The Company You Keep Page 2

  She saw him narrow his eyes and stare at her without blinking. Had she gone too far? she wondered. “Listen, maybe I shouldn’t have carried on like that, you know.” She tried to sound nonchalant.

  He fisted his hands and took a step toward her.

  Mimi stuck her tongue against the inside of her cheek. “You know, me and my big mouth. Sometimes I can’t stop myself—like pouring the water over your head.” She looked over her shoulder, then back at him. “So tell me,” she said brazenly, her chin high. “Should I feel worried here. Because, you know, I realize that aggression is an inherent element of your sport, especially for a linebacker. You’re a linebacker, right?” Mimi guessed, having never been to a football game in her four years at Grantham—a heresy, she knew, but it had been another way to avoid her father who never missed a home game.

  “Right tackle,” he corrected, looming a little larger still.

  She gulped. “I’m sure there’s a big difference. But the important point I’m trying to make is that off the field, physical violence never solved anything.”

  “Maybe where you come from. But in my old neighborhood, it sure came into play.” He tossed his jacket to the ground and took another step, moving his massive body deep into her personal space. “Why is it, that as infuriating, as irritating, as arrogant as you are—you also sometimes make sense? I just hate that.”

  Mimi frowned. She didn’t know whether to feel complimented or wary. “Are you admitting that I’m right?”

  Vic moved until there wasn’t a millimeter of space between them.

  She could feel his chest rise and fall, feel the heat generating from his skin and the cold wetness of his shirt. Immediately her nipples responded to the contrast, tightening into sensitive beads.

  “The only thing I’m admitting is that there are times when you get under my skin,” Vic went on. “You don’t know me at all, yet you understand me in ways that even I sometimes don’t. How do you do that?”

  “Innate brilliance? Extraordinary insight?”

  He stared at her, turning his head this way and that, as if trying to analyze every curve of her face. “No, you’re smart, but I’m pretty sure I’m smarter. No offense.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.” Actually, she was pretty sure, but she wasn’t going to admit it. She was no dope. She may have been a legacy admission—her family had been Grantham graduates and generous donors for generations—but she had been at the top of her class at prep school and had aced the college entrance exams. True, her grades in college weren’t exactly great, but then she had chosen to spend her time on sports, the newspaper and her social life.

  Whereas Vic Golinski, despite devoting countless hours to football and the Big Brother program—she had listened to his introduction, as well—was graduating Phi Beta Kappa. In their junior year he had won the prize for the highest cumulative GPA for a student in the social sciences. Even if the guy spent every night in the library, he had to be extra smart to beat out all the other smart people at Grantham.

  He pointed his finger at her, then at himself. “No, I think it’s because there’s something between you and me—something despite the fact that we are polar opposites.”

  “Maybe we’re actually attuned to each other in ways unimaginable?”

  “Oh, I can imagine all right,” he said teasingly. They continued to shift and sway, their faces so close to contact, but not quite.

  Mimi felt giddy, felt herself tremble. “You know what they say? Opposites attract.” She grabbed his finger when he pointed it at her. She felt possessive.

  He looked at her hand on his. “Why’d you do that?”

  Because she wanted him. “Because you shouldn’t point at people,” she answered instead.

  “You’re teaching me manners now?” He angled his head one more time and brought his lips near hers.

  She angled her head the other way, but kept their mouths close. “So, is this where you assert your manliness and kiss me?”

  He put his hands on her waist. Drew her hips to his.

  She was sure she could feel evidence of his arousal. She put her hands on his shoulders and went up on her toes. She held her breath, closed her eyes. Felt his hands squeeze her waist, felt him lift her effortlessly off the ground. Felt him hesitate then…

  Then toss her into the water.

  Splash!

