Size 12 and Ready to Rock (22 page)

“The tears of homesick college students,” I reply gravely.

Mrs. Cartwright looks up at me sharply—in my heels, I’m quite a bit taller than she is.

“Oh, you’re joking,” she says. “I see. Yes, you were always clever, I remember now. I often wondered what you saw in Jordan, because though I love him dearly, I’m well aware he isn’t my brightest child. That would be Cooper, though he’s always been his father’s biggest disappointment. So talented, so bright, he could have done anything, but he decides to become a private detective.” She gives a rueful laugh. “You should hear what our friends say when we try to explain. What kind of person becomes a private detective?”

It’s an idle question, tossed off casually as she pulls open one of the glass doors and we step out onto the roof deck. I’m sure she doesn’t expect an answer, but I give her one anyway.

“Someone who wants to use his gifts to help people who are in trouble. In a different era, I think they were called knights in shining armor.”

Mrs. Cartright glances at me in surprise. “Yes,” she says, her tone no longer casual. “He certainly rescued you, from what I hear.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I say, flushing. “I just do his client billing.”

“Of course,” she says, her smile catlike. “His billing. Why not? Well, come along and say hello to everyone.”

The Cartwrights’ roof deck is a great deal longer and wider than the Allingtons’ terrace. A helicopter could easily land on the putting green that Grant Cartwright has had planted at one end, and the pool, while not Olympic size, could fit enough Victoria’s Secret models to make even a celebrity nightclub promoter happy.

The members of the Cartwright family, including Tania, are sitting on luxuriously cushioned lounge chairs ranged around an outdoor firepit, the gas flames set low because it’s so warm outside. I can see that Mr. Cartwright is texting busily away, completely ignoring the beautiful sunset before him, but Jordan is giving it his full attention. Tania is curled on a lounge chair not far from Jordan’s, looking even smaller than when I saw her last time, “Baby” in her lap. Even from where I stand, her skin tone looks off. Her eyes are hidden behind dark sunglasses.

On the opposite side of the firepit, a girl I recognize as Nicole—a decade older than when I’d last seen her—is strumming on a guitar. She resembles her twin in only the most basic ways. Her long hair is the same chocolate brown, but she’s twisted it into twin braids. She isn’t wearing the slightest bit of makeup, and instead of silver bangles, she has on beaded leather twists. She’s about fifty pounds heavier than Jessica, and instead of all black, she’s wearing a white vintage dress dotted with cheerful red cherries. On her feet is a pair of red flats, and thick-framed black glasses are balanced on her nose.

“Oh God,” I hear Patricia murmur when the notes from the guitar drift toward us. “Not again.”

“Why?” I ask. I cock my head, straining to catch more of the sound. The wind on the thirtieth floor is warm, but not gentle. I’m keeping a careful hold on the hem of my skirt. “She sounds great.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” I hear Jessica snarl as she comes up behind us. She’s holding her pink greyhound in one hand and her mother’s drink in the other. “Mom, I thought you said you were going to make her stop.”

“What do you want me to do, ” Mrs. Cartwright asks, “gag her?”

“You will if you want to keep me from jumping,” Jessica says and barrels past me. “Nic,” she shouts angrily as she strides toward the firepit, “give it a rest already. Daddy’s not going to buy your stupid songs.”

I follow Jessica, having to be extra careful with my drink since the path to the firepit is made of real grass and my high heels are sinking into the soil.

“Here,” a masculine voice at my elbow says. “Allow me.”

It’s Cooper. He’s carrying a tray of assorted drinks in one hand. With the other, he takes my arm, helping me maneuver the tricky pathway to the firepit.

“So what’s this secret that you were talking about on the phone earlier?” he asks in a low voice. “Does it have anything to do with what you’re wearing under that dress?”

His smile is playful. Unfortunately, my secret is anything but.

“We’ll talk about it later,” I say. “At the same time we talk about where you keep your gun when it’s in the house.”

