Chapter Text
The problem with New York City was, as far as Danielle Thompson was concerned, the lack of hospitality. When she moved from Charlotte, she’d been warned: up North they don’t take it slow or stop to ask about your day. They move fast on the streets, talk even faster, and have no regard for you who are and where you came from.
Danielle had found this to be mostly true, in her experience. She hadn’t expected to make new friends in the grocery store, of course, but even at work, her coworkers had been stand-offish at best. Over the past three years, she’d been working them, though. Inviting them over for dinner or hangouts on the weekend. It was her personal mission to transform the newspaper staff from cut-throat to comforting.
Certainly, there was still competition, that couldn’t be helped, but overall, she thought the office environment was improving. It helped that she made sure to reach out to the new hires early. Every year, she’d throw a welcome dinner party for them with a few other senior writers, just to get to know them better. Show them what kind of people made up the staff of the New York Times.
Danielle had sat in on several of the final-stage interviews that had been conducted. All of the applicants, but especially the ones who were brought onto the team, were forces in their own right, but one in particular had stood out: Nancy Wheeler.
She’d come into the interview with an impressive resume and two excellent letters of recommendation, but Danielle what had liked most about her was her firm, no-nonsense attitude. She’d presented herself as calmly and clearly as if she were presenting the facts of an investigation. Danielle had noted her down as someone with a sharp mind and the experience to back it up.
Although Nancy’s cubicle was halfway across the office from hers, she made that her first stop in her dinner-party invitation deliveries. She popped around the corner, smiling, and pulled up short when she found the desk empty. Huh. Maybe she’d gone to the bathroom. Danielle could spare a few moments to wait. If she didn’t come back, she could circle around later.
In the few weeks Nancy had been there, she had managed to thoroughly decorate her five by five feet of space; the cubicle was filled top-to-bottom with photos. Danielle recognized Nancy in quite a few of them, but there were other people she couldn’t place: teenage Nancy and a herd of children all smiling at the camera, a dark-haired woman and police officer kissing under mistletoe, Nancy in the backseat of a car with some boy, his arm thrown haphazardly over her shoulder.
In fact, there were quite a few candid shots of Nancy and this boy, always smiling, laughing. The composition was exquisite. In the other remaining photos, another gentleman was smiling nervously, as though he didn’t want to be photographed. A polaroid was taped to the side of her computer monitor; it was of the two boys siting side-by-side somewhere in the country.
“Hey Danielle,” Nancy said, coming around the corner. Danielle jumped out of her reverie and watched Nancy a plop a large stack of folders on her desk. “I didn’t know you were coming by. Have you been waiting long?”
“No, not at all. I was just looking at your gallery.”
Nancy gazed fondly at the photographs. “They’re all of my family,” she said. “Everyone in them means a lot to me.”
“I’m sure,” Danielle said. “They’re lovely.”
“So,” Nancy said, sitting in her chair. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m throwing a dinner party Saturday evening for the new hires. Around 7ish. I think it would be nice to see each other outside of work for something casual. A few others around the office are invited. Mark and his wife will be there, Christina. The newbies.”
“That sounds lovely, I’d love to come. Is there a dress code or anything I should bring…?”
Danielle laughed. “A dress code? God no, I’m not that fancy. Jeans and a blouse would be alright with me. It’s a potluck, though, so bring your best casserole, if you have one. Oh, and a plus one.”
“A casserole and a plus one, that I can do. I’ll definitely be there.”
Danielle smiled and turned to leave, but Nancy said, “Wait!”
She’d risen from her desk again. “Thank you for backing me up on the pitch for transparency at the local government level. Access to information is so important—”
“Girl, don’t get me started. For your breakout article, it’s aspirational, but I like your go-getting attitude. Just don’t let me down.”
“I won’t.”
“Good.” With that, Danielle walked off to find the other recruits.
