dinner table chair with a straight back. She unconsciously dramatized her superior claim to sympathy by jackknifing one leg and lifting it high enough to put the heel on the edge of the seat and hugging the knee with both arms as if it were the only friend she had left.
“No, that’s not true,” said Amélia. “We’re not in the same boat. You left him. He left me. You’re happy. I’m not.”
“I’m not happy!” said Magdalena. “I’m scared to death! If you had seen his face—I mean, mygod!”
Amélia shrugged with her eyebrows in a way that as much as said, “You’re trying to blow nothing up into something.”
“But his face—it was like some kind of—of—of—some kind of fiend’s! The way he started calling me ‘Bitch!—you bitch!’—to say that’s what he said doesn’t begin to—”
Amélia broke in, “And you’re so devastated, I guess you’re not going out with your ‘oligarch’ friend tonight?… Give me a break… Reggie didn’t even care enough to raise his voice with me. He was more like some boss calling in an employee and saying, ‘I’m sorry, but you’re just not the right fit for our organization. It’s not your fault, but we’re going to have to let you go.’ That’s the way Reggie put it. ‘I’m going to have to let you go. This just isn’t working out.’ Those were his actual words, ‘This just isn’t working out.’ After almost two years ‘this just isn’t working out.’ What the hell is ‘this,’ I’d like to know, and what is ‘working out’ supposed to mean? He also said, ‘It’s not your fault.’ Awww… geeee… that made me feel so much better. You know? After two years he comes to the conclusion that ‘this is not working out’ and it’s ‘not my fault.’ ”
::::::Damn it! The whole world doesn’t revolve around you, Amélia.::::::
Magdalena tried to put it back into orbit around herself. “And another thing, Amélia, I’m broke! He’s got my credit cards, my checkbook, my cash, my driver’s license—everything! I was lucky to have enough cash tucked away here to pay the locksmith. Cost a fortune!”
“What do you think he’s going to do—buy thousands of dollars’ worth of stuff with your credit card? Take the keys and steal your car? Break in here in the middle of the night? You already changed the lock. You think he’s so wild about you he’ll ruin his career just to get revenge? You’re pretty hot, but I haven’t noticed—” She dropped her thought. “So, anyway, who’s your oligarch friend tonight?”
“His name is Sergei Korolyov.”
“What’s he do?”
“I think he… ‘invests’? Is that the word? I don’t really know. But I know he collects art. He gave the Miami Museum of Art seventy million dollars’ worth of paintings and they changed its name to the Korolyov Museum of Art. Do you remember that? There was a lot about it on TV.”
She regretted laying it on that thick. Here’s Amélia in a state of shock about Reggie—and she has to tell her about what a star she has a date with in a couple of hours.
“I think I remember something about it,” said Amélia.
Silence… then Magdalena couldn’t resist, and so she went ahead and said, “Do you remember the night I was going to Chez Toi, and you lent me your bustier? Well, that was the night I met Sergei—or that was the night he asked me for my phone number. I met him once before… you know, along with all these other people… I guess that bustier wasn’t a bad idea! Don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you for it again. I mean, I don’t want him to think that’s what I wear every night, a bustier. But I could use your advice again.”
Amélia looked off in a distracted way. Obviously, she wasn’t going to jump at the idea of playing couturiere for Magdalena for some dazzling date again. Finally, without looking squarely at Magdalena, she said, “Where’s he taking you?”
“It’s a big party on—I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never seen it—you know Star Island? At somebody’s house.”
Amélia smiled… sardonically… “You’re too much, Magdalena. You just happen to go to dinner at a restaurant you never heard of called Chez Toi. Then you just happen to go to a big party at some place called Star Island at somebody’s big house. That’s only the most expensive real estate in Miami. Maybe Fisher Island—but there’s not much difference.”