Wedding Season (33 page)

“Postdigestive narcosis.” Damon groans. “May I take a nap on the couch, boss?”

“No. Hours to go before we sleep, dear scribe. We need to review the work to date on the Transgression Enterprise today. Lust and Vanity are opening next month.”

Pete moans and lies down on the floor behind the table.

“Coffee, extra-strength.” Myrna gets up and heads for the coffeemaker.

“Dude, you’re a saint,” Damon tells her.

“A bloody saint,” Tulley says. “Joy, we need you to look over our revisions on the Medici Project proposal. Ora Mitelman’s agent called, and he wants to review everything with us next week.” Before I can comment on this, Charles bangs the front door open and wobbles into the room.

“HELLO!” he shouts. I can smell the gin on his breath
from way over here. “Hello, my friends! Having a good afternoon, everybody?”

“Not quite as good as yours, I surmise.” Myrna pushes Charles away as he tries to embrace her.

“Vern.” I reach him just as his knees give way, and he flings his arms around my neck to keep from falling to the ground.

“Hello, you.” He rubs his nose tenderly against mine. His breath is all fumes.

“Liquid lunch, Vern?”

“I just stopped by Boîte for a teeny-weeny little cocktail.” He giggles into my neck. “And the owner was there and he bought me a couple. A couple. Just a couple.”

“That was very nice of him. I’ll send a thank-you note. Damon, could you give me a hand? I think Vern gets the couch this afternoon. No, don’t lie down here, Vern. Come on, up. Good job. Well done. Here we go.”

We half-drag, half-carry Charles to the back office and pour him onto the couch. I get a blanket from the closet, kept there for the occasional late nights required during Invisible’s salad days, and cover him with it. As I tuck him in he reaches up and strokes my face.

“Honey, I love you so much,” he slurs. “You know I love you, right, Vernie-Vern-Vern? Even if your brother is an absolute heartless monster, I still think you’re wonderful. I love you. I’m sorry about yesterday. Bad Charles. I do love you, you know that, right?”

“I love you, too. Okay, let go of my face now. Good boy. Just relax, and we’ll see if you can sleep this off, or if we need to have your stomach pumped.”

Charles has already passed out.

“Is this Invisible Inc.?” A vaguely familiar female voice echoes loudly in the front room. “Joy Silverman, where the hell are you?”

I whimper, get up, and walk back to the main room. Here I meet with a most unwelcome sight: My staff stare open-mouthed at the front door, where, dressed to kill, gorgeous as the day is long and twice as ferocious, stands Anabel Kappler in a rage.

“Today,” she says, marching toward me, brandishing a Gucci purse in one hand and a letter in the other, “I received a letter from my husband. Or so he intended me to believe, since his signature is on it.”

I hear a gasp from Myrna.

“However,” Anabel continues, opening the envelope and pulling out two sheets of paper, “He also included, and I suspect not entirely by accident, this!” She holds up a piece of paper for inspection, and flourishes it an inch or two from my face. It is unmistakably an invoice, on our letterhead, addressed to Hector Kappler, for two love letters.

“I can explain,” I tell her, though it seems unlikely. “Won’t you please come back into my office and sit down?” I remember that Charles is passed out on the couch. “Actually, sit down here. Have you had lunch? Would you like some Chinese?”

“I don’t need you to explain,” Anabel says, hands on her hips and eyes blazing. “I understand perfectly. My husband hired your company to write me this letter. It says right here:
Item Love Letter, Anabel.
Next to
Item Love Letter, Jane
, who I assume is his mistress. Whatever. But he’s hired you before, hasn’t he, Joy? That proposal I mentioned to you the other night? That was written here, as well. Am I right? By the same person. I can tell.”

“I’m not at liberty to disclose the specifics, actually. But listen, Anabel, the fact that Hector didn’t
write
it himself doesn’t mean he didn’t, doesn’t, feel those things. We consulted with him, he gave my writer very clear direction.”

“Don’t give me that,” Anabel says. “I was an actress. I did Chekhov. I did Williams. I played practically every ingenue Shakespeare wrote. I was terrible. But I did learn something about words and the people who write them and the people who recite them. And I need to know who wrote this letter. And the proposal. I have to know.”

“I can’t tell you that. It’s confidential.”