~*~
Although she had told everyone that it was a potluck, Danielle spent the entire day Saturday slaving in the kitchen. Wyatt, bless him, agreed to cook a chicken rotisserie-style for her, so Danielle focused on everything else: two different finger foods for hors d’œuvres, green beans, potato casserole. She assumed everyone would bring drinks but sent Wyatt out to grab a few beers and wine bottles regardless.
This year, she finished cooking and cleaning in record time, with two hours to spare to shower, change, and set everything up. Wyatt unfolded the spare table and chairs he used to play cards and set it up right smack-dab in the middle of the living room, before laying out the food they’d cooked on top.
Right at 7, the doorbell rang. Wyatt stopped arranging the sliced chicken and raised an eyebrow at Danielle.
“I thought you had your colleagues trained.”
“Must be one of the newbies,” Danielle said, leaving the kitchen and walking toward the short entryway. “Everyone else knows I run on CPT.”
She laughed at Wyatt’s responding grunt, before pausing to make sure her hair looked alright in the mirror hanging on the wall. When she pulled open the door, Nancy was on the other side, clad in dark-wash jeans and a blush pink blouse. She was holding a covered casserole dish. Behind her was a man Danielle recognized from the photos on Nancy’s desk. He had been the one with his arms around her shoulders.
“Nancy! I’m so glad you could make it.”
“Thank you for inviting us, Danielle. This my Steve—” she scowled, but Steve laughed and stuck out his hand.
“Yes, hi. I’m her Steve, all right. How are you?”
“Fine, thank you. Come on in. Let me introduce you to my very own Wyatt.”
Danielle ushered them all in with a wave of her hand while taking Nancy’s aluminum covered offering.
"It’s my mom’s recipe,” Nancy told her, while Steve went to shake hands with Wyatt. “Lasagna.”
“This will be a great alternative to what I made,” Danielle said. She walked into the kitchen and popped the lasagna into the oven to keep it warm for the other guests. When she returned to the living room, Wyatt was already trying to convince Nancy and Steve to join a round of spades before too many people arrived to play.
“Wyatt, stop harassing these poor people,” Danielle told him. “Y’all want a tour?”
She led them around the apartment, to the guest bedroom that also functioned as Wyatt’s office, her own bedroom, and the bathroom partitioning the two spaces.
Her guests made appreciative noises as they took it in. Danielle checked on the lasagna when they popped into the kitchen; the cheese was starting to bubble on top.
“Where are y’all staying, anyway?”
“We’re renting a house in Queens,” Steve answered. “The prices are good over there, and we needed a little more space.”
“Oh yeah? What for?”
Steve and Nancy shared a look. Before one of them could say something, the doorbell rang, and Danielle herded them out to the living to greet the new arrivals and get the party started.
*
By the time 9:30 rolled around, every surface in the apartment was occupied, either by a person, a plate, or dishes of food. Danielle had slid open the balcony door to let the air circulate before taking over Wyatt’s empty chair. The sofa, armchair, and folding chairs were full. Chatter, underscored by soft music playing from the stereo wafted into the nighttime air. The only disappointment was Mark’s last-minute cancellation, but they had more than enough people to make up for it. The party, much to Danielle’s surprise, rapidly became the Nancy-and-Steve show. Steve was easy-going and entertaining, regaling the group with tales of their high school days, college, and acclimating to the city.
“We grew up in a small town in Indiana, so everyone knew your business,” Steve said. He'd decimated Wyatt’s chicken and was heartily digging to Danielle’s green beans. “I’d known Nancy for quite a while, but when I met her met her, I remember thinking to myself, this girl is a lot smarter than me.”
Everyone laughed. To Danielle’s left, another new hire, Phillip, spoke up. “I won’t speak for the rest of us, but Nancy’s sure giving me a run for my money. It’s a pleasure working with her on the access to information article. A great first piece.”
“I’m just glad it got approved,” Nancy said. She patted Steve’s knee. “I get a lot of support from this one here, too.”
Wyatt poked his head into the room. “Desert, anyone?”
In the ensuing chatter, Danielle rose to clear throw out the dinner plates and get some more water. Wyatt had propped the fridge door open with his hip, and was carefully extracting the tres leches cake Phillip’s partner had made.