  Mimi landed on her bottom in the shallow pool. She opened her eyes and coughed to clear her airway. Water streaked down her face and soaked her clothes. She flailed, reaching out on either side to gain her balance. She tried to push herself up, wobbled and fell back on her rump again. Water weighed down her clothes, soaked her shoes. Overhead, the fountain showered her hair and face. “Argh,” she growled.

  Vic was doubled over—laughing uproariously. “How come if we’re so attuned to each other, you didn’t see that coming, huh?” he asked, grabbing his side.

  He was right. She was sure he’d had something else in mind. But…but…whatever. She was madder at herself. And the jerk didn’t know when to stop laughing. “So, you thought you’d get even, didn’t you? Have a little go at me?”

  “You call that little?” He wiped his hand across his mouth, trying to stop the laughter. There were even tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. “Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to see what can happen to someone who insists on flying without a safety net.”

  She struggled to stand, the two feet of water making her clumsy. She whisked her wet ponytail back from her cheek and straightened her shoulders. “You think you’re so clever to…”

  She paused. And then she knew what she was going to do. Nobody made a fool out of Mimi Lodge—especially when she was sure she hadn’t been mistaken about his arousal.

  First, she wriggled out of her jacket. Then she kicked off one black flat. The other got dragged down with water, so she bent over, slipped it off and tossed it over her shoulder. Next she grabbed the hem of her black sleeveless shell and began peeling the wet material over her head.

  “Whoa! What do you think you’re doing?” He called out.

  She freed her head from the top and threw the shirt over her shoulder. She saw him holding out an arm as if to stop her. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m stripping down naked,” she announced emphatically. “Now who didn’t see that coming? So what are you going to do now, eh? You going to pretend you didn’t have other things in mind? Oh, I know—you’re too chicken to act. Or maybe you’d like to weigh the pros and cons?” she taunted him.

  He looked around. “Hey, you can’t do that. Someone might come by.”

  “I’ll take that chance, especially since everybody and his little brother is down at the Reunions lunch eating and drinking to their heart’s content.” She undid the waistband of her pants and lowered the zipper. Then she stepped out of the legs, lifting one foot as she hopped in the water, and then the next.

  She threw the trousers at him.

  He caught them before they thwacked him in the face. “What about the cops?”

  “What about the cops?” She stood there naked except for the wisps of nylon and silk that comprised her demi-cup bra and bikini underpants. The slippery, nude-colored underwear was wet and, she knew, just as transparent as his shirt. She reached behind for the clasp on her bra.

  His jaw dropped open. “You could, you could be arrested.” He gulped visibly.

  She unhooked her bra and let it slide to the water below. The jets from the fountain hit the undersides of her small breasts. The chilly water made her nipples pucker tightly. She slipped one thumb in the side of her underpants. “You think I won’t do it?”

  “No, that’s the problem. I think you just might.”

  “So you’re attuned to me after all.” This time Mimi threw back her head and laughed. Then she looked him straight in the eye, put her other thumb in the other side of her panties and did a little wiggle. “So what do you intend to do about it, Mr. Look-But-Don’t-Leap?”

  She wiggled some more
as she worked the elastic waistband down her thighs.

  “Well, I’m certainly done looking.” He came in after her.

  “My, my, you didn’t even take off your shoes. Now that’s impulsive.” She held open her arms.

  He slogged through the water to reach her.

  And that’s when the police sirens came wailing down the street.

  CHAPTER ONE

  A LOUD WAIL INTERRUPTED Mimi’s whimpering. The mechanical, incessant noise went on…and on. Mimi pressed her forehead down. She wanted to cover her ears, and even though logically she knew that movement was impossible, she reflexively went to raise her arms.

  She expected to feel the binding restraints and the shooting pain. Miraculously, there was none. Just the incessant ringing and ringing…

  Then the noise stopped.

  Mimi rolled over and opened her eyes. And realized she was lying on her own queen-size bed in her own apartment on the Upper East Side in Manhattan and not…not captive in that hellhole in Chechnya—blindfolded, beaten, alternating between bouts of despondency and glimmers of hope.

