The Nest Part 15

However he pa.r.s.ed it, his future in New York could only be a diluted reflection of his before, a whiter shade of pale. Evenness defined his present, the by-product, he often thought, of small minds and safe living. In his new after, there would be no ups and downs, no private jets or unexpected f.u.c.king in a tiny bathroom of a bar, or walking home from a riotous evening under a pinkening sky. It wasn't luxury he missed, it was surprise. The things money could buy weren't the reward; the reward was to feel lifted above everyone else, to get a look at the other side of the fence where the gra.s.s was rarely greener but always different and what he loved was the contrast-and the choice. The ability to take it in was what mattered; the ability to choose was what mattered.

He'd always leaned into the unknown. Stephanie, too. So why, he wondered, when it came to each other, did they always find themselves spinning their wheels in the same old rut, in the same exact way? He turned his broad back away from the wind coming off the water, enjoyed the familiar feeling of hunching his shoulders and cupping his hand around a lit match until the end of the cigarette glowed a steady amber. He took a deep drag and exhaled energetically. He felt better almost immediately.

Two women walking by with rolled yoga mats under their arms frowned, both furiously waving the air in front of them, as if his nearly imperceptible trickle of smoke was a swarm of stinging wasps. When had New York become so wimpy and pathetic? The city had completely lost its edge. He needed to get out, head somewhere untamed and more deserving of his talents and energy. He turned back to the water, took another satisfying drag off the cigarette, closed his eyes and thought again about his newly concocted plan, ran over the details and tested it for leaks, looked for any sc.r.a.ps of regret or hesitation about his decision. Nope. He felt good. He felt sad about Stephanie, that was a given, but feeling sad about Stephanie was so familiar it was becoming boring or a dangerous habit, or both. He'd casually thought about asking her to take off with him, even for a few weeks, but she never would. That kind of daring wasn't part of her fiber.

He was still annoyed with Bea. Not as angry as he'd been the day he read the story, but still irritated. (There it was again, how had his life suddenly reduced to irritation?) And although he tried not to dwell on it, he was stung by Stephanie's careless comment while knowing she might be right. He'd been out of the public eye so long he might not even be a story. Or he'd just be another in a long line of Internet millionaires who'd been at the right place at the right time doing the new thing and had made a ridiculous sum of money and then lost the money and done something dumb while wasted and maybe screwed the wrong person and wrecked his marriage and who, really, at this point would give a f.u.c.kity f.u.c.k. In some ways, that was almost harder for Leo to contemplate: the information about his implosion being made public and landing with an echoless whimper.

And then there was Stephanie's inexplicable insistence that he should at least talk to Matilda Rodriguez, find out what she wanted. He knew what she wanted, and even if he did decide to distribute some of his money, it wasn't going to be to the waitress, who'd already profited a nice tidy sum. Stephanie didn't seem to understand that he was prohibited-legally-from talking to Matilda. (Technically, he wasn't completely sure this was true but practically he knew it was the right thing to do. Nothing good could come of establishing contact with her.) Something odd was going on with Jack, too, who was asking a lot of questions, a lot of questions, about trying to set something up that sounded like money laundering. He was asking what Leo knew about offsh.o.r.e accounts and although he didn't precisely word it this way, how to conceal ill-gotten gains. Leo couldn't imagine Jack pulling off something that would require such sophisticated financial maneuvers; he didn't have the b.a.l.l.s or the brains. Leo suspected Jack was trying to trick or trap him.

And something else was tugging at Leo. The other day, when he and Stephanie were sitting at her bay window, trading sections of the newspaper, a wary silence between them, one of the neighbors had walked by with a baby in one of those sling contraptions. He'd watched Stephanie watch the mother with the bundle strapped to her chest. She watched them from the minute they came into view until the minute they could no longer be seen. He'd gone clammy. Surely she wouldn't-couldn't, she had to be too old-change her mind about wanting a kid now? She'd sensed Leo a.s.sessing her and had ducked behind her hair, but not before he saw something resolute in her face, something private and determined and deeply terrifying.

