The Real Liddy James (33 page)

Peter paused to consider this. “Like Isabel Archer?”

“Yes. I was thinking that there are so few models of successful stepparenting in fiction. I'm sure I can do something interesting with it.”

“Sophia will love that,” he said with the sort of intonation that Rose knew was not a compliment but a grudging recognition of her resourcefulness. “If it works you'll finally get yourself on tenure track.”

Rose grinned. “I hope so. I called Sophia and she says she's excited. She also said that one of the adjuncts was caught on security camera this afternoon in a closet with a graduate student, so the dean is looking favorably on my . . . maturity.”

“I never heard about that,” said Peter, for a moment thinking wistfully of the escapades of his presurveillance younger days.

“So,” she said, “Liddy? . . .”

“I want to sell this house and give her half the proceeds. That's what should have happened when we separated.”

Rose stopped. Even restored to her old saintly self, this was a shock. “What will we do?”

“Turns out it's worth a frankly immoral sum of money, so even with half, we can happily buy ourselves a very pleasant place a little further outside the city—commuting distance for us both,
of course—and make our own home. We can also invest a little nest egg and plan for my retirement.”

She stopped and looked at him. Despite his talk of retirement, in this moment of heroic generosity he had never appeared stronger or more manly or
younger
to her.

“What about Connecticut?” she said quickly, for her brother Michael lived there and he had flower beds and chickens in his yard and talked about the excellent public schools.

“Sure. I want you to be happy. I want us all to be happy. And I want to cease being . . .
cangled
 . . . with my ex-wife. You and Grace have made me a better person.”

Tears welled up in Rose's eyes and the yellow light of the street lamps outside blurred and surrounded both of them like a halo. It was the final miracle of her life, she could ask for nothing more. But there was more, for, to her amazement, Peter stood up and then, creakily, got back down on one knee between the sippy cup and the discarded toys.

“Will you marry me, Rose?”

If Curtis was annoyed that Liddy had ignored his repeated summonings to meet in the office, he gave no sign of it. He made no comment on Liddy's explanation that she had hurled her phone into a lake by the side of a road, and accepted that she had not wanted to speak to him. They knelt in silence, side by side, in a pew in the small chapel on Lisbeth Dawe Bartlett's estate in Montauk, at the simple and moving family service to mark her death.

Chloe Stackallan, visibly distressed in her immaculate black, read Psalm 23, the King James Version, “The Lord is my shepherd . . .” She returned to her seat and clutched the arm of the handsome, broad-shouldered man sitting beside her. He leaned over and pulled her closer to him.

Curtis stood up to read the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling, as Lisbeth had asked him to. When he returned to Liddy's side, his hands were shaking, so she held them.

She felt the collective sorrow of the congregation. Like Curtis, many people were no doubt remembering the incomparable Lisbeth, her flamboyant life and the many generosities that had touched them. But some others bowed their heads in grief and remembered other losses, their own regrets at chances missed and words unsaid.

Liddy watched as Lisbeth's three elderly sons lifted her featherlight coffin and proceeded out of the church. The organ played “Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
.
” The incense rose toward the stained-glass windows. Liddy sat still; she had learned how to be still, and she listened to the music. She thought of her death
.

What will Matty and Cal remember of me when, in fifty years, or ten years, or one year, or one day, I am gone?

Outside, the mourners huddled together in the graveyard, under a canopy of black umbrellas, as Lisbeth was buried next to her assorted husbands and animals and it rained an insistent fall rain.

Liddy thought of her life.

W
hat do I want them to remember?

Afterward, Curtis was waiting for Liddy, as arranged, in a coffee shop in the town square, perched on a stool at the counter in his black suit and tie. As Liddy entered, Curtis was sipping his Americano and nibbling on a granola muffin while staring at the other pastries. Liddy knew he was wondering how much better they might taste, and she experienced a feeling of momentary disorientation. It was exactly as if they were back in the Viand Coffee Shop on Madison, meeting surreptitiously outside the office to discuss things like an asset division strategy, or how to let go of an unsatisfactory associate. She felt the quickening within, her intellect sharp like a steel rake cutting through mud or, yes, a shark's fin rising through the water. She lifted her right hand in a confident wave and marched over to him, kissing him damply on both cheeks.

“What would be your position on a premium payment over and above a prenup for serial infidelity?” he asked, characteristically avoiding unnecessary pleasantries, as if the funereal start to the day had never happened.

“We have numerous precedents of renegotiation for confidentiality, so in the case of a high-profile client, or one embarking on a subsequent marriage, I'd go for it.”

Liddy ordered a coffee and a bagel, surprising the girl behind the counter with the rapid-fire
rat-tat-tat
of her speech, aware that Curtis was scrutinizing her to see if she was still fucking nuts. But in her slim navy skirt and crisp white shirt, she looked exactly the same, and as she scraped black currant jelly on top of her cream cheese, she felt relief condense off him like steam off a wet dog.

“How are you feeling?”

“Not fucking nuts.” She looked at him. “The funeral was done beautifully.”

“Lisbeth planned every detail—apart from the weather, that is.”

“I'm sorry, Curtis. I'm sorry for your loss.” Liddy nearly reached her hand across to touch him, but the moment for physical connection had passed. “‘If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster,'” she continued, and Curtis allowed himself a small smile. (This surprised him because he had expected he would have to fire her. But here she was, Liddy James again, and he was mesmerized by her, a woman unlike any other he had met, a woman who was just like him,
only wearing a skirt
, a thought that as always both repulsed and excited him.)

