The Kingfisher Secret Read online

  “With porn stars? You want a president who has affairs with porn stars?”

  Coe shrugged. The look on his face was not remotely what she was expecting. There were bottles of Veuve Clicquot in the little fridge that hummed in the corner of his office. She thought by now he would have opened one. This would be the biggest issue of the year. There could be an online component. Violet had pictures on her phone: nasty proof!

  “Can you give me a minute? I’ll call Jack.” He stood up slowly.

  “Steadman, I know he’s our guy. ‘Our people’s guy.’ But this…”

  “Just give me a minute. Close the door.”

  She left his office and went back to her chair, watched his face on the other side of the glass. Jack Dodson owned the National Flash, along with casinos and hotels and an ascendant hamburger chain with evangelical Christian roots. He was a major donor to the party and to Anthony Craig’s presidential campaign. But Dodson was a former journalist himself. He would get this.

  It took less than a minute, then her boss waved her back in. “Sit down,” Coe said, when she opened his door.

  “I’ll stand. Tell me.”

  “Who did you hear this from?”

  Grace was not obliged to tell him. A real editor of a real newspaper would know not to ask. She sighed. “Why?”

  “It could compromise your relationship with Elena.”

  Grace had considered this many times, especially since Elena was her source. The story had come out accidentally, after a few glasses of champagne, but a real journalist doesn’t lose sleep over such things. “It could, but—”

  “We’ll buy the story.”

  “Really?” She clapped her hands. “I was thinking the worst, Steadman, I have to say.”

  “We’ll pay her two hundred thousand.”

  “She’ll be thrilled. I’ll have the story written by end-of-day tomorrow. We have to book a photo shoot, and the art department—”

  “We’re buying the story, Gracie. But we aren’t publishing it. Give me her details. Jack’s lawyer will take care of it.”

  “What? Why?”

  “It’s too close to the election. It’s unseemly.”

  “Our cover art on Friday is of Roseanne Barr in a bikini.”

  He shrugged. “Not my call.”

  “You can’t, Steadman. We often do the wrong thing but this is wrong. We need to run the story. People need to know about Violet, about him—”

  “I’m sorry, Gracie.”

  This was the moment to resign. It had to be! There was no other choice. But her mother’s monthly bill, at her home in Florida, ate up a third of her paycheck. Then she had her own mortgage payments. She had no money saved. It went hot just behind her eyes but she was not not not going to cry in front of Steadman Coe. So she reached over the desk and pulled his Cuban cigar from the coffee cup, wet on one end—disgusting—and tore it in half and threw it at the wall.

  “I do have something that will make you feel better.”

  Rather than look at his Botox-frozen face one moment longer, Grace walked out of Coe’s office.

  “You haven’t been to Europe, have you?” He followed her across the wooden floor, his leather-soled loafers clacking. It was otherwise silent in the office now. Even the video game designers had gone home.

  Grace dropped her new scarf in the empty garbage bin at her desk. It was tainted with failure now, like the ironic Barry Manilow picture on the side of her cubicle and the single gerbera daisy in a champagne flute she had bought herself—bought herself.

  What was she thinking? Of course this wouldn’t work out. Nothing worked out for Grace Elliott or any of the Elliotts. She was cursed, like her blind mother and her dead father and her poor and forgotten grandparents and great-grandparents before them. She would stop on the way home and fill a prescription. That and a bottle of cheap Australian wine would take care of this.

  Coe leaned over and placed a thick piece of paper on her desk, with a familiar logo on top: La Cure Craig. At the bottom, Elena’s loopy signature came with a personal note. “Change of plans. Join me, duše moje.”

  “You’re flying somewhere far more exotic than New York for your next session with her. She isn’t running for president but she might have something to say about her ex-husband. Gracie, think about it. If he wins, if we help him win in our small and seemly way, you could have exclusive access to one of his dearest confidantes. Elena Craig has a nickname for you. You could even write a book.” He paused, and pointed to the paper. “You didn’t take a holiday in the summer because you said you couldn’t afford it. Well, here you go, all expenses paid. Gracie: go to Prague.”