But maybe worst of all was how she looked at Leo these days, like he was a sad sack, like she was just waiting for him to bail. Well, why wait?

The divorce decree had finally come down; Leo was free. He could leave New York whenever he wanted. He could go straight to the airport with nothing but a small duffel and provision himself more fully when he landed. He didn't mind leaving everything behind, starting from scratch. In fact, he rea.s.sured himself, he was looking forward to it. Another thing he'd learned that the other Plumbs hadn't: the beauty of rediscovering the starting line.

He'd get a few things together and head down to the Caribbean for a bit. See old friends and sort out some financial stuff. Then maybe he'd head west, far west, to Saigon. Vietnam was hot now. He could spend the foreseeable future traveling around Southeast Asia. Keep moving until the Plumbs got the picture. He wasn't coming back for a good long time, if ever.

"Hey." A young woman walking her dog appeared at Leo's shoulder. "I don't suppose I could b.u.m a cigarette off you?" she asked.

She was tall, fair skinned, and her cheeks and nose were tinged red from the cold and the exertion of her walk. Her black hair was pulled into a high ponytail, her light eyes striking. Her voice was radio pretty. An actress, he thought. She smiled at him apologetically.

"Sure," he said, taking the pack out of his pocket.

"I'd be happy to reimburse you," she said, winding the leash around her hand to pull the dog closer. "What are they? Twenty bucks a pack now?"

"Almost," Leo said. "I haven't bought one in years, I thought the guy charged me for a carton by mistake." He turned away from the water again and lit her cigarette from the end of his.

"I know. It's crazy. Still, if my boyfriend didn't freak every time I smoked, I'd happily pay for them. I don't care how much they cost." She took the cigarette from Leo and took a long, deep drag, groaning a little as she exhaled. "Oh, that's so good. So good. Does that sound awful?"

"Not to me," Leo said.

"Do you mind if I stand here and smoke with you for a minute?" They both stood at the railing, watching the water. "Remember when everyone used to be able to take cigarette breaks?" she said. "How you could leave the office and stand in front of the building smoking and gossiping and watching people walk by? G.o.d, I miss those days."

"I remember when you could smoke inside the building," Leo said.

"Oh. From the olden days."

He was pretty sure she was flirting with him. It was hard to tell what might be beneath her bright green, puffy jacket, but if her long, lean legs were a clue, it was bound to be nice. They were facing each other now and Leo noticed a tiny constellation of freckles down her left cheek that looked just like Orion's belt. The single imperfection made her face even more perfect. Her skin was smooth and tight and Leo couldn't help but think of Stephanie and how she was starting to show her age a little-deeper wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, a slight hollowing of her cheeks, a bit of droop around the jowls. The girl turned back toward the water and took another drag off the cigarette; she held her profile serenely, someone accustomed to being admired from all angles. She glanced at her watch.

"Some place you need to be?" Leo said.

"Not today. How about you? Do you work around here?"

"Sometimes," Leo said. "I move from project to project. And you?"

"I live nearby. This is my boyfriend's dog. He's out of town for a few days, so I'm dog sitting. Right, Rupert?" she said to the dog. "Just you and me until Sat.u.r.day." Leo let the out-of-town boyfriend sit there and acquire a little heft. "Seriously," she said, fiddling now with the zipper on her jacket. "Can I give you money for the cigarette?"

"Absolutely not," Leo said. "My treat." He was gauging whether he should ask her to grab a cup of coffee now or just ask for her number.

"I'm Kristen." She pulled off a glove and put out her hand and Leo shook it. Her palm was warm and dry. She held his gaze and tilted her head a bit, hesitating. "Are you Leo?"

Leo sighed. "I guess that depends," he said.

Kristen laughed. "We met a few times. At that theater in Tribeca? I, uh, I know Victoria."

"Ah," Leo said. He didn't know which night she was talking about. Victoria was always dragging him to some awful performance in that tiny theater.

