She hung up, just like that, no room for me to interject. I let the phone fall next to me, lying there feeling cold as I stared up at the ceiling a while longer.
∞∞∞
Estelle met me at a classy wine bar in SoHo, where I had tosqueeze up a narrow flight of stairs and duck through a too-small doorway to get into the place filled with jazz music, low lights, polished wood and brass accents. Estelle was waiting at a table just under where a live pianist played on the stage, holding up a bottle of Bordeaux Merlot, and I sat down with her.
“I appreciate you taking time to meet me,” I said, and her thin, forced smile wavered even more.
“Oh, god, babe, listen to you. That’s something you say to the financial auditor you don’t really like, not the girl who threw pizza at you in middle school. You really do need some wine.”
“Look… yes, I do.” I took the glass she poured me, and I closed my eyes as I sipped it, the sensation of it flooding me with relief. “I feel like such an idiot.”
“Linyue didn’t tell me much, just thatMs. Branchpulled a fast one on you and now you’re not well and taking leave.”
“Mm…”
“So, she wasn’t Cassandra after all.”
“Julie Branch, all along. She was just playing a persona to try to get in with people.”
“So… is she actually married?”
I let out a short laugh. “No. Never had it go that way before. Usually I get people lying that they aren’t.”
She leaned forward, hands folded on the table. “So, now that we have that established, you can admit if you two banged.”
“Several times, yes.”
“And she didn’t tell you even while you were sleeping together! What else was she lying to you about?”
I shrugged. “I… I don’t know.”
“Where is she now? I’ll go have a talk with her.”
“Oh. She didn’t tell you that part, huh?” I shook my head. “I don’t know if she’s still in the city.”
“What, she’s running away now?”
“Lost her apartment and basically all her possessions. Last I checked in she was trying to get a case started with the slumlord who threw her out and stole all her things so that her contact could collect his collateral, and then she was leaving.”
She stared, jaw hanging open, blinking slowly. “She was living in a slum? And got kicked out?”
“Laundry closet, from the sounds of things.” I described it all for her, too, everything Julie had told me at the courthouse, and slowly, she softened, a sad look in her eyes. I drank the wine a little faster than I should have as I told her, and I was grateful for the piano music just next to us, drowning us out for the rest of the room. By the end, Estelle looked like she’d cry.
“That’s awful,” she said.
“It is what it is. I need to stop taking everyone who approaches me at face value.”
“I mean…” She shrugged helplessly. “It doesn’t sound like she was lying aboutthatmuch.”
I set down my wine, looking at her incredulously. “No? Just her name, her job, her marital status?”
“Well, jeez, Hellie, when you put it that way. But like… she did tell you her name. And sheisa music talent agent by now, and sheisconnected to Jewel, and it was real when she got you in with Jewel. Even with all of that, from every time I talked to her, it’s not like she ever wanted anything but the best for you. She wasn’t lying to get something out of you, it was just… the situation she was in.”
“Are you taking her side right now?”
“I’m just saying, what would have been different if she’d told you the truth? If she’d introduced herself as Julie and said she was trying to get into the music industry as a talent agent?”
“We… it…” I shook my head. “It’s the principle of the thing, and you know it. If she’ll lie about that, what else will she lie about?”
