7. Chapter Seven #2
“To tell you to throw a bucket of water on me, no doubt,” Tallulah said. “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
“We already brought a witch with us,” I said. “So you’re safe.”
“Ha! We’ll have to compare brooms.” Tallulah draped an arm over Marcie’s shoulder. "My Carl and your father always got along like a house on fire. I was the fire.” She paused. “How is he doing with everything, darling?”
“He’s… he’s getting there,” Marcie said heavily. “We’re all really hopeful.”
“Stubborn man,” Tallulah said, sounding pleased. “Say this for Daniel Ramsey—that’s a man who doesn’t give up easily. Harrington was always in good hands when we were working with Ramsey Engineering. Not like these new people.”
“We’re not affiliated with them,” I said.
“If you were, you wouldn’t be in this house right now,” Tallulah said. “Come. Sit. Eat. Let’s lie to each other over dinner like civilized Americans. And then we can get to the part where you confess you didn’t really drive three hours up here just to see what the Ozempic is doing for my figure.”
Dinner was served in a dining room large enough to park a whole fleet of sports cars in.
We used about a hundredth of the table: Tallulah sat at the head, with me and Marcie to either side, sitting so that we faced each other.
From how often she looked at me, I sensed Tallulah probably would have rather put me all the way down at the other end.
That would’ve been alright with me. I could take a little ribbing—I’d gotten more than a few lumps when the wedding videos went viral. Tonight was not about my pride. It was about signing Harrington Structural as a client.
And I knew that the best way to do that was for Tallulah and Marcie to interact as much as possible.
The food came in courses: appetizers the size of my thumbnail, salad, soup. Tallulah kept the conversation light and full of pleasantries until the third—as soon as the bisque was served, she started moving in for the kill.
“So.” She unfolded her napkin like someone pulling a starter gun. “Three wives.”
I’d learned by now there was no sense in going for a glancing blow. Best to face it head-on.
“Three wives, yes,” I agreed. “Legally, just the one, but you know the rest.”
“And Marcie’s not the legal one,” Tallulah said with a glance at my angel. “Which caused no end of trouble with your mentor, I’m to understand. Kind of the whole reason Ramsey Engineering is in this mess, no?”
I blanched. “Daniel was upset about my romantic decisions. It altered his succession plans for the firm, which both of us now deeply regret.”
“I bet.” She took a sip of her drink—red wine, nearly the same shade as her dress. “How many of the Avery Company’s employees are auditioning for a role alongside Marcella? A dozen? Two?”
I cleared my throat. “I’m capable of separating business from pleasure, Mrs. Harrington.”
Her eyes lit up. “That might be the most incorrect thing anyone has ever said to me,” she retorted, looking delighted. “And I had to deal with that harridan who thinks she’s running things now over at Daniel’s old firm.”
“Victoria Ruocchio,” Marcie said.
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Tallulah said. “It’s a fun symmetry, Mr. Avery.
You have three wives; I’ve buried three husbands.
Most days I could barely keep track of Carl.
I have no idea how you manage to juggle the demands of so many willing young things.
It must be like living in a Greek comedy.
” She turned to Marcie. “I suppose you help?”
Marcie’s cheeks had gone as red as apples. “That’s not what our life is like,” she said, marshaling her courage. “Jack is a good man. He’s the reason half of us are still standing after what happened with the wedding. Including me.”
Tallulah gave her an appraising look. There was no physical change in her, but I got the impression of a woman temporarily sliding her blade back into a sheath all the same. “You’re a good girl,” she said, some of the chill in the room fading. “Loyal.”
Marcie nodded.
“Your father’s the same way,” she explained.
“He’s the kind of man who’d walk into traffic for the people he loved and told you he was just doing it to save time.
Because he’d never admit that’s what he was doing, you see.
” She glanced at me for a second. “Men from that era never telegraph their emotions.” She jerked a thumb in my direction. “Stoics, all of them. Not sultans.”
I almost rose to the bait. But the longer dinner went on, the more I was beginning to realize something. Tallulah didn’t fully mean what she was saying.