  2

  NEW YORK, 2014

  On her first night in New York since her twenty-first birthday weekend, Grace Elliott had stayed in a small hotel on a noisy corner near Times Square. It wasn’t the sirens and the screaming maniacs of the night that robbed her of sleep. She had earplugs for that. Grace did not sleep because at nine o’clock the next morning she would meet Elena Craig.

  When Elena divorced her famous husband in the early 1990s, it was a Manhattan scandal and a global story. She was on every local news channel and in every newspaper in the world. Rather than waste an opportunity, she launched her own business: La Cure Craig.

  For sixteen years, Grace had written about famous people for the National Flash but she had never spent the morning with one. She had worn her sleeveless black dress with red dots from the Gap, the best in her closet. At breakfast, reading through her list of questions one final time, she had sloshed a bit of coffee on the dress, turning one of the red dots brown.

  Her appointment with Elena Craig was in La Cure Craig’s flagship location, just off Central Park West. Grace had decided to walk, to calm her heart and to see a bit of the city, but it was an unusually gusty March day. The wind blew her hair in every direction. By the time she arrived, her Taylor Swift bob had transformed into a day-at-the-beach cut. The hostess, who could have modeled Viking robes, wore a lot of black eyeshadow. It seemed far too much eyeshadow, but Grace knew this was an incorrect feeling. A Midwesterner is born to assume that in New York the only fashion error possible is her own.

  La Cure Craig was made of glass. The chandeliers were crystal, the staircase was crystal, the furniture was crystal with flawless white leather for cushions. The grand piano in the lobby was crystal, and on her first visit to the spa, on the second day of spring in 2014, it automatically played a Chopin sonata. In La Cure Craig if it wasn’t crystal, it was white.

  Why crystal? Grace had learned, from the Elena Craig episode of a Netflix series about rich people, that Czech crystal makers were the finest crystal makers. Beer and glass were key parts of their culture, like sushi and sake in Japan or maple syrup and unnecessary apologies in Canada. The lobby of the spa smelled of hot, sweet herbs. To calm herself, waiting for Elena Craig to appear for their introductory meeting, she focused on the Chopin. There was a word for these sorts of pianos, which played themselves, but Grace could not remember it. She was so tired and so nervous her brain was failing her. Her left eyelid twitched.

  At precisely nine o’clock Elena Craig walked down the crystal staircase in a dress suit so white it worked as camouflage. Grace stood to meet her, and felt profoundly small. The women were about the same height, but there was something giant about Elena. She filled a room with herself, which was something that did not come through on television. There were two kinds of media stories about Elena Craig. In one, she is the ex-trophy wife with the funny accent who never earned her position in the upper caste of New York society. In the other, Elena is an intelligent and formidable woman who designed iconic luxury vehicles, launched one of the most successful spa chains in America, and remained one of her ex-husband’s most important advisors. Grace’s instinct was that the second was true and the first was constructed and reinforced by men who were intimidated by Elena Craig and did not enjoy the feeling.

  “Ms. Elliott?”

  “You can call
me Grace.” She extended a hand.

  Elena took it and squeezed. Her eyes seemed to be everywhere upon Grace as she took in the coffee stain on her dress, her cheap mall shoes, the remains of a pimple on her forehead. Grace tried to block the stain with her notebook but somehow Elena could see through it. In the moments before she spoke, Grace was sure Elena would send her away. She was not smart enough, not fashionable enough, not enough to be in this woman’s presence let alone write from her point of view.

  “When did you arrive, Grace?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Steadman Coe is putting you up at a decent hotel, I hope, with the money I am giving him?”

  “Oh fine. Yes.”

  “Really?”

  “No, Ms. Craig. It’s a terrible hotel.”

  “We’ll choose something better next time.” Elena smiled, just slightly, and took Grace’s hands in hers. “You are nervous. Not familiar with New York?” Elena led Grace to a private lounge with a view over the park. “I remember my first time in this city, all those years ago. It is like nowhere else. Yes? You feel like a bug. Yes?”

