Blind Submission (23 page)

The door swung open and Lucy appeared inside it, her lightning-colored hair fanned out around her face, her arms spread wide as if to hug us both. She was wearing a black dress that was frighteningly similar to mine, although hers was no doubt a Donna Karan or Dolce & Gabbana or something like that (I'd made a few pricey boutique phone calls for her, too) and mine was a designer-less fourteen-hour special from Robinson's (which was about as fancy as I got). Lucy was taller than I was and therefore her dress was even shorter on her, showing a truly horrifying amount of pale, albeit firm, naked thigh. I hoped she wasn't planning to bend over at any point in the evening because I didn't think I'd be able to stomach a glimpse of whatever she'd thrown on for underwear. The scoop of her neck was slightly lower than mine as well, exposing the tops of those full-moon breasts I'd had the displeasure of glimpsing that morning in the office. Her shoes were just as startling—high satin heels ending with straps that laced all the way up her calves. She'd finished the ensemble off with a few pieces of silver jewelry similar to ones I had in my own jewelry box. It was disconcerting to see them on Lucy because—and I felt terribly ageist even thinking this way—they just looked too young for her. So, despite the fine quality of her jewelry and clothing, and despite the intensity of her looks, her getup had a mutton-dressed-as-lamb feel to it, as if she were intentionally dressing up as a much younger woman.

“Welcome!” she exclaimed, and to my horror, smothered me in a Chanel-soaked embrace. “And this must be the boyfriend! Malcolm, is it?” Lucy released me and turned her attention to Malcolm, whose face had turned the deep reddish-brown color of barbecued meat.

“It's wonderful to meet you. In person,” he said, and thrust the roses out in front of him. “Thanks so much for inviting me tonight. It's really a pleasure. We brought—These are for you. For your house.”

I'd never seen or heard Malcolm be so awkward. Lucy fixed him with an expressionless gaze, as if waiting to see just how deep a hole he could dig himself into. I would have felt sorry for him had I not been so irritated by his transformation into a stuttering marionette.

“Lovely,” Lucy said as Malcolm trailed off. “Let's see if Anna can find some water for them. Follow me, will you?”

Anna?
So she'd been invited after all. I wondered why I hadn't seen her car in the driveway and then realized that she must have parked in the back. Which still left the presence of the Honda unexplained.

“Angel, I don't believe you've seen my house before, have you?”

As Malcolm and I fell into step behind Lucy, I tried to catch his eye without being obvious about it, but he was marching ahead, a glazed look on his face. Lucy's house was huge, even more spacious than it appeared from the outside, and looked very much like an extension of her office space. We went from the foyer to the living room, which had light wood floors covered with an assortment of white rugs, and was furnished with chrome-and-glass tables and a blizzard of white furniture. In all this whiteness, there was not a single visible book.

“I don't think we need to go up there, do we?” Lucy said, waving her hand when we reached the free-standing spiral staircase in the center of the house.

“It's a beautiful staircase,” Malcolm said reverently.

“I like to think of it as inspirational,” Lucy said. “Shall we move on?” As she turned to continue her brisk tour, I was reminded of
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
I half-expected a team of Oompa-Loompas to march in and start singing a ditty about her inspirational staircase.

She took a left turn through an arched doorway and led us into a vast open kitchen, beyond which was a simple, sunlit dining area. Anna was standing in the kitchen, bent over a platter of what looked like cold cuts. A few feet past her, rising from a white-upholstered dining-room chair, was Damiano Vero.

“Damiano!” Lucy said brightly. “Your Angel has arrived!”

As my eyes scanned the varying levels of discomfort on every face but Lucy's, I knew one thing was certain: From this point until the day I died, I'd remember this as my life's most uncomfortable moment.

Lucy broke the silence, but not the tension, with her next gambit. “Anna,” she said, “can you relieve Angel's man here of his roses and put them in some water please?” It was then I realized that Anna was not at Lucy's house in the capacity of guest. I saw now that she was wearing a white shirt, black pants, and an apron tied around her waist. As unfathomable as I found it, she was to be our server.

