Chapter Seven

At her desk, Shawsie turned her chair away from the floor-to-ceiling window that gave her a full view of her two assistants and tried to hold her temper. One of them had buzzed her smack in the middle of her conversation with the manager of the Olsen twins, whom she had been trying to nail down all week. She continued pitching her cover story, and the buzzer sounded again.

She spun in her chair, red-faced even as she kept her tone measured, and was shocked to see both assistants standing outside, motioning her frantically to pick up the other line. Finally one of the girls scrawled something on a slip of paper, opened the door, and put it on the desk in front of her.

“Dr. Grossman!” it read.

Shawsie looked up, astonished. He never called her himself. It was always one of the nurses.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she said to the Olsens’ manager. “There’s an urgent medical call I have to take. May I phone you back?”

She didn’t wait for an answer.

She punched the button as the assistant closed the door behind her. “Neil? Is there something wrong?”

“No, not at all. I’m just calling to—”

“Because I meant what I said last time. I’m not adopting. I’ve really thought about it and—”

“Shawsie, that’s fine. You don’t have to adopt.”

“That’s good, because I won’t. And I don’t want you putting any thoughts in Robin’s head about that either. He’s—”

“Shawsie, stop! Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes, of course I heard. Wait a second.”

She was hyperventilating. She put one hand down on the desk, took a deep breath, and forced herself to hold it for five seconds before exhaling. “Okay,” she said. “I don’t have to adopt. Why not?”

“Because your numbers have doubled right on schedule. By Thanksgiving, you’re going to have something to be truly thankful for.”

She gasped. “Are you sure?”

She heard the smile in his voice. “I’m sure. And because you’re in shock right now, I want to say this loud and clear: You are pregnant. Write it down if you think you can’t remember.”

“What? Are you joking?”

“I’m not. Look how you just reacted. After people try for so long and fail, they protect themselves against hearing bad news. Then they can’t hear good news either. I’ve told women they were pregnant, and they call back the next day as if we’ve never spoken. They won’t let themselves hear me, because they’re afraid it won’t be true.”

Shawsie wiped her tears with the heels of her hands. “Thank you,” she said, trying not to break down entirely. “Thank you so much.”

Neil laughed. “Are you kidding? This is the best part of my job, when I can do it. As I’ve told you and Robin, the science has made great strides, but we have a long way to go. There are still too many patients who don’t get lucky.”

“I know,” she said, searching her bag for a tissue. That had been the fear that had jolted her awake every night for the last two years.

“I understand the toll this process can take on a marriage,” Neil said. “It’s a real accomplishment that you stuck with it so long and refused to quit. You can both be proud of that.”

After he hung up, Shawsie held the phone in her hand. She needed time to pull herself together, and her assistants would pounce the moment she seemed to be free.

She looked at her watch. Robin had mentioned that morning what a packed night he had in store: covering a wine tasting for Him, grabbing dinner with his editor there to talk about future stories, then ending up at the Acorn for a late party celebrating some hip-hop star Shawsie had never heard of.

“You could always meet me there,” Robin had said genially.

Shawsie tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. “Thanks, but Neil keeps saying I need to take it easy, so I probably shouldn’t have a late night. Right?”

“Right,” he answered with tense resignation. She had been “taking it easy” to no avail for so long neither of them knew what it meant anymore.

Shawsie dialed Robin’s cell, which went directly to voicemail. “Call me, honey, it’s really, really important,” she said, feeling the tears start again. Why hadn’t she had the presence of mind to ask him where the tasting was, or the dinner? She knew the answer to that: She had stopped asking those questions long ago because Robin didn’t want her to know the answers. Because it was never the “where” that was the problem. It was the “with whom.”

This was absurd, she thought. Two years. Two years they had worked on this together! How could she not reach him?

She did what she usually did in this sort of situation. She dialed Ponce.

“Hello?” Her friend’s tone was slightly querulous. That meant she was fighting with her hair, Shawsie knew, before leaving the apartment.

“Hello, there,” she said. “Where are you off to?”

“Well, if you can believe it, I’m taking Gus and Rachel to Sir’s tonight. At least I am if I can get my damn hair to find a position and stick with it.”

Shawsie felt a stab of disappointment. She had so hoped Ponce would say, “I’m staying right here in bed watching the game, with a pizza on the way. Want to join me?”

“Sir’s is an odd choice for those two, isn’t it?” Shawsie asked, thinking of that restaurant’s rich, staid, somewhat older social crowd.

