With Friends Like These: A Novel (18 page)

This was the worst, asking for favors. “We have Jake’s boss and my editor.”

“What about someone in the building? Those are gold.”

I shook my head. The only insider we knew was Arthur.

“That Hollywood hotshot whose book you’re writing?”

“Maizie is twenty. I doubt any of the board members play her music on their nonexistent iPods.”

“Their children would know her. These people have powerful kids.”

“Okay, I’m on it.” Let Maizie find out I had a life beyond transforming her breakups, cosmetic meltdowns, and white-girl ghetto talk into compelling prose.

“Your minister or doctor?”

I hadn’t been in a church for years, not even for my wedding, which took place on a Wisconsin beach. My internist wouldn’t know me from the fake ficus in her waiting room. “I’ll ask my ob-gyn.” With my nonstop pregnancies, miscarriages, and exploratory tests, I had Dr. Frumkes on speed dial.

“We also need one or two from friends.” Horton didn’t mean any random pal who could catch a dangling participle and knew her way around a thesaurus. “Do you have a buddy or two who heads up a foundation or a nonprofit? Chairs a department at Columbia or NYU? How about a pal who works at a major lending institution or consulting firm?” he suggested. “If the name isn’t recognizable, at least the letterhead should be.”

Jake’s college roommate had been a high roller at an investment bank. Sadly, due to a Wall Street tsunami, he now managed a Tuscaloosa Taco Bell. But I had another idea. “I’ll get on that,” I said as the waiter delivered the tab, which Horton grabbed.

“Mine,” he said gallantly as his BlackBerry beeped. “It’s Fran,” he stage-whispered.

I thanked him and left the restaurant. I started to call Chloe at the office—it was her first week back—but when her line rang, I clicked off. I needed to consider how to frame the request. As I walked up Broadway, everywhere I turned I was taunted either by babies or by stores selling their parents must-have infant Shakespeare tapes, Diaper Genies, and three-inch-long Converse All-Stars.

While I ruminated on what to say to Chloe, she called back. “What’s going on, Quince?” The phone line crackled with curiosity.

We’d spoken only yesterday, parsing Maine at its most benign while failing to mention that Jules and I had successfully avoided ever being alone together. Nor did we speak of the tension that prickled among us like poison ivy none of us dared to scratch—or remark on how of all the
vacations the four of us had taken, this was the only one that had terminated early amid sudden eruptions of “deadline,” “babysitter hassles,” “stomach flu,” and “audition.”

In yesterday’s conversation, Chloe had kept returning to Jules and me. Obviously, when I wasn’t around, Talia had explained the apartment situation. Chloe had fished zealously for information. I refused to take the bait, worried that her loyalty would be with Jules. Among the four of us, she and Jules were the most unlikely friends, but I knew Chloe adored Jules, and saw in her a splashy, street-smart older sister through whom she could live vicariously, without fear of being blackballed from the Junior League.

“Actually, I was wondering if you could do me a favor, please,” I finally said.

“All you have to do is ask.” Chloe was chipper. I wasn’t in the mood for chipper.

“I need a letter of reference.”

“For what?”

“The co-op board.”

“That’s a pain, isn’t it, getting together the paperwork? It’s one reason Xander and I decided to buy a brownstone.”

Does Chloe realize how she comes off to those among us who can’t drop megamillions on a four-story city house? “You’re right. It’s a pain. Now we need a few additional letters.”

“Of course I’ll write one.”

This was even more awkward than I’d anticipated. “Actually, I was hoping Xander would write it—that is, if he has the time.” I hemmed and hawed. “I’m only following my broker’s directions, but … do you think Xander could give us a short—it can be very brief—vote of confidence?” I paused. “On business stationery?”

Why hadn’t I waited and let Jake make this request? He and Xander got along well enough, while whenever Xander and I were left alone, I felt unglued, afraid he was going to hit on me as he had a few New Year’s Eves ago. He’d followed me into the kitchen and pressed his body against
my back while I reached into my refrigerator. “You’re hot, Quincy,” he’d breathed into my ear. “There’s something between us. Can’t you feel it?”

In the most literal sense I could—and hadn’t been able to escape before Chloe had walked in and seen body language that was its own porn movie. We never discussed the incident, neither Xander and I nor Chloe and I. And it never happened again. I hope Xander was too drunk to even remember the incident, but it’s there, soiling my permanent record.

Silence hung between the Upper West Side and Brooklyn Heights. “I’ll ask Xander,” Chloe said eventually.

Her voice had no discernible affect, while mine went straight to stilted. “Jake and I would be extremely grateful.” I wanted to get off the phone, but Chloe kept going. “Talia told me about the Jules and Arthur apartment mess,” she said.

“Oh?”

“I’m sure Jules didn’t mean to hurt you.” She’d upgraded to earnest.

Can you prove that?
“Jules had no business blabbing to Arthur. Let her boyfriend find his own apartment.”

“But he lives in that building.”

“So what? And if Jules didn’t mean to hurt me, why doesn’t she apologize?”

“She has a hard time admitting she’s wrong. But she means well.”

“Why are you defending her?” My real question:
Why are you taking her side?

“I’m not defending. I’m explaining.”

“Jules is a big girl. She should explain herself.”

“Can’t we all just get along?” Chloe sounded exasperated, close to whiny.

“What are we, four?” If we’d been in the same room, my phone would have landed on her empty blond head. “I can’t talk about this now. I have to get home and prep for an important appointment. Goodbye.” And goodbye reference letter.

