Louisa held Mirella’s hands across the table. “You should talk to her.”
“I have no idea how to find her.”
“It’s 2019,” Louisa said. “No one’s invisible.”
But Vincent was. In those days Mirella was working as a receptionist at a high-end tile showroom near Union Square. It was the kind of place that required few customers, because when people spent money here, they spent tens of thousands of dollars. The morning after her dinner with Louisa, whiling away a silent hour behind a reception desk the size of a car, Mirella searched for Vincent. She tried Vincent’s husband’s surname first. A search for “Vincent Alkaitis” produced old society photos, some with Mirella in them—parties, galas, etc.—and also pages of Vincent at her husband’s sentencing hearing, blank-faced, in a gray suit, and absolutely nothing else. The most recent images were from 2011. “Vincent Smith” turned up dozens of different people, mostly men, none of them the Vincent she was looking for. She couldn’t find Vincent on social media, or anywhere else.
She leaned back in her chair, frustrated. High over her desk, a light was buzzing. Mirella wore a great deal of makeup at work, and when she was tired in the afternoons, sometimes her face felt heavy. Out on the white-tiled prairie of the sales floor, a lone sales rep was walking a customer through every conceivable color of the company’s signature composite material, which looked like stone but wasn’t.
Vincent’s parents were long dead, but she’d had a brother. Dredging up the brother’s name required a deep dive into memory, which was a place Mirella generally tried to avoid. She glanced at the door to make sure no customers were approaching, then closed her eyes, took two deep breaths, and typed “Paul Smith + composer” into Google.
This was how she found herself at the Brooklyn Academy of Music four months later, waiting outside the stage door for Paul James Smith. She’d been hoping he could tell her how to find Vincent. But now Vincent was dead, apparently, which meant it was going to be a very different conversation. The stage door was on a quiet residential street. Mirella paced while she waited, not far, just a few feet in either direction. It was late January but unseasonably warm, well above freezing. Only one other person waited with her: a man of about her own age, mid-thirties, in jeans and a nondescript blazer. His clothes were too big. He nodded to her, she nodded back, and they settled into an awkward wait. Some time passed. A couple of staffers left without looking at them.
Then finally Vincent’s brother emerged, looking a little haggard, although in fairness no one looked especially healthy in the orange glow of the streetlights here.
“Paul—” Mirella said, at the same moment that the other man said, “Excuse me—” and then they exchanged apologetic glances and fell silent, Paul glancing back and forth between them. A third man was approaching rapidly, a pale guy in a fedora and trench coat.
“Hello,” Paul said, in a general way, to all of them.
“Hello!” said the newcomer. He took off his hat and revealed himself to be mostly bald. “Daniel McConaghy. Huge fan. Great show.”
Paul gained an inch of height and a few watts of radiance as he stepped forward to shake the man’s hand. “Well, thank you,” he said, “always great to meet a fan.” He looked around expectantly at Mirella and the guy in the oversized clothes.
“Gaspery Roberts,” the oversized-clothes guy said. “Wonderful show.”
“Hope you’re not offended,” the man in the fedora said, “I don’t think your hands are dirty or anything, I’ve just gotten really into Purell since this thing in Wuhan hit the news.” He was rubbing his hands together, with an apologetic smile.
“Fomites aren’t a major mode of transmission with Covid-19,” Gaspery said. Fomites? Covid-19? Mirella had never heard either term, and the other two were frowning too. “Oh, right,” Gaspery said, seemingly to himself, “it’s only January.” He snapped back into focus. “Paul, could I maybe buy you a drink and ask you a couple quick questions about your work?” He had a faint accent that Mirella couldn’t place.
“That sounds awesome,” Paul said. “I could definitely use a drink.” He turned to Mirella.
“Mirella Kessler,” she said. “I was friends with your sister.”
“Vincent,” he said quietly. She couldn’t quite parse his expression. Sadness but also a flash of something furtive. For a moment no one spoke. “Hey,” he said, with forced cheer, “should we all get a drink?”