“I
have
to know. And you
will
tell me. I could sue you for, for… something. I’m sure I could sue you for something. Look.” Anabel collapses in the chair next to me. “I’m not angry. You already know I couldn’t care less about Hector’s affairs. And I think it’s sweet that he cares enough to commission a love letter for me, for god’s sake. Whoever heard of such a thing? It’s adorable.” She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, then opens them and smoothes from her forehead a few strands of red hair that have come loose from her French twist. “Just listen to me, please. Do you know what this letter did to me? What it made me feel? I haven’t felt anything like that for years—except for Hector’s proposal. I didn’t think I could feel anything like that ever again. Whoever wrote those—I need to know him. I
must
know him. I think I’m in love with him. You have to tell me who it is.”

“Anabel.” I touch her hand. “I really can’t. It’s company policy, and it’s protection for our employees. It’s in their contracts. I’d tell you if I could, if it were up to me. But I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“It was me. I wrote them.” Pete’s face appears suddenly at tabletop level. He has been lying on the floor behind the table throughout this conversation; now his eyes are wide and bright and fixed on Anabel. Everyone in the room stares at him.

“You all, go back to work,” I tell them. “No, go to my
office. No, never mind. Go take a walk. Be back in an hour. Oh, boy.”

“You wrote them?” Anabel blinks at him. “How
old
are you?”

“Twenty-three. Why? How old are you? Does it matter?”

“Thirty-seven. Does it matter?” They are gazing at each other now with that slightly hysterical rapture you see on the faces of young girls in Beatlemania footage.

“Right.” I watch my staff shuffling out the door. “Okay. I’m going for a walk, too. Okay. See you later.” Neither Pete nor Anabel acknowledges this. I expect their private soundtrack is turned up too loud for them to hear me. I grab my bag and follow the Invisibles out. On the way downstairs we fall in behind a sullen couple exiting the psychologist’s suite, then are tailed by an agent from the real estate company on the second floor, who is making grand promises to another couple about the apartment they are apparently on their way to view. My staff and I stand on the sidewalk in the ochre afternoon sunlight and watch the two groups march off in opposite directions.

“I think I saw this in a play once,” I say. Myrna glances at Damon, then looks at the ground. Tulley looks like she might start to cry. I’d often suspected she had a crush on Pete, and now I’m sure.

“I’m hungry again.” Damon points at the café across the street. “Desserts are on me. Who’s coming with?”

Myrna raises her hand. Tulley snuffles and nods. I look at my watch; it’s a little after three. An image of the note on Gabe’s desk drifts through my mind.

“You know,” I tell them, “I’m going to run some errands. You guys be back by four or so, okay?” I watch as they cut through traffic to cross the street, and tell myself I should go back upstairs and hide under the desk for a couple of hours.

Then I head to Seventh Avenue and turn north. I pass St. Sebastian’s Hospital, where outside the emergency room entrance young men and women tricked out in green scrubs and stethoscopes are generating a voluminous cloud of cigarette smoke. I consider checking myself in to the hospital’s psychiatric ward. Instead, I check my Palm Pilot for the address I copied down yesterday. It is a beautiful, clear day, a perfect day.

A
T THE BUILDING
whose address matches my notes, a limp young man in full doorman regalia, his face a riotous constellation of acne, sweats beneath the awning and squints at me.

“Helpyoomiss?”

“Um. Suite Three L?”

“Knowyercomin?” the doorman mutters.

“Yes.” I try to sound full of authority and purpose. “I have an… appointment?”

“Trewdalobbyantakealef,” he instructs, twisting his thumb in that direction.

“Thank you.” I enter the revolving door, and complete three full rotations, hoping that I will miraculously acquire the sanity to turn back. The doorman, noticing, shakes his head, and I allow the momentum of my circles to push me out into the air-conditioned chill of the lobby, past the potted palm trees and uninviting couches, and into the south wing, where there be dragons.

As I creep down the hall toward Suite 3L, a door opens. I panic and scurry past, dive around a corner, then peek out to see the hunched back of a very old woman as she hobbles away toward the lobby. She came, I note, from 2L. The door across the hall, which from this vantage point I can’t see,
should be the dragon’s lair. I pause, take a couple of deep breaths, and with no particular plan in mind have begun to ease myself in that direction when the door opens and Gabe walks out. I duck back around the corner and flatten myself against the wall. After this, I think, nothing will be beneath my dignity, as I don’t seem to have a shred remaining. It should make my professional life a good deal easier. I hear a woman’s voice from within 3L, soft and amused, and Gabe’s laugh.

