Secrets of the Apple (43 page)

“Birthday cakes too,” Kate said.

“Yeah, birthday cakes too, cheap,” he said. “Do you see my point?”

Kate remained silent and Montgomery went on.

“When I see you with Tanaka, it feels like you’re trying to live this bizarre Jane Austen fantasy, and I’m worried that you can’t see it. I wouldn’t even say anything except I’m afraid you’ll wake up one day and find yourself stunted, like my grandmother. Has it occurred to you that you get along with my mom because you’re so much like her? It would kill you to wake up and find life has passed you by.”

“What else can you tell me about your grandmother?” Kate asked, gently probing. “What were her interests and education, did she read much? What was your grandfather like?”

“There’s nothing more to tell,” Montgomery said dismissively. Ryoki pictured him picking lint off his shirt.

“I need to know the backstory,” Kate said.

“Why? It’s not one of your stories. This is real.”

“A dramatic exit isn’t enough. I need more to go on.”

“You’re basing your life on a dramatic exit.”

“No, like I said, I get where you’re coming from. Part of me always wanted to be a savvy career woman like your boss—”

“You can! You have talent and education. You’re free to take it,” Montgomery cut in, passionate and pleading.

“Sure, I’m free to work and my husband was free to leave, everybody’s so free. Did you know that in a modern battle, ten percent casualties is considered a slaughter, but when all this freedom destroys fifty percent of our families, we call it progress. I’ll bet for every woman who’s been free to leave an abusive husband, there have been ten men who left their wives for the sin of getting older. Who does all this freedom really benefit?”

“Women today are in a stronger position than they’ve ever been.”

“In some ways I absolutely agree,” she said slowly, “but consider chess.”

“Chess?” Montgomery said, taken aback, a thin sarcasm rickracked around the edges.

“Chess is centuries old. Why is the queen so powerful?”

“We’ve advanced, Kate. A modern man has learned to expect more of a woman. Today she has the chance to earn her own place in the world, to be her own person. Men who expect less don’t want a wife, they want a housekeeper.”

There was silence for a long moment, then Kate asked in a voice that was frighteningly devoid of emotion, “Is that how you really feel, Matt?”

“Kate, I’m sorry. I’m just angry and jealous and talking crazy. I’m sure we can work this out.”

“But at bottom that’s what you believe—either a woman earns her professional place in the world, or she’s nobody.”

The couch springs shifted as Montgomery moved toward her, but his weight shifted back like she’d waved him off. “I need time,” she said.

“I’ll be back from New York in two weeks. Will that be enough time?” Without the sigh, he wouldn’t have sounded so impatient. But there it was, making him sound like he had spent more time discussing this than anyone could reasonably expect.

“I don’t know. Maybe we should take a break.”

“What are you going to do, go running off to Tanaka? I’ve read about what he did to his ex-wife. Left her all alone and pregnant.”

Ryoki almost choked. The anger he thought he’d vanquished now opened a single glowing eye.

“Then there’s this whole website devoted to his conquests,” Montgomery said.

That brought Ryoki up short.
Website, what website?
Since Apple he had conscientiously avoided his own press, but a website, surely someone would have mentioned—

“Hot for blondes, this guy. The site hasn’t been updated since December, but there’s been plenty of chatter since.” Montgomery stood as he spoke, moving to her desk where he brought Kate’s laptop beeping and whirring out of hibernation.

“Don’t believe everything you read, Matt,” Kate said. As much as Ryoki appreciated her loyalty, he thought he detected a trace of hesitation in her voice, probably born of Las Vegas, that great monument to his stupidity. A technophobe like Kate wouldn’t have searched him over the internet, and now Montgomery had landed a blindside punch, Ryoki could feel it.

“It’s all personal testimony from the women themselves, overwhelming evidence. You should see his last chick. There’s a photo of the two of them outside a nightclub. She’s gorgeous, like supermodel gorgeous, Kate. She said afterwards she’d never seen anybody get dressed so fast.”

Ryoki began to taste chewed pastrami all over again and took deep, silent breaths to quell the nausea.

“The next day he sent her a bracelet with a little bird charm, and she never heard from him again. All these women have bracelets, Kate, every one.” There was a tapping of the keys. “Okay, this is the site.”

