That afternoon I asked Joey for a few days off so that I could travel to San Francisco. He agreed to split the ticket with me if I set up meetings with a couple of record labels while I was there. Then I e-mailed Jeffrey, telling him I was visiting on business and wanted to see him.
His reply—It’ll be nice to get together after all this time—seemed innocent enough, but in its terse politeness I read guilt.
It was early evening, just a few days later, when I arrived in San Francisco, and as soon as I’d checked into my hotel I called his cell phone. “I’m glad to hear your voice,” he said, and asked if I’d like to come over to the house later that night for a drink. No, I told him, that wouldn’t work. We agreed to meet up at the Starbucks near my hotel the next day at noon.
The fog lifted in the morning to reveal a bright California day. When I arrived at the café, Jeffrey was already seated at a table with a drink. I noticed that he was clean shaven and had cut his hair short. The short-sleeved oxford shirt he had on was an olive color that showed off his tan. He looked healthy—way more fit than the last time I’d seen him.
He rose to shake my hand, and so I shook it. Then, while he waited at the table, I stood in line for the largest coffee in the place. It’d become a compulsion to ingest as much caffeine as possible in order to limit my sleeping to light, dreamless naps between recording sessions and during the commercials of TV shows. Most days, I went through at least a dozen cups of coffee in my ongoing struggle to avoid the terrors of deep sleep.
I set down my drink and sat across the table from Jeffrey. He hadn’t asked why I wanted to see him, and I hadn’t told him. But he knew. I could tell from the way he avoided my gaze, the way he seemed to be interested in the bags of coffee beans on display, in the people waiting for their drinks, in the words printed on his paper cup. I let him ask me a couple of polite questions—“How’s the family? How’s the house?”—and then we sat in uncomfortable silence, his eyes still looking around the café for anything that was not my face, until I said, “So who was she?”
Jeffrey looked at me and frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
“Was she Sara’s niece? Younger sister?” He shook his head slightly, still pretending not to understand. “I saw the girl’s mother,” I said. “She could be Sara’s twin.” And then to be as clear as possible, I added, “Don’t fuck with me, Jeffrey. I know. That’s why I’m here.”
He sighed, took a sip from his drink, then set it down again. Drummed his fingers on the tabletop. There was music being pumped into the café, soft jazz, but Jeffrey’s drumming had nothing to do with the beat. Finally, he said, “The mother is Sara’s first cousin. That makes Marie—I’m not actually sure. Her cousin once removed?”
I’d had little doubt about my suspicions, but hearing Jeffrey confirm them made me want to climb over the table and hurt him, witnesses be damned.
“Did you even lose your money?” I asked. “Or was that a lie, too?”
“Of course I did—I lost all of it, just like I said.” Now he stared straight at me, looking offended, as if I were being unkind to doubt him.
“So I guess the two million dollars came in pretty handy.”
“It wasn’t quite that much.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, a hundred thousand of it was already mine.” He bit his lip, as if trying to balance his need for secrecy against his need to show me how clever he’d been. “And then there was the cost of two years of living expenses in New York City.” I must have given him a confused look, because he added, “For Marie. She wanted to be an actress. This way she didn’t have to wait tables.” So that was their deal. “But yes, the money was extremely helpful. Sara and I live a lot more modestly now. I prefer it, actually.”
“You’re still together, then.”
He shrugged. “What do you want me to tell you?”
“Your marital problems … the guy she was cheating with at work … you made all that up?”
“Sara and I are peas in a pod, Will. Same as you and Cynthia.” He saw me shaking my head. “Look—I needed money. Nolan had it. So I took it.”
“That simple, huh?”
“I didn’t say it was simple. Come on, you were there—you know it wasn’t simple. It was probably the hardest thing I ever did. But he had it coming.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “College was a long time ago. People make mistakes.”
He was about to take a drink, and he slammed his cup down on the table, spilling some of his hot coffee. “We were in love! And he knew it. And he slept with her anyway and didn’t even have the balls to tell me.”
“Then who did tell you? Was it Sara?”
“She didn’t have to.” He looked at me as if I were being obtuse. “It was all in her story. Look, you read it, too. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”