Invasion of Privacy
France .”
Well, it’s her business, she ought to know.
Which was Beth’s way of giving me an opening to talk about my business, if I was ready. Instead, I looked at the harbor. The low sun slanted off the dark chop, creating a latticework pattern, the barges and fishing boats and sloops appearing to stand still as the water flashed around them.
John —
“Nancy’s afraid she might have cancer,” the last word not coming out quite right.
A pause. What kind?
“Breast.”
Has she had tests?
“Yes. We’re waiting to hear from her doctor.”
Another pause. And in the meantime?
“I guess I was hoping for some advice.”
John, I don’t think I learned anything back then that you didn’t learn with me.
I nodded.
So maybe you ought to think about what you already know.
“How do you mean?”
Remember the first time with us, when we were waiting for my test results?
“I try not to, actually.”
A third pause. You brought me a single rose, still closed up like a bud. It pointed to the future.
I cleared my throat. “It didn’t point very far.”
That wasn’t the rose’s fault. And it helped.
I nodded some more.
John?
“What?”
Have you ever brought Nancy flowers?
I couldn’t recall an occasion when I had, not one.
Why not?
“It was something I did with you, for you. And nobody else.”
John, Nancy is the somebody else now. And she has been, for more than a while.
Nodding one last time, I took in the sun and the water and all the stones around Beth before moving back to the car. Starting the engine, I thought, Mrs. Feeney’s going to believe I’m getting senile.
I left the Prelude, and a rose for Nancy , in an illegal space under the still-elevated Central Artery and walked three blocks to the financial district. The Harborside Bank had its offices in a building the board of directors would like you to think they’d hewn themselves from pink, virgin granite. The floors in the lobby were pink too, but marble, a security/information counter curving like a scimitar in front of three banks of elevators, each serving a different twenty floors of the structure. The security guard pointed toward the last group of them, telling me to get off at fifty-four to see Ms. Evorova.
After an ear-popping ride, the elevator opened on an office suite done in wall-to-wall carpeting the same shade as all the stonework. A woman wearing a pilot’s headset sat behind a teak desk so highly polished it reflected like a mirror. The prints hanging above the matching loveseats surprised me, though. Instead of seascapes or foxhunts, they were abstract geometries of yellow, orange, and purple.
The woman in the headset looked up from a computer board in front of her. “May I help you, sir?”
“I’d like to see Olga Evorova, please.”
A slight hesitation, then a smoothing over. “I’m fairly certain she’s in conference right now, but let me try for you. Please be seated.”
I took one of the loveseats. Stiffer than I’d guessed, more a football bench than a piece of furniture.
The woman clacked out a concerto on the keys in front of her, then frowned, as though she were playing to the balcony. “I’m so sorry, but it’s as I feared. She’s in conference and simply—”
“—cannot be disturbed.”
A little frost heaved under the smoothness. “Correct.”
“Claude Loiselle, then. Please. And tell her John Cuddy needs to see her.”
Another concerto on the board, shorter this time. “No, I’m afraid Ms. Loiselle—”
“Tell me, are there names on the doors here?”
“I beg your pardon?’
“Names. If I walk past you and start down one of the hallways, will I see names that’ll help me know which office is whose, or do I just barge in, a door at a time, until I find the people I’ve asked for?”
Her left hand moved almost imperceptibly on the board, and I figured she’d pushed, quite reasonably, a panic button connected to a monitored security panel somewhere.
I said, “How long do I have before the cavalry arrives?”
No answer.
“The reason I ask is, those women, if they’re here, would really rather see me than have you and the rent-a-cops throw me on the sidewalk.”
To her credit, the receptionist showed teeth that bespoke more snarl than smile, but hit some different buttons and said into her mouthpiece, “Ms. Loiselle? I’m terribly sorry, but…“
It was a green tweed suit with reddish nubs today, a pattern that highlighted her eyes and her hair,
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