“It is indeed, but Rachel insisted,” Ponce said. “Neither she nor Gus have ever been there, and Rachel can’t believe the entire décor is oil paintings of the owner’s springer spaniel. She refuses to go anywhere else until she sees it. I’ll tell you”—she paused, and Shawsie heard a whoosh of hairspray—“it must be awful to be a writer. To be so curious about everything. I think I would find it exhausting.”

“I know what you mean.” Even as she said it, Shawsie heard how false that statement rang. If she had been a little more curious through the years, she might have a better sense now of how to locate her own husband. But the truth was, whenever she had a question about where he was or whom he was with or—most plainly and dangerously—why he wasn’t with her, she just put her head down and worked harder. She had never faced the reason why, but she forced herself to now. During their teenage years, she and Skip used to mock their mother, calling her “Helen Keller Live and In Person,” because when it came to never seeing or hearing anything she didn’t want to deal with, she was the expert. Well, Shawsie’s famous efficiency aside, she had turned out exactly the same. Which was a hell of a revelation to digest minutes after discovering she was becoming a mother herself.

“Shawsie? Are you there?”

“Oh, sorry, Ponce. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“Is something wrong?”

Shawsie squeezed her eyes shut and fought against telling her the truth. This was the moment she and Robin had been waiting for, after all. From now on, things would be different. The baby that was going to make them a family and make Robin stay home at night was really on the way. She kept imagining the look on Robin’s face when she told him, his joy and relief. All the strain of the waiting and the failure, falling away. Things would change now. Neil said so himself. They were lucky.

“Everything’s fine. I just can’t find Robin at the moment, that’s all.” She struggled to keep her voice steady, an effort that was not lost on Ponce.

“Well, Mary Elizabeth, if you would like some dinner, why don’t you join us? A little chicken hash might do you good.” Sir’s was the closest thing the Upper East Side had to a country club dining room, and as Shawsie had grown up eating at the club her parents belonged to, Ponce knew it was the kind of food she liked. Granted, the menu was the only thing comforting about Sir’s. That restaurant was work. The same people who were sought after for dinner parties like the one Jacqueline Posner had thrown all clamored for the chance to see and be seen in neckties and pearls, eating corn fritters and deviled eggs with knives and forks in the dim glow of the dog’s gilt frames.

“No, Poncie, that’s okay. I’m just not up for the scene tonight. I think I’ll go home and get into bed with a good book.”

“Well, I envy you,” Ponce said. “’Night.”

         

After Ponce hung up, she wondered if she should call back. She knew that Shawsie regularly hit bad patches with Robin and would circle around them, seeming to weigh whether or not to break down and reveal her unhappiness. But she never did, and Ponce never forced her. Her own low opinion of Robin aside, Ponce knew it was impossible to see into the corners of someone else’s marriage. All she could see from the outside was Shawsie’s responsibility for such an untenable arrangement. She should have either left him or given him an ultimatum ages ago, and because she hadn’t Ponce felt justified in slipping him some zingers of her own. That was wrong. In the past few months in particular, she had grown aware of Robin’s increased sensitivity to the deadly aim of her potshots. So she’d decided to leave Shawsie’s marriage to Shawsie and keep her mouth shut. And had.

Ponce was still congratulating herself on her judiciousness when she walked into Sir’s and was in such a reverie as she sat down that she didn’t notice the person waving at her from across the small back room.

“Jacqueline!” Ponce exclaimed, pushing out from the banquette of her corner table. The two women kissed, and Jacqueline gestured toward her empty table of four. “Sit with me a minute,” she urged, signaling the waiter to bring Ponce a drink.

“Isn’t it funny,” Jacqueline said. “After all these years, you and I are still the first ones anywhere. Our husbands trained us well!”

“They did, indeed. Now tell me, how are you?”

Jacqueline chattered animatedly: She had no idea it would be this easy, really. She did her work, she saw her friends, her maisonette was coming along right on schedule, she’d almost certainly move in by Memorial Day—just in time to leave for Southampton, if she could. It depended, of course, on what Mike would do; that house was still his. But the best news was that she didn’t miss him half as much as she’d thought she would. What an incredible relief, not to follow the market anymore!

Ponce thought it best not to mention the very beautiful Norwegian investment banker Mike had been dating, with whom he was reportedly smitten. “Has M moved in yet?” Ponce asked.

