The Idea of Him (21 page)

And then . . . stage left, two swans entered where before there was only one. Jackie Malone slinked in behind the bar so no one could see her with an equally statuesque redhead. It was the first time I'd ever seen her with another woman. A couture-decked twentysomething was one thing. But two of them? Since when do mistresses hang out together? Or maybe this new girl was just a friend in town for the week and Jackie brought her by to show off her power haunt? And yet . . . it was rare to see anyone their age at the Tudor Room.

Jackie's friend was wildly sexual beneath her deceivingly prim outfit. She had straight red hair in a perfect shoulder-length cut, slightly longer in the front. She was wearing a tight, smoky gray linen dress that I guessed was Dolce & Gabbana from the bold silver zipper going down her back.

Jackie stared right at me, clearly wanting to ask me something. She pointed her finger to the seat next to mine, asking if I was expecting Wade.

I shrugged, indicating I had no idea where he was. Then she motioned for me to meet her down the wine hall. Great. Bump into Tommy with Jackie.

She walked past and winked in my direction as she moved toward the ladies' room. I followed her, leaving my cardigan on the banquette so Wade would know I'd arrived.

I walked down a long corridor lined with locked glass doors with small spotlights showcasing wines from every major wine region. Dangerous images of Tommy groping me in closets and elevators, groping me down romantic wine hallways, started to make me feel sick. I began running down the hallway to the ladies' room.

“In here. Hurry!” Jackie whispered.

The upstairs restrooms at the Tudor Room were more like small chic ebony drawing rooms. Every twelve inches, white tulips in crystal vases punctuated a glass shelf that lined the perimeter of the room. A woman, silent, but privy to New York's greatest secrets, obsessively wiped clean every surface and folded and refolded the stiff linen hand towels stitched with a discreet brown T.R. in the corner.

“We need to talk!” Jackie again whispered loudly from one of the toilets. There were no actual stalls at the Tudor Room, but rather four separate little rooms with shiny black lacquer sinks. The attendant busied herself with slightly more frenzied wiping of already pristine counters.

“We can sit out . . .” I offered.

“Nope. In here. I know why Max punched your husband.” She yanked me into her little room and shut the door. “Max was right. And you were right. Wade doesn't know what the hell he's doing, and he
definitely
fucked everything up with the media spin on that Novolon stock. They bet everything on that going up. Wade tried to boost the rumors of Novolon's superior technology by planting some puff piece articles and getting Delsie to sing Novolon's praises on her business stock show. But then the story just didn't hold.”

“He can't control every opinion out there, there must have been naysayers,” I added.

“Yes!” she whispered. “He's not the Wizard of Oz that he thinks he is. He played his hand too big with these guys and Max bet huge on Novolon going up and it didn't. Everything I told you is true. Now that you know everything, please recognize we are in this together. That flash drive will be our best proof of their hiding profits and shifting cash overseas. It has the account numbers of where Max Rowland is stashing the money. We will have no way of knowing if it's Liechtenstein or Switzerland if we don't have banks and account numbers for their shell companies.”

“What the hell do you mean, ‘we'?”

“I mean me.”

“Well, I don't want to get my husband in trouble; we are still a family. But I do want to know all this; how do I know you won't do something to hurt him?”

She grabbed the sides of my arms. “They want Murray and Max. I promise you. Wade is a two-bit player. The flash drive will be the linchpin and you've got to get it to me.”

“Who is
they
?”

“Just trust me. Get me the flash drive.”

29

Please Don't Let This Happen

“So sorry; I got a little caught up.” Wade rushed over to my table. He struggled across to his side of the banquette.

“You're thirty-five minutes late,” I said, wanting him on the defensive. “Do you keep anyone waiting this long as a regular practice? I hope not.”

He ordered his usual Red Zinger iced tea and checked out the room—his eyes fluttering ever so slightly as they passed the bar area with Jackie and her new friend by her side—before he focused on me. And then he focused on himself. “I'm so sorry. I've got to say hello to Maude Pauley.”

Before I knew it, Wade was actually inching out of our booth in order to table-hop and say something oh-so-fascinating to the aging female CEO of a cosmetics behemoth she'd created from a door-to-door business almost fifty years ago. He glad-handed his way past Murray's booth, whispered something, at which they both laughed heartily.

Was it a show for the room or had they recovered from Max's shock and awe? More likely, the former. Now every single person in the restaurant seemed to be acting shady, taking down the country and possibly me in the process.

“Now,” Wade said, scooting back into the booth, holding my hand and lowering his voice. “Allie, I've been short with you, and I apologize for that, but it all has to do with the same thing.” He clasped his hands carefully for full effect.

“It's the financials at
Meter,
Allie,” he said, sighing at my rolling eyes. “We're on the brink of implosion.” He looked around to see if anyone might be within earshot and dropped his voice even lower while smiling his Wade Crawford signature grin. The effect was creepy.

“The financials are far worse than my projections, and I may have gotten myself in a real shit storm at work over this. There are those who want me out, but I won't allow that to happen.”