"I was in a play. You probably don't remember, it was kind of stupid, but I was the younger brother's girlfriend."

"I do remember!" Leo lied. "You were terrific."

"Oh, thanks, but you don't have to say that."

Leo studied her face and had a tiny flash of memory. This girl, standing on stage in a ripped sweater, sobbing and going on and on and on and on. He also thought he remembered her from a long, boozy dinner afterward. Had there been flirting? "You had the monologue at the end, right? You were wearing a brown sweater."

"Wow." She beamed. "You do remember."

"I remember you. Couldn't tell you anything else about the play but your performance-it stuck with me."

"Wow." A tiny line appeared on her brow, so isolated and faint that it had to be a minor failure of Botox. "That's so great to hear. I worked really hard on that monologue. For weeks I drove everyone crazy practicing."

"The effort showed," Leo said. He held her gaze. This was exactly what he needed today. "We talked afterward, right? At that French place?"

"Yeah," she said, amused. "We talked."

And then he remembered. He'd cornered her in a small hallway leading to a bathroom. Nothing had really happened, a little body contact, she was there with someone, too.

"So . . ." She trailed off, laughed a little, and looked down at the dog then back at Leo smiling.

"So," Leo said.

"I'm not friends with Victoria or anything."

"Me neither. We're divorced."

"I'm sorry," she said, not sounding the tiniest bit sorry.

"Don't be."

She looked back out at the water and he waited. "Are you off to work right now?" she asked.

"Nope," Leo said. "There's nothing going on at work today that needs my attention."

"Want to get some coffee? Breakfast? There's a good place nearby. I just have to drop the dog off at home."

"I could do that," Leo said.

"Excellent." She smiled at him and then looked down at the dog. "C'mon, Rupert," she said. "Let's show our friend where you live." As they turned to leave, she stopped and pointed to Bea's leather satchel sitting on the bench. "Is that yours?" she asked.

Leo looked at the brown leather case. He remembered buying it, how proud he'd been when he bargained the seller in London down to less than half the listed price. When he got the thing home, he decided it was a little on the twee side, a little too uptown, so he'd given it to Bea. "That is definitely not mine," he said, relieved to note his ebbing anxiety, his elevated mood. He probably shouldn't leave the case sitting there. But then he saw Paul Underwood approaching from less than a block away, right on schedule, set to arrive at the bench precisely at 8:55 A.M., as he did every weekday. Leo dropped his cigarette and ground it beneath his heel. He was doing everyone a favor by getting out of town, he thought. People abandoned one another constantly without performing the courtesy of actually disappearing. They left but they didn't, lurking about, a constant reminder of what could or should or might have been. Not him.

"You think it's okay to just leave it there?" she asked.

Leo looked at the satchel again and then back at Paul, who'd seen him and raised a hand in recognition. "Sure," Leo said. "If it's important, whoever left it will come back. Okay, Rupert," he said to the dog, clapping his hands. "Lead the way."

CHAPTER THIRTY.

Let me do the talking," Vinnie said, sitting at Matilda's kitchen table and paging through her contacts, looking for Leo's name.

"It'll go straight to voice mail," she said. "I'm telling you."

If it was possible, Vinnie was even more p.i.s.sed to learn that Matilda had called Leo Plumb after the night he'd brought over the mirror, after they'd argued. "I thought about what you said," she told him. "I decided maybe you were right." She had dialed Leo's number a few times, she finally confessed to Vinnie, but it always went straight to voice mail and she didn't want to leave a message.

"We'll dial all night if we have to." He touched the screen and put the phone on speaker and, as Matilda predicted, the computer-generated voice mail came on. Vinnie disconnected and hit redial. This time, after only two rings, someone answered. A woman. Vinnie and Matilda were momentarily stunned.

"h.e.l.lo," they both said at once.

"h.e.l.lo?" the woman said.

Vinnie held a hand up, signaling for Matilda to be quiet. She shook her head and pointed to herself. She could do this. Vinnie nodded at her. Go, he mouthed.

