Original Sin (20 page)

There was a long pause, so long that Brooke was beginning to think Vanessa had already hung up.

‘I can’t consider anything below four hundred thousand dollars,’ she said finally. Brooke could imagine her sitting in her midtown office in her Armani trouser suit, her mouth pursed into nothingness.

‘Three hundred thousand,’ said Brooke. ‘We’ll allocate a six–figure marketing spend to make sure it hits retail with a splash.’

‘And three hundred thousand would just be US rights?’

Brooke wondered how far she could push it. ‘Three hundred thousand. Three–book deal. US rights only,’ she said firmly.

‘I’ll need to talk to my client.’

‘I have our legal department calling me in an hour. My superiors want me to go direct to Eileen.’

‘I don’t want to sour our relationship Brooke,’ said Vanessa, her voice cold.

‘Neither do I.’

She put down the phone and exhaled. Every nerve–ending in her body seemed to be tingling. What have I done, what have I done? she thought to herself. It was far, far beyond anything she had ever dared do before. But she had a sneaking suspicion that maybe, just maybe, she had outgunned the mighty Vanessa Greenbaum.

‘Who’d have thought it?’ she thought, feeling a little giddy. She sat there watching the phone, fearing to take her eyes from it. When it rang after five long, painful minutes, Brooke jumped an inch off her chair.

‘It’s Vanessa. You have a deal.’

Brooke sank back into her chair, whizzed it round and suddenly shouted, Yippee! She’d just joined the big boys. And it felt fantastic.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Tess slipped the chunky wooden ring onto her middle finger and held her hand up to admire it. The polished walnut nub was the size of a pingpong ball and shone in the sunshine, its size and shape making her hand look dainty and elegant. The Broadway street vendor was busy putting silver earrings into tiny plastic bags, so she tapped him on the shoulder.

‘How much?’ she asked, her hand already rummaging for her purse.

‘Forty dollars,’ he said, shaking a long brown ponytail over his shoulder.

She knew he would take thirty dollars, but what the hell? She had a sudden romantic notion that he was a struggling artisan jewellery–maker by day, but a gifted modernist artist by night, and she felt almost altruistic handing over her four crisp ten–dollar bills.
Supporting the arts
, she thought with a smile. True or not, the ring went beautifully with her Seven jeans.
Very downtown.
Crossing Broadway onto Spring Street she spotted a lovely old yellow ice–cream van parked on one of SoHo’s cobbled side streets. She bought a red current waffle cone and took a big satisfied lick. Overnight the weather seemed to have turned and today was Manhattan’s first warm spring day.
How could you be down on a day like this?

Not even her disappointment over Dom could ruin her mood today.

This weekend was supposed to be Dom’s first visit to New York to see her, as part of their transatlantic pact to each spend one weekend a month in their respective cities, but the arrangement had fallen at the first hurdle when Dom had called to say he had to be in the office all day Monday – the editor had called a conference about redesigning the travel pages. At first Tess had felt upset and let down,
jilted
even. She had spent her first two weekends in New York rushing around trying to get everything organized for his visit. Finally her new apartment in the West Village was now straight and ordered, her clothes all out of suitcases, her possessions removed from the FedEx cardboard boxes. It didn’t quite feel like home yet, but at least it was a solid, familiar base from which to properly explore the city.

But maybe
, she thought with a pang of guilt,
maybe it was for the best
. As a travel editor, Dom was extremely familiar with most major cities, plus he had a tendency to show off about his knowledge. It might actually be more fun to discover New York herself, finding her own hidden little corners, uncovering her own secrets, which she could share at a later date. And she had to admit she had loved the selfish indulgence of her day so far, with no one to please but herself. She had woken up late and taken a solitary brunch in Pastis in the Meatpacking District, a short walk away from her apartment. She had sat there nursing a latte, watching with fascination the glamorous women dressed in skinny jeans and Chanel sitting in huddles, laughing, drinking coffee, and picking at food.

