Hooked (26 page)

Pullman Capital was in a tall, narrow building on Sixth Avenue, or Avenue of the Americas, depending on your mood. When I got to reception, the guy behind the desk phoned someone named Sue and motioned for me to take a seat on a black leather couch. After a couple of minutes I picked up the front section of the
Times
, just to peruse the headlines, because I hated getting interrupted in the middle of a story, like I always do in a doctor’s office. A few more minutes went by and I caved and started at the back with an obituary about a children’s book illustrator, which made me wonder when I should start reading to Ian. I finished the article and still no sign of Sue. Hopefully this is what the job will be like, I thought. Hopefully they’ll just install me in some cubicle and forget about me and I’ll be free to crochet under the desk. I’d take my six hundred dollars a week after taxes and save it toward a production deal with the women in Brooklyn. If they left me alone, I could actually ramp up production to two or three bikinis a week, sell those and prove to Dad how lucrative it could be. But I was interrupted.

“Thea Galehouse?” A boxy woman in a black pantsuit and glasses with beaded croakies stood by the reception desk.

“Hi, yes, that’s me, nice to meet you.” I stood up, straightening my too-tight Gap pencil skirt.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Sue. So follow me. We’re going to need you to help out in client services, if that’s okay.” Sue pushed through both glass doors, giving us a wide berth, and led me to a room with a bunch of long, wide tables, the same size as the lunch tables at school, pushed into a large U. She launched into a synopsis of the meaning of Pullman Capital and explained, in incredibly unspecific terms, what I’d be doing there. Every second or third seat had a computer screen, and some of the screens had men sitting in front of them, but most did not.

“Why don’t you have a seat here and make yourself comfortable,” said Sue, exiting the room in long strides across the carpet. “You can hang up your coat in that closet, and Malcolm will be with you soon.”

Now I had nothing to read. I noticed that my spot at the U didn’t have a phone. I hoped I had cell reception but wasn’t optimistic because the room was windowless. What if Monica needed to reach me? A guy next to me was enunciating something into his phone, and at first I couldn’t figure out why I was having trouble understanding him—I thought maybe it was another language—but then I realized he had a speech impediment that made him lose all of his
s
sounds. Each time he said “Seabrook,” it sounded like “Heabrook.” He also talked very fast and it made me sure that only those who had an intimate relationship with him could understand what the hell he was saying. I prayed he wasn’t my boss because I would definitely offend him.

He was, of course.

“You’re Hea? Nie to meet you,” he said, wheeling over to me. “I’m Malcolm. Terrific you’re here.”

“Hi,” I said. It looked like his tongue was missing. I was immediately, painfully conscious of trying to act normal in front of his disability, positive he could tell. But he was gallant. Later on, someone alluded to the fact that he’d had cancer in his jaw.

“I’d like you to tart, if you would, with organi-ing hom of our pre-entation folder,” he said.

I nodded, relieved I understood.

“We have heven department at Pullman Cap, each of which is repre-hented in the folder. You’ll find a page for each of the heven loaded on and in-hide that con-hole over there.”

I spun my chair toward the console in the corner. The job would require getting up and down a lot.

“Come.” He got up and motioned me to the presentation station.

Together we put a folder together, taking a packet from each pile and sliding it in.

“Not the moht eck-hiting thing, but we need them deh-perately,” he said, throwing his arms dramatically in the air.

“No problem.” I smiled, wondering how many folders I’d have to put together before I could work on the bikini under the desk.

“Fabulouh,” he said, exiting the room.

I wondered if I could cheat and bring seven little stacks back to my chair and stuff them into folders from there. Surely Malcolm didn’t expect me to stand at that console all day. I’d do five or six standing up, get my bearings, and then bring it over to the desk, where I’d do twenty or so, and then I’d crochet three or four rows on my lap under the desk.

I opened drawers, looking for an empty one to hold my bag. Someone snickered behind me.

I turned around and saw a guy with jaw-length, shiny black hair slumped in his chair, his shirttail hanging out. “We’ll need ten thousand of those today,” he joked with a pronounced English accent, flicking back his hair. “And they all need to be FedExed. We’ll get you the list.”

I shot him a dirty look.

“What’s your name?” he asked, grinning.

“Thea. What’s yours?”

“Daniel,” he said. “Good luck. You’ll be at it for decades. Careful of paper cuts. Nice top, by the way.”

