Best Intentions (12 page)

“Everyone hits rough patches.”

“I realize that.” He pauses. “Do you ever wake up and feel like you're living someone else's life?”

“It seems to me you have exactly the life you set out for.” Little about Jack has ever appeared accidental to me. But perhaps sadness, regret, desire always take you by surprise, knock you off your game.

“Does it?” he asks. “It's the life I found, anyway. There's a difference.”

“Will Alice move here if you get the job?”

“I don't know.” He looks away, then back to me. “Lisa, I'm forty years old. Or about to be.”

“And?”

“I may not get another chance.”

“A chance at what?”

“This. Any of it. I'm just not sure I want to get in deeper if it's not right.”

“You've been married to Alice for five years. That's pretty deep.”

“Did I tell you we're building a house up on the Cape? Such a cliché. Why is it when a marriage is foundering the first instinct is to renovate or build something when all you really want to do is escape what you already have?” He leans forward. “Tell me, what's Ben like?”

“Deirdre's Ben?”

“Yes. What's his last name?”

“Erickson. What did Deirdre tell you?”

“Not much. But what she did say made him sound like a total jerk.”

“They've had a complicated history.”

“Don't we all.”

“It's beginning to seem that way.” I glance down at my resolutely silent phone. “Sorry, I'm waiting for the girls to call.”

He nods dismissively. “Is she serious about him?”

“Don't you think you should be asking her these questions?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“She deserves to be happy.”

I can feel Jack watching me, taking my measure. He is used to ferreting out information but there is, beneath the cool exterior, a tangible vulnerability I have rarely seen. Even now, after all these years, Deirdre leaves him exposed. He puts down his fork. “She cheated on me.”

“Deirdre?” I am genuinely surprised. Surely I would have heard about this.

“No. Alice. With a professor in her department, the chairman, actually,” he adds. “For over a year. I found her diaries.”

“Oh God, Jack, I'm sorry. That's awful.”

“I'm only half sorry. Maybe it was a mistake from the beginning.”

“Why did you marry her?”

“I don't know. Because it was time. Because she's nice.”

“No one marries someone just because they're nice.”

“Yes. You do. At a certain point you do. All her head-in-the-clouds stuff, living in the fifteenth century. She seemed so gentle. Apparently I was wrong on that count, too.” He shifts his weight. “I'm not saying I didn't love her.”

“Past tense?”

He takes a long time to answer. “Lisa, do you believe in second chances?”

“People make mistakes. I'd like to think forgiveness is at least an option. Is that what Alice wants?”

“I meant Deirdre. Me and Deirdre. Why should we have to pay forever for a mistake we made when we were so young?”

“Jack, I'm not really comfortable talking about this,” I tell him. It is past eight thirty. School has already started. The background rumble of maternal anxiety grows stronger, clotting in my veins.

“Please.”

“You're married,” I remind him.

“Yes, I realize that. But, if I wasn't, do you think it's too late?”

“How can I answer that? I have enough trouble figuring out my own life these days, much less someone else's. Besides, I thought you told me you don't like dealing in hypotheticals.”

“Love is always a matter of speculation, isn't it?” He leans closer, his eyes fixed, intent, assessing his jury. “I told you, it's over. My marriage is over.”

“Jack.” I plead for an out but he remains unmoved.

“I have never been as alive as I was when I was with Deirdre. I realize that sounds ridiculously corny, but it's true. And she feels the same, I know it. Everything since then has felt like a consolation prize. I'm not ready to consign myself to that.”

“You were very young.”

“Yes, but it hasn't changed. I saw that last night. How many people do you connect with like that in a lifetime? Maybe the job interview, even Alice's affair, were all meant to lead me here.”

Love, or at least longing, seems to turn all of us into hopeful idiots, reading tea leaves, knocking on wood, grasping at signs only we can see. “Since when do you believe in fate? I thought you were the supreme rationalist.”

“You know Deirdre better than anyone in the world. All I'm asking is for you to find out if I have a chance.”

“That's all?” I look at him skeptically.

“Please.”

I play with the edges of my napkin, thinking of Deirdre and her dread of ingrained singledom, her narcotic relationship with Ben that I have tried to reason and plead and pry her free from, Ben with his fingerprints and the charmingly lethal hooks he has lodged deep in her psyche. I want her to be happy, safe. Maybe Jack is right that they had been blown off-course and are now blessed with that rarest of gifts: the chance to recover what they were too young and too careless to hold on to. Of course, there is also the possibility that their separation wasn't a mistake at all. Fate, like God, can be claimed by either side in a battle. Still. Alice, the cheating Alice, is a specter to me, easily relegated to the inconsequential. “All right,” I tell him. “I'm not promising anything. But I'll see what I can find out.”

