Market Street (2 page)

“It was a present,” the girl repeated, “but maybe you have the credit card on file. The name was Blake, Aidan Blake.” The girl kept glancing around, as if one of the uniformed meter maids was going to appear and arrest her for double parking.

“Excuse me,” Cassie said.

“Aidan Blake, Professor Aidan Blake actually, but I doubt it says that on the credit card. I guess physicians put ‘Doctor’ in front of their names but it would seem a bit silly for a professor to, wouldn’t it?” The girl looked from Cassie to Alexis as if she was very interested in their opinion.

“Where did you get this?” Cassie held the box at arm’s length as if it was a stick of dynamite.

“I told you it was a present. Do you think I stole it or something?” The girl stepped back from the counter. “I may not look like a Fenton’s customer but I’m not a thief. It was a Christmas present, from a friend,” she finished, her round cheeks turning a light shade of pink.

“How do you know this friend?” Alexis demanded, glancing at Cassie, whose face had turned white.

“We don’t give cash refunds, only store credit,” Cassie said automatically. She gripped the side of the display case, pressing her knuckles against the glass. Every nerve in her body tingled, as if someone set off a fire alarm only she could hear.

“You two treat customers pretty funny.” The girl frowned. “I thought Fenton’s was all about customer service. I’ve seen the ads online: ‘Don’t just walk the red carpet; take it home with you. At Fenton’s every customer is a star.’ Hardly.” The girl pushed the box into the shopping bag. “Store credit isn’t going to do much. What am I going to buy? A two-hundred-dollar pair of seamless stockings? A Marc Jacobs hairbrush? I’ll probably never come to Union Square again; I’m obviously not welcome.”

“Wait.” Cassie exhaled, feeling as though something heavy was sitting on her chest. “I’ll give you cash. Here, give me the box.”

“Okay.” The girl stopped, eyeing Cassie suspiciously. “I want a full refund. I bet it was expensive.”

Cassie opened the cash register and extracted three fifty-dollar bills. “Take these.” She slid them over the counter.

The girl’s eyes opened wide. She picked up the bills and crinkled the edges with her fingers. “I don’t think it was that much. I mean, shouldn’t you look up the credit card or look at the price tags on the other necklaces?”

“Take the money and leave.” Alexis walked to the front of the case. She was almost six feet in her four-inch Prada heels and her body was muscled and lean from hours in the pool and on her bicycle. She stood so close to the girl she could see the brown roots at the top of her head.

“I’m leaving.” The girl stuffed the money in her jeans pocket and moved away from Alexis. “You’re lucky I don’t go on Yelp or something. But thanks for the refund, I hope it doesn’t all go to the meter maid.”

Alexis walked back to Cassie and put her hand on her shoulder. “Breathe,” she said quietly.

“I can’t.” Cassie’s voice was like a robot. “I need some fresh air.”

“You’re not following her.” Alexis grabbed Cassie’s sleeve. “We need to sit down in private. Let’s go to your mother’s office.”

Cassie followed Alexis to the private elevator in the back of the store, clutching the red Fenton’s box that held the pendant. She felt as though her knees would buckle at any moment and she’d crumple to the floor like an anorexic Victoria’s Secret model. She closed her eyes as the elevator doors shut, wishing everything would stay black and the elevator would just keep going up and up and up.

“Cassie”—Alexis poked her with one long fingernail—“get a grip. It can’t be that bad. You’ve been married for almost ten years. There has to be an explanation.”

“Maybe Aidan gave each student jewelry, instead of grades. Maybe he gave his whole lecture class gifts: polo shirts for the boys and necklaces and earrings for the girls. That would be so like him, don’t you think? That sounds just like my husband who believes material things have no relationship to one’s happiness, and makes me do his birthday shopping. If it wasn’t for me, he’d still buy Isabel a My Little Ponies every year, even though she’s sixteen and lives with us half the time.” Cassie was almost shouting.

“Cassie, stop.” Alexis pushed the elevator button so the doors stayed open. “We need to think this through calmly, and we need a drink. I hope your mother still has that bottle of Scotch under her desk.”

Cassie nodded, biting her lip and pulling her bangs until they reached her chin. She looked at herself in the smoky elevator mirror. Her mother always said she had the face of an angel: almond-shaped blue eyes, long dark lashes, a small nose dusted with freckles, and God’s imprint, a dimple on the side of her mouth. The reflection staring back at her looked more like Snow White just after she realized she’d eaten the poisoned apple.