“They’re a cute couple,” Danielle told him. “Nancy and Steve?”
“Not as cute as us, though,” Wyatt said. The cake was balanced in the center of his palm. “Will you slice the pies and bring them out?”
“Yup.”
One of the pies, the apple one, was store bought. Danielle opted to slice that one first, pulling the plastic cover and listening to the peals of laughter exploding from the living room. What had Steve told them now?
First pie done, Danielle moved onto the second: a beautiful pecan pie in a painted glass dish. When she glanced up again, Nancy had appeared in the doorway, her cheeks flushed.
“I’ve been sent to grab more forks.”
“Shoot, we might not have any more clean ones. Look in that drawer.”
Nancy moved around her and checked. She shook her head.
“Well, I’m done slicing, so let’s wash a few right fast.”
Danielle arranged herself at the sink while Nancy snagged a towel and positioned herself beside her.
“What was so funny earlier?”
“Oh,” Nancy laughed. “Carol asked if anyone liked baseball, and Steve told them that he used to love it, before I had attacked him with a bat.”
“You attacked him with a bat?”
“In my defense, it didn’t even have nails in it, at the time.”
“I’m gonna need you to explain that.”
“Utensils?” someone called from the living room.
In unison, they both answered. “Coming!”
Danielle had fished all of the silverware out of the sink; Nancy was drying them quickly with her dishtowel. “To make a long story short,” Nancy said, “We were fighting monsters.”
“…Literally or figuratively?”
Nancy shrugged. “You decide. All I’m set here.”
“Then let’s go give the people what they want,” Danielle said. snagging the dish towel from Nancy to dry her own hands. She decided to leave Nancy’s cryptic answer alone; her past was her business. As Nancy stepped out into the short hallway, Danielle called after her.
“He’s a good catch, you know. Steve.”
She smiled. “I know. We’ve been through a lot together. There was while I didn’t think things were going to work out for the two of us. I’m glad they did.”
Danielle raised an eyebrow. To hear Steve tell the story, it had been him and Nancy against the world since they started going out in high school. And even now, they carried themselves with a surety that many established couples could only dream of achieving. She wanted to ask what on earth might’ve gotten between them, but instead asked, “How long have y’all been married?”
“Oh, um… about a year. What about you and Wyatt?”
“Going on three years now. We met in college, got hitched after graduation, then moved to New York. It was—”
Someone shouted, “The cake is going to get warm!” This was followed by another round of laughter.
“Good Lord, I’m getting the message. Shoo, go pass out the utensils. I’m getting another beer.”
Nancy disappeared down the hallway, and moments later the crowd cheered her arrival. Danielle took her beer from the fridge and leaned against the sink for a moment, thinking about seeing Wyatt for the first time in the dining hall. He’d been rocking a wicked Jheri curl with an old, beat-up letterman jacket. She hadn’t thought too much of him in those first moments, but then he hit a dance move in the middle of the cafeteria with the coordination of Michael Jackson and the confidence of Prince, easy and coordinated moves to music no one but him could hear, and she knew right then he was the one for her. Steve and Nancy reminded her of those early times when they’d been dating. She popped the top of her drink and enjoyed the thrumming sounds of conversation drifting toward her.
~*~
The next few weeks flowed smoothly. Danielle pitched and got approval to write a fun little article about subway lines (should there be a new one? Where should it stop? What color would it be?), which allowed her to spend afternoons out in the warmer air, surveying anyone who would stop to talk with her.
In her opinion, the welcome party succeeded in integrating the newcomers into their writing team. The newbies were eating more lunches together, as opposed to alone at their desks. She and Nancy had been able to explore some of the local coffee shops. Danielle thought there was chitchatting before and after meetings, and she even noticed an uptick in the number of outside-work events that were being hosted. She dragged herself and Wyatt to as many as them as possible, but unfortunately couldn’t make all of them. Mark’s cookout last Saturday, for example. Danielle was self-aware enough to admit that she had a procrastination problem, and she needed to get a jump-start on actually writing her article.