“You won't tell her about this, will you?”

I shake my head.

“It's Loring, Marcus by the way.”

“What is?”

“The law firm I'm interviewing at. But you have to promise not to say anything. To anyone.”

“You've decided you can trust me after all?”

“So it seems.” Jack smiles broadly. He has gotten what he came here for.

T
he doorman, dressed in a crimson and gold uniform as if in exile from a toy army, holds the door open for me as I race out to the street, phone in hand.

It is nine fifteen.

There has been no text message, no voice mail, nothing from the girls.

I speed dial my office, hoping Claire left a message there.

But the only voice is Petra's, saying she'll be late, her excuse so ornate and long-winded that I hang up in the middle of it.

I hurry down the block deciding whether to call the school, weighing the girls' potential embarrassment against my overwhelming need for reassurance. Parental fretfulness, the ever-present chink in the armor, wins out. I call the middle school office and speak to the dean, Mrs. Conason, trying to impart that while, no, it is not an Emergency, it is at least a Situation. She promises to check on the girls' whereabouts and get back to me. Weston has swipe cards the girls tap on entry, a computerized record of what classrooms they can be found in, it won't take all that long. “I'm sure they're fine,” she reassures me. She doesn't question or complain, she knows that parents paying five-digit tuition fees expect a certain degree of service and this is one of the more benign requests.

I head into my building and take the elevator to the twelfth floor.
I walk by Carol's office and peer in, but it is empty, all evidence of her erased. Even her name has vanished from the door, leaving behind a dark rectangle where the placard had so recently been, naked and waiting for replacement.

“Morning.” I am startled by a gruff male voice coming from the far reaches of the room.

I step hesitantly around the door to discover Mick Favata sitting at the large desk, a neat pile of papers before him. Only the faint scent of Carol's musky perfume remains nestled into the carpet, though I'm sure they will quickly find a way to excise that, too. For a freelance consultant, Favata seems to be staking out some pretty serious territory. Of course, there's the chance that this was the only available desk, a matter of expediency rather than a land grab. But I doubt it. “Good morning.”

“Come in, Lisa.”

I grasp my cell phone tightly in hand as I enter and take the seat opposite him.

“I've been going through the Elan account.” He picks up a sheet of paper with the cosmetic firm's logo embossed in silver script across the top. “This mission statement is incredibly meandering.”

“It was only meant for internal use.” I realize how lame this sounds.

“Are you happy with your chief writer on this?”

Christ. I have a megawatt hangover. I have managed to consume at least one thousand calories before ten a.m. I have no idea where my daughters are. And I haven't even gotten into my office yet. “Happy” is not exactly the first word that comes to mind. “I think with a bit more guidance she'll step up.”

Favata studies me. “We are not here to provide people with a learning curve.”

“I'll talk to her.”

“Good. I'd also like to discuss Rita Mason with you. I spoke with her manager, Barry, last night. Miss Mason is not happy with the whole soup kitchen idea you presented her with.”

“Really? She seemed fine with it.”

“To the contrary, I believe she is in danger of leaving the firm. Needless to say, none of us would like to see that happen.”

I am about to reply when my cell phone rings, the sound ricocheting off the walls of the near-empty office.

Favata stares archly at me, waiting to see what I do.

It rings again.

And I pick it up.

“Mrs. Barkley?”

“Yes?”

“Both girls are fine. They are in their classes.”

“Thank you.” Later there will be lectures and threats, there will be privileges removed, but for now I take a deep breath and feel my muscles relax. I turn my attention back to Favata, glowering at me with his viper eyes.

“I don't want to keep you if you're busy.” There is malevolent amusement in his tone.

“I'm sorry. That was rude. It's just that…” I am about to tell him of my AWOL daughters when I stop myself. I had broken Carol in, proven over time that I can go to school plays, parent-teacher conferences, orthodontist appointments and still get my work done, but I doubt that will be the case with these people. I remember the woman who came up to me on my first day back from maternity leave at a previous job and whispered, “Let me give you some advice. If you need to run off to a pediatrician's visit, tell them you have to go to your doctor, not your baby's. Motherhood makes them nervous.” I would like to believe that things have changed. I would also like to believe that at this point in my life I don't have to prove myself all over again. Unfortunately, neither seems to be the case. “Where were we?” I attempt to regroup.

