Thorns of Truth (34 page)

To hell with what the therapists counseled, and the books on coping with loss. Rose didn’t care if she was hanging on to her grief long past the expiration date. All she knew was that, in those first moments of blinking awake in the morning, it was Max she reached for.

Her husband. Now and forever.

She couldn’t let go of that, not for anyone. Even Eric.

In the farthest reaches of her mind, a small voice whispered:
Admit it. Rose Santini Griffin, you’re scared. Not just of Max’s being pushed aside. You’re scared it might not last with Eric. That you might lose him, too. And that next time, you just might not survive it.…

Eventually, this heat would cool a bit, wouldn’t it? The intensity would wane. She wouldn’t feel damp between her legs all the time, longing for Eric within minutes of kissing him goodbye.

She was a sensible, middle-aged woman. The mother of grown boys. Managing partner of her own firm. Certainly, she could manage a love affair without letting her heart run away with her.

Yet Rose, arriving at her destination, was still so preoccupied she had to count out the money for the taxi twice before she got it right.

Minutes later, accosted by her secretary as she was striding toward her office. Rose felt as if she’d been ambushed. She had to blink to bring her into focus. Mallory, wearing a jumper and black tights, her hair—which blew with the wind of every new fashion—a shade and style that could only be described as Madonna Platinum.

“Lockwood wants a word with you. He’s in your office,” she informed Rose,
sotto voce.
“I told him you might be a while, but he said he didn’t mind waiting. He .. .” She bit her bottom lip. “He seemed pretty upset.”

Hayden Lockwood? In her office? Upset? Rose felt her mind click back into the groove worn by years of dealing with one crisis after another, both here and at home. Hayden was the newest of their associates, and easily the brightest. If there was a problem, she’d better deal with it.

She found him seated in the easy chair by the window—a lanky black man with close-cropped hair who, no matter how he arranged his long, knobby limbs, always reminded her of a young father on Parent Day, seated at his child’s desk.

“Sorry to sneak up on you like this,” he apologized, standing up. “Do you have a moment?” He spoke in round-toned, Harvard-educated English that Rose suspected he accentuated on purpose, to let people know he was no scholarship kid. Both his parents were college professors, and his oldest sister was chief counsel for the Democratic National Committee.

Right now, Hayden looked troubled, his dark eyes thoughtful behind the lenses of his conservative tortoiseshell glasses. And Rose didn’t need two guesses as to why.
Mandy,
she thought, her heart sinking.

Hayden had been assigned to Mandy’s department. He’d be the first to know if she’d fallen off the wagon.

Just what I
don’t
need right now.

Rose gestured for him to sit down, and sank into the chair across from him instead of the one at her desk.

“I’ve been hearing good things about you,” she began, hoping to put him at ease. “Mandy tells me she’s never seen anyone bill so many hours. Besides herself,” she added with a tiny smile. “And that bit of detective work you did on the Anderson divorce was brilliant. Really.”

He smiled shyly, and ducked his head. “Thanks. I appreciate your saying so, but it was mostly common sense, along with some digging. I had to go through about sixteen boxes of those financial statements we subpoenaed, but eventually I noticed a pattern. How many times do you have a restaurant or hotel receipt in the Cayman Islands unless it’s connected somehow to hidden assets?”

“Well, it looks as if you may have saved our client some money, not to mention a fair amount of grief.” Smiling, she added, “The threat of unleashing the IRS on her husband is going to give Mrs. Anderson quite a bit more leeway in her own bargaining.”

“No doubt about it.” Hayden nodded enthusiastically, but looked uncomfortable. He cleared his throat as if wanting to say something else, then fell silent.

Rose prodded gently, “Hayden, is something the matter?”

He looked down at his enormous hands, loosely linked in his lap. “Actually … there is. It’s, uh, about Mandy.” He stumbled a bit over his words.

Rose felt her stomach contract. “What about her?”