  “Yes.” Grace nearly said yes, thank you. She wondered how Elena knew all this about her, knew everything, despite all she had done to seem worldly and confident.

  “You are a Midwestern woman?”

  “I am. How did you know?”

  Instead of answering the question, Elena encouraged Grace to sit and asked what she would like to drink, or eat. Would she like a tour of La Cure Craig now or later? After their conversation would she like a massage or perhaps a manicure?

  Elena Craig was the opposite of what Grace had first imagined; her power was in noticing other people, in making them feel important and worthwhile and comfortable. Ten minutes later, after revealing details of her own childhood in Minnesota, her journalistic ambitions dashed by the realities of a tough industry, and her utter cluelessness about fashion, Grace realized Elena knew everything about her and she understood even less about Elena.

  The job was a weekly advice column in the National Flash, sponsored by La Cure Craig, under Elena’s byline. It was to be about fashion, food, glamor, divorce, motherhood, remarriage, and what Coe referred to as “affordable fabulousness.”

  Every six months Elena Craig and Grace Elliott would meet in person to come up with twelve questions and answers. They would invent the name of a woman for each question and give her a banal place to live. Elena would pay for the airfare and the hotel, and provide Grace with a $120 per diem Coe never knew about.

  In their first meeting, Grace realized she did not know how to be a ghostwriter. It was different from journalism. The first three questions she asked were too general, about Elena’s overall philosophy.

  “No one really cares about that sort of thing, do they?” said Elena. “Do they not want something quite specific?”

  Grace laughed.

  “What? Am I wrong, Grace?”

  “No. It’s funny but you’re right about everything.”

  “Now that is funny. And a bit sad, too, to consider. Now, duše moje, before we really begin, would you like a mimosa?”

  Grace had never tasted a mimosa. “Okay. And what did you call me?”

  “It’s Czech. Something like ‘my soul.’ In Pinocchio, I watched it with my daughter, the lying boy’s soul is a cricket.”

  “Jiminy Cricket.”

  “That is you.” Elena called for two mimosas. “Now, imagine yourself an average woman of a certain age in Nebraska.” It seemed to delight Elena, saying Nebraska. “What do you want to know from me?”

  “Well, you were married to Anthony Craig.”

  “For many years.”

  “He’s…famous.”

  “To say the least.”

  “Why did you keep his name, after the divorce? It was so public. I just watched a documentary about it. He was awful to you.”

  A waiter arrived quickly with the mimosas, and Elena made meaningful eye contact when she thanked her. The flutes filled with juice and champagne were pretty on the crystal table. “Duše moje, thank you for your concern. But it was mostly theater, yes? Life is a performance. Tell me, would you remember the name Elena Klimentová?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Do not be polite right this moment. Be honest. You would forget. You have already forgotten, yes? I am a businesswoman. A name is a brand.”

  Five minutes later, Grace had arrived at this:

  Dear Elena,

  I caught my husband cheating with one of my friends who isn’t even that pretty. We’re divorcing, of course. But should I keep his name?

  Heartbroken in Hackensack

  After this first meeting, they always worked in the late afternoon with a bottle of champagne unsullied by orange juice. Grace would listen to Elena, to Elena playing Elena. She would quote key phrases, to sound authentic. From these notes she would fill ten inches of copy.

  For Coe, it was a cynical maneuver: a lucrative advertorial project. For Elena, it was a way to remain relevant, to stay in touch with a certain kind of woman who genuinely interested her: the kind who bought tabloids at the supermarket checkout, imagining a different sort of life. For Grace, even if the columns were not in her name they were a way to reach millions of readers every week with something she had created. Unless there was a genuine scandal, Ask Elena was the best-read feature in the National Flash.

  “The divorce, it was painful and humiliating. But Anthony and I are friends, partners in our child’s life and in our business interests and in our ambitions.” She took a long drink. “You cannot put this in my column, but there is another reason. My Tony will become the most powerful man in the world.”