Jacqueline shook her head. “No, and I can’t imagine what it’s about. The marble in those bathrooms is Carrara, it’s gorgeous, and it was custom-cut less than ten years ago. Replacing it is a spectacular waste of money and time. I think he’s stalling. I think New York appeals to him in principle, but he doesn’t want to leave what he has. And why should he? The man essentially lives in Tara, just with flat-screen TVs and central air-conditioning. I can see that he’d want a place to stay here on business. But to make a real home? Those Southern boys never come north for long.”

“You mean, Babette Steele isn’t enough of a reason?” Ponce asked, with a laugh.

Jacqueline didn’t laugh with her. “You know they’ve been seeing each other, right?”

Ponce was surprised. “I knew no such thing. You just said he was avoiding New York.”

“Avoiding living here. He’s visited a few times since my party, and he’s seen her during each trip. He told me so himself when I ran into them at the Four Seasons a few weeks ago. He seemed quite taken with her, actually. She was eating a chocolate soufflé and was all bubbly and excited about her job at Boothby’s. She said she was going to call me about a piece she’s writing about you.”

“Me? She’s writing a piece about me?”

Jacqueline shrugged. “That’s what she said. I told her she must be planning on writing fiction, because in all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never given an interview to anyone. But she said you live such a glamorous New York life, and between that and your work for the city, you’re a great story. I mean, obviously, the minute she calls me, I’ll tell her I need your permission before I say a word.”

“Of course. Though wouldn’t it make sense to contact the subject first?”

Jacqueline squeezed her friend’s arm. “I think you’re supposed to feel flattered by this. Or at least amused. I mean, she’s a kid. Who’s obviously impressed by you.”

“Mrs. Morris? Your guests have arrived.” The maître d’ stood by her side.

Ponce stood. “Well, I suppose I am more fascinating than I ever imagined,” she said lightly.

The two women leaned toward each other in the representation of a kiss before Ponce walked back to her table. As the waiter pulled it out to let her onto the banquette, Gus and Rachel waved across the room to Jacqueline.

“You know, I thought you were exaggerating about this place,” Rachel said, taking her seat. “I find it rather amazing that you weren’t.”

“You mean about the dogs? Well, if you ask me, they beat portraits of ancestors any day.”

“I agree. And the guy actually calls the dog ‘Sir’?”

“He actually does. And I can tell you that the twin burgers are his favorite thing on the menu.”

“Well, I can tell you that those burgers wouldn’t fill a cavity of mine.” Rachel leaned over her menu, studying it intently. “Caviar, too! I guess comfort comes in all shapes and sizes.”

“Gus, tell me the lead on the news tonight,” Ponce said. “I left home early.” Gus started talking, and Ponce watched him. He had always been a handsome man and still was; his liquid brown eyes were slightly hooded, which in his youth had given him a romantic aspect. These days, it could make him look tired. With his steel-gray hair and dark mustache he resembled Omar Sharif, a comparison Rachel made often and Gus, amused protestations aside, agreed with wholeheartedly.

They were deep into a discussion about the Iraq war and the disgraceful way—according to Ponce—the networks were covering it when Gus interjected, “You know, Walter Gluckman, television news legend, is actually giving a lunchtime speech to all the young staffers next week about Vietnam and what it used to mean to cover a war on television—like, at the minimum, asking tough questions. But of course the real purpose of the lunch is for him to criticize me in front of an audience. He wants everyone to know that if he’s asked to even consider retiring and I take over his show, he will not settle for being the proverbial thorn in my side but will insist on being the literal knife in my back.”

Gus smiled. “We’ve actually had two of these lunches in the past six months or so,” he went on, “and Walter showed up to the last one with Annabelle as his cheering section. So, it occurs to me, Poncie, that with the precedence of an outsider attending, I could tell him you’ve just dropped by to say hello and that since you and he are such old, dear friends, I’ve insisted you come to lunch. I mean, it won’t stop him. He’s completely unhinged. But I could use the moral support.”

Ponce was thrilled. “I would love to,” she said. “That is a definite reason to get out of bed.”

Gus turned to Rachel, suddenly concerned. “Is that something you want to go to, honey?” he asked.

Rachel took off her glasses and closed the menu. “Fuck Walter Gluckman,” she said. “I’m having the hanger steak.”

Ponce laughed. “Well, I’m certainly glad that’s settled!”

