I won’t be home until late all week.” Hope got to the office well before dawn and seldom left until it was time to tumble into bed. It wasn’t until all the Michael Milken stuff came out, revealing, among other things, that, like many in the business, he rose at 4:00 A.M., sleeping only four to five hours a night, that Faith con-ceded her sister wasn’t seriously disturbed, simply seriously lacking perspective.
She shook her head and dialed Richard. He answered on the second ring.
“Hi, it’s Faith Sibley, and as it turns out, I am free, and trying to remember all those verses has been driving me crazy. Your call came just in time.”
“One so rarely has the opportunity to be of service.
I’m delighted. Now, what’s your pleasure?” That awkward moment had arrived. Where to eat?
And she had no idea how fat his wallet was. Did the absence of an overcoat mean good circulation or an un-healthy cash flow?
“I dunno. What do you want to do, Marty?” Faith had been brought up on black-and-white classic movies. Apparently, so had Richard.
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“If I remind you of Ernest Borgnine, we may have a problem.”
Faith laughed. “Okay. What kind of food do you like to eat, and if you say everything, I’m hanging up.”
“Don’t do that! Let’s see, there’s wassail. No, how about I dare the impossible and choose for the caterer.
They make great margaritas at Santa Fe on West Sixty-ninth, and the food is pretty good, too.” Faith had been there a few times and liked it. The warm brick-colored walls and soft lighting were any girl’s best friends. “Done. Meet you there at eight?”
“Meet you there at eight. And Faith, I’m looking forward to moving on to the next topic.”
“Me, too. See you soon.” Frankly, at this point in her life, she wasn’t the least bit curious about the forest fence or Saint Agnes’s fountain. She already knew how it turned out.
Richard Morgan was a freelance journalist, and Faith now recalled seeing his byline in a wide variety of publications— The New Yorker, the Village Voice, The New Republic, as well as the Times. She was going to have to be very, very careful. But she brightened at her next thought. She’d be able to pump him for information.
First, it seemed that they needed to find out what each other thought about everything from Leona Helmsley’s trial—“Anyone who goes on record saying, ‘I don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes’ has to take her knocks,” said Richard—to Paul McCartney at forty-seven—“Can he still cut it?” “Flowers in the Dirt has some great moments, but it’s mixed,” said Faith.
Richard had been at Tiananmen Square and Faith listened spellbound as he described what it had been 69
like to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the students as the tanks rolled in.
“Enough about me,” he said.
It had been awhile since Faith had heard these words. Maybe he had a brother for Hope.
“Tell me about Faith Sibley. I want to know everything. All your secrets.” His grin was disarming.
There’s nothing like charm to extract information. He must be very good at what he does, Faith thought, beginning to realize writing wasn’t his only talent.
She gave him the Cliffs Notes version of her life to date. He smiled again at the vehemence with which she declared she would never, ever marry a man of the cloth.
“Good news for the rest of us.”
“Unless you’ve grown up as a PK—preacher’s kid—it’s hard to understand. We never gave the parish anything really juicy to comment on, like running away to join a cult or shaving our heads and piercing our noses. But there were plenty of annoying day-today remarks. ‘Isn’t she a little young for makeup?’
‘Did I hear the girls were going to Europe by themselves this summer?’ ‘Has Faith decided on a career yet, like Hope?’ You get the picture.”
“Yeah, might make a good article. Don’t worry,” Richard said, seeing Faith’s look of alarm, “another PK. I don’t take advantage of my friends—or try not to, anyway.”
If one of them was sitting on a story as big as the one she was, Faith was sure Richard’s scruples would vanish before you could say “Pulitzer Prize.” They were waiting for their main course—they’d both ordered a pork dish with green chili. It would make splitting the bill easier, but Faith wouldn’t be 70
able to find out how comfortable he was about sharing food. She firmly believed “Do you promise to share what’s on your plate?” should be worked into the traditional marriage vows. Forget sickness, health, love, honor, and especially obey. Most divorces could be avoided by a simple test. Order something you don’t particularly want in a restaurant and urge him to get something you adore. Ask for a taste and take careful notes. A cousin of Faith’s reported her fiancé’s reac-tion: “If you wanted it, why didn’t you order it?” Faith advised caution, was not heeded, and they were splitsville less than a year after the honeymoon. But tonight she was really in the mood for the pork. Maybe next time?
Inevitably, the conversation turned to food, which then led to travel. Richard had been all over the world and even expressed a desire to hop aboard a space shuttle should the chance arise. Faith was drawn to space travel in theory—the extraordinary sight of earth from far, far away, that big blue marble. Yet, lurking beneath her adventurous spirit was a tiny voice insistently whimpering, But what if you couldn’t get back?
For the moment, she wasn’t taking a number. She definitely did want to go to the Far East, and she listened intently—and enviously—as Richard described his journeys. The margaritas were drained and they ordered dark Dos Equis beer to go with the rest of dinner. Faith was feeling more relaxed than she had been all week.
“But you haven’t told me any secrets,” he said suddenly.
“You haven’t told me any, either,” she countered.
Two could play at this game.
“All right. I’m secretly writing a book that is going 71
to blow a certain southern town sky-high. A best-seller for sure.”
Faith looked at him scornfully. “Every other person in this city—and probably the rest of the country—is writing some kind of explosive book. That’s not a real secret.”
He leaned forward. He really was good-looking.
Deep brown eyes and lighter brown hair—wavy, not curly. He was thin, but not skinny; his chin and cheekbones well defined. Kate Hepburn’s cousin, without the voice.
“While I was doing a story on something else, I stumbled across a mystery. I met the principals and haven’t been able to stay away. It’s one of those situa-tions in life where nothing you could dream up as fiction could match the bizarre and byzantine nature of this reality.”
Faith was with him there. She found herself nodding. Nothing one could imagine . . .
“So what’s yours?”
She came to with a jolt.
“I stole a ceramic animal from the gift shop at the Museum of Natural History when I was nine years old, never told my parents, and kept it.” She didn’t add that she had felt so guilty, she was unable to look at the little lion. Too afraid of the questions that might arise if it was discovered in the trash, she had stashed it in a shoe box in her closet until two years ago, when she donated it to a local thrift shop as a collectible.
“So, keep your secrets. My nose for news, and experience with sources, tells me you’re a complicated woman and one extremely capable at keeping things hidden, Faith. And how did you end up with a name 72