Page 12 of Saltwater Secrets
She refused to call her mother to come save her.
That evening, Aria met up with an old friend from college, a twenty-three-year-old investment banker named Gina, who made Aria feel like a dummy. When they met at the GreenwichVillage bar not far from Dorothy’s apartment, Gina spat out a list of questions at Aria, as though Aria were at a job interview wherein Gina was trying to decide whether she was friendship material. When she learned that Aria was doing interior design for Dorothy Wagner, her eyes brightened.
“Dorothy Wagner? Is she the wife of Philip Wagner?” she asked.
Aria realized that Dorothy hadn’t mentioned her late husband’s name. “I don’t know,” she admitted.
“Okay,” Gina said delicately. “Let me put it this way. Does Dorothy Wagner have exorbitant wealth?”
Aria tried to laugh. “Who doesn’t in this city?”
“Come on.” Gina pulled out the latest iPhone and googled Philip Wagner. The burnt-orange cocktail she’d ordered glowed in the low-hanging and exposed light bulbs, which seemed to indicate that the bar she’d chosen was cool and modern. As an interior designer, Aria had utilized the exposed light bulb thing several times, but she sometimes found it cheap. To her and to Hilary, it was a fad, something their clients would want removed soon.
“Here we go,” Gina said, turning her phone around to show a late-nineties photograph of Philip Wagner and a much younger version of Dorothy, dressed immaculately, all in black. The photograph was sepia-toned, proof that it hadn’t aged well before it had been scanned onto the internet.
The first thought Aria had was that Philip Wagner looked mean.
“That’s her, all right,” Aria said finally.
Gina beamed. “You have got to show me her apartment. I bet it’s insane.”
“It’s really out of date,” Aria said. “I have a lot of work to do. When I asked her how many weeks she wanted to book me for,she threw up her hands and was like, do whatever you need to do.”
“Wow. More money than God.” Gina wet her lips. She looked as though she wanted to use Aria for something, as though she sought to manipulate her and use her as a tool.
“You probably don’t know anything about the Wagners,” Gina said.
Aria admitted she didn’t. In college, she’d always been an artistic type, chasing things that fed her soul rather than the future of her bank account.
“Philip Wagner was a mega-rich investment banker, one of the best,” Gina said. “Because of him, a lot of wealthy New Yorkers got mega-mega rich. He’s like, a textbook example of what every investment banker wants to be.”
“Was it illegal, what he was doing?” Aria asked.
Gina made a face, as though to indicate that “illegality” didn’t matter when you were wealthier than God. Aria’s stomach turned. She’d forgotten how much she didn’t like Gina. She imagined what Thaddeus would say about her and imagined that, were they here together, they’d go back home and make fun of her.Like, doesn’t she have anything else to live for?Maybe she didn’t. But Gina was the only person she currently knew in the city.
“Does Dorothy talk about him?” Gina asked.
“She mentioned her late husband. That’s about it,” Aria said.
“You know, he had so many lovers,” Gina said conspiratorially. “He dated models and actresses and so on. All through the seventies, eighties, and nineties. All while he had Dorothy at home.”
Aria blinked. Was she supposed to think that was cool or interesting? Was she supposed to find Philip Wagner’s free and easy lifestyle, away from his kind and beautiful and vivacious wife Dorothy, interesting?
“Is that the kind of guy you want to date?” Aria asked after a pause.
Gina threw her head back and laughed outrageously. “I mean, I wouldn’t hate that money. And if there’s money, you can deal with just about anything, can’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Aria said, remembering how Thaddeus had had to scrape and save to get his plane ticket for London. She’d respected how he’d handled money. He’d never had enough of it, but he’d made it stretch. He’d built a life for himself.
Was Aria going to end up with a Philip Wagner, while some other woman was lucky enough to fall in love and stay in love with a Thaddeus? Aria cursed her heart for its bad timing and drank down the rest of her white wine. When the server came by, she ordered another.
Somehow, Gina bullied Aria into taking her back to Dorothy’s apartment that night. Aria used the thick golden key to open the door and led Gina inside, watching her face. Gina rubbed her palms together, standing in the foyer like she was crafting a plan.
“This really is ugly,” she said after a moment. Then she laughed that horrible laugh. “Is there any alcohol?”
Gina began to rummage around the living room and kitchen, opening and closing cabinets, searching. “It’s really clean,” she pointed out. “I guess Dorothy has someone come by and keep it tidy?”
“I guess.” Aria couldn’t believe she’d let Gina come over. She wanted to curl up in bed and sleep till tomorrow. A part of her ached, wondering when Dorothy would want a write-up of her plan for the apartment. In a week? Two? And why had Dorothy thought that Aria would “get away” from her heartache here in the city, when she’d obviously carried her heartache all the way to Greenwich Village with her?
