Jenna Takes the Fall Read online

  Vera too looked up and smiled. Maybe they thought she was important somehow. “How is it in the land of the tycoon?”

  “Sadness reigns.”

  “Come on. Money reigns, and I’d like some.” Allyson had her values firmly in hand and would marry her New York Post sportswriter if it killed her. Not that he made that much, but something bigger surely loomed in his future—or else. Vera had once told Jenna, “If it doesn’t work out, she’ll kill him or she’ll kill herself.”

  “I’ve been promoted, I think.” Jenna described her upward trajectory as manager of the chef, adding on a description of the immense size of the dining room for effect.

  “Sounds lateral.” Allyson smoothed her blond hair back from her round, ample face, as she searched for a cigarette in the cavernous black leather purse she always carried.

  “You should be careful.” The skinny, ever-vigilant Vera peered at her. “Those people are notorious.”

  “For what exactly?” Despite her low status, Jenna felt protective of her boss. He fit into a category she had already experienced: people who create awe and anger around them, misunderstood people like her grandmother, who had no more expected to rest with the angels than with the devil, never believing in a spiritual solution to her end.

  “He probably just wants to bang you,” Allyson shouted through bar noise, breaking into Jenna’s reverie. “You’re going to have to watch that mouth of yours.”

  “What do you mean?” But she knew what this annoying girl was suggesting and thought it all too gross. “Don’t be ridiculous. He must be, I don’t know, fifty years old, sixty even. Besides, he’s married.”

  Vera screwed up her face like an angry monkey. “The more reason.”

  Allyson laughed but patted Jenna on the arm. “He’s fifty-nine. Just enjoy whatever goodies he sends your way. Listen, Vera, how about our summer get-out-of-town plans? Anything yet? I mean, Jesus, we’re lurching toward July, and it’s unbearable already.”

  “I’m working something on the North Shore.”

  “You’re all leaving town?” Jenna envisioned herself now stuck in the heat with no one to talk to in an empty apartment.

  “Just for the weekends.” Allyson inhaled her cigarette and looked at Vera as if she wanted to warn her off the subject. To Jenna this meant they definitely would not invite her to go along. The only promising event that loomed, her date with Inti, was scheduled for this upcoming Friday.

  FOUR

  Jenna’s boss dropped out of sight during the next week, in France, according to Jorge, but at least she didn’t have to arrange lunches, and anyway most of the writers had escaped town. The magazine seemed to be on autopilot, and even the hate-filled letters melted away. Jenna continued obsessing about how she herself could flee on these lonely, overheated weekends in an apartment without air-conditioning. “Seriously, Jorge, any bright ideas where I might go for the weekends? I have to go somewhere, or I’ll melt.”

  “I never leave in the summer unless Hull lets me visit one of his vacation homes when he and the family are elsewhere. Wait, wait, here’s a thought.” He got up, pulled off his suit jacket, shaking the sleeves slightly, and hung it on the back of his chair. His thinking mode, she had learned. “Hull owns so much art, and he’s been saying lately that he should have someone do an inventory. That someone should be you, possessed of your little art degree. You could go from house to house. In fact, the maestro called in from the plane this morning to say he’s rushing back to host a charity shindig at his house in the city this Friday night. If he doesn’t show, at least, presumably, the missus will. You could get drunk and then chat her up about this very project.”

  “Brilliant,” she said, but remembered right away two serious problems. First off, Inti. Could she possibly take him? “Definitely. I’ll just work you and a plus one into the guest list.” Jorge liked nothing better than to goose others’ happiness, and he smiled like a practiced conspirator, typing fervently into his computer. But she had another, more pressing reason not to go, that being the awful stuff she had overheard Mrs. Hull say on the phone at the hotel.

  Unfortunately, Jorge was so pleased with himself, she couldn’t think how to bring that up or even if she should. “You’ll meet all kinds of luminaries, those who hover at these festivities. Our esteemed leader serves on the boards of two progressive schools in the city, and they say if he wanted to, he could get the Democratic nomination for governor, but so far he’s expressed zero interest in a political life. Too much to hide.” Jorge laid his finger aside his nose.