“Sure,” Anna said, her voice a small, strangled thing in her throat. “Hi, Angel.”

“Hi, Anna.”

“I'm Malcolm,” he said, handing her the roses.

“So you are,” Lucy chimed in. “Damiano, meet Angel's
fiancé.
” Damiano looked both shocked and stricken at Lucy's announcement. I watched with helpless dismay as he struggled to regain his composure while Lucy forged ahead. “Malcolm, this is Damiano Vero, author of what is going to be a
major
book. But I'm sure Angel's told you all about him, hasn't she? They've spent so much time working together.”

“Not really,” Malcolm said, finally finding his voice. He shook Damiano's hand with quite a bit of force. “Angel keeps her work pretty well under wraps, actually. But congratulations, you must be very excited. I'm also a writer.” He stole a nervous glance at Lucy. “It can be a rough road to travel.”

“Piacere,”
Dami said. “I only just started with the writing. I owe Angel so much. She saw something in those pages to give to Luciana. They made a miracle together.”

I could feel the heat of Malcolm's stare at my back as I leaned in to receive Dami's double-cheek kisses. “It is so nice to see you again, Angel,” he said softly. He was the only person in the room who wasn't dressed in black. He'd opted instead for a light blue linen shirt over khaki pants. Rather than looking too casual, his quietly understated clothes made the rest of us look wildly overdressed. As his lips brushed my face, I could smell the same intoxicating citrus-sweet scent he'd worn when he came to the office. He backed away, fixing me with those purple-brown eyes of his. It was only the second time I'd seen him in person, but the visceral connection between the two of us was strong. All the time I'd spent talking to him on the phone and reading him, absorbing his words, his feelings, his thoughts, and his experiences made me feel as if I'd fallen right into his head. It was a strange familiarity—like déjà vu.

“Hardly a miracle,” Lucy was saying. “It practically sold itself, didn't it, Angel?”

Lucy was on a fishing trip and she'd trained me very well. I bit down on the lure. “Oh no, that was all you, Lucy. That auction was brilliant,” I said.

“I'll bet,” Malcolm said. “Maybe one day I'll be as fortunate.”

“Maybe you will, indeed,” Lucy said, raking Malcolm with her eyes. She put her hands on her hips and assessed him as if he were livestock, one corner of her mouth turning up in a half-smile. For a moment she looked…
carnivorous
was the only word to describe it.

“Would anyone care for a drink?” Anna had appeared in the midst of our throng, holding a tray of cocktails no less.

“I thought martinis would be in order for this evening,” Lucy said. “Please, help yourselves.”

“Thanks,” I said, and grabbed one from Anna's tray. As I did, I raised my eyebrows as if to ask her what the hell she was doing, but I got only a flat stare in response. I took a long sip from my martini and nearly choked on it. It was too strong and I hated gin, but I held my breath and swallowed more.

“I'll have one,” Malcolm said, and took a glass from Anna's tray. I shot him a meaningful look, but he ignored me. Anna moved on to Dami, who said, “No,
grazie.
If you have a little mineral water?”

“Well, of course,” Lucy said. “I forgot that you're in recovery. Although it's not like martinis and heroin really have much in common, do they, Damiano? Surely you can allow yourself a little now and then?” She plucked the olive out of her own glass and deposited it in her mouth. “Really, it's practically food.”

“È vero,”
Dami said, laughing. I marveled at his graciousness and his ability to retain his sense of humor around Lucy. It was truly a talent. “That's not the reason,” he went on. “I don't like the juniper taste of the gin. The other…It has been a very long time. It's all in the past now.”

“Hmm,” Lucy mused. “Well, that's not particularly sexy, is it, Damiano? When this book hits, and it will hit big, I assure you, you may have to sex up that whole heroin thing.” She turned away from Dami and focused her laser stare on Malcolm. “There are so many facets to an author's work,” she said. “Don't you agree?”

“I'm sure,” Malcolm said. “I'm looking forward to experiencing some of those.” He gave her a dazzling smile. I hadn't seen such a big smile from him in quite some time, which explained why I hadn't noticed until now that he'd recently whitened his teeth.