She had then wandered back into the Village, meandering up and down as if on a snakes and ladders board: up busy Seventh Avenue, back down quiet residential streets lined with smart townhouses with brown stoops and shiny front doors. There had been a long leisurely window–shopping session down Bleeker Streeet, past the long lines outside the Magnolia bakery, queuing for cup cakes and delicious slabs of red velvet cake, the warm, syrupy scent drifting out onto the street. Then past shops selling antiques or guitars, second–hand books, designer clothes or fifty different types of bread, then up into SoHo, which had a different vibe entirely, with its narrow cobbled back streets and multi–million–dollar lofts, street stalls selling finger puppets – five dollars for three – right outside galleries displaying African art without a price tag.

It was a different New York to the one she had first sampled almost a decade ago when she and Dom, in their first summer as a couple, had got two cheap bucket flights to Newark, New Jersey and caught the Amtrak into Penn Station, right next to Madison Square Garden. It had been July, which she now knew was the worst time to visit New York, but back then the stifling heat made it even more exotic. They had stayed in a hostel on One Hundred and Fourth Street, bought hot dogs in Central Park and pizza slices at Sbarro. ‘One day, we will work in Manhattan,’ they had decided as they stared out at the view from the top of the Empire State Building. Ten years later, Tess had made it: she was finally living the dream.

Glancing at her watch, she was shocked to see it was already 4 p.m. The day was going too quickly; it was always the way when she was alone, she thought. She was enjoying being outdoors, feeling the sun and lazy spring breeze on her face, but passing the Angelika Film Center on West Houston Street she was tempted to go inside. After walking for so many hours her feet were aching – and anyway,
how long
had it been since she had been to the cinema? She read the screening timetable behind the ticket booths. There was a Woody Allen film she’d read about – terrible reviews; then there were a couple of films that were part of the Macedonian Film Festival and a Brazilian foreign–language film that she was sure was excellent … but not today. But then her eyes stopped on
The Pact
, a low–budget horror film that had picked up buzz at the Sundance Film Festival.
Looks like fun
, she grinned.

She joined the long line snaking up the steps, which seemed to comprise mainly of intelligent–looking twenty–somethings, killing time by scrolling through her BlackBerry, hoping for a message from Dom. At the pay–booth, she put down a twenty–dollar bill distractedly, her eyes still on the BlackBerry.

‘Excuse me, ma’am. Are you the parent or guardian of this boy?’

At first she ignored the voice, assuming it was directed at someone else.

‘Ma’am?’ a cinema attendant said more forcefully, and she looked up to see a tall boy in jeans and a stripy T–shirt standing next to her.

‘Come on, Aunt Liz,’ he said, looking straight at Tess, ‘Can we get some popcorn?’

Confused, Tess looked back to the attendant in the booth. ‘Is he with you?’ she asked Tess again, with a perfectly balanced mixture of disinterest and impatience.

‘Aunt Liz!’ said the boy. ‘Come
on
.’

He was about twelve or thirteen and she had certainly never seen him before, but there was something about the pleading look on his face that made the words tumble out of her mouth without thinking.

‘Hmm. Yes. Yes, he’s with me,’ she said, pushing more money into the slot.

‘Fine,’ sighed the attendant, sliding two tickets across and looking around Tess. ‘Next in line?’

Tess and the boy walked further into the lobby.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said archly, handing him his ticket. ‘I take it you’re my long–lost nephew? Which is a neat trick considering I don’t have brothers or sisters.’

‘Look, I’m sorry,’ said the boy. ‘They’re real age–Nazis here, but I really need to see
The Pact
. Some kids from my school came last night and paid for the Woody Allen movie, then slipped into the horror. I tried it for the one thirty showing but they caught me.’

‘Ah, so you’d thought you’d use some poor mug?’ said Tess, attempting a stern voice.