Cassie opened the door to her mother’s office, smelling a mix of Lemon Pledge and Chanel No. 5. The walls were papered in beige linen, and the wood floor was covered with a thick Oriental rug. Vases holding bunches of lilies graced the coffee table, the end tables, and the fireplace mantel. There was a cherry desk, a Louis XIV chair, and a cream-colored sofa with throw pillows shaped like seashells.

“Your mother has the best taste, even where no one can see it.” Alexis admired the silk pillows.

“I’m not in the mood to discuss interior design.” Cassie lay facedown on the sofa.

“Maybe she’s Aidan’s TA and he bought her the pendant to thank her for grading papers.” Alexis opened the drawer under the desk and extracted a crystal decanter and two shot glasses.

“That would be such an ethical thing for a professor of ethics to do,” Cassie moaned into the cushions.

“Cassie, sit up.” Alexis dropped onto the sofa, holding a shot glass in each hand. She kicked off her heels and tucked her stockinged feet under her legs. “Drink this, quickly.” She put the glass under Cassie’s nose.

Cassie drank the Scotch in one gulp. She felt the alcohol burn the back of her throat and her eyes stung. She blinked and held her glass out for another shot, promising herself she would not cry.

“That’s the girl who wrote love notes to Father Chatham senior year and signed Sister Agnes’s name.” Alexis nodded approvingly, refilling Cassie’s glass.

“Sister Agnes was in love with him.” Cassie threw back the second shot. “The whole school knew. Every song in chapel was a love song.”

“I think those were called hymns, to God.” Alexis grinned. “Honestly, Cassie, I know Aidan looks like a lion, king of the jungle, and all those sophomoric undergrads hang on his every word, but has he ever given you a reason to doubt him?”

“No”—Cassie shook her head, choking back a hiccup—“but he’s never given anyone a Fenton’s red box. The only things he buys for me from Fenton’s are scarves because my skin is so sensitive I break out if it’s not true cashmere.”

“Fenton’s does carry the best scarves, and I should get more. Maybe on the way down we can check and see if they have any new colors.” Alexis rubbed her finger along the edge of her glass.

“You can have the ones Aidan bought me for Christmas, if I don’t use them to strangle him.”

“I know you’ve been married much longer than me”—Alexis poured herself another shot—“but it could be completely harmless. A silly misunderstanding.”

“This isn’t one of those old black-and-white movies where the hero gives the heroine a gift and it’s intercepted by the wicked stepsister.” Cassie leaned back on the pillows.

“A few weeks ago I found a cigar in Carter’s blazer pocket. Not that I snoop of course, I’m not that sort of wife”—Alexis put her glass on the rug—“but I felt this long, hard thing in his pocket, like a small penis.”

“How is this relevant?” Cassie interrupted.

“I was really angry because I hate the smell of cigars. It stays in the sheets forever.” Alexis plumped the pillow with one hand. “He said he didn’t know how it got there and I didn’t believe him. I withheld sex”—she sucked in her breath—“until he told the truth.”

“Carter without his nightly pillaging? He must have climbed the walls.” Cassie tried to smile.

“It turned out one of the guys at work put a cigar in everyone’s blazer. Invitation to a bachelor party.”

“I hope you gave Carter some sex before he went to the bachelor party. Who knows what might have happened?”

“I’m serious, Cassie. All you have is circumstantial evidence. Don’t you watch
Law & Order
or
The Good Wife
? Circumstantial evidence is never going to carry a conviction.”

Cassie opened the red Fenton’s box and stared at the offending pendant. The stone was light brown on a thin gold chain. She turned it over to see if there was a card or a note enclosed.

“How many times have you told me Aidan gets a dozen friend requests a day from students and deletes them all, unread?” Alexis pressed on. “And what about the fresh pizza that showed up at your front door with a note written in haiku? Aidan threw it away even though it was from Gino’s.”

“You’re turning things around. Aidan gave this to that girl.” Cassie waved the box in the air like a red flag.

“It might have ended up in her hands a number of ways.”

“Like how?” Cassie sat up straight. The shots had made her brain sharper, instead of numbing the pain.

“That’s my point. You have to find out how, and you can’t jump to conclusions until you do.”