Rachel looked around the room. The women all wore black with pearls—South Sea pearls, large as marbles—roped around their necks, and the men’s navy blazers were identical. “I must say, I applaud the owner’s appreciation for metaphor,” she said. “Talk about obedience.”

Once the caviar appetizer Ponce ordered for the table had been devoured and discussion of the war had waned, Rachel said to Ponce, “We haven’t heard a thing about you tonight.”

Ponce waved her hand. “Nothing to tell, really. Though I must say, I did have the strangest conversation with Jacqueline before you all got here.” She recounted the story as she glanced at Jacqueline’s table. She wasn’t sure who her companions were, but as one woman spoke intently Ponce watched Jacqueline listen sympathetically, eyebrows straining toward each other with concern. In vain, it turned out. The Botox held them firmly in place.

“Jacqueline thinks I should be flattered by this,” Ponce added. “She thinks that Babette’s a kid who idolizes me and I should just take the compliment.”

“Babette talked to me, too, about doing a story on you,” Rachel said. “I told her good luck, ’cause you don’t do interviews.”

“What is this insistent fascination she has?” Ponce asked. “There’s something creepy about it.”

“I agree,” Gus said. “And you never know with people like that. The flip side of adoration can be revenge.”

His wife kicked him under the table when she saw worry flash on Ponce’s face. “That’s ridiculous,” Rachel said. “Judging from the conversation I had with her, she’s gaga about you. And don’t forget, she’s an assistant with two three-hundred-word pieces to her name. Well, three pieces now, I guess. She went to Chicago last month to do what’ll probably end up a sidebar on some Cuban designer.”

Ponce felt her stomach drop. “She was in Chicago?” she asked, forcing her voice not to escalate. “When, exactly?”

Rachel shrugged. “Who knows? It was for the fashion department. I mean, Chicago in February, what an event. Also, as I believe I pointed out at your party, she can’t write. And even though I’ve had caviar tonight too”—she turned to Gus and kissed him—“I’m still not sufficiently transported to give her a free pass. Three hundred words seems to be her limit. She may want to write a piece on you. But that doesn’t mean she can.”

The waiter put the entrées on the table.

Ponce picked up her knife and fork. “I’m sure you’re right,” she said pleasantly. Rachel oohed and aahed over her food, Gus talked again about Iraq, and Ponce cut her burgers into ever tinier cubes. She tried retracing every step she had taken during those two days in Chicago with Neil. Where had she been that was public? The airport. The hotel dining room. She had seen no one. She chewed and swallowed, chewed and swallowed. That may be, she thought. But she couldn’t help but think that someone may very well have seen her.

Babette walked into Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle, and M waved from a corner booth. Before she even sat down, a waiter was tableside.

“I’ll have a cosmo,” she said, vaulting herself along the seat cushion as M held his martini protectively aloft.

Once she was settled, M looked out around the dark, half-empty room and tapped an unlit mentholated Benson & Hedges 100 on the table in a frustrated staccato. “Damnedest law I’ve ever heard of,” he growled. “That pint-size mayor of yours should spend a little time in tobacco country, grow some shoulders. Then he might know what it means to need a smoke.”

“Oh! I completely agree!” Babette felt it best not to mention that courtesy of the anchorman she’d dated, she had partied quite hearty with that pint-size mayor, and even though he didn’t smoke, he could hold more alcohol than most men twice his size. And be at his desk by seven a.m.

“I’m so glad we could at least have a drink tonight,” she trilled. M had come to town for one night only to attend a dinner that seemed to involve a number of Japanese bankers at a private club. He was leaving the next morning for Tokyo.

“You know,” she went on, “one day, I’d love for you to explain your business to me. I’m not sure I understand it.”

M’s smile bordered on a smirk. “I’m not sure you want to, sugar. I think it best to focus on its just rewards.”

Babette had encountered this kind of reaction from M before. While he was usually deeply charming, he sometimes showed a bitter condescension to her questions about his business—or anyone else’s, for that matter. He seemed to consider curiosity about finances from a woman unseemly. Babette knew to let it pass, and she turned her head toward the pianist instead, applauding politely at the end of his number.

The waiter set down her drink as well as a fresh martini for M, who took a long, satisfied sip. “Tell me what’s on your calendar this evening,” he said. One drink down, he seemed more relaxed.

