“Please,” he said, “just listen. I think your perspective is a valuable one. I think understanding your father as a human being—from the people who know him best—would go a long, long way toward rehabbing his image.”
He seemed to realize that he’d slipped into his own jargon. He smiled and shook his head, almost sheepish.
“All I mean,” he began again, “is that I think you have a lot to say. I think your father is being vilified unfairly, and I think you know that. And I think if people are reminded of who he really is—an outrageously successful family man who lives well within, even beneath, his means, when you compare him with his peers, who gives generously to all sorts of real and worthwhile causes, who is beloved in his own community—I think the tide might start to turn. I think people might do what they should have been doing from the start, which is view this whole thing with a wider lens. And I think that you could get your story out there, Madison. I think you could show people just how immature the reaction has been thus far.”
Everywhere she went, no matter what name she gave, what drink she was offered, these men wanted to talk to her about her father. They wanted her to give some part of herself up to them, some vital thing she couldn’t identify.
“I don’t want to sound full of myself here,” he said, allowing sugary self-congratulation into his voice. “But there is a part of me, yes, that thinks I’d be the perfect person to help tell that story.”
“Please,” she said. He seemed to realize, then, that he had his hand on her elbow, that he was pressing, however gently, back against her. He let her go as if she’d burned him.
“Just think about it,” he said. He fumbled beneath the bar and came back brandishing a white card between his index and middle fingers.
She looked down at the name: Gabriel Scott Lazarus.
“This isn’t a Times card,” she said, trying not to be proud that he looked impressed. “It doesn’t say the paper’s name anywhere on it.”
“No,” he said slowly. “I left the Times. I’m launching my own site. The Tender Offer. It’s going to be financial news, but human interest. Basically, anything you’d want to know more about after you read DealBook, but that you’ll never see reported there. There’s a lot happening, and only certain aspects of the situation are being reported. A lot has slipped between the cracks.”
She nodded, and he smiled again.
“You’re probably one of the very few teenage girls in the country who’d get that name,” he observed.
She didn’t respond.
“I’m not sucking up to you,” he said. “I think we can help each other, but that’s the operative phrase. Each other. I’m not interested in exploiting you or your family, the situation itself. I just think there are questions that aren’t being asked. What’s the real use of vilifying your father? That’s not what the country needs, at this point.”
When she said nothing, he sighed. “Just take this, all right? Keep my card somewhere and please think about using it if you ever want to talk to someone. I promise you that anything you’d want to discuss is of interest. I think you’re valuable, Madison. I think you and your brothers are your father’s most valuable assets right now. Soon, he’ll realize that.”
Somewhere around the word “assets,” she finally pushed past him. When she got back to the last car of the train, Allie and Zo? were both asleep. She stood as they pulled into Greenwich, and did not deny herself the small pleasure of barking their names.
They hobbled onto the platform like cruise passengers sent to shore. Zo? threw her heels down on the ground, stepped into them, and stalked away. Allie began to follow her, then faltered and looked back at Madison.
“She’s totally fine to drive,” she said, her head nodding furiously in response to a question no one had asked.
“I’m okay,” Madison said. “I’ll call for a ride.”
“Bye,” Allie said, already turning away to run after Zo?.
The air was clear and unobtrusive, one of those nights when it was every bit as cold as snow but somehow didn’t chill you to the bone.
Madison stood still for a moment, watched her breath unfurl into the air just in front of her face. It was a few moments more before she turned to leave the station and saw Mina, sitting on a bench, watching her.
THIRTY-TWO
Mina had forgotten that they kicked you out of the station lobby at eight o’clock, when they locked everything up for the night. It had been so long since she’d waited for a train. But by then, she’d made such a fuss about coming here, doing this, that she couldn’t see how she could possibly return to that house without good news.
After another frozen hour, closer to two, Madison disembarked from the train.
She walked slowly along the platform, as if unsure of where she should go next. Her shoulders were small. She had applied lipstick with the excessive care and unsteady hand of a teenager, so that her lips were dark and imprecise, as if imagined onto her face. When she raised her head, she saw Mina.
Mina waited for Madison to cross the remaining space between them. She let the silence sit, for a painful moment, before speaking.
“Alexandra Barker could have called the cops,” she said. Madison still refused to speak.
“Your father’s name would have come into it, and you know that’s the last thing he needs right now. Someone might have seen you in the city, Madison. Someone could see who you are and do something terrible.”
“I know,” Madison said, finally. “I didn’t think.”
“Well, no.”
“I’m fine, Mina,” Madison said, her voice weary. “It was stupid, I thought it would be fun.”
“What do we do now?” Mina said, but she already knew.
She could bring Madison home without waking Isabel, who had gone to bed. She could prod the security guys to reveal to Madison one thing they’d learned, that Zo? Barker was cruising around Connecticut without a driver’s license. As a warning, of sorts. For Madison’s own good.
She could put Madison to bed. She could draw a bath, nice and bubbly and fragrant, something to sweat the alcohol out of Madison’s body. She could fetch a glass of ice water and a small bottle of Advil from the kitchen, maybe a little saucer with cheddar cheese and a sprig of grapes and a filigree of crackers at the rim. Something to settle the stomach.
Mina could do all of this, she knew she could. She could paper over everything else in that house tonight—whatever Lily’s offenses had been, Isabel’s molten fury, Bob’s howling absence.
Madison shrugged.
“Trust me,” Mina said. “This isn’t the smart way to punish your parents. Take it from me, I have a daughter who punishes me all the time. Find a way to do it without putting the whole team at risk. Not to mention yourself.”
She desperately wanted Madison to respond, to tell her where she’d been that night, what was going on in that house. She needed Madison to meet her halfway, if she was really going to help. But Madison said nothing. She just stood up and walked toward the parking lot without waiting for Mina to follow.
THIRTY-THREE