The Love Wars (22 page)

“I think there is no reason to disagree with increased and unsupervised visitation for Ms. Walker, as long as it’s temporary.”

Risa is outraged. “If he were a true advocate for his clients’ interests, he wouldn’t let them anywhere near Ms. Walker. She’s dangerous.”

I clear my throat and note that Emily’s recommendation is in line with the minimum schedule in Fern and Robert’s existing separation agreement.

Justice Strand holds up his copy of the letter. “Ms. McDunn, if you need me to order it, I will, but I would advise your client to agree to the increase. The more he argues about whether his ex-wife is fit to see her children, the more he looks like he’s withholding the children without regard for their best interests.”

__________

A
ccording to Factsination!
Nine out of ten doctors say balance is the key to a happy life!
I blink my eyes and reread, more than a little surprised that nugget got past the Bacon Payne Politburo. The elevator doors open on the thirty-seventh floor and I walk down the hall, clutching to my side a file folder, Fern’s new visitation order safely contained within. Her time with them has
been officially expanded to include alternate weekends and three midweek visits.

Henry is leaning against the wall, talking to an associate from the tax group, Ed Something.

Just then it hits me. Of course—Henry is on the Murty matter. He is my deus ex machina.

“Hey.” He and Ed Something both turn toward me. “How was your meeting?”

“Great. How was your call?”

“What?”

“Your midday call? On Murty? I heard it was a really big deal.” I blink innocently.

The tax associate continues to smile politely, nodding impatiently in the hopes that I’ll hurry up and end this generic exchange so he and Henry can resume their conversation.

“Oh,
that
.” Henry smiles, caught. “Yeah, I talked to the client this morning and reminded him of some of the things he needed to discuss with Lillian, so we were able to schedule a time the whole team could talk for midday.”

“I bet the client is eternally grateful.”

“Don’t know. I haven’t heard from him, but I agree with you. He should be terribly grateful,” says Henry. “He should give me a medal for my efforts to make his life easier.”

“Isn’t the real gift that you won’t have to visit him in the mental institution, which is where he was headed without your help?”

He pretends to consider that. “True. However much of a pain it was to have the call, it was nothing compared to the pain of listening to my client lose it. I’ve seen that and it’s a horror show.”

Ed Something pivots his head back and forth, trying to follow along.

“Your client owes you a lunch.”

“I don’t know. My client will probably just use the lunch to
talk about his case some more. He’s kind of one-note. I would love more than anything to expand his mind, get him to talk or think about something else, you know?”

“Well, you’re incredibly well-rounded,” I say, looking at him pointedly. “Maybe you could ask this client to join you in one of your many time-intensive hobbies. Macramé? Sea monkeys? Gardening? So many to choose from.”

By this point, Ed Something looks upset and confused, so I squeeze Henry’s arm. Grinning, I walk back to my office and the fifty-five e-mails that have accumulated in my absence.

____

O
n the way over to Duck’s annual Halloween party, I run into one of those Halloween express pop-up stores. I did not have energy to plan my costume this year, what with all my
telenovela
-esque lies and subterfuge on behalf of the Walker case. Alas, looking for a costume at six o’clock on Halloween is like going grocery shopping right before the first snowstorm of the season—bare, picked-over shelves—any remaining loaf of bread, no matter how fresh and soft, is going to be mashed and misshapen into something unappealing.

Instead of one of those harmless, no-thought-required, costume-in-a-plastic-bag options, all I see is the slutty trifecta: slutty nurse, slutty pirate and slutty go-go dancer. I refuse to wear something so short that I won’t be able to sit down or so low cut that I can’t bend over, so I rummage around and leave with a motley assortment: a Groucho Marx disguise, a bright red wig, a bandanna, some face paint.

Duck opens her front door with a grimace. “You’re going to kill me. I let slip to Caleb that we were having a big Halloween party.”

“And?”

“And he said he wasn’t doing anything and wanted to come, so I had to invite him. I’m so sorry.”

I shrug, but my heartbeat kicks up a notch.

“I just assumed he’d be going somewhere else fabulous, so I thought it was safe to mention.”

“It’s fine.” I feel a junkie’s itch crawl up my fingers and think fast. “Seriously, not an issue. I have to send a quick e-mail for work, though.”

“Of course you do.” Duck opens her chrome refrigerator and, holding the door with her hip, starts unloading bottles of wine and beer onto the kitchen counter.

