Laurie looked more annoyed than anything else. She and Dot tilted their shoulders to indicate I was no longer welcome. But I was distracted anyway by the sight, behind them and out of their field of vision, of Henry and Eleanor.
It looked innocuous enough. Their heads were awfully close together, but it was noisy in the ballroom. I stepped aside and took my phone out, pretending to check something. Then I glanced back up at Henry and Eleanor. He slipped his hand to the small of her back, leaning in closer. She looked over her shoulder, then nodded. From my pretending-to-be-on-the-phone post a few feet away, I heard Mr. Fletcher approach Laurie and Dot. “Honey,” he said to Dot. “I just got a call from the office. I need to go in tonight. Something urgent’s come up.”
“Now? Henry, it’s so late.”
“Turmoil in the Asian markets. I should only be a few hours. You take the car, and I’ll see you back at the hotel.” He exited the ballroom with long and loping strides. Eleanor had already disappeared.
Outside, the sidewalk held a few lingering couples. It was a little after 10:00 p.m. I was less than twenty blocks from our apartment. I could go home, wash my face, put on my pajamas, and wake up early and fresh the next morning. Be responsible. It didn’t sound so bad. I started walking north on Park, past the empty office lobbies strung through the night like square golden beads. Some of the lobbies had oversize sculptures in the center, like exotic flowers suspended in a high-ceilinged terrarium. They looked so strange, alone in the night, on display for no one.
I was getting closer to home, and Park had gradually turned residential, the big glass lobbies replaced by solid limestone and brick. I felt my phone buzzing and saw Adam’s name on the screen.
“Hey. Where are you?”
“Walking home. I just left the gala.”
“I’m only going to be a few more minutes. Meet me at my place?”
“Well…I really am almost home. It’s getting kind of late.”
“I have a good bottle of wine. I’ve been saving it. In the cabinet next to the fridge. The doorman will let you in. I’ll be right behind you.”
This was my fourth visit to Adam’s apartment in as many days. Upstairs, I flipped the lights on and wandered through the living room, running my fingertips along the spines of the books on his bookshelf. It was the first time I’d been alone with Adam’s things. I went into the bedroom. He had a desk at one end of the room. I noticed the bookshelf next to his desk was filled with books on finance. Histories, economic theory, Barbarians at the Gate, When Genius Failed, Liar’s Poker. Curious. It was his beat at the Observer, but he’d always described it as a way station. Not something he was genuinely interested in. I pulled the copy of When Genius Failed from the shelf. The pages were dog-eared and bristling with Post-it notes. I fanned through it. There were pencil marks and underlines on nearly every page. It had the look of something obsessive.
I jumped when the door slammed. “Hello?” Adam called. I shoved the book back onto the shelf and hurried out to the living room, where he was shrugging off his coat. “There you are,” he said.
“How was work?”
“I’m glad it’s over.” He ran his eyes over me. “That is one hell of a dress.”
“You think so?” I glanced down, tugged at the fabric. “I was just about to take it off, actually. But if you’d prefer I keep it on…”
Afterward, in bed, he rolled over and pulled a pack of Marlboros from his nightstand drawer. He lit the cigarette, inhaled, then exhaled with a sigh. He always looked more pensive in profile.
“You smoke?”
“Sometimes.”
“I don’t think I knew that.”
He blew a smoke ring that floated briefly in the air above him. The room was almost unnaturally quiet. The constant thumps and squeaks and rattles that I’d come to expect in our walk-up apartment were absent here. Thick walls, double-glazed windows, the rugs and the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves: we were in a womb of money and culture. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” Then he laughed. “You want one?”
“Sure,” I said. I didn’t want it, not really, but it felt like the right thing to do.
*
In our apartment, that morning of his return, I sat on the futon while Evan paced.
Back and forth, back and forth. I’d never seen him like this.
“Evan, what is it?” I said. “Just tell me.”
He stopped abruptly. “Michael. It’s Michael. The thing has been rigged all along. And he made me deliver the papers, so the blood is on my hands, too. They trapped me. I can’t go anywhere. It’s totally fucked.”
“Slow down,” I said. “What? What are you talking about?”
“The WestCorp deal. It’s fixed.”
“What do you mean?”
He took a deep breath. He started talking about the mechanics of the deal, Spire betting that WestCorp was going to skyrocket because of their exports to China. I nodded. I knew all that. Then he explained that China had agreed to loosen the trade barriers, to drop the taxes and tariffs. Again, old news.