The preparation I spoke of was nothing more than changing clothes. If I didn’t look like a creature from the black lagoon, crazy Maizie wouldn’t take me seriously as a New York writer. I got home and exchanged
my sneakers, baggy khakis, and pale blue sweater for a black shirt that I tucked into narrow black jeans. They hung even lower on my hips than the last time I’d worn them. I dabbed on two minutes of makeup, grabbed my leather jacket, switched to witch boots, and hobbled to the street.

The Four Seasons is the only place Maizie May will stay in Manhattan, not that you’d find her nibbling on their lemon-ricotta pancakes in the café or that she’d know the hotel’s architect, I. M. Pei, from a bale of hay. I paused in the lobby and paid homage to its marble splendor. A minute later, one of Maizie’s security guards stood in front of me like a tank and escorted me by private elevator to her customary nine-room suite, the whole top floor of the hotel.

I’d been here before. My eyes no longer bugged out when faced with the mother-of-pearl-encrusted walls or the floor-to-ceiling bay windows blessing the city. Maizie—née Mary Margaret—was seated at the grand piano. “Quincy! Jesus, you got no ass. How’d ya do it? I could lose a few. Juice fast, right?”

“The stress diet,” I said.

She picked out the melody of her latest ballad as she asked, “What do you have to be stressed about?” It was, fortunately, a rhetorical question, followed by “Sure ya don’t want nothin’? There’s plenty left.” Spread across a table were the remains of the hotel’s Japanese breakfast menu—toasted seaweed, pickled vegetables, a pot of green tea, and a full glass of milk, most likely lukewarm, organic, and soy.

“I’m good. Thanks.”

“Then let’s rock,” she said as there was a knock at the door. Another security guard let in a uniformed woman carrying a large satchel. “Angel! You got here, honey. Set up over there.” Maizie pointed to the dining room, then turned to me. “Angel’s gonna do my mani-pedi while you and me talk. You ready?”

I pulled out my tape recorder and tested it. “Maizie May, September sixteenth.”

“Where were we?” Maizie asked as she plunged her feet into a tub of
gardenia-scented water that had, like an offering, appeared before her. “Ah. I was talkin’ ’bout my adorable mother, that porker.” Our last session had been three weeks ago, yet she resumed practically midsentence. I pressed on and let Maizie and my tape recorder roll, interrupting only to ask the occasional question. Angel produced a fresh bottle of Paparazzi Pink and started buffing and pumicing. Precisely forty-five minutes later, one of the guards tapped his watch and Maizie began to wind down. “So I said to the bitch, ‘Fuck yourself, slut,’ cut her off, and moved to my own place in Laurel Canyon.”

“How old were you?”

“Seventeen,” Maizie said. She stood, turned her back to me, and walked—careful not to smudge her toes—to the balcony twenty feet away.

“How old was your mother?”

“Who cares?” She shrugged, looked out of the window, and shouted, “Come over here.” I did. “What’s that?” Maizie pointed to the hazy blob of blue due north in Central Park.

“The reservoir.” Only yesterday I’d run there, admiring my future apartment from the Fifth Avenue side of the water. The time seemed right. “Maizie, I was wondering if you could please do me a favor. My husband and I are hoping to buy a co-op. You can see it.” I pointed to a castlelike building. She squinted her heavily mascaraed eyes. In the distance, it was one-eighth of the size of a Lego block. I felt my face getting warm. “We need reference letters. I was wondering if you’d have the time to write one.”

Maizie looked at me as if I’d asked her to spot me fifty thousand dollars. “Even if I did have time, which I fuckin’ don’t, ya know I can’t write. That’s what you’re for.”

“It can be short, to the point.” I was begging. I was shameless. I was sweaty.

“Write it yourself,” she said. After a dramatic pause, her exquisite heart-shaped face broke into a smile. “Idiot. Of course I’ll help you. I love
ya, girlfriend. You know that. E-mail your goddamn dream letter and we’ll fax it back.” She walked out of the room.

For the last two years I have met regularly with Quincy Blue
, I began composing in my head when I got into the taxi.
During that time I have been consistently impressed by her intelligence, high professional standards, impeccable integrity, and, above all, inexhaustible ability to tolerate my midnight phone calls and endless, narcissistic rants
.

  
Talia

When I arrived at work this morning, I found a note from Chloe.
June Rittenhouse
, it said. No number. No date. No details. Almost a scrawl. When Chloe and I had spoken the night before, she’d given me messages, but hadn’t mentioned a call from the headhunter.

The bagel I’d eaten turned to acid. What did Chloe know and when did she know it? Nothing, I prayed, not that I deserved to have God listen. My guilt was fueled by a round-the-clock backup generator. It would serve me right if June Rittenhouse had called to say the Tribeca job was filled or that the elaborate spiral-bound pitch I’d turned in—thank you, spontaneously regenerated right-side brain cells—hadn’t made it to the final round.

I dialed June’s number. I’d gotten in early and at this hour expected to simply leave a message. While hoping for its return, I’d have ample time to flagellate myself. But the next thing I heard was “June Rittenhouse.” No slacker, June was answering her own phone at eight twenty-five.

“Good morning. It’s Talia Fisher-Wells,” I said. My throat felt like a pipe gasping for Drano. I cleared it, twice. “Excuse me, but did you call?”
Did you call
finally? Mean Maxine hissed. For the past two weeks I’d phoned June every third day, with no response.

“I did,” she said, crisply authoritative. “I’ve been waiting since yesterday morning to hear from you. You’re one of the finalists whom the clients want to meet.”

“Excellent,” I said, relieved that the nights and weekends I’d put into my pitch had resulted in more than Tom’s grousing. “Thanks. What’s the next step?”