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  “She thinks he’s a mooch for moving in with me,” Meena said. “The real question is, how am I going to get out of going to her party?”

  “Uh,” Leisha said, “no offense…but why wouldn’t you go? Last I heard, your social calendar wasn’t exactly jam-packed.”

  “Yeah, well,” Meena said, “I don’t have time to be hobnobbing with alleged Romanian princes when I need to be worrying about what’s going to happen next to Victoria Worthington Stone and her vulnerable yet headstrong daughter, Tabitha.” Meena took another bite of her mini-Butterfinger. The important thing was to make each one last as long as possible, which was difficult, because they were so small.

  “Stupid of me,” Leisha said. “Of course. So what is going to happen to Victoria Worthington Stone and her vulnerable yet headstrong daughter, Tabitha?”

  Meena sighed. “One guess. It came down from on high today. Written on a stone tablet from Consumer Dynamics Inc. itself.”

  “What was it?”

  “Lust started a vampire story arc, and they’re killing us in the ratings. So…”

  Leisha let out a little burble of laughter. “Oh, yeah. Gregory Bane. Guys have been asking me to do their hair like his for weeks. Like it’s an actual style and not something accomplished with a razor blade and some mousse. People are psycho for that guy.”

  “Tell me about it.” Meena spun around in her office chair so she could look away from her computer screen and out over the gray valley of skyscrapers that made up Fifty-third Street between Madison and Fifth. She knew that, somewhere out there, Yalena was finding out that her dreams of a new life in America weren’t exactly turning out the way she’d expected them to. Meena wondered how long it would be before she’d call. Or if she’d ever call. “I don’t get it. The guy looks like a toothpick. With hair.”

  Leisha bubbled with more laughter. Meena loved the sound of Leisha’s laughter. It cheered her up and reminded her of the old days, before they’d both ended up with mortgages.

  Still, Meena felt obligated to say, “It’s not funny. You know how I feel about vampires.”

  “Yeah,” Leisha said, sounding a little bored. “What is it you’re always saying again? In the cult of monster misogyny, vampires are king?”

  “Well,” Meena said, “they do always seem to choose to prey on pretty female victims. And yet for some reason, women find this sexy.”

  “I don’t,” Leisha said. “I want to be killed by Frankenstein. I like ’ em big. And stupid. Don’t tell my husband.”

  “Even though these guys admit over and over to wanting to kill us,” Meena went on, “the idea that they’re nobly restraining themselves from doing so is supposed to be attractive? Excuse me, but how is knowing a guy wants to kill you hot?”

  “The fact that he wants to but doesn’t makes some girls feel special,” Leisha said simply. “Plus, vampires are all rich. I could deal with having some rich guy who wants to kill me-but is nobly restraining himself-being super into me right now. Adam doesn’t have a job, but he won’t even help with the laundry.”

  “Vampires aren’t real!” Meena shouted into the phone.

  “Calm down. Look, I don’t see what the big deal is,” Leisha said. “If someone who can tell how everyone she meets is going to die can exist, why can’t vampires?”

  Meena took a deep breath. “Did I tell you Shoshona got the gig as head writer? Why don’t you just twist the knife?”

  “Oh, my God.” Leisha sounded apologetic. “I’m so, so sorry, Meen. What are you going to do?”

  “What can I do?” Meena asked. “Wait it out. She’s going to screw up eventually. Hopefully when she does, the show and I will both still be here, and I can step in and save the day.”

  “Got it,” Leisha said. “Hero complex.”

  Meena knit her brows. “What?”

  “Vampires are monster misogynists,” Leisha said. “And you have a hero complex. You always have. Of course you think you’re going to save the show. And probably the world, while you’re at it.”

  Meena snorted. “Right. Enough about me. How’s Adam?”

  “Hasn’t gotten off the couch in three days,” Leisha replied.

  Meena nodded, forgetting that Leisha couldn’t see her. “That’s normal for the first month after a layoff.”

  “He just lies there in front of CNN, like a zombie. He’s starting to freak out about this serial killer thing.”