Oh, she was full of piss and vinegar, sure. And I felt certain that my absence from her husband’s funeral was keenly felt, regardless of my reasons. But to an extent, this prickly exterior was a kind of test. One she wanted Daniel Ramsey’s daughter to pass.
And one that I could only imagine how badly Victoria had bombed.
“Go on and eat, dearie,” Tallulah said. “You’re looking pale. You haven’t even touched the wine.”
Marcie reached into her bag.
“I wanted to show you something,” she said, removing the item inside and setting it on the table. “I hope you’ll indulge me…”
She set it on the table quietly, with a satisfied look like she’d just called Tallulah’s bluff: Daniel’s Rolodex, fat and heavy, each one of the cards covered in his loping, sometimes barely-readable handwriting.
Tallulah stopped talking.
For just a moment, as her eyes focused on the thing, she was no longer sitting in her dining room. Her eyes lit up like she’d just been presented with an old trophy she’d won, her hand straying across the table to flick one card up to meet another. Her jaw dropped.
“That *old horror*,” she said, her voice warm. “My God, I haven’t seen this thing in years. You know your father used to flip through it in the middle of negotiations? Right there in the boardroom. It was his way of letting people he didn’t like know how many other options he had.”
“He must not have done it to you, then,” Marcie murmured.
“Never,” she said, a genuine laugh escaping her. “Where on earth did you find it?”
“I didn’t have to find it,” Marcie said proudly. “Dad gave it to me when we opened the Avery Company offices. I took it from my own office, Tallulah.” She swallowed hard. “I like to keep it close. It reminds me of him.”
“Yes. It does.”
We’ve got her, I thought. God damn, angel, you did it…
Then Tallulah drew back her hand, the shutters slamming down over her eyes. “That’s an impressive bit of theater,” she said, forcing out a chuckle. “You’re wasted over there in the corporate world, doll. You should’ve been in show business.”
Marcie’s jaw dropped.
“It’s a good trick,” she said. “Daniel’s, I’m sure?”
“It’s not a trick,” Marcie said. “Tallulah, it’s my life.”
“Everything’s a trick, dear. Sometimes you just get lucky and you get to play one that happens to be true.” She dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a napkin, thinking. “Which brings us to the bridge.”
Both of us froze.
Somehow, Tallulah smiled. “I see you’ve been briefed ahead of time.”
Marcie didn’t waver. “I know this came up with Victoria, and her response was so bad that it made Harrington Structural leave the company with my father’s name on it behind.” She sat up straighter. “But that’s not me.”
There was no laughter in Tallulah now. The look she gave Marcie was as cold and pitiless as the stones of the bridge her husband and Daniel built decades ago.
“The Wexford footbridge,” she said, her tone so casual as to be deadly.
"Your father and my husband built it out of their own wallets, for a town that couldn't have paid for it if they tried, and swore they'd keep it standing until they were both in the ground.
Carl kept that promise." She turned her wineglass slowly, the fluid catching the light.
"You probably think you know what I'm going to say.
I brought it up in a roundabout way; the Ruocchio woman dismissed my concerns.
She didn't see a profit in it. She didn't remember. "
I watched the look on Marcie's face change. Just like mine was, too.
Because that was exactly what we'd assumed.
"She remembered," Tallulah said with a snicker. "She had a whole plan. She was so proud of it. She unfurled it like a flag across this very table."
She gestured as she spoke. The color drained from Marcie's face.
"What was the plan?"
"Tear it down and give me a new one," Tallulah said.
"Made of marble. All lit up at night like a runway.
" Her expression turned sour. "And my husband—my Carl—with his name on it in bronze, big enough to see it halfway across the town.
" Her eyes came up and fixed on Marcie, bright and terrible.
"It would've been the most beautiful bridge in the entire state. "
She let that sink in.
"I said no. I told her to get the hell out of my house.
" She smiled, and there wasn't an ounce of warmth in it.
"So, Daniel's girl. You drove three hours and brought a bunch of phone numbers with you, most of which belong to people who are already dead.
You came ready for a test. Let's find out if the drive was worth the gasoline. "
She folded her hands. Marcie made a tiny, shocked noise.
"Tell me why I threw that woman out of my house," she said, "and you might be the person I'm looking for."