I sit down at the table and pull out my BlackBerry. I type in Anastasia’s name first, as I always do—she gets more press. She’s been active since spring: summer parties in the Hamptons, Edinburgh and the Mediterranean and fall stops in New York, London and Miami. I find no pictures of her with Caleb, but several with a long-haired man named Bertrand Mallet. A Page Six blurb from mid-October reports canoodling between “our favorite Peppercorn party princess and her dashing Parisian pal.”

A little too enthusiastically, I do my Caleb due diligence. I find nothing, save a brief note of his attendance at the Friends of the High Line benefit.

I kick myself for opportunities lost. Maybe Caleb was free to flirt with me in June; maybe that charity event he and Anastasia jointly donated to meant nothing, or was a relic from happier times. In an instant, my expectations for the evening elevate. But, oh, crap, my costume. I wonder whether I have enough time to run out and grab one of the slutty options.

I dump my bag of foraging spoils out on Duck’s kitchen table. “Help.”

“Um, so what’s the theme here?” She touches the bandanna.

“Chaos and uncertainty?” I say.

“Well done, well done.” She holds up the wig. “Hey, how about good ol’ Pippi Longstocking?”

When I first emerge from the bathroom fully dressed, Duck
and I laugh until my tears leave a smear line through my apple red cheeks. Along with legions of seven-year-olds across the city, I am clad in my red wig, sloppy braids wrapped around those red sandwich Baggie ties so that they defy gravity, red circles on my cheeks and confetti-sized freckles dotted across my nose. I am in Duck’s denim skirt—too short for me, so somehow, after all the avoidance, I am Slutty Pippi.

“Wait,” says Duck. “What about Mr. Nilsson?”

She appears five minutes later with a picture of a monkey printed from the Bronx Zoo Web site, which we safety-pin to my turtleneck.

The guests start to arrive, and I grab a chocolate lager, which, sadly, does not taste like a Hershey’s bar, and appreciate their costumes. Duck and Holt are coordinated wizards, with glittering pointy hats and wands and dramatic capes—hers purple and his dark blue. Two people are in full-fledged white furry bunny outfits, their ears stretched high above them, little poufy tails affixed to their bottoms. Several women have gone where I feared to tread. I see a slutty pirate maiden, slutty witch, slutty doctor, all wearing fishnets and showing remarkable cleavage.

Holt’s New York–based fraternity brothers—a sloth of burly men all approaching forty and somehow, through a combination of divorces and Peter Pan syndrome, still single—are convincing Vikings, complete with horned hats, red shields, leather skirts and, Lord help us all, spears. I wonder if they took public transportation here and scared the bejeezus out of the other passengers.

“Hey, Molly. Haven’t seen you in a while. Good Raggedy Ann costume,” the one the rest of them call Bigfoot says.

“Oh, I’m Pippi Longstocking, actually.”

He looks at me blankly.

“Plucky little Swedish girl from the books and movie?”

He shakes his head.

“She has a monkey friend, superhuman strength, wacky exploits?”

“Sounds like a fun chick. Hey, Luger,” he shouts to his fraternity brother heading over to the kitchen, where the drinks are. “Look who’s here.” He points to me exaggeratedly.

Luger cups his hands over his mouth. “Orphan Annie! Howrya? Drink?”

Orphan Annie? Oh, forget it. I hold up my beer to indicate no, not that Luger will think already having a beer is reason enough to decline another drink.

I get into a conversation with Rico (dressed as a bonsai tree, with brown pants and turtleneck, hundreds of green pipe cleaners on his torso), Duck’s newly hired associate, fresh out of Pratt. He identifies me as Strawberry Shortcake and starts talking about the difficulties of the first postcollege year: getting used to a daily alarm clock, not having a bazillion weeks of vacation, having to answer the phone, regardless of whether you feel like talking. I feel his pain, remembering that sharp feeling as a first-year associate when, as I was walking to work on the first happy, hopeful, sunny day of spring, it hit me like an invisible wall that I couldn’t just take my reading to the Quad.

Luger blusters over, intent on discussing the grossest things he’s ever seen on the subway. Although some involve small animals (rats, pigeons), most involve bodily fluid. He’s ending a horrific masturbating-commuter story when I spot Henry across the room, his head visible above the crowd.

