With Friends Like These: A Novel (40 page)

I ran up the stairs, clutching the creamy sheet of paper I’d discovered in Xander’s library. Sweat soaked the starched shirt I’d put on a few hours earlier. I ran to the bathroom to splash water on my face, then stuck my iPod buds in my ears. Maybe Autumn Rutherford’s morning podcast would take down my heart rate.

Repeat after me
, she said, low and sonorous.
Do one thing a day that scares you
. I’d knocked off that one, and it was only early afternoon.
Living in the moment could be the meaning of life
. Was it or wasn’t it?
The bad news: time flies. The good news: you’re the pilot
. Her voice was really low. Was Autumn a transvestite?
The conscious brain can hold only one thought at a time—make it positive
. I should be thinking about something loftier than Autumn’s gender.
Success is determined by how you handle setbacks
. We’d see about that.
Listen hard, then ask strategic questions
.

I had the questions and I wanted answers, five minutes ago. I ripped off my clothes and earpiece and stepped into the armor of a black suit Jules had insisted I buy after she ruled my wardrobe entirely too floppy. Within ten minutes, looking like Morticia Barbie, I was in a taxi; within
thirty, at the door to the familiar bronze tower known as the Seagram Building.

Usually I met Xander downstairs at the Four Seasons, where we’d start our evenings with a perfect Manhattan for him, Lillet for me. In better weather I’d twist up my hair, channel Holly Golightly, and wait by the fountain in the broad piazza of concrete out front. But that day I was a woman with a mission a lot more
Apocalypse Now
than
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
. I charged through the stony lobby, ignoring flocks of uniformed employees, and stepped into the elevator.

Denton Capital Advisers, where Xander labored in the killing fields of financial service, trying to put the fun in hedge fund, occupied an entire upper floor. The elevator door opened to a long foyer, where a pale blond receptionist offered up a wan smile. I didn’t recognize her from the previous year’s Christmas party, which made me wonder when that year’s gala would be. Shouldn’t we have gotten the invitation, always an extravagance of parchment and gold engraving?

“May I help you?” the receptionist asked when I’d steadied myself in front of her desk—an excellent Sheridan reproduction adorned by an eye-popping orchid. The last time I’d been there, everything had been the color of newly minted dollar bills. Charlene had put her mark on Denton.

“I’m here to see Alexander Keaton, please,” I said, barely controlling my hyperventilation.

The young woman tapped on her keyboard. “I’m sorry,” she said, returning her face in my direction. “We don’t have a listing for anyone with that name.”

“It’s Keaton,” I said. “With a
K
. K-E-A-T-O-N.”

She repeated the process and smiled, her teeth white enough to glow. “Madam, are you sure you have the right company?”

Madam? Did I look like her mother? “Keaton, Alexander?” I repeated.

“Perhaps you got off on the wrong floor? This is Denton Capital Advisers.” Her tone was neutral, yet I wanted to strangle her with the rope of pearls that dangled over her beige dress.

“I realize that.” My voice cracked as my heart raced. “Edgar Denton is
a close personal friend.” I hesitated. “Could you please see if he’s in? Tell him that Chloe Keaton would like to say hello, please.”

“Do you have an appointment, Mrs. Keaton?” the receptionist asked, hardening like ice.

“No, I don’t.” I strained for civility. “Please, it’s important!”
God forgive me!
“Someone is seriously ill.”

“I see.” She picked up the phone. “Francesca,” she asked in a voice 10 percent louder than necessary, “a Chloe Keaton wishes to speak with Mr. Denton. Could you please convey that message?” She listened while she made contact with the mirror behind me. “You may take a chair if you wish.” She returned to her computer, perhaps to order a personality.

I perched myself on a taupe suede sofa and considered calling Xander, but I didn’t want to talk in front of
her
. Ten minutes passed, and I stood to leave. That’s when the receptionist answered the phone and looked toward me. “Mr. Denton would be pleased to meet with you, if you care to wait a little longer.”

“A little longer” was thirty-five minutes, which I passed by trying to recall a mantra from Autumn. I fixed on
The conscious brain can hold only one thought at a time—make it positive
. Perhaps Denton was a CIA front, not a hedge fund.

“Mrs. Keaton?” I opened my eyes, which I hadn’t realized I’d closed, to see the hawkish face of Mrs. Branzino, she of the sleek black chignon, red talons, and hooded gray eyes, Edgar Denton’s personal assistant—some said more—since before Xander had worked at the firm. She took my hand, which I found odd, since whenever I’d been in her presence she’d directed all her conversation to Xander, not me. “How
are
you?” she asked. I silently followed her into Edgar’s office.

I like Edgar. He belonged to the same fraternity as my father, who’d made the original connection for Xander. Edgar got up from behind his desk, kissed me on the cheek—one cheek only, unlike Charlene—and escorted me to a straight-backed chair. On the lacquered table, two tumblers were filled with ice, placed next to small bottles of Evian. He sat in a matching chair to the left. “Water, Chloe dear?” he asked.

