Chapter Thirty-five

TWO THINGS KEPT TESS FROM WALKING OUT ON MARK Rubin in a fit of pique-the thought of Isaac waving to Mary Eleanor on the highway, and the thought of her bank account waving a frantic SOS in her direction. She had not yet earned out Mark Rubin's generous retainer, but she had spent a large chunk of it. If she wanted to quit on principle, she would have to refund money she didn't have, a principle she abhorred even more.

So she sucked it up and chose the best antidote she could think of to Mark Rubin's cold, high-handed treatment. She invited her WASP-iest friend, Whitney, over for dinner. Whitney was always good company, and she would take Tess's side in this quarrel with her client, which made her even better company. Within an hour of Tess's call, Whitney arrived with Indian takeout from the Ambassador and a bottle of zinfandel.

"The guy at the Wine Source said it was peppery and aggressive, with berry overtones and a strong finish," she said. "Just like me."

"You don't look very fruity," Tess said of her sharp-chinned friend, whose coloring was more easily found in the dairy case-butter-yellow hair, milk-white skin with a bluish undercast.

"Oh, I'm sour as a pickle these days. Everything annoys me. I took my mother to a Barbara Cook concert down at the Kennedy Center, and there was a sign-language interpreter. At a vocal concert. Does this mean they're going to start providing audio commentary for the ballet? And I can't speak to the sign language, but the closed-captioning was for shit. Cook was doing Sondheim, and a line from 'Losing My Mind' was transcribed as 'I want to sew.' "

"If I said that," Tess said, "you would know I was losing my mind."

Whitney laughed, expelling a little zinfandel through her nose. "It seemed to annoy Cook, too. Here she is, singing brilliantly, and there's someone blocking her from part of the audience's view, hamming it up."

"How does an interpreter ham it up?"

"Oh, c'mon." Whitney stood, giving Esskay the opportunity she needed to snatch a half-eaten samosa from her plate and bolt. "Damn dogs-they've gotten really nutty since Crow went to Virginia." Like kids in a divorce, Tess thought ruefully, but said nothing. She hadn't told Whitney about the breakup either, if only because she didn't want to be castigated for letting go of the perfect postmodern boyfriend. Whitney had always mocked the age difference between Tess and Crow, but she was perverse enough to exalt him now that Tess had lost him. "Anyway, she was trying to upstage Cook, I kid you not. Although I guess it would be downstaging in this case."

Whitney demonstrated, making grandiloquent gestures, opening her arms wide, painting rainbows in an imaginary sky, and finishing up by twirling an index finger next to her ear.

"I don't know sign language either, but I'm dubious about the last one you threw in there."

"I don't mean to sound callous. I'm all for an inclusive society. But a lot of this is just frosting the cannoli." This was Whitney's odd variation on gilding the lily, and Tess still didn't know what it meant after fifteen years of friendship. "I went to a bar mitzvah last week-"

"You went to a bar mitzvah?"

"Professional obligation, someone from the Krieger board I'm trying to cultivate. Anyway, they were signing during the half-a-Torah."

"Haftarah."

"Right, what I said. So there's a kid up there reciting a language that ninety-five percent of the people up in the synagogue don't speak or understand, and someone's signing so the deaf people in the audience-of which there were none, I'm pretty sure, although hearing aids were in great evidence-can follow along. But there's already an English translation in the text, so who are they signing for? The illiterates? The blind?"

Tess laughed, knowing Whitney's performance was pure show. She was not as intolerant as she pretended to be. She couldn't be. Whitney played up her hard edges to compensate for life as a professional do-gooder-sitting on her family's board and dispensing gobs of money to worthy causes. Polymath that she was, she had probably learned sign language at some point.

"Were any of those real signs you were making?" Tess asked. "Or were you just faking?"

"Oh, I can say a few basic things. 'I love you. Run away.'" Whitney demonstrated.

"I'd go far with just those two sentences." Strange, Tess wanted to confide in someone, but she couldn't get the words out.

"I also know the alphabet from A"-Whitney cupped her hand-"to Z." She slashed the air.

It was Tess's turn to spit a little wine. "Do that again."

"What?"

"The Z."

Whitney slashed the air.

"Like Zorro."

"Well, duh."

It was one thing to have the action described on a computer screen, quite another to see it. The one little boy kept doing a sort of Zorro thing. Mary Eleanor had assumed that Isaac was being supportive in a silly, little-kid kind of way. But what if he had been spelling!

Less than an hour later-after consulting the Internet, talking to Mary Eleanor on the phone, then studying the Internet again-Tess was on Mark Rubin's doorstep, an insistent Whitney at her side.

"Don't be surprised if he doesn't shake your hand," Tess muttered after ringing the bell. "He doesn't touch women sometimes, but it's just a mind-fuck."

"I don't touch anybody. I'm a Presbyterian." Alcohol had an interesting effect on Whitney, sharpening the edges it softened in others. Her eyes were bright, her diction crisp, her posture perfect.

"No, I mean-" But Rubin had already answered the bell. He stood, the door only halfway open, as if unsure of whether he wanted to admit Tess to his home.

"I assume you have news." There was a stiff little pause. "Or an apology."

"News."

"And this woman is…?"

"A fearsome buttinsky named Whitney Talbot, but enormously helpful in her own way." Whitney gave him a broad wave as if she were on the deck of an ocean liner and Rubin was on a dock far below. "Does Isaac know American Sign Language?"

"I'm not sure. I think he learned it for a concert at school, but I was working and couldn't go." His voice took on a defensive edge. "It was during the day. If I left work for every concert, my family wouldn't have a roof over its head. But I remember Isaac rehearsing his part around the house."

Whitney poked Tess in the back. "I told you this sign-language thing is completely out of control."

"We think he was trying to send us a message. But it doesn't make sense to us, and I wondered if it meant anything to you."

She handed him the printout, with the American Sign Language alphabet and the variations on which Mary Eleanor had finally decided: Z-E-T-E, Z-E-R-E, and Z-E-K-E.

"Do any of those things mean anything to you?"

Rubin's face was a study. For some reason it reminded Tess of the sky in western Maryland, right before the storm began and the horizon turned green. It was a ghostly, unnatural face.

"The last one. Zeke. It could be… I don't see how, but possibly…"

"Yes?"

"It's my stepbrother's name."