"My name is Matilda Rodriguez." Silence. She cleared her throat and leaned closer to the phone sitting on the table to make sure her voice could be heard. "And I would like to speak to Leo Plumb."

"That makes two of us," Stephanie said.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE.

Melody's birthday was usually a grim-weather affair occurring when it did, in the waning days of February. New York in February was still weeks away from any sustained sun or morning birdsong or tender plant shoots breaking through the mottled dirt. The holidays and New Year celebrations were already a distant memory, as diminished as the lingering, soot-covered curbside snowpack that would finally melt under a gloomy March rain only to expose neat little piles of desiccated dog s.h.i.t.

But every so often, like the day of her fortieth birthday, the weather G.o.ds would smile upon Melody and lift the hem of the jet stream just far enough north to create a brilliant preview of spring, embryonically warm and inviting. It was the kind of day that can fool the crocuses into blooming too soon and the twentysomething denizens of New York into baring their winter-white legs and walking down the recently salted pavement in arch-destroying flip-flops, dirtying the bottoms of their feet still tender and pink from months of being coddled by socks and boots and sheepskin slippers.

Heading south on the Taconic, a furious Walt was driving exactly four miles above the speed limit; the mood in the car was tense. After Melody's absurd counteroffer and her subsequent refusal to budge, the two potential buyers for their house became impatient and moved on. When Walter discovered her deception, he was more dumbfounded than enraged. He was about to call Vivienne Rubin to reopen negotiations when the promising e-mail from Leo had arrived. Melody managed to convince him to wait until after her birthday dinner.

Melody knew Walt was also annoyed at how giddy she was being about the birthday celebration. Easy for him to say, he had forty-five years of wonderful birthdays behind him. Easy for him to be all blase and world-weary, but she was turning forty and this was the first real birthday celebration she'd had, well, pretty much ever.

Melody's first and last birthday party happened the year she'd turned twelve, a rare capitulation on Francie's part. Walking home from school that day with her three closest friends, Melody could barely contain her excitement-while repressing the distant drumbeat of concern. She'd asked her mother to buy a variety of foods, to set the table, to organize games. Francie had waved off her instructions, saying "I think I know how to keep people entertained."

But the only party Melody remembered having taken place at the Plumb house was a birthday party for Francie the previous summer that had become so raucous and gone on so late that the neighbors had complained to the police. The cops, all friends of Leonard and Francie, joined the festivities and sat in the back sipping beer. Melody watched from the upstairs bathroom window as her mother gently bounced on the lap of the policeman who showed up at her school every year to talk to them about stranger danger; he called himself "Officer Friendly." Officer Friendly's hands rested easily on either side of Francie's waist, right above the swell of her hips. "Hands up!" he kept saying and Francie would raise her arms high above her head and laugh as his open palms slid up her torso, stopping when his fingers grazed the underside of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Melody was certain there hadn't been any games at that party. Or gift bags. Just a cake and music and lots of cigarettes and c.o.c.ktails.

Francie greeted Melody and her school friends at the door wearing a silk kimono and holding a martini. Melody's heart sank. The robe this early in the day was a very bad sign. As was the c.o.c.ktail.

"Welcome, ladies, welcome." Francie waved the group through the front door. Melody could see the girls looking around the Plumb house and then eyeing each other, warily but with interest. The Tudor house was stately from the outside, but the inside was worn and neglected, chaotic. The foyer where the girls stood in their winter coats was a muddle of outerwear from all seasons. Coats were piled on a bench, hats and mittens spilled out of baskets on the floor, there were shoes everywhere-broken flip-flops, evening sandals, insulated boots, snowshoes.

"You're right on time," Francie said. "I admire punctuality in guests."

"We came straight from school," Melody's friend Kate said. "It's a quick walk."

"So you did. So you did," Francie said, focusing on Kate, looking her over. "Are you the logical one, the A student?"

