The Never Never Sisters (18 page)

THIS TIME, I
brought the coffee to Percy’s office. He smiled in thanks, appearing genuinely touched,
and as he got up from his desk, I noticed he was again wearing those jeans.

He wasn’t the only guy I’d been attracted to since meeting Dave—it was a common enough
thing for me to see, and appreciate, a cute bartender, a good-looking stranger on
the corner next to me, waiting for the light to change or, once, horrifyingly, an
especially charismatic client. My reaction to those men had been harmless, I now realized.
I’d notice them with a little more intensity; perhaps I’d have a brief moment of self-consciousness
if I thought they noticed me too, and then I’d forget all about it.

Intellectually, I knew the reason my attraction to Percy felt different was the crush
of my current circumstances—it was less about how well his running shirt had outlined
his abs (it had) than how confused I was about things at home. I thought this while
watching his hand grip his coffee cup and wondering how it would feel on my skin.

“Have you heard from your sister lately?” he asked.

“No, not for a while actually.”

“Me neither. I was supposed to see them last night.”

My head felt light. “Is Giovanni . . . Does he . . . Are you worried about something?”

“Giovanni’s never had a substance abuse problem”—he looked right at me—“if that’s
what you’re asking. It’s a little strange, because he’s usually in pretty good touch,
but I’m not worried.”

“Okay.”

“Really. Not worried,” he said.

At the same time I said, “So! Let’s get to work!”

Percy looked both startled and amused. “Alrighty.”

“Full confession: I went into Dave’s office—and to the HR rep’s. On Saturday night.”

He smiled slyly. “That’s what you got from our call? You should break into his firm?”

“I know. But I found stuff.”

“Is this standard for you to buck conventional wisdom? When you hear something is
a bad idea, you interpret that as ���Go for it’?”

“Not at all. I’m usually very obedient.”

“Right.”

“I swear, Sloane will provide verification. I won’t do it again. I trust your expertise,
and I also especially appreciate that Annie isn’t here today.”

“I fired her. When you complained.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Yes, I’m kidding. She has a thing.”

“A fashion thing? Like a show?”

“I don’t really know.”

“What kind of friend are you, Percy?”

“Good enough to provide employment that fits her schedule, but apparently not good
enough to care about the details of her time outside the office. Please. Continue
rationalizing your break-in.”

“I trust your expertise generally, but specifically, I was right to go. I found stuff.”

“Like what?”

I told him about the file folders and gave him the copy of Hedda’s undecipherable
notes, adding that I thought the presence of the Mission Fund files pretty much crossed
everything else off the list.

“Not necessarily,” Percy said.

“Really?”

“Aren’t they one of the largest hedge funds? They probably do a lot of work with lawyers
at big firms.”

“I don’t know. It’s just sort of like . . .”

“A gut hunch?”

“I feel like that’s the phrase of the summer, but yeah. A gut hunch.”

He was about to say something, but his phone rang before he could, and he fumbled
for it in those jeans pockets. “Sorry. It’s Giovanni. Hey,” he said into his phone.
“I’m in the office. With Paige. Really? No, I had a meeting, but it’s fine. Let me—I’ll
call you back in one second.” He muttered, “Sorry,” dialed one number and held the
phone to his ear.

“Is everything okay?”

“Fine. They’re fine.” I could hear the phone ringing endlessly until a voice mail
message picked up. Percy sighed and punched in another number. “Mrs. Fitz?” he shouted.
“Yes, it’s Percy. Percy Stahl, 3B. Yes, can you buzz in my friend and give him the
key? The one on the green chain.” He nodded. “That’s right! The green one. His name
is Giovanni. Yes, Gio-van-ni. Thank you!”

It sounded lovely and neighborly, having a Mrs. Fitz. She probably watched over her
young neighbors’ spare keys with bespectacled blue eyes and knit them afghan cozies.
In return, they—what?—split her firewood? Unlikely, but possible, I supposed, in a
prewar building.