  “Will you be there?”

  “Nein. I have to make lasagna for my mother.”

  Despite her fear of the missus, this plan could make her life a lot simpler; still she had to say something. “Jorge, I’m not sure if this really is proper. I didn’t want to tell you, but I overheard Mrs. Hull being very upset on the phone to someone.”

  Jorge stared at her. “That’s all?” Jenna nodded. “Get with the program, McCann. You are going to hear a lot of things, and you must ignore all of it, and I do mean all.”

  “Okay, I guess.” She would encounter her formally sometime, so why not in the presence of many other guests, with copious liquor about? And, then too, the “take Inti along” idea seemed quite promising: a party, not too much intimacy, no pressure to get to know each other in too steamy a setting like a restaurant with small tables. She didn’t tell Jorge that her date was actually a writer at this very magazine, but she called Inti immediately, and after talking up how important this fiesta was to her continued existence in the city’s summer heat, he agreed to go, though somewhat reluctantly.

  Four days later, on a brutally hot Friday afternoon, Jenna draped herself in a swingy, light green crepe dress that would allow her to flap her arms for air if she had to. With her hair brushed back behind her ears, she tried for a more gamine, less schoolgirl look, and to her eye, it had worked, sort of. Outside the Hulls’ astonishing residence, on a scorching hot sidewalk, a scrum of guests at the massive front door flashed their invitations toward a black-suited security man, complete with headset and clipboard. Jenna waited nervously for Inti, who, when he appeared, stood out from the crowd as that relaxed fellow in the blue linen shirt and beige pants, seemingly at home even in New York’s concrete oven. He bent down and kissed her quickly on the cheek. “I’ve heard about this Belle Époque monstrosity, but I’ve never gotten an invite before.”

  “It looks like a hotel. I’m not totally sure I should be here either.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m such an underling, and it’s kind of trumped up, me wanting to corner him about doing an art inventory at all his houses.”

  This was news to Inti, and he immediately did not like it. “Hull certainly has a lot of etchings.” Sarcasm wasn’t usually his thing, but her remark demanded it. Word around the office played up the boss’s personal life, supposedly a gaudy mix of rigorous attention to family, secretive personal involvements, extravagant art purchases, aided and abetted by constant travel, and a high profile in the world of charity.

  Inti looked down at Jenna, seeing her upset and wanting to help her out. “Don’t worry, he’ll love it, a beautiful girl like you who admires him. He’ll gobble up yet another slice of adoration.” Jenna blossomed at the word “beautiful” but didn’t like the insinuation. At the moment, though, she was too nervous to care and right away she took his arm.

  Once inside, the two of them stopped to take in the immense staircase and then the ivory-and–deep-green Persian carpet that spooled upwards. Both somewhat cowed, Jenna tried not to stare at the plentiful array of paintings in ornate golden frames, but when she spotted a bank of video cameras recording the household’s every move, she blurted out to an overdressed woman in an electric blue suit, “Can you believe this?” The woman turned away.

  At the top of the steps, a man in a tuxedo guided them forward into a room with an eighteenth-century desk in the center, more finery and carpets, a large shining metal
sculpture, and a table laden with cherries, strawberries, and blueberries in glass dishes, colorful cheeses piled high on cutting boards, ringed with crackers and bread. Jenna looked around for someone, anyone she knew, not that she would know anyone, and finally spotted her boss hunched forward in conversation with his wife, forming their own little unit—the very woman Jenna had last heard sobbing in that hotel suite, a woman she absolutely did not want to speak to until she’d had a lot to drink. Happily the couple seemed oblivious to others, despite circulating clumps of people who tried to break in on their conversation.

  Jenna suddenly panicked. Could anyone get lower in the food chain than she? “He thinks well of his writers, doesn’t he?” She looked up at her handsome date and hoped she could siphon off some of his cred.

  “He does, actually, at least some of them. I’m not in that club. Too junior, too local.”

  “You look quite comfortable here, actually.”

