And When She Was Good, page 22
Has she ever done the right thing? The thought shoots through her, hot and painful. Bettina is dead, and it’s almost certainly her fault. Not that she’ll ask Val about it when she sees him tomorrow. For now her only desire is to get through each meeting with Val in a state of cheerful, fake normalcy. By year’s end, if everything goes according to plan, she figures she’ll never have to see him again.
The sad irony is that Heloise feels safer than she has in years. The shoe has finally dropped; Val has his revenge against his presumed Judas and must be satisfied. Yet a little boy has lost his mother, and that’s Heloise’s fault. She is not inclined to romanticize Bettina, who was a pretty awful person in her own way, but she apparently was sincere in her yearning for a child, and she was tender with her little boy in the few minutes that Heloise observed. Heloise tries to remind herself that she had no way of knowing what would happen when she dropped Bettina’s name to Val all those years ago. She’d assumed that the woman was dead, or as good as; she couldn’t prophesy that there would be a husband and a child, a genuine second chance for the junkie-prostitute who had once lunged at her and attempted to pull her hair out at the roots. She was just trying to keep Scott safe, and that required staying alive.
There have been fleeting moments in the past two weeks when she thinks she should find a way to befriend Bettina’s widower, marry him, raise their children together. It would be a fitting penance, giving herself to a loveless relationship in order to care for the child she has robbed.
Then the sun finally comes up, and such 3:00 A.M. thoughts are banished, as they should be.
She and Paul have agreed to meet at the Mandarin Oriental, a Washington hotel. She told him she had business in the District and asked if he would meet her there, but that was a lie. He’s the business. Or will be, she hopes. Although they have sometimes met in D.C. before, it’s usually at hotels closer to the K Street corridor. The Mandarin Oriental feels off the beaten path, although it’s not that far from downtown. She wonders, as she hands her keys to the valet, at the provisory use of the word “Oriental,” why it’s still allowed for hotels and rugs and art.
She is early, by design, and she sips green tea, unaccountably nervous. Why is she so nervous? She’s merely following up on the very things that Paul has suggested.
He arrives, his eyes sweeping the room out of habit, but he knows no one here and no one knows him. Is it just her imagination, or does Paul look smaller outside Annapolis, in a room other than the low-ceilinged bar at the Maryland Inn?
“I thought we could do the tasting menu,” Heloise says. “My treat.”
“Really?” Paul is surprised by both her generosity and her hunger. But then, Heloise has never been able to do her job on a too-full stomach.
“I take you to a few meals here and there, so I have something to file.”
“Yes, but it’s usually a wedge salad and crab cakes, with dessert if I’m lucky. Okay, I’m in. But no alcohol. Can’t afford a DWI on the drive back.”
“None at all?” Paul almost always has a drink with lunch.
“Well—one vodka martini. Is it just lunch today?”
“Just lunch,” she says demurely. “I don’t have the kind of relationship that would let me take a room here without drawing attention to us. But it is a business lunch. Paul—do you think your . . . uh, associate might still be interested in buying my business? The potential backer that Anna Marie referenced to me when I fired her?”
The question clearly surprises him. Good. That’s always an advantage. She’s been thinking about this for a while; he probably abandoned the idea after she fired Anna Marie.
“I think the interested party could be cajoled into a negotiation. By business—what do you mean, exactly? What are you selling?”
“The client list, essentially. The current employees, except me. They’re under contract. The software I’ve had developed for billing and bookkeeping, all relevant files—everything but the actual name. I’m keeping that.”
“Why?”
The waiter arrives, and they go through the little dance that the tasting menu requires—no, no known allergies; no, no dislikes. (Paul actually points to Heloise and says, “She’ll put anything in her mouth.” It’s not the first time he’s made a slightly crude joke at her expense, but it’s the first time it has annoyed her. She’s not on the clock today.) It occurs to Heloise, belatedly, that one is not supposed to eat fish on Monday, at least according to Scott, her little foodie. She’s not sure where he’s lapped up that particular piece of wisdom. Still, she has to believe that a place such as the Mandarin is invested enough in its reputation to make sure its diners are safe.
Like you did? asks the mocking voice that seems to accompany her everywhere she goes these days. It’s Val’s voice, even though he doesn’t know about her specific problems with Sophie.
“That’s part two of what I wanted to talk to you about,” she says, returning to their interrupted conversation. “I thought I would take your advice and become a real lobbyist.”
Paul’s just-arrived vodka martini is brimming, and he drinks off a bit—more than necessary to keep the glass from overflowing. “That’s a pretty tough transition, Heloise.”
“You were the one who suggested it.”
“I was joking.”
She’s hurt. But this is business. She can’t afford the luxury of taking things personally. “Really? I mean, I understood you were teasing, of course, but I thought there was a germ of a good idea.”
“There is. You have the skills. You have the contacts. There’s a real overlap. Theoretically, it makes sense.”
