“I just wonder,” she said. “My husband has never failed in his life. I doubt he’s heard the word no from anyone but me in decades. He’s built up such a little cult of personality over there, from what I see on this end of things.”
“Do you ever wonder,” Mina murmured, “I mean—you should see Tom, when we run into the Weiss partners somewhere in the city, or something. Not Bob, of course. Bob’s our friend. And, you know, him being so far Tom’s superior.”
Years of practice, here, meant that she could say that last phrase without wincing, without having to widen her eyes as she spoke.
“With Bob, it’s irrelevant. But the other Weiss partners. We saw several of them at a wedding last year. And they won’t even say hello, Isabel. Acknowledge each other’s presence. Any single success they have at Weiss—I think Tom really does feel that this leaves less for us. I mean, not Tom. Goldman. All of them. It’s like middle school with the firm’s balance sheet. And sometimes I just wonder, if they looped us in more, if things like that might improve. If the summer might have been a bit less chaotic.”
Tom didn’t even like that she and Isabel were so friendly. How many times had he explained it to her, the firms’ rivalry? Many times, she would reply. Many times, Tom. I know. I know.
“Maybe,” Isabel said. “Maybe. Jesus, that was a long summer. I thought if we could just get to September. When Jim had to resign, when they had to fire the new CFO, that Erica woman. I really thought that might kill him. But then it was done, and I thought the worst was over.”
“Poor Kiki.” Mina knew how it must have killed, that Post cover with Jim stumbling out of the Weiss lobby, “MY GOODNESS, MCGINNISS” splashed across his face. His mouth gaping, his face like a lumpy cushion someone had slit open.
And if Mina hadn’t had to sit through the preamble to one ladies-only dinner party where Kiki McGinniss had strong-armed them all into a tour of the walk-in closet she’d built for her shoes, if they hadn’t seen (because Kiki had picked up individual shoes and made sure they’d all see) how many of the high heels had never once been worn, she might have been able to reach deep within herself and find the small place that felt sympathy for Kiki’s humiliation. For what Jim surely felt was a betrayal from Bob, his oldest friend in the building.
That dinner out in Bridgehampton, when Kiki had shown them the shoe closet, surely wouldn’t have included Mina if not for Isabel. She remembered that, as they’d left the closet tour, Isabel had taken her hand, held it just long enough so Mina knew they were supposed to hang back from the trail of women filing back out to the main part of the house. And Mina had lingered with Isabel, expecting some sharp comment about the shoes, the whole thing. But that had been it; Isabel had just wanted them to walk slowly, to keep themselves just a bit behind the group. Not to follow Kiki with everyone else.
It was in moments like those that Mina wondered how many other tiny sore spots Isabel noticed, how many things she saw about the other wives. Mina liked to think she herself wasn’t entirely transparent, at this point, that she covered her constant fear that she’d forget all she’d learned when she got married. But Isabel always seemed to see her, seemed to know when Mina might need some unacknowledged warmth the most.
“Please,” Isabel said, “please don’t ask me to worry about poor Kiki.”
They were quiet for a minute, maybe more.
“He’s not very likable,” Isabel murmured. Mina sat up straighter.
“Jim McGinniss?”
“No, no. My husband. He’s not very likable, to most people but me. Plenty of people have been waiting for him to trip up and make an example of himself for years. Be a cautionary tale.”
“Well, that seems a bit premature,” Mina began, even though she knew Isabel wasn’t talking to her.
“He’s not,” Isabel said. “He’s not always likable. And if he can’t fix this—I’m not a monster. I can see that it will involve much more likable people. Everywhere, I mean. Nobody’s going to be worried about my husband’s pain.”
She trailed off on the final sentence, and Mina could think of nothing to say. Isabel sighed and spoke again.
“I really thought that if we survived the summer, that would be the worst of it,” Isabel said, again. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Her eyelids were a pale blue, nearly translucent. “I’ve got to get the kids soon. I should pick them up, I don’t want to send Lily. Madison’s at a football game. Doing God knows what.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Mina said, “go upstairs. Take a bath. Or a nap. I’ll pick them up.”
Isabel nodded, but they sat there together for another half hour, and Mina couldn’t bring herself to rupture the silence by standing up and walking inside, couldn’t stand to leave Isabel alone out here by the pool.
WHEN MINA ROARED into the Greenwich Prep senior parking lot, the one closest to the gym, it was after seven o’clock and on its way to full dark. She saw Madison standing, her feet turned uncertainly inward, a tall boy’s shape slinking away toward the other corner of the lot. Mina squinted through the lowering gloom but couldn’t see who it was, and then Madison was opening the door and that was the more pressing thing.
“Hi, sweetheart,” Mina said. Immediately, she felt, her tone was wrong. She couldn’t very well speak to Bob’s daughter as though rumor were forecast, as though the time had already come for pity and delicacy. He still might pull the rabbit out of the hat, after all. And if he did fix things, if it had all been just the nighttime anxiety that accompanied that particularly humid summer’s fever dream, then there would be absolute hell to pay for anyone who’d shown even the slightest condescension toward his girls. For anyone who’d questioned the dominance of Bob “Silverback” D’Amico.
God, what kind of man let himself pick up that nickname? What kind of man encouraged it?
Madison was heaving her Vineyard Vines bag into the backseat, climbing into the front. Her kneecaps poked out like tennis balls crammed into tube socks. Her limbs had grown before she had, giving her that quality you saw only in teenagers or in young horses: the sense that they might trip over their own unfamiliar height at any given moment.
“Hi,” Madison said. “Is there a reason you’re picking me up?”
“Oh, well.” Mina waved one hand in the air. “I stopped by to see your mom earlier and she was feeling a bit under the weather. I’m sure,” she said, and here she allowed her eyes to slide from the road to Madison’s profile, “I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
The child next to her remained so still that she might have been sitting for a portrait.
“I haven’t, actually. She seemed fine at breakfast this morning.”