The Bachelorette Party, page 13
“Do the YMCA,” Melody quips, putting her arms into a Y. Lainey yawns.
I lean toward the mirror, which divides me into thousands. “Makes me look a little hippy, no?”
“I think it’s nice,” Lainey says, with a shrug.
“It absolutely makes you look hippy,” Melody confirms.
Lainey shrugs again. “I thought it wasn’t so bad.”
“You’ve got a beautiful body,” my mom says, in her mom way. “But that one doesn’t completely flatter it.” In other words, hippy.
A chink of frustration breaks through the saleswoman’s ever-smiling countenance, and I go into the dressing room, where another dress gets shuffled on. I do another tryout hobbling jig and am informed by Chandra that Claire Pettibone has designed this one.
“It’s a pretty dress,” my mom says, her tone inviting a “but …”
“But not on you,” Melody offers.
By the next dress, I’ve lost count of the total, and am getting sweaty and dejected, my toe throbbing. Melody is practically lounging on the couch. And Lainey is texting someone, probably Ruby, by the way she’s smiling. But this time, when I leave the dressing room, I hear gasps circling the room.
“What?” I say, looking all around to see what happened.
Melody has her hands up to her mouth. “That’s it,” she squeaks out. “That’s the one.”
“Wow,” my mom says, blinking back tears.
Lainey looks up from her phone, her expression floored.
I examine myself, but my audience has called it. I can’t explain why it works, but it does. The dress transforms me from someone trying on dresses into a bride.
“I love it,” I say.
“Who’s the designer on this one?” Melody asks.
“Vera Wang,” Chandra says.
Even I have heard this name, which means it must be expensive. It may be gauche to ask, but my mom wanted to buy it for me, and she definitely won’t ask. “How … how much is it?”
“The dress?” Chandra asks, seeming affronted.
I nod. It seems asking the price was indeed against the rules.
“It’s thirty-eight,” she says.
“Ah,” I say. Thirty-eight hundred is more than I’ve ever spent on a dress, obviously, but not as bad as I thought. My mom could definitely afford that.
Melody sits forward on the couch. “As in, thirty-eight hundred or thousand?”
Chandra offers a cold smile at the apparently asinine question. “Thousand.”
Now, I’m the one who gasps. “Oh, there’s no way I can—”
My mom looks shocked—struck-by-lightning shocked.
“Yeah,” I say, starting to undo it without Chandra’s help. “I think I’m done for now. We’ll have to make an appointment for another time.”
My mom bites her lip, not speaking. I’m furious at myself for putting her in this position.
“I can FaceTime you for the next one, okay?” I ask her. At another store, where mortgages are not required to buy a dress.
“Um …” my mom says, fanning herself with a bridal brochure. “I could come up again, I’m sure.” I go back into the dressing room and put on my “civvies” with the relief of putting on sweats after a long day at the office. “We ready?”
My mom nods, appearing dazed, as if she’s been through a battle.
Melody “mm-hmms” with a ladyfinger cookie from the store in her mouth, and Lainey zips up her coat, her mini flip-flop key ring in hand.
I’m adjusting my purse when Chandra reappears. Her smiling façade reveals a genuine, almost joyful grin. “Happy news,” she says, with a hand clap.
We all look at her in bewilderment.
“I just spoke to Caitlyn, and the dress is a go,” she says, practically squealing with pleasure.
We gaze at each other in confusion. “No,” I say, with full ire. “The dress is most certainly not a go.”
Chandra shrugs. “You’ll have to speak with Caitlyn, then,” she says, with a confident lilt, clearly unwilling to lose her monstrous commission.
“Because your fiancé has already purchased it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
NOW
She has a real rotary phone.
Not even an ironic one from a catalog or curio store; an actual old rotary phone. I search in the dim moonlight for a jack, afraid to attract attention by turning on the lights again. I slip my hand behind the nightstand but find nothing. I crawl over the bed to the other nightstand and come up empty there too. Every room has a jack, doesn’t it?
