A Dangerous Fiction (27 page)

I
slept in the morning after the party, and when I woke, I was alone. It felt strange and rather sad not having Mingus underfoot, not fixing his breakfast while my coffee brewed. It was nine thirty; I had just stepped out of the shower when the phone rang.

“You're there,” Lorna said.

“So it seems. I did say I'd be late.”

“I know. Only there's a problem.” My secretary lowered her voice. “Harriet's here. She said she just wanted to pick up some personal items, but she's been in there for like an hour.”

“Doing what?”

“Nothing. Just sitting at her desk; Chloe's desk, I mean.”

Damn. “I'd better come in.”

“No, wait. There's something else . . . I didn't think much of it when it happened, but now I think you need to know.”

I sat down on the edge of my bed, towel wrapped around me. Lorna wasn't the brightest girl in the world, but she was never fanciful. If she thought something was wrong, it probably was. “What is it?”

Silence for a moment, then she whispered, “I can't talk about it here.”

“Come over here, then.”

“OK, but it would be better coming from you, not me. Could you call Jean-Paul, tell him to send me over with a manuscript or something?”

This seemed unnecessarily circuitous, but I did as she asked, refusing Jean-Paul's offer to come himself. Once I'd dressed, there was nothing to do but wait. I carried the manuscript I was reading into the living room, which was full of flowers from last night's party: spray chrysanthemums, roses, and Asiatic lilies in shades of red, yellow, and orange. Curling up by the unlit fireplace, I tried to read.

•   •   •

She arrived without any announcement, and I made a note to talk to the doormen. Of course they knew my staff well—Lorna and Jean-Paul in particular were always coming and going—but there was no excuse for laxness. Lorna stood awkwardly on the threshold, dressed in stretch pants, a plaid blouse, and a bulky brown cardigan that put an extra twenty pounds on her extra twenty pounds. She carried a thick manuscript under one arm, her oversized bag on the other. “Come in,” I said, relieving her of the manuscript and jacket.

She glanced around as she followed me into the living room. “You finally got rid of that beast?”

“Never did warm to him, did you? He's back in retirement.” We sat on facing sofas. Lorna clutched her bag on her knees as if she expected a purse-snatcher to dash by. I offered her some coffee.

She shook her head. “I can't stay long.” And yet she seemed in no hurry, gazing around at the flowers, studying Leigh's painting over the mantel, even fingering the wedding photo of Hugo, Molly, and me on the steps of City Hall.

“So what's up?” I asked, and finally she looked at me, an odd expression in her small brown eyes.

“You are,” she said. “You're something else.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing gets to you, does it? The agency's torn apart, your top client and your best friend murdered, and what do you do? You read manuscripts and throw parties.”

If this was a compliment, it was an idiotic one. Though she always meant well, Lorna often annoyed me, and this time she'd surpassed herself. But I bit back my first intemperate response, reminding myself that I wasn't the only one who'd suffered these past few months. Everyone had been afflicted; and no one had been more loyal than Lorna.

“What choice do I have?” I said. “It's ridiculous to say nothing gets to me. I got hit so hard I feel like I went ten rounds with Muhammad Ali. I'm just trying to pick myself up off the mat.”

“And doing a fine job of it. Everyone admires you. ‘Jo's so brave; Jo's so gutsy; you must be so proud to work for Jo, however menial your position.'”

However menial her position?
Was this her clumsy way of asking for a promotion? A reaction to Chloe's elevation, maybe . . . but that made no sense. Lorna, whose lack of ambition was the very reason I hired her, had never aspired to be anything more than the perfect secretary.

“Lorna,” I said, as patiently as I could, “what was it you had to tell me?”

“More show than tell,” she said, smiling as if there were a joke in there somewhere.

“Are you OK? You don't sound like yourself.”

“What self is that? Fat, dull Lorna? Unambitious, work-for-peanuts Lorna?”

I stared at her, and she held my gaze with that incongruous little smile. Her usual slump was gone; she sat erect and still, eyes sparkling with restrained exuberance. I looked around for Mingus, wondering what he'd make of this transformation, but of course he wasn't there. Uneasy, I stood.