“What’s the problem in reality?”
“Unless you have a lot of money put away, it will take you years to get the kind of paying gigs that will replace your income.”
She hasn’t considered this. “I could sign on with one of the big firms, take a salary.”
“They won’t want you. The big boys, Heloise. The hard-core ones, the cutthroats who make a million a year—”
“Yes, I know who they are.”
“And they know who you are.”
“I’ve never dealt with any of them professionally. I’ve been careful about that.” She has in fact eliminated a few lobbyists through her screening process, inferring that they were trying to get their feet in the door to find out if they could offer her services much as they gave away sports tickets and cases of liquor. Why use a middleman when she had already tapped the source?
“Do you honestly think they don’t know about you? Dirt is currency for these guys.”
“I’m not dirt,” she says.
“Of course you’re not. It’s only—these guys make it a point to know everything. And to use everything they know.”
“Okay, so they’ve heard about me. Why couldn’t one of them hire me, put me on salary while I develop a boutique sideline within the firm, doing the kind of social-justice issues that don’t appeal to them anyway? Make the lie of income parity true once and for all.”
Paul sips his miso. “That almost could work. Except— Look, I’m just going to tell you the truth, Heloise. The best guys have rivals, and the rivals would expose you in a heartbeat, if they thought it would work to their advantage.”
The waiter arrives with an extra course, an amuse bouche. Heloise doesn’t think any part of her can be amused just now.
“Besides, most of these guys would expect you to do for free what you’ve been charging for. Not out-and-out sex. But you would be hired for your, um, decorative quality, your manners. You’d be like a geisha. Yeah, they’d let you lobby for this little issue or that one, for appearances’ sake, but you wouldn’t have any effect. They’d want you for the list of men you’d slept with. You’d be sort of an implicit threat of blackmail. ‘Look who works for me, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.’ Is that what you want?”
It occurs to Heloise that Paul can’t help but be self-interested on this score. He’s particularly vulnerable to the very scenario he’s sketched.
“I still want to keep the name,” she says. “Do you really have a buyer, or was that another joke?”
“I do,” Paul says. “But he has to stay anonymous.”
“That means he wants to pay cash, I assume?”
“Of course. And if he pays cash, you can’t report it, Heloise. I know you’ve always been careful about money, staying legit with the IRS, but this can’t be one of those times.”
“I figured as much.” She had, but the idea still makes her stomach flip. She may not fear Val anymore, but she still fears the IRS.
“And by the way”—Paul clears his throat, takes another hearty swig of his drink, coughs when it goes down wrong—“I’d expect a finder’s fee. From your end.”
She’s pretty sure that Paul is getting it from both ends, but she merely nods in agreement.
“Even without putting anything in writing, it would be good for you to have a lawyer, maybe an accountant, who can review this for you.”
“That I have,” she says, smooth as the tofu that she is fishing out of her miso. She will consult Tyner if needed.
“May I ask why you changed your mind?”
She shrugs. “Time for something new.”
“Is there heat?” Worriedly, his self-interest rising to the surface again. But who is Heloise to criticize someone for being self-interested?
“No, not on the business.” She considers, for a moment, telling him about Shelley and Bettina, about Val. Maybe even Scott, the real reason for the change. The truth is, she’s about as close to Paul as she is to any other adult—except for Val. Audrey knows more about her, but she’s still an employee, and a little too worshipful of Heloise to be a true confidante. Heloise and Paul are kindred spirits, bound by their pragmatism, she supposes, a willingness to pretend to play by rules they don’t endorse. They not only accept the need for appearances, they excel at them.
No, even now she will not tell him about Scott.
“Do you like your wife?” she asks. Blurts, really.
Paul almost chokes on the lovely tuna tartare that is the first course. The dish has become omnipresent in Heloise’s considerable restaurant-going experience, but when it’s done right, even her mediocre palate can appreciate it. “Where did that come from?”
“I mean—I understand your problems, why you stay. But you loved her, right? The day you got married? You were in love?”
“I was twenty-three the day I got married,” he says. “That young man felt and believed a lot of things that this guy can barely remember.”
“Of course. Yet—you go home to her. Eventually.” She knows that Paul stays in Annapolis whenever he can make the excuse of work and not just because he needs a cover for a meeting with Heloise or one of her girls. Sometimes he simply can’t bear to go home, where Heloise knows he is lonelier than he is in a room at the Maryland Inn, watching CNN in his shorts.
“I admire her, as a mother and a person,” he says. “She’s been a good partner to me, supportive of what I wanted professionally. As for her—limitations. Well, for better or worse, right? Besides, divorce is expensive. You end up with two households, two sets of bills. I have better uses for my discretionary income.”
He leers, another bit of innuendo at her expense. She won’t miss these jokes. Heloise wants Paul to tell her something new about his marriage, something she hasn’t heard before. “As I said, I understand the practical reasons you stay married. It’s only that I would like to believe that there’s some comfort there for you, some understanding, that when you do go home, you can sit in silence and be happy.”