As he said my name, I failed to stanch my tears. When I blinked, Edgar handed me a linen handkerchief, gently saying, as if talking to a child, “How are you doing with all this?”

And then I knew.

“It must come as quite a shock to learn that Xander has parted ways with Denton.”

As if this explained anything. “Why?” I sputtered. “And when?” We could skip how.

“It’s best if your husband explains that to you.”

I hadn’t realized Mrs. Branzino was standing behind me like a chaperone. She appeared at my side, and I understood that my audience had ended. Edgar patted me on the back and said, “Everything’s going to be fine.”

Can you promise that?
I thought as Mrs. Branzino escorted me out, past Xander’s office, his former office. Its door was closed. Did she think I was going to make a run for it, to make sure he wasn’t hiding in his private bathroom? She took me all the way to the elevator and stood before it until the door opened and closed in front of me.

When I got to the lobby I pulled out my phone and dialed.

“Alexander Keaton,” my husband answered.

“Where are you?”

“Chloe, is that you?”

“Of course it’s me. Where
are
you?”

“As it happens, I’m having an espresso now,” he replied, light as champagne.

“I’m in the city unexpectedly. I was hoping I could meet you in your office.” I prayed that he’d give me the address of another company. It could be in the grittiest alley of the South Bronx, next to a toxic waste dump in New Jersey! I didn’t care, as long as it had a phone and a desk.

“I’m at Trump Tower,” he said. “I can meet you downstairs.” He clicked off before I had the chance to ask more questions.

  
Jules

I sat on the paper runway leading to the stirrups at the foot of the examining table, trying to concentrate on whether there might be a fortune in marketing gowns to replace the sad blue kimonos common to the Western world. Outside the door, I heard the Morse code of Sheila’s heels as she tapped her way in and out of other rooms. I was considering getting dressed and making a run for it, hoping the good doctor might forget I was there, but that was not to be.

“Jules,” Sheila said as she stepped inside and studied my chart. “What’s the problem?” In that question was every central issue of my life.

My voice turned on like a faucet that had been closed for months. As if Sheila were a shrink, not on pussy patrol, I stammered, “I came here today to … do it … but I can’t. I’m frozen. I feel guilty going ahead—and guilty not going ahead with this. What the fuck should I do? I’m running out of time.”

“What do you want to do?” she asked. The shattering kindness in her question reminded me why I’d appointed Sheila as my gyno in the first place. Just when you thought she was all silicone and Gucci, she’d connect
on a deep molecular level. This had happened before, when I’d felt a lump that—thank you, Jesus—vanished on its own.

“I don’t know what to do.” I hit on
don’t know
as if I were slamming golf balls.

“Then, dear Jules, doing nothing is its own decision, and”—Sheila’s exquisitely outlined dark eyes, pools of brown glinting with amber, softened as she turned to knock her countertop—“will be its own reward, both for you and your beautiful baby.”

She’d said it. Not the embryo, the fetus, the intruder, the mistake: the
baby
. Not just anyone’s baby,
your
baby,
my
baby.

I took in the enormousness of those two small words and began to tremble while the room swayed. I grabbed my chest as a sharp pain sliced through it. “Shit,” I moaned. “Now I’m having a heart attack.” As the room went dark, I felt as if a ceiling fixture were falling on me, ripping me in half.
At least I’m in a doctor’s office
, I thought as I squeezed my eyes closed against a burst of light.

“Water?” Sheila said sometime later, a worried nurse standing by her side. I tried to lift my hand to accept this offering but couldn’t move my arm. Sheila brought the cup to my lips.

“What was that?” I croaked.

“Panic attack,” Sheila said. “Textbook case. We see it all the time, only usually from the daddies.”

“Are you going to send me to a hospital?” I hated hospitals, places where daughters like me were required to visit whiny, helpless, attention-seeking, chain-smoking mothers.

“No, I’m going to send you home,” she said. “After you’ve rested.” She looked at her watch. “We’re here for another hour and you’re welcome to stay.”

“I have a Xanax in my bag.” My new client was a psychopharmacologist.

Sheila managed to give me a look of reprimand. “Absolutely not.”

I thought it best not to inquire about Ativan or Klonopin. It would be
hard enough being somebody’s mother without producing a child with two heads.
Somebody’s mother
. I worried that I’d surrender to another wave of panic, but if anything, I felt numb.

“Do you meditate?”

“I’ve been your patient for twelve years. We’ve gone out socially. What do you think?”

“Right.” Sheila began to stroke my hair. Fighting every instinct, I didn’t pull away. “As your doctor, I want you to at least enroll in a yoga class. I can recommend several excellent prenatal programs.”

Was she going to start in on breast pumps? Hemorrhoids? Peanut allergies? Preschool applications, Chloe’s most tedious obsession of late? Sheila caught my flinch.

“Actually, we can discuss that on your next visit.” She looked at a calendar. “For the foreseeable future, please stick to the basics we went over before—no caffeine, which includes Coke and chocolate. But not to worry. Sex is okay.”