“Matt, stop!” she almost yelled, pausing before she finished her sentence in a restrained calm. “This is not about Ryoki.”

“No? Then what is it about? Is there somebody else, somebody at work?” He sounded angry and hurt, a shade desperate.

“We just need to take some time, figure out what we want.”

“Are you breaking up with me?”

“Why don’t we talk in two weeks.” She sounded tense and Ryoki could almost picture her, shoulders squared to Montgomery with her head turned to the left, the way she did whenever she was upset.

“Well, in two weeks, then.”

Ryoki heard Montgomery walk toward the door, pause, then turn back.

“Kate, don’t say anything to Tanaka about Amanda just because you’re mad at me.”

“Why are you afraid of me? I’m nobody, I’m an assistant.”

“Kate …” his voice trailed off.

“Look,” she said quietly, “all I know of her professionally is what you’ve told me, which is of course always glowing. Sometimes I wonder if maybe you’re a little in love with her.”

“Impressed, I’m impressed with her. Hardly the same as in love.”

There was an awkward silence.

“Travel safely,” she said.

“I’ll call you when I get back. We can work this out, Kate.”

There was another brief silence, an eloquent void. The door opened and clicked shut.

Ryoki stood slowly and quietly, but by the time he entered the living room Kate was already sitting at her desk.
The website
.

Too late he remembered that the blonde who had given him the pink boxers had been a web designer, or maybe it was her brother, he couldn’t recall. There had been this interminable dinner, the two of them with a group of scraggly beards and greasy ponytails making jokes about something called “invalid memory.” Now he watched an empty pair of pink silk boxers with purple lipstick kisses pull a banner across Kate’s screen, a shout-out to Ryoki Tanaka’s women:
Show Your Bracelet. Share Your Story.

Cursed boxers. It was her all right.

Sooner or later he would have warned Kate about his past, probably later, established-girlfriend later, long walk in the garden, serious discussion, adequate-preparation later. The inconvenience of dirty little secrets, striking like a jack-in-the-box. He blinked very slowly and advanced one step, clearing his throat. Kate lurched forward as though he’d smacked her on the back, then sat up straight, glancing at the front door. “How long have you been there?” she asked, staring at her computer screen, her voice gruff and gravelly, teetering between tears and rage.

A lie would be safer, maybe even kinder.

“Hours,” he said.

“I knew I’d locked that door,” she said tersely, rising from her chair without looking at him, priming her guns to blast him from the building. But he was too quick, putting out a hand to gently nudge her back to her seat. Whatever that site alleged, he needed to be with her when she saw it, a visible reminder that he was a not only a friend but a human being, as opposed to a slimy creature dredged from the murkiest depth of a putrid pool.

“Please Kate, the timing’s bad, but I need to be here when you see this,” he said, careful to convey the proper balance of respect and pleading. She flinched and he backed off. She hesitated, then slowly resumed her seat and clicked past the home screen, her shoulders hunched to ward him off.

“You should tell your friend that the moving graphic is distracting,” she said coolly, skimming from blonde to blonde while Ryoki looked gloomily on, determined to speak only if he read something libelous. But Lipstick Boxers had been an amazingly fair moderator, and unfortunately very thorough.

As a particularly striking platinum beauty flipped by, it occurred to him that within the comfortable confines of his imagination,
his collection
had marched behind him in a great glittery parade, cheered on and congratulated by a crowd of envious men. But it would not occur to Kate to think in terms of collections or congratulations. The room was silent as each woman paused to dangle her bracelet and tell her story, Kate inhaling warm oxygen and exhaling puffs of increasingly chilly, etheric air that settled about her as about a Himalayan peak, stretching a great high distance between them. He wanted to whisk her away to the library where prince and princess could live happily ever after, but with each successive blonde he felt her rise a hundred feet higher, further and further out of reach, his lungs growing heavier and heavier as he struggled for air.

As the last blonde appeared on the screen, Kate pulled something from her lapel and laid it on the desk with a faint
clack
as she continued to read. Ryoki remembered that blonde very well. The night had started out just like Las Vegas, single malt scotch sip sip sip. The woman, Candy or Candice, a stunning six-foot Aphrodite with a store-bought chest. What was it she screeched at the tardy waiter? “I’ll have you know I am
the
Claudia Andrews!” Claudia, that was it. Sip sip, hand over your credit card, pay the check.