  She turned her head on the downy pillow and gazed out the window toward the light—something she’d been deprived of for months, something that was now so precious. It didn’t disappoint.

  It was one of those rare winter mornings in Manhattan when the gray clouds of January had decided to take a holiday. The sun streamed in through the glass like some visionary painting.

  It should have warmed her. It didn’t.

  Mimi still hadn’t gained any weight back after she’d been kidnapped while on assignment in Chechnya, a forced confinement that had lasted almost six months. Two months had passed since her television news network had secured her release, but she still suffered an almost bone-numbing coldness.

  She wriggled deeper under the white duvet cover. The feel of the expensive Egyptian cotton material reassured her without fully erasing the nightmare.

  Mimi had never been introspective for a variety of reasons. She freely admitted the obvious one that she simply never had the luxury of time to stop and think. The other reasons she kept private, even from her best friend from college, Lilah Evans. But since…since the kidnapping—there, she’d said it—she was beginning to appreciate just how bizarre time and memory were.

  For instance, off the top of her head, she had virtually no idea what she’d done all day yesterday. Yet the exact events of the day she was abducted remained crystalline clear. Not surprising, really, since every night when she sought comfort in sleep, she instead kept reliving that day over and over, each detail more vivid, each smell more penetrating, each sound more ominous, the pain…

  She forced herself to focus on the cream-colored walls of her room. They were bare except for a few framed photos of colleagues and friends. Several showed her family: her mother blowing out candles on a birthday cake; her half-brother, Press, who’d graduated from Grantham University last year and was now in Australia; and her little half-sister, Brigid, a bundle of energy who was eight going on sixteen. There were none of her father. The photos showed people laughing, happy. She was in a few, too—laughing, happy. She sniffed, trying to recall the feeling. She couldn’t. That was the thing about memory. It was selective, even when you didn’t want it to be.

  Mimi shifted back to the bank of metal-framed windows that looked out from her twelfth-floor apartment on East Seventieth, off Lexington. After years of renting various places around the City, she’d finally bought the condo when the real estate market hit a low a few years ago. And for the Upper East Side, it had been a bargain, all because her building was one of those white brick high rises built with good intentions but a total disregard of aesthetic appeal. Ugly didn’t come close, and no self-respecting equities analyst or art gallery owner wanted to be caught dead in something so gauche. One day, though, she figured, white brick would be the new Art Deco, and she’d be laughing all the way to the bank.

  The loud wail of the cell phone started up again.

  She rubbed her eyes and turned to find her BlackBerry on the nightstand. Its slim black case jiggled across the glass surface. Mimi peered closely, not at the phone number displayed on the screen but at the table, checking for dust. It was spotless. The cleaning lady she’d hired since returning home came in twice a week. She was considering having her come in three times, but even she admitted that was absurd. This obsession she’d developed to maintain spotless control would pass. Still…

  The phone rang on.

  Mimi sighed and finally reached over. “Yes?” she said without much interest.

  “Is that any way to answer the telephone, Mary Louise?” It was her father, Conrad Lodge III. Only he would use her given names instead of her nickname. “I suppose I should thank the heavens that you even picked up—as opposed to my many emails that you’ve ignored completely.” His upper class, lockjaw manner of speaking sounded even more pronounced over the phone.

  Mimi inhaled. “I didn’t answer your emails because I haven’t had time to open them.” It was a lie, but then her family was good at lying. She hadn’t actually bothered about the messages at all.

  She shifted her position under the covers and stared at the wall with the photos again, zeroing in on the black-and-white shot of her mother wearing a silly party hat and holding forth a birthday cake adorned with lit candles. It had been Mimi’s ninth birthday. She’d been in third grade at Grantham Country Day School.

  Mimi recalled that birthday vividly. More than anything she had wanted to get her ears pierced. Her father had refused. “Who do you think you are? An immigrant child?” he’d asked scornfully. Her mother, only recently a naturalized citizen, had bowed her head and looked away.

