The Nest(68)

Stephanie bent to pick up a torn page from the floor and placed it on the table with the rest, which were in disarray. She gathered the pages and put them in order. She sat and started reading from the beginning.

LEO DID FEEL BETTER AFTER A SHOWER. He’d made the water as hot as he could bear, and standing in Stephanie’s bathroom as he wiped steam off the mirror, he could see how pink and healthy his skin was. He had lost weight in rehab, and all the running he’d been doing showed. He hadn’t let himself go, that was for sure. As he toweled off, he realized that Stephanie was probably downstairs reading. Good. That was easier than explaining to her—in his own words—the details of the accident and its aftermath. Stephanie would know how to handle this; she was an expert at telling people their work needed to be euthanized—she delivered that news all the time—and she was going to have to help him bury Bea’s story.

Without even trying, Leo could come up with a list of people, starting with Nathan Chowdhury, who would be only too thrilled to write a scathing exposé about his accident, the hand job, the poor caterer from the Bronx hobbling around on one foot. (They would conveniently ignore or somehow downplay that he’d made her a millionaire.) He could see the accompanying pictures, the old drawing of him as King Roach. God. He hadn’t gotten this far—endured rehab, stayed clean for f*ck’s sake, protected and carefully camouflaged his savings—just to attract the wrong kind of heat now. Or to end up the laughing stock of New York City, to have people pointing and whispering every time he walked into a room, to be the most e-mailed article on Gawker. He couldn’t have this looming over his head as he tried to set up meetings. Stephanie needed to help him put the whole thing to rest quickly.

When he walked into the kitchen, Stephanie was slowly leafing through the pages, repeatedly returning to one toward the middle (he knew which one). She was pale. She looked up at him and, ah, yes, he remembered that look. He fought back irritation.

“You see what I’m saying. It’s an Archie story,” he said. She sat perfectly still. He watched her, nervously. “Just because she doesn’t call the guy Archie—”

“This all happened?” she asked, as Leo walked over to the sink and got a glass of water. “She lost her foot?”

“Yes.”

“Where is she now?” Stephanie said, still not looking at Leo but at the pages spread on the table in front of her.

“I don’t know.”

“You haven’t heard from her?”

“No,” Leo said. “Well, kind of.”

“Kind of?”

“She’s called a few times, but I haven’t responded. George’s taking care of it. There was a settlement—a very generous one—and part of the agreement was no contact once the papers were signed.”

“I see,” Stephanie said. “I guess you better get George on the amputee right away.”

“I wasn’t privy to the terms of the agreement, Stephanie. I was in rehab. But I have to follow the rules and so does she. It’s in everyone’s best interest, including hers. If she’s caught violating the terms—”

“You guys get the other foot?” Stephanie said. She carefully stacked the papers in the middle of the table, smoothing a page that was wrinkled. Leo thought her hand was trembling a little. He sat down next to her.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wanted to tell you. I really did. But I have a hard time even thinking about it.”

“Aren’t you a little bit curious?”

“Curious?”

“To see how she’s doing. Why she’s calling you? God, Leo, she lost a foot.”

“I know she’s being taken care of. I know she had the absolute best care. I’m not allowed to be curious and contact her.”

Stephanie had one hand on her abdomen like she’d just been gut-punched. “But you wouldn’t call her even if you were allowed to, right?” she said. “Out of sight, out of mind? Write a check and move on?”

“I’m not sure how I could help her. And, yes, I do want to move on. That’s what I’ve been trying to do here!”

“The money? Is this why—”

“Yes. Francie funded the settlement from the trust,” said Leo. “There’s not a lot left, not as much as everyone was counting on, and that’s why they’re circling around here like f*cking vultures. Everyone wants me to magically come up with what they think they’re owed. You can see my predicament.”

“Your predicament?”

“How am I supposed to make that kind of sum appear out of thin air? Those three aren’t thinking clearly.”

“But you’re thinking clearly?”

“Comparatively? Very much so.”

“I see.” Stephanie stood and took a wineglass down from the cabinet, opened a corked bottle on the counter, and poured herself an enormous glass. She thought about the pregnancy app on her phone. The first day she opened it, she’d paged through all nine months and had been amused to see week sixteen, the one that said, This week your baby is a plum! A Plumb. She dumped the wine down the sink.

“What’s her name?” Stephanie asked Leo.

“What difference does that make?” Leo sounded irritated.

“Do you even know her name, Leo?” Stephanie watched him carefully. His cheeks were pink from the shower, his hair slicked back. His eyes were guarded, flinty—ugly within his otherwise lovely face.