  “What serial killer thing?” Then Meena remembered what Shoshona had been talking about in her meeting with Sy. “Oh, that thing with the dead girls, in the parks?”

  “Exactly. You know, he actually grunted at me the other day when I asked him if he’d picked up the mail from the box downstairs.”

  Meena sighed. “Jon was the same way after he lost his job and had to move in with me. At least he does laundry now. Only because I have a washer-dryer unit in the apartment and you can’t help tripping over the piles on the way to it.”

  “I asked Adam when he was going to get started with the baby’s room,” Leisha said. “Or the baby’s alcove, I guess I should call it, since that room is so small, it’s practically a closet. Still, he has to put a door on it, and the drywall, and paint it and everything. You know what he said? It’s still too early and that there’s plenty of time. Thomas is coming in two months! Sometimes I don’t know if we’re going to make it. I really don’t.”

  “Yes, you will,” Meena said soothingly. “We’ll get through all of this. Really, we will.”

  Meena didn’t believe this, of course. It had been months since her brother, Jon, had been laid off from the investment company where he’d worked as a systems analyst, and he was no closer to finding a job than he’d been the day of his firing…same as Leisha’s husband, Adam, who’d been Jon’s college roommate before Jon had introduced him to Leisha. The few jobs that were out there in their fields had hundreds, maybe thousands, of equally qualified applicants vying for them.

  “Is that a prediction?” Leisha asked.

  “It is,” Meena said firmly.

  “I’m holding you to that,” Leisha said. “Well, good luck with the prince. I’d wear black. Black is always appropriate. Even for meeting royalty.” She hung up.

  Meena set the receiver down, chewing her lower lip. She hated lying to Leisha.

  Because things weren’t going to be fine.

  Something was wrong. Leisha kept telling Meena that her due date was two months away.

  And maybe that’s what her doctor had said.

  But the doctor was wrong. Every time Leisha said it-“Thomas is coming in two months”-Meena felt an uncomfortable twinge.

  The baby-Meena was positive-was coming next month. Possibly even sooner than that.

  And Thomas! Leisha and Adam wanted to name their baby Thomas Weinberg!

  That kid was going to be a pretty funny-looking Thomas, considering that it was a girl and not a boy.

  But how did you tell an expectant mother that everything her doctor was saying was wrong…when it was all just based on a feeling? Especially when all of your previous predictions had been about death, not a new life?

  Easy. You didn’t tell her at all. You kept your mouth zipped up tight.

  Turning back to her computer monitor, Meena was confronted again with Mary Lou’s e-mail. Sometimes she found it hard to believe there were still people who didn’t have to work for a living…ladies with princes for relatives who did nothing but plan elaborate parties and use their husband’s credit card to go shopping all day.

  And then meanwhile there were girls like Yalena, being preyed upon by scumbags like her boyfriend, Gerald, about whom the cops could do exactly nothing…

  But these people existed.

  And they lived right in her building. Right next door to her, in fact.

  Meena resolutely hit Delete, then opened a new document and began to write.

  Chapter Nine

  11:00 P.M. GMT, Tuesday, April 13

  Somewhere above the Atlantic<
br />
  Lucien Antonescu did not like to fly commercially, but not, perhaps, for the same reasons other people might dislike it. He had no control issues-other than his concerns about controlling his own rage-and of course no fear of death. The idea of a fiery or otherwise painful end did not trouble him in any way.

  He was, however, disturbed by the way the airlines packed their customers into the metal tubes they were currently calling “planes,” then expected them to sit in those impossibly small, cramped excuses for “seats” for so many hours on end, with no exercise or fresh air.

  So it had been some time since Lucien Antonescu had been on an airplane he himself did not own (his personal Learjet was ideal for most trips but not powerful enough for nonstop transatlantic flight). When asked to speak at an overseas conference or tour for one of his books, Lucien tended simply to decline. He wasn’t fond of publicity in any case…

  But today Lucien was flying first class. The seats there were designed as individual compartments, so that other passengers seated in front of, behind, or beside him were not visible.

