These Girls (26 page)

“We’ve got to go,” Joanna said, threading her arms into her coat sleeves. She leaned down. “Kiss for Mommy?”

But Annabelle turned her face away, still laughing. Abby knew most toddlers were fickle; their alliances shifted like the wind, and their affection could be bought with a ten-cent lollipop. But Abby didn’t say that to Joanna.
Serves you right,
Abby thought.

“Ah, well, I guess someone has to bring home the bacon,” Joanna said. Abby heard something in her voice; a little catch, and then she did feel bad for her. At least until Bob spoke up.

“And I fry it up in a pan. But you never let me forget I’m the man,” he joked.

“You got that right,” Joanna said in a flirtatious tone, and then, right there in the middle of the kitchen, she walked over and wrapped her arms around Bob’s neck and kissed him.

Abby felt as though she’d been electrocuted. She kept her face turned away from Joanna, and somehow managed to keep feeding Annabelle.

A few minutes later, Joanna and Bob left for work, and Abby could feel anger churning inside her. She stomped around the kitchen, barely refraining from hurling Joanna’s coffee cup into the sink. The bitch couldn’t have rinsed it out herself? Did she expect Abby to do it? Well, forget it. She was leaving the mug on the counter all day, and she hoped the coffee stains would never come out.

And Bob—what a wimp he was. Instead of worrying about Abby’s feelings, he’d just kissed Joanna back so he wouldn’t rock the boat. Abby had always admired the way Bob acted like a magnet around tension, rushing toward it and trying to smooth it away. Once, just after she’d accepted the job, Bob had walked with Abby and Annabelle to the park to show her the route. A little kid had been crying because he didn’t like the snack his nanny had packed, and Bob had gone over, a little bag of Goldfish in his hand, to offer up a replacement. Even when a contractor had sliced through the wrong pipe while remodeling the upstairs bathroom, sending water cascading all over the second floor and dripping through a light fixture into the kitchen, Bob had seemed to worry more about whether the guy’s irate boss would fire him than about the mess.

“He’s a moron!” Joanna had shouted when she saw the mess.

“Joanna, he’s a kid. Give him a break,” Bob had said. “They’ll fix it and it will look as good as new.”

Abby had thought it just proved that Bob was a nice guy, but now she realized he was terrified of conflict. He’d told Abby that his parents’ acrimonious divorce had scarred him deeply. He
hated to argue, he said, which was odd, because Joanna loved to. She thrived when she had to face off against a reporter or berate someone who’d tried to undercut the senator. They were a classic case of opposites attracting, or maybe, in Joanna, Bob was drawn to the chance to constantly tame tension, to enjoy brokering the kind of peace he couldn’t with his own parents.

Now the quality she’d once loved in Bob flip-flopped in Abby’s mind and became a weakness. He hadn’t stood up for her. He hadn’t stood up for
them
.

An idea began brewing in Abby’s mind. She reached for her cell phone and dialed Pete’s number.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” she said.

After a pause, he said, “I’ve been thinking about you, too.”

“Let’s go out for a late dinner tonight and talk. Can you pick me up around eight-thirty?” She felt a twinge of guilt for using Pete like this, but then she glanced at the coffee cup again and saw Joanna’s lipstick staining the rim in the shape of a kiss. A fresh wave of anger and jealousy roiled within her.

She knew Bob would be home tonight; if he and Joanna were going out, they would have asked her to babysit, as they always did. The rest of the day passed in a blur of preparations: She threw in her favorite jeans when she washed a load of Anna-belle’s clothes. While the baby took a nap, she squeezed in a quick shower and blew out her hair into long, shining sheaves, turning off the hair dryer every few minutes so she could listen for Annabelle waking up. She put on her jeans, with an off-the-shoulder, cream-colored peasant blouse and brown suede, knee-high boots, and spent a half hour on her makeup. When Bob came home, she handed off Annabelle and hurried downstairs, pretending she didn’t hear him call after her.

At eight-thirty exactly, she heard the doorbell ring. She smiled. She hadn’t told Pete to come around to the basement entrance, and she knew he wouldn’t think of it himself.

“Abby?” It was Bob, calling downstairs. Perfect. “Someone’s here for you.”

She came up quickly, slinging her purse over her shoulder.

