“Good. It’s a hard part because I’m doing it in a character voice, playing a ten-year-old. I don’t have the main song down exactly right yet. Sometimes it sounds like the character is singing and sometimes it sounds like my normal voice. Also, Matisse still isn’t off book, which is a problem.”
I’m quite sure that Marco doesn’t know that Matisse is playing The Wolf, or what “off book” means, even though I’ve also told him both things numerous times. In fact, his stupid grin tells me he hasn’t even been listening to me.
“You should get there about ten minutes early so I can introduce you to Juan.”
He name-drops as if he and Juan Quinones Perez are besties. I’m quite sure they’ve never met or spoken.
“I’ll try my best.”
If Marco were in lesser spirits, he would have called me on my hedging. He’s not above saying something like, “Don’t try, just do it.” But his faraway gaze at the river tells me that his mind has already moved on to something else.
“This show’s gonna be the break I’ve been working toward,” he says. “My work will finally get seen by people who can appreciate it. Let me amend that: people with money who can appreciate it. It wouldn’t surprise me if I get a mention in the Times. I heard they’re sending a reporter.”
I smile, a look designed to tell him that I couldn’t agree more. In reality, I’m far more certain that I’ll never witness Marco this happy again. In my head, the chronology will be as follows: he won’t sell anything in the show, and that will begin the downward spiral. Drinking at first, his chosen method of self-abuse, but not long after that, he’ll start to take it out on me.
21.
I call Paul from the back of the cab on my way home from Bubby’s.
“Hi, it’s Ella,” I say, trying to sound casual.
“Hey, you. So nice to hear the sweet sound of your voice.”
Jesus. Do women really fall for this crap? I guess maybe twenty-two-year-olds like Jennifer Barnett. I’d like to think that Charlotte was too smart to be taken in by the likes of Paul Michelson.
“I wanted to apologize for the way things ended last night. The wine just really hit me all of a sudden. Can I make it up to you tonight?”
“Of course,” he says, sounding positively wolfish. “How about . . . I don’t know . . . have you ever been to Sant Ambroeus? It’s on Madison and Seventy-Eighth.”
Paul lives on Park and Seventy-Eighth. I’m not surprised that he suggests we have dinner around the corner from his apartment.
“Sounds perfect. Does seven work?”
“It does for me. Can’t wait to see you, Ella.”
“Me too,” I say.
When I hang up the phone, I feel both dirty and empowered at the same time.
Sant Ambroeus is a favorite dining spot of the art crowd, being situated among various galleries a few blocks south of the Met. As we eat, I offer into the conversation tidbits about Charlotte, but Paul doesn’t take the bait. He claims not to know that Charlotte is a writer, and that he’s never been to a Four Seasons hotel in New York City. Why would he? he says. He lives here, after all.
If anything, he seems more interested in me than my sister. He asks if I like being a lawyer and why I left the DA’s office to join up with my father. I answer with my usual talking points about how it was time for a new challenge and that I was eager to stop making public servant money.
“There was something I wanted to ask,” he says, suddenly sounding very serious. “Something that’s been bothering me since we graduated.”
“Okay. What?”
“Why’d you go to law school?”
“What do you mean, why? Because it’s a prerequisite for becoming a lawyer.”
“C’mon, Ella. I knew you back then. The Ella Broden who was the star of Columbia’s drama department. I was devastated when you said you were going to California for law school. You always told me that your post-graduation plan was to be a singer.”
I have absolutely no remembrance of him caring one way or the other what I did after graduation. Certainly, I don’t recall Paul Michelson being devastated. I was the one who cried every day that summer. He was off screwing Kelly Nelson in Paris.
He sees my confusion. “You don’t remember, do you? I literally begged you to stay in New York. But you’d gone and applied to law school without even telling me and then sprung on me that you’d been accepted at Stanford and were going in the fall.”
“I didn’t want to be a singer anymore,” I say as if it were the truth.
“Obviously. You found the bright lights of criminal-defense law so much more exciting.”
“Prosecution, actually. And it was exciting.”
“Hardly a passion, though.”
“You’re one to talk. I don’t remember you being passionate about derivatives back in college.”
“That’s different. I didn’t have a gift. My options were more limited in that regard. That wasn’t your story. Look, I’m not trying to make you feel bad. It was a long time ago and you’ve done more than all right for yourself. I just always wondered how it all came about. Funny, right? I mean, I was there in the thick of things, and yet I still don’t have the first idea.”
Him and me both. I lived it, and it was a blur to me too.
I dissemble. “I just wanted a different kind of life, I guess.”
His tight smile leaves no doubt that he’s dissatisfied with my response. Yet he must also know that no amount of cross-examination is going to yield a more revealing explanation, because he lets it end there.
After he pays the check, Paul looks down at his watch. I do a double-take.
“That’s a nice watch. What kind is it?” I ask, trying to sound calm.
“A Patek Philippe.”
Son of a bitch. That’s the same $50,000 watch Matthew the banker wore.
“I figure if I’m going to be the last person on earth who doesn’t rely on his smartphone for the time,” he says with a grin, “I might as well have something that’s going to keep its value.”
He looks at me with lust in his eyes. “I have a very nice bottle of Armagnac that I’ve been dying to crack open—just looking for the right special occasion.”
I have no idea what Armagnac is, but I also couldn’t care less. The evidence is beginning to mount that Paul Michelson was involved with my sister. Getting inside his apartment might just allow me to find the evidence Gabriel needs for a warrant.
But then I hear my father’s warning in my head. In truth, I might have ignored it except for the fact that Charlotte’s voice creeps in too, telling me not to be alone with Paul unless I have a plan—and a means to protect myself.
“That sounds lovely, Paul. But I need to take a rain check, I’m afraid.”
He puts on a smile as phony as a bad toupee. He must have thought my agreeing to let him buy me dinner at a restaurant near his apartment was akin to executing a letter of intent for sex.
“Another time, then,” he says.
At ten, back in my apartment and alone, I feel the need for interaction with a man who doesn’t repulse me. So I begin to compose a text to Dylan.
Hey there. Wondering how you’re doing.
I stare at it on my screen for a good ten seconds before I hit the “Send” button. Then I anxiously wait another ten, trying to will his reply. I’m about to put the phone down when I hear the ping.