Alternate Side(53)

“Don’t be facetious,” she said. Charlie was exactly the sort of guy James had disdained in college, the sort Nora should have been dating in the first place.

One night after a long week at work, Charlie had come home drunk, and she could never remember how they got there, maybe because someone at school had come out at an assembly, but he’d muttered to the twins, who were teenagers by that time, “Hey, you never know. Your mother’s college boyfriend was a gay blade.” After he’d turned off the light and before he’d begun to snore what she thought of as the drunk snore, Nora had said, “If you ever say anything like that again, I swear to God I will walk out of this house and never come back.” Perhaps having seen the look on their mother’s face, the twins never asked about it, either, even Rachel.

“The reason I’m calling,” James said, “is that I have this friend who’s a journalist. He’s working on a magazine cover story about that block you live on, and I told him I would ask you to talk to him.”

“Oh, my God, it’s been months now. The story is so over, which is nothing but a good thing as far as I’m concerned. Even the tabloids haven’t touched us for ages.”

“I understand, but I think he’s envisioning something more expansive, more global. The incident as the peg for a real New York fin-de-siècle narrative. White-collar. Blue-collar. The golf club. You have to wonder whether it would have gotten as much attention without the golf club.”

“I try not to think of the golf club. And I haven’t talked to any of the reporters.”

“I understand, but this writer is quite talented, and I think what he has in mind is something bigger and broader than the newspaper reports. Somewhat literary, I suppose.”

“He’s a friend? What kind of friend?” Nora said.

“Don’t be facetious,” James said. “It’s an interesting idea, isn’t it? Culture clash. How the other half lives. He says your block has this strange Brigadoon feeling. Hermetically sealed. The land that time forgot.”

“If you were supposed to sell me on this idea, you’re failing miserably,” Nora said. “I like where I live, and I like the people who live there. Why would I want to sell them out for a magazine piece?”

“I told him you might feel that way, but that I would ask.” Nora wondered how James had described her. A college classmate? An old friend? Nora wrote the writer’s name on her desk pad, and below it she wrote “James Mortimer” and underlined it twice.

“How’s the aluminum house?” she said.

“Ah, so your friend Suzanne mentioned the millstone around both our necks. It’s fine. It in no way relates to anything around it, the contractor complains constantly about how difficult the job has been for his men, maintaining it in the future will be an extraordinary chore, and the client is difficult. But it will get a lot of attention.”

“And that’s all that matters.”

James sighed. “Moneypenny, has anyone ever mentioned that you telegraph judgment effortlessly with your tone of voice?”

“My daughter.”

“How is she?” James said.

“Rachel is graduating from Williams soon,” she said.

“My Lord,” James said. “Did it ever occur to you, all those years ago, that someday you would have a daughter there?”

The silence was her, coming up with a reply. But all the possible responses were so unspeakable, or lame, or humiliating, that instead she said, “I have to go. Tell your ‘friend’?”—even she could hear the quotation marks she put around the word—“that if he doesn’t get a return call I’ve decided not to cooperate.”

She pushed down the button on the phone, then impulsively hit one of the speed-dial buttons.

“What?” said her daughter.

“Just checking in, honey. How is everything?”

The silence was Rachel, taking her temperature. “Mommy, are you okay?” she said. Her daughter could be combative, egocentric, impossible. But she could read Nora’s voice as no one else could, even Charlie. Especially Charlie.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“So am I, actually. Actually, I’m really good. You know that paper I told you about, about the British suffragettes, the one I was worried about because the instructor is so harsh? I got an A, and she wrote ‘excellent work’ at the bottom.”

“You smartie.”

“Right? I was pretty excited. So I’m more or less all done for the year. One open-book test in poli sci, one paper but not that big a one, and that’s kind of it. I think I might have an A-minus average this time, and graduate with honors. I won’t know for a couple of weeks, but it looks good.”

“You smartie. I’m so proud of you.”

“Plus Oliver is here and we’re making a big dinner for my friends tonight. Bolognese and a salad and Ollie says he’s making some kind of brownies, but I’m a little worried because he’s never made them before. And before you ask, not pot brownies.”

“The thought had not occurred to me,” Nora lied. “That’s so nice that he came to see you, that he misses his sister.”

“Yeah, right. He misses Lizzie. You know, the one with the curly hair who stayed with us over break? The one whose mom you met once because she was friends with that friend of yours?”