The rest of the night had been a blur of loud music and flashing lights. When everything had finally quieted down and they’d done what they’d set out to do, he waited for that precious moment of blankness, the drug-like peace. But something had turned his stomach, something about Claudia’s scent, a late-night mix of sweat, smoke, alcohol and expensive perfume. Abruptly he’d jumped out of bed, nauseous, with a sharp pain in his belly. His stomach had troubled him ever since, exacerbated by stress, possibly an ulcer. It had been so much better lately that he hadn’t bothered with a doctor.

“She wasn’t nice, you wouldn’t have liked her,” he said, moving around the desk until he could see her face, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. From the corner of his eye he saw the Tiffany brooch, his gift discarded on the desk.

She turned away, her eyes still fixed on the screen. It seemed there had been a new entry after all, and again Kate hit the Next button. The page loaded text first, and a caption reading
DARK MEAT
appeared, then a photo of Kate wearing a loose-fitting dress he’d seen many times. It was a candid shot, tabloid quality, downloaded from who knows where.

Ryoki put his hand on her shoulder. “Kate.” He saw no movement, but felt her stiffen under his touch. “Oh, Kate,” he said, watching a single tear spill down her cheek, hastily brushed away. “I can explain.”

She held up a hand to stop him, keeping her eyes averted. “Matt was right,” she said baldly. “I
have
been living a fantasy. I thought it was my secret, but he knows and he’s feeling threatened. I must be so stupid.”

“I love you,” he said, too scared to touch her.

She sat very still for a full minute while his declaration filtered through the air. “I’ve heard that a couple of times today, but you already know that, don’t you?” she said, slowly turning toward him.

He searched for words, working up the courage to reach for her, when he saw her gaze alight on the binder in his hand, followed by a long, measured blink, her mouth opening in a tight, soundless O. Crimson mortification crept up her neck, and he understood beyond any doubt that he had been reading her journal.

Gently he laid the binder next to the brooch, hoping she would erupt hot and bright, a hard slap, the blood-red imprint published on his cheek, her righteous indignation blowing through the crust and cooling in the air. Instead she looked at him, her eyes cold green marbles more fearsome than his grandfather’s bull neck.

Utterly silent, she stalked from the cottage, pausing only long enough to shove her feet into her shoes before disappearing into the dark garden.
Give her space, give her space, she needs space,
her frigid stare rising in his mind.
Where’s she going? Money? Keys? Credit cards?
Twisting in place, he cast around for her purse, wondering what she might have in her pockets.
Dark night, too angry to wait for a bodyguard.
She’d show him, punish him.

Ryoki crept out, tailing at a safe distance in the dark, hiding behind bushes and trampling flowerbeds to dodge the motion-sensitive path lights, breathing out long and low when she sat on a bench way off the path in a remote, as-yet-uncivilized corner of the garden, the only bench lit solely by moonlight. She sat forward and picked up a long sharp stick, examining the point, testing the tip with her finger. In a few moments she began honing the point on a nearby boulder, casually at first, but gaining intensity and fierceness until Ryoki wondered if she was making a weapon to drive through his heart. She worked the stick violently, it seemed at first, until he heard the muffled sob and he realized her shoulders were shaking. With a cry she gripped her spear, twisting sideways and hurling it like a javelin, a wild, wobbly throw that would have bounced off a cat. It landed near Ryoki’s hiding place and he began to suspect she knew he was there.

He was trying to decide whether to stand watch or leave her alone when two of the path lights mysteriously flickered on, drawing his attention to the long shape lifting its head to taste the air before slithering across the pale path. The dark diamonds down its back identified it as a bushmaster snake, at least six feet long, probably a recent stowaway on a cargo truck. “Kate,” he yelled, a shrill note of terror breaking his voice as he snatched the sharpened stick, his eyes glued to the tremulous foliage that marked the bushmaster’s leisurely progress toward the bench and Kate’s dangling foot. She stopped crying, but she continued to sit still, hugging her shoulders and ignoring him. “Kate,” he shouted again, sprinting forward, frantically scanning the undergrowth. She stood up, but stubbornly remained in place, hands on hips.