“I wish there was some other way to handle this,” he said. “I didn’t want to come to you. But it’s not the kind of thing I could just let go, either.” He lifted his expressive brown eyes, and she saw how conflicted he was. “The other day, Mandy was late showing up for an appointment—with Mrs. Anderson, it so happens—and then, when she finally
did
get here, she …” He cleared his throat again. “I think it would be fair to say she was under the influence. Or maybe it was just that she’d had a lot to drink the night before. Whatever, I could smell it on her. She wasn’t very steady on her feet, either.” Despite his obvious discomfort, Hayden kept his gaze level with hers. “I have a lot of respect for Mandy, she’s a fine lawyer … but, see, I know a little something about this. I have an uncle who … well, let’s just say Uncle Willie is always the last to leave a party. Usually, he has to be carried out.”

Rose felt a headache coming on, a real McWhopper. How could things have gotten so out of hand so quickly? Mandy had been really good lately, not even a glass of wine with dinner. Now this. And not just one little slip, either. Good God, the whole office had to know.

“This isn’t the first time. Is that what you’re saying?” she asked as calmly as she could, though her head was pulsing like a yellow caution blinker.

“No,” he said, so softly it was almost a mumble.

His gaze shifted to the window, with its view of the Helmsley arch and the gilded clock that resembled a giant Krugerrand. The strained expression on his earnest young face made her think of Drew.

She winced inwardly. Her older son had dropped by last night to pick up his brother; he had two tickets to a Knicks game. Rose had asked after Iris—pleasantly, she’d thought—and somehow she and Drew had wound up arguing. He’d accused her not only of trying to run his life, but of running it with a friggin’
backhoe.
Which had triggered the Flatbush Avenue in Rose into shouting back, “Great, just great.
You
dig the hole, then. Just don’t expect me to be there to pull you out when it gets too deep!”

Now here she was, looking down into the hole that
Mandy
had dug for herself, and wondering what the hell she was going to do about it. How had things come to this? Since when had she, Rose Santini Griffin, been appointed to King Solomon’s throne? At the moment, she’d have swapped this serious young man before her, who meant well and was only trying to do his job, for an extra-strength Tylenol and ten minutes on a treadmill.

Rose sucked in her breath. “You did the right thing in coming to me,” she assured him. “I’m sorry you had to be placed in this position. I hope it won’t affect your opinion of the firm as a whole. You’re a tremendous asset to us, Hayden.”

“Thank you,” he said.

Hayden smiled in gratitude, but it was the look of someone who knew perfectly well he’d be snapped up by another firm in an instant. How many young men, white or black, could boast a Harvard degree, and a resume that included two summers interning at the white-shoe firm of Milbank, Tweed?

“I’ll take care of this,” she promised in a voice that left no doubt as to her sincerity.

Hayden nodded gravely and rose to his feet. His awkward bobble, as if he hadn’t quite grown into his height, made her smile in spite of herself.

He shook the hand she extended, meeting her gaze with an expression that hovered between relief and resolve. Making it clear that, however much he might like and respect Mandy, he had no intention of compromising his career for a drunk.

And that’s what Mandy is.
Rose thought darkly.
A drunk.
Thank God. Max had been spared this.

But it didn’t have to be this way, she told herself. Look at Eric.
He
had somehow managed to get sober, and get his life back on track.

Rose’s spirits lifted a fraction of an inch. Yes, that was it. She would ask Eric what to do. Maybe if he spoke to Mandy …

Who knew? Mandy might even listen. The night Rose had had them both over to dinner, they’d seemed to hit it off—though Mandy apparently had no memory of his taking her home from Iris and Drew’s party.

Rose glanced at her watch. Past twelve-thirty already! She’d have to hustle to make it to the restaurant by one. She realized she hadn’t so much as glanced at the mail on her desk, or the neat pile of pink phone slips … but suddenly none of that seemed important.

Eric. In exactly twenty-eight minutes she’d be seeing him. His well-traveled eyes, which lit up when she walked in, as if he’d never seen anything so lovely. His delicious mouth, which never ran out of surprises. His hands, which always made her blush, because she couldn’t stop thinking of how they’d touched her in bed.

All the anxiety of a moment ago trickled out of her like sand from an upended shoe. Rose dashed for the door, her face flushed, her heart racing as it hadn’t since she was sixteen, and in love for the first time.

