“Is it all right if I leave you here, Mrs. Ross-Downey?” Alex asked.
“Oh please, call me Madeleine.” The opera singer gave her an unsure smile. “And please, come upstairs for a moment. My husband wouldn’t forgive me if I failed to introduce him to the woman who rescued me.”
Alex was curious about the apartment and Madeleine’s husband, Trevor Downey. The papers called him “Manhattan’s Department Store King,” the heir of the department-store chain with the same name. The two of them rode up in the marble-clad elevator to the third floor. The doorman had called upstairs, so Trevor was waiting in the open apartment door. He embraced his wife in both shock and relief, and she started to cry once again.
When Madeleine regained her composure, she introduced Alex to her husband. Trevor Downey was in his mid-forties, and he had thin sandy hair and friendly brown eyes. They went into one of the salons, which was dominated by a massive fireplace, and sat down on soft leather armchairs. Trevor poured a glass of cognac each for his wife and Alex, which they both gladly accepted. While Madeleine eloquently described the mugging and Alex’s courageous actions, Alex looked around at the luxurious apartment. With its shiny wood floors, artfully illuminated paintings in splendid golden frames, and valuable antiques, it seemed friendlier than Sergio’s cold marble palace in the adjacent building. Through the opened wing doors, she noticed a snow-white concert grand piano in the neighboring salon. Trevor wrapped a wool blanket around his poor wife’s shoulders and stroked her cheek. It was obvious that the Downeys shared a deep love and respect for each other. Alex felt a sting inside that felt almost like jealousy. For the first time in her life, Alex sensed that money and success weren’t everything.
“I can’t believe that I could be so careless.” Madeleine clutched her cognac glass with both hands. Her face was pale and tear stained, but she seemed to be fairly calm in her familiar environment. “Don and Liz, who went with me, wanted to take me home. But then I thought that a short walk wouldn’t hurt. When you live in such a protected world, I guess you lose your perspective.”
Trevor put his hand on her shoulder.
“The important thing is that nothing worse happened to you, thanks to your rescuer.” He smiled at Alex.
“That was incredibly courageous of you, Alex!” Madeleine’s eyes sparkled with admiration, and then she giggled quietly. “You really went after those two crooks! Weren’t you scared at all?”
“Everything happened so fast that I didn’t have any time to think about it,” Alex admitted. She briefly thought about her raging anger at Sergio and her entire situation, which she’d unleashed against those two men. But she decided not to mention her dark thoughts to these cultivated people. It was better to let them think of her as the noble rescuer.
“My wife and I would like to thank you for your courageous and selfless intervention, in any case.” Trevor sat down next to his wife, and they held hands.
“We’ll tell Nick all about it,” Madeleine said. “He’ll be shocked because he works so hard for safety in this city. And then something like this happens, to me of all people!”
“Mayor Nick Kostidis and his wife Mary are close friends of ours,” Trevor explained. “Pardon my rudeness, Alex, but in all this excitement I forgot your last name.”
“Sontheim. Alex Sontheim.”
“Ah.” He leaned forward and looked at her with renewed interest. “Yes, of course! Alex Sontheim. This evening’s event was organized by your employer, after all. I’ve heard a great deal about you. You have a remarkable reputation on Wall Street.”
“Thank you very much.” Alex smiled humbly. She enjoyed that even Manhattan’s Department Store King knew her name. If he was a friend of the mayor, she realized that he couldn’t possibly be a friend of Sergio.
“Wall Street?” Madeleine asked in astonishment. “Do you work at the stock exchange?”
“No, an investment bank,” Alex responded. “I’m the head of the mergers and acquisitions department at LMI.”
“How fascinating!” Madeleine exclaimed.
“It’s nothing to write home about.” Alex shrugged her shoulders.
“It certainly is.” Madeleine looked at her with curious eyes. “I always thought that just men were involved in that business. Somehow I had a completely different image of investment bankers.”
“And I thought that all opera singers look like Montserrat Caballé,” Alex countered with a smile, which finally broke the ice. They liked each other straightaway. All three of them laughed, and Trevor poured another round of cognac.
It was two thirty in the morning. Alex glanced at her watch and was amazed to realize how late it was. Trevor insisted on having his chauffeur drive Alex home. She gratefully accepted this offer after the Downeys made her promise to get together again. Alex sat in the back of the limousine and stared out the window in contemplation. The past three hours that she had spent with the Downeys showed her with great clarity what was missing in her life. She had never before wasted a single thought on marriage and friendship because her career was always more important, but she had felt lonely many times during the past few months. She had no real friends in her life. She no longer had any idea at all what she really wanted, which was a strange and oppressive feeling. On an impulse, Alex asked the chauffeur to drive her to Barrow Street. She hoped that Oliver was at home and wouldn’t be angry with her for showing up at his place in the middle of the night. It took a while before he came to the intercom half asleep.
“It’s me, Alex,” she said. “Sorry that I’m waking you this late, but can you let me in?”
If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. He answered the door in his boxer shorts and smiled with sleepy eyes. Without saying a word, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. His skin was warm and smelled slightly like sweat. Suddenly she was overcome with the desire for him on the spot, to be as intimate as Madeleine and Trevor. They fumbled their way to his bed and made love tenderly.
“And now you can tell me everything,” Oliver said as they rested side by side, holding each other tightly, pleasantly exhausted. Alex barely mentioned the event at the museum, but she described in detail how she’d virtually knocked out the two men, how the police showed up, and her surprise when she discovered the identity of the woman she had rushed to help. She told him about the Downeys and their apartment, while Oliver listened with an impressed look on his face. Alex felt very close to him and decided to reveal a little more about herself.
“I was embarrassed at how often she thanked me and how they treated me like a noble and selfless rescuer,” she said.
“But that’s what you were,” Oliver objected. “I wouldn’t have dared to attack two guys. Honestly. That’s courage.”
“No.” Alex turned to the side so that she could see him better in the half dark of the night. “It was more an impulsive reaction. I was so incredibly mad that it was simply an outlet for my anger. If I’d had a baseball bat instead of my purse, I would have beaten those guys to a pulp.”
Oliver looked at her with sleepy eyes and stroked her arm.
“It makes you furious watching helplessly while someone gets mugged,” he said. He didn’t understand.
“It had nothing to do with the mugging,” Alex said as she shook her head. “I ran into the man I’d been…er…seeing for the past few months at the event.”