“Hi, hi, how are you?!” Lindsay said as she looked for somewhere to put her large tote, which Anna couldn’t help but notice was a Louis Vuitton as she finally settled it in the space between them. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic over the bridge was outrageous. My panel went long, and it was at the Harvard Club, so the wait for an Uber was like . . . forever.” Anna was both impressed and annoyed. “Actually, the panel was on some really interesting intellectual property issues in commercial real estate.” Anna realized that she was already becoming more annoyed than impressed. “But enough about me!” Lindsay said. “Your life is so much more interesting. What’s happening at work?”
Whenever anyone asked Anna about her job, she sorted through a series of possible responses, looking for the one that would make her job sound the least ridiculous.
One of my big challenges will be to re-create a wall-size television screen and a huge custom Italian sectional in this very particular shade of . . . no.
This major disaster happened where the invitations to the Opera Ball luncheon were all returned for inadequate . . . nope.
Have you ever seen what $100,000 in American Express gift cards looks like . . . eh. No.
“We finally got all that art from Felix Mercurion I told you about for the auction to save Ilana’s school. Be sure to watch the news tomorrow.”
“Ooooh,” Lindsay said. “I went to an opening there last year. Weird stuff and very expensive. Isn’t he shady? Like financially?” But Anna only shrugged and sighed, thinking of the money Mercurion’s artists made. The residencies and guest professorships they enjoyed. The speeches and interviews they gave. “How’s Adrian’s app?”
Anna winced, realizing that she had been avoiding Lindsay in order to postpone this bit of news. She realized that in getting this “real job,” Adrian was moving closer in the constellations of her life to Lindsay, the suit. “Actually, he got a job at LVMH.”
“Wow!” Lindsay said and then grabbed Anna’s arm with glee, pointing at her bag as if to signify that she was already on the team. “That is amazing. Tell me everything! I know people in the finance department. I mean, I guess that doesn’t really matter. So what is he doing? Designing, right?”
“Not, like, evening gowns. More like shopping bags and websites.” Lindsay’s eyes were practically popping out of her head with zeal for Adrian’s “real job.”
Anna asked for the check as soon as their pasta plates were removed. Lindsay cleared her throat falsely and appeared suddenly . . . hesitant? Nervous?
“A, I wanted you to be the first to know. I mean, other than me. And Jack.” Bringing up her husband could mean only one thing. Anna suddenly noticed a new lushness in Lindsay’s face and body. How she shockingly wore a—could it be?—maternal smile as her eyes fell to her belly.
“Oh my God,” Anna said. Lindsay smiled with tears in her eyes, leaned across the banquette, and grabbed Anna, forcibly embracing her, the large leather tote awkwardly squished between them. When she let go twenty seconds later, both women had wet cheeks. “Lindsay!” Anna said. It felt like she was experiencing every emotion at the same time. “I . . . you . . . congratulations!” She finally got it out.
As Lindsay told her the whole story, from conception through the first suspicions, the home pregnancy test and so on up to that day, which was somewhere in her eighth week, Anna could think only of herself. Of all the feelings seemingly crowded into her rib cage, the one she felt most clearly was a sense of mourning or loss. Like here, again, was a thing she should have had already and maybe never would. She said the words, “Lindsay, I’m so happy for you.”
Anna always insisted on splitting the check with her sister, but that night, she didn’t say anything when Lindsay put down her American Express Gold Card. Let her be the grown-up, Anna thought to herself.
Anna heard the characteristic trill of Mrs. Von Bizmark buzzing her at her desk through the closed foyer doors as she dug for her keys in the bottom of her bag. It was only 10:07 a.m., a little early for the Mrs. to be working the phones. As she slid her key into the lock, she remembered—the glam team had arrived at eight for the uncrating. She ran full sprint, getting there just the split second before it went to voice mail.
“I couldn’t wait to tell you!” Mrs. Von Bizmark boomed in an overcaffeinated rush above the sound of two hair dryers. “Miguel’s fired!” she said triumphantly.
“How?” Anna panted, catching her breath.
“I found him—” Mrs. Von Bizmark searched for the word—“with one of Mrs. Forstbacher’s nurses in the basement late last night.”
“No!” The thought of anyone having sexual intercourse with Miguel in that claustrophobic, windowless lounge was too disgusting to contemplate. But if that was what it took to get rid of the guy, so be it.
“I was thinking . . . ,” Mrs. Von Bizmark continued an hour later, standing at the office door fastening a canary diamond to her ear as if the conversation had not paused at all, “the board should hire a Scandinavian superintendent.”
“Huh,” Anna said.
“What do you think?” Mrs. Von Bizmark said of her outfit. She wore a plain navy crepe dress that would photograph well and a pair of scene-stealing tangerine suede heels with matching nails. “It’s the new Gabriela Hearst,” she said of the dress. Over her arm, a mink vest.
“Fabulous!” Anna said, and she gave her a thumbs-up.
As Mrs. Von Bizmark walked down the hallway, she called back, “The Scandinavians are the best with their hands.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Anna said, and although they couldn’t see one another, both women blushed.
As soon as Mrs. Von Bizmark was out the door, Anna buzzed the lobby. “Alfie, it’s Anna on eight. So? What happened to Miguel?”
“Word travels fast.” Alfie spoke quietly, muffling his voice with his hand.
“What? How?”
“Well, you know, Mrs. Forstbacher is just back from the hospital . . . hold on.” Alfie put the intercom down to open the front door. “Hello, Mr. Samuelson,” he said in his official doorman voice, and then he returned to covert mode. “And she has round-the-clock care. You know, twenty-four-seven nursing? And the second nurse who shows up, well, she’s Dominican like Miguel, and he just starts in right away. Hold on . . .” He opened the door for the FedEx guy. “Hey, John, just right here. Thank you! Anyway, I guess he sealed the deal, because your Mrs. KGB found them in the basement on one of her late-night storage-room visits midthrust, if you know what I mean.” Alfie started to laugh, which devolved into a dry smoker’s cough. “Excuse me,” he rasped.
“Who fired him?”
“Renee. Forstbacher got the nurse.”
“Who’s up for the job?”
“Some Polish guy.”
“Mrs. Von Bizmark said Scandinavian.”
“Maybe. What do I know?”
Anna enjoyed a nibble of her breakfast sandwich and cappuccino. She had not had a quiet moment at her desk yet that year. Her mind returned to Lindsay, her little sister. The one she used to tease and tickle and wrestle with and ditch to go out with boys. Her little sister was married and would be a mother, and Anna remained a struggling artist with a day job no one understood or respected. She texted Adrian: