The Objects of Her Affection (7 page)

“Mr. Burnett is here,” he said, using his head to point. “I really think you should say a word to him tonight. Plant the seeds for the Lyon auction.”

“Got it,” said Brian. “What about you—can I get you a drink?”

Ted shook his head vigorously, making his jowls tremble. “Oh dear no. Thanks. I saw Mrs. Paul scurrying around here somewhere. You should thank her for approving the Milan purchase. She needs to hear from the whole department—make her feel really special.” Then, giving Brian a pat on the shoulder, he prowled into the crowd, sniffing out money and egos with his long, nervous nose.

“Why does he need to come to every single one of these things?” Brian muttered into his wineglass.

“Sorry,” Sophie said. She knew how much Brian despised the predatory chitchat that was required of him at these parties: the tissue-thin flattery and weightless smiles, all designed to flush large checks out of jeweled clutches. He was terrible at it, or so he thought, which actually made him good at it. Museum patrons—particularly the women—were disarmed by his scholarly reserve, his devotion to the objects, his blithe, detached air in the presence of elephantine wealth.

“Let’s dance a little before you go to work,” Sophie said, setting her empty wineglass on a passing tray. She pulled Brian onto the dance floor, where they leaned into each other and shifted vaguely from foot to foot. When did formal dancing dissolve into this strange shuffle, Sophie wondered, admiring one septuagenarian couple that seemed to be executing actual dance steps. She rested her cheek against Brian’s shoulder, feeling his voice vibrate inside his chest.

He was asking her about work, whether she was doing anything interesting. “Nothing,” she said, “as interesting as this.” She smiled up at him, and he brought his lips to hers, and as they kissed she was flooded, simultaneously, with the warmth of desire and the chill of dread. She closed her eyes, trying, like Elliot, to become invisible by making the rest of the world disappear. When she opened them she saw the glinting tip of Diana’s arrow just over Brian’s shoulder, and then, just off the dance floor, Howard, from Prints and Drawings, trying to get Brian’s attention.

“There’s Howard,” she said, pulling away.

“Aha,” Brian said. “Sorry. I won’t be long.”

Sipping her second glass of wine, Sophie watched her husband work. Howard had led him over to a small, plump woman in a brown dress that was embellished with black and white feathers. Her tiny mouth was painted bright red. Sophie assumed this was the woman connected to Paul Wilder; what she didn’t understand was how this elderly person, who had once been friends with someone related to the guy who’d bought some candlesticks, was supposed to help Brian track down a missing Renaissance masterpiece. But to Brian no lead was ever too faint, no alley too blind, and it was often sheer persistence, more than depth of knowledge, that gave him an advantage over his less resolute colleagues.

Howard had taken his leave of them, and was chatting with a tall couple in their forties. The woman wore a simple black sheath, and the man had on a tuxedo with no tie. Their haircuts were straightforward, their faces bland, jewelry minimal, yet they shone with wealth. Sophie tried to figure out where, exactly, the sheen came from. Howard, perfectly presentable in his traditional tuxedo, didn’t have it. His colleague Nancy, who had appeared at his side, didn’t have it either. Sophie decided it was the graceful drape of the tall woman’s dress, and its perfect length (just to the top of her shoe’s delicate ankle strap), despite her considerable height. Nancy’s dress, also black, pulled a little across the shoulders. But was that really it? Or was it the tall couple’s bearing—watchful but relaxed. The air of creatures who knew they were surrounded by hunters, but who could, when necessary, leap swiftly into a waiting car and be whisked away to their leafy refuge on the Main Line.

This was a timeworn style of affluence, all flamboyance rubbed smooth over the course of generations. Others wore their wealth differently. Sophie’s friend Carly, for example, carried handbags the size of laundry baskets, and left life-changing tips for waiters she found cute. But Carly’s parents got rich in the eighties. She grew up watching them rake possessions into glittery piles, then engage in prolonged battles over the size, location, and maintenance of those piles after their divorce. Sophie figured this explained the handbags: Carly had been taught to keep her belongings close at hand. Her acquisitiveness was nervous and insulating, and Sophie didn’t envy it. “But the life of these Main Line heirs, who had been born into comfort and composure—that was something she could get used to.”

“Sharp as a tack,” Brian said in Sophie’s ear. “She said she can tell me lots of stories about the Wilder family.”

“Mrs. Weber? Does she know anything about the candlestick?”

“She doesn’t remember seeing it, but said there are plenty of people who could’ve ended up with it. I’m taking her to lunch next week to get more details.”