On my knees now, I shove my hand as far as I can behind the headboard, and finally, my fingers touch the jack. But then, I hear something. Murmuring.
Slowly, I stand from my crouch position and tiptoe over to the door, putting my ear against the fake wood veneer. It sounds like Esther’s voice, the words angry but inaudible. After each utterance, I hear a pause, followed by her heated responses, but no deeper voice answering. So, she’s not talking to Noah.
Is she on a phone that she supposedly doesn’t own?
Or maybe she’s hearing voices and talking to herself? I don’t have time to worry about it. I just have to try to get some help and get the hell out of here. Racing back to the bed, I snake the line behind the headboard. Fingers crossed, I plug the landline in and bring the receiver up to listen.
The glorious sound of a dial tone sings in my ear.
But now I’ve got to dial this rotary thing in the darkness without making any noise.
I dial 911, the cranking and whirring booming in the room. Muffling the dialing with a pillow, I hold up the receiver again. But I must have done something wrong. The dial tone remains absent, as if I haven’t finished the call.
Before trying it again, I decide to call Jay, turning the dial slowly and letting it settle after each number. I usually just call from my contacts, but I think I got the number right.
And sure enough, it rings.
I wait out the ringing, over and over. “Pick up, pick up, pick up,” I whisper, gripping the receiver. My heart clenches with every ring, praying for him to answer. “Come on,” I plead.
His voicemail doesn’t even come on. I could see him not answering with Greg there, but his voicemail should come on at least. It doesn’t, just keeps relentlessly ringing.
I hang up. Maybe I got the number wrong, since I can barely see the damn dial. I decide to try Lainey and Melody this time, before 911 again. If they’re out there, maybe I can help them at least. I carefully dial Lainey’s number, and it goes through. After four rings, her voicemail picks up.
Hey, Lainey here. Leave a message.
That’s Lainey, straight to the point. “Hi, it’s me. I’m trying to reach you.” I realize then that this is a blindingly obvious statement. But I don’t really have anything to say. I hope you’re not dead? I don’t even have a phone for her to call me back. “I hope you’re okay. I … I don’t know what happened, but I’m trying to find you. I’m in the old Thompson farmhouse. I’m trying to find you.” I pause but can’t think of anything more. “Okay, bye.”
Hanging up, I hear rumbling from the next room. I put a pillow over the phone, waiting and listening. The noises stop. I wait out a long minute and call Melody’s number, the pillow still on the phone to muffle the ratchety noises. It takes me two slow dialing attempts.
Hi! It’s Melody! I’m crestfallen that I missed your call. But leave me your message, and I will call you anon! Au revoir!
I leave a similar unhelpful message.
Then I pause, strategizing my next steps.
I could call my mom but don’t want to needlessly frighten her. I won’t bother with my father, who only answers half the time. So I decide to try 911 again, and if it doesn’t go through, call Jay again. After dialing the three numbers with great care, this time the call goes through.
They answer after one ring.
My heart rate shoots up, the receiver sweating in my palm.
“Hello, this is 911, what’s your emergency?” The voice sounds oddly casual, almost bored.
I cup my hand around the mouthpiece to muffle my voice. “I need help,” I whisper. “My friends went missing. They were hurt, and I don’t know where they are.” Panic rushes through the words. “And it’s a blizzard out here and—”
“Ma’am,” the voice interrupts. “Let’s start with your name and address.”
“Oh, yes. Okay. My name is Alex Conley. I’m not sure of the address here, but the street is—” But before I can finish, the call drops.
“Hello?” I push the button up and down. “Hello?” I keep pushing and releasing the button, but no dial tone sounds. “What the hell?” Leaning over, I take the jack out and plug it back in. Still no dial tone.
Then a slice of light appears under the door.
“Alex,” Esther whispers, her voice taunting. “Were you trying to call someone?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
AUGUST
The subway screeches to a stop.
“Is it weird?” I ask, as the voice announces the station.
