She jerked her head back. Apparently, I’d gone from being emphatic to yelling.
“ Why ?”
“Because you need to stop fixating on phones and think clearly.” I found myself nodding slowly, like what she said was wisdom so dazzling it couldn’t be absorbed all at once. “This is what you should do: Give them my cell number, okay? You’ll take my phone. Don’t even think of arguing with me. I want to get a new one anyway. That Vertu Rococo.” I struggled. “I can’t believe you haven’t heardof it. It would be the Rolls-Royce of cells if the Rolls didn’t suck. Listen, this makes sense for both of us. You take my cell because then I can get a new number and not tell my mother-in-law. She has me on her speed dial as A. Every time she shoves her phone into her handbag—it’s as full of shit as she is—it dials me. Just don’t answer any call that comes from Palm Beach.”
Andrea lifted her hair with both hands and let it fall back. It covered her shoulders like a short cape made from the fur of a gleaming blond animal. An unkempt animal. Though she’d never admit it, she thought having scraggly ends was cool. She saw herself as an aristocrat and looked down on the nouveau riche as trying too hard with their pricey blunt cuts or exquisitely scissored layers.
In an era where there were (maybe) a hundred people left in New York to whom pedigree mattered, hardly anyone gave a rat’s ass that one of Andrea’s Brinckerhoff ancestors had come to New York (Nieuw Amsterdam then) in 1559. From the way she sneered at most of humanity, it was clear her lineage was the central fact of her existence. It offered her a reason to feel superior. It gave her (she’d decided) license to transgress any social or moral law—like a lady should have a good haircut. Like it’s tasteless not to mock one’s obese husband in public. Like it’s seemly to refrain from committing adultery with members of your husband’s family, country club, and church.
“Okay, I’ll take your cell.” Then I remembered to add, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She paused. “Are you going to make those calls?”
“Now?”
“Why not now? Do you need six more months of therapy to workthrough your Brooklyn accent anxiety?”
I rubbed my forehead as if that would encourage an idea or two. It didn’t. “It’s not about that. It’s that I won’t know what to say if someone takes the call. I’ll end up going, ‘Uuuh, uuuh, I’m Jonah Gersten’s wife. I don’t know if you remember me, but now uuuh, uuuh.’ And if I get their voice mail, do I say, ‘Hate to bother you on a workday, but I’m Susie and my husband, Jonah Gersten, vanished from the face of the earth, and did you . . .’”
“Go on,” Andrea said. “Did you what?”
“I don’t know. Speak to him recently? Have any idea where he might be? Listen, calling people is stupid. God knows why I even thought of it. Everything was fine with Jonah. No one out there knows anything about him I don’t know. He’s not a secret-life kind of guy.”
“You believe that.”
“Yes!”
“I do, too, actually,” Andrea said. She spoke so slowly that for two seconds she forgot her brightness. “But some men with a secret life really want to keep it that way—not like the assholes who leave Amex receipts on top of their dresser. Fat Boy used to do that, before he got too fat to fuck anybody but me, probably because he’s afraid he’ll drop dead from excitement and crush the girl and it’ll make The Financial Times . Anyway, if Jonah wanted to keep a secret, you wouldn’t know, and neither would I. And no, I don’t think he has any secrets worthy of the name.”
“He paid a scalper a fortune for Giants play-off tickets. But then he told me about it.”
“But someone in here”—Andrea tapped his phone book with her index finger—“might know something you don’t. Or it doesn’t even have to be a secret. Maybe someone heard him say, ‘There’s a store up in
“ Why ?”
“Because you need to stop fixating on phones and think clearly.” I found myself nodding slowly, like what she said was wisdom so dazzling it couldn’t be absorbed all at once. “This is what you should do: Give them my cell number, okay? You’ll take my phone. Don’t even think of arguing with me. I want to get a new one anyway. That Vertu Rococo.” I struggled. “I can’t believe you haven’t heardof it. It would be the Rolls-Royce of cells if the Rolls didn’t suck. Listen, this makes sense for both of us. You take my cell because then I can get a new number and not tell my mother-in-law. She has me on her speed dial as A. Every time she shoves her phone into her handbag—it’s as full of shit as she is—it dials me. Just don’t answer any call that comes from Palm Beach.”
Andrea lifted her hair with both hands and let it fall back. It covered her shoulders like a short cape made from the fur of a gleaming blond animal. An unkempt animal. Though she’d never admit it, she thought having scraggly ends was cool. She saw herself as an aristocrat and looked down on the nouveau riche as trying too hard with their pricey blunt cuts or exquisitely scissored layers.
In an era where there were (maybe) a hundred people left in New York to whom pedigree mattered, hardly anyone gave a rat’s ass that one of Andrea’s Brinckerhoff ancestors had come to New York (Nieuw Amsterdam then) in 1559. From the way she sneered at most of humanity, it was clear her lineage was the central fact of her existence. It offered her a reason to feel superior. It gave her (she’d decided) license to transgress any social or moral law—like a lady should have a good haircut. Like it’s tasteless not to mock one’s obese husband in public. Like it’s seemly to refrain from committing adultery with members of your husband’s family, country club, and church.
“Okay, I’ll take your cell.” Then I remembered to add, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She paused. “Are you going to make those calls?”
“Now?”
“Why not now? Do you need six more months of therapy to workthrough your Brooklyn accent anxiety?”
I rubbed my forehead as if that would encourage an idea or two. It didn’t. “It’s not about that. It’s that I won’t know what to say if someone takes the call. I’ll end up going, ‘Uuuh, uuuh, I’m Jonah Gersten’s wife. I don’t know if you remember me, but now uuuh, uuuh.’ And if I get their voice mail, do I say, ‘Hate to bother you on a workday, but I’m Susie and my husband, Jonah Gersten, vanished from the face of the earth, and did you . . .’”
“Go on,” Andrea said. “Did you what?”
“I don’t know. Speak to him recently? Have any idea where he might be? Listen, calling people is stupid. God knows why I even thought of it. Everything was fine with Jonah. No one out there knows anything about him I don’t know. He’s not a secret-life kind of guy.”
“You believe that.”
“Yes!”
“I do, too, actually,” Andrea said. She spoke so slowly that for two seconds she forgot her brightness. “But some men with a secret life really want to keep it that way—not like the assholes who leave Amex receipts on top of their dresser. Fat Boy used to do that, before he got too fat to fuck anybody but me, probably because he’s afraid he’ll drop dead from excitement and crush the girl and it’ll make The Financial Times . Anyway, if Jonah wanted to keep a secret, you wouldn’t know, and neither would I. And no, I don’t think he has any secrets worthy of the name.”
“He paid a scalper a fortune for Giants play-off tickets. But then he told me about it.”
“But someone in here”—Andrea tapped his phone book with her index finger—“might know something you don’t. Or it doesn’t even have to be a secret. Maybe someone heard him say, ‘There’s a store up in
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