With Friends Like These: A Novel (22 page)

“But the place is a disaster. Haven’t they seen it?”
Or taken a sniff?

“Dr. Walter hasn’t had a visitor in a decade. The thing is,” Horton stressed, “you can’t let on that you think anything about the building is less than perfecto. Do not—do you hear me?—comment on the fake Oriental in the lobby or those low-rent draperies that are two inches too short.” This much I was sure I could handle. “And do not get chatty. You don’t want these board members to think you have a personality, none whatsoever. Think white bread. Mashed potatoes. Channel Nicole Kidman.”

“I have a sufficient amount of money, impeccable manners, and absolutely no taste,” I replied in a robot’s voice.

“Quincy, my girl. Not funny. Repeat after me: ‘These people are not my friends.’”

As if, even for a second, I’d ever thought they were.

•   •   •

Five days later, a white-jacketed manservant ushered us into the home of Basil Worthington and offered to take my coat. I handed it over, wondering if this gentleman’s gentleman had been trained to report on whether the label was authentic. He hung my bona fide though well-worn Burberry in a space strangely devoid of tennis rackets, snow boots, winter hats, suitcases, shopping carts, or umbrellas—items that tumbled out of our small, dark coat closet every time it was opened. We followed him through a roomy foyer, circumventing a gleaming round table whose focal point was flowers that looked … fake.

Someone with turquoise silk roses is going to judge us
, I grumbled silently as we were shown into a parlor. Six people waited. Two were women, one thin and elderly, the other chubby and about my age. The men ranged from a well-tailored guy who could win a most-freckles contest to a scholarly type in a cardigan, a silver-haired giant, and one pale dumpling in a red sweater. In each lap sat a dossier, presumably containing records of every penny Jake and I had earned, squandered, donated, invested, or grudgingly given to the government, along with letters attesting to our irreproachable character.

Jake and I had gone over Horton’s instructions and role-played the answers for what we felt would be the most predictable questions. Assuming the board would be typically sexist, we agreed that Jake should take most of the hits. I felt ready.

“Why, have a chair,” the giant boomed. His half-glasses rested on his veined, bulbous nose. “Basil Worthington, board president,” he said and extended his hand, big as a catcher’s mitt, first to Jake, then to me. I waited for him to introduce us to the rest of the board. He did not.

The man’s eyes suggested that we park ourselves on a low love seat across from a lacquered coffee table on which a pitcher of ice water was placed alongside a stack of posy-sprigged paper cups exactly like those I’d last used to pee into in Dr. Frumkes’ office. Next to the cups sat a plate of
what appeared to be homemade chocolate chip cookies. Several of the members were already munching. No one invited us to dig in.

I sank into the upholstery, leaned back, and felt three feet tall. Better to pitch myself forward and at least appear to be a grown-up. Jake did the same. We looked like two nervous crows—we’d each worn a black suit—perched on a barbed-wire fence.

“So, you want to live in our building,” Mr. Worthington bellowed. The living room was at least twenty feet long, but Basil Worthington had a voice better suited to a stadium.

“We do.”

To my ears Jake’s response sounded overly abridged, as if he couldn’t muster appropriate enthusiasm for our glorious prospective acquisition. I am not a chatty woman, but I am a writer and felt an instinctive urge to expand. “We totally love it here,” I added. For a crow, my voice came out in a sparrow’s chirp, and for a woman who’d been given simple directions to follow, I’d already fouled.

“What is it, Mrs. Blue, you love?” asked the younger woman. She wore a tight ponytail and a tighter smile. She didn’t volunteer her name, which struck me as odd, even rude. Her tone was dry, mocking. I decided she hated me on sight. Was it my God-given metabolism? She’d have a good chuckle, I thought, when I put on seventy-five pounds for the triplets.

“I love the absolutely delightful location, for one,” I volunteered.

“By that do you mean the Upper West Side, Central Park, or our actual building?” she asked in a near snicker.

“All three actually.” Was I allowed to pick three things or did the bylaws limit me to one? “And the lobby, it’s gorgeous. A treasure.” Four.

“You mean to say you like that rug?” She stopped just short of sticking fingers down her throat in the universal gesture of making yourself puke.

