Ghosts of Manhattan

by Douglas Brunt

  “We’ll take a look at calendars.”

  “And tell Julia we may want to contract her to do the interior design job for our Hamptons place.” I can’t imagine that will fly with Sybil.

  “You can tell her yourself.” If he is already talking with Julia, I hope he interprets this as a statement that I know what he’s up to.

  “Okay. We’ll talk with you soon.”

  “Bye, Oliver.” I hang up and dial Julia’s cell phone. “Hi.”

  “Hey. What’s up?” Her words are clipped and angry. The only reason she would pick up would be to hear an apology, and the edge in her voice says an apology over the phone won’t cut it.

  “I just got a call from Oliver.”

  “Really?” It feels like genuine surprise, and without alarm. I’m relieved.

  “He wants to set a squash game with me.”

  “What’d you say?”

  “I’m not interested in finding new ways to spend time with the guy. I told him I’m busy.”

  “All right.”

  “He wants the four of us to go out to dinner again. I would have thought last night was enough to put a stop to those.”

  She doesn’t respond.

  “Julia.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry about last night. I’m sorry for what I said about you. I don’t feel that way, I was just drunk.”

  “Nick, I don’t want to talk about this now. Certainly not while you’re sitting at your desk.”

  This was only getting her angrier. What I said last night was bad enough and the implication that it could be handled by this form of apology was taken as an insult and making it worse. “I know. I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Bye.” I hear the phone click off.

  I replay the tone of her voice again to try to determine any hint of guilt or nervousness about Oliver. Julia’s an uncomfortable liar and something would show. I know I should be fixing the root of the problem, but now I’m too focused on how acute the symptoms have become.

  I can hear her voice again in my head and I think she is too calm to be a person who has crossed the line. Julia could be just trying to get me to show signs of life in our relationship. And she could be trying to feel alive herself. To feel desired and sought after. A flirtation just enough to feel the emotional charge of what is possible but short of committing any act. Had she not forewarned me of her unhappiness, even this flirtation could be a betrayal. But it is within the bounds of her honesty and is innocent. She may have taken phone calls from Oliver and she may have allowed his adorations to go beyond what is appropriate, but I don’t think she has started an affair. Although I do think she is starting to entertain the promise of something else.

  I have an awful tightness in my stomach and groin. I know the feeling has nothing to do with Oliver. He’s irrelevant. He’s a single utensil at a great banquet. He can fawn on Julia all he wants, but he’s not of her caliber.

  My tightness is around the scale of the problem with Julia. What on the surface seems so simple to fix feels so out of control beneath the surface. I can’t think of what to say when I get home. Like trying to stop a fire with only my own spit, I feel like I haven’t even got the right tools for the job. But I know I need to get home tonight, even if I say nothing. Going to a Knicks game and avoiding home until the early morning hours would be a finger in her eye. I might as well send Oliver to my home in my stead for a candlelight dinner. Oliver who shows no conscience and moves like a cancer.

  The phone rings again. “Nick, it’s Fred.”

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “You still planning to come to the meeting with Dale? It’s going to be in January after year-end.”

  Jesus, this is a month out and he’s calling me. I feel sorry for him. There’s no reason to go except to offer moral support, which he obviously needs. I have no other role to play except to stick my neck out, and I’m starting to think it could be more dangerous than I previously had thought. But I said I’d do it. “Sure, Freddie. I’ll be there.” Damn.

  “Okay, buddy.” It’s Jerry standing behind me and slapping my shoulder. “Drinks at Pastis, then we have courtside tickets for the Knicks. You can rest your toes on the hardwood.”

  I’ve already decided that I need to get home. If I show Jerry that I’m wavering at all or show any appreciation that it could be a fun night, he’ll be relentless. I need to be defiant. More than defiant, I need to be angry. “I can’t do it.”

  “Nick, c’mon. These guys love you. They’ve been asking if you’re coming. We need you.”

  I turn my chair so my shoulders are square with him. “Jerry, I’m not going. Not tonight.” I do sound a little angry and it feels good to release it. I’m ready to raise my voice if there’s another iteration, and I want to. Jerry’s smart enough to recognize this isn’t just about me being tired and needing to rally. Something else is going on.

  “Fine, fine. You pansy.” I see he’s disappointed by the way he shifts his bulk. I don’t blame him. It feels strange to be the only thirty-something in a group of twenty-somethings.

  “I’ll make the next one. I’ve just got some stuff I need to do.” I start to turn my chair back to my desk.

  “Everything okay?” This has the tone of being a reflexive response rather than a reflective one. A human obligation to check in when another human appears to be struggling. Something most of us learn in our formative years or maybe is genetically coded, but is a noncognitive trigger response. I imagine the horror on Jerry’s face if I turned to him and said, “Actually, I’m having a really difficult time. Do you have a few minutes that we could go somewhere and talk?”

  “Everything’s good. Thanks.” I wonder if trying to solve problems at home will create more problems at the office. I don’t know that I can make both work, or if I want to.

  14 | SUE FARMER

  January 11, 2006

  WITHOUT KIDS, THE HOLIDAYS CAN PASS RIGHT BY IF you want them to, and if you aren’t happy, you want them to. We told our parents that we decided to celebrate alone in the city. I bought a tree, which we decorated without any ceremony and with the TV on. We kept it for a week, then I dragged it down to the sidewalk for trash pickup. I don’t think we watered it once. I was relieved when activity picked back up at work.

  Come January I’m on the trading floor hung up on a trade of casino bonds. The market for them is going the other way. The UBS salesman had asked me to wait on him, thinking he had a bid. By the time he confirmed he didn’t have a bid with his trader, the whole buy side had dropped away and I’m screwed holding the bonds. If I sell at the current bid, I take a six-million-dollar loss to our books and Jerry won’t shut his fat mouth.

  But I’m not thinking about the bonds and I’m not thinking about Jerry. I can’t get the squirrelly little bastard Oliver out of my head.

  He’s always walking around smiling and shaking hands, but his eyes are never smiling behind those phony, prescriptionless glasses. The eyes are always thinking and working and making the smile work for them. The smile is never for the person he sees, because he isn’t motivated by friendship. He’s motivated by money, advancement, and power, so the smile is only for what that person can do for him. He acts nice because he knows it’s better