We’re all standing next to each other after the dress fiasco, as passengers disembark. I’m on my way back to the apartment to finish my day remotely.
Lainey loosens her grip on the grab hold. “Maybe he was just being nice.”
“Yeah,” Melody agrees, moving away for some final stragglers jumping on the train. “You’re probably overthinking it.”
“I don’t know,” I say, as the train jerks to a start. I monitor my toe to avoid any nearby foot traffic. Lainey grabs the grip, and Melody has her arm looped around the pole since she can’t reach the hooks. “It just seemed kind of … Pretty Woman to me.”
“Kinda,” Melody admits.
“Like he’s being a savior, but I don’t need a savior.” Or showing off his money. She doesn’t know anything. “I’m sure it was nothing but …”
Lainey ducks her head as the train hits a curve. “You could just return it. Get a dress your mom can afford.”
“What did your mom say?” Melody asks, adjusting the strap of her satchel.
“You know her,” I say, moving my feet to keep my balance. “She didn’t want to cause any trouble.”
No one speaks for a moment. A little girl down the row whispers to her father, pointing to us, probably amazed at Lainey’s height. The father smiles.
“Do you think it’s a little … controlling?” Melody asks, swinging on the pole to face me.
As usual, Melody plumbs right down to the heart of the issue. Is it controlling? Or just loving? Like the time when I called the Stanford loan office, asking why the automatic payments had stopped. Yes, they had stopped, because someone had paid off my debt. My one-hundred-thousand-dollar debt.
“I don’t know,” I answer, truthfully.
After a pause, Melody speaks again, digging in her satchel for some gum. “Do you ever feel like you’re in the first scene of Music Man when you’re standing on a train like this?”
“No,” we answer, in unison.
The little girl approaches us, holding something. She glances back at her father for support, who motions her ahead. Then she stops about a foot away from us. “Are … you … Lainey Trevor?”
“Um,” Lainey says, in a low voice. “Yeah.”
The girl beams and thrusts out a piece of paper and a pen. “Can I have your autograph?”
Lainey blushes three shades and stammers, “Yeah, sure, of course.”
The train jerks to a stop, and the little girl stumbles as Lainey grabs the neck of her coat, keeping her upright. Now, the little girl blushes. “Thanks,” she says.
Lainey hands her back her signed paper and pen. “No problem.”
Limping back to the apartment, I tell Wiley about the phone call with Eli and the crypto letter. I just can’t hold it in anymore. The day has turned sweltering, the hot scent of garbage arising from the sidewalk vents.
“Just ask him,” Wiley says. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation.”
“I know, I should,” I say, waiting at a corner as a taxi whizzes by, horn bleating in its wake. “But it’s like the longer it goes, the harder it is to ask.”
The sound of crunching chips comes over the phone. “All I know is this. If you’re going to get married, you probably shouldn’t have any secrets.”
“Right,” I say, crossing the street with the masses. “And have you told Josie about how you slept with her cousin?”
“Once,” they say, sounding defensive. “Before we were really serious. And he’s not even really a cousin, more like a second cousin twice removed or something.”
“I’m sure that will make all the difference.”
“You’re deflecting.”
“I’m not de—”
“You so are. Here’s the thing. Either you trust him, so you tell him and try to figure this out. Or you’re afraid that maybe he’s hiding some awful secret … like … bestiality or something.”
“Bestiality?” I pull my head back. This gets a few stares from my fellow pedestrians. It seems bestiality is a bridge too far even for New Yorkers.
“Or something,” Wiley emphasizes. “Oh shit. Sorry. I gotta go. Got a meeting in like two seconds. But … tell Smokeshow what’s going on. Please.”
“Okay, okay,” I grumble. “I will.”
I see our block coming up as we hang up when the phone vibrates with a text in my hand.
I can meet with you, but near me in Hudson Valley
Okay, thank you, I type back. When? Where?
How about this Saturday?
Works for me.
Okay, 1 pm. Meet me at the Cooper
1414 Genesee Street
See you there, I write back.
It’s Adam Redmond’s number. The stepfather.