"Mom," Melody said. She wanted her mother to stop talking to her friends. She especially wanted to stop this line of inquiry, one of Francie's favorite gambits, a.s.signing people a descriptor based on her first-often uncanny-impression. Melody wanted Francie to go upstairs and put on a pair of pants and a sweater and pull her hair back with a black velvet headband like Kate's mother, or to carry cookies and hot cocoa out on a tray like Beth's mother and ask about their homework, or to burst through the door after a day spent working at an office in the city like Leah's mother and hustle straight to the kitchen saying, in her thrilling Irish timbre, "Supper soon, loves. You must be starved!"

"Logic is an underrated attribute," Francie said, continuing to address Kate. "Logic goes a long way in life, longer than lots of other things." She turned to the other two girls and squinted a little as if bringing them into clearer focus, plucking a c.o.c.ktail onion from her martini. "You're the pretty one," she said, pointing a gin-dampened finger at Beth who was, in fact, the prettiest girl at school; Melody had been quietly thrilled when Beth started chatting with her after French cla.s.s one day, telling Melody what products to use to get her bangs to stick up higher and sharing her glitter mascara.

"And you," Francie said, eyeing Leah, who took a step backward and clenched her fists, almost as if she knew to brace herself for Francie's reductive a.s.sessment, "must be the lesbian."

"Mom!"

"What's a lesbian?" said Kate.

"Never mind," Melody said, grabbing Leah by the arm and motioning for the other two to follow her. "She's kidding. It's a family joke. I'll explain later."

It was a kind of family joke, although not one Melody could explain. Leah was Melody's oldest friend, a nondescript blurry kind of girl whose most noticeable feature was a persistently runny nose from year-round hay fever. Leah tended to moon a little while following Melody around school, sniffling and sneezing.

"How's your lesbian lover?" Bea would ask Melody, referring to Leah. "You guys going steady yet?"

"Shut up," Melody would say. She didn't even know at first what lesbian meant. She sneaked into Leonard's study one day to look it up in the dictionary and then had to look up h.o.m.os.e.xual and although she knew right away that the word didn't describe her, she knew who it did describe: Jack. She pictured Jack and his friends sitting in the summer sun, lounging by the pool at the club, rubbing baby oil on each other's shoulders. h.o.m.os.e.xuals, she thought, slamming the book closed.

Melody had led everyone to the kitchen at the back of the first floor. There were no streamers, no balloons, no festive paper plates and matching cups or shiny cardboard letters spelling out Happy Birthday strung above the breakfast nook, but there was a cake box. Melody was hugely relieved to see that there would, at the very least, be cake.

"Where's the party?" Kate said, staring at the kitchen sink full of dirty dishes and the table scattered with catalogs and empty grocery bags.

"The party is wherever you make it, ladies." Francie had followed the girls to the kitchen to refill her gla.s.s, the martini shaker glistening on the b.u.t.ter-and-crumb-streaked counter. "Party is an att.i.tude, not a destination."

The girls looked at her, confused. Even though it was February, Francie marched the girls outside to the lawn beyond the patio, which was devoid of snow but still frozen and bare, and led an anemic game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. "For G.o.d's sake," Francie yelled, standing on the patio in a fur coat, smoking, as the girls walked gingerly forward, mittened hands stretched out in front of them, "how hard can it be to locate an enormous tree trunk?"

The Pin the Tail game was old, had been sitting in the storage area under the stairs for years. Melody frantically tried to remember what else was housed in that s.p.a.ce overloaded with broken toys and old board games. How could she fake a party for two whole hours?

"I think you girls have the hang of it," Francie said after bringing them back inside and handing Leah a key chain with a tiny dangling Rubik's cube from the junk drawer as a prize for pinning her tail closest to the donkey's a.s.s. "I'll check back with you in a little bit."

Melody started sifting through the boxes under the stairs, wondering if she could salvage enough Monopoly money to keep a game going. "I have Twister," she said to her friends. "The spinner is broken, but we can close our eyes and point to a color and play that way. It works just as well."

"Maybe I should just call my mom," Beth said. All the girls were still wearing their coats.