I hadn’t told him anything that might help me, though, and why not? Because I’d made a pledge to a girl on whom I had a crush. That wasn’t loyalty, it was stupidity. Until she released me, I’d be trapped.
Anna agreed to meet me on the Upper East Side at a Le Pain Quotidien near the hospital where I sometimes took a break. It was a long way from the Shapiros’ apartment, but she’d prefer that, she said. She was there when I arrived, sitting at the rear by one of the trestle tables, a paperback in hand. She’d draped her coat over the bench next to her and was dressed in a scoop-necked T-shirt, a silver necklace, and gray pants. It was an ordinary getup and she didn’t seem to be wearing makeup, but I still found it glamorous. She was nursing a cup of coffee in one hand and I’d almost reached her before she glanced up.
“Oh, my God. What happened?” she said, putting a hand to her mouth in shock. The sight of my face seemed to hurt her, as if she’d been attacked herself-I found it moving how personally she took it. As I sat next to her, she reached out briefly to touch the side of my head with her fingertips and then withdrew them quickly, as if regretting the intimacy.
“I ran across a man in the park after I left you. He didn’t seem to like me very much,” I said.
“Jesus, Ben,” she said, looking dazed. She seemed to be musing to herself, struggling to understand what had happened. “I took you there. How could I have been so stupid? You’ve got to be careful. Promise me you will.”
Not another promise, I thought-she was one for extracting pledges from people. It still pleased me that she cared.
“I promise I’ll look both ways crossing the road.”
She didn’t smile. “Fuck,” she said quietly to herself, as if the news were still sinking in. Her face was stricken and a tear trickled from one of her eyes onto her face, where she wiped it with the back of her hand. I wanted to reach across to hold it, but nervousness defeated me as surely as the Perspex dividing the tables in the Riverhead jail. To fill in while she recovered, I called over the waitress and ordered a cup of tea. We sat in silence for a while until she spoke again, flicking a crumb from the table as she did.
“I’m glad you called. There’s something I have to say.”
“Oh dear. That sounds bad.”
“You said the reason you wanted to see me was pleasure.” She looked up at me and her eyes shone unhappily, renewing my guilt at the way I’d misled her. “I don’t think I can. Enjoy it, I mean. Not with all this.”
“I understand,” I said.
That wasn’t true. Harry was locked up in Riverhead, but he’d been there the night she’d kissed me and it hadn’t stopped her. I didn’t want to lose her when I’d only just started to feel for her-I needed her on my side. I’d come there to persuade her to release me from my pledge, but that felt unimportant suddenly. She had that effect on me. When I was with her, nothing else seemed to matter. She was my drug.
“I wish I could,” she said.
“I wish you could, too.”
She looked miserable and her hand trembled slightly as she picked up her coffee to sip it. Then she put it down and started to gather her things, stuffing her book into the bag by her side and threading one arm through her coat.
“I’m no good at this, I have to go,” she said.
“Wait,” I said, half rising and putting out a hand to touch her arm. “I need your help. The thing you told me about that woman. It’s important. I have to tell my lawyer.”
It was as if I’d sent an electric shock through her. She straightened up and jerked her arm back, pulling it free of my hand. She stared with her mouth open and her eyes glossy and hard. Then the corners of her mouth tightened and she spat out her words.
“I trustedyou. That was a secret.”
“But I’m in trouble. The police think I’ve been hiding things from them. You need to help me.”
As I said that, I knew it was a mistake. A strand of her blond hair detached itself from where it was fixed and she looped it back over her ear as she stared at me.
“Right, so your job’s important and mine doesn’t matter? That’s what this was about, Ben? You just strung me along to find out what you wanted. Was that it? You think I’m stupid, do you?”
“Of course not,” I protested.
“You listen to me. You promised me and I expect you to keep your promise. You don’t want your hospital to know how you behaved.”
My guilt and shame, and my wish somehow to placate her so that we could go back to the night she’d kissed me, evaporated instantly. She was no better than the rest of them. As soon as she was under the least threat, she resorted to blackmail. Why had she played with me like that, teasing me with her secret about Harry and then forbidding me to use it? I spoke before I’d thought.
“You don’t want Nora to know how youbehaved,” I said.
Anna stared at me hatefully and reached into her pockets for cash, twisting the cloth in her rush. She cursed under her breath as she struggled to extract her hand again.
“Forget it. I’ll pay,” I said.
“Stay away from me,” she replied.
She almost ran out of the cafe and off down First Avenue, disappearing back into the city’s millions. We’d degenerated from awkward fondness to blazing bitterness inside a minute and I didn’t know why it had happened. I guessed it was my awkwardness at feeling vulnerable around her, which had expressed itself as rage. She hadn’t cared for me, after all: at the first sign of difficulty, she’d fled.
As I got up, I saw a glove beneath the bench. It must have fallen from her pocket when she’d left. I held it to my face to catch her scent and placed it in my own.
That night as I got ready for bed, I brushed my teeth, looking in the bathroom mirror as toothpaste dribbled down my chin. My bruises had flowered purple, black, and yellow, there were dark circles under my eyes, and my cheeks were puffy in the halogen light. The only comfort was that Rebecca had done a nice job on the cut, sealing it so neatly that it was fading from sight. I looked and felt like an aging boxer: my days were filled with body blows.
None, however, had felt as bad as fighting with Anna. Something had made her abandon me, something she hadn’t told me. I hadn’t cared that she’d kept her secret from Nora, but I cared that she was keeping one from me. I remembered how she’d touched my face, the shock in hers, as if she were responsible.
I rooted through my pills, seeking something to put me out for as long as possible. Then I realized I wouldn’t need it-I was so tired that I’d only have to lie down to fall asleep. The last thing before turning in, I called voice mail to check my messages. Two were from patients who had to change appointments and one was from a man giving an excuse for not turning up that day. I was about to hang up when I heard a voice that I didn’t recognize.
It was Lauren Faulkner.
16
Her footsteps announced her identity from a long way away. Most people in the place, even the doctors, tended to shuffle, but Lauren’s heels clicked along the corridor. She rapped loudly on the door with none of the tentativeness of my neurotic patients.
It had been easy to look Lauren up after she’d called, to find her photograph, her age-the same as mine-her magna cum laude education, and her list of jobs. High school in Beverly Hills, then Yale, then a job with a consulting company, then Harvard for an MBA, then to Seligman Brothers and a rapid rise from analyst to co-head of the Financial Institutions Group. I thought of Felix’s summary of Underwood’s job as we sat in the Gulfstream: A banker who advises other bankers. Go figure.
A photograph on her new bank’s website showed a woman with dark hair that curled around her ears before straightening, as if coming to its senses, and an unflinching gaze. There were two other photos, one at a fund-raiser in the city and another at a party in Southampton with a group of blue-blazered men. She’s got nice legs under that dress, I had thought, but the image hadn’t done her justice. She wore a silk blouse and an expensive-looking pantsuit that demurely covered the legs I’d noted. In person, her sleekness lit up the room.