She didn’t care what Steven said.
Whether it was out of guilt because Kitty had once saved her life (would she really have “come to” on her own?), growing doubts about Bridget (of all of them Bridget was her best friend, wasn’t she?), or just because Dana was angry that Steven had grown up in a functional house and didn’t know what real suffering, real anguish were, Dana decided to hire an attorney for Kitty—one who might at least determine who had pulled the trigger.
The rug story had solidified Dana’s resolve.
Dana, however, had never gone against Steven’s wishes. Well, there was the time when she’d talked Michael into Northwestern for grad school when Steven was insisting that he go to Wharton, Steven’s blessed alma mater.
But Michael had already gone to Choate and Yale, and Dana had wanted him to get out of New England. She’d wanted him to experience life in the Midwest, close to where she had been raised, close to things that had mattered when she’d been young, museums, music, theater—not that Michael was like her.
She’d claimed victory over Steven. It cost her three weeks of cold shoulder and two years of occasional glib remarks that were out of character for him.
And now, in addition to the dollars and cents, she had no idea what this would cost her. Bridget might suggest that Dana offer a little extra sex. But she would not tell Bridget, because whom could she trust?
“Sam,” she prodded the next morning after Steven left for his office and not the airport for a change. “Wake up. I need your help.”
A shower and two Starbucks later Sam drove his Wrangler into the parking garage adjacent to the Wall Street building where Michael worked.
“I can’t believe you just didn’t call him, Mom,” he said as they crossed from the garage into the building. “If he remembers the guy’s name, he could have told you on the phone.”
“I’m hoping the lawyer might see us if he knows we’re in the city, if he knows this is important.”
“If there’s a fat chance he’s available,” Sam said with a wry smile.
The office was black and white, pewter and glass. Dana felt a swell of pride that Michael—her son!—had already achieved so much. And then he came into the reception area wearing the Armani they’d given him last Christmas. He looked so handsome! So successful!
“Mom?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Dana said, toning down her smile. “Everything is fine. But I need the name of an attorney for Kitty DeLano. I was thinking about the man whose son you were in school with.”
Michael folded his arms and looked at Sam, who shrugged. “You drove into Manhattan to ask me someone’s name?”
“Well. Yes. Or rather, Samuel drove.”
He eyed them both. “I’m really busy, Mom. Besides, do you think it’s a good idea to get involved?”
She’d forgotten he was Steven’s son as well as hers.
“Name, please.”
He sighed an old man’s sigh. “Mom,” he said again. “I can’t.”
“All I need is for you to call him for me. Set the stage. You know?”
“No,” he said too quickly.
She blinked. “No?”
“The truth is, Dad already called this morning. He warned me you might try to do this.”
Someone must have turned the heat up in the room. Dana brushed the slow burn on her cheeks and leveled her sights on her eldest son. “You’re telling me your father told you not to help me?” Steven, her perfect husband? Father of her perfect children?
Michael laughed with hesitation.
Sam laughed with nervousness.
Dana was so angry, she didn’t say good-bye. She spun around and stomped back to the elevator. Sam caught up with her just as she stepped inside.
“Mom…” he tried with an effort to appease.
But Dana shook her head. She didn’t want to talk to him, to any of them. For the first time in forever, Dana felt like an unappreciated, unimportant, uneverything-ed wife.
“We could stop for lunch somewhere if you want,” Sam said as Dana marched toward the garage. He was such a sweet boy, Sam. If he had known the name, he would have shared it with her.
She shook her head again, stepped off the curb, and waited for a limousine to pass. As it did, she did a double-take. “That looks like the Meachams’ car,” she said, forgetting she didn’t want to talk to anyone.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “Maybe Mr. Meacham came downtown to plead with Lee Sato. The Sato offices are right up the street.”
They crossed and went into the garage. Dana might have suggested that perhaps it was not Jack, but Caroline. Then she decided that Caroline was a lot of things, but she was above stooping that low.
Caroline couldn’t believe she was stooping so low.
