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FORTY-THREE

A REPORTER COVERING ONE of my old trials once wrote in the Times that I could talk the way Gaga can sing.

But right now I have no urge to do either, because for once in my life I’m speechless.

I stare at my ex-husband. He stares at me. I assume Ben is staring at both of us.

No one moves, as if we’ve all suddenly calcified.

My ex-husband smiles finally, as if the scene is the most natural thing in the world, and why doesn’t someone mix up a pitcher of martinis?

“Hello, Jane.”

“Are you lost, Martin?”

How long has it been since we were in the same room together? How long since I’ve actually seen him, if I don’t count the nights when I tried to get a glimpse of him through his restaurant window?

Then I remember.

Of course.

It was the day we signed the divorce papers at the lawyer’s office.

Before Martin can respond, Ben says, “I should probably leave.”

“Please don’t,” I say, the words sounding to me as if I’m pleading with him.

“I guess you could say I was in the neighborhood,” Martin says.

He still looks like a movie star. Still has the French accent, which I know he can make much thicker when he wants to. There was a time, and a good long time ago it was, when the combination of looks and accent and his goddamn Gallic charm made me feel as if the world had started to spin.

Not anymore.

I motion for him to take the sofa closest to him. Ben and I sit on the one facing the television set. Rip takes his usual seat at our feet. He isn’t growling at my ex-husband. Maybe when he gets to know Martin better.

“You were in the neighborhood ?”

“Allen Reese and his wife, Paige, had a dinner party tonight,” Martin says. “Allen has the biggest real estate business out here, I’m told. Even bigger than your client’s.”

I’ve heard Rob Jacobson mention Allen Reese more than once. Never without the words “lying” and “thieving” or “scumbag” finding their way into the conversation at least once, and that’s when he was trying to be kind. Rob’s company had been prosperous before his trial. Not nearly as prosperous as Allen Reese’s. Nobody’s out here was.

“Well aware,” I say.

“Allen and Paige have an amazing home over on Further Lane,” Martin says.

“Happy for them.”

“Anyway,” Martin continues, “they occasionally come into my restaurant, and asked if they could auction off a dinner cooked by me for God’s Love We Deliver. It’s such a good cause, and so I agreed. Tonight was the night for me to come out. And, as I said, since I was in the neighborhood…”

He made this fluttery gesture with his hands, as if that somehow explained everything.

“And here I am,” he says finally.

“Here you are,” I say.

More gray to the hair and beard. More lines in the face. But still Martin, acting as if sitting in my living room were as comfortable for him as being in his own kitchen.

Maybe I ask him to go in there now and help out with dinner.

“So how are you, Jane?” he asks.

Fine, Martin, discounting my cancer. What about you?

I take a nice, deep breath. An old yoga teacher used to talk about her nighttime routine of “moon breathing.”

I wanted to be on the moon right now.

“Martin,” I say, “what’s the French word for awkward?”

He smiles, with his eyes, mostly. “Genant.”

“Well, this is about as genant as it gets, wouldn’t you say?”

“I should go,” Ben says again. “So you two can talk.”

Now I smile at him. “I’ll pay you to stay.”

Has Martin somehow found out that I’m sick? Is that why he’s here?

“I would have called,” Martin says. He shrugs. “But I was afraid if I did, you’d tell me not to come by.”

I wonder if he had worn his white chef’s coat at the hedge funder’s house.

“Is there wine?” he asks.

“There is,” I say, but make no move to get off the couch, instead gently placing my hand over Ben’s to keep him right where he is.

“This was obviously a mistake,” he says. “But even though I did want to say hello, my visit actually does have a purpose.”

“You always did take your time getting to the good parts,” I say, and immediately wish I hadn’t, hoping that I’m the only one hearing a double meaning.

“It was an interesting and eclectic group around the table,” Martin says.

“Now I’m happy for all of you.”

I’ve heard about the colorful parties Allen Reese and his wife throw, featuring everybody from rappers to hard-core Republicans like them to jocks to the hot TikTokers.

“Have you ever been to one of their parties?” Martin asks. “It sounds like anybody out here who’s anybody does eventually.”

“I don’t hang with people like the Reeses,” I say. “I defend them.”

He chuckles. Too cool to laugh.

“Is there a point to this story, Martin? Ben and I need to have dinner and then get to bed.”

Take that.

“Two of the guests said they knew you, and to send along their best,” Martin says. “I thought they might have come together.”

“Names please?”

“One was named Edmund McKenzie,” he says.

I sit up a little straighter.

“The other?”

“Bobby Salvatore.”

Jimmy’s right.

The world just keeps getting smaller.

And perhaps more dangerous.

“Martin,” I say. “You suddenly have my undivided attention.”

Another smile. “I didn’t have it before?”

“Finish the story, Martin.” It’s a tone I’m sure he remembers along with everything else from our marriage.

“Allen Reese said something odd: that Mr. Salvatore was his bookie. I couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not.”

“He likely wasn’t joking.”

“So it was even more of an eclectic group than I first thought,” Martin says.

Quietly Ben Kalinsky says, “You have no idea.”

“Before Mr. Salvatore left, I asked if he was really Allen’s bookie.”

“What did he say?”

“He said problems were his specialty,” Martin says. “I asked if that meant solving them or creating them. He smiled and said, ‘Both.’”