“Pete,” she said, feeling breathless. She wanted to convey the impression that she was a bit flustered for Bob’s benefit, so he didn’t think she’d planned this. But the moment she saw Pete standing there in the living room, she didn’t have to act. It felt all wrong. She shouldn’t have called Pete; it was Bob she wanted to be with, cuddling against his chest while he stroked her hair. She could smell the dinner he’d cooked—cinnamon and coriander filled the air, which meant he’d probably made Indian. It would taste better than any restaurant meal. She felt an ache grow in the center of her chest.

“Hey, Abby.” Pete leaned forward and kissed her cheek, and she found herself fighting to keep from recoiling. She looked up in surprise as Joanna came bounding down the stairs; she hadn’t heard her car pull up. Joanna stuck out her hand in her usual straight-shooting way, not waiting to be introduced to Pete. She looked different tonight—prettier. Her hair was longer, and she was wearing old jeans that fit like a second skin. All her exercising paid off; Joanna had the body of a nineteen-year-old.

“Have fun, you two,” she said. She nudged Bob with her shoulder and laughed. “Remember when we used to go out without planning it a week in advance?”

Bob smiled down at her, and Abby’s stomach muscles clenched. Didn’t Bob care that she was with another man? He was just standing there, his hands in his pockets, looking like a guy with nothing more pressing on his mind than what movie to order from pay-per-view. Would he and Joanna curl up on the couch together, with her head on his chest?

“We better get going,” Abby said, feeling her shoulders slump. She should have talked to Bob and explained how she felt, but
instead, she’d acted as immaturely as a junior high schooler. She deserved this punishment.

Then, as Pete opened the door for her and stood aside so she could pass, she made her mistake.

“Don’t wait up for me,” she called back over her shoulder. She meant it as a jab at Bob disguised as a joke, and it hit home, probably because there was an edge to her voice. She saw the smile disappear from Bob’s face at the exact same moment Joanna turned to look at him. Joanna stared at Bob, then at Abby, then she turned back to face Bob.

For the rest of the night, Abby replayed that moment in her mind, wondering what she had done.

On Monday morning Cate awoke at dawn, got in three fast miles, and walked into her office building before eight, waving hello to the security guard. She was the only one on the elevator, a testament to the earliness of the hour. She rode up to the twenty-seventh floor and unlocked the double-glass doors with her passkey.

She moved through the darkened hallways, passing the bank of cubicles where she’d once worked as an associate editor. She paused at her old desk, remembering other early mornings when she’d been the only one here, trying to get a jump start not just on the day but on her career. Her job was easier then; she had goals that were as clearly defined as the finish lines of her morning runs. If she came up with a great headline, or scrutinized celebrity trends and press releases and hit upon an inspired story idea, her day would be a success. But her leap to features editor meant a blurring of her responsibilities. It was so hard to gauge when a story was truly finished. If only there was a magic line that separated the good-enough articles from the great ones.

She walked into her office and reached for the light switch. It wasn’t a huge or fancy space, but she loved it. In one corner were two low-slung, armless chairs, angled to face each other—perfect for private meetings. Cate hadn’t brought in much in the way of prints or other wall decorations because the enormous window overlooking Fifty-Fourth Street provided an ever-changing cityscape. Bookshelves lining the opposite wall held stacks of old issues of
Gloss
and bound galleys of books that wouldn’t be published for several months. Piles of paper covered the perimeter of her desk—a few front-of-the-book pieces she needed to review for a final time, as well as some recent issues of competing magazines, and a never-ending selection of newspapers and journals.

Cate picked up
The New York Times
and began to scan its headlines as she sipped her steaming latte. Staying abreast of current events was a critical component of her job. Her big challenge as features editor was to find the topic everyone was talking about—then discover a unique twist. But the magazine’s long lead time meant her angle had to stay fresh for several months, without the threat of being picked up by multiple other media outlets before
Gloss
hit the newsstands. It was a delicate balancing act, but Cate enjoyed it. She liked scouring newspapers and websites and wondering how to slice and dice the headlines into possible features. Today’s paper, for example, was trumpeting the story of a politician who had cheated on his wife with a call girl. No shocker there—were there any politicians who didn’t have hookers on speed dial? she wondered—but the sheer volume of such stories meant Cate should pay attention. There had to be a way to find an angle that would be relevant to her readers.