“I'd like to meet with you this afternoon. Say around three. I'm assuming that works for you?”

“Of course.” I smile, trying to placate him. He is a deeply scary man.

“Good. We can go over the other accounts then.” He returns to his papers. I have been dismissed.

I walk past Petra's unoccupied cubicle and head into my office, wondering how many more Motrin I can take without risking a stomach bleed. I decide to hold off. I do not think this is quite the right day to risk a potentially messy medical mishap. I flip the lights on, put my bag down and settle in at my desk. As my computer boots up I stare, perplexed, as a stark blue-and-white image appears instead of my usual solid aqua screensaver. It takes me a minute to realize that it is a photograph of Merdale's corporate headquarters in Philadelphia. I rear back and glance around for—what? hidden cameras? microphones?

I reconsider the Motrin. My message light is already blinking furiously. Yesterday, there were endless requests for client contract info and budgets from various Merdale people whose names and titles remain a blur. I press “play,” dreading what they might want next. Whatever it is will surely eat up my morning. Instead, David Forrester's voice, warm and intimate and more disturbing than it should be, slips into the room. “Now that we've conquered e-mail, I thought we could talk more about the matter at hand in person. Can you meet me for a drink one evening after work next week? Give me a call.”

It is a perfectly crafted message, floating a balloon and providing total deniability at the same time. It is not at all clear to me what the matter at hand is. For the rest of the morning, his voice remains lodged, a splinter in the back of my mind. I do not call him back.

I dig out all the press releases we have done on Elan, the media plan, the positioning statement, and read them through. The truth is, Favata has honed in on a real weak spot, one that I have successfully managed to avoid dealing with until now, chalking my inaction up to the faith that it would all right itself rather than my spineless fear of confrontation. The chief writer, Tessa Cardwell, has been slacking off for months. I've given her hints, sent her copy back with polite but detailed notes, shot her e-mails with vague critiques couched in encouragement. All of which have had absolutely no effect, leaving me as annoyed at my own cowardice as I am at her intractable willfulness in ignoring me.

I send her an e-mail now asking her to rewrite the release and add, “I know this is tough but we all have to step up to the plate.” The Business 101 platitudes that have seeped into my lexicon make me more than a little nauseous. The Merdale people are not just making me dislike them, they are making me dislike myself.

I send one more e-mail to Nina Stern, the friend who first told me Favata is a thug, albeit one who just happens to be pals with the CEO. “You weren't kidding,” I write. “Favata's a total goon. I'm trying to figure out how to deal with him. Can you help me out? You said he was fired? Do you know anyone in Harcourt's London office who'd have more details?” I worry, fleetingly, about using company e-mail for this but put it out of my head.

Nina writes back almost instantly. “Get in touch with Susanna Carter in London. I don't know if she'd be willing to talk but it's worth a shot. Here's her e-mail address. After this, I'm out of it. Sorry. Just too risky.”

I quickly write to Susanna Carter asking for any information she might have and promise to keep it confidential.

When Petra finally deigns to come in, I ask her to hold all calls and shut my door. After spending far too long trying to figure out how to get the goddamn picture of Merdale's headquarters off my computer, I contemplate calling the IT department for help, but refrain because of the likelihood that this will go down in some ledger as an act of insubordination. Instead, I pull out a stack of papers and get to work preparing for my three p.m. meeting.

During the next few hours, I am vaguely aware of doors opening and closing, people being called individually and in small groups into the conference room, but I manage to block it out. I pointedly ignore the blinking message light, certain it is Deirdre wanting to recap dinner. Though I am dying to hear her version of what happened after Sam and I left them, I regret agreeing to Jack's request that I become a double agent in their emotional lives. Torn between curiosity and guilt, I choose avoidance.

At five minutes to three, I gather the stack of papers I have been working on, check my lipstick in the compact I keep stashed in my
desk, caked with dusty crumbles of old eye shadow, and go to Favata's office. I knock gently. There is no response. I peer in. The office is empty.

I have Petra call his assistant, but he has left no word canceling the appointment or changing the time. I check back every five minutes—worried that this is somehow my fault, though I cannot pinpoint how—but there is no further sign of him.

By the end of the day, when the conference room is finally quiet, eleven people have been fired.