  As she lay in bed now, Mimi felt the hole in one of her earlobes. Conrad had won the battle that birthday, but as soon as she’d left home for boarding school Mimi had made a beeline for the nearest Piercing Pagoda. Maybe one of these days she’d actually get around to wearing earrings again.

  From the other end of the telephone line her father cleared his throat. “I’m delighted you’re keeping so busy during your time off from work.”

  Cutting sarcasm had always been one of his strengths, Mimi thought.

  “Therefore, rather than wait for you to find the time, I decided to call you instead.”

  “Before you begin the lecture, I know I should come down to see the family,” Mimi cut in, anticipating his demands. Grantham, New Jersey, Mimi’s family’s hometown, was an hour’s train ride south of New York City. It was the epitome of a picture-postcard college town—Gothic university buildings and historic colonial houses. Its quaint main street—named Main Street, no less—boasted high-end jewelry shops, stock brokerages and coffee shops that catered to black-clad intellectuals and young moms with yoga mats tucked in the back of expensive jogging strollers.

  “So, I promise to visit soon,” she continued, only half meaning it.

  “That would be most welcome,” her father replied. “But actually, I am inquiring about something else. I’m on the organizing committee for Reunions this year. Quite an honor, really.” Reunions at Grantham were a giant excuse for alumni from all the previous graduating classes to gather for a long weekend at their old stomping grounds, reminisce about the good old days and make fools of themselves by wearing silly class outfits and drinking excessive amounts of alcohol.

  “Reunions? But they’re not until June. If it’s about giving Noreen plenty of notice that I’ll be staying at the house, you don’t have to worry.” Noreen was her father’s third wife. Mimi’s natural predilection was to despise her stepmothers, but even she had to admit Noreen was pretty decent.

  “I’m sure Noreen will appreciate hearing from you, but I repeat, that’s not why I called. Really, Mary Louise. If you’d let me get a word in edgewise, you’d realize that fact.”

  Chastised but not humbled, Mimi bit her tongue.

  A self-satisfied silence permeated the line. “I wanted to speak to you in regards to my p
osition on the Reunions committee. I’m in charge of organizing the panel discussions.”

  Despite his chastisement, Mimi couldn’t help but jump in with a comment. “I thought I made it clear to you and everyone else that I don’t want to talk about what happened in Chechnya.” She hated the fact that her voice trembled.

  “Yes, you made that loud and clear when you took an extended leave from the network—though I still believe you should talk to the psychiatrist that Noreen found for you, the specialist in matters…in matters related to your particular circumstance.” Conrad cleared his throat uneasily. “What I had in mind was more directly relevant to the Grantham student experience. Intercollegiate athletics, to be precise.”

  “What are you talking about? I haven’t participated in any competitive sports since my senior year.” Mimi was baffled.

  “Which was the year you served on a panel at Reunions addressing Title IX and its impact on Grantham’s varsity teams. As I recall, your comments were particularly offensive to certain male members of the audience when you advocated the demotion of the wrestling team to a club sport,” Conrad noted.

  “That’s because there was no female equivalent,” Mimi pointed out, the arguments still fresh in her mind. That whole memory trick again. “Anyway, I recall that the university administration agreed with me.”

  “And I have no doubt you’d be more than willing to defend the same position what…ten or so years after the fact?”

  “Twelve, as I’m sure you know perfectly well.” Her father might be an arrogant twit, but as a founding partner and long-standing chairman of a successful private equity firm, one thing Conrad Lodge III knew—and remembered—was numbers, any and all numbers. Except for the date of my birthday, she qualified silently.

  But instead of enjoying her self-righteous sulk, Mimi suddenly experienced one of those lightbulb moments. “Wait a minute. You didn’t call to merely reminisce about one of my more dramatic episodes, did you?”