She reached for her yellow legal pad and pencil and began to jot notes.
Daughters,
she wrote, and underlined the word twice. Although
Gloss
boasted both male and female readers, the bulk
of subscribers were women aged twenty-five to forty-nine. So most articles were tilted toward them.

When fathers were caught in such sex scandals, how did it affect their daughters? Cate tapped her pencil against her lower lip, wondering if there could be a story hiding within that question. Two hours later, a page of her yellow pad was full of possible ideas, and the office was beginning to stir to life. The smell of fresh coffee filled the hallways as co-workers filed through, chatting about their weekends. Cate raised her wrist and looked deliberately at her watch. Ten o’clock.

This was what they didn’t tell you when you got a dream promotion; no one mentioned the ugly underside that accompanied it. She had no idea how to handle Sam. She sensed that she needed to take a stand; if she allowed his piece into the magazine now, she’d forever be marked as a pushover.

Ten-fifteen.

Of course, there were problems with that approach. Sam had allies at the magazine. He’d worked here for nearly a decade, and had major pieces running four or five times a year. Nigel clearly valued his work. Who were his closest friends? Renee would know that sort of thing, but Cate didn’t have time to ask right now.

She didn’t have time for this crap, either. She wanted to have this piece wrapped up before she headed to the National Magazine Awards. She had meetings stacked up all afternoon, and this morning was the only time she’d carved out for editing Sam’s piece. Sam knew that; Cate had made it very clear.

Ten-twenty-five.

She couldn’t believe Sam had actually blown off the third deadline Cate had given him. That was it. She’d use an evergreen to fill the space, and she’d avoid Sam as much as possible from here on out. She probably couldn’t get him fired based on this one incident; Sam’s track record was good. But she could avoid assigning
him any cover stories. She couldn’t believe Sam had tested her in this way. Had he really thought Cate would cave?

Cate had just turned to her computer to write an e-mail to Christopher about her mother’s visit to Hong Kong when she heard a rustling sound coming toward her. She kept her eyes on the computer screen and kept typing.

“Sorry!” Sam burst into her office.

Cate finished writing her sentence before looking up. “Good morning,” she said.

“Here’s the piece.” Sam opened his briefcase, pulled out a stack of pages, and handed them to her. He smiled, and Cate noticed he had something stuck between his front teeth. “I’ll e-mail you a copy as well.”

Cate looked at her watch. Ten-fifty.

“It might be too late to get it in.” She shrugged and tossed the pages onto the closest pile on her desk. It slid off, to the floor, and she didn’t make a move to pick it up.

“Seriously?” Sam actually smirked. “Look, I did the rewrite you wanted. I’m less than an hour late, and it’s because the train broke down this morning and we sat on the tracks. You’re going to kill my story because of that?”

I know exactly what you’re doing
, Cate wanted to scream, but she didn’t. Could it be that Sam’s train
had
broken down?

Of course not.

“Look, I’ve got a bunch of work to do,” Cate said. “I’m behind schedule now.” She let the words linger in the air for a moment. “I’ll get back to you on the story.”

Let Sam be the one to squirm—to wonder if he’d pushed too far. Cate waited until he’d left the office, then she stood up and walked around her desk and picked up the pages. She sat down with her blue editing pencil and took a deep breath. Secretly, she almost hoped the piece would be awful.

At least then she’d know what to do.

During her freshman year in college, Renee had had a roommate who slept only six hours a night. On weekends, the rest of the teenagers in their dorm stumbled out of bed at ten, eleven, or even noon, but Eloise was always up with the sun.

“Don’t you get tired?” Renee had asked once after she flopped over in bed and saw Eloise reading, a little book light attached to the top of her thick novel.

Eloise had shaken her head. “Nope. It’s just how my body works. My dad’s the same way.”

“I’m jealous,” Renee had said, her words half swallowed up by a huge yawn, before she’d turned over and fallen back asleep.

Imagine how much you could get done if you didn’t require so much sleep, Renee had thought at the time. Eloise never had to pull all-nighters for exams, never dozed through morning classes, never pulled on a baseball cap to camouflage the fact that she didn’t have time to shower.