“You know it won’t stop with him,” Lazard Wife said, holding her wineglass up in the air by its stem. “Steven says that John Briggs is hanging on by a thread. Not even a thread. He says it’s a matter of time before, you know.” She slashed her non-wine hand through the air just in front of her own throat.
“God, I can’t imagine,” Alexandra said, and Mina saw that this was why the woman had brought it up, to give Alexandra an unobtrusive chance to insist on this. Even though all they were fucking doing, any one of them in this room, was imagining it quite clearly. They’d all jockeyed, hoping to sit near Alexandra’s place on the floor, so that when she leaned back she’d have to prop her elbow against their knees. Just so they could reassure her, yes, yes. You can’t imagine. We can’t imagine.
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Alexandra said. “Everyone’s been saying that about John’s fund, and about Rhombus Equity, too, but it’s all just rumors. I think we’ve seen the worst of it.”
“Well, and the problem is that so often people don’t know anything about it,” Lazard Wife said. “But it won’t stop them from adding their commentary. I mean, whatever happened at Weiss—and of course we still don’t know exactly what that was—but it’s hardly the same as the Madoff situation. And you know they just talk about it, like, Greenwich. In the same breath, as if any of these are the same things.”
“I think I should take both pieces,” Suzanne said to one of the young women; she had drifted back over to that side of the room. They were looking down at a piece of black velvet, at the diamond and ruby brooches strewn across its expanse. “They’re just so different, in their ways. Whichever one I leave behind, that will be the one I have a sudden need for, right? Isn’t that always the way.”
“Buy them all!” Alexandra catcalled, before turning back to Mina. She’d edged along the floor to be closer to her.
“Just look at Kiki and Jim,” Lazard Wife continued. “I mean, dear God, what do I have in common with those two! I always wondered what she thought about his little, well—his little foibles. That seaplane to commute from Bridgehampton, we know how it looks now, but how good did it look even then? But she would never really do her part, would she? They were so isolated, even though they were just in Manhattan. They certainly never entertained at the Hamptons house.”
She seemed to have directed this last part at Mina, who took a sip from her unfortunate, non-vodka drink.
“I wouldn’t really know even if she had,” she said cautiously. “Goldman and Weiss were never much for cross-pollination.”
“Oh God,” Suzanne chimed in. “Of course. I forgot that when you’re still at one of the banks you have to put up with all their little feuds. God, I bet you’re wishing right about now that Tom had thrown in with a fund a little bit sooner.”
Mina smiled. Suzanne turned back to Alexandra.
“And speaking of, has anyone seen either of the Madoff boys? You know both houses out here were attached to one of the first lawsuits. By the Fairfield County pension fund, if you can even imagine how that must feel. I know it’s not the same thing, but when you hear stories like that, you can’t help but wonder. Isabel must be terrified.”
Again, Alexandra let the moment go by, gracefully, like a ballerina bending at the waist to dip alongside the arc of her extended leg, to brush the floor with her fingertips.
“I think we can all agree that Isabel must be suffering,” she said, her tone vaguely admonitory.
“Oh, yes,” Suzanne trilled, sipping from her freshly topped-off champagne flute. She sat next to Mina and put one hand to her arm, as if eager to remind her that she, herself, had said nothing against Isabel. “She’s such a smart woman. If only he’d listened to her.”
“And it’s only going to get worse,” Alexandra continued. “I mean, I don’t want to go into detail, but once they start really digging into what actually happened in that building . . .”
The other women leaned in.
“This, too, shall pass,” Alexandra said, dramatically abandoning her earlier sentence. “But I have to tell you, I’d be shocked if he doesn’t have to leave town. That is, if he’s even got that option. But I shouldn’t even speculate, that’s bad luck. Well, Mina. You must know what I’m saying. I don’t doubt Goldman has access to all the same information Brad does.”
“Oh,” Mina said, cautioning herself even as she began to feel her pulse in her temples, her jaw. “I agree. I’m sure they’ve all got the same information. I’m sure all the men who hated Bob for so many years because he was so much better than they were at making money—I’m sure they’re all lining up to call him a criminal. I don’t doubt that at all.”
Alexandra said nothing, revealed nothing. She simply stared at Mina, and smiled.
“Well,” she said with an air of finality, unfolding her limbs and standing finally to walk over to the dresses, the jackets, the shoes. “In any case, I do feel bad for her. Really, I do. But she might have to get used to the fact that this isn’t over anytime soon.”
As small talk slowly caught up to them again, Mina knew that she would have to buy a pair of pumps she’d never wear because of their association with this day, this room. She couldn’t be the only woman to leave without buying something. What choice did she have? She wasn’t ready, yet, to storm out of Alexandra Barker’s house, and she’d already said far too much. She was not ready to lash herself to Isabel’s sinking ship, not without some sort of guarantee, from Isabel. Some honesty to tie them to each other.
SHE CALLED AHEAD as she drove. Lily came to the door and didn’t bother to conceal her contempt, her resentment at Mina’s assumption that it would be permissible to show up with so little warning. Isabel hovered, a white shadow at the top of the darkened staircase.
“You sounded pretty panicked on the phone,” she said. Lily withdrew.
“I was at Alexandra Barker’s house. She hired some women to bring clothes to the house. So they could all keep shopping, but in private. So no one will see them buy anything expensive in public.”
Isabel laughed once, and the sound was terrible. Mina could hear it coming up from deep within her, could hear it scrape and tear its way out of her body.
“Very resourceful,” Isabel said.
“No, it’s not funny. You should have heard them. They were talking about Bob, Isabel, totally out in the open. About whether anyone from Weiss will do jail time. They kept mentioning Bernie Madoff and how it wasn’t really the same thing.”
She tried not to spit the words, knowing that she needed to frighten Isabel only a bit, not too much.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because we’re going out, right now. What I said on the phone. We’re going to go have dinner somewhere where a lot of people will see you. You’re going to sit at a table with me and smile and laugh and stop at people’s tables to say hello on our way out of the restaurant.”