Sophie took his arm and they circled the Great Hall. She was on her third glass of wine, and was starting to feel the way she imagined Elliot felt most of the time: jolly, unsteady on her feet, full of bad ideas. She leaned against Brian and whispered in his ear, “Phone call.” Brian’s mouth opened in surprise, then he looked around and pulled her behind a column.

They’d come up with the code word years ago, early in their relationship, when Brian was an assistant in the department and Sophie was working at an advertising agency on Broad Street, back when the idea of going somewhere to answer a phone call had not yet become ridiculous. It was a time of endless parties—gallery openings, agency happy hours, karaoke night with the art handlers. Sophie would be leaned up against the bar with a beer in her hand, listening to some kid designer going on about the typography in
Ray
Gun
, when Brian would come up and murmur “phone call” in her ear. Then he’d saunter off down a dark hallway, where she’d meet him for some moments of frantic, rugged kissing. Over time the phrase became shorthand, depending on tone of voice, for “you look amazing,” “I love you,” or just, “let’s go home.”

Neither one of them had said it in a while. These days kissing felt strange; almost embarrassing. This was a man who had seen her with vomit in her hair, who came to bed every night with socks on. Their intimacy during the last few years had been of the most ruthless kind; kissing required them to reintroduce the membrane of romance, like putting on gloves and a hat.

Pushing her against the column, Brian slipped his hand under Sophie’s hair, sliding it along the back of her neck almost furtively, the way it would sneak under a skirt or a blouse. His stubble gently scratched the skin around her lips. Sophie’s nerve endings felt overwhelmed, every cell awakening at the same time. She squirmed against Brian’s hands, the electric discomfort driving her to seek more pressure, more muscle, more skin. “Let’s go to your office.”

Brian stepped back a moment, searching her face, then took her hand and led her around the corner. He knew as well as she did that it was important to move quickly, before the fragile moment slipped through their fingers and flitted off into the night. They hurried down a hallway and into a freight elevator.

“I’m glad I didn’t turn in my keys,” he said as they passed through the elevator doors to his department. An exit sign barely illuminated the narrow hallway.

“Ted’s not coming up here, is he?” she whispered.

“I guess you never know. Kind of adds to the thrill, right?” Brian unlocked his office door and ushered her in, his hand warm against her shoulder blades. She felt her way through the darkness to his desk, veering slightly to the right in the hopes of colliding with an object cart.

Brian turned her around and pushed her up against the desk, his hands already full of bra padding. He kissed her hesitantly, then insistently, his hands tugging at the bottom of her dress.

“What the…” He rubbed the sheet of elastic that encased her belly. “Where does this thing end?”

She squirmed away. “I’m sorry. Jesus.”

“Is it Kevlar?” He laughed, pushing her dress up further. “Let me see.”

“Yeah. Bulletproof underwear. Get off me.”

“Come on…” he said, grabbing her around the waist. “I love this. I love coming up here with you. It’s like before. Only less…accessible.” He snapped the elastic around her thigh.

Sophie rested her forehead on his shoulder, and gathered her courage. “Brian, could you…do you mind going in the hall for a minute? I don’t want you to…you know…see.”

“See? I can’t see a thing. C’mon. Let me help.”

“I’m embarrassed,” she hissed. “Just—”

“Really?” He stepped back. “All right, I’m sorry. Tell me when you’re ready.”

When she was alone, Sophie grabbed her purse and pulled out the bundle that was stuffed inside. The grocery bags rustled as she shakily unwrapped the mirror. She felt for the cart among the shadows around his desk, but her hands met only air. It didn’t make any sense; Brian’s office was never this empty. She couldn’t even find a pile of books to set the mirror on.

Out in the hallway, fluorescent lights fluttered on. “Brian!” she hissed. “No lights!”

“Oh, hey, Ted!” she heard Brian say with a little laugh. “Mrs. Paul.” Sophie crammed the mirror back into her purse, holding it against herself to muffle the sound of the bags.

“There you are,” said Ted. “I was going to give Mrs. Paul a copy of your article in the
British
Art
Journal
.”

“Oh! All right,” said Brian. “I was just showing off my clean office to Sophie. It only happens once a year, so…” Brian’s hand snaked through his office door and flicked on the light. Sophie backed against his desk, blinking, her purse behind her back. The door pushed open and Ted and Mrs. Paul peered in, Mrs. Paul’s blond coif forming a golden halo around her tight, acid-peeled face.