“As did I,” he says. “Just wonderful. So, I’ll be in touch.”

The woman’s voice again, lilting, laughing.

“Absolutely. I promise you,” Gabe responds. “I look forward to it.” I listen to the snap of the door closing, and his footsteps as they retreat down the marble hallway. I consider violence, count to fifty, poke my head around the corner to ensure that the coast is clear, and tiptoe toward the door, wondering whether I should knock and have it out with Ora now, or confront Gabe first, or—

I catch sight of a plaque on the ostensible entrance to Ora’s love den, a plaque that announces the offices of the Organization of Medical Practitioners for Social Change. OM. PSC. Right.

I sit down on the floor in the hall and slump against the OMPSC’s door. I am a bad person, I tell myself, not to mention ridiculous. Not to mention bad and ridiculous and bad. And ridiculous. And some other things I can’t think of right now. But the heart on that note? What about the heart? I am in the midst of attempting to puzzle this out when the office door opens behind me. I fall backward and crack my head on the floor. A very elegant older woman in a white doctor’s coat looks down at me.

“May I help you?” she asks.

I fear I am well beyond help, but I appreciate the offer.

“Thanks, I’m okay.” I prop myself up on one elbow. The
woman reaches down to assist me off the floor, and I notice the name tag pinned to her coat. It reads: Dr. F. Valentine, St. Sebastian’s Hospital, Director of Cardiology. Which would explain the heart on Gabe’s note.

“Joy Silverman,” Dr. Valentine says. “I don’t know if you remember me. I met you at your Aunt Charlotte’s wedding.”

“Hello,” I tell her, and lie down again.

“My granddaughter helped you with your makeup. I’m Frederika Valentine.”

“Right. I do recognize you now. Grandma Fred. Nice to see you again. How’ve you been?”

“We have a couch in here. Why don’t you come rest for a minute? It’ll be more comfortable than the hallway floor.”

“Sure. Good idea. Thank you very much. Listen, may I ask you something?” I struggle to my feet. “That guy who just left. What was he doing here?”

“Photographing me for a story about the organization. I’m one of the founders. Why do you ask?”

Good question, I think to myself. Dr. Valentine gestures toward the sofa, and I sit. A receptionist, seated at the front desk, gives me a curious look.

“He’s my boyfriend.” A fact which, I realize as soon as I have uttered it, explains nothing, but does manage to make my presence here even more suspect.

“Your boyfriend?” Dr. Valentine lifts an eyebrow. The receptionist pretends to be very busy with something in his top drawer.

“My fiancé, actually.”

“Your fiancé.”

“Yes.”

“And may I ask what
you’re
doing here?”

“It’s a long story.” I inspect the ceiling, then sit up.

“Joy, were you spying on your fiancé?” A smile flickers at the corners of Dr. Valentine’s mouth.

“I
wouldn’t say that. Exactly.”

“No? Well, just for the record, he’s not having an affair with
me.
Though he is a very charming young man.”

“Thanks,” I tell her. “You know, I really should be going now.”

I
BID FAREWELL
to Dr. Valentine and walk back through the lobby, past the young doorman, out the revolving glass doors and into the bright day. Dazzled by the sunlight, a little numb, and not a little perplexed by what has just happened, I stand for a moment on the sidewalk, before turning back toward the Invisible office. As I walk, my head rattles like a bingo cage with a horde of stray, strange thoughts: Was the activity I just engaged in actually
spying
, as the good doctor suggested, and not, as I try to convince myself, a perfectly rational, explicable sort of reconnaissance mission? Should I tell Gabe about what I’ve done? Should I tell him everything, since obviously he’s perfectly innocent of everything and his presumed dalliance with Ora exists only in my absurd and unreliable brain? Should I forget my stupid vows and confess my secret fears? Or should I stay the course, keep my own counsel, honor the promise I made to myself? I wish, briefly, that I belonged to a religious sect with stern but gentle leaders and very simple rules, and I remember the slogan on Henry’s favorite T-shirt, the one she was wearing the day we met:
God is coming, and she’s pissed.
Dancing through this crowd of questions like a noisy fool, impossible to ignore, is the memory of my conversation with James yesterday—what he said about my dealings with Ora, his ridiculous intimation that those anxieties had influenced my decision to accept Gabe’s marriage proposal. Ridiculous, I tell myself. Ridiculous. It can’t possibly be true.