“Yes,” Lucy said. “You've got some looks, Mal. It's a pity you're only a waiter. If we could find you some kind of platform…take advantage of that face…”

“Thank you,” Malcolm said. “I really appreciate that.”

Appreciated
what
? Why was he thanking her? For that matter, why was he still staring at her with that shit-eating grin on his face? I finished my drink in one long swallow and reached for another. The alcohol was having no effect that I could sense and my nerves were winding tighter and tighter. I caught Dami's eyes over the rim of my glass. He gave me a knowing look full of humor and empathy, as if we were coconspirators—the only people in the room who got the joke.

“We should eat,” Lucy announced. She gestured to Anna, who was standing behind a long marble island in the kitchen. “Anna will man—or should I say
woman
”—she laughed at her own joke—“the buffet table. Help yourselves, everyone. Malcolm, I see that your glass is empty. How are you on bartending?”

Lucy led Malcolm back into the living room, which was apparently where the bar was located, and I made my way over to Anna's buffet station, Dami following close behind me. Laid out for us, on a variety of white platters, was every kind of meat I'd ever seen and some I hadn't. Folds of ham, turkey, roast beef, and pastrami sat alongside a plate of veal cutlets and chicken wings. There was a ring of crackers decorating a mound of pâté, but no bread and not a vegetable in sight, unless you counted the parsley garnishes. It was either some kind of crazed Atkins fantasy or the embodiment of a vegetarian's worst nightmare.

“Would you like some meat?” Anna asked me.

“Anna, what are you doing here?” I whispered.

“You think you're the only one who can come to her house?” Anna whispered back, piling flesh onto my plate. “There's not as big a difference between me and you as you think, you know. We're both working.”

“What do you mean?” I stole a glance at Dami, who stood a polite distance away, allowing me to have a semi-private conversation with Anna.

“At least I'm getting
paid
to do this,” Anna huffed.

“What do you mean?”

“You know,” she hissed, “you ought to be a little nicer to her. You've got some attitude going.”

“Anna, wha—”

“Here you go. I made the chicken, by the way. You should try it.”

“I'll have some chicken,” Dami said, appearing beside me. I watched as Anna fumbled a few wings onto his plate. “This is a very interesting dinner,” he said, and looked at me, barely contained laughter straining at the corners of his mouth. I stared at him and found myself having one of those out-of-body experiences. For one moment, everything around me seemed like an elaborate fiction. Lucy, Anna, Malcolm, this ridiculous festival of meats—all of it became somebody else's work, the play of an insane writer. I felt as if I'd been following along, but my script pages had suddenly run out and I could no longer find my place. In that elongated disconnected second, I looked at Damiano and felt anchored. Somehow he knew, could sense what I was feeling, and his eyes told me he was right there with me. I wanted to stay inside that moment of clarity forever, but, too soon, I felt myself back inside my own skin, blinking my staring eyes, my heart beating double. It was the booze, I told myself. But I wasn't drunk. Not even close. What had he said about dinner? How was I supposed to respond?

“Yes,” I said, hoping that would cover it.

“Is she always like this?”

“She?”

“Luciana.”

I took another swig of my martini, finishing it. That made two full drinks. When the gin finally caught up with me, it wasn't going to be pretty. Damiano was waiting for an answer and I didn't know which one to give him. I teetered on the brink of an honest response but held myself back. He had just substantially increased his net worth thanks to Lucy. If I were in his shoes, I'd be focused on the positive with her. He was an author, a
client,
after all. I felt I couldn't yet trust him with the contents of my head, even as his wine-dark eyes were telling me I could.

“She has a beautiful house, don't you think?” It was a lame deflection and Damiano saw right through it. He shrugged and moved toward the dining-room table.
“Sì, sì,”
he said. “Spectacular.” He gestured toward a set of glass doors, through which I could see a large, completely empty deck. “It's too bad there are no chairs outside,” Damiano said. “Outside would be nice.”

The two of us sat down at Lucy's vast dining-room table. Damiano positioned himself opposite me so that I could either look down at my plate or at him. Those were my only options. I heard Lucy's laughter, high and girlish, coming from the living room.