Sophie gave them a little wave.

“Aha,” said Ted, his mouth slack.

“Well!” said Mrs. Paul. “You have been hard at work, haven’t you.” Her eyes were wide, but her eyebrows didn’t move. “I think I’d rather look at the article in your office, Ted, if you don’t mind.”

They left. Brian bowed his head, shaking it back and forth. Was he laughing? She couldn’t tell. “Oh, Sophie.” He wasn’t laughing.

“What?” she said, casually slinging her purse over her shoulder, checking to see if it was closed. “Nobody caught—” And of course it was only then that she looked down and realized that her dress was still pushed up around her waist, giving the world an unimpeded view of her elastic-encased bottom half.

MortgageOne, it turned out, was not their lender; it was their “loan servicer.” It took Sophie three phone conversations with uniformly uninspired MortgageOne representatives to figure out that her loan actually belonged to Dayton Loan Services, a company with no web presence, but whose number she managed to find by calling, on a hunch, directory service in Dayton, Ohio.

“Sorry,” said the affable young man at DLS, who sounded like he was operating out of his dorm room. “Your loan is with…” He tapped some keys, then tapped some more. “New Century Mortgage.”

New Century Mortgage played an endless recording about high call volume, encouraging callers to try again another time. Sophie did this daily until, exactly a week after her first attempt, a real person actually picked up the phone. “I’d be happy to help you,” said the representative, with a veneer of professionalism that was a relief to Sophie’s ear. “What’s your account number?”

Sophie read out the number, slowly, and the representative read it back.

“Hmmm,” she said. “Normally our account numbers have three more digits. Let’s try your address, phone number, and social.”

Before long, Sophie had given the representative so much information about herself, the woman could have assumed her identity, moved into her house, and started raising her children. Still, she couldn’t find any record of Sophie’s mortgage.

“Why don’t you call your loan servicer,” she suggested.

“That’s where I started. They sent me to DLS, who sent me to you. I have no idea how this works, but clearly my check is going somewhere—right?”

“Of course. If I were you, I’d write a letter to your servicer. Start putting everything in writing. You might get further that way. Good luck!”

“Okay, thanks,” Sophie said, wondering what she was thanking her for. She felt dwarfed by this vast web of mortgage lenders, servicers, and brokers. These people were tied to her by the most gossamer of connections: a telephone call to anonymous banks of customer service representatives. They knew that if they could get her off the phone, she’d call back later and get someone else. Never mind that the shadows around her eyes were beginning to resemble bruises. Never mind that every hard-earned hour of sleep was interrupted by nightmares of homelessness. Never mind that she was a good person who had simply made a mistake and was now trying, as hard as she knew how, to unmake it.

***

Carly wanted to walk the bike path because it made her feel like she was exercising, so Sophie strapped the kids into the double stroller and went to meet her behind the museum. The sun glowered through the sycamores that lined Kelly Drive, and joggers heaved themselves through the humid air. She could see Carly coming around the bend, striding through the bobbing crowds like a limousine with tinted windows: aware that she was drawing stares, returning none of them.

“Glad to see the SUV is holding up,” Carly said, dropping her water bottle into the stroller’s cup holder. She always had to mention the stroller. It had been her shower gift, presented to Sophie along with every possible accessory: cup holder, rain cover, the detachable “foot muffs” that zipped onto the seats and covered the kids’ legs in cold weather. It was the kind of shower gift that took up too much space in someone’s living room, making all the other gifts look small.

“It’s great.” Sophie stretched upward into a mist of YSL Paris and espresso and kissed Carly’s cheek. “You look amazing, as usual.”

“How’s life? How’s the house?”

Sophie leaned on the stroller to get it going, trying to keep as far to the right as possible so she wouldn’t take out any Rollerbladers. “The house is fantastic,” she said, ignoring the first question. “It feels really good, being anchored—you know? It’s what I’ve always wanted for our kids.”

“Do they appreciate it?”

“In their way, I guess. It’s their normal. The other day Lucy drew a picture of her home. And instead of the usual, you know, pointy roof, chimney, she drew a tall skinny rectangle with a flat roof and six windows.”

“How very Philadelphia.”

“I know. I was so happy—it’s part of her iconography. Right along with her stick family.” She patted her belly. “I aspire to be more like my stick self.” She tried for a lighthearted chuckle, but it came out sounding forced. The mortgage situation kept leaking into her thoughts, darkening her mood. How long before they would have to move out, and Lucy would have to learn to draw a new kind of house?