She gave him a high-wattage smile and leaned in, displaying some scant cleavage via a push-up bra. “Well, I’m working, too,” she said cheerfully. “I’ve started my reporting on the Ponce Morris profile, and I’m meeting with one of my editors about it.”

He tapped his cigarette again. “Oh? Then Boothby’s is publishing it after all?”

“No, they’re not.” Her very full drink had spilled over its sides, and she wiped her fingers on a cocktail napkin. “This is a freelance editor, actually. Someone who agreed to help me structure it, ’cause you know I’ve never written a long piece before.”

“Well, I hope Mrs. Morris is being generous with her time.”

“Oh, I haven’t spoken to her yet,” Babette said, and she was chagrined to see M’s face fall.

“What kind of profile is that?” M was no neophyte in this regard. He’d been on the covers of Forbes and BusinessWeek himself.

“It’s the kind where you do your reporting first so you can ask your subject everything you found out about her later.”

M looked down at the smooth white skin on Babette’s inner arms, like a child’s, and atop the almost preteen swell of her small breasts. He felt himself getting an erection and stopped listening to the long-winded explanation of her reporting methods.

“What time is your meeting?” he asked, cutting her off midsentence.

“Seven-thirty.”

He slid quickly out of the booth, miming a check sign to the waiter, then pointed upstairs so that it would be charged to his room.

“I’ll have my driver drop you,” he said to Babette, grabbing one of her arms, hard, from the inside, and guiding her quickly out the door.

         

Robin walked out of the private dining room at Daniel and into the bar, where he snagged a table for two and congratulated himself on not falling into it headfirst. It was not quite eight o’clock, and he was supposed to have met Babette at seven-thirty, but he had been only midway through the Bandols by then and couldn’t very well pick up and go. Aside from a woman with red lipstick laughing loudly at something the bartender had just said, the bar was empty. The parade of prosperous-looking men in their charcoal suits and women in their habitual black continued into the dining room without stopping in the bar. Could she possibly have stood him up? Too much to hope for.

When he saw her coming from the direction of the ladies’ room, he ordered two glasses of champagne. At the table, as she leaned toward him, flushed and apologetic, to deliver a chaste kiss on the cheek, he smelled her toothpaste—and someone else’s aftershave.

“Busy day?” he asked slyly as she took the chair opposite the banquette on which he sprawled.

“Half in the bag?” she parried. She reached into her purse for a mirror and put on more lipstick. She hadn’t quite recovered from her cocktail hour with M. It wasn’t the sex that had thrown her, it was his distance during the drink. Did he think she wasn’t up to writing this piece? That she was just a secretary pretending to know what she was doing? When she had explained her reporting process, he hadn’t seemed the least bit interested. Then again, he was on his way to close this enormous deal with the Japanese, or at least the first part of it, so maybe he wasn’t at his best. He hadn’t showered her with his usual barrage of compliments, and she worried that he was growing tired of her. That just couldn’t be, she thought, picking up the flute of champagne and downing half of it. She needed more time.

“Well, cheers to you, too,” Robin said sourly, holding up his full glass.

“Oh, sorry. What’s the occasion, by the way?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Glad to see you?”

She picked up a slip of paper from the table. “Yeah, ecstatic.”

He grabbed it out of her hand. “Like you wouldn’t do the same?” he asked, jamming the voucher for free champagne into his pocket. The French importers who had hosted the wine tasting had encouraged the attendees to stop into the bar and try it.

She reached into her bag while he signaled a waiter. “Could we get a bottle, please?” he asked, holding up his glass. When he turned back a manila folder was open on the table in front of him.

“It’s a rough draft of my piece on Ponce.” It was hard for Babette to keep the pride out of her voice.

Robin ran his hand through his already tilted hair. She had a draft? For chrissakes, he’d been trying to write one measly chapter for the last three years. It had been all of a month since she’d come to see him at his office.

He put on his glasses. “‘The Spare Wife,’” he read out loud, stopping to look up. “Oh, Rachel’s line. No honor among thieves, eh?”

“I’m not a thief,” Babette protested hotly. “I told her I was going to use it when I wrote a piece about Ponce, and she acted like she couldn’t care less.”

He picked up the sheaf of papers and felt their weight. Shit. Shawsie had left him three messages on his cell, he had discovered while waiting for Babette. She sounded weepy and shrill, and Robin just knew it was going to be another failed IVF. He also knew that the right thing to do was to skip the Acorn and spend the rest of the night at home comforting her. The waiter arrived then with the bottle and fresh glasses, and Robin felt Babette’s eyes on him like lasers. He would do this first.