  Inti flashed a smile. “Good. I’m going for big-city sophistication.” This loose-limbed, tall man, in his early thirties maybe, gazed down at her with concentration.

  Jenna had already appraised his charms. “Believe me, you’re entirely there.”

  Without warning, he pulled her backwards into a corner next to a bust of what appeared to be a Roman general. “I think I should tell you that I’m leaving NewsLink.”

  “You can’t leave. We just met.”

  For a moment, Inti seemed disconcerted. “I’m going to The Rye Register.” Jenna stared at him, guarded and uncertain, as he explained that he couldn’t take the atmosphere anymore. “‘If you don’t want to come in Saturday, don’t bother to come in Sunday.’ That’s the mantra. It’s too much like a cult.”

  “Do they know?”

  “Not yet. I wanted a look at the great man’s house before I abscond. And to get to know you, of course.”

  “You think he’s great?”

  “Here’s what I really think.” Inti lowered his voice. “He’s a magnificent asshole.”

  “Shh, he might hear. . . .” Though she couldn’t see the man anywhere nearby.

  “Believe me, he’s been called everything in this world and couldn’t give a rat’s ass what I call him. Actually he’s a visionary and an asshole. He sees the future of news where few others do. It’s a fusion, with new sources cropping up everywhere. Gossip, celebrity, leakers abound, everyone wants to get in on the action. It’s all going to be ‘Breaking News,’ and a lot of it will be no news at all unless it’s goosed up considerably. Hull gets it and is planning for this.”

  “Funny, I’ve been thinking how odd NewsLink is in that way, a mash-up of stuff, and I can’t tell what’s important and what’s not.”

  He took her arm. “I’m not sure the reader is supposed to know. Let’s wander through the crowd, but not anywhere forbidden or we’ll get shot.”

  Inti Weill proceeded to fill her in on his trajectory from Olympia, Washington, to the halls of NewsLink. Eight years older than Jenna, he had come to New York with the highest possible expectations, to be a reporter, a longed-for dream since age ten when his father got him a subscription to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Not for him the comic books and action figures, no, he loved the sportswriters, and the crime beat guys, even the business reporters, all following the path of noble truth, at least in his idealistic mind. These noble truths he had now been following for NewsLink, but in the outlying boroughs, specifically the doings of various zoning commissions. Not Inti’s dream job, yet he could see the glow of the New York Times building glittering in his sights. Now he would have to take what he hoped was a brief detour to one of the upscale burbs. “Rye isn’t that far away, and we can still see each other.”

  Jenna could think of nothing to say because she didn’t know the location of Rye, and she barely knew this man. “I’ll get us some booze.” She hurried toward the bar, intent on scoring dual martinis. She rarely indulged in quite so much alcohol, but this occasion demanded more than an entry level of inebriation.

  As the bartender handed her two ice-cold drinks, a tall, remarkably beautiful black woman came over and introduced herself. “Hello there. You’re here at last.”

  “Why at last?” Jenna felt ridiculous holding two martinis, looking like a fully committed alcoholic.

  “Mr. Hull loses a lot of assistants. The previous one claimed his ‘aggressions against her’ had caused some strange illness, so they finally put in for temporary help. I’m Tasha Clark, by the way, from publicity.” She patted Jenna on the arm in greeting and then turned to survey the room, in particular Mr. and Mrs. Hull, who remained together talking. After a moment of silence, she lifted her head up as if to peruse the ceiling, and then turned directly toward Jenna. “Here’s a piece of advice. Never marry a man that everybody else wants.” Abruptly she walked away, pausing to greet guests, apparently knowing all and sundry.

