The Scenic Route (20 page)

“W
hat are you doing here?” Steffi shouted, trying to be heard over the booming beat of the boffo drummer in the aptly named Boom Boom Room.

“What?” Austin responded, leaning in closer, which was hard to do given how close they were already standing in the crowded nightclub.

“What are you doing in New York?” she shouted in his ear.

“It turns out I'm not a very good employee,” he said.

“What?”

“I'm looking for a job!” It wasn't really the kind of thing he wanted to scream out in public. Though it was doubtful anyone could hear him. It also wasn't the real reason he was there.

“Is Naomi around?” he asked.

“What?”

“Have you seen Naomi!”

Steffi grabbed him by the arm and led him down a dark, congested hallway, where the sound of the live band was replaced with hip-hop music thumping from overhead speakers. They continued up a flight of stairs and through a fire door, emerging on an Astroturf
deck with circular Day-Glo–colored waterbeds. A red one made him think of Mandy's hair.

“How did you hear about the launch party?” Steffi asked. It was chilly outside in the spring night air, but it was a lot easier to be heard.

“Stu invited me,” Austin said a little too quickly. He added, “When he heard I was going to be in the city.”

“Of course,” Steffi said. “My happiest investor. Is he here?”

“I haven't seen him,” Austin said, looking out over the Hudson River from their nineteen-story perch. “I think he's in San Jose.”

“Good,” she said. Her glossy lips spread into a thin smile. “A continent between us works best.”

“Have you seen Naomi?” he asked again.

“She's somewhere around. You know I got the idea for the name of Splurge.com from Stu.”

“He didn't tell me.”

“He doesn't know,” she said, draining her pink drink. “Or maybe he does. Maybe he figured it out. He used to always complain about me ‘splurging' on things. It was a constant ‘thing' between us. He'd say, ‘Don't you think that dress is a bit of a “splurge”?' ‘Do you really need to “splurge” on another pair of shoes?' And that's how I came up with the name.”

“I like the name.” Austin looked around the dimly lit terrace to see if he spied Naomi. It was hard to see faces. A lot of shadowy figures intertwined. “And Stu likes the name. He's really proud of you, Steffi. He keeps saying how proud he is of what you've accomplished with this thing and how proud he is to be part of it.”

“Well,” she said, “he at least got something out of the marriage.” There was a grimness in the way she said it. She had changed since the last time Austin had seen her. She was less bubbly. Less curvy too. She seemed to have been hitting the gym, given the flattering way
her black cocktail dress clung to her. She looked good, but there was something hard about her and the way her upswept dark hair was shellacked in place.

“You were the only one who guessed right about Stu and me,” she said. “Or the only one honest enough to say something.”

“What do you mean?”

“You told Stu not to marry me.”

“I didn't say that.”

“You used nicer words. But he told me at the time what you said. That we weren't ready and that we were rushing into things. Now I wonder if that was his way of saying he thought you were right. Could have saved ourselves a lot of aggravation if we had listened to you.”

“You loved each other.”

“Did we?” she asked. She looked across the Hudson, but her gaze wasn't focused on the Jersey skyline. “Before I divorced Stu, I went to a therapist, and when I told him about our relationship, he said that he suspected Stu and I filled a void in each other's lives. But the truth was we created a void in each other's lives. I never went back to that therapist.”

“You're sounding very cynical.”

“Not cynical,” she said, rotating the ice cubes in her glass. “Honest.”

“I was there. I remember you guys being in love.”

“Oh sure, at the start we thought we were destined for each other. Everything seemed so perfect. We knew each other since we were kids. Even our names fit together. When I saw him on Match.com, I thought I'd hit the jackpot. We both did. But I think deeper down I was a thirty-year-old woman afraid that almost all my friends were married and having children and I was being left behind. And I think he was afraid of the same thing. Maybe not the children part. Because, let's face it: Stu
is
a child. But maybe that was part of it too.
Maybe he wanted to prove that he wasn't a child. That he could be a man. Or at least wear a tuxedo for one night like one. It was a great wedding, though, wasn't it?”

Austin pictured Naomi lying in the Crystal Cove hotel bed with a breeze coming in off the bluff. “It was.”

“Naomi told me that you hooked up that night,” Steffi said, coming closer to him, and it wasn't so he could hear her. She was standing so close he could smell the rum on her breath. “She said you were very good.”

“Thank you,” he said, for lack of anything better. “I mean, that was nice of her to say.”

“Was it?”

“Excuse me?”

She put a hand lightly on his arm. “Was it nice of her to say? Or was it simply the truth?”

The next thing Austin knew Steffi's mouth was on his, her lubricated lips open and thirsty.

“Steffi—,” he gurgled.

He wasn't able to make much sound because her mouth was like a suction cup. It was as if she were trying to inhale his face. And her hands were moving toward his belt buckle.

He finally succeeded in pulling away. “Steffi, I think you're a little drunk.

“No, I'm not,” she said. “I'm a lot drunk.” Her mouth was coming in for another Austin-flavored big gulp. He leaned sideways, and her chin smashed into his shoulder.

“Ow!” she said, rubbing her jaw.

“I'm sorry,” he said, wanting to extricate himself as quickly as possible. “So sorry. But I've gotta pee.”

He ran back down the stairs. Once he reached the crowded
corridor below, he realized he really did need to pee. He headed down more dark, crowded corridors through a sweet-smelling mist coming from hidden fog machines, until he found the über-modern men's room, where a row of slick black-tile-and-chrome urinals lined a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows.

