, a tacit agreement to distract themselves from the subject of, say, Nikki's mother's cancer or Georgia's top-secret affair with her philosophy professor.

“With or without Novocain?” she said.

“With.”

Nikki downed the remains of her drink and paused for effect. “The Pap, no question.”

The next day, Georgia was working the late-night shift at her television station and wouldn't be home until after two a.m., which left Nikki free to get into some mischief. She'd picked a silly fight with Nate that morning, sparking a chain of events: Nate took the early bus to Manhattan for his Peace Corps orientation instead of staying to resolve the argument; Nikki chose to work late over catching a step aerobics class at the Y; and when Jack O'Dell pulled out of the parking garage, she was standing at its mouth, shivering in her flimsy suede jacket, and gladly accepted his offer to drive her home.

“You must be freezing.” Jack cranked up the heat in his car and moved his gym bag from Nikki's floor mat, brushing her knee with his fingers.

“Thanks. The temperature must have dropped a hundred degrees since this morning.” The car smelled like Dentyne and Polo Sport.

“Your teeth are chattering, Nikki O'Neill, no relation to Tip.”

“Maybe.” Nikki smiled through her quivering lips, thinking about how much Nate would hate Jack. He'd call
him corporate scum.

During the three and a half miles between the Murphy Group and Capitol Hill, they talked about Marion Barry's failure to fix potholes and whether he could beat his drug habit. Nikki wanted to keep driving and listen to Jack talk and laugh. He had a great laugh, spontaneous and with lots of bass.

He adjusted his collar — crisp, white, and expensive, in contrast to the yellowed short-sleeved shirt Nate wore with his one tie when he took her out for lunch last week. She hated herself for hurrying both of them out of the building so she wouldn't have to introduce him around.

“You hungry?” Jack looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

Nikki felt her cheeks tingle. Had he just asked her to dinner? “Yeah, a little.”

“Take me to your favorite restaurant.” He smiled. “It's the least I can do for working you so hard.”

“Okay, turn left here.” She directed him to a Cuban place she loved, a dive that would be empty at this hour. She glanced at his wedding ring, knowing he would appreciate her discretion, and surprised at how intuitively the etiquette for dining with a married man came to her.

“Got any Scotch?” he asked the pretty waitress, who spoke very little English.

Scotch? Ick. Nikki suddenly wanted to be home cuddled up with Nate under her down comforter, waiting for the water to boil for their Top Ramen, or better yet, sitting at the kitchen table in her sweats, keeping Georgia company while she tested a new recipe from the
Post
.

Jack looked at the waitress, who seemed confused, and then at Nikki. “Right, right. This is a Mexican restaurant. Give me a margarita, por favor.”

Beam me up, Scotty. “I'll have a mojito,” she said, a bit too politely. When the waitress left, she whispered, “This is a Cuban restaurant.”