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acquired a friend—Amy, who was, in Maggie's opinion, just as weird as Rose was—and didn't seem bothered by the fact that the pretty girls still laughed at her, or ignored her, and still occasionally referred to her as Holly Hobbie. Rose was in the honors classes, Rose got straight A's. Maggie would have dismissed all of those things as further signs of her sister's social hopelessness except that those accomplishments had started to matter. "Princeton!" Sydelle had said, over and over, when Rose was a senior and her acceptance letter had come in the mail. "Well, Rose, this is quite an achievement!" She'd actually cooked Rose's favorite foods for dinner—fried chicken and biscuits and honey—and she hadn't said a word when Rose reached for seconds. "Maggie, you must be very proud of your sister!" she'd said. Maggie had just rolled her eyes in an unspoken "whatever." Like Princeton was such a big deal. Like Rose was the only person who'd ever succeeded in spite of a dead mother. Well, Maggie had a dead mother, too, but did she get extra points for that? No, she did not. She just got questions. From neighbors. From teachers. From everyone who knew her sister. "Can we expect great things from you?" Well, obviously, they couldn't, Maggie thought, inking an emphatic red circle around an ad for waitresses at a "busy, successful Center City restaurant." She'd got the body, Rose had gotten the brains, and now it was looking like brains might count for more. So Rose graduated from Princeton while Maggie put in a few half-hearted semesters at the local community college. Rose had gone to law school, and Maggie had waitressed at a pizza parlor, done baby-sitting and housecleaning, dropped out of bartending school when the instructor tried to stick his tongue in her ear after the lesson on martinis. Rose was plain, and fat, and frumpy, and up until this morning Maggie had never known her to have a boyfriend except for, like, ten minutes in law school. Yet somehow she was the one with the great apartment (well, the apartment that could have been great if Maggie had decorated it), and with money and friends, the one people looked at with respect. And this guy,
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Jim Whatever, was cute in a semi-nerdy way, and Maggie just bet that he was rich, too. It wasn't fair, thought Maggie, stalking back to the kitchen. It wasn't fair their mother had died. It wasn't fair that she'd somehow used up her handful of good years by junior high and was now living in her sister's shadow, doomed to watch Rose get everything she wanted, while she got nothing at all. She crumpled up the empty container of ice cream, gathered the newspaper, and was getting ready to toss them both when something in the paper caught her eye. It was the magic word: auditions. Maggie dropped the icecream carton and turned her full attention to the newspaper. "MTV Announces Auditions for VJs," she read. Excitement rose within her like a balloon, along with panic—what if she'd missed it? She scanned the story as rapidly as she could. December 1. Open call. In New York. She could be there! She'd tell Rose she had a job interview, which was technically sort of the truth, and she'd get Rose to lend her money for a bus ticket, and clothes. She'd need an outfit. She'd have to buy something new; she could see that instantly; nothing she had was even remotely right. Maggie folded the newspaper carefully and hurried to her sister's closet to see which shoes she'd wear to the Big Apple.
FIVE
Lewis Feldman ushered Mrs. Sobel into his office—a converted closet with the words Golden Acres Gazette stenciled on the glass—and closed the door behind them. "Thank you for coming," he said, pulling the red grease copy editing pencil from behind his ear and setting it on his desk. Mrs. Sobel perched on a chair, crossed her ankles, and clasped her hands in her lap. She was a tiny woman with blue hair and a blue wool cardigan sweater and blue veins pulsing in her hands. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. She gave him a tentative nod. "Let me just begin by saying how grateful I am for your help," he said. "We were really in a pinch." Which was true—ever since the Gazettes previous food critic, the Noshing Gourmet, had suffered a heart attack that had landed him facedown in a western omelet, Lewis had been stuck recycling old reviews, and the natives had been getting restless, not to mention tired of reading about the Rascal House yet again. "This was a very fine first effort," he said, spreading the tear sheet on his desk, so Mrs. Sobel could see what her review looked like, laid out on the page. "Italian Restaurant Tempts Tastebuds," read the headline, beneath a drawing of a winking little bird—the Early Bird, of course—with a cartoon worm clutched in its beak. "I had