“That,” Paul says, finishing off the martini he had been trying to pace through the six-course meal, “depends on the silence. Some are companionable. Some are meaningless. Some feel like I’m in a damn Indiana Jones movie, surrounded by snakes and booby traps, where the slightest movement could be lethal.”
“All my silences are the same,” Heloise says. “That’s the thing about one-person silences.”
“Do you live alone, Heloise?”
Here is the curiosity she thought she wanted, even if she always discouraged it. Turns out she doesn’t like it. She sips her tea, envying him the drink, but she would never have a drink at midday.
“Sorry,” Paul says. “Did I break a rule there, asking you a personal question?”
“I was trying to do the same thing with you. Break you out of the compartments we’ve inhabited all these years. A natural thing to do, I guess, as a relationship ends.”
“Are we saying good-bye?”
“Soon. If not today, very soon.”
They clink glasses.
“Of course, if you were a lobbyist, I’d still see you.”
She can’t help feeling a flare of hope. “You said it would never work.”
“No, not the way you want it to, no. Best-case scenario? You’d be a joke, Heloise. People would laugh about the beautiful ex-hooker pretending to be a lobbyist.”
“No one laughs now.” She keeps the question mark out of her tone, but it’s in her head.
“No, no one laughs now. I guess that’s—irony? Human nature? The people who know you and know what you do—they respect you. Your skills and your discretion have earned you far more respect than any lobbyist enjoys. But if you tried to go legit, people would make fun of you.”
“Hardly seems fair.”
“It’s not. But you’ll have a nice chunk of change when you complete the sale, I think. You could go to law school or underwrite a new business. You’ll have lots of options.”
Paul’s wrong about that. Options are the one thing that Heloise has never had.
They end up taking a room. Why not? As Heloise noted, it’s good-bye for them, or soon to be. The Mandarin Oriental is a sophisticated place in all aspects; it’s probably not the first time that an attractive couple has inquired about room availability after a leisurely lunch. Still, Heloise is not so nostalgic that she throws Paul a freebie. So even with valet parking and the expensive lunch, she comes out ahead for the day.
Leaving a discreet twenty-five minutes after Paul, Heloise glances at the concierge desk, where a woman very much like her—late thirties, a polished appearance that is more about impeccable styling than overt sexuality—is trying to soothe an agitated man with a florid face and an air of self-importance. Her manner is solicitous, her attitude unimpeachable, yet Heloise knows, or believes she knows, the inner dialogue, the mockery at a remove, as she calms this noisy baby of a man.
In the valet line, she remembers the moment when the inspiration for WFEN hit her and wonders, wistfully, if lightning might strike twice. But all she gets is her car. She drives north, listening to the news cycle around and around, listening to Betty Martinez’s gradual disappearance from the public imagination. Will she disappear from her young son’s mind in the same way? Is it better that he’s too young to remember much about her, or does that set him up for a life of chronic sadness, a hole that can never be filled?
And for the first time, Heloise wonders how Scott’s fictional dad figures in his thoughts. It’s always been a story for her, a pretty fiction and pretty hollow, no different from all the other pretty myths that parents tell children. Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, your father. But for Scott the story about the handsome, loving, heroic redheaded father is true.
Heloise thinks back to Reverend Frida’s attempt last month to soften the ugly Old Testament verse: in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children. She had said it was probably pain, not sorrow, that God was not cursing women to be sad about the act of motherhood, although the verse also conveys the understanding that all parents, fathers and mothers alike, are seldom at peace once a child is in the world.
Reverend Frida wasn’t burdened by the actual knowledge of what it was to be a parent, but that didn’t keep her from filtering every experience through her own. She did that awful thing that the childless sometimes do, equating her cats to progeny. Even Coranne was outraged.
Heloise remembers something she hasn’t thought of for years, Scott’s second day of life—the red-all-overness of him, from his feet to his hair, his squinched-up face. A nurse had come into her room to conduct a test to determine if the fluid had disappeared from his ears. Usually not a problem with vaginal births, she said cheerfully, but the test failed to deliver a satisfactory score. She tried it once, twice, three times and said she would not be allowed to release him if he didn’t have a passing score in both ears. Then it turned out the testing equipment itself was malfunctioning and required only a reboot. Scott was fine.
Heloise never was again.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8
And still she has to visit Val. Visit him, cajole him, entertain him, never alluding to what she believes she knows about the death of Bettina. Even when she sells the business, she will probably have to continue to visit him. That’s an argument in favor of moving, not that she can make it to Scott: Let’s go somewhere else so I never have to see your father again.
Val’s in good spirits today, which only confirms Heloise’s belief that he had Bettina killed.
She risks, “You look like the cat who swallowed the canary.”
“Nope. Just the usual feed.” Still, his closed-mouth smile looks as if it might burst.