“Where the hell are you going?” Lorna said, in a decidedly unsecretarial tone.

“Making coffee.” I tried to sound normal; I thought I succeeded.

She followed me into the kitchen, still clutching her bag, and perched at the counter. I measured out the coffee grounds, carried the carafe to the sink, and filled it. I could feel her eyes on the back of my neck. Was Lorna having some sort of belated breakdown, now that it was all over? My BlackBerry was charging on the counter beside the coffee machine. With one hand I poured water from the carafe into the machine. With the other, I eased the phone from its cradle and dropped it into the front pocket of my jeans, taking care, though without thinking about why, to shield this movement from Lorna.

“You put in a dishwasher,” she said.

“What?” I turned to look at her.

“And you moved the refrigerator. It used to be over there.” She pointed to the corner where the old fridge had indeed stood, before Hugo and I updated the kitchen.

Goose bumps prickled my arms. “How do you know?”

“I used to live here.”

“What, in another life?”

“My room was the second bedroom down the hall. Your guest room now.”

“That's impossible, Lorna. Hugo bought this apartment ages ago, before you were born.”

“We lived here together.”

“
We
being . . . ?”

“Mama, Hugo, and me.”

“Really,” I said, crossing my arms. “And this was when?”

“Right up until you got your claws in him.”

I didn't speak. The silence between us was so dense, it had its own gravitational field, sucking in sound from outside. I heard a doorman whistle for a cab, heard the rise and fall of a siren passing by far below.

“Tell me you don't believe me,” Lorna said.

An image rose before my eyes: a Raggedy Andy doll, crammed into a box full of women's clothing and shoved down the chute. But that memory had nothing to do with Lorna; whatever it meant, it was none of her business.

“Of course I don't believe you.”

“I knew you wouldn't. You're the Queen of Denial.” She reached into her bag, and I flinched.

Until that moment I hadn't admitted that I was afraid. I'd told myself it was pity I felt, pity and concern. Lorna's sudden movement shattered that illusion. She noticed my reaction and seemed to feed on it, keeping her hand hidden, prolonging the moment. Then she drew it out slowly, and I saw that she held a snapshot, lovingly preserved in a clear plastic case. She looked at it reverently, then handed it to me.

Despite the protective casing, the color photo was faded and creased through much handling. The setting was unmistakably the Central Park Carousel. A plump little girl of five or six sat beaming with pleasure atop a gray charger. Behind her, his hand on her shoulder, stood Hugo. I studied the child and recognized those small brown eyes, that pugnacious chin.

The picture blurred before my eyes. Lorna snatched it away, wiped it on her sweater, and stuck it back in her bag.

I couldn't look at her. “He wasn't your father. Hugo had no children.”

“He had me. I called him Papa.”

The coffee maker beeped. I took two clean mugs from the dishwasher.

“Not for me.” She glanced at her watch, as if she had someplace to be and I was keeping her. “Put that fucking cup away.”

Once, walking through the woods behind my grandmother's house, I stumbled on a black bear nursing a cub. The mother bear jumped up and roared, flashing her long white teeth. I froze, inside and out. The bear didn't move, and for that one endless moment full of latent possibilities, it seemed as if there was no one in the world but me and her. Looking at Lorna now with the same funnel vision, I was met with the same predatory stare; and at last I understood that she was not the prissy-mouthed, dull little girl I thought I knew. This was a whole other person.

I put the second mug away and filled mine with steaming brew. My back was to the corner; I felt trapped. I didn't drink my coffee. There was more comfort in holding it.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

Her eyes widened in a look of dopey innocence. “Because you needed me to bring you a manuscript. Isn't that what you told Jean-Paul?”

I could throw the scalding coffee in her face and grab her bag. My fist tightened on the mug's handle . . . but I hesitated. I was scared, but I wasn't sure. Sam Spade was in jail. So far this was all just crazy talk. Unlike the bear, Lorna hadn't shown a weapon.

I asked her again: “Why have you come?”