‘Come on, you must remember what high school’s like?’ said the boy. ‘There’s an in crowd and an out crowd. I’m pretty new at my school, I need all the help I can get.’

She couldn’t resist a smile; she knew exactly how that desire for social acceptance felt. She’d moved to Suffolk from Edgware when she’d been sixteen, and her first month at her sixth–form college had been awful. Everyone was already in their tight little friendship groups from their respective schools. Tess had been what her mother kindly called a ‘late developer’: awkward, introverted, and a little mousy. Even her exotic background – coming from sophisticated ‘London town’ – didn’t cut much ice with the country set. Out of desperation, she had signed on with the college magazine and, to her surprise, it had been her salvation. Shielded by her notebook and Dictaphone, Tess found she could talk to people, even boys, even good–looking ones. In fact, she found she was actually rather good at it and, quickly, her confidence grew. As if to reward her courage, Mother Nature gave her an overdue makeover, giving her shiny raven hair, clear skin, wide green eyes – and admiring glances from all angles. And to think she owed it all to journalism.

‘Popcorn?’ said the boy, falling into step with her. ‘It’s the least I can do,’ he said, handing her a huge bucket.

She wanted to tell him to just bugger off.

‘I’m Jack by the way,’ he added. ‘Can you just stick around until we get into the theatre? That woman in the booth keeps looking at us. Do something, maybe ruffle my hair?’

‘Do what?’

‘Or give me a dollar to get some gum. You know, something aunt–like.’

She rolled her eyes as Jack kept chattering. Finally they filed into the dark theatre. Tess wondered whether it was nerves or whether he was like this all the time. He certainly had a lot more to say for himself than she’d had at his age.

The film quickly started and it was exactly what Tess had been looking for – pure escapist fun, the sheer luxury of letting two hours slip by without thinking about anything much. Still, during the more gruesome bits, she found herself glancing over at Jack with concern. She had almost zero experience with children and had no idea whether this was irreversibly damaging his young psyche, or whether this was actually quite tame to a modern thirteen–year–old with access to a PlayStation and the Internet. By the time the credits rolled, Tess was starting to feel a niggling sense of guilt.

‘I can’t believe I let you watch that!’ she whispered as they walked out together. ‘All that violence and swearing. I hope you closed your eyes when, you know, the man and the lady were kissing.’ Tess was surprised at how protective she felt.

‘Kissing? I think they were doing a bit more than that,’ smirked Jack. ‘Thanks for bringing me anyway, Aunt Liz,’ he added. ‘I thought it rocked.’

‘Yes, it was pretty good actually,’ she admitted. ‘Worth us almost getting thrown in jail, in fact.’

They filed out into the street, both screwing their eyes up in the bright sunlight. After a couple of seconds she realized he was following her.

‘So where is your mum this afternoon?’ said Tess, rummaging around in her bag for her sunglasses.

‘In Greenwich.’

‘London?’ said Tess, surprised.

‘Connecticut,’ said Jack casually. ‘She lives there now with her new boyfriend. Is that where you’re from? London?’

‘London? Yes, I moved here a few weeks ago.’

‘And does your husband live there?’

Tess winced at the assumption that she’d be married. She thought she was so hip in her new ring and her bags full of Marc Jacobs shopping, but in Jack’s eyes she was probably ancient. She shook her head.

‘I’m not married.’

‘Oh,’ said Jack, tagging along with Tess as she walked off along West Houston Street. ‘But don’t you miss your friends?’

Tess felt another sudden flush of guilt. The truth was she hadn’t really missed anything about London. Packing for the move, she had felt bogged down with anxiety and nostalgia; she had expected to feel terribly homesick being stranded thousands of miles from home, but, as it had turned out, she really hadn’t missed any of it: not the buzz of the newsroom, nor even her old flat opposite Battersea Park.

‘A little, I suppose,’ she shrugged.

‘What’s England like?’

‘Rainy.’