“How’s work?” Sophie asked quickly.

“Oh, you know.” Carly began doing stretches, folding one long arm at a time behind her head and pressing down on her elbow, looking like the world’s most elegant broken umbrella. “I’m doing a gig at Hexagram, which is fine, except they keep throwing last-minute revisions at me and expecting me to turn them around overnight. I’ve basically been living at the agency.” Unhampered by mortgage payments or cable bills, Carly didn’t have to work; she chose to. She loved code and information architecture and, Sophie was pretty sure, being surrounded by men. Carly was also engaged in an ongoing battle against boredom—a symptom, probably, of being single, childless, and financially comfortable. But Sophie supposed boredom was as legitimate a problem as any other, and she had to admire Carly for putting up a good fight. Carly could be vain and self-involved, but she was firmly in charge of her life, and Sophie had never, in their ten years of friendship, seen her mope or complain or indulge in the luxury of aimlessness.

“What’re you working on?” Carly asked.

“I’m kind of between things right now. Waiting to hear back on a couple of bids.”

“You’re not working on that huge Vidontrin project at Pixelhaus? I thought they were using everyone in the city.” Carly uncapped her water bottle and drank deeply.

“That’s not really my kind of job. Too many layers, too much busywork.”

Carly had a face like a crossbow: long, slender nose leading to wide, languidly curving lips. She shot Sophie a sharp look. “Really.”

Sophie shrugged. “Really. Dating anyone new?”

“No. What’re you bidding on? Anything juicy?”

Sophie shoved the stroller’s sunshade down over the kids’ heads. “Nothing special.”

“Why don’t I call my friend at Whirlygig, in New York. I just turned him down for a job. He’s probably still looking for someone.”

“New York? No way.”

“He said off-site was okay.”

“Thanks, Carly, but I’ve got everything under control. Really.”

Carly rolled her eyes. “Give me a break. Just let me help you out for a change, all right? You look terrible. Have you slept at all in the past year?”

“Thanks. No, I haven’t.”

“Okay then. I’m calling Whirlygig. I’ll have Dan get in touch with you.” She tweezed a blob of mascara from an eyelash. “How’s Brian?”

“You know. Job-obsessed. He’s on the trail of some mysterious ceramic candlestick that went missing in France. I think he’s nuts, but he’s convinced it’s sitting in someone’s attic waiting to be discovered.” Sophie was relieved to be off the subject of her foundering freelance career, but realized she didn’t particularly feel like talking about the museum, either.

Just then she noticed a man jogging toward them, looking straight at her. Her brain spun the wheel of social contexts, ticking through possible connections: Museum guy? Client? Ex-boyfriend?

“Keith!” she exclaimed as he pulled up in front of them, hands on his hips, panting. “I didn’t recognize you without your glasses.”

He grinned. “They fog up when I run. Hey, little guy.” He wiggled his fingers at Elliot. “Hi, Lucy.” His chest heaved under a sweaty T-shirt, which clung to his decidedly unnerdy pecs.

“Carly, this is Keith. He feeds us. Keith, Carly.”

“Hey,” he said, with a little wave. “I’m sweaty, sorry.”

“That is not a problem,” Carly said to his chest. She slowly angled her head to one side, then straightened it, found Keith’s eyes, and unleashed a wide smile.

“Keith is married to Amy,” said Sophie.

“Do I know Amy?”

“She’s our new friend. Married. To Keith.”

“Mmm.” Carly was still smiling.

“So we’ll see you Saturday?” Keith said to Sophie.

“Yep. Six o’clock.”

“What can we bring?”

“Wine, I guess? Italian? Brian’s making pork ragu.”

“’Kay. See you then. Nice meeting you, Carly.”

“My pleasure. Keith.”

Sophie and Carly walked on.

“So—” Carly began.

“No.”

“What?”

“Just, no. I’m not telling you where he lives, where he works, or what his last name is.”

“What? You’re acting like…like…”

“They’re our new friends. If I decide I hate Amy’s guts, fine. I’ll give you his number. But she’s a social worker.”

“Excuse me? He was wearing Lacoste.”

“Architect,” muttered Sophie.

“Oooooh—”

“NO.”

Lucy twisted around in her stroller to see who was being bad, and Elliot waved his arms, crowing his new favorite word: “NONONONO!”

***

Dan wanted Sophie to come to Whirlygig on one of the days she didn’t have a sitter, so she asked Brian if he could take the day off.

