Chapter 21
Within a few hours the Tuxes were seated in the Oval Office, facing President Pershing, who was ashen and trembling but holding himself together.
He was tall, with ramrod posture but a softness as a result of his extreme kindness and quest to include every point of view in decision-making.
He was a thoroughly good man, a stance unheard of in politics and easily mistaken for weakness.
Along with the necessary egotism to become president, Kyle Pershing maintained a near childlike belief that, given the chance, most people will behave well.
He filled us in: “I received a video just over three hours ago, from a source that none of our cyber experts have been able to trace.” He turned a laptop on his desk to face us.
Reata’s image flickered onto the screen, in grainy but realistic-looking footage.
She was seated on a hard-backed wooden chair before a swath of white fabric with her hands bound by a zip tie.
Uncharacteristically, she was wearing jeans, a white T-shirt, and a safari jacket.
Being Reata, she wasn’t visibly frightened but direct and clearheaded, telling the camera: “Whoever’s watching this, which will undoubtedly include my husband, I’m as yet unharmed.
This was my fault: I was in Geneva to speak at the International Women’s Conference, but I snuck off because an old school buddy of mine was on a dig, excavating a Norse longship in a floodplain outside the city.
It was amazing, but I was running late, and on the road back to the hotel, my car was surrounded and I was blindfolded and drugged.
I should’ve been more alert to my surroundings.
I woke up wherever I am now. My captors are masked and refuse to identify themselves.
They’ve commanded me to repeat this ridiculous demand… ”
She read a message from a teleprompter affixed to the camera: “ ‘A renegade band of amateur, quasi-military vigilantes has stolen the three Moirai gems. These stones, while costly and of historic importance, are ineffective without being placed in the Diadem, which we have in our possession. We will trade the First Lady’s life for the diamond, ruby, and emerald in question. Once this arrangement is agreed upon, and a video image of the gems has been forwarded, a time and a place for the transfer will follow.’ ”
Reata began speaking for herself: “I haven’t seen the Diadem, so these idiots may be lying, but they’re buying into the legend.
I’m not getting any scholarly vibes from these people, so don’t trust a word they say.
Kyle, I love you, and if Reggie and the Tuxes are in the room, do your thing.
And Andrew, I know you’ll be esssential… ”
A red laser dot, from a sniper’s rifle scope, was centered on Reata’s forehead. As she protested, the clip ended abruptly.
“May I see that?” asked Marcus, and President Pershing handed him the laptop.
As Marcus began analyzing the message, the President said, “While the FBI has begun a worldwide search, we still have no accurate information about where my wife is being imprisoned or by whom. She’s spoken so highly of your team, so I must ask: Do you have these jewels? ”
“Yes,” said Reggie, who was standing, as the rest of us occupied a couch and side chairs.
My wayward thought: Reata remembered me!
I’d mailed her a handwritten thank-you note after she’d sent me that stuffed panda, but since then we’d had no direct contact.
Reggie was undoubtedly formulating a means of locating and saving Reata, so more than ever, I had to become indispensable.
I couldn’t let Reata, and Reggie, only think of me as an ill-equipped dork, impeding the Tuxes and embarrassing myself.
I had to help get this done, or lose any shot at full membership.
“I’ll need more time to hack this,” said Marcus, “but it’s definitely real.”
“And of course I’ll return the gems,” said Reggie. “We’re talking about the First Lady’s life. That’s all that matters.”
“Thank you,” said the President. “Where are these items being stored?”
“I’ve limited any knowledge about that, so my team won’t be endangered. But I can have them here in a matter of hours, or delivered elsewhere if such measures become appropriate.”
“Get them,” said the President, “and we’ll stay in touch, for whenever those bastards give us more details.”
“ ‘A renegade band of amateur, quasi-military vigilantes’?” sniffed Pei-Sze. This slur had been gnawing at her. “It sounds like something with a sign-up sheet and a coffee urn.”
“How dare they,” agreed President Pershing.
“We’re the fucking Tuxedo Society,” said Timothy.
“And we’ll bring Reata home,” said Reggie.
Once the group was back in New York, Reggie asked me to go with him, to wherever he’d stashed the jewels.
His reason became apparent after he gave our Uber driver an address on East 73rd Street, just off Lexington Avenue, belonging to my aunt Libby.
Jesus, I thought, is my family at the center of everything?