“To tell you a story,” she said. “I know you like fairy tales. I read the ones you told Teddy Pendragon in that magazine article. So sweet they made me puke.”

“And this from someone who takes four sugars in her coffee.”

“You think this is funny?”

“No,” I said carefully. “I don't understand it, but I don't think it's funny. Let's go back to the living room.”

She made no move to stop me, but stayed between me and the front door. We resumed our former places in the living room, in front of the fireplace, with the coffee table between us. Lorna clutched the bag on her knees like a tourist riding the subway.

“Once upon a time,” she said, in a singsongy voice, “there was a little princess who lived in a castle with her mother and father, the king and queen. The king and queen doted on the little princess and were kind to her, showering her with gifts and treats. One day, when the king was abroad, an evil enchantress cast a spell on him that turned his heart to stone. At her command, he banished the queen and the princess from the castle to make way for the witch.”

“No,” I said, holding out a hand. “Wait.”

She raised her voice. “When the queen fell ill with grief, the little princess sent many messages to the king. But the king never got those messages, because the evil witch intercepted them all. Fearing that in time the king would return to himself and remember his beloved queen and princess, the witch sent minions who captured the queen and threw her in a dungeon. They kept her in darkness; they tormented her until at last she took the only escape open to her: she hanged herself.”

Mad, I told myself. Totally delusional. But there was an ache in the pit of my stomach, the kind you get when chickens come home to roost.

“And the princess?” I asked.

“Exiled to the wilderness, where she was raised by wolves.”

“Not a very happy ending.”

Lorna glowed from within, looking, strangely enough, like the woman I always thought she could be. “It hasn't ended yet,” she said.

“So you're that girl. You were raised by wolves.”

“Duh!”

“And I'm the witch who destroyed your life?”

“Finally!” She raised her arms in benediction. “It's unbelievable how stupid smart people can be.”

Indeed. Eighteen months working side by side and I never had a clue, although surely there were clues to be had. I thought about the gifts I'd given her: the clothes she never wore, the Coach bag she never used. Now it made perfect sense; who accepts gifts from someone they hate? I thought about her indifference to books, combined with her determination to work in publishing. Why had I never realized what a strange combination that was? All that behavior I'd attributed to protectiveness—the drinks she put in my hand, her vigilance in guarding my door and my phone, the many times she urged me to stay home or go away—I saw now as attempts to isolate and weaken me. Oh yes, there had been signs; but in my egotism, in my certainty that everyone loved me, I had misread them all. I'd seen everything and understood nothing.

Even now I struggled. “You said your parents went back to Ireland.”

“Leaving me all alone, boo-hoo.” She smirked. “You liked that one, didn't you?”

“Then who were they? And don't tell me Hugo was your father. I know that's not true.”

“My mother's name was Irina Kassofsky. She was a Russian immigrant, very beautiful, much more beautiful than you. We lived here together, the three of us. On Sundays we went to the park. Hugo loved us. He was my father, the only father I ever had.” She sounded rehearsed, like a child reciting her catechism.

I wanted to deny it. Molly had said there was a live-in lover, but I never believed that. There
was
a housekeeper, though, and the doorman had said she had a child.
A boy, I'm sure of it . . . or was it a girl?
And suddenly it was clear.

“Your mother was the maid!”

Her brown eyes blazed. “How dare you call her that! She made his bed, yes, but she slept in it too. You destroyed our lives. You killed my mother. Everything I had, you stole from me. You're a thief and a murderer.”

“Lorna, I swear I never even knew you existed.”

“I knew you'd say that. You can't see me. You can't hear me. You never could.” Once again she reached into her bag. This time I didn't hesitate. I threw my coffee at her, mug and all. Lorna ducked and raised her arm, and the cup deflected off it and fell harmlessly to the floor.

For a moment both of us remained as we were, frozen. Running wasn't an option. Even if I made it out the door, she'd catch me in the hall or the stairwell. To have any chance at all, I had to get that bag away from her. I grabbed a crystal vase from the coffee table, but before I could throw it, the gun appeared.