“Do you want me to hire a detective, like that guy on
CSI: Miami
?”

“David Caruso? I don’t know what all the fuss is about. How can anyone with red hair be sexy? Do you believe in your marriage?” Alexis asked.

“Yes.” Cassie nodded, blinking to stop the tears from spilling down her cheeks.

“Then take the box and show it to Aidan, let him explain it.”

“What if he can’t?” Cassie stared at the box as if a genie would pop out and give her the answer.

“Do you remember our last semester at the Convent when you found me crying in the boiler room eating peanut butter sandwiches?” Alexis asked.

Cassie closed her eyes. She saw Alexis in her plaid school uniform, her skirt grazing her thighs, her white socks pushed down to her ankles, making her legs look as if they belonged on a racehorse. She wore her blond hair in a thick braid to her waist, and had a henna tattoo of a rose on the inside of her wrist.

Cassie in high school had been the poster Catholic schoolgirl: chestnut hair brushed into a wavy ponytail, white collared shirt pressed and buttoned to the top button. But Alexis managed to look like a
Maxim
cover without breaking any major rules: her skirt a fraction too short, her lips smeared with lip gloss with just a hint of color, her blazer pulled a little too tight over her breasts. Half the boys at private schools in the city attended Sacred Heart volleyball games just to see Alexis spike the ball.

“Why are you crying? You smell like peanut butter, you’re going to get detention.” Cassie had squeezed between the hot water furnaces and crouched down next to Alexis.

“Why is this school a peanut-free zone?” Alexis brushed breadcrumbs from her uniform. “It’s bad enough they don’t let you smoke, but peanut butter always makes me feel better. It’s comfort food.”

“Come home after school and I’ll make you a double-decker peanut butter sandwich.” Cassie had tried to pull Alexis to her feet.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Alexis had shook her head, her eyes welling with new tears.

“What happened?” Cassie had slid down on the ground beside her.

“Carter is going to Stanford. I thought we were going to UCLA together. I had it all mapped out: a year in the dorms, a couple of years living in frat and sorority houses, and then our final year living in a condo near Wilshire Boulevard. But now he’s decided to go to the Farm. He probably heard all those New England prep school girls come to California to get laid.”

“Or maybe because Stanford is in the thick of where he wants to be: venture capitalists, hedge funds, dot-coms. There isn’t an inch of Sand Hill Road where guys fresh out of Stanford aren’t making billions.” Cassie had nibbled a peanut butter crust.

“He’s going to forget me.” Alexis’s mascara had run down her cheeks. “He’s going to go to the Stanford-Berkeley football game and fall in love with some cheerleader. UCLA doesn’t even play Stanford, we play USC.”

“No cheerleader could hold a candle to you.” Cassie had stroked Alexis’s hair the way she used to at their preteen sleepovers.

“I just know he’s The One.” Alexis had squeezed the last peanut butter sandwich between her fingers.

“Last semester Brian Peterson was the one, and before that Pierce Stone, even though he went to boarding school in Vermont and you guys spent a total of four long weekends together.”

“Cassie, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t want to lose him.”

“Then tell him,” Cassie had said with the wisdom of countless hours in the school library reading
Seventeen
and
Teen Vogue
. “Go over to Carter’s house and tell him four years and five hundred miles is not going to come between you. Whatever happens in college, you’re going to be waiting for him after graduation.”

“Whatever happens in college?” Alexis had repeated, tearing the sandwich into small pieces.

“You’re going to UCLA,” Cassie had replied. “Land of surfers and bronze movie stars. But if you believe in your relationship, it’ll be there.”

Alexis had stood up. She had a spot of jelly on her white shirt and a trace of peanut butter on her blazer. “Do you think he’ll listen?”

“Carter worships you. Wear that teddy you picked up in the Fillmore last weekend. With heels. He won’t say no.”

*   *   *

“I only
had to wait for Carter to get his degree, his MBA, and his partnership for him to marry me, but what you said was true. I needed to believe in us for the relationship to work.” Alexis slipped on her Pradas and put her glass on the desk. “Don’t doubt Aidan, ask him.”

“Since when did you become a relationship guru?” Cassie snapped the jewelry box shut.

“You don’t just get married and think you’ll still be spooning on your golden anniversary. You have to work at it. I take massage classes, Cordon Bleu cooking classes, makeup classes, and we do couples yoga.”