Am I putting their lives and condos at risk?
And was there a minute for me to pick up a pound cake or a set of woven place mats and coordinated napkins as a hostess gift?
The building, a well-tended postwar white-brick high-rise, was sacred turf, because Aunt Libby is a proven goddess.
As a child, I’d lived for the weekends we’d spend together, because my mom had correctly predicted, “You’re two of a kind.
” Libby was the only person, or even AI program, who’d accumulated more show business data than me, and could download her archive into my brain.
The doorman recognized me (Libby had the phrase “doorman building” legally added to her name), and Reggie and I took the elevator to the thirty-second floor, although I still didn’t get why this was our destination.
I rang the bell and Jenn answered the door.
She was looking far healthier than the last time I’d seen her, in the wake of her canceled wedding.
Her hair was freshly sunlit, her skin was (as always, even during a nuclear winter) radiant, and her eyes sparkled.
Rather than encasing herself in a couture stalwart, she’d opted for a less familiar, younger designer’s output from a Soho collective, a chiffon patchwork top over painstakingly shredded jeans embroidered with daisies, and platform wedges wrapped in rainbow braid.
With a vintage Pucci scarf in her hair and armloads of Bakelite bracelets, she was like springtime on a mega-successful dermatologist’s salary.
She hugged Reggie and me, evidencing great affection without disturbing her outfit or makeup as she murmured, “Hold on.”
She vanished into the apartment. These premises were, for me, both an encyclopedia of my childhood and a temple of mugs with Broadway show logos.
Libby occupied this three-bedroom (two-and-a-half-bath) nirvana, the place where they’d raised Jenn and her younger brother Mitchell (currently studying Costume Theory in Berlin), with her adoring husband Josh, rated as one of “New York’s Most Miracle-Working Orthodontists” in a survey.
The décor was pure Libby, because no one would ever question her taste.
Libby is, in fact, the person who introduced me to the concept of “taste,” meaning the penchant for judging everything and everyone on earth according to one’s personal statutes.
Libby preferred clean-lined pieces, with accent pillows and cashmere throws in what she called “classic neutrals.” Above all else, Libby sought to deny the densely tchotchked and begonia-patterned wallpaper frenzy of her mother’s place in a senior community near Tampa.
“I love my mother dearly,” Libby had told me, “but her house is like a pinata stuffed with quilted floral bedspreads and matching dust ruffles.”
Jenn emerged from her childhood bedroom carrying a trending item from several seasons back: a translucent, hot pink rubbery plastic homage to the classic Hermès Kelly bag, a voluminous tote that said, “I’m not putting my name on a waiting list and paying twenty-five thousand dollars for a high-end purse but I love the look.
” The tote was lined with crumpled tissue paper, which Jenn flattened to unearth the three Moirai gemstones.
Reggie had smartly transferred this horde to someone who’d keep the treasures secure (Jenn’s Lucite earring caddy was immaculate), appreciate the backstory, and never be suspected of ownership (if backed into a corner she’d protest, “Oh, like I’d ever walk around in jumbo rocks, not until I’m forty”).
Reggie placed the jewels atop the kitchen island (the apartment had been renovated years ago to become open-concept—Libby had been an open-concept pioneer), and Jenn said, “Wait a sec,” resting a tulip from a nearby vase alongside the jewels, “to zhuzh things up.” Reggie photographed the items with his phone and sent the results to President Pershing.
“Thank you,” Reggie told Jenn. “You’re an angel.”
“The Tuxes saved my life,” Jenn replied.
“After you guys left the boat, Jack Stanton kept his distance and hushed up the whole battle. And the purser told me my trip had been comped. I got off in the Bahamas and flew back, because I can’t do Turks and Caicos, not yet.
But I loved caretaking these stones. They’re like foster jewelry, and I think they’ve been having an effect on me.
I’ve been getting stronger and more fearless.
And they’re much prettier than Brayden.”
“Hello, Andrew, and you must be Reggie.”
My aunt Libby was here, and my heart sang a medley of “The Trolley Song” from Meet Me in St. Louis, the dance hit “What a Feeling” from Flashdance, and Emma Stone’s buoyant entrance number from La La Land.
I’m so grateful to Libby, for expanding my childhood and assuring my parents that I was “strange but visionary.” Libby was always exactly who I needed her to be.