This reminded me that I’d needed no help in that department twice that morning as well as the night before, but I tried to focus. “The Oriental rug? The big one? It’s … fine,” I lied, surely chalking up more demerits on the judgment category of her scorecard.

“Now, Mr. Blue,” said Mr. Worthington, grabbing back the floor. “I see
you are an attorney. Tell us about your practice.” He rifled through our papers. “Taxation law, is it?”

“Intellectual property. The firm where I’m a partner deals with copyrights, trademarks, patents, anything to do with creations of the mind—literary works, art, the whole murky universe of cyberspace, music—”

“A musician,” said the other woman, clearly the oldest committee member. Maybe members get voted in for life.

“No,” Jake corrected her. “I’m a lawyer.”

“Do the two of you play any musical instruments?” she asked, switching to disappointment.

“I played the sax in my high school’s jazz band,” Jake offered.

The woman was crocheting what appeared to be a coat for an exceedingly round dog. She looked innocent enough, but was her question a curveball? Did she think we might break out the amps and electric guitars every midnight?

“Jake hasn’t played that sax for years,” I interrupted to say. “In fact, he gave it to his cousin. Let me assure you”—I realized she, too, had not offered her name—“we play no musical instruments, none whatsoever, not even kazoos. We have no talent.” I offered this last tidbit as a joke. No one laughed.

The older woman shrugged and returned to her yarn and hook.

“Okay, then,” Basil Worthington said. “Mrs. Blue, let’s talk about your contribution to the family coffers. Do you work?”

“Yes. I write … nonfiction.”

“Articles for scientific journals and fiscal reports—that kind of thing?” asked the paunchy guy. He was wan with thin hair and thick glasses. Like small flies, cookie crumbs covered his sweater.

“Not exactly,” I said, eyeing the plate of cookies no one had offered.

“Which publishing house employs you?”

“I used to work at
People
but now I’m a freelancer. I write books.”

“Books! Tell us, what sort?”

I could feel Jake’s thigh pressing mine. “Biographies,” I said.

“A biographer!” The man seemed to be salivating in expectation of an announcement that I was writing the life story of Nelson Mandela.

“Not exactly,” I said.

His forehead wrinkled in confusion. “A series of memoirs, then?”

I might be the last woman on earth to think her personal story of sufficient intrigue to warrant a memoir, let alone a series. “I’m a collaborator, a ghostwriter, of celebrity autobiographies.”

“Would we know any of the titles?” asked the tweedy, shaggy-haired fellow who’d apparently swallowed an English-professor.

“I’m not sure you’d have heard of any of the books I’ve written,” I admitted.
Malibu Barbie
had paid a decent advance but gone straight to the remainder table along with the other stories of 1980s sitcom stars. “You see, as a ghost my name isn’t even always identified as an author. I work behind the scenes and”—I used my fingers to show the size—“usually get only a tiny acknowledgment.” Right after the celebrity’s psychic, dog walker, and personal trainer, those other VIPs without whose forbearance, generosity, and support she couldn’t have written the book.

The professor appeared suspicious, as did everyone but Jake, who was trying to reenter the conversation. Basil Worthington ignored him.

“How curious,” Mr. Worthington said. “Could you clarify, please, Mrs. Blue?”

“Well, sometimes I get a
with
.”

“A
with
?” He took his glasses in his hands, raised his eyebrows with their springy gray hairs, and looked baffled.

“As in ‘so-and-so with Quincy Blue.’” He waved me on. “I might get an
and
on my next book.”
And
was infinitely more high-status than
with
. My agent’s negotiation with Maizie’s people on that point had looked promising until I canceled the Seattle sessions. Now I’d be lucky to get cover credit at all.

“What’s your next book?” Mr. Worthington asked.

“A biography of Maizie May,” I said to him and six other blank
faces. “The singer and actress.” No reaction. “Her latest release went platinum.”

“I gather that your contribution to the family incomes rises and falls,” he correctly surmised. “Do you expect this book about Miss May, is it, to be a bestseller?”

“A bestseller?” I echoed. Jake’s eyes were bearing down on me, but I couldn’t simultaneously stop to decipher their message and answer the question. “That’s impossible to predict—you never know when a book will take off—but maybe, well, yes, I think so. Yes, definitely,” I said. “Her fans are legion”—
legion?
—“and they adore Maizie!”

