Maybe she was making too big a deal out of all this.
It was a simple family dinner. Hope had invited Phelps, or at least Faith thought she had. That will solve everything, she decided. If Hope’s beau would be in attendance, she’d invite Richard. She’d call her sister this afternoon before she left to do tonight’s dinner.
“Do you want me to do some more packing?” Josie asked. “There’s time.”
“No, we’re in good shape—and the movers are going to do all the china, as well as the big stuff. Why don’t you grab an hour for yourself? Howard will be back at five, and it’s just the three of us tonight.”
“I hope it’s early. I plan to start celebrating early. And you—you need to get some more sleep, not that the alternative is disagreeing with you, but you know what happens when you burn your candle at both ends.”
“You get a ‘lovely light,’ “ Faith said, quoting the Edna St. Vincent Millay poem.
“No, you get a whole lot of wax,” Josie amended,
“and it’s a bitch to clean up.”
“Go. Go out among the desperate throngs looking for something original, something not a tie or perfume, and spread your words of wisdom.”
Josie made a face. “It’s too cold to walk from store to store. And I’m waiting to do my Christmas shopping the day after, when they have the big sales. But I will get out of your hair. I have to get some sweet potatoes for my pies. I’ll make them at home tomorrow after the brunch. Do you think four will be enough?”
“Plenty.”
“Then I’ll make five. See you in an hour.” Faith sat down at the counter and looked at her doo-dles on the packing sheet of paper from the day before. She’d drawn thin lines from Emma to everyone else. The result looked like the wheel of an imported sports car. She stared at it some more and then started to crumble it up. She didn’t need it anymore. Case closed.
But the case wasn’t closed. She still didn’t know who had been blackmailing Emma—and she was sure they’d try again. Then there was the big question behind everything else. Who had killed Nathan Fox and Lorraine Fuchs? And who had been at the wheel of the car last night? Could she be sure it was Harvey? Could she be sure of anything?
The phone rang. It was Richard. Case in point.
“Hi, know you’re busy, but I wanted to hear your voice.”
When someone says something like that, it makes it hard to say anything next. Thou witty, thou wise—thou banal.
“Well, hi there.” Brilliant, Faith.
“How late are you working tonight? Could we get together?”
“I have no idea. It’s dinner, but sometimes people linger. Certainly not before midnight.”
“Then midnight it is.”
Whoa, she thought. Last night, tonight? Tomorrow night?
“I really have to get some sleep. I’ve—”
“Sounds fine to me.” His voice was warm and the enthusiasm was neither over- nor underdone.
“Okay, why don’t I call you when I’m leaving. The apartment is up on Central Park West.”
“See you later.”
She hung up, then realized she hadn’t invited him to her parents’. Somehow in the course of the conversation, she’d decided to—Phelps or no Phelps.
Sunday morning dawned gray and cold. And brownish green. The only snow they’d have for Christmas was what was in store windows, and the unsightly mounds left by the plows that hadn’t melted yet and were serving as dog loos, with occasional garlands of trash. The apartment was warm, but Faith didn’t feel like leaving the nest of her bed. Not for a long time. Last night had been a disaster. She roused herself. Coffee. Much coffee. Maybe not a disaster, but certainly a downer. The dinner had gone well and she’d showered her cards like confetti upon the complimentary guests. One man had offered to put money in the business and had given her his card. Then she’d gone to meet Richard at the bar at the Top of the Sixes—666 Fifth Avenue, his choice.
“The view used to be better. They’re putting up too many buildings in the city.”
Faith had agreed. The restaurant had been a favorite of Aunt Chat’s when Faith was a child, and they’d celebrated special occasions there. She remembered one time when Chat had let Faith and Hope take turns wearing her new white mink stole—the tangible result of a whopping new account—all through dinner, apparently unperturbed by the catsup they were amply using to cover their fries. The Top of the Sixes was a man-made mountain aerie; they floated not above the clouds, but above the hordes. It had always been hard to come away from the windows to concentrate on the food. As Faith got older, she determined the view was the draw. Not necessarily the food.
Last night, some of the old childhood magic had been present. For one thing, it was almost Christmas and the restaurant was filled with reminders—not only the decorations but also the guests. Everyone was a bit more dressed up than usual and the conversation sounded sparkling, even if proximity would have revealed it wasn’t. Carols played softly in the background. Faith had changed at work and was wearing a burgundy silk shirt tucked into matching velvet pants—a once-a-year kind of outfit she’d bought on the spur of the moment. She wore the Mikimoto pearl necklace Chat had given her for her twenty-first birthday. As she’d fastened it around her neck, she’d noted the way the beads shone luminously against her throat.
She’d pulled her hair back.
Richard was still celebrating. He’d spent most of the day with his agent. “Perrier-Jouët, don’t you think?” Faith had agreed. Not only were the Art Nouveau bottles lovely to look at, but the champagne was damn good, too. She’d settled into herself. Thoughts of Emma Morris Stanstead—thoughts of everything save the moment—had disappeared from her mind.
“You’ve become very special to me, Faith,” Richard murmured. He was sitting next to her, as close as the chair would allow. He took her hand.
“I want to give you something.”
“Oh, no, Richard, you shouldn’t have,” she’d protested, happily aware that her bag was weighed down with the snow globe she’d bought for him.
“It’s nothing.” He’d smiled.
And it was. A cookbook. A nice one with glossy photographs. But a book. Impersonal.
“You probably have a million of these, but you have to get ideas from somewhere, and this looked great. It’s divided by seasons. You can cook your way through the year.”
Oh bliss, Faith thought, and decided to keep the snow globe for herself.
After some more champagne, she had second thoughts. Men were notoriously bad at knowing what to give women as gifts. Her father was a case in point, appealing desperately to his daughters when those times of the year rolled around, and they were more than happy to save their mother from a blender—Dad’s idea for one Christmas—or a sewing machine—for Mom’s fortieth.
She was just reaching into her bag, Richard nuzzling her neck in a decidedly pleasant way, when she heard him say, “I’m really going to miss you.” Say what? “Miss me? Why?” she said out loud.