  At a certain point during the flight, the attractive and very pleasant stewardess-they were called flight attendants now, he reminded himself-presented him with a menu from which he was asked to choose from a dizzying selection of food choices and wines, including some quite decent Italian Barolos…

  Later, after the pilot turned out the lights, the flight attendant asked him if he’d like her to make his bed for him. He accepted, purely out of curiosity. What bed? His wide and spacious seat, it transpired, automatically folded out into a reasonably sized (though not for him, being several inches over six feet tall) bed, all at the touch of a button.

  The lovely flight attendant then produced a padded mattress from yet another hidden recess, real sheets that she “tucked in,” a duvet, and a pillow, which she fluffed.

  She then handed him a cloth bag containing a large pair of designer pajamas, a toothbrush and paste, and an eye mask.

  Finally, she wished him good night with a smile. He smiled back, not because he had any intention of changing into the pajamas or of going to sleep, but because he found the entire procedure-and her-so utterly charming.

  His smile made her blush. She was divorced from an unscrupulous man who had been cheating on her throughout their eight-year marriage and was supporting their toddler on her own. She wished only that her ex-husband would pay his child support on time and visit their daughter once in a while. She did not tell Lucien these things…but then, she did not have to. He knew them because he could not be around people without their secret thoughts intruding upon his own. It was something to which he’d grown accustomed over the years, something that he occasionally enjoyed. It made him feel human again.

  Almost.

  She excused herself to see to another passenger, a corpulent businessman seated across the spacious aisle, in 6J. The passenger in seat 6J could not seem to stop complaining: His pillow was not soft enough, his pajamas were not large enough, his toothbrush bristles were too stiff, and his champagne glass was not filled quickly enough.

  Based on Lucien’s observations, the man in 6J was pressing the call button approximately every four to five minutes, annoying both the flight attendant and the lady in the seat in front of him, who raised her sleeping mask and peeked out from her darkened compartment to see what all the commotion was about. She had an important meeting in the morning and needed to get her rest.

  Lucien rose while the flight attendant slipped back to the galley to fetch the businessman another pillow. Then he stepped across the aisle to pay a visit to 6J.

  “What do you want?” The man-whose mind was as shallow as a thimble-looked up to sneer at Lucien.

  When the flight attendant came back, she was surprised to find the passenger in 6J appearing alarmingly pale and in such a deep sleep, he seemed almost to be comatose. She threw a quick, questioning glance around the cabin, meeting Lucien’s gaze, for he was standing, reaching for a book he’d left in the overhead bin.

  “Tired out from all that champagne, I expect,” Lucien said to her. “Not used to so much alcohol at such a high altitude.” He gave her a wink.

  The flight attendant hesitated, then, as if transfixed by Lucien’s grin, smiled shyly back and offered him the extra pillow.

  “Why, thank you,” he said.

  Later, as he strolled along the darkened aisles while the jet hurtled through the night sky toward New York, listening to the breathing of the unconscious passengers and sampling their dreams, Lucien looked down at their bare, vulnerable throats as they dozed and thought that really, someone should do something to make airline travel more enjoyable for everyone, not just the privileged few in first class.

  Chapter Ten

  6:30 P.M. EST, Tuesday, April 13

  910 Park Avenue

  New York, New York

  Meena stabbed the Up button, then looked around furtively. She was tired after her long day and hoped one thing-just this one little thing-would go her way.

  And that was slipping onto the elevator of the building in which she lived without running into her neighbor Mary Lou, so that she could take the eleven-story ride to their floor in restful silence.

  Meena’s building-910 Park Avenue-was elegant, with a doorman guarding its shiny brass doors, a marble lobby, a crystal chandelier, and an underground garage with parking spaces for which residents could pay an additional $500 per month (though Meena would have preferred to put that money toward a certain Marc Jacobs jewel-encrusted dragon tote…if she could have afforded an extra $500 a month, which she couldn’t).

  But her apartment didn’t exactly live up to the building’s elegance: it needed repainting badly; the moldings along the ceilings were crumbling; the parquet floor needed sanding; the antique fireplaces didn’t work; and the French doors leading to the minuscule balcony that looked out over her neighbor Mary Lou’s terrace (which was practically the size of Meena’s whole apartment) stuck. And she was running out of closet space.

