Superstition

38

They ate around the corner in a fish place. Over a bottle of Chablis, they turned over what they'd been talking about a few more times and speculated about what Ward might have come up with.

“The first thing we do tomorrow,” Sam said, “is start researching who exactly the Adam Wyatt in that grave was.”

“I'll get right on it. I've got some great people for fast research.”

She linked her arm through his as they walked slowly back to her apartment, heads down, each lost in private thoughts. They undressed and shared her tiny bathroom like a couple long familiar with each other's habits. It was only once they were in bed and their bodies touched beneath the sheets that the responses of the past few months were reawakened. To their surprise and mutual delight, they lost themselves in sheer physicality for what seemed like half the night, falling at last into a sated and more contented sleep than either had imagined possible.

“So tell me,” he said over a hurried breakfast of cereal and coffee, “have you decided yet what you're going to do about the story?”

She had told him over dinner about Taylor Freestone's ultimatum.

“I'm going to stick with it,” she said. As she spoke she realized that she'd made her mind up long since, she just hadn't said the words yet. She saw now there was never a choice: she could not let this story be told by anyone but herself. “I've come too far with it to quit. We all have.”

“I think it's the right choice,” he said, “I'm glad.” He glanced at his watch. “Gotta go. See you at twelve.”

He reached for his coat, they kissed, and he was gone. From her window she watched his car pull out of its space and head around the corner toward the dense traffic of First Avenue. As he disappeared from sight, her phone rang. She crossed to her desk and picked it up.

“Joanna?”

“Yes.”

“This is Ralph Cazaubon.”

She was surprised by the call, but even more by the strange sense of guilt that it provoked in her, as though just by talking to him she was somehow betraying Sam. It was absurd, of course, an irrational response that reminded her of what Sam had said about superstition the first time they met.

“Hello? Are you there? Don't tell me you've forgotten me already.”

“No…I'm sorry, I just wasn't…it's just a surprise.”

“I hope this isn't too early, but I wanted to catch you before you left for the office-that is if writers work in offices.”

“Sometimes. Not today, though.”

She wanted to ask how he'd gotten her number, then she remembered she was listed: Cross, J. E. Had she told him she lived in Beekman Place? She couldn't remember.

“I was a little worried about you yesterday. You rushed off so suddenly I was afraid something had happened.”

“No…not really…not happened exactly. I'm afraid it's something I can't explain.”

Which was truer than he knew, she thought.

“Well, as long as you're all right…”

“I'm fine.”

She was grateful that he didn't probe further.

“I was wondering,” he said, as though coming to the real point of his call, “whether we might meet sometime. Is lunch or dinner good for you this week?”

She hesitated. Not about whether to accept, but how to answer. “I'm afraid not,” she said. “It just isn't possible at the moment.”

Why had she said that? At the moment? Was she hedging her bets? She hated herself for the thought. She had spent the night with Sam, she loved him. And yet there was something about Ralph Cazaubon that was curiously intriguing. He was attractive, undeniably; but it was more than that, something that she couldn't put her finger on.

“I understand,” he said.

He didn't, of course, she told herself. How could he? But again he didn't ask questions or try to insist. He was respecting her privacy, while carefully leaving the door open.

“Can I give you my number…?”

He gave it without waiting for an answer. And she wrote it down on the pad she kept by her phone. As an afterthought he added his address-a few blocks up on the East Side, between Park and Lexington. She knew the street well, full of large and very expensive brownstones.

“I'll be giving a party soon-when I've finished buying curtains and sorting out colors. Maybe you'll be able to come. I'll send you an invitation.”

“Thank you, I'd…I'd be happy to if I can.”

That was all right, wasn't it? She felt oddly disconcerted. Not shy, exactly, not that teenage tongue-tied thing. There was just something about him, about this call, that wrong-footed her. It wasn't him so much as her. But what? Again it was something she couldn't pinpoint, something she would need to think about.

“Well, I'm sure you're busy,” he said. “I won't keep you.” He sensed her awkwardness, she knew, and was trying to put her at ease. “I'm sorry again if this was a little early. But I did want to be sure you were, you know, all right.”

“Thank you. I'm fine, really. You're very kind.”

When she hung up she made an effort to put him and the banal little conversation they'd just had out of her mind. She was angry with herself for being so distracted when she had important things to do. She picked up the phone and dialed a number that she knew by heart. A woman's voice answered sleepily.

“Ghislaine? You sound like you're still in bed.”

“I was working half the night. Had a deadline.”

“Good-I hope that means you're free to start something for me.”

Ghislaine Letts was the best researcher Joanna knew. An academic highflier with an IQ off the charts, she lacked the discipline or aptitude to hold down any kind of routine job. By rights she ought to have been writing learned tomes or directing the fortunes of mankind in one arena or another; instead she was living in a cramped apartment in the Village and fighting an eating disorder that kept her weight seesawing between stick thin and hopelessly obese, and which would one day kill her if she didn't get on top of it. Meanwhile she was Joanna's friend and secret weapon whenever she needed to find out something that seemed beyond the limits of human ingenuity to discover.

“Shoot,” said Ghislaine, stifling a yawn.

“All I've got is a name, dates, and a graveyard…”