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just a few suggestions," said Lewis, as Mrs. Sobel gave another trembly little nod. He braced himself—running hardware stores hadn't been nearly as tough as taking the fragile egos of retired women in his hands on a biweekly basis—and began to read. " 'Mangiamo's Italian Restaurant is located in the shopping mall on Powerline Road, next to where the Marshall's used to be, and across from the frozen yogurt shop. It looks like it should be easy to get to, but my husband, Irving, had a very difficult time making the left-hand turn.' " Mrs. Sobel gave another nod, this one slightly more assertive. Lewis kept reading. " 'The restaurant has red carpet, white tablecloths with small candles on them. The air conditioner is turned up very high, so you should bring a sweater if you go to Mangiamo's. The minestrone soup was not the way I make it. It had kidney beans, which neither I nor Irving enjoy. The Caesar salad was good, but it is made with anchovies, so if you are allergic to fish, you should get the house salad instead.' " And now Mrs. Sobel was leaning forward eagerly, nodding along, repeating the words in a low, breathless whisper. " Tor entrees, Irving wanted the chicken parmesan, even though cheese does not agree with him. I had the spaghetti and meatballs, because I thought Irving would eat that. Sure enough, the chicken was hard for him to chew, so he had my meatballs, which were soft.' " Lewis looked at Mrs. Sobel, who was leaning forward, eyes bright. "See, here's the thing," he said, wondering whether Ben Bradlee and William Shawn had ever had problems like this. "What we're trying to do is be objective." "Objective," Mrs. Sobel repeated. "We're trying to give a snapshot of what it's like to eat at Mangiamo's." She nodded again, confusion replacing the eagerness in her eyes. "So when you talk about the left-hand turn, and how it was difficult to make, or how the way they make their soup isn't the way you make yours . . ." Be careful, Lewis, he told himself, picking up
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his pencil and tucking it securely behind his ear again. "Well, those are interesting things, and very nicely written, but they might not be exactly helpful to other people who are going to be reading this and using it to decide whether they want to go there." Now Mrs. Sobel drew herself up straight, a trembling reed of indignation. "But those things are true!" she said. "Of course they're true," Lewis soothed her. "I'm just wondering whether they're useful. Like, the air-conditioning, and telling people to bring a sweater. That's a very, very useful detail. But the section on the soup . . . not every reader needs to see the restaurant's soup placed in the context of your soup." And then he smiled, and hoped the smile would work. He thought it probably would. His wife, Sharla—Sharla of blessed memory, dead for two years—had always told him he could get away with anything because of his smile. He wasn't a handsome man, he knew. He had a mirror, and while his eyes weren't so great anymore, he could still tell that he was much more Walter Matthau than Paul Newman. Even his earlobes had wrinkles. But the smile was still working. "I'm sure that any soup would suffer, being compared to your soup." Mrs. Sobel sniffed. But she was looking decidedly less offended. "Why don't you take this home with you, take another look at it, and try to ask yourself, with everything you're writing, whether it's going to help"—he thought for a minute, then pulled a name out of the air—"Mr. and Mrs. Rabinowitz decide whether to go there for dinner." "Oh, the Rabinowitzes would never go there," said Mrs. Sobel. "He's very cheap." And then, when Lewis was still sitting behind his desk, utterly nonplussed, she gathered her purse and cardigan and the copy of her story and marched grandly out the door, past Ella Hirsch, who was on her way in. Ella, Lewis noticed with great relief, neither trembled or nodded. She wasn't nearly as ancient, or fragile, as Mrs. Sobel. She had clear brown eyes and reddish hair that she wore pulled back in a twist, and he'd never once seen her in polyester pants, which were preferred by most of the Acres's female residents.
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"How are you?" she asked. Lewis shook his head. "Honestly, I'm not quite sure," he told her. "That doesn't sound good," she said, handing him her neatly typed poem. Would he have had a little bit of a crush on Ella even if she wasn't the best writer at the Golden Acres Gazette? Probably, Lewis decided. Except he didn't think she was interested. The times he'd invited her for coffee to talk about story ideas, she'd seemed happy to come along, and just as happy when the coffee was gone and she could tell him goodbye. "Thanks," he said, setting her papers in his in box. "So what are you up to this weekend?" he asked, trying to sound casual. "I'm at the soup kitchen tomorrow night, and then I've got two books for the blind to read," she said. It was polite, Lewis thought, but it was still a refusal. Had she read that book that all the women were passing around the pool a couple years ago, the one that talked about playing hard to get and had caused eighty-six-year-old Mrs. Asher to hang up on him, mid-edit, after declaring that she was a creature unlike any other and that, as such, it was incumbent upon her to end all phone calls with men? "Well, thanks for the poem. You're the only one who made your deadline. As usual," Lewis said. Ella gave him a faint smile and headed for the door. Maybe it was his looks, he thought glumly. Sharla had bought him a bulldog calendar for one of the anniversaries they'd celebrated together in Florida, and he'd accused her of trying to tell him something. She'd given him a resounding kiss on his cheek and told him that while his modeling career was probably dead in the water, she loved him anyhow. Lewis shook his head, hoping to clear away the memories, and picked up Ella's poem. "Just Because I'm Old," he read, and smiled at the line that read "I AM NOT INVISIBLE," and decided that Ella was worth yet another try.