Percy dialed Giovanni back. “Buzz 5C, Fitz. Go up there and ask for my key. It’s the
green one. I’ll meet you there.”

Percy stood up and then stopped, looked behind as if wondering why I was taking so
long to get off the couch. “You coming?”

“Sure.”

I bit back a grin when Percy told the cabdriver to take us to the East Village. Of
course he lived downtown. The model employee, the offbeat job, his styled-to-look-disheveled
hair—he was one of those king-of-the-scene New Yorkers. My tone a tad challenging,
I said, “Why do you run in the park if you live in the East Village?”

“It’s not
that
far from the office,” he said. “Plus, have you seen Central Park? It’s a marvel.”

I snapped into my seat belt. “Can’t argue with that.”

“Thank the lord for small miracles.”

“I really am not the argumentative type, Percy, but the more you claim I am, the more
I think
you
are. Classic projection.”

“It must be nice to be a therapist and have such terms at your fingertips. When you’re
debating something and your argument veers toward the fantastical, as it tends to
do, you can hide that behind terminology.”

“It’s handy. For instance, when someone is using misdirection in such a textbook fashion,
I know to ask something like this.” I cleared my throat and leaned in, in full eye-contact
mode. “Percy, if
your
parents described you, would they perhaps say
you
buck conventional wisdom? That you do the opposite of what’s expected?”

“Wow.” He closed his eyes. “It’s like my father is right here in this cab. Thank you
for that. I feel . . . What’s the technical term for the opposite of affirmed?”

“Maligned?”

“Of course. I feel so maligned.”

“What’s the deal with your dad?”

“He thinks being a private detective is a duck and cover from real life.”

“So, it’s not a family business?”

“Partially. My aunt was a detective and I inherited her shop. It’s all I’ve ever wanted
to do, and he’s only ever been disappointed.”

“If you introduced him to Annie, he might change his mind. He might think you’re an
impressive little rapscallion.”

“I assure you, he wouldn’t.”

“He’s told you that he’s disappointed?”

“No, but I know.”

“How?”

“The sighs when I talk about my clients. The mailed clippings of articles about classmates
who are doing well working for banks and ad agencies and law firms. It’s all very
subtle. Oh, up here on the right.” We got out of the cab, and I followed him into
the lobby of one of the new high-rises that filled an entire city block with its too-clean
red brick and large windows reflecting light blue sky. Percy paused in the lobby before
the unmanned front desk. “Thank you, Lou, for giving my friends the key.”

“Yeah,” I said, pretending to tip my hat. “Thanks a lot, Lou.” I followed him onto
the elevator. “Have you lived here long?”

“About four years,” he said, pressing the button for the fifth floor. “Lou is the
seventh concierge, but there’s a rumor that he moved to Estonia last month.”

The hallways were painted white, and each door was black, for a starkly disorienting
effect. I followed Percy down the hall until we reached a studio apartment tucked
next to the corner. It wasn’t decorated much differently than the hall: nearly empty
except for a queen bed (with gray sheets), a small black architect’s table with one
chair and a small, gray, low couch on which Sloane and Giovanni now sat. There were
no photos or art, except for an ancient-looking map hung in the corner. I knew if
I opened the tall silver Sub-Zero, there’d be chilled water, a bottle or two of something
expensive, but no food.

Who lived like this? It was good, though. It was a wake-up call. I had two solid reasons
why Percy was not to be taken seriously: the jeans (which could, in all fairness,
also be on the other, more dangerous list that I was not about to catalog) and his
home environment. Hipster monochromatic minimalism.

Sloane and Giovanni had launched into a comedic retelling of how difficult it had
been to get the spare key from poor Mrs. Fitz—who turned out to be a guy named Fipps.
That I had misheard his name was also for the best. My Mrs. Fitz did not belong here,
walking through those stark halls in her Christmas sweaters, asking sweetly for a
hot cocoa at the wheatgrass-shot bar on the corner and being perpetually disappointed.

