This phase had passed, yet still Hope often failed to vet a new beau with the same thoroughness, obsessive at times, that she turned on a potential stock option.
Never one to intrude in her sibling’s life, and therefore ensuring a lifetime of closeness, Faith had felt compelled to have a little chat with Hope after observing her last heartthrob stuffing his pockets with the host’s expensive cigars at a party Have Faith catered in early November. She’d been discreetly hidden from his notice, gazing through a slight opening in the kitchen door. “So tacky, sweetheart,” she’d told Hope. “So not you.”
Now Hope had found someone new. “Who is it and what does he do?” In a city where you were what you did, Faith tried to make a point of remembering to at least ask for a name first.
“His name is Phelps Grant and he’s a commodities broker. I met him at a party last weekend. We started talking and things just clicked, Fay.” For years, Faith had been vowing to tell Hope how much she disliked the nickname, but for years she’d been putting it off.
“Phelps—prep school, right? You don’t do that to your kid unless you’re very sure he’s going to be surrounded by Bancrofts and Chadwicks.” 45
“Choate, if you must know. Anyway, he can’t help his name, and I like it. Very traditional. We played squash together on Sunday and had brunch afterward.
We’re going out again Friday.”
Faith wanted to ask, “Why not Saturday?” The prime spot. But she didn’t wanted to rain on Hope’s parade. Maybe Phelps had a prior commitment—passing around the drinks tray for Mater. Or maybe he was seeing another woman.
“He looks like Tom Cruise. Very hunky.” Once Hope was out of her missionary period, appearance mattered a great deal, and Faith hadn’t seen her with a homely short guy in years. Tall, with thick brown hair and deep green eyes that were the envy of her blue-eyed sister, Hope turned plenty of heads.
When both sisters went out together, the effect was more than doubled. Faith was as fair as her sister was dark, but their faces were just similar enough to proclaim a family connection. Fortunately, their mother, Jane, had never considered dressing them alike. Not even the same style in two colors.
“I ran into Emma Stanstead the other night at a job on the East Side.” Faith threw out the line, hoping for some kind of bite.
“Her husband’s going to be president someday.
We’ll have a friend in the White House, although it’s hard to imagine Emma there. But he’s a very smart cookie. He’ll get all sorts of people to keep her on track. She’ll just have to smile and produce a few kids, of course.”
Faith hadn’t thought of this, yet political dynasties meant offspring, and Michael Stanstead seemed like a dynastic kind of guy. Most of the Michael Stansteads of the world were.
46
“Emma didn’t look pregnant. In fact, she’s thinner than she was the last time I saw her, but she’s still beautiful.”
“I see them in the paper all the time. Where have you been? They’re one of New York’s golden couples.” In a kitchen of one sort or another, Faith thought, answering Hope’s question silently.
“So, he really is being put forward by the party as a serious contender for future presidency?”
“Absolutely. That’s all I’ve been hearing, and he wouldn’t be bad.”
Faith and her sister studiously avoided discussing politics, but each was aware that in many elections they were canceling out each other’s votes.
“Get a date and have dinner with us next week.
I’m dying for you to meet Phelps.” Hope tried to sound plaintive. She knew it was a busy time for her sister.
“I’ll try. I did meet a cute guy on the bus the other day. He was singing carols.”
“On the bus! Are you crazy?”
“Not all of us can afford cabs, sweetheart.”
“You know very well I didn’t mean that. I take the bus sometimes myself. I mean getting involved with a total stranger—a stranger who’s singing to himself.”
“I’ll be careful.” Faith was smiling. There were any number of men who’d be happy to get her call, yet the idea of someone new was appealing. For months, she’d been telling her friends—and herself—that she was too busy to get involved with anyone, but New York during the holidays was so romantic. She pictured the older couple in the horse-drawn carriage that had passed by when Emma and she were in the park. Nice to take one of those carriages under a starry winter sky after a 47
long, leisurely meal at one of those bistros on the East Side with a fireplace.
“So, you’ll let me know when?”
She hadn’t been listening to her sister. She hadn’t been dicing apples, either.
“I’ll try. If we can’t get together before then, bring him to Chat’s party.”
“But you’ll be working.”
“And socializing. I plan to do both. It’s the last one she’s giving in the apartment. I’m really going to miss that view.”
Chat’s apartment in one of the San Remo towers on Central Park West had been a fixture in the Sibley girls’ childhood—and adulthood. They’d watched every New Year’s and Fourth of July fireworks from Chat’s windows high above the city and every Macy’s Thanksgiving parade from one of Chat’s neighbors’
windows in an apartment closer to earth. It was a rit-ual.
“Got to go. Call me,” Hope said before hanging up.
Faith put the phone down.
“Phelps,” Josie said, having eavesdropped expertly, as usual. “Sounds like money. Think he’d be interested in investing in a restaurant?”
“Not unless you have plans to franchise in all fifty states, I’d imagine,” Faith said wryly.
Josie had gone to deliver the order and Faith was about to leave when the phone rang. She debated letting the machine pick up, but she shut the door and crossed the room instead. It was Emma. And she was frantic.
“I just got another Christmas card!” 48
Three
“Where are you? Are you home?” Faith asked tersely.
Of course Emma had received another demand. It wasn’t a question of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
This was Imelda’s whole closet. She had to make Emma realize what a dangerous game she was playing.
“Yes, I’m at the apartment.” Emma was speaking quickly, breathlessly. “The card was in the newspaper.
The doorman leaves it on the mat, and usually Michael gets it first thing, but he left for Albany early this morning. I left the back way when I went out and didn’t think about the paper. Then when I came home, there it was. I picked it up and the card dropped out.”
“I’ll be right there. Are you sure you don’t want to call the police while you’re waiting for me? I’ll be there with you,” Faith pleaded.
Emma’s voice lost its tremulous quality. “I’m sure.
And I’m also sure I don’t want to stay here one minute more. Meet me at Rockefeller Center. At the café.
That’s halfway for both of us. I’m leaving as soon as I hang up.”
49
Faith agreed and headed for Fifth Avenue. Emma was safe inside her apartment, but Faith could understand how frightening the large, empty, silent rooms were at the moment. The bustle—and anonymity—of the city’s crowded sidewalks would be infinitely preferable.