SIX
Rose Feller leaned across the table. "The usual stipulations, counselor?" she asked. The opposing counsel—a whey-faced man in an unfortunate greenish gray suit—nodded, even though Rose would have bet that he didn't know what "the usual stipulations" actually were any more than she did. But every deposition she'd ever attended had started out with the lawyer in charge saying "the usual stipulations," and so she said it, too. "Okay, if everyone's ready, we'll begin," she said, with a confidence that was more feigned than felt, as if she'd done hundreds of depositions by herself, instead of just two. "My name is Rose Feller, and I am an attorney at Lewis, Dommel, and Fenick. Today I'm representing the Veeder Trucking Company and Stanley Willet, the comptroller of Veeder, who's present and sitting to my left. This is the deposition of Wayne LeGros—" She paused and glanced across the table at the witness, hoping for confirmation that she was pronouncing his last name correctly. Wayne LeGros refused to meet her eyes. "Wayne LeGros," she continued, deciding that if she was saying it wrong he'd speak up, "the president of Majestic Construction. Mr. LeGros, could you begin by giving us your name and address?" Wayne LeGros, who was short, fiftyish, with iron-gray hair in a buzz cut and a heavy class ring on one thick finger, swallowed hard.
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"Wayne LeGros," he said loudly. "I live at five-thirteen Tasker Street. In Philadelphia." "Thank you," Rose said. In truth, she sort of felt sorry for the guy. She'd never been deposed, except in law school, in mock trial, but she was sure it wasn't fun. "Can you tell us your job title?" "President. Majestic," said loquacious Mr. LeGros. "Thank you," Rose said again. "Now, as I'm sure your counsel has explained, we're here today to gather information. My client is contending that you owe them ..." she glanced down fast at her notes. "Eight thousand dollars, for the lease of equipment." "Dump trucks," LeGros offered. "That's right," said Rose. "Can you tell us how many trucks were leased?" LeGros shut his eyes. "Three." Rose slid a piece of paper across the table. "This is a copy of the lease agreement you signed with Veeder. I've already had the court reporter mark it as Plaintiff's Exhibit fifteen-A." The court reporter nodded. "Could I ask you to read the parts I've highlighted?" LeGros took a deep breath and squinted at the page. "It says Majestic agrees to pay Veeder two thousand dollars a week for three dump trucks." "Is that your signature?" LeGros took a minute to study the photocopy. "Yep," he finally said. "It's mine." A note of petulance had crept into his voice, and he'd pulled the class ring off his finger and was spinning it on the conference table. "Thank you," said Rose. "Now, was this project in Ryland completed?" "The school? Yeah." "And was Majestic Construction paid for its work?" LeGros nodded. His attorney raised his eyebrows at him. "Yeah," LeGros said. Rose slid another sheet of paper across the table. "This is
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Plaintiffs sixteen-A—a copy of your invoice to the Ryland School Board, marked 'paid in full.' Was that account paid?" "Yeah." "So you were paid for the work you did on the project?" Another nod. Another dirty look from his attorney. Another "yeah." For the next half-hour, Rose painstakingly led LeGros through a stack of stamped invoices and notices from a collection agency. It wasn't the stuff of Grisham thrillers, she thought as she slogged onward, but if she was lucky it would get the job done. "So the job in Ryland was completed, and you paid your subcontractors?" Rose summarized. "Yeah." "Except not Veeder." "They got theirs," he mumbled. "They got paid for other things." "Pardon me?" Rose asked politely. "Other things," LeGros repeated. He ducked his head. Spun his ring. "Things they owed other companies. Things they owed my dispatcher," he said, biting off each syllable. "Why don't you ask him about my dispatcher?" "I certainly will," Rose promised. "But right now, it's your deposition. It's your turn to tell your story." LeGros stared down again, at the ring, at his hands. "Tell me your dispatcher's name," she prodded gently. "Lori Kimmel," LeGros muttered. "And where does she live?" He stared down sullenly. "Same place I do. Fifth and Tasker." Rose felt her pulse spike. "She's your ..." "My lady friend," said LeGros, with a look on his face that said, Want to make something of it? "Ask him," he said, sticking a thumb toward Stanley Willet, "Ask him," he repeated. "He knows all about her." LeGros's lawyer laid a hand on his forearm, but LeGros would not be stopped. "Ask him about the overtime she worked! Ask him about how