“So. What's going on?” he said.

Liddy had hired a car and driven from the city to the Hamptons early that morning. On the way, she had listened to the Keith Jarrett CD she had stolen from Sebastian's gate lodge and stopped to look at the ocean, before visiting Springs and the Pollock-Krasner House.

“
Liddy!
Wake up,” said Curtis, and in exasperation he pulled out his iPhone and started to check his e-mails, a gesture that Liddy found poignant. Part of her had pined for the rush of busy-ness; the hours apportioned into thirty-minute increments between 5:30 a.m. and 11:30 p.m.; the ability to measure exactly what had been achieved in a day.

“I'm not coming back, Curtis,” she said.

As she had passed Shinnecock Inlet, the wind had howled and risen, whipping the rain into swirling sheets that thundered onto the windshield. Liddy had pulled into the parking lot by the beach and watched as a group of maverick surfers towed themselves out to ride the enormous, rolling waves. In their midst was one woman, her blond hair blowing over her black wetsuit.
“You go, girl,”
whispered Liddy, with admiration and a little fear. She had turned on the heater and was happy, safe in the car listening to “My Wild Irish Rose.”

Curtis put the phone back in his pocket. “
What?
I've spoken to the publicists, they have ideas about how to rehabilitate your image. In fact, it could work for you, the power of vulnerability, you've heard of that, right? It's very now. You could do a TED talk.”

He stared at his feet, appearing to take an extreme interest in the tips of his shoes. Then he looked up.

“I have plans for you, Liddy. Val's getting soft. You must have noticed.”

Val Tynan, the managing partner, had recently had a triple bypass.

“Curtis, I'm not coming back.”

As a child, Curtis had always won the “don't blink” game as, at age seven, he had perfected a technique to hold his eyes wide by biting the top of his upper lip. This had proved surprisingly useful in the course of the next fifty-three years, but today he didn't bother.

“Okay. You win. What d'you want?” She knew he was
bracing himself for a list of Scandinavian-style demands, no doubt including “working from home,” which he considered simply a cover to sign for furniture deliveries.

“I can be flexible. Look, I've been giving everyone Friday afternoons off for the summer.”

Typical
, thought Liddy,
the pioneers get the arrows, the settlers get the land.

“This isn't a negotiation,” she said.

“Everything's a negotiation.”

Liddy shook her head.

In the house in Springs, she had stood in Jackson Pollock's studio as the rain beat down outside and had stared at the floor, which was covered in multicolored splatters of paint, overlayed into a deep pattern that made no and yet total sense.

“What will I tell everyone?” he said.

“That I'm spending more time with my family.”

“Then
everyone
will think you've been fired. You should come back for six months. Facilitate the transition.”

“If I come back, I won't want to leave.”

And it was true. At the thought of anyone else in her files, Liddy found herself worrying about her poor little job in its designer room (despite the toile de Jouy and cashmere throws).
No one can look after it better than me, no one is more devoted to it
, she thought, and then she countered with,
but I don't love it anymore.
She had been a high priestess of the cult of overwork, and she did not underestimate what leaving would do to her. She had promised to give herself a year to get over it, but she knew it would be one day at a time.
I am a recovering workaholic
.

Curtis stared at her uncomprehendingly, so much so that his mouth drooped open ever so slightly and he instantly aged ten years. “God help me, I don't understand. What do you want?”

“I don't know.”

He rescrutinized her. He had wanted to forgive her, but he had made a mistake. She was serious, and she had clearly lied earlier. She was
totally fucking nuts.

“What I do know is that I have to spend more time with the people in my life to whom I am irreplaceable.”

“What about me?” he wailed.

“I am not irreplaceable to you.”

They both thought of Lisbeth, and then of her three elderly sons, bowed with grief, carrying her coffin out of the chapel.

“If you take any clients, I'll have you disbarred,” he said.

“Understood.”

“I wanna buy back your share options.”

Liddy didn't blink. “We'll do a deal. I need the health insurance.”

Curtis admired her style, and because he didn't want to lose her, he was furious.

“You should promote Sydney,” she said.

He drank the last of his coffee with a savage slurp. He slid off his stool (with an embarrassing trip at the end). He slapped a ten-dollar bill next to the charity box. He walked out of the shop and into the street, where the sun had come out and was blazing. Liddy followed him.

Waiting at the curb was a large black car, and standing beside it was Vince. He hastily pulled on his jacket despite the heat and
opened the door. When Liddy saw him she waved, then turned to Curtis.

“Here comes the sun,” said Liddy cheerfully, and then, “Look,” for in the distance there was a rainbow arching across the sky. “My son Cal, he asked me the other day what happens to the pot of gold when the rainbow goes into the water.”

Curtis was unmoved by the idea of the cozy motherly chat or the image of the rainbow. “It doesn't mean anything. It isn't a sign that you've done the right thing. In fact, you've just done an incredibly stupid thing.”

“I'll call you next week. Then I will call my clients. And I will help facilitate the transition.”

Curtis paused before he began his final soliloquy, more in sorrow now than in anger.

“It's all so
unoriginal
, Liddy. The only thing you haven't said is some bullshit about work/life balance. I thought you were different. I thought you were like me.”

“No, Curtis. It turns out that I am like
me
.”

Curtis got into the backseat. Vince closed the door.

Liddy looked at Vince. “He's gonna miss me.”

Vince grinned. She reached out a hand to him, and after a moment they embraced.