The Travelers Read Free Page B

This decimated flower is not a rose, not from his yard, nothing to do with him. It’s someone else’s dead carnation, someone else’s crime of passion.
    Maybe he’s worried about all the wrong things.

NEW YORK CITY
    The door’s plaque reads simply EDITOR , no name plate, as if the human being in there is interchangeable with the ones who came before, and the ones who will come after. An office that’s occupied by a job, not by a person. There have been only four of them in the magazine’s seventy-year history.
    “Come!”
    Malcolm Somers is sitting in his big executive chair behind his big executive desk, across from Gabriella Rivera, her profile framed by the floor-to-ceiling window onto Avenue of the Americas. Nothing is visible outside except other office buildings, up and down the avenue, thousands of windows into other lives, suits and ties, computers and coat racks, ergonomic chairs and solar-screen blinds and pressed-wood L-shaped desks exuding formaldehyde, and not even the barest glimpse of sky above nor street below, which can be seen only with face pressed against the glass, something no one except a child would do. Malcolm’s kids do it.
    Gabriella doesn’t turn to see who’s entering. She remains sitting perfectly still with her perfect legs crossed, one low heel dangling from the aloft foot, a sleek elegant figure, like an ad for something, a product, Sexy Professional Woman Sitting in Stylish Chair™. An ad for the product that is herself.
    “Sorry to interrupt,” Will says. “I’ve got a flight…”
    Will stands in the doorway of the big room, waiting for permission to enter, for Malcolm to dismiss Gabriella.
    “Gabs?” Malcolm asks.
    The deputy editor waits a punitive beat before she nods. She stands and smooths her skirt, a garment that straddles the line of decency, depending on point of view. Most men would say it’s just the right amount of tight and short; most women would disagree.
    Gabriella turns, gives Will that dazzling smile. But beneath the veneer of those white teeth, those plush pillows of lips, Will can see the resentment at her interrupted meeting, maybe more. Will senses something in the air here, between these two. And not for the first time.
    “Sorry,” Will reiterates, apologizing to another woman who doesn’t want to hear it.
    She shrugs, not his fault, something else at play. “Have a good trip. France, is it? How long?”
    “A week.”
    Gabriella cocks her head, considering something. “We should have a drink soon,” she says, though Will doesn’t think that’s what she’d been considering. “It’s been a while.” On her way past, she squeezes Will’s arm, and he feels a jolt from the strong current of sexual energy that flows from this woman.
    Malcolm calls after her, “The door, please?”
    She shuts it from the far side, perhaps a little too firmly, but still perfectly deniable, not a slam.
    Malcolm’s suit jacket is hanging on a wooden valet, his sleeves are rolled at the cuff. As always, the top button of his shirt is undone, the knot of his necktie loosened, like he just finished a long hard day, having a glass of scotch, neat. He looks exhausted, bags under his eyes, a hollowness to his cheeks. He’s usually an extra-healthy-looking specimen, a natural athlete who spends his weekends outdoors, on boats and grass and sand, with little children and golf clubs, with the wholesome perks of his position.
    But not now. Now he looks like crap.
    “How are things, Rhodes?” Malcolm asks. “Sorry I couldn’t stay for the after-party last night. Who was there? Did that hot wine rep of yours come along?”
    “Come on, man, stop saying things like that. You know someday somebody is going to overhear you, and get me in a whole lot of trouble.”
    Malcolm holds up his hands, mea culpa, a smirk that’s the tell that his baiting is mostly—or partially—an act. Malcolm is playing a role, a trope, a fictional misogynist, a guy’s-guy buddy. Just as he