The town house was decorated more like a country house in Vermont than a New York City brownstone, with a brick floor in the foyer and wainscoted walls studded with wooden pegs, from which hung coats and scarves. There was the faint smell of baking cookies in the air, which didn’t surprise her—her daughter, Katrina, had recently become obsessed with cooking, and had been insisting that Seymour take her to all the four-star restaurants in Manhattan. She passed through the hallway—they had a live-in couple, who had two small rooms and a bathroom on the right—and into the open-plan kitchen. Seymour had built a glassed-in conservatory in the back, which doubled for what he liked to refer to as his “kennels.” She pressed the button for the elevator and rode up to the third floor.
The third floor consisted of a master bedroom and bath, and, in the back, overlooking the garden, Seymour’s office. Nico went into the bedroom and unzipped her dress. Normally she was sleepy by now, but Victor’s secret invitation to St. Barts was making her restless. She kept seeing Mike’s face, with that mahogany-colored skin, twisted into an annoyed expression. Did he have any idea what was about to happen to him? Nico imagined not. You never did. You suspected, you even entertained the ax as a possibility. But usually you dismissed it. And that was what they (they being her and Victor, in this case), counted on: the element of surprise.
She slipped out of her dress and tossed it carelessly onto a stuffed armchair. For a moment, she felt bad for Mike, but the fact was that the same thing had happened to her once. She had been fired, shockingly and unexpectedly, ten years ago, when she was the editor in chief of Glimmer magazine—and on top of it, she had just become pregnant with Katrina. Two weeks before the hideous event, she’d had a secret job interview to be the editor in chief of another fashion magazine, with a bigger circulation and a larger paycheck, and she’d thought she’d been careful. But she hadn’t been careful enough. One morning shortly after the interview, at eleven a.m., her assistant had walked into her office. She had a strange expression on her face and was holding a piece of paper. Through the open door behind her Nico could see a small crowd gathering. She knew something terrible was happening, but it wasn’t until her assistant handed her the fax, and she stood, reading the words, that she realized it had something to do with her.
“Ratz Neste is sorry to announce the resignation of Nico O’Neilly as editor in chief of Glimmer magazine,” the fax read. “Ms. O’Neilly’s dedication and vision have been much valued at Ratz Neste, but she is giving up her position due to personal reasons.
“Ms. O’Neilly’s resignation is effective immediately. A successor will be named shortly.”
Even after reading the announcement once, she’d still thought, quite firmly and confidently, that there had been some kind of monumental mistake. She had no intention of resigning. The information on the fax would be quickly straightened out, or else it was someone’s idea of a joke, in which case, they’d be fired. But literally five seconds later, her phone rang. It was Walter Bozack’s secretary; Walter Bozack, who was the owner, president, and CEO of Ratz Neste Publishing, wanted to see her in his office.
Immediately.
The crowd scuttled guiltily back to their desks. They knew what was going on. No one looked at her as she marched through the hallway with the fax folded in her hand. She kept rubbing the paper against the underside of her thumbnail, and when she got into the elevator, she looked down and saw that her finger was bleeding.
“You can go right in,” said Walter’s secretary—a “Mrs. Enid Veblem,” according to a small placard on the front of her desk.
Walter Bozack jumped up from his desk when she walked in. He was tall and yet uncannily rodent-like. For a moment, she stared right into his eyes, conscious only of how tiny and red they were. Then she spoke. She said: “I take it this is not a joke.”
She had no idea what kind of a state he expected her to be in—tears, perhaps—but he looked distinctly relieved. “No, it’s not,” he said. He smiled. His smile was the worst part about him, revealing small, half-formed graying yellow teeth that barely poked over the gum line—a trait shared by all the Bozack clan, as if they were so genetically inferior, they could barely produce the calcium needed to form full teeth.
But then again, with all their money, they didn’t need to.
Walter came forward to shake her hand. “We appreciate all the good work you’ve done for the company, but as you can see, we no longer require your services.”
His hand was as clammy and weak as a deformed claw. “Mrs. Veblem will arrange to have some men walk you down to your office and escort you out of the building,” he said. And then he gave her another one of his terrifying smiles.
Nico said nothing. She simply stood there and stared at him, blankly, fearlessly, and what she thought was: “I’m going to kill you someday.”
The stare began making him uncomfortable. He took a step backward. Without taking her eyes off his face, she leaned forward and placed the fax on his desk. “Thank you,” she said without emotion. She turned and left his office.
The two men in cheap suits were waiting by Mrs. Enid Veblem’s desk. Their faces were hard and devoid of emotion, as if they did this every day and were prepared for anything. She had a sudden moment of clarity. She could be fired, but she would not be humiliated or embarrassed. She would not be marched through the halls like a criminal sent to the guillotine. She would not pack up her office while these two goons watched, and her staff—her staff—snickered fearfully in their cubicles.
“Call my assistant and have her send my things to my apartment,” she said sharply.
Mrs. Veblem objected. “These two men . . .”
“Just do as I ask.”
Mrs. Veblem nodded.
Nico left the building. It was eleven twenty-two a.m.
It wasn’t until she reached the corner that she realized she had no purse, no phone, no keys, and no money. Not even a quarter to call Seymour from a pay phone.
She stood by a garbage can, trying to figure out what to do. She couldn’t go back to her office—they’d probably already put her on some kind of secret list of people who weren’t allowed inside the building—and she had no way to get home. She supposed she could walk, but her apartment was forty blocks uptown and all the way east, on York Avenue, and she wasn’t sure she could make it in her condition. She was three months pregnant and suffering from morning sickness, though the nausea tended to come on at any time and unexpectedly. She leaned over and threw up in the garbage can, and while she was retching, for some reason she thought of Victory Ford.
She and Seymour had gone to a party at Victory Ford’s loft the week before. The loft wasn’t far, just on the other side of Sixth Avenue, and she and Victory had ended up in the corner talking about their careers for over an hour. Victory was an up-and-coming fashion designer then, and she had that subtle air of confidence and focus that usually indicates future success. Nico didn’t meet many women like Victory, and when they began talking, it was like two dogs realizing they belonged to the same breed.
They were so young back then! Nico thought now, pulling down her panty hose. No more than thirty-two or thirty-three . . .
Nico distinctly remembered showing up at Victory’s loft that morning—the street swaying with trucks, the sidewalks filled with the worn
faces of people who worked in the Garment District. It was a hot day in mid-May, nearly ninety degrees. Victory’s loft was in a building that had once been a small factory; in the vestibule was a row of old black buzzers that looked like they might not be connected. The names next to the buzzers were of obscure companies that had probably gone out of business years ago, but near the bottom was a discreet “V.F.” printed on a small white card.
For a moment, she hesitated. Victory probably wasn’t even home, and if she was, what would she think about a woman she’d just met at a party suddenly showing up at her home in the middle of the day?
But Victory wasn’t surprised, and Nico always recalled how Victory had looked when she’d pulled open the heavy gray door to the loft, because Nico’s first thought had been She’s so beautiful! Her short, dark hair was cut like a boy’s—when you had a face like Victory’s you didn’t need anything else—and she held her body with the ease of a woman who always knows that her figure is attractive to men. Nico supposed she was the kind of girl who could inspire jealousy in other women, but there was something generous in Victory’s spirit that made envy seem beside the point.