I won’t think about it,
she told herself,
how quickly it evaporates, this kind of love.
What she and Max had built together was solid, capable of withstanding any kind of weather. What she’d felt with Brian, what had made it so sweet, though she hadn’t realized it then, was that it hadn’t been for keeps.

And soon this, too, would be gone—the guilty pleasure of her new love affair with Eric, like every other bright, shining thing in her life, would eventually vanish like the moon with the first light of dawn.

They met at an Indian restaurant at Lexington and Twenty-sixth, which, according to Eric, was one of the city’s best-kept secrets. If you have an asbestos palate, or don’t mind dining with a fire extinguisher on hand, he’d added slyly.

What Rose found even more appealing than the prospect of a delicious meal was the unlikelihood of running into anyone she knew. She didn’t want her colleagues to see how she behaved around Eric, blushing like a schoolgirl with a crush; neither of them able to go five minutes without reaching for the other’s hand, or sneaking a quick kiss.

Getting out of the cab in front of a yellowish stucco façade, Rose had to peer closely at the discreet sign. Pongal, she read. And, yes, there was the blue elephant in the window, just as Eric had described.

Stepping inside, she was enveloped in a bouquet of exotic aromas. Rose felt suddenly ravenous. It wasn’t that she’d skipped breakfast—in her rush to get to work, she often did. It was Eric. Somehow, the prospect of seeing him stimulated
all
her appetites, made her blood race and her juices flow.

She spotted him at once, seated at a table in back, but paused for a moment, savoring this opportunity to observe him unnoticed. He wore what she recognized as his favorite pair of jeans—washed so many times they were the whitish blue of old love letters penned on airmail stationery—and a navy blazer over a light-colored shirt. His hair was windblown, and he was leaning back in his chair, reading a folded-over section of the
Times.

Abruptly, as if sensing her presence, he looked up. Eyes that would have been just as blue had they been directed elsewhere, but which seemed to blaze with an almost blinding intensity as he lifted them to her. He was smiling—a secret little smile meant just for her—as if remembering their last time together.

She flushed, feeling sure that it was stamped on her forehead like a brand, that everyone in the place could see her for what she was: a woman in love.

Suddenly, in her mind. Rose was seeing a much younger version of herself: huddled on the scuffed kneeler before the statue of the BVM that had dominated the altar at her church, saying penance for her “sins” committed with Brian. Sins of the flesh that, no matter how many Hail Marys and Our Fathers she said, she’d been helpless to keep from committing all over again.

Admit it, you never felt this way with Max.
She’d loved her husband, desired him deeply, and the sex had become fuller and richer with each passing year … but she couldn’t remember a time when she’d burned for Max, when just the scent of the sheets after they’d made love had sent her spinning into orbit all over again. Max had known exactly how to please her; he’d been patient and loving and creative. But never, even in the very beginning, had memories of what they’d done in bed the night before caused her to twist in her seat, unable to cross her legs without feeling almost excruciatingly stimulated.

As Eric stood up to greet her, Rose felt as furtive as an adulteress meeting her lover for a secret rendezvous. To her horror, that only made her want him more. As he leaned close to kiss her on the mouth, she turned her head, presenting her cheek to him instead. It didn’t stop her from catching his scent—a scent she couldn’t quite identify, but which somehow brought to mind all the smells she loved best: new books, line-dried sheets, leaves freshly polished with rain.

Feeling overheated and jittery, she made a great show of unbuttoning her coat and arranging it over the back of her chair. Eric just stood there, his hands in his pockets, regarding her with faint amusement, as if he knew perfectly well what was on her mind.

“What are you looking at?” she asked with a self-conscious laugh.

“Prom night. Circa 1964.” He grinned, and sank back down into his chair. “Right now, you don’t look a day over seventeen.”

She arched a brow. “Gray hairs and all?”

“You’re prettier now than I bet you were back then.”

“I never went to a prom,” she told him. “The closest I ever got was being confirmed. You could call it a date with Jesus.” She gave a short laugh laced with irony. “My grandmother was a big believer in going to bed early Saturday night in order to be up at the crack of dawn for Sunday mass.”

“I wish I’d known you then.”