She’d stayed awake most of the night thinking about Elise, thinking about Chloe, and cursing Lee, because he was a man and most things wound up being their fault. She also was worried that Dana’s son might try to insinuate himself onto her rebounding daughter. Sam was nice enough, like all the Fulton boys, but he wouldn’t amount to anything out of the ordinary. He’d be rich, but not rich enough; he’d be connected, but not connected enough. He’d be just another New Falls kid.
He wouldn’t be a global player.
Which brought her back to the cursed Lee and the need to patch things up. Because at least one thing in her life simply had to go right.
Jack had been useless. Of course, his idea of trying hard was to leave Lee a couple of voice mail messages. He hadn’t called his driver and hotfooted it into the city for a face-to-face showdown for which Caroline was now prepared to stoop so low.
They made it downtown in record time despite the morning rush. Gerald knew not to pussyfoot around when Caroline was perched on the backseat.
He curbed the car at the World Financial Center where the Sato family business held court.
She told him not to move in case her party was unavailable. Then, her pale aqua cape stating her presence, she clipped across the esplanade, paraded past the imposing palm trees in the vaulted Winter Garden, flashed her ID at security, and headed toward the bank of elevators as if she did this every day.
He was in the office, but tied up in a meeting, the attractive, young woman at the front desk said. Caroline wondered if Lee was banging her in addition to the Russian.
She checked her watch: “I’ll wait,” she said and took a seat in the reception area, where she looked out at the thirty-story view.
And wait she did.
One hour, then two, then three, Caroline waited. She sucked in her fury and her pride. She resisted tap-tapping the toes of her caramel calfskin Torrini pumps, or sliding out of her cape in an effort to get comfortable. She sat and waited while one suit after another strode past her. The men nodded, the women didn’t. They all were young. They all acted as if they were important.
At one-twenty-three Lee emerged from wherever he’d been hiding.
“You’re still here,” he said.
She did not stand as he approached. “I won’t go home without an explanation.”
“Your daughter has my explanation. Other than that, it’s not your business, Caroline.”
From the beginning he had called her that, before she’d had the chance to say, “Oh, don’t call me Mrs. Meacham. Please, it’s Caroline.” Lee had been rude that way. Entitled via his money.
“You dated my daughter a long time. She is crushed beyond belief.”
A young man armed with a BlackBerry passed. Caroline supposed she might have—maybe should have—been embarrassed to be sitting in the reception area having a private conversation, but Lee did not seem inclined to invite her to his office, and for once her mission was more important than her shame.
He sat down in the steel suede chair beside her. “Chloe is not crushed. She’s pissed. She’s strong, though, like her mother. And she will go on.”
Caroline stared at the marble floor. “Can’t we work something out?”
“Well,” he said, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean what if I convinced Chloe it was all right for you to have other women, that it might even be good for your business, but that she is the only one you really love.”
“Caroline,” Lee said, “don’t do this.”
“She’d listen to me, Lee. She always does.”
“No, Caroline.”
“What if my husband’s business could help you some way? He often learns things through his associates…”
Lee held up his hand. “If you’re talking insider trading, Jack Meacham is the last person I would count on. After all, he is married to you.”
She snapped her face around until it met his. “How dare you,” she hissed.
He laughed.
He laughed!
“Caroline,” he said again, this time standing up, “Nice try. But please go. Before you embarrass us both by offering your body as a last-ditch attempt to drag me back into your wretched fold.” He turned on his well-polished heel (three inches—he was short, though that was hardly adequate consolation) and swaggered away, leaving a trail of chuckles in his wake.
“Well let me tell you one thing, Lee Sato.” Caroline leaped from the chair and shook her fist at the air. “I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last peon on the planet! You were never good enough for Chloe. Never!” A spray of spit spewed from her mouth. She quickly dabbed it away, then cupped her hand and shouted, “And another thing, you jerk! She’s going to keep the fucking ring!!!”
He waved his hand without a simple glance back at Caroline. Then he turned a corner and disappeared from the lives of the Meachams of New Falls.