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He responds immediately:If that’s what you’re wearing out, I’m meeting you before dinner.
Good boy,Tatum thinks, but her eyes burn with tears.
Dru-Ann is in such a fine mood once she’s showered and dressed—she abandoned her usual blazer-and-jeans-look for an ivory Halston jumpsuit, a choice she might regret once she’s in the ladies’ room—that she decides it’s time to face down her voice mail.
She sits at the Formica table in the kitchenette with the bottle of tequila and a silver-fade shot glass in front of her.
She’ll get the worst out of the way first: JB.
“Hello, Dru-Ann, it’s JB again. I’m not exactly thrilled to leave this in a voice mail but you’ve left me no choice. I want your resignation on my desk first thing Monday morning.” Pause. “I had Jim from Legal reach out, we went to the trouble of drafting an apology statement, and you’ve summarily ignored us both, which we assume means you don’t care about your image or the image of this company. If you don’t resign, Dru-Ann, I will fire you.” His tone becomes softer. “Why did you let it come to this? I thought we were friends. I gave you a way out.” Clears throat. “Anyway, Monday, please.”
Dru-Ann pours a shot and throws it back. Resignation, she thinks. Is heserious?Yes, she knows he is. She’s losing the best job in the world.
Next, she listens to the voice mail from Zeke. She hears “Terminating your contract”… “permanently replacing you with Gabriella LeGrand”… “I’m sorry, fam.”
Ha! Zeke isnother fam, he’s a bro who pretends to be woke enough to produce a woman-forward show (when he’s texting, he uses a Black thumbs-up even though he’s as white as Wonder Bread; canshecancelhiscontract for that?). Zeke is going to hear it from Dru-Ann’s fan base. Nobody can stand Crabby Gabby, especially not Marla. Maybe Marla will quit in solidarity, though why would she? She’ll have seniority.
Dru-Ann pours another shot; the first one hasn’t made a dent.
She listens to the voice mail from Dean Falzarano atNew Yorkmagazine. She can guess what’s coming, and she’s right: He’s not going to run the article about rampant eating disorders in the nation’s most elite figure-skating academy. The article took Dru-Ann six months and four trips to the Twin Cities to research; she had to earn the trust of the girls and the parents and the school psychologist and the team doctor. Now their story won’t be told—or maybeUSA Todaywill send a stringer out to cover it.
Dru-Ann pours a third shot and throws it back.
Last one,she thinks, and she pushes Play on Rosemarie Filbert.
“Hi, hon, it’s Rosemarie from down the street. Just checking to see how you’re doing.” Long exhale. Rosemarie is an old-school chain smoker; the filters of her Newports are stained Revlon Stoplight Red. “If you’re thinking of listing your property, you know where to find me. I’ll get you double what you paid for it.” Inhale. “Take care, hon.”
Dru-Ann closes her eyes; her disgrace is now complete. Rosemarie Filbert is circling like a buzzard over the roadkill that is Dru-Ann’s life.
Dru-Ann pours a fourth shot. She has been fired from all three of her jobs, and Rosemarie is probably printing up a listing sheet for Dru-Ann’s town house that very second. Dru-Ann stares at the fourth shot of excellent tequila but instead of drinking it, she rises from the table, throws the shot in the sink, grabs her clutch, walks out the door, and crunches through the white shells of the driveway to the main house, where she is, if not exactly adored by all, at least expected.
34. My Little Cabbage
Caroline isn’t fool enough to answer Isaac’s call—it’s definitely Sofia, laying a trap! But after she declines, a text comes in:Pick up, mon petit chou.
Mon petit chou,a French endearment, one Caroline hopes he uses only with her. He calls Sofiama chérie.
The phone rings again and Caroline is helpless to resist. She is his little cabbage. She picks up. “Hello?” She tries to make her voice as bright and sunny as a Nantucket afternoon.
“Caroline,” he says, emphasis on the last syllable, which he always pronounces as “lean.”
“Hey,” she says. She has been strong up to this point, but hearing his voice is too much. “What’s going on? Sofia texted, then called.”
“She suspects something,” he says. “Not you, just someone. Because she says I sounded too happy while she was away. She was calling you to see if there had been any women visiting or if I’d gone out.”
There’s a lot to unpack in those statements but Caroline is, initially, relieved. “So she doesn’t suspect me?”
“No,” Isaac says, and Caroline realizes that she would fall way beneath Sofia’s consideration. Sofia is reaching out only to use Caroline as a spy. Ouch.
“Are you sure?” Caroline says. “Because when she met me, she said, ‘Please, no trouble.’ What did that mean?”
“No troublemeant don’t be late, pay attention, don’t check your phone all the time, don’t use me as a network,” Isaac says. “You were not that kind of trouble.”
There’s a moment of silence during which Caroline and, she assumes, Isaac think about what kind of trouble Caroline was.
“If she calls again, just assure her it was no one, there was no one, I was a good boy. Please, I need you to do this for me.”
“Because you love her?”
