Truly: What an asshole.
And almost as bad: He’d completely misread her. He’d got her completely wrong. He’d underestimated her. She wasn’t just some around-the-way girl; she was a Goldman Sachs woman. She was a go-getter. She was one of those high-powered women who appeared in the photos Back Bay magazine used to run. And she was smart. And lovely.
He wasn’t going to misread her again, and he wasn’t going to screw up again. He was going to take her out to have an amazing meal at a romantic, high-end restaurant, and he’d be damned if he was going to look like some zhlub. He thought about how gorgeous Andrea was in the supermarket, and that had been without makeup, after running. He was going to look great, stylish, no matter what the cost. He wasn’t just going to look like his old self; he was going to look better. And he wasn’t even going to look at the price tags.
Sheila returned with another associate, their arms full of hangers. A good number of the items were immediate rule-outs, the ones that were so fashion-forward they were silly. He had no use for rib-paneled denim biker’s pants or polka-dotted trousers or monk-strap A. Testoni shoes made of alligator skin, and some of the jackets looked as if they could have been Soviet-era Red Army surplus. But once Sheila understood that he wanted to look elegant and understated and not like a pimp or a Russian oligarch, she started to bring out the right things. An old Cole Porter song was running through his head like a soundtrack to his life, something he’d heard someone cover-was it Jamie Cullum, or maybe Michael Bublé? “I’m Getting Myself Ready for You.” He was so over feeling and looking like a loser. Maybe he was unemployed, but now all of a sudden he was rich, unequivocally so, and it was time to look like it.
“All right,” Sheila said, materializing again with yet another garment on a hanger. “With your physique? This unstructured cashmere blazer would look fabulous.”
The butler brought a second flute of Champagne, and Rick took it with a crooked smile. This was a nice life. He could get used to it.
On his way out, clutching a couple of chocolate-brown Marco garment bags and a large brown cloth shopping bag, he heard someone calling his name.
“Rick? Is that you?”
It was Mort Ostrow, entering the store as Rick was going out. Ostrow drew back and gave Rick a gimlet-eyed appraising look. “Doing a little clothes shopping?”
With a polite smile, Rick said, “Hi, Mort.”
Ostrow actually stroked one of the garment bags as if it were a cherished pet. “Well, you certainly seem to have landed on your feet.”
“I’m doing okay.” Rick was suddenly at a loss for words. His brain had frozen.
“Quite a bit better than okay, I’d say.”
Rick shrugged, felt his cheeks get hot.
Ostrow smiled thinly. “Looks like someone’s paying you too much, and I don’t think it’s us.” He gave a jovial chortle, or at least his idea of a jovial chortle, but his jocularity sounded forced, and something in his tone struck Rick as almost ominous.
10
The town car pulled into the driveway in front of Andrea’s house, a handsome classic colonial on Fayerweather Street, buttery yellow with glossy black shutters, slate roof, and dormers. Rick rang the bell, and she came right out as if she’d been sitting there, waiting. He almost gasped when he saw her. She was transformed. Stunning. No more puffy white down parka. Under a black pea coat she wore a red dress with an asymmetrical plunging neckline. Now she had makeup on-very red lipstick that matched her dress-and understated jewelry, pearl earrings and a gold chain around her neck so dainty it nearly disappeared. Her hair was up.
“You look great,” he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
“Thank you. Nice jacket.” She looked over his shoulder at the black sedan. “Uh, what’s this?”
“I didn’t feel like driving into Boston.”
“So… I mean… wow.” She turned around and yelled into the house, “Evan, come kiss mommy good-bye!… Evan?” To Rick, she said, “He was upset I was going out, so I let him watch SpongeBob, and now he can’t tear himself away from the TV.” She turned back and yelled again, “Good night, sweetheart-Mommy’s leaving!” She waited a moment, ear cocked. “I think I should escape while I can.”
As they walked to the town car, he said, “Lived here long?” It was a step up from her parents’ three-decker on Huron Ave where she’d lived in high school.
“Since I moved back.”
They sat in the spacious back of the sedan as it purred through the Cambridge streets. “I don’t think I’ve been in a town car since Goldman,” she said. “Look at this. And you actually got a reservation at Madrigal? You must know someone.”
Rick shrugged modestly.
“Of course you do. You know everyone in town.” She said it with a level gaze, in a lightly mocking tone.
Madrigal’s interior was dramatic and industrial-chic-it was located on the site of an old factory-with the obligatory exposed brick, vaulted ceiling, and rustic beams. It had cast-iron chairs, a poured concrete bar, scarred dark wood factory floor, and big rusted chains and gears and rigging placed here and there as decoration. The menus were heavy, fashioned from large copper sheets, and the edges threatened to slice off your fingertips if you weren’t careful. The lights were so low, the pinpoint lights so sparse, they could barely read the menu anyway.
While they were deciding what to order, their waiter poured them each flutes of the house Champagne and another one brought over amuse-bouches that looked like tiny ice-cream cones wrapped in little white napkins on a small silver tray. They were hard tuiles filled with salmon tartare and red onion crème fraîche, buttery and savory and amazing.
“Oh my God, Rick,” she said, eyes widening.
He smiled. “My bouche is definitely amused.”
As soon as they were finished, a couple of people materialized at their sides to take the napkins from their hands. They each ordered the chef’s tasting menu-champignons à la grecque, butternut squash “porridge,” Wagyu beef tartare, quail pressé en croûte, halibut confit, and so on. Earlier that day, Rick had phoned the restaurant to make sure they still had the appetizer they were famous for, an outrageously extravagant concoction called beggar’s purses: crepes stuffed with beluga caviar, tied up with chives as purse strings, and topped with real gold leaf. He’d read about them in one of the many pieces Back Bay had done on Madrigal. They did still have them, he was assured. He put in a request to have an order of each of them presented before the entrée. A special surprise. “Oh, and can you use osetra instead of beluga?” he’d said.
“Certainly, sir,” he was told.
Rick scanned the wine list, as thick as a Tom Clancy novel. “We’d like the 1990 La Tâche,” he finally said.
“Excellent choice, sir,” the man replied, and he patted Rick’s shoulder. With a wink, he said, “I think you’ll be extremely pleased with the La Tâche.”
When the waiter had left, Andrea said, “Hold on, did you just order the DRC?” She was using insider shorthand for Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, the wine producer in Burgundy generally considered one of the very finest in the world. Also one of the most expensive. The only reason Rick knew about DRC was a piece he’d written about a Boston hedge fund manager’s wine grotto at his McMansion in Weston. He’d never actually tasted the stuff. The fact that Andrea was on such intimate terms with DRC that she used its nickname, its initials, though-that was disorienting. This was the same Andrea Messina who, when last he knew her, didn’t know how to use a corkscrew. We all grow up, he thought. Even high school girlfriends. Maybe especially high school girlfriends.