“Heather,” he begins, but I cut him off.

“Not now,” I say. “Let’s figure out who’s trying to kill Tania first. Then we can deal with our own problems.”

As I get closer to the firepit, I pick up on some of the lyrics Nicole is singing. Her voice is pleasing, with a lovely lightness to it.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the words to her song.

“ ‘My blood,’ ” Nicole is singing soulfully as she gazes into the sunset, “ ‘my blood, I tasted my menstrual blood. And yes, it tasted good, just like I knew it would . . .’ ”

Jessica utters an ear-burning expletive, then says, “Mom, I swear to God if you don’t make her stop, I’ll do it. I’ll jump.”

“Welcome back to the family,” Cooper whispers and drops a quick kiss on my cheek before he drifts away to serve drinks.

Chapter 16

The Palm’s Special

Vegan Salad Made

Exclusively for Tania Trace

Serves 4

Ingredients for Tania Salad

½ pound string beans, cleaned and cut into one-inch pieces, cooked until crisp-tender, about 4 minutes

1–2 large beefsteak tomatoes, seeded and chopped into one-inch cubes

1 sweet onion, such as Vidalia, chopped into half-inch pieces

Method for Tania Salad

Pour salad dressing ingredients together in a jar and shake to combine.

Taste for seasoning.

Combine string beans, tomatoes, and onions.

Toss with dressing.

Serve on chilled salad plate.

Dinner is served outdoors on a table carved out of rock—most likely stolen from Stonehenge—under the stars, which begin to shine shortly after the sun goes down. Two waiters and a busboy from the Palm show up with an extraordinarily large number of insulated bags containing the steaks, lobsters, fries, mashed potatoes, and cheesecakes that Grant Cartwright ordered. They come out onto the deck and begin setting the table as if this is something they do every other night. For all I know, maybe they do.

For Tania there’s a special vegetarian salad that the owner named in her honor—a variation of a salad already on the menu—after Tania famously ordered it (shrimp and bacon omitted) at every Palm steakhouse in the country during her last national tour, making it one of the most popular items on the menu.

But after the waiters go to all the trouble of specially dressing and plating it, then presenting it to her with a very charming flourish, all Tania does—after thanking them sweetly—is pick at it. Even her dog, which she keeps on her lap the entire time, doesn’t appear interested in eating it. (I wouldn’t have been either, unless it still had the shrimp and bacon on it. Lucy frequently attempts to eat out of Owen’s litter box, so I’m pretty sure
she’d
have eaten it, even without the shrimp and bacon.)

Most of the people at the dinner table do their best to politely steer the conversation away from the horrible occurrence at my place of work. Even Grant Cartwright, the person responsible for my current state of poverty (not counting my mother and her boyfriend, Ricardo), pretends to be super-interested in where I’ve been since the last time I saw him.

“I had no idea you had such a good head for numbers, Heather,” he says. “You always struck me as more the creative type.”

“People can be both, Dad,” Nicole chimes in. “For instance, I write songs, but I’m also doing Teach for America, because I really want to give back—”

“Can someone please pass the wiiiiiine,” Jessica says loudly.

“Jessica,” her mother says, with a disapproving glance. “Don’t.”

“So you do the payroll for the whole building?” Mr. Cartwright asks me, ignoring his daughters. “And Cooper’s billing as well?”

“Not the whole building,” I say. “Just the student work-study staff. And Cooper’s bookkeeping turned out to be a breeze once I got a system in place.” I politely refrain from telling Cooper’s parents that his former system was no system. I found receipts dating from a half-decade ago tucked away in his underwear drawer. That, of course, was a recent discovery, as I have not been privy to the contents of his underwear until lately.

“She’s turned my whole business around,” Cooper says, and there’s a hint of pride in his voice.

“It helps that we found an accountant who isn’t currently incarcerated,” I say, not wanting to take all the credit.

“I owed him a favor,” Cooper explains. “You don’t have to work in an office to be a good accountant.”