“It’s really no problem,” Mark said, when she apologized to him in the staff lounge. “Though you missed out on a good time. I got to meet Nancy’s husband; he’s a really great guy. Told me he’d take photos of Henry’s baseball game next week if I helped him with a project he’s working on. It’s a win/win.”
Danielle smiled. That sounded just like something Steve would do. She considered him to the be an exception to the northerners-are-rude rule. “I’m not at all surprised,” Danielle told him. “Steve is a baseball coach after all; I’m sure he would love to be there. Nancy’s really got a good one.”
Mark had raised his coffee cup to lips but pulled it away with a frown. “Who’s Steve?”
Danielle blinked. “…Nancy’s husband?”
“Nancy’s husband’s name is Jonathan.”
Danielle stared at him. Mark stared back at her. He slowly put his coffee down on the counter. “Are you alright?”
Perhaps Mark had gotten Steve’s name wrong. But he seemed so casually certain that Nancy’s husband was named Jonathan. A middle name, perhaps? But why introduce him as Steve at one get-together and Jonathan at the next?
“Are you sure his name was Jonathan? What did he look like? Tall, kind of wild hairstyle that shouldn’t work but totally did?”
Mark had begun shaking his head. “No, listen. Sheryl and I had the cookout on Saturday, and Nancy came right on time, with a guy in tow, whom she introduced as Jonathan. He’s tall, alright, but no wild hairstyle. He was kind of shy, in the crowd, but one-on-one he makes some really good conversation. He works in the photography department at TIME Magazine. Who are you talking about?”
“No, I’ve never heard of anyone like that. Photography department at TIME? No, Nancy’s husband is a guy named Steve. Do you remember that dinner party I had to welcome our new hires?”
“Yes, but I cancelled last minute because—”
Danielle remembered. “Because Henry had gotten the stomach flu, right. Well, Nancy brought a man with her as her plus-one, whom she introduced as Steve. Very out-going, very comfortable in the spotlight but not obnoxious about it. He’s a community organizer and volunteers as a coach—”
Mark had been listening intently but glanced over her shoulder and clammed up. Danielle turned around to see Nancy walking into the lounge, clutching a mug that read No. 1 Wife on it in one hand and a legal pad and a pen in the other.
“Morning, guys.”
Danielle and Mark both raised their hands in greeting. Nancy began to fill her mug. “Oh Mark, listen. Jonathan wants me to give you his number so you can talk about Henry’s game on Saturday. Let me just—” She scribbled something down on a fresh sheet in her legal pad and tore it off. “Call him whenever. I put his work phone and home phone down for you.”
“Thanks, Nancy,” Mark said. “I mean, tell him I said thanks, when you get home.”
Nancy had finished filling up her mug. “Will do, Mark. See you in the meeting later.”
Mark and Danielle looked at each other. Danielle could not deny that this sort of undermined her argument, but she knew that she hadn’t hallucinated an entire evening with Steve. Something was going on here.
Before she could chase that thought further, Shelly poked her head into the lounge, her eyes sharp behind those cat-eye glasses. “Are we being productive?”
“Just getting back to it,” Mark said.
Danielle just barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. If there was one person, she hadn’t yet succeeded in building a connection with, it was Shelly. She was good at what she did, but Danielle thought that she took it all just a little too seriously. They filed out of the staff lounge together. At his cubicle, Mark spun his desk chair and sank into it.
“Whatever’s going on,” he said, “I’m sure there’s a simple explanation.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Danielle replied. Nancy certainly didn’t have the air of someone who would cheat on their partner. Something else was at play here. “I’m sure this can all be easily straightened out. I’ll ask Nancy next time we get a minute.”
“Good luck,” Mark said. He was already slipping into journalist mode, pen starting to strike through the printed copy in front of him.
Danielle left for her own desk, folding the conversation over and over in her mind. Nancy certainly didn’t have the air of someone who would cheat on a partner. Something else was at play here. And whatever it was, Danielle was going to figure it out.