“I’m sorry,” he said. “Do we—we’ve met, no?”
“I don’t think so!” she replied, trying still to remain charmed, breezy, telling herself she had no reason to be concerned.
“I do,” he said. “I think—your daughter is friends with Madison D’Amico, isn’t she?”
“Mmm,” Mina said. She looked beyond him, toward the front of the store and the registers. Was Alexandra Barker still here? The thing was for Alexandra not to overhear this, if it was anything. Alexandra might see it and just think Mina was bored, flirting with some younger man. Much preferable.
“That has to be it,” he said.
“Really,” she said, and she couldn’t help it, the disgust was creeping into her voice. “Does it? You know Madison?”
“Well, no,” he said. “I’ve met her. I’m actually a journalist. Formerly a reporter, now I’m actually starting a new venture. And I’d love to talk to you for just a second—”
Mina pushed past him, hopefully grazing his ankle again, and she made it through checkout without seeing Alexandra once. She raced through the parking lot, the cart rattling madly along the asphalt, and she had half her bags loaded into the car when he appeared again, like some sinister jack-in-the-box.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was inappropriate, for me to approach you in the store. I just thought I recognized you. And if you’d let me explain what I do, I think you might find that we could work together. I understand you’re close with the family. No doubt, it’s been troubling for you to see the way they’ve been portrayed. In the media. I think there’s more to the story. And you must know that there is.”
“Enough,” Mina said. “Please get away from my car.”
“Bob D’Amico has not spoken publicly, really, since that week,” he hammered on. “So the attention is, for all intents and purposes, on him. People are waiting for him to speak up. Once he does—or, alternatively, if they just get tired of waiting—the attention will turn to the rest of the family. To their close associates. People will want another perspective.”
“If I see you near Madison D’Amico, anywhere in this town, I will call the fucking cops,” Mina said. “And trust me, they’ll take my word over yours, whatever I decide to tell them.”
She put the last of the bags into her trunk and slammed the lid down, forcing the kid to leap back in order to save his fingertips. She sailed the cart away into an empty parking spot and hurried around to her door.
It was only later, driving away, that it occurred to her that even if he’d been bluffing to say that her daughter was a friend of Madison’s, he still might well know that she did have a daughter.
Her panic spiked, but by the time she pulled into her garage she was calm, had gathered herself back. There was no possible reason to tell Tom, or even Isabel. She’d handled it, hadn’t she? She’d been handling all of it, all along.
TWENTY-THREE
The day after Thanksgiving, which had consisted of a hushed dinner uptown and an early bedtime at the Pierre, Madison sat with her mother and her brothers at Grandpop’s old favorite table at the roof restaurant in the Yale Club. It was the table farthest from the dining room’s entrance, in the southeast corner of the room. In spring or in summer, the glass doors behind them would have been flung open to the rooftop patio, and they would have been able to step outside with their glasses to look down on the dingy grandeur of Grand Central. At the tiny taxis below, the people scurrying down Vanderbilt Avenue, reduced to just the tops of their miniscule heads.
Her grandma Concetta, her nonna, was late.
It was odd that her mother had chosen the club for this lunch, although only marginally odder than the fact that this lunch was even taking place without Madison’s father there to moderate. Isabel must have assumed that Concetta would disapprove, no matter where they ate, and decided she might as well choose a place that brought with it warm memories of Grandpop, of the way every employee in the building had known which was Mr. Berkeley’s table.
Still, this did not explain the fact that Isabel was having lunch with Concetta at all.
It was possible that this might be real estate related, that they might need to lean harder on Nonna, one final time, in an effort to get her to sell the building in Brooklyn. She’d now refused at least four times to let Madison’s father broker a deal, find her a new place with a few more modern comforts. At one point Bob had even floated the possibility that Nonna could live year-round in their city apartment, but the mention of Manhattan had sent her into apoplexy. They’ll carry me out feet first, she’d said, and repeated with gusto, until Isabel had asked her please to stop making death jokes in front of the twins, who were then five years old and found it upsetting to see the adults laughing about her theoretical demise.
They’d been waiting here for almost fifteen minutes.
“What are we thinking will be her opener?” Madison tried. “I’m guessing, how the rowdy black kids forced them to close down the pool and ruined her afternoon walks in McCarren Park.”
“Be nice,” her mother said.
“I am,” Madison said. “I’ve been trying to store up things I think she’d enjoy, and I’ve got a good one. Allie’s little sister told her that you aren’t allowed to say ‘flesh colored’ anymore when you’re talking about a peach crayon, because it’s offensive. Heard that months ago but I’ve just been waiting to dangle it in front of Nonna and see if she takes the bait.”
Her mother’s mouth twitched, and she lifted her martini glass to her face.
“Madison,” she said, “your grandmother loves you. She’s from a different generation, the way she discusses things like that. Maybe you can just lob her some softballs, as a favor to me? Ask her about Genoa, about her parents before they came here. She wasn’t there, but she still likes the stories.”
“I love the stories,” Madison conceded. “Not always the person.”
“No one’s trying to convince you that’s backward, sweetheart, believe me. But just, as a favor to me?”
“Well,” Madison said. “While we’re waiting, why don’t you pay me back for my last favor.”
Her mother smiled down at the tablecloth.
“Your last favor isn’t done yet,” she said. “The weekend isn’t over.”
“Why are you selling the art?”
“Madison, I don’t think you really need me to explain that.”
“Are we in that much trouble, that we’re going to start living off the money we make from selling art?”
“No,” her mother said.
“Then what, it’s a big symbolic gesture? Do we really think people are that stupid?”
She could feel her cheeks burning. She didn’t understand how suddenly she’d grown so upset, without warning. But her mother’s unflappable gaze, the absence of distress, worked like the opposite of a balm. It inflamed Madison’s every nerve ending. How could her mother be this casual about the things they loved?
“I’m not saying they’re stupid,” Isabel said, “but yes, the symbols matter.”