Chapter 40: Vanessa Hart

Rachel’s first thought was that she wasn’t wearing underwear, and her second thought was that this woman knew it.

“Rachel,” she said, because she wasn’t going to stand there in a man’s shirt and be introduced to. “I’d shake your hand, but you’re holding his mug.”

Vanessa Hart glanced down at the chipped black mug as if she’d only just noticed it. “Oh. Is it his? I always used this one. Habit.” She took another slow sip and set it down on the stone with a soft clink. “You must be the housekeeper.”

“Must be.”

“How fun.” Vanessa smiled. She had perfect teeth, the kind you pay for in installments, and eyes the light brown of good whiskey. “He always did like to keep things in-house.”

Rachel’s face went hot, which made her cheek throb where Chloe’s ring had caught it. Vanessa’s eyes went right there, to the bruise, and lingered a second with polite interest, like it was a stain on somebody’s tablecloth.

“How did you get in?” Rachel asked.

“The code.” Vanessa tipped her head toward the private elevator in the foyer, the little brass keypad beside it. “Zero-six-one-four. Our engagement date. Julian never changed it.” A pretty shrug. “He’s sentimental. Nobody believes that about him, but it’s true.”

The service door banged open behind Rachel.

Mrs. Ruiz came through it backward with two Zabar’s bags and the rain on her shoulders, talking already. “Mija, they were out of the good rye, so I got the…”

She saw Vanessa, and stopped.

Rachel had seen Mrs. Ruiz annoyed and she had seen her worried and once, when Julian forgot to eat for a whole day during a product launch, she’d seen her furious. She had never seen her face do this. It went flat and gray, like a sidewalk.

“Señorita Hart,” Mrs. Ruiz said.

“Delia! Oh, look at you. You haven’t aged a day.”

Mrs. Ruiz set the bags down on the counter, slow. Then she walked right past Vanessa, past the island and into the foyer, to the brass keypad, and she took her reading glasses out of her cardigan pocket and put them on. She pressed a button. The keypad beeped. She pressed four more.

“Delia, you don’t have to…”

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

“New code,” Mrs. Ruiz announced to the foyer in general. Then, to Vanessa, very pleasantly: “Lo siento. Old codes, sometimes, they stop working.”

Rachel had to bite the inside of her mouth.

* * *

Julian came in a minute later with his hair still wet and his tie in his hand, and Rachel watched his face when he saw who was at his counter.

Nothing. That was the thing. Absolutely nothing moved. She’d expected a flinch, a flash of the old hurt, some sign. He just looked at Vanessa the way he’d look at a delivery he hadn’t ordered.

“Vanessa.”

“Darling.” She rose off the stool, all five-foot-ten of her, and went to kiss his cheek. He turned his head a quarter inch and she got air. She covered it beautifully, laughing. “Still so warm.”

“How did you get up here?”

“She used your engagement date,” Rachel said. “Mrs. Ruiz fixed it.”

Julian’s eyes flicked to Rachel, to the shirt, the bare feet, the bruise, and back. Something warm went through the gray for half a second and then he put it away for later. “Thank you, Delia.”

“De nada.”

“I’m back from London,” Vanessa said, as if he’d asked. “For good, I think. It’s over with Charles, did you hear? Of course you heard. Everybody heard.” She waved it off. “I’m keeping the flat in Chelsea and the dog. Anyway. I’ve joined the foundation’s committee for your holiday party, and since you never answer an email in your life, I thought I’d come say hello in person and ask whether you’ll actually show up this year or send Owen in a tie again.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Wonderful. And bringing…” Her eyes drifted toward Rachel. “Someone?”

Julian looked at Rachel, not at Vanessa. It was a question, and he waited on it in front of his ex-fiancée like he had all morning. A month ago he’d have decided for her. Rachel gave him the smallest nod.

“Yes,” Julian said.

Vanessa’s smile held, perfect, poised, a little amused, like she was watching a play she’d already read the reviews for. She was very good. Rachel would have loved to find a crack in her, and there wasn’t one. Not even a hairline.

“Then I’ll put you down for two.” Vanessa picked up her Hermès bag and slid it onto her forearm. “I’ll see myself out.”

“Mrs. Ruiz will see you out.”

Mrs. Ruiz was unpacking rye bread that wasn’t the good rye and didn’t look up.

“I’ll do it,” Rachel said. “It’s my job. I’m the housekeeper.”

Julian’s mouth twitched. Vanessa’s didn’t.

* * *

Rachel walked her to the elevator in Julian’s shirt and nothing else, barefoot on the cold marble of the private vestibule, and didn’t hurry. Let her look. Let her get a good long look at the woman who’d been there in the morning.

Vanessa pressed the call button with one nude fingernail. The car was coming up from the lobby, forty-two floors, and the little brass arrow above the door moved like it had all day.

“He likes you,” Vanessa said, watching the arrow. “I can tell. He goes very still when he likes something. He used to get like that with me.”

“Must have been a while ago.”

“Eight years.” Vanessa turned to look at her properly. Up close she smelled like fig and rain and money. “You know, I was a little nervous coming up here. I thought he might have found somebody I’d have to take seriously.”

“And?”

“And then I saw the shirt.” She smiled. “Men like Julian don’t marry the girl in the shirt, Rachel. They marry the girl who leaves before the girl in the shirt wakes up. It’s not personal. It’s just how they’re built.”

“I’m not looking to marry anybody. I’m still married.”

“Yes,” Vanessa said. “You are, aren’t you.”

The elevator chimed. The doors slid open on wood paneling and a little bench and a mirror that showed Rachel herself: wild hair, men’s shirt, a swollen cheek going purple at the edges. She looked like she’d been through a night. Next to her in the mirror Vanessa looked like she’d never been through anything at all.

Vanessa stepped inside and turned around. She held the door with two fingers.

“Oh, and one more thing.” Her voice dropped, intimate as a secret between girlfriends. “I know who you are, Mrs. Hayes. Harold Kemp is my godfather.” The doors started to close; she let them. “He tells me everything.”