Anna Pitoniak - Necessary People

“I’m extremely concerned about Stella,” she said.

“Oh,” I said. “I mean, I am, too. I haven’t heard from her all week.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Ginny said. “We were right in the middle of negotiating her new contract. And then I get this e-mail from her on Saturday night. She needs time to think, she needs time to herself. Where does that come from?”

I thought the question might be rhetorical, but Ginny frowned at my silence. “ Well? ” she said. “You were the only person with her. What exactly happened, Violet? What changed between Saturday morning and Saturday night?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “She was gone for a lot of the day. I don’t know where she went.”

“You’ve spoken with her parents, I assume?”

“Of course. Actually, Mrs. Bradley and I were remembering the time she ran away for a while, at Christmas a few years ago? This could be—”

“I don’t see how this is remotely similar. Stella is the next star of this network. She wouldn’t walk away from that. Or from three million dollars a year.”

I swallowed, trying not to flinch. Three million? “With respect, Ginny, Stella has done irrational things before. And the thought of staying at KCN might be too painful for her.”

“Why is that?” Ginny sounded irritated.

“She was upset about the breakup with Jamie.” I kept my voice low, conscious of Jamie standing a few feet away. “Maybe she doesn’t want to work at the same network as him.”

Ginny narrowed her gaze. “Your argument on Saturday night. Was it about Jamie?”

“Yes,” I said. “She thought I had something to do with the breakup.”

“Did you?” Ginny said. “I know that you and Jamie are close.”

A waiter approached, holding a plate with red slices of tuna, dotted with bright green wasabi. I shook my head, feeling nauseous. “Of course not. Stella was my best friend.”

“Could you bring me a Scotch on the rocks?” Ginny said to the waiter. “A double, please.” As he walked away, Ginny turned back to me. “You said was.”

“Pardon me?”

“Stella was your best friend?”

My pulse started hammering, and my cheeks grew hot. I reminded myself: this is real, this story you’re telling. You feel nervous and uneasy because you don’t know where Stella is. And isn’t that true, strictly speaking? The Atlantic Ocean is a big place.

“The way we left things,” I said. “I’m not sure how she feels about me anymore.”

“I see,” Ginny said. She kept staring at me, unblinking. Jamie came over, grinningly oblivious of what he was walking into.

“Ginny, just wanted to say hello,” Jamie said. “This is a great party, isn’t it?”

“Sushi has never been to my liking,” she said. “But yes, this is nice.”

Jamie began talking about a story he was working on, seizing his opportunity to impress the boss’s boss. While he spoke, Ginny’s gaze flickered back and forth between us. Her distaste was barely concealed. These two scrabbling opportunists, she must have thought. These grasping nobodies. Jamie and I weren’t her kind of people. We just didn’t play the game in the way she saw fit. She made that as clear as possible without being outright rude.

I felt a distinctive surge of anger. Willow’s e-mail had been sitting in my in-box, unanswered since Monday. I didn’t know what to say. It was my fault, my guilt to bear. Willow had trusted us with her story. Had trusted me. But in those long minutes we devoted to his interview, the Danner CEO had easily washed his hands of the crisis. Today, just like last week, or last month, or last year, he could walk into the finest restaurants in New York City and receive a warm welcome. His name stayed firmly lodged in the register of society.

See, the term money laundering had it backwards. People don’t launder money. Money launders people. Change a few variables and what would you call a man like the Danner CEO? But he would never be known as a pimp, or a criminal. He was too rich. That category doesn’t exist on the Fortune 500 list.

Market pressures. That’s how the bosses at Danner had justified it, in their coded e-mails and memos. The company had to keep growing. The shareholders demanded greater and greater returns. They weren’t trying to be evil. They were just looking out for the bottom line. Having a moral compass was a nice idea, in theory. But you got a whole lot further by playing dirty.

the broker hadleft a dozen messages. There was a place she wanted to show me in Washington Heights, more realistic for my budget. When I didn’t answer her calls, she began sending me texts. They were misspelled and almost incoherent—probably typed with one hand while she rushed around Manhattan in her beat-up Corolla—but I gave her credit for persistence, then I blocked her number. Who knew what the Bradleys would ultimately decide to do about the apartment? But I could enjoy it while it lasted.

On Saturday, I finally cleaned up the mess in the living room. The fragments of glass that Stella had walked across, barefoot and anguished, were marked by her dried blood. But the rug had concealed the stains, and eventually it looked like nothing had happened.

It was a beautiful apartment. I would miss it if I had to leave. The kitchen faced east, the marble countertops reflecting the morning sun. The living room was best in the afternoon, the dancing shadows of tree branches stretching across the wall. It should have been grotesque, the reminders of Stella in every corner, but it wasn’t. This was still my home. My first real home.

In the evening, I left the apartment and started walking south. Night fell and the streetlights switched on. Every restaurant was packed. It was the weekend before Thanksgiving, and therefore the last weekend before it was officially the holidays, when everything—crowds of tourists, endless rotations of parties—would ratchet up to an unpleasant intensity until the season finally burned itself out on New Year’s Eve. But this was a weekend for a cozier kind of pleasure. Families cooking dinner, couples sharing a bottle of wine. Sleeping with the window cracked open to let in the cold night air.

By the time I reached the ferry building near Battery Park, there was a strong breeze off the harbor. Most people were traveling in the opposite direction, coming into the city for the night. As I waited to board the ferry, two girls passed me—best friends by the looks of it, intertwined arms and shrieks of laughter as they tottered down the ramp in stiletto heels and tight miniskirts. Going out bare-armed and bare-legged in November was unpleasant, but these girls knew the deal: this way, you wouldn’t risk losing your jacket at the club. Plus, the liquor kept you warm. They looked about twenty-one or twenty-two. I had turned twenty-six a few months ago. Entering my late twenties had come with a feeling of relief.

The boat was almost empty as it chugged across the harbor toward Staten Island. For several minutes I stood at the stern, watching Manhattan recede as the ferry unspooled a wake behind it. It was almost exactly a week ago that I had been on the boat with Stella, in Maine.

My preparations had been careful. I’d cut her passport and driver’s license and credit cards into stiff confetti, spreading the pieces among several public garbage cans. Stella’s wallet was made of a supple leather, embossed with her monogram. Leather wouldn’t burn, but it scorched and blackened as I held the lighter up to her initials. When I was sure no one was looking, I pulled the wallet out of my bag, holding it lightly between my fingertips. I let go, and it dropped into the water without a sound.