“Do you ever fall in love with them, Ellie?” He looked at her in confusion, as they sat next to the fountain at the Four Seasons. It was where all the city's publishing notables ate lunch and he knew it was her favorite place, even though he still preferred the sensual, artsy chaos of the Russian Tea Room. But Eloise was a different girl. She was tall and cool and controlled, she had masterminded a successful career and done it brilliantly, and she seemed better suited to the cool marble and discreet fountains of the Four Seasons.
“Fall in love with them? What do you mean? Are you thinking of writing a book?” She looked amused and he shook his head.
“No, I'm just working on this crazy investigation. It goes back about thirty years, and the people are so damn real to me, I can't think straight anymore. I dream about them at night … I think about them in the daytime … little girls who are practically middle-aged women now tear at my heart and I want to help them.”
“It sounds more like food poisoning than love.” She grinned, and then she reached out and patted his hand sympathetically. She still liked him. They had lunch with each other a couple of times a year, and he had even introduced her to Sasha, but Eloise had told him bluntly on the phone the next day that she thought he could do a lot better. “You got it bad, kid. Sounds like you ought to write a book about it.”
“No one would believe the story. And besides, I can't. That's not my bag. You know that. It's just that it's driving me crazy. How can people on paper become real?”
“Somehow they do.”
“Do they finally go away?”
“Yes, when you resolve it.” She said reassuringly, eating her salad. “When I finish a book, the characters finally disappear. For good. But before that, they drive me crazy, it's like being haunted.”
“That's it!” He waved his fork at her. “That's it exactly!” He was being haunted by Hilary, and when he wasn't being tormented by Hilary, he was thinking of Alexandra. He had called her as soon as he was sure that it was Hilary at the network, and she had been jubilant. Now she was waiting for news of Megan, and John had been putting pressure on all his operatives to speed it up, because Patterson seemed to be fading. “What do I do to get rid of this thing? It's driving me crazy.”
“Finish it. Wind up the case, do whatever you have to do, and then it'll go away. That's how it works for me. Is it a tough case?” Unlike Sasha, she was always interested, but then she was always looking for new stories.
“Very. But we're two-thirds there. I just have to find one more piece of the puzzle and we've got it. It's kind of an exotic tale, I'll tell you about it when the case is closed.”
“I could use a good story. I'm starting a new one next week. I rented a place on Long Island for the summer.” It was amazing. The woman worked like a fiend, but it was obvious that she loved it. And then she grinned at her ex-husband. Their relationship was more like brother and sister now that they were no longer married. “How's your ballerina?” She said it without venom. She wished him well. She hadn't been crazy about the girl when she met her, but she knew he was.
But he shrugged as he answered. “So-so. People involved in ballet seem to live in their own world. She doesn't have a great grasp on reality, mine anyway.”
“Worse than writers?” Eloise smiled.
“Much worse. At least you didn't complain about your feet night and day, and worry about every muscle in your body. Just breathing is a threat to them, they might do something to themselves that could keep them from dancing.”
“Sounds exhausting.” She finished her salad, took a sip of wine, and smiled at him. He was one of the nicest people she knew, and sometimes she was sorry they hadn't stayed married. She wondered if she should have tried harder but she was also smart enough to know it wasn't in her. And it wouldn't have been right for them. She needed to be alone with her work, and she had always felt he should be married and have children. “Somehow I don't see her as the final answer for you.”
“Neither do I. But it's taken me a while to see that. There aren't a hell of a lot of people out there who intrigue me. Most of them aren't too bright, or they're not nice, or they really don't give a damn about anyone but themselves.” Without meaning to, he realized he had just described Sasha. She had been wearing thin on him ever since he'd gotten back from Paris. “What about you? Prince Charming heading toward you on the horizon?”
She shrugged with an easy smile, and waved at a publisher she knew. “I don't have time for much of that stuff. Nothing much has changed as far as that goes. It's hard to have a career and a real life.”
“But it can be done,” he always pointed out to her, “if you want to.”
“Maybe I don't” She was always honest with him. “Maybe I don't want more than I've got. My typewriter and my old nightgowns.”
“El, that's terrible. It's a hell of a waste.”
“No, it's not. I never really wanted all that other stuff. I would have hated having kids.”
“Why?” It seemed so wrong to him. People were meant to have children. He had wanted one for the past twenty years. It just hadn't worked out for him to have one.
“They're too demanding. Too distracting. I'd have to give too much of myself. That's why I was such a lousy wife to you. I wanted to save it all for my books. I guess that's crazy, but it makes me happy.” And he knew it did. They were both better off the way things were now. And then suddenly he laughed.
“You were always too damn honest. I was just going to tell you I met a great woman in this case.” Eloise raised an eyebrow with interest. “She just happens to be married to a French baron, and not exactly available.”
“She sounds a lot better than your ballerina.”
“She is. But she's totally wrapped up in her proper life. It's a damn shame too … she's lovely.”
“You'll find the right one, one of these days. Just stay away from the artsy ones. They make lousy wives. Take it from me. I know!” She smiled ruefully, and leaned over to kiss his cheek as they left the table.
“Don't be so hard on yourself. We were both young.”
“And you were terrific.” She stopped to say hello to her editor-in-chief, and they walked out into the sunshine together. Then John wished her luck on her new book, hailed a cab for her, and walked back to his office on East Fifty-seventh.
And there was a windfall waiting for him when he got back to the office. One of his assistants had found the Abramses in San Francisco.
“Are you serious?” He was jubilant. They had tried everything and turned up nothing. But they had finally given up looking for David, and in doing so had found Rebecca. It turned out that they had left Los Angeles in the early sixties and gone to the deep South to march with Martin Luther King and participate in sit-ins and voter registration campaigns. They had provided free legal service to blacks in Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and had eventually set up a full-scale legal aid office in Biloxi. And eventually from there they had gone to Atlanta. It was only in 1981 that they had finally gone back to California, but David had retired after extensive surgery, and Rebecca had joined an exclusively female practice in San Francisco, to defend women involved in feminist causes. For all their lives, they had been the classic liberals.
John's assistant had explained nothing to them. John had left strict orders that once Megan was located he would make contact. He had his secretary make an appointment with Rebecca Abrams, and he was set to fly out the following afternoon, which was perfect. Sasha was still on tour, and there was something he had wanted to do for days. It was something he hadn't done himself in years, but he knew now that he had to do it. It was part of what he had tried to explain to Eloise at lunch … part of being haunted.