  The important thing was, it was hers-or at least it would be, when she finally paid David back for his share of the down payment. They’d been fortunate to have bought when the market was at rock bottom and the previous owners had been divorcing and desperate to sell…and just as a small inheritance from Meena’s great-aunt Wilhelmina, for whom she’d been named (her mother had spelled it Meena for fear that her teachers and classmates might forever mispronounce her name “Myna”), finally came through.

  Though David was long gone, Meena never pictured her apartment as a place to which she could bring back a date. But when she’d seen Shoshona leaving the office with a good-looking guy (whom she now realized had to have been the infamous Stefan Dominic; Meena had only managed to catch a glimpse of the back of his dark head before the two of them had disappeared onto the elevator for after-work drinks), she’d felt a twinge of envy.

  Meena couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been on a date…unless she counted the first-and last-time she’d let Mary Lou set her up with a guy, someone from her husband’s office…the one whom Meena had felt compelled to inform over calamari when they’d met at a trendy restaurant downtown that he needed to have his cholesterol checked, or he was going to have a heart attack before the age of thirty-five.

  Needless to say, he’d never called for a second date.

  But hopefully he had called his doctor and gotten on Lipitor.

  And yet she persevered in praying for the one thing that never, ever seemed to come true.

  With the frequency of their encounters, Meena might as well have been dating her neighbor.

  Every morning, poof! Mary Lou appeared, just as Meena pushed the Down button. Same thing each evening.

  It was uncanny.

  And every single time, any hope of having a civilized commute was shot.

  Because then Meena was forced to listen to Mary Lou wax enthusiastic about whatever new guy she’d met whom she was convinced would be just perfect for Meena
or whatever incredible story line idea she’d thought up the night before for Insatiable.

  Oh, really? Meena would be forced to reply politely. Thank you, Mary Lou. Actually, I’m seeing someone. Someone from my office.

  Or, No, really, I’ll definitely run your idea that Victoria Worthington Stone should become foreign ambassador to Brazil by Fran and Stan. I’m sure they’ll love that.

  Except that there was no guy from Meena’s office whom she was seeing (except Paul, platonically; he’d been happily married with three kids for twenty-five years), and the countess had never, not even once, come up with a single usable story line for her favorite character, Victoria Worthington Stone.

  It was too bad, because Meena genuinely liked warm, if somewhat over-the-top Mary Lou and her unassuming, slightly harassed-looking husband, Emil.

  It was just that Meena was beginning to feel a little how Ned must have felt the day of his nervous breakdown in the ABN dining room…especially since David had left, and Mary Lou had become obsessed with Meena’s love life. How was Meena going to bring a date home if her older brother was always hanging around the apartment, making fettuccine Alfredo? Someone just needed to give Meena a little push in the right direction.

  And Mary Lou had obviously appointed herself that person.

  This became especially obvious that day, when Meena was once again unable to meet her goal of avoiding the countess at the elevator…

  Poof!

  There she was.

  “Meena!” the countess cried. “I’m so glad I ran into you! Did you get my e-mail? Emil’s cousin, the prince, is coming to town. You’re going to love him; he’s a writer, just like you. Only he writes books, not for a soap opera. A professor of ancient Romanian history, actually. You got my e-mail about the dinner party I’m having in his honor this Thursday, right? Do you think you’ll be able to make it?”

  “Oh,” Meena said. “I don’t know. Things are crazy at work-”

  “Oh, your job!” Meena realized she should have kept her mouth shut, since Mary Lou warmed to the subject immediately. “You work way too hard at that job of yours. Not that I don’t love every minute of it. Last week when Victoria made out with Father Juan Carlos in the vestibule after she went to confession over her guilt about sleeping with her daughter’s riding instructor, I had to stuff a napkin in my mouth to keep from screaming my head off and startling the maid while she was vacuuming, I was that excited. That was so brilliant! That story line was one of yours, wasn’t it?”