Once the champagne was poured, Robin settled back to read. Babette sipped her drink and watched him expectantly. She had gotten some really good stuff, she thought, which had been especially difficult since she couldn’t contact anyone too close to Ponce. That had eliminated Shawsie, Neil, Rachel, and Gus. Her plan instead, as Robin had suggested, was to get as much information as she could, then present it all to Ponce for her reaction. That way, he said, if Ponce decided not to cooperate, she could do the story anyway, because all her reporting would be in place. It made sense. She’d decided against calling Jacqueline Posner. Annabelle Gluckman said that Jacqueline and Ponce had a history of helping each other out, so Jacqueline would never say anything Ponce hadn’t approved.

Of course, Annabelle had given Babette lots of juicy stuff, all off the record: dishy details on Ponce’s parties—flowers, clothes, music, celebrities. And she had a great story about Ponce confronting Jerry Morton, Lee’s business partner. It was one night right before she and Lee divorced, and everyone had had too much to drink. When it was time for dessert, Ponce instructed all the women to move their seats to switch partners and refresh the conversation. Well, as the story went, Ponce ended up with Jerry Morton, who made some sort of pass at her and put his hand probably on her thigh, though the crotch was the detail in the story, and Ponce had taken her dessert fork and speared it into the back of his hand.

“You can go now,” she’d told him. “You’re done.” All the women, who loathed Jerry Morton because he had been grabbing at their crotches for years, had rallied round, and the next day, Annabelle said, Ponce received countless sets of dessert forks from Tiffany and Cartier along with thank-you notes for a night well spent.

Babette had also interviewed the maid of a friend of Annabelle’s who once worked for Ponce. Granted, Babette didn’t get much out of her—they met in a coffee shop on Third Avenue, where the woman cried most of the time, begging her not to call the INS—but she did recognize Dr. Grossman from the photo Babette showed her. He used to come every Wednesday evening to give Mrs. Morris B-12 shots, she said. Babette loved that.

But her best decision, she thought, had been calling in a private investigator. She knew better than anyone that her reporting skills weren’t strong enough to do this on her own, especially not fast and in secret. Within weeks, she had pictures of Grossman entering Ponce’s apartment building wearing a jacket and tie, then leaving it disheveled, hours later. Just that day, the PI had FedExed Babette some of Grossman’s credit-card records, though Babette had been too nervous to examine them in the office. Meanwhile, her own credit card was in danger of getting maxed out paying this guy. But once she sold the piece, she knew she’d be set. Topher might even promote her to contributor, just to ensure that the next great piece she wrote would be for Boothby’s.

The one gamble she had taken with an interview that ended up working perfectly was Sari Grossman. Babette figured that even if Sari told her husband and he told Ponce, it wouldn’t matter, because Babette had saved Sari for last. Ponce would either speak to her then or not.

Babette had gone to Brooklyn on her lunch hour one day when Topher was in London, which meant that much of the staff left for lunch and never came back. She’d waited in a room filled with coughing, sneezing children for more than an hour before being let into Sari’s office.

“Go ahead and sit down,” Sari called, poking her head in. “I have half a hummus wrap to finish while I return some calls, but I’ll be there in five minutes, okay?”

Babette was happy to be left alone. There were numerous pictures of Sari with Neil and their children, everyone smiling. There was a shot of Sari with a baby on her shoulder, looking at a fireplace in what appeared to be a construction site. She really did seem as dull and dutiful as Annabelle always said she was.

“Thanks for waiting.” Sari came in and sat behind her desk. Babette began with her usual introduction, that she was writing a personality profile of Ponce, then talked specifically about what big benefactors of Neil’s Ponce and Lee had been at Carnegie Hill Hospital.

“Can you tell me when you met Ponce?” Babette asked.

Sari thought a minute. “I’m not sure I remember,” she said. “You know, we’re not close friends of Ponce’s, by any means.”

“I figured that,” Babette said, “but I would think there are a lot of politics involved in handling the head of the hospital’s board. Not just in meetings, but at all those legendary dinner parties Ponce used to throw.”

Sari waved her hand. “Oh, I hardly ever went to those,” she said. “That was Neil’s responsibility. I had small children at home and the clinic to run, so it was the rare occasion when I would put on eye shadow and schlep to the Upper East Side.” She smiled comfortably.