“I guess so,” he said. “I’m kind of supposed to be keeping an eye on Marjorie and the storage situation, but one day won’t hurt.” They were lying on the couch, heads at opposite ends, legs intertwined, watching
Antiques
Roadshow
.

“You’re sure you don’t mind? I can try to reschedule.”

“It’s fine.”

“I owe you one.” She slipped a hand into the cuff of his jeans, running it up his knifelike shinbone. Brian shifted his legs over and motioned for her to come to his end of the couch. She nestled against his shoulder, and as he stroked her hair she felt her tension sluice away.

“Does it sound like a good project?” he asked.

“I think so. I trust Carly’s judgment—about work, anyway.”

“Good. You seem a little…stressed. I was wondering if your clients were making you crazy, or what.”

“I can’t say I have any clients making me crazy right now,” she said truthfully. “I’m just crabby from not sleeping. I’ll be fine once Elliot goes back to sleeping through the night. Anyway, how was your lunch with Mrs. Weber? Did she tell you anything about the candlestick?”

“She just wanted to talk about her engravings. I don’t think she really got that I’m a ceramics guy.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. She did mention one thing.” On the television, a plump woman in a turtleneck was showing her cross-stitched sampler to a dealer. “Apparently Wilder didn’t just go to France to shop for art. She said it was an open secret that he had a girlfriend over there.”

“Aha.”

“Yeah. Who knows where that’ll lead…”

The woman on TV looked stricken. An animated treasure chest rolled across the bottom of the screen, trailing the words “Early American Sampler: $10,000–$15,000.”

“Jesus,” Brian breathed. Sophie blinked at the screen.

“It’s amazing what people have hidden away,” she murmured, her face warm. She twisted around to face Brian, her heart beating fast, seeking reassurance in the firm pressure of his chest against her chest, his hips against her hips. “Phone call?” she said softly. Brian reached around her shoulder, flicked off the TV, and let the remote fall to the floor.

***

Sophie felt lighter than air as she pushed through the heavy, brass-fitted doors of Thirtieth Street Station and hurried past the food stalls and newsstands that were already thronged with wingtip- and slingback-clad commuters. In the vast, marble-lined central hall, the clacking information board flipped its letters and numbers, stubbornly refusing to join the twenty-first century, while quaintly outfitted redcaps pushed carts of luggage and tipped their hats at ladies. At least they’d finally installed automated ticket kiosks, Sophie observed. She was less heartened to find that ticket prices had almost doubled since her last trip to New York. She’d just have to expense it when the job was over.

Once settled into the luxurious embrace of her seat on the Metroliner, Sophie pulled a warm paper bag out of her briefcase, holding it on her lap for a moment. There was a toasted sesame bagel inside, which she was going to be able to eat at her leisure without anyone’s chubby hands trying to tear it from her mouth. After that she could daydream, look out the window, close her eyes for a nap. She could visit the restroom and relax in its solitude, without a small person crowded against her knees, staring at her.

In the seat facing her, a woman in lavender houndstooth was maneuvering thick stacks of paper in and out of her rolling briefcase, periodically writing notes in a leather folio. Her companion, a man in his late twenties with shaggy hair and an ill-fitting suit, idly paged through a copy of
People
while holding a one-sided conversation.

“Could you believe that con call yesterday.

“I thought Jenkins was going to have a stroke.

“Those rookies in DC have screwed things up royally.”

Flip, flip.

“I hope they bring in lunch today.

“I like that place they order from…Donagans?

“The roast beef is off the hook.”

Sophie was impressed by the degree to which the woman was ignoring him, and by the man’s compulsion to keep talking anyway. Why didn’t he just shut up? Couldn’t he see how busy she was, doing the work he was probably supposed to be helping her with? At one point the woman looked up and met Sophie’s eye; Sophie gave her a little smirk, and a raised eyebrow; a sisterly moment of shared contempt. Then she turned to the window.

When she looked back, the woman was packing up her belongings. She gathered her trench coat and folio into her arms, pulled out the briefcase’s handle with a snap, and moved to another seat. Strangely, her companion stayed where he was. Even more strangely, he continued to talk.

“…heartburn sometimes…probably the horseradish.

“Whaddareya gonna do.

“Dude. I know.

“Yep. Yep. Okay. Later.”

Bluetooth. Sophie finally spotted the earpiece; it was an accessory she didn’t see much at playdates and Music for Me. She pulled out her bagel and started to eat, her pleasure now tinged with the discomfiting sense that the professional world was leaving her behind.