I matched my smile to his, but nothing about this conversation was making me happy. “What are you going to do? And I need to know what this has to do with Max Rowland.”

“He's part of a longer story. Let me stick with
Meter
.”

“Wade.” I put my hand on his arm. “An angry Texan who may wear a suit but who just got out of prison is a little more important than your magazine, especially an angry Texan who knocks your teeth out. You can always find another job if they fire you.”

“Find another job?
Meter
isn't just a
job,
Allie; it's something I created twenty years ago—it's my entire career. It was nothing before I got my hands on it. But I don't really expect you to ever understand that I'm, in turn, nothing without it.
Nothing
.” He looked genuinely pained by the thought. “I've already taken steps to ensure that we'll survive this lingering advertising recession.”

“What steps?” Finally, there was a glimmer of the old Wade, making plans to keep our family safe. I gave him one last shred of a chance to convince me.

“We had to eviscerate the ad rate base, for starters. I can't even say the figure out loud. Let's just say it's less than a Whopper with Cheese.”

“Oh,” I said, and sat back in the booth with my hands folded in my lap. His “we” was different from
my
“we.”

He squinted at me, as if he was about to tell me that he'd successfully laundered millions of dollars through the Caymans. “I wanted you to hear before the press jumps on it.”

“How thoughtful.” I returned his squint.

“What on God's earth is wrong with you?” He was livid. “We are in
deep shit
. This up-and-down economy has me by the balls. It was supposed to smooth out by now, damnit, but instead it's far worse than I could have projected.” He took a bite of bread and grabbed his left cheek where Max had punched him. Putting a napkin over his mouth, he then mashed his new tooth caps back into place. “Damnit, my smile is forever ruined by that dickhead.” He spoke softer so no one could hear. “And taking
Meter
online only is not an option. I want to touch and feel the print version. Many of our readers still want those glossy photos in their hands.”

“I know how you feel.” I tried to sound sympathetic. “Our donations are also way down for some of the charities we're working with pro bono. No one wants to pay for important films that help people when . . .”

“We're talking about
Meter
here, not your little film projects.”

“My what?”

“Come on, stop being so sensitive.” He used a napkin to dab at his slightly sweaty brow. “What you are missing is that with
Meter
I am talking
millions and millions
of dollars
out the window
for a major company. All under
my
watch. They're going to say I ran this thing into the ground.”

“Is this really the only problem right now? Isn't there much more to the story?”

“Yes, there is,” he answered. “There is more to the story. But I have a plan, and I need you by my side. If I can get
Meter
out from under its corporate ownership and run it independently, I can get past this problem. I may have some outside investors who will buy the thing and let me run it. I just can't let it get out how far under we are.”

He sat back and gave a little wave to someone across the room as my heart sank right into my knees. I wasn't just married to a philanderer; I was married to a gambler. “We have to be a united front. If it gets out how bad things are, we're going to have to do everything we can to contain it. I talked to Max Rowland's CFO and got some ideas about pushing our costs like printing and postal to a later quarter and advancing our ad revenue to dress up our financial picture. It might get us past the investors' smell test.”

“And then what, Wade? You get Max's teams to invest in something absurd and they bust your kneecaps the next time they don't make the money you promised? Or you promise him you can fix things in the media for his benefit?”

He looked at me like he was trying to decipher how globally I was talking and how much I knew. “You mean, then what what? I'll still have complete control over the
Meter
brand.”

“That's not what I mean. What kind of shady business do you have going on with Max? Whatever you are doing with him is worse than
Meter
failing. More dangerous, I mean.”

Wade looked up and grinned as Georges approached. “Today we are offering a beautiful piece of Chilean sea bass in a green tomato coulis with caramelized leeks and baby purple fingerlings drizzled with a miso acai glaze.”

Wade tapped his fingers nervously on the table, waiting for Georges's litany of choices to end while I stared at the small, tight bouquet of white flowers in the silver vase until it got blurry. “We have a lovely roast loin of lamb with mascarpone polenta topped with light strands of frizzled chanterelles and a medley of summer vegetables . . .”

I hated to think just what kind of what stupid idea Wade was about to execute and with whom. I knew he would never admit it to me now, and he'd never even care to explain why Max punched him out. One thing I knew for certain: I no longer could afford to delay my decision making. If he went down, he would certainly take Blake, Lucy, and me with him.

I watched Wade wave to people and check his e-mails on his phone ferociously, oblivious to every thought going on in my head and every feeling pounding in my heart. Life is so hard to wrestle down: we think we're making the best decisions and then a confluence of events takes place and we don't know whether we made the wrong decision or stuff happened out of our control that turned “good” decisions into “bad” ones.

Growing up, from that time on the lake that late summer day, through the plane crash to my twenties, I thought James and I would end up together. How could we not? Through that billowing snow when the rescue workers pulled him out and he gripped my hand on the tarmac later, I never thought on any level we'd let go. And then something just happened. Life flung him overseas just as I wanted to set my feet on the ground. I wanted stability. I wanted kids. I wanted to be with someone who would replace all I'd lost.

