Jennifer Sturman - The Pact

“Quite handsome,” agreed Luisa, her faint South American accent elongating her words. She pulled a cigarette from a silver case and lit it with an engraved lighter before returning the case to an embroidered black evening bag. She inhaled luxuriously, exhaling a stream of smoke from her full lips. For what must have been the millionth time I wondered how she managed to keep her lipstick on for an entire evening.

“But why is he friends with Richard?” demanded Hilary. “I mean, do we know if he’s worthy? Can he possibly be worthy?” Ah. The question on all of our minds. Trust Hilary to be the first to pose it aloud.

“Oh, do be quiet, Hilary,” said Luisa. “Rachel’s a grown-up. She can take care of herself.” These were disingenuous words from the woman who’d taken it upon herself to cancel a date she deemed “inappropriate” for me our senior year.

“I’m sure the Inquisition will have that all figured out in no time,” I said, referring to Matthew and Sean. I paused then continued in a more serious tone. “I have to admit, I have the same concern. I mean, Peter seems smart and nice, and he’s a really good dancer and he smells incredible, and he’s got the most wonderful eyes and he has a great sense of humor—and did I mention how good he smells? But he’s a friend of Richard’s.” The way I said Richard’s name could leave no doubt as to how I felt about him. “Peter said that the two of them grew up together and that they haven’t really been in touch for years. And he seemed pretty surprised that Richard wanted him to be his best man. That’s a good sign, but is it enough to outweigh being friends with Richard in the first place?” I looked around for affirmation. I’d learned long ago that, when it came to men, my judgment left much to be desired and it was wise to seek a second opinion.

“Speak of the devil,” muttered Hilary. I followed her gaze and saw Richard nearing the table with Emma trailing alongside. She looked exhausted; even her long, golden hair seemed to droop with fatigue.

“Girls, how are you?” asked Richard in that fake hearty way I hated so much, acting as if we were all the best of friends. Girls, indeed. Normally I wouldn’t get too worked up about politically incorrect terminology, but coming from Richard this was particularly irksome. I bit my tongue to keep from pointing out that we’d just attended our ten-year college reunion.

“We’re just fine, Dick,” answered Hilary, giving him a big smile. He didn’t even flinch.

“Emma,” I called. “Come sit with us. We haven’t gotten to spend a minute with you all night.”

“I’d love to,” she said, her quiet voice hoarse from all of the talking she’d had to do that evening. “But I have to get back to the house. My mother’s completely stressed out about tomorrow and all of the logistics, and she wants to go through the master plan one more time. If she’s calm enough, maybe we can all have a nightcap by the pool?” Richard didn’t wait for us to respond before he started shunting her toward the door. “I’ll see you at the house,” she called, casting a wistful look over her shoulder.

“God, I hate that man,” said Hilary, not waiting for them to be out of earshot. She angrily brushed a strand of platinum hair back from her face.

“Of course you do,” said Luisa. “He’s appalling.”

“That’s one word for it,” I said.

“What is Emma thinking?” asked Jane.

“We could sit here all night without answering that,” said Hilary, sounding uncharacteristically dejected. She stood up abruptly, smoothing her short skirt over her thighs. “Let’s go.”

The club’s valet was nowhere to be seen and the parking lot was nearly deserted as we made our way out to the car I’d borrowed from a colleague for the weekend. It was a huge black Suburban that made me feel as if I were driving a tank on the way up from New York.

“Does anybody else feel like driving?” I asked. “I probably shouldn’t.”

“Why—too much to drink or too dazzled by love?”

“Shut up, Hil.”

Jane took the keys and we piled into the car, lapsing into silence as she swung onto the narrow country road that led from the club to the Furlongs’ house. An air of sadness settled over us; doubtless, each of us was thinking about Emma and Richard and the ceremony that would take place the next day. On top of that, I still had the exchange I’d overheard between Emma and her father spinning in my head.

If anyone had asked us to take bets years ago as to which one of us was most likely to make a disastrous matrimonial mistake, the odds would have been on me as the winner, hands down. Yet here we were, on the eve of Emma’s wedding, and I desperately wished that I could find even one thing I liked about the bridegroom, or at least a sign that maybe things would work out for the best.

Unfortunately, when it came to Richard, there just wasn’t much to like. Even I had to admit he was handsome, although that fluke of biology was completely offset by the disproportionate level of interest he took in his clothes. He was also clever and knowledgeable, able to hold his own on topics ranging from high finance to obscure Scandinavian writers.

When Emma first showed up with Richard on her arm, I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, I never knew for sure what exactly had happened between him and Luisa all those years ago. But during the months that Emma and Richard dated and then the months during which they’d been engaged, I hadn’t discovered even one mildly redeeming quality.

That Richard had fouled a deal I was involved in soon after he and Emma started dating was just the tip of the iceberg. I’d been representing a major publishing house in the acquisition of a boutique literary press. Richard, an agent for a number of well-known writers, had quietly lured away the boutique firm’s bestselling author, a loss that reduced the value of the acquisition tremendously. My client was too far down the acquisition path to retreat without losing face in the industry; the letters of intent had already been signed. The acquisition went through, although the price my client paid was widely criticized by Wall Street. The company’s stock price had languished since.

The client blamed the mishap on Winslow, Brown, and the Winslow, Brown partner who’d insisted on taking the lead on the deal, enjoying all the hobnobbing it entailed with the literary world, did his best to deflect the blame onto me once things went sour. This was an easy task in the firm’s testosterone-heavy environment, where a woman’s competence was always in question. I calculated that Richard’s coup had added at least six months and probably a year to the already onerous path to partnership at my white-shoe firm.

To a certain extent, the sequence of events was business as usual. As “expert” advisors, we should have negotiated contingencies into the original agreement that protected our client in the event that a significant change in the target company’s author list occurred. For that oversight we could only blame ourselves. You could also argue that Richard was only doing his job—the author he’d stolen away signed a much more lucrative deal with another publishing house.

What bothered me was that Richard knew that I was involved in the deal, or I assumed he did, because I’d found him in my study during a cocktail party at my apartment, leafing casually through my notes on the preliminary negotiations. He didn’t even have the grace to look flustered at being caught, but just glibly explained that he was looking for a piece of paper to write down a phone number. I wordlessly pointed to the blank legal pad that sat front and center on my desk, returned the file to the drawer in which it had been stowed, watched while Richard pretended to jot something down, and escorted him out of the room.