“It's a little like pissing on New York, isn't it?” said a guy standing at the neighboring urinal. Austin wasn't in the habit of starting conversations in lavatories, but he had to admit it was a unique sensation relieving himself while looking out a picture window high above Manhattan.

“What do you think of the party?” the guy asked when they stood alongside each other again at the sink. Austin noticed he spoke with an accent, something Mediterranean sounding.

“It's great,” Austin said.

“Looks like you are enjoying yourself,” the guy said, observing the large saliva stain on Austin's lapel as well as Austin's effort to remove Steffi's lipstick from the edges of his mouth.

“Are you involved with the Web site?” Austin asked.

“I own the Web site, or sixty percent of it,” the guy said as he mussed with his thick black hair. “But I'm getting a lot more than that out of it.”

“How so?” Austin asked, rubbing at his facial skin but still seeing a bloodred ring around his lips. Or maybe it was just that his skin was now red from the rubbing.

“Let's just say there are business mergers, and there are other kinds of mergers.”

Austin wasn't sure he liked the sound of that.

“And when you find someone you want both with, you're a lucky man, am I right?”

“You are right,” Austin said. “So you and Steffi are an item?” he asked, crossing his fingers the answer was yes.

“Steffi?” the guy laughed. “No, not Steffi. Naomi. You know her?”

“I do,” Austin said, thinking his skin was now looking green.

“Then you know I am a very lucky man.”

“I do.”

Naomi was standing beside a sleek ebony bar, but her mind was elsewhere. Her mind was on a text she'd received from Austin more than an hour ago. It said he had a surprise for her. She had included him on the Evite list, half hoping, half fearing he'd respond.

“Naomi, the party is quite fabulous,” said Godwin, with Noah at his side. “And you know how much I avoid using that word.”

“Well, you know who gets the credit,” Naomi said.

“And I love taking credit,” Noah said.

“I thought you just loved spending on credit,” Godwin said, wiping a stray crumb from Noah's fashionably plaid lapel.

“Only other people's credit,” Noah said. “And speaking of taking other people's credit, where's Mom? Please tell me you didn't throw her from the roof deck. I get nervous seeing the two of you around sheer drops or sharp objects.”

“She's perfectly safe,” Naomi said. “Which of course means no one else is. Dov invited Barbara Corcoran from the show
Shark Tank
, and Mom is stalking her.”

Godwin shook his head, a frown creasing his handsome dark features. “Has it occurred to either of you that your mother is actually a rather nice woman?”

“No,” Naomi and Noah answered simultaneously, then looked at each other and cracked up.

“You're both incorrigible,” Godwin said, walking toward a waiter carrying a tray of rumaki.

“Did Mom tell you that she's going back to California to visit Dad?” Noah asked.

“No,” Naomi said, not interested in focusing at that moment on her mother's midlife crisis. She was more concerned that Austin might be at the party, and she was wondering if she should enlist Noah's help in finding him. But that would require explaining to Noah her relationship with Austin, which she wasn't sure she wanted to do. Nor was she sure that she could.

“Mom made a plane reservation for Labor Day weekend, and the only reason I know is she asked me if I had any gift suggestions. She wants to bring Dad something from New York.”

Okay, Naomi had to admit that did sound like a step in the right direction.

“I think she's lonely,” Noah said. “The problem with the whole second childhood thing is there's not a lot of other kids on the playground.”

Naomi hadn't really thought about that. Perhaps she gave her mother too hard a time, but she found the notion doubtful.

She saw Dov approaching and had the same mixed feeling of attraction and dread that she always felt when she was near him. She had thought it was mostly due to having been burned in the past when she moved too fast, but after Austin's text she knew that wasn't the real reason.

“Noah, do you remember Austin Gittleman from when we were kids?”

“Austin Gittleman? Was he the one whose dad died in a surfing accident?”

“Yes.” Naomi wasn't even sure what she was asking. How would Noah recognize Austin? She needed a different plan. “Have you seen Steffi?” Steffi was the only person who could help her.

“Is she with Austin Gittleman?” Noah sounded confused.

“No. Forget Austin. Have you seen Steffi?”

“Earlier.”

“How's the most beautiful woman in the room?” Dov asked, sliding an arm around her waist.

She slipped out of his embrace. “Why do you keep telling people that we're a couple?”

“Because if you hear it from enough people, then you'll eventually believe it.” He kissed her on the cheek.

“I don't get a kiss?” Noah said.

Dov clasped his hands around Noah's shoulders and kissed him on each cheek.

“Is that Acqua di Gio?” Noah asked, sniffing at Dov.

“Yeah.”

“Very White Party 2008.”

“I've been wearing this stuff since high school,” Dov said.

“Exactly,” Noah replied.

Naomi was barely following their conversation. She was keeping her eyes peeled for Steffi or Austin while trying not to look too distracted. It was kind of like playing Twister with only her head and shoulders.

“Would you like another drink?” Dov asked her.

“I'm fine.”

“You seem tense.”

“Aren't you?”

“Hell no,” he said. “I'm having a ball.”

It occurred to Naomi that if Austin really was there, she didn't want him meeting Dov. And vice versa. She tried to configure in her mind a way to avoid that happening.

“Noah.” She turned to her brother, who was sipping a pomegranate martini and watching eye candy on the dance floor. “Let's go find Mom.”

Noah looked at her like she had suffered a psychotic break. “Why?”

Naomi glared at him. “Dov, do you want to come with us?” she said, knowing full well he had a very low tolerance for her mother.

“Sorry, honey, I gotta check on the, um, thing with the club manager.”