When I was twenty-five, I'd thought this man beside me would give me the life that was taken from me, that he would replace my father's electric sparkle that had been so violently extinguished in the crash. James wasn't that person, but he was my best friend and soul mate. How would life have turned out if I'd married my soul mate rather than the New York thrill ride next to me? Probably easier, more settled; I'd have felt more secure, more loved, sure of myself. If that's what I wanted and needed, why did I push that away and replace it with this Wade who was such a struggle to pin down?

Looking at Wade now, trying to sharpen my understanding of him, trying to remember how fun he was, how good with the kids—trying desperately to salvage those feelings I had and to justify the life path I chose—I couldn't help but remain in shock he wasn't looking at me just now.
He didn't get it.
Was that electric sparkle ever once in our marriage focused on
me
the way I needed?

Or was he another New York media type in this room: a man fueled by a toxic combination of self-aggrandizement and self-loathing?

“So, Madame Crawford, let's start with you,” Georges said, ever the loyal servant, while bossing his patrons around. “You'll break my heart if you don't try the sea bass.”

“As you wish.” I couldn't bear an argument.

“Excellent choice. And you, Mr. Crawford?”

My eyes wandered around the room while Wade teased Georges about his ridiculously high margins. “Don't rob me with your usual prices because I want a baked potato with onions and broccoli on top. Enough of your fancy-ass food. I'm not in the mood today.”

Georges said, “We'll give you our version of onions and melted cheese: caramelized shallots with some mascarpone. I've got an idea for that mascarpone. I'm going to serve you the best glass of wine we have open. Free. That should harm my margins more than a measly potato! I'll fetch Mr. O'Malley, the real wine expert around here. He's always got great ideas of pairings that . . .”

“That's okay,” I said, clutching Georges's arm. “We don't need wine. Just an iced tea for me, please.”

“Allie, don't be rude,” Wade scolded. “Thank you, Georges, we would love to talk to him.”

“Very well, Mr. Crawford,” Georges said as he moved my hand from his arm and strode off to the next table. I started the Lamaze breathing that I'd learned, but never used, during childbirth. It didn't work this time either.

Wade smiled at me and said through his gritted teeth, “Look, as I was saying, when we get through this period and I'm firmly in charge of
Meter,
it's very important we appear united. Once the magazine is on a steady path, I want to really talk about us, and how we find a way forward—even if that means, well . . .”

“I'm not sure I do know, Wade.” I wondered if he'd say the word
split,
but at that moment I spied Tommy halfway across the room, which seemed like a far larger problem just then.

My entire torso became as damp as my palms already were. I decided to quickly scoot out to the ladies' room before Tommy could reach our table. In doing so, I jerked the table and knocked my water glass onto the banquette. With no other recourse but to hide in plain sight, I let my hair fall over my face as I pretended to wipe up the liquid beading up on the velvet bench with my napkin, prompting Tommy to come to my aide.

This was not happening,
I told myself.

“Allie, for God's sake. Let Tommy handle the mess; it's only water.”

Wade knew his name? What kind of crazy three-way did we have going on here?

I persisted in my charade, pulling all my hair over the top of my head on the left side to obstruct my face. There are a lot of Allies in the world. Leaning lower, my head was now in a position that looked like I was delivering oral sex.

“May I take that from you?” Tommy asked, reaching his hand into the space between Wade and me. I surrendered, shook my head, and looked him straight in the eye.

Tommy narrowed his eyes at me in an obvious and deliberate fashion, but he didn't flinch. I couldn't tell if he was embarrassed to be helping me and putting on a brave, tough face, or so surprised he didn't know how to feel.

“May I recommend a wine,
Madame,
” he said, leveling his gaze right on me.

“I, um, don't think I drink in the middle of the day,” was all I could muster.

“Well, then, Mr. Crawford, would you care for a glass of red or white? I believe Georges wanted . . .”

“Tom,” Wade answered. “I'll have what we had when we brought the Estée Lauder people here last week, the one, you remember, with the light, I think you said, cranberry and licorice mélange of some kind?”

“The 1996 Domaine Armand Rousseau Chambertin?”

“Yes, just the thing. And just one glass; my wife will stick with her iced tea. Thanks.”

“Your wife?” Now Tommy turned slightly ashen, his tough-guy veneer crumbling. “I, uh, hadn't . . .”

“Ah, I guess you never met her. Allie Crawford, Tommy O'Malley.”

“Allie
Crawford.
Never met
your wife
before.”

“I'm Allie Braden,” I offered, like a token of peace. “I, uh, use Braden professionally, I uh . . .”

“Since when?” asked Wade, looking at me like I'd lost my mind.

“I do,” I shot back.

“Not at your job you don't. What other profession do you have?”

“I mean, sometimes when I meet . . .” My voice just trailed off.

“So, Domaine Armand. Very well, sir.” Tommy turned neatly on his heel and strode away from the table, trying hard to act unfazed. I was highly fazed.