“Thank you,” I said, trying not to appear embarrassed or antagonized.

“Paisley always makes me think of the Beatles,” he said.

“It’s my mother’s,” I said as I glanced at the door, half expecting Malcolm to appear and shush us.

“She must be very chic,” he said, flipping the pages of a huge loose-leaf binder.

I’d never heard a boy say “chic.”

“She’s into clothes,” I said, pulling my sore, blistery heel out of the black flat I hadn’t worn in months.

“Into clothes?” he drawled in a cheesy American accent, flicking his hair out of his face yet again.

“She enjoys shopping for and purchasing women’s wear. She’s a fashionista. That better?”

I got up and went to the stacks at the console. Men, no women, came into the room throughout the morning, mostly to check the computer screens or to buzz someone on the intercom, and then they’d leave. I sat and stuffed, listening to Daniel on the phone—he was talking to someone named Elle who was having a party and wanted him to bring a bottle of Pernod, and to someone named Cass, who I took to be his girlfriend in London.

“Fly here this weekend, babe,” he kept saying. “Study for it on the flight. I can’t bear it, darling … you know I can’t … I’ve got no money.” At twelve-thirty he let out a loud yawn. “Thea, let’s trot out. I’ll take you to meet Mr. Spaghetti.”

I went with him down Fifty-Sixth Street to a guy standing in front of a takeout place with a platter of tomato bruschettas.

“So I have this mental picture of you in my head,” Daniel said, taking a bruschetta off Mr. Spaghetti’s tray and spilling it down his chin as he ate it. “Tell me if I’m right. You had a breakdown during your, what do you call it here? Sophomore
year, so you’ve dropped out to take some time to collect yourself, to ‘find yourself’ as you Americans say, and since someone owed Daddy a favor, you’re now biding your time in the hallowed hallways of Pullman Capital. Am I right, darling?”

“Why do English people call everyone darling?” I asked, popping a bruschetta into my mouth as we stepped into the takeout place and onto the long line. I was tempted to just tell him my True Hollywood Story but wasn’t ready to part with the idea of free-and-easy Thea yet.

As we paid, he motioned to the cashier, saying, “See that woman? She’s mad for me.” The receptionist in the front hall of Pullman was also mad for him. On the way back he let me listen to a dance track on his iPod, made by a guy from some club in Dubai or St. Bart’s. “I like my music long,” he said, and something about the way he thumped his head back and forth reminded me of a turtle. He told me he was living in the East Thirties for six months, on some kind of break from Oxford.

We got back to our desks and ate. He pointed a breadstick in my direction.

“No, thank you,” I said. He smiled over some secret little joke to himself and turned back to his desk.

Ian finally started sleeping through the night—really sleeping—from seven or eight p.m. until seven in the morning, after I let him cry for fifteen million hours over the course of two days, like the book said. It worked. As the weeks went by, we
fell into a routine: Woke up at seven and messed around on our favorite spots—my bed, the floor in our bedroom, under the mobile. Dad would feed Ian while I jumped in the shower before Monica showed up at eight. When Ian was around five months old, Dad got very into making some recipe he’d concocted with watered-down oatmeal and mashed-up bananas. He would make a big bowl for breakfast and share it with him. “I forgot how much I love bananas,” he said almost every morning, alternating a big spoon into his mouth, a baby spoon into Ian’s.

Mom took me to a media-elite Italian place for lunch one Friday after I’d been at Pullman for a couple of months. We sat down at a tiny two-top and dove into a bowl of olives as Mom spied on the people next to us, trying to listen in. She looked back at me and I swore I saw a trace of a wince.

“Did I tell you we are finally, finally, closing on that Astor Place apartment tomorrow?” she asked, tossing a pit into a zebra-striped wooden bowl. “I never thought it would happen. The buyer made endless demands—replace all the windows, redo the floors—it was ridiculous and I never thought it would happen, but it finally is. My first closing. I’m really pleased.” An undercurrent of spite trailed under her voice, like I hadn’t been involved enough throughout the transaction, the whole undertaking.

“Maybe you’ve found your calling,” I said. “Remember when I looked at all those places with Daddy? We could have used someone good, someone who’s good at figuring out what people want.”

“It’s fun, but it’s a lot of work.” She browsed the menu. “I’m craving pasta. Isn’t that strange?”