“Weren’t you at all curious?” Babette pressed. “I mean, both of you establishing completely different careers must have been a tough thing to do. Did it ever bother you that your husband might be spending more time with Ponce than with you?” Babette’s smile was brightly inquisitive.

“Neil spends more time with everyone than me,” Sari said fliply, then realized that Babette didn’t get the joke. “Obviously,” she continued more soberly, “without Ponce being Neil’s champion and making sure that Lee’s estate underwrote his research, Neil would not have had the resources to become the doctor he is today. She’s given him everything he’s needed.”

“Is that so?” Babette asked, wide-eyed. “I hadn’t realized that.”

Sari nodded. “My joke with Neil is that I’d give Ponce my firstborn as payback, but since she has no interest in children she wouldn’t want him!” She laughed. Babette laughed too, flooded with exhilaration.

“It really is hard to repay a debt like that,” she said. “I guess Neil could do just about anything for her and it would be all right with you.”

Sari glanced at her watch. “He could peel grapes and feed them to her on his knees as far as I’m concerned,” she said, standing. “Ponce Morris is a kind, generous woman, and on behalf of my family I can truly say I am indebted to her.”

         

Babette smiled at the memory, as Robin continued to focus on her pages. She sipped more champagne and congratulated herself on a job well done.

Robin kept reading and tried to keep his face impassive. The writing was way better than he had expected. Rachel Lerner’s snooty bitchiness aside, the girl had talent. But the reporting was still weak. She had to at least try to get Ponce and Neil themselves into the piece. He made some notes in the margins. She also needed more background on Neil; she had almost nothing there except what she had seen in the hotel lobby. He recalled Shawsie’s plaintive messages from earlier in the evening and felt his usual pang of helplessness. How many other couples out there had Neil taken on this ride? Babette could certainly find a few. Give some perspective to the legend of his great success.

Some of the material on Ponce was good, but Babette needed more. Robin tried not to let himself get too distracted at the delicious vision of all those wives who had let their husbands out to play with Ponce. The imaginary friend’s not-so-imaginary affair would be all the prompting any one of them would need to drop her like typhoid and play the damn golf or watch the damn football themselves.

He closed the folder and lifted his glass.

“To you, Ms. Steele,” he said. “This looks like the beginning of a brilliant career.”

“Yes!” She held her arms up in victory. “Awesome!”

“Well, hold on a minute. You’re not done yet.”

Her expression dimmed.

“You have much more reporting to do. The whole revelation of the piece is the affair, and you’ve done a decent job explaining who the woman in it is. But just because Neil has a big reputation doesn’t mean we don’t need to know more about him as a person. You haven’t done any of that. And if you’re still thinking of taking this someplace like Manhattan magazine, then you need more on who Ponce is now. The old stuff is good, but you also need the new. So I’d say that right now it’s maybe a B. If you want to make it an A, here’s what you need to do.”

He dictated instructions while she took notes with a pained face.

“Hey, you know what? You don’t have to do any of this,” he concluded. “You can bring it somewhere now and take the chance they’ll reject it, and then the scoop will end up as an item on Page Six, because the gossip is the only thing anyone really cares about. But that would be a shame, because the writing is truly good. If you just slow down and spend a little more time, you could turn this into something to build a career on.”

She thought of her drink earlier in the evening with M and felt a twinge of regret—and panic. What had she done wrong, exactly? She wasn’t sure, but it would seem that building a career remained a damn good idea.

Robin finished his champagne and regarded the empty bottle with sorrow, thinking fleetingly of the Acorn. He knew he couldn’t go there, not with Shawsie miserable at home. Still, the prospect of all those weepy hours stretching till dawn gave him pause.

“You going to the Acorn?” Babette asked, digging for her coat check.

“No. Yeah. I don’t know.”

She laughed. “I like a man of conviction.”

He stood slowly. “I’ve actually got to get home.”

She looked at her watch. “Nine-thirty. Wow. It really is the end of an era.”

“Jeez, Babette. Give me a break.”

She gave him a naughty grin. “I would if I could, bunny.”

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll get you a taxi.”

Shawsie stopped pretending that she was reading her book and put it down on her nightstand. It was nine o’clock, right when the party for the hip-hop star was scheduled to start at the Acorn, and she got out of bed and put her clothes back on. She couldn’t wait one more minute to see Robin’s face. The elation, the excitement! She felt like a kid on Christmas morning. So what that she couldn’t reach him before? She knew where he’d be now. That was what mattered.