Duck insisted on inviting him. “We’ve had beers together,” she said. “It would be weird if I didn’t invite him.” She promised that it wasn’t an attempt to pair us off, but she’d seemed surprised when Henry checked the Evite box that said “Hell, yeah, wouldn’t miss it” and indicated that he’d be bringing along a guest.

Henry and that guest—Julie, looking like a runway model—glide
over to me in unison, like costumed ice-skaters, just as Luger shouts, “I mean, the hugest, hugest crap, biggest dump ever. Seriously.”

Julie winces as Henry’s eyes widen. “Wow,” he says. “What are we interrupting?”

“Trust me, it’s not an interruption. It’s a relief,” I say. “Better not to hear any more, especially if you ride the subway regularly. Good costumes.”

I would’ve never pegged Henry as someone who would dress up for Halloween, but he has rallied as Han Solo, complete with the V-necked white shirt, tight dark pants, vest and badass holster. And Julie is of course Princess Leia, her glossy hair done up in resplendent coil buns, her perfect body dipped in a long clingy white dress that reminds me of an Oscar gown.

Henry and I never talk about Julie, which I chalk up to his philosophy on compartmentalizing work life and home life. When we had drinks several weeks ago, Duck had plowed right through Henry’s obvious palpable reluctance, jackhammering him with questions about how long they’d been together and what was Julie like. All I learned was that Henry had met Julie through her brother, his friend from college, and that Julie liked the Hamptons.

Henry gives me the once-over and busts out laughing. “Nice,” he finally says. “Good look for you.”

“Yeah.” I give a little wave. “Apparently I’m a generic red-haired character.”

“Who are you really?
I Love Lucy
, right?” Julie says.

I bite my tongue to keep from replying
Yes, I’m Lucille Ball during her crack-whore/hobo years.

“She’s Pippi Longstocking—note the monkey friend carefully, um, assaulted with pins and stuck to her shirt,” says Henry, pointing to the picture. “Pippi, you better hope the ASPCA is not here.”

“Little-known fact about Pippi—she’s got a bit of a sadistic edge,” I say, with an eyebrow arch, sipping my now flat beer.

When Henry leaves to get drinks, I ask Julie what she does and she takes off running. She used to work for Rosenthal, the auction house, and that was totally great, oh, the stuff she got to just work around, just masterpieces—the Picasso, the Close, the Hirst. Now she’s with a smaller gallery, Krenshaw London, did I know it, no, see, that was totally her point, no one had heard of it, so, even though she did really, like, truly believe in the power of small boutique galleries as a way to showcase the right artist, it just wasn’t as important as her work at the house—they totally missed her there and the hours were better than her new hours, which were, well, nothing like poor Henry’s hours, which were nuts, just crazy, I mean I would not believe how hard poor Henry worked, at which I nod emphatically.

“He works really hard,” I say.

“Oh, you must be the one who works with him?”

I nod. “We’re both in the matrimonial group at the firm.”

“Oh my God. So you’ve seen the Miró? I swear I almost started to hyperventilate.”

“Actually, I’ve never—”

“Oh, you must be the one who introduced him to the hosts, um—Goose and—”

“Duck and Holt. Yep, that’s me.”

“We, like, never go to Brooklyn. And our friends back in the city are having a party tonight, so I was, like, totally shocked when Henry wanted to stop by here before our Halloween party. He must have really hit it off with them, right?”

“Right,” I say, although I’m pretty sure that he’s only talked to Duck twice. “Well, I’m glad you guys showed up.”

Henry returns with three margaritas in red plastic cups and hands one to Julie and one to me. There’s a moment of awkward silence that I chalk up to the out-of-place work-friend phenomenon. I
look down at my feet. One is in my own sneaker and the other is in Duck’s fuzzy thong slipper. Not wanting to draw attention there, I quickly look up. “So, where’d you guys get the costumes?”

“Oh, I spent weeks scouring the Internet until one of my network of costume sources—Yuri, I think, from Brighton Beach—tracked them down,” Henry says.

I laugh. “Wow, it’s Loose Party Henry. Nice to meet you.”

“No, it was all her. I had hoped to be a hardworking office drone and just come in business casual with a cup of coffee.”

Julie rolls her eyes. “Hon, that would have been so boring. Thank God you have me to dress you up.” She puckers up her lips and pecks him on the mouth, making an exaggerated
mwah
sound.