“Okay, then,” Basil Worthington said. “Moving on. Tell us more about yourselves. Are there any little Blues?”

Wasn’t the question illegal, like inquiring at a job interview if you were a Hare Krishna or simply had a thing for flowing salmon-colored robes? I’d let Jake handle this one.

“Not yet.”

“Something you young people want to tell us?” Mr. Worthington asked, twinkling.

“No,” I said, although on cue, my babies united in protest. A surge of bile began to rumble somewhere above my crotch and slowly move north.

“If I may, Basil?” asked the bitch with the ponytail, who turned to me. “Opinion’s divided regarding our next capital improvement. One proposal is to turn unused basement space into a kids’ playroom, another faction wants storage bins for each apartment, and a third group’s been working to create a landscaped roof garden—teak furniture, sun umbrellas, geranium pots, that sort of thing. Strictly in theory, Mrs. Blue, how would you vote?”

“Pardon me for asking, but should I assume they all cost the same?”

“Yes.” Her expression said,
Obviously, you moron
.

“They all sound … completely and utterly lovely,” I said, taking the wimp’s road.

“Your preference, Mrs. Blue. This is not a trick question.”

So you say
. If I brought three toddlers to a roof garden, I’d be afraid one would dive off. A playroom made sense, but did I want to out myself as Mrs. Fertility? Jake and I had decided not to mention the pregnancy on the chance that someone on the committee thought children were good for nothing but disturbing the peace.

“We’d go with the storage space,” Jake jumped in to say, sensibly enough.

“Mrs. Blue?” the woman snarled. She definitely hated me. Had I fired her when I ran my department at
People
?

I looked into Jake’s eyes, which seemed to be saying,
Answer the goddamn question
. “Okay, well, storage, definitely,” I said. Who couldn’t use extra storage?

“Mr. and Mrs. Blue,” asked the youngest man on the committee. Until now he had been silent—aggressively so, I thought—sitting back, sizing us up. “What do you intend to do with the apartment?”

Open a crack den? “Could you please define
do
?” I heard Jake groan ever so slightly.

“Improve,” he said. “I doubt that place has been painted since 1985. Not that the owner isn’t an angel.” He paused as Proustian contentment seemed to float across his freckles. “I grew up in this building and every Halloween Dr. Walter gave out caramel apples. I can still remember when I bit into one and lost my front tooth.”

The idea of biting into a sticky-sweet caramel apple brought on a wave of fierce queasiness that begged for my attention. “You’ll have to excuse me,” I said, standing abruptly. “Mr. Worthington, where’s a bathroom, please?”

He pointed toward a long hall. “The second—no, the third—no, the second door on the right,” he said as I bolted. I opened the second door. From a linen closet, the pungent odor of mothballs flew into my nostrils. Sudden cramps tightened as I tried the third door and found—yes!—a toilet. I retched into it three times, flushing twice after each deposit. When I was certain I had nothing left inside me, I rinsed my mouth and weakly mopped my forehead with dampened toilet paper. I looked for a
window to open, but it was an interior powder room and the Worthingtons hadn’t invested in an air freshener or even set out a dish of shriveled potpourri. I took a moment to gather my strength, then gingerly opened the door and walked back into the living room.

Jake was speaking to Basil Worthington, one-on-one, my coat slung over his arm. The other board members had disappeared.

“Feeling better?” Mr. Worthington asked.

“Much,” I answered. I knew I was blushing. “We went out for Indian food before the meeting.”

“You get on home now,” he said to Jake. “The little lady needs some rest.” Again the twinkle.

Riding down in the elevator, Jake asked if I was okay, and nothing more. As we walked across the grand lobby, I took a good look at the rug. “Horton’s right. Hideous.”

“Just as well,” Jake said. “I wouldn’t get too attached to anything here.”

We walked a few more steps. “That bad, huh?”

“My date wouldn’t stop jabbering,” he said, “though I kept signaling for her to zip it.”

We should have worked out hand signals. “I bungled it, didn’t I?”

“Barfing makes a certain statement.”

“What went on when I was in the bathroom?”

“A line of questions about how we’d found the apartment listing. The implication seemed to be that someone had given us a sweetheart deal.”

“Which one brought that up?”

“The bitch,” Jake said as I followed him through the revolving door that led to the street.