“I totally agree,” I say. “And Cooper does have a very . . . diverse set of friends. But it’s easier to call an accountant who isn’t locked in a five-by-nine cell for most hours of the day.”

“Heather’s always had a good head for business,” Jordan says as he sucks on a lobster claw. “That’s why I never understood people who made dumb blonde jokes. I was like, ‘You haven’t met my girlfriend.’ ” He winces, having apparently received a kick from one of his sisters under the table. He glances nervously over at Tania. “I mean ex-girlfriend. But Tania’s real smart about that stuff too.”

Tania doesn’t seem to be paying the least bit of attention. She’s playing with her salad, separating the green beans from the tomatoes and onions, until her plate begins to resemble a small Italian flag.

“Well, I think it’s lovely Heather was able to join us tonight,” Mrs. Cartwright says. She’s on her third—or maybe fourth—glass of wine. Grant Cartwright has a full-size refrigerator in his kitchen devoted exclusively to wine and set at multiple temperatures—one compartment for the reds, the other for the whites. “If I were Heather, I’d have told this whole family to go to hell. It’s so nice when exes can remain friends, instead of being at one another’s throats.”

Tania drops her fork.

“Just leave it,” Jordan says, laying a hand across his wife’s to keep her from ducking beneath the table to retrieve the utensil, which she seems about to do. “Are you all right, hon?”

“I’m still not feeling very well.” Tania slides her hand free of his and wraps her fingers around the water bottle she’s been sucking all evening. “If it’s all right, I’m going to go inside and lie down.”

“Of course it’s all right,” Grant Cartwright says, actually appearing genuinely concerned about someone besides himself for once in his life. It’s easy to see where his sons inherited their good looks, since Grant has the same lean height, square jawline, and piercing gray-blue eyes. The only real difference is that his hair has gone completely white, and of course, I’ve yet to see real evidence of his possessing a soul, just like I sometimes suspect Jordan lacks a fully functioning brain. “Nicole, why don’t you take her to your room—”

Nicole nearly knocks over her chair in her eagerness to help.

“Of course,” she says. “Come on, Tania. I’ll play you the new song I’ve been working on. It’s called ‘My Twin, My Oppressor’—”

“Are you
kidding
me with this shit?” Jessica demands, slamming her wineglass down so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Nicole says, not sounding sorry at all. “I didn’t think you’d want me to show Tania to
your
room, because it reeks of cigarette smoke and that isn’t good for the unborn.”

Mrs. Cartwright, at the other end of the table, looks toward Jessica in surprise. “You’re
smoking
now?”

“The doctor prescribed it,” Jessica insists. “As a way to control my irritable bowel syndrome—”

“Oh right,” Nicole says, with a sarcastic laugh. “It has nothing to do with you wanting to suppress your appetite, working all day with size zero models—”

“At least I’m actually getting
paid
at my job,” Jessica snaps, “instead of mooching off Mom and Dad like you’ve done every summer every year since, oh, your entire life—”

Nicole narrows her eyes and sits back down, ready for battle. “Excuse me, Miss I-Work-in-an-Industry-That-Encourages-Women-to-Starve, but as soon as my Teach for America training institute is over, I’ll actually be doing something important with my life. What will
you
be doing? Oh, right: going to work for Daddy.
I’ll be teaching children to read.
”

Yowza. It’s hard to keep score, but I think I have to give the point to Nicole for this one, although in our psych class we learned that the three basic human needs are food (including water), shelter, and clothing. Reading was nowhere on the list until scientists started experimenting with monkeys, depriving them of their mothers as tiny babies and raising them in isolation cages without any contact whatsoever with other monkeys or humans, noting that the baby monkeys became completely antisocial, tried to claw the scientists’ eyes out, flung their own poo at them, then died.

Only then did the scientists decide to add love, socialization, sanitation, education, and health care to the list of basic needs, without which all creatures will eventually go mental and die (not to mention fling their own poo).