I pulled the hook out of my bag. It was becoming almost
like a compulsion, the crocheting; I couldn’t figure out if it was helping me engage or disengage. I just felt compelled to do it.

“What is that?” she asked, peeking out from behind her menu.

“It’s a bikini. You like it?”

“I have to first come to terms with this ludicrously domestic picture in front of me,” she said, blinking dramatically. “First you get yourself knocked up, now you’re knitting.”

“I’m crocheting. You’ve seen me do it before. Vanessa taught me, remember?”

“Whatever,” she said, setting her menu down. “Knitting, crocheting, they’re all dowager sports.” She scraped her chair out and crossed her legs. “I’m convinced sometimes you must be someone else’s daughter. But then I remember …” She frowned and made horns on the top of her head. “Evelyn Galehouse …”

“Chill out, Mom,” I said, tucking the yarn into the crook of the banquette. “It’s not a big deal. Just because you don’t do it.”

“It’s more than I don’t do it. I’m unnerved to see you doing it. It’s so … retro in a not pleasant or inviting way.”

“Well, what if I told you I’m making money from it?”

“How?”

“I’m selling bikinis for three hundred bucks a pop at this knitting store,” I said. “You’d like it, it’s trendy, not crafty. This woman Carmen, the owner, she’s been selling them and she wants to hook me up with some women in Brooklyn who can help me.”

“Who is Carmen?” she asked suspiciously, as though I were utterly incapable of conducting business.

“She owns the knitting store on Charlton Street. Vanessa took me.”

“Of course she did,” Mom said, rolling her eyes.

“She thinks I should try and not mass-produce them but work something out, like a production deal, and sell them to small boutiques.”

“Do you notice that I clench my jaw?” she asked. A large plate of pasta with mushrooms arrived in front of her and she passed a bite over to me, dripping oil across my plate of ravioli.

“You’re changing the subject,” I said.

“This awful dental assistant who did my cleaning last week at Dr. Church’s,” she continued, ignoring me. “She asked me if I ground my teeth. Just from her asking it, it was like she made it true. I’m a tooth grinder. A jaw clencher.” She took a pocket mirror out of her bag and examined her mouth. “I hate it when someone insinuates something and then somehow you start believing it. Daddy used to do that.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, letting the buttery ravioli melt in my mouth.

“Oh, he was so critical. Every little thing. And it always came in question form.” She hissed the “sss” in “question.” It hit me how pissed she was, still. “Do you think your bangs are a little long, honey? I can’t see your pretty eyes.” She looked at me and closed her lips. “Anyway, never mind. How’s it going over there? How’s the old codg adjusting to modern parenting?”

“He’s trying,” I said, cutting my ravioli in fours in an attempt to eat it slowly. “He’s home by seven most nights now.”

“Unbelievable,” she said, shaking her head. “Maybe he’s finally getting his head in the right place.”

“Hey, I just thought of something,” I said. “Doesn’t your friend Christine work at
Bazaar
? Maybe you could call her and tell her about the bikinis and she could do a little write-up about them.”

She picked up the lemon wedge hanging on the rim of her Diet Coke and bit it, her red lipstick staining the rind. “You’re really thinking about this.”

“I am,” I said.

She plunked the lemon into the glass. “I haven’t spoken to her in ages, but I’ll see what I can do. Can I see it?”

I wiped my hands, picked the bikini off the banquette and handed it over. This one was off-white with a turquoise and gold zigzag running vertically down the side of each hip.

“Where on earth did you learn to do this?” she asked, stretching the bottom out.

“I’ve told you before,” I said. “Vanessa taught me.”

She handed it back. “I’ll see if I can track down Christine.” She took a slice of baguette out of the basket and swished it around her plate. “So where is Will these days?”

“He’s still at Florence’s, I guess—I haven’t heard from him in a few weeks.” I forked the last quarter-ravioli and put on a brave face. “In a way it’s easier without him.”

“Sure,” Mom said, laying down her fork. “One agenda. But is it over?”

“What? No,” I said too loudly. I felt sick from the butter and oil. First he turns on me, then he disappears. I didn’t know what I was more angry over—the fact that he so badly betrayed me with the adoption bullshit, or the fact that he’d then just dropped it, and dropped out of our lives. And the worst of it was the unavoidable reality that I still loved him.