Noah leaned back in his chair. “Never heard of that one.”
“No, you wouldn’t have.”
“Why do you love it so much?”
But how could Malcolm explain love?
“For you it’s more about who you’re with,” Noah said.
“Of course,” he said. “What answer did the other people give?”
* * *
He got the call from Noah’s assistant first thing the next morning. They wanted him to start in three weeks. As soon as Malcolm hung up with Noah’s assistant, his mind immediately became a flip board of all the things he had to do. It stopped flipping when it landed on his mother, how he’d leave her, if he really could. He’d have to loop in Mary. He’d have to have a frank conversation with Mr. Sheridan. He asked Noah’s assistant if there was any flexibility on the timing, but they’d delayed the decision already because it took Adrian so long to connect with him.
“I totally understand,” Malcolm said. “Three weeks is plenty of time. I just need a day to think about it, okay?”
“Take the weekend,” the guy said.
He was going to call Jess at work to tell her but decided to drive to Midtown and surprise her instead. He’d never even seen her office and she’d been there three years.
“You’re where?” Jess asked when he called from the lobby. Then she told him to hang up and have the guard at the security desk call her. When he got his security badge and reached Jess’s floor, she was there by the elevator waiting to lead him across the expanse of gleaming hardwood between the huge glass doors and her office. As she did, she noticed everyone they passed sit up straighter. He was tan from all the yard work, from his single day in Florida. He was trimmer than he’d been in years.
He smiled when she glanced over at him, and just like that every other man in the building looked pale and sickly from sitting too long under fluorescent lights.
“Guess what?” he asked as soon as they got to her office door. He grabbed her at the waist, and her admin giggled.
“It’s like the boat story, Jessie. Remember I told you? When I tried to swim to the dock and the boat picked me up?”
“How is this like that? You mean the job? You got it?”
“It was always going to work out.”
* * *
Maureen Ryan thought the plan was a fine one, as good as any other, said she’d be happy to look in on their house until it sold. She said she’d probably end up leaving Gillam herself pretty soon. Her friends were all moving to the Villages in Florida, a fifty-five-plus community so big it had its own zip code. They were drinking Bloody Marys by eleven and whizzing around on golf carts all day. Dinner was a rotating potluck. No one ever wanted to stay home.
“I didn’t think I’d end up moving there. If you guys had—” She stopped herself from explaining the rest. If they’d had children. If she had a granddaughter a few blocks away who needed to be walked to school. But now.
Gail Gephardt was surprised, seemed far less sure that it was the right thing.
“Yeah?” she said when Malcolm told her everything. “Well, that came out of the clear blue.”
They were alone in her kitchen, the radio tuned to the Fordham station. She liked the Irish music program on Sundays. “But it sounds exciting,” she said, though her voice was hesitant. “And Jess will go?”
He saw worry in her face. He saw how many of her thoughts went to him, her boy. This was what having kids was like, he wanted to tell Jess. You worry sick over your child even when he’s forty-five years old.
“Yes,” he said, and she looked relieved.
“Oh good,” she said, reaching over to place her hands on his ears and press. That had been their thing since he was little. “You were always such good company for each other, you and Jess. You used to chat out on the deck half the night. Remember? I used to love listening to you two. I’m so glad you figured it all out.”
Patrick’s question swept through his mind, as it often did now: Why?
“But what about you? You’ll be okay here?”
“Me?” she laughed.
“You get confused sometimes. You know you do. What will you do when I’m not nearby?”
“I don’t think I get any more confused than anyone else. And if I feel a little mixed up, I’ll call Artie. He’s usually who I call anyway. I only call you if he doesn’t answer. You’re so busy, but Artie’s always around. A year is nothing. At my age a year goes in a blink. Nothing will change in a year. And if you decide to stay longer…”
She let the thought go unsaid.
“I don’t want you sticking around here for me, kiddo. I’d really hate that.”
“You call Artie first?” Malcolm felt like he’d stepped into a fog. “Ma, do you have something going on with Mr. Sheridan? I mean, like, something?”
“Like something something?” she said and shimmied her shoulders. She didn’t have her bottom bridge in, so she covered her mouth as she laughed.
* * *
He called Noah’s assistant to tell them he accepted, and they immediately scheduled a call between him and their relocation coordinator. Later that afternoon, he was making a sandwich at the counter, the TV blaring, when he heard the name Charles Waggoner. Holding a folded slice of ham, he walked slowly into the living room and there was Tripp, being led down a dark sidewalk and into a waiting car, hands cuffed, a gray beard down to his sternum. The reporter said he’d been charged with eight counts of fraud, money laundering, perjury, and theft. Authorities found him at an organic quinoa farm in the Sacred Valley, where he’d been living under a false name and consulting as a wholesaler. They’d searched for him in the area previously, but were led back when they got an alert that several Google searches at an internet café near Pisac were for Charles Waggoner and each of Charles Waggoner’s children.
He’d been extradited from Peru overnight and would face trial in New York City within six months. There was no mention of Roddy.
Within minutes came a flurry of texts from Emma and the rest of the gang from the Half Moon. They sent news clips back and forth, giddy about being so close to a major crime, a news story. They included Roddy’s old number on the chain, but Malcolm noticed he didn’t reply.
Holy shit, Jess texted soon after. Did you see?
* * *
He waited four full days, the longest he could stand, and then he texted Roddy’s uncle to say he had some stuff that belonged to Roddy but that he wasn’t returning his calls. Did he get a new number? Was he back from his trip?
Immediately, the uncle called. He sighed into the phone, said Roddy had met someone apparently, wasn’t coming back for a while. He sent his mother a postcard to say as much. He didn’t even have the decency to call, which was a garbage move if you asked him.
“So just toss the stuff,” his uncle said. “Whatever it is.”
“Yeah okay sure.”
Malcolm stood perfectly still for several minutes after he hung up. My God. He was going to get away with it.
* * *
They packed up everything they could to make the house as neat as possible for showings. On weekend mornings they drove upstate for a hike and breakfast while strangers walked through and noticed how small their closets were, how badly the kitchen needed updating. Everyone so far was a newly married couple, or a couple with one small child and plans for another. Malcolm asked Jess if she wanted him to pack up the contents of the attic by himself, the things she’d collected all those painful years, but she said no, they’d do it together. She told him not to worry about her. She was fine. Was he?