  Tasha was obviously a person of fashion. Rangy, full-breasted, possibly in her mid-thirties, she had a mass of thick molasses-colored hair tied at the nape of her neck with a black velvet ribbon. She wore a long, chiffon-like dress of jade green and over it a black silk biker jacket that even an Ohio girl knew cost a fortune, and Jenna envied the bohemian boldness of the look. She herself never could achieve offbeat or even unconventional; usually she felt downright bizarre or irregularly duded up in order to draw attention to herself. She wanted to talk more to the woman, but had to deliver Inti his martini, and just as she found him, silence fell, and their host walked to the center of the room. Tasha stepped forward to join him, along with the four winners of a scholarship program Hull had endowed at an inner-city school. The young people stood awkwardly next to him—he looked like a tree and just that stiff—but he paid them a moving tribute, at once eloquent and simple, free of the usual jargon used when schooling became a subject.

  This was the first time Jenna had a chance to look carefully at the man in all his height and presence and mastery of the world. His face glowed when he smiled, but became stern and angular in repose, looking younger though in this party setting. Tasha seemed involved with all this somehow or knew the children, or perhaps her role in publicity placed her there. In any case, they made a fetching group, and Jenna envied their shared purpose. But Mrs. Hull barely looked his way as he delivered his remarks, but rather huddled near a white-haired woman in a navy suit, whispering all the while. At some point in the middle of his speech, Vincent Hull looked over at his wife sharply, and she quieted down.

  In a burst of self-confidence after her martini and shortly thereafter a glass of white wine, Jenna put her arm under Inti’s and drew the two of them nearer to the circle surrounding Vincent Hull. She tried to move herself into his field of vision but found that difficult, given the shifting tide of admirers. Finally, though, she lurched forward, very near to his arm, and took it upon herself to touch him. He pulled back, startled, apparently, by the intimacy. He scrutinized her a moment, and she lit up, expecting a greeting. No, he turned away, his back like a wall, but not before he grimaced.

  Another man slid between them and blocked their view. “Is he mad at you or something?” Inti had seen the move and was as shocked as she.

  “I don’t know.” Jenna didn’t understand but could only surmise that Hull didn’t want her here, she being a lowly assistant.

  “Not possible to figure that guy out.” Inti bent down now and whispered in her ear, “Some say he is, in fact, actively evil, because whoever you are, wherever you are, he can print a rumor that will ruin you.”

  Jenna had the impulse to swing to his defense. “He’s got responsibilities, he’s a man of the world. If he didn’t have enemies, what kind of leader would he be?”

  “Spoken like a loyal subject.”

  “I’m no subject,” she said bitterly. But what had Hull meant by snubbing her, or had he meant nothing at all? Jenna had to get away from everybody. Turning uncertainly, she took off down a long hallway, finally stopping at an embroidered bench that faced still more paintin
gs, modern and valuable. At once, she experienced them as too many. It was too much for any person alive to have all this. She moved her eyes along the array and was stopped by a work that looked like something out of a dream, a dusky blackish rectangle floating down and merging with a bigger misshapen block awash in gray and white, surely a Mark Rothko. Normally she didn’t care for this level of abstraction. Wasn’t it too easy? Couldn’t a schoolchild do it, as every museumgoer said to anyone who would listen? Still, she walked over to face the painting head-on. Sadness, darkness, light coming through water, a boundary through which one could not pass, but then that all merged into one. Behind her she heard footsteps, and she jumped back. The striking form of Vincent Hull marched her way.

  “What have you been up to while I’ve been out of town?” He held out a glass of wine to her as he said this.

  “Answering your letters, pretending to be you.”

  “Not very uplifting, I’m afraid. The people who like me send emails.” He looked at her intently. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, I’m just hot in the city.” At once she sensed sexual innuendo in her words, but fortunately he turned away, back toward the painting.

  “You like this Rothko? He did it in 1969, near when he killed himself.”

  “I love the feeling, something strange about it, but I’ve never really understood him.” She stopped, out of her depth. She had only seen a few reproductions of his work in her college textbooks.

  He stayed quiet a moment, but then he looked back toward the painting. “The poor man wrote something I’ve been thinking about lately: ‘Like the old ideal of God, the abstraction itself in its nakedness is never directly apprehensible to us.’” He moved behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Can you see that in it?”

  Jenna felt herself blush, flustered at the intimacy of his touch. She struggled to speak. “Perhaps it’s his sight dimming, as if there’s no hope.”