I feel myself smiling. Finally, one thing is going my way.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Or your mom. Honestly, I didn’t.”
Jay and I sit next to each other on the couch, while Babushka perches on an ivory-tassled pillow. Jay combs his hair with his fingers.
“But you have to understand how it was presented to me. Caitlyn said you really wanted that dress and were super upset that you couldn’t get it.”
This sets my teeth on edge. “Does that sound at all like me?”
He shrugs, his expression abashed. “No, not really.”
“Then I think Caitlyn misled you.”
“Yeah, maybe,” he agrees. “Or the saleswoman misled her.”
“Maybe,” I admit, as Babushka leaps into my lap. “Anyway, I’m not getting it. I’ll go somewhere else with my mom.” Somewhere Caitlyn hasn’t recommended, I add, in my head. “But I do appreciate the thought.”
He nods, then after a pause, slaps his knees.
The cat startles.
“Okay. That’s settled, then,” he says, with an air of relief and pops up to a stand. “So now the real question is … what should we do for dinner? A curry, I’m thinking?”
But that’s not the real question. The words tickle my lips.
Did you take care of her? It’s now or never.
“Or Chinese, maybe?” he asks, misinterpreting my silence.
“Jay,” I say. “I have to ask you about something.”
“Okay,” he says, looking alerted by my tone. Slowly, he sits back down.
My mouth gets sticky dry.
“What?” he asks, with some alarm. “What is it?”
“At the tasting,” I say, taking a deep breath. “I saw a text from Eli. I didn’t mean to pry, but your phone was face up, and I saw it. It said “Did you take care of her?”
His face turns ashen, beads of sweat popping up on his forehead. “Okay?”
“And then I heard you talking about something with him, when I came home a little early the other day.” I don’t say anything about sneaking around his office. “You said she doesn’t know anything. Again, I didn’t mean to be eavesdropping, but I heard it.”
Jay looks down at his interlaced hands but doesn’t say anything.
“So I guess my question is … who is she?” I ask.
Frowning, he shakes his head. “No one,” he says. “It’s … it’s not what you think.”
“It’s just,” I say, strangling on the words. If I don’t get them out now, I may never. “Are you involved in something … illegal? With Eli? Like a Ponzi scheme or something?”
He rears his head back. “No, God no. Of course not. Why would you think that?”
I shrug. “Or maybe not that. Maybe something with crypto?” I ask, giving him the chance to confess.
He looks puzzled for a second, but then he pauses and his mouth stiffens. “This is from the letter, isn’t it?” he says, simply. He doesn’t even sound angry, just disappointed. “In my office. You weren’t looking at invitations. You were snooping.”
A wave of shame washes over me. “Is it true though?” I ask, in a small voice. “Is there something wrong?”
He pauses a moment, as if trying to collect himself, his face taking on an unhappy cast. “Listen, we both know Eli’s a bit much. And I get why you might not trust him. But no, we’re not doing anything illegal.” He sighs. “The crypto market took a hit, you probably know that.”
“Yes,” I say. “I guess I did.”
“And we were invested in it … to some degree,” he amends. “So we have to report that to the Feds. That’s all. Nothing else. It’s a comment letter. That’s just … part of doing business, Alex. Everyone gets comment letters.”
I busy myself petting Babushka. “So, who’s she, then? Who was he asking about?”
“A woman from our board. She’s … making noises.” He grips his knees. “As she should. That’s her job. But it’s making Eli nervous.”
I consider his explanation. It makes sense. Maybe that’s all it is, a meddling board member. But why be so sneaky about it?
“Alex, if this is going to work, we need a level of trust between us.” He motions between us with his hand. “Right? You agree with that?”
I nod. “Yes, I agree.”
He gives me a long, hard look. “And if you’re not ready to get married, it’s okay. But … just be straight with me, okay? I know I love you. I know I want to spend my life with you. But if you’re not ready to make that step, I get it. You are just starting your career, and I know you’re worried about Greg and—”
