How It Ended: New and Collected Stories - By Jay McInerney Page 0,89
ring. Billy had little experience with jewelry. Most of the jewelry he'd given his first wife had originally belonged to his mother.
“I'm going on my break,” the salesgirl said, “but my colleague will be happy to help you.” She indicated a slim young man in a tight black suit, whose hair was combed to a peak in the center of his head.
“Mr. Laube, isn't it?” he said.
Billy nodded, surprised at being recognized by such an unlikely figure.
“Miss de Sante is a client,” he said cheerfully. “A very fine lady. A very refined lady, I should say.”
Billy nodded, wondering how this odd young fellow knew so much about him.
“I'm sorry you didn't like the cuff links,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The cuff links. That Miss de Sante bought for you. She said they weren't your cup of tea.”
“Cuff links? What are you talking about? You mean the sapphire cuff links?”
He nodded. “The ones she returned last week.”
“That's impossible,” Billy said.
“Perhaps I'm mistaken,” the clerk said.
“She returned them?”
“That was my impression.”
“This happened … recently?”
“Yes, last week.”
“Could I see these cuff links?”
“You want to look at them again?” the clerk asked nervously.
“I think I need to see them,” Billy said.
The day after the gala, the calls started coming in at eleven. All the girls agreed the night had been a big success. They assured Alysha that she and Billy were the cutest couple in town, and several wanted to know when they could expect an announcement.
When she hadn't heard from Billy by two, she decided to check in. His secretary said he was in a meeting.
“Did you give him my previous message?” she demanded the next time she called, told that he was still unavailable.
“I give Mr. Laube all of his messages.” From the first time they'd spoken, Alysha hadn't liked her attitude, and she vowed to get rid of her, perhaps sooner rather than later.
“If you value your job at all, I strongly suggest that you tell Mr. Laube I'm on the phone.”
“I'm sorry, Mr. Laube is unavailable.”
This woman was simply intolerable, but Alysha was stymied. At one time, she'd found it charming that Billy was one of the last men on earth subsisting without benefit of a cell phone, but now it was simply infuriating. “Tell Mr. Laube it's urgent that he call me at home immediately.”
At eight and again at eight-thirty she called the Carlyle, where the switchboard operator told her that Mr. Laube was not accepting calls.
“I'm his fiancée,” Alysha said. “I demand to speak to him.”
“I'm sorry, but my instructions were very clear.”
“How dare you tell me I can't speak to my fiancé? I demand to speak to the manager.”
But the buffoon of a manager was no more cooperative than the switchboard operator, and he seemed unmoved when Alysha told him that she was a very good friend of the owner and would have them both fired.
The next day, his awful secretary told her that Billy was out of town. Two days later, she heard from a friend that he was shooting at an estate in Norfolk. She couldn't understand what had gone wrong. He'd been so loving, so concerned, the night of the gala. Someone must have poisoned him against her. Someone had told him something, but what? Of course she knew she had enemies; a girl in her position was naturally a target of jealousy and resentment. Could someone have told him about Riyadh? If she had the opportunity, she would tell him that it wasn't her choice, that she was barely sixteen when her mother had arrived one day at the convent, after an absence of almost a year, and taken her away, promising a great adventure, reminding her about the prince, who'd seen her the previous summer in Monaco.
Billy was still traveling when she sat through her deposition a month later. Her lawyer prevented her from answering most of the questions, but once they were alone, he turned gloomy. “I can stave off a summary judgment for a few weeks at best,” he said. “We've got to come up with some kind of plan.”
That night, she called Mary Trotter and asked her to dinner the following Thursday, having heard that Mary was giving a party that night for Jake Taplow, the software billionaire.
“I'm so sorry,” Mary said, “but I'm afraid we're busy that night.”
“Perhaps we could combine our little soirees.”
“I don't think so, Alysha.”
“Well, you're actually the first couple I've called, so I could easily postpone my dinner and join you that night.”