"Hey, how did it go?" Jennifer asked the minute Ally came in the door.
She wasn't sure she knew the answer to that. Initially the job looked like a lot of fun, but now she felt the interpersonal dynamics of working in Bartlett's home were already a problem even before she started.
Also, maybe it was just paranoia, but as she took the cab downtown from the mansion on Gramercy Park, she got the impression that somebody was following her in a black SUV. And the stress of that brought on a tightness in her chest. But as she neared their office in SoHo, the vehicle abruptly veered east. She had a nitro tab at the ready, but she didn't have to pop it.
"There's good news and bad news. The good news is he's practically handing us a sweetheart of a job, and dangling another—designing a whole museum—in our face. The bad news is, I don't know why he suddenly thinks we're so terrific. I mean, you and I know that but how did he figure it out?"
Jennifer looked puzzled. "You mean he—"
"Oh, did I mention that his crazy wife showed up after he left and essentially accused me of being a hooker? I suppose that comes under the heading of bad news."
"Great. Does that mean she's going to start second‑guessing whatever we do?"
"The communication channels between Mr. Bartlett and Mrs. Bartlett don't appear to be all that great. They live on different floors in his place—which really is a huge old mansion on Gramercy Park, by the way—and the job would be in his part, the lower level." She explained the Bartletts' living arrangements. "He wants to redo the garden‑level floor. It was originally the servants' quarters. Like Upstairs, Downstairs."
"So he's upstairs and she's way upstairs."
"And let's hope she stays there."