Sloane and Giovanni were utterly, breezily unaware that anyone might have worried
about them, and when they stopped talking, I couldn’t help but say, “You just disappeared.”
Embarrassingly, my voice wavered a little, which of course made everyone turn around.

“Sorry,” Giovanni said. “Christophe came back. And he’s in love. But they fight.”

“Again?” Percy shook his head.

“We had to get out of there last night,” said Sloane. “They were noisy.”

“Who is Christophe?” I said.

“We scrambled a bit and wound up at the Lincoln,” said Giovanni. “It’s very affordable.”

“You should’ve called,” Percy said.

“Who is Christophe?”

“The friend they were staying with,” said Percy. “You really should have called,”
he repeated to Giovanni.

“But you said we shouldn’t bother you on Sunday or Monday, that you had big jobs all
day. And I did call Paige.”

“No, you didn’t,” I said.

“I meant I
texted
you.”

“I never got a text.”

“Yes, on Saturday, when Sloane was supposed to meet you. Her phone fell in the toilet.”
Giovanni started to laugh and then stopped. “It’s not funny. Well, it was kind of
funny. Have you guys ever done that? Apparently it’s quite common, not that you would
know that from how much of a pain in the ass it is to remedy the situation, but anyway.
That’s a whole other story. Luckily, she remembered most of your number, so we tried
a few and—”

“Were
you
the one who texted
cab we taincjek
?”

“I don’t know what that means.” Giovanni smiled helpfully. “But I texted you that
we needed to change our plans.”

“Is this your number?” I pulled out my phone.

He peered close and slapped his forehead with his palm. “I’m so sorry. I meant that
Sloane needed a rain check.”

“Oh.” I looked again.
Can we take a rain check?

Giovanni flashed his teeth in a bashful grin. “Oops?”

Sloane gave him an incredulous look. “What is wrong with your brain?”

“I will say”—I slipped my phone back in my bag—“that as a heads-up it was kind of
lacking.”

Sloane slapped her palm against her forehead. “You work with computers, for crying
out loud.”

“Different skill set,” Giovanni said, and to me, “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“When I said I was busy,” Percy continued, “I meant that I wasn’t free to eat dinner
with you guys, not that you couldn’t crash here in an emergency. The Lincoln? Seriously?”

“It’s very affordable,” Giovanni said.

“You have to relax your standard in New York,” Percy said. “It’s almost impossible
to find a decent room on short notice under one hundred fifty bucks.”

“We found two,” Giovanni said with triumph. “The Staten Island Garden View and the
Lincoln. They’re all the same, you know—four walls, a bed. I refuse to pay—why should
we have to pay—”

“I know,” Percy said, and Sloane added tiredly, “It’s the principle of the thing.”

“Exactly.” Giovanni looked very pleased.

“The Lincoln was still preferable to the sounds of Christophe’s love gone wrong.”

“Screechy,” said Giovanni. “Love gone wrong is a very screechy sound.”

“What’s the Lincoln?” I said.

“It’s near Hell’s Kitchen. Between a hostel and a fleabag motel,” said Sloane. “Way
beneath your grade of luxury. Water bugs. Communal showers. Creepy pale men who sit
in the lobby, drooling and watching the news really loud.”

“The news?” I felt as lost as Mrs. Fitz. Who were these people? Where were the gingersnaps?

“The TV—there’s only one in the place, in the lounge—is up high, like a hospital TV,
without a remote, and set to the news. The residents seem more like the type who’d
prefer porn or greyhound racing.”

“Hence no remote,” Giovanni pointed out.

“You guys are not staying at the Lincoln.” Percy looked around the room, trying to
figure out how it could fit three people. “I have a job tonight and after that I’m
away—”

“I don’t know why you guys don’t go to Mom and Dad’s,” I said. “You’d have your own
wing.”

“No.” You could have sharpened an entire block of knives on Sloane’s voice.

“Then ask them to get you a hotel room somewhere. They’re not tightwads anymore.”