  “I’m sorry.” Grace stopped writing. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Elena Craig leaned over the crystal table. Below her, the champagne fizzed and pipped in the flutes. There was no smile on her face or in her eyes. She tapped her Cartier watch. “Just you wait, duše moje.”

  3

  PRAGUE, 2016

  Grace Elliott was pleased she had plucked her new cashmere scarf from the garbage, in the warehouse in Old Montreal. Even in the airport, walking with her bag, it made her feel more European. This was her first time away from North America. In high school there had been a class trip to Germany, but her parents could not afford the $1,500 price tag at the time. Grace was one of only three kids in junior year who stayed home, and the shame of it was fresh almost thirty years later.

  Her best friend, Manon, who had an aunt and uncle in France, advised her the best way to fight jet lag was to stay awake until nighttime in your destination. The advice was not necessary. Though it was noon when she arrived, and it turned out she could not sleep on airplanes, Grace was so thrilled to be in Europe she couldn’t imagine napping.

  Her Uber driver could not speak English, but that did not stop Grace from pointing out all the European things: cars and buses and ambulances, trees, road signs, billboards, roundabouts.

  “Is that the communist stuff?” Grace pointed at a complex of concrete buildings. “When we want to complain about ugly architecture in America, we call it communist.”

  The driver, who wore a black Yankees cap, shrugged and grunted.

  When they entered the old part of Prague, Grace had to force herself not to take poor quality photographs from the back seat of a moving car. How else to express delight and wonder in 2016?

  Elena had paid for Grace’s flight and for a room in the Four Seasons Hotel where she was launching her new line of perfume. The room would not be ready for an hour so Grace wandered through the miniature topiary garden behind the hotel. On October 25, there was a cold wind and the few yellow leaves that had clung to the branches of the aspen trees swirled down to the inky Vltava River below.

  A flock of birds flew over the red rooftops of Malá Strana, the “little side” of the river. The preferred colors of paint in central Prague were various shades of sunshine. Tourists, undaunted by the wind, gathered on the Charles Brid
ge with their smartphones out. The plan was to meet with Elena after a four o’clock press conference, for a drink. Grace’s jacket was packed and in the hotel storage so instead of exploring the old town she read a book by a local author in the elegant hotel lounge, to better understand the spirit of Prague: The Castle by Franz Kafka. She found it hard to concentrate. In the hotel lobby, wine and spirits sat in a massive wooden armoire with a mirror in the center. Grace sneaked looks at herself, her blue scarf and red sweater.

  Twenty minutes before the press conference, swarms of stylishly untidy men and women made their way through the lobby and down the stairs into the basement ballrooms: writers, photographers, miniature film crews. When the press conference was scheduled to begin, Grace signed her drink to the room she had not yet seen and walked down the stairs.

  In the ballroom, packed with journalists, a young man in a double-breasted suit was reading from notes, making the introduction. Grace took one of the last chairs three rows from the back. The flamboyant young man with a refined British accent spoke of renaissance and rebirth, and when he said Elena’s name she emerged from a door to his left. Journalists being journalists there wasn’t much applause, which made the theatrical entrance seem a bit silly.

  Elena’s face had a fresh tightness about it, from the last mini-surgery at the beginning of the summer. Her dress was red, with Asian embroidery, and her hair was bright blonde. At this distance, Elena at sixty-six could be mistaken for images from the documentaries of Elena at thirty-six. She retained the athleticism and control that came from the gymnastics training of her youth.

  “Oh God,” said one of the journalists, a man, behind Grace, as Elena paused and looked out over her audience. There was a snottiness in his tone. She wanted to turn and ask what he meant by it. What was his objection to her? Was she too beautiful? Too glamorous? Too strong?

  “When I decided to relaunch my line of perfume I knew I did not want to put my name on a fragrance anyone could create. What you will experience this afternoon is derived from the fruits and herbs and seeds and flowers of my two homes, Bohemia and America.” She took a breath and made eye contact with a few of the journalists again before looking down at her prepared notes. “This is the birth of a new era and it needs a new line of fragrances. Introducing, reintroducing: Elena.”