Inside the Acorn at nine-thirty, nothing much was happening. A few people clung to the rim of the empty dance floor as music blared. Shawsie took a quick look before asking a bartender where Skip was.

“In the office,” she said. “Want to go up?”

“Sure.” She climbed the stairs and walked to the end of the hallway, where she knocked on a door with a sign that read keep out, much like the one he had posted on his bedroom door at home. She called her brother’s name and heard him cursing as drawers closed shut.

Finally he opened the door. “Hey, Shawsie, what are you doing here?”

“Can’t I come visit?” she said affably. She took off her coat, stepped into the office, and looked around. He was alone, and she smelled just-smoked pot. She made a beeline for the green leather couch he had taken from their childhood rec room and sat on the far end, his favorite seat when they were growing up, which she usually managed to usurp. She looked at him, triumphant. “Ha ha.”

“Jesus, Shawsie.” He shook his head and walked back around his desk. “What are you drinking?” he asked as he picked up the phone.

“Ginger ale,” she said to his raised eyebrows. “Bad stomach.”

“You sure?” he asked. “Whenever mine gets bad, one shot of whiskey and I’m back in business.”

She shook her head and from an end table picked up a picture of her parents. So young. She should tell her mother her news, she thought guiltily. And Gammy. Well, she would. First things first.

“Do you mind, by the way?” Skip gestured toward his hastily abandoned project, pulling rolling papers and a Ziploc bag from his top drawer.

“Fine with me,” she said, leaning back on the couch. “I suppose it’s comforting how some things never change.” He said nothing, engrossed by the task at hand. She watched him awhile. He was still such a great-looking guy, something like Keith Partridge, but dissipated enough to be sexy.

“You expecting Robin tonight?” she asked.

He shrugged, without looking up. “I always expect Robin.”

“I guess it’s hard to pass up a hip-hop party, the two of you being such gangstas.”

He smiled. “Pays the bills, Shawsie.”

He finished his task and was just locking his desk drawers when a soft knock sounded at the door. A waitress walked in with a bottle of Johnny Walker Black on a silver tray, two glasses, a bucket of ice, and a small bottle of ginger ale.

“Cheers,” Shawsie said after he had poured their drinks.

“So,” he said, after taking a slug, “what are you doing here, exactly?”

“Just wanted to see my baby brother. And my husband. He said he was coming, and I figure he’ll stop up here first to drop his stuff and grab a drink.” She smiled. “And if I wait here, I don’t have to listen to the music downstairs.”

“Cool,” Skip said, pouring himself a refill.

“Have you spoken to Mom lately?” Shawsie asked.

He shook his head. “No. You?”

She shook her head. “No. I will, though.”

“Brave,” he said.

“Yeah.” She looked into her glass for a moment, debating whether she should just tell him her news. After all, she had waited this long to tell Robin, and if she could hold out a few more minutes he would probably be here, too. But Skip was her brother, after all. Her family. And she so desperately wanted to tell someone.

“Skip?”

“Yeah?” He looked uneasy, like when Red used to sit him down with his report card.

“There actually is a reason why I came here tonight.”

He belted his next scotch. “No shit, Shawsie. You’re like the only person I know who’s asleep by nine.”

From the hallway came a low rumble that made Skip turn questioningly toward the door.

“Very funny,” Shawsie said, oblivious to the noise. “You know how tired I’ve been with our trying forever to get pregnant, and—”

The rumble grew louder, then came the sound of running, and the slam of a body against a wall. Skip jumped out of his chair just as the door flew open and bags and coats were kicked inside. Following them were Babette and Robin, engaged in a kiss so deep it was difficult to see either of their faces. His hands were down inside her open pants, grabbing her ass, and his belt and fly were undone. Her shirt was already off, tossed onto the unruly heap that had preceded them, and she reached her hands behind her back to release her bra. As they moved farther into the room, he shifted his mouth to one of her bare breasts, perfectly in sync, without stopping.

“Robin! Fuck! For chrissakes, stop!” Skip’s voice shook with horror as he crashed his chair into the desk and ran toward them, arms flailing.

Robin lifted his head and emptied his hands and swiped at his mouth, while Babette said “What?” and turned to follow his stricken glance behind her.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed.

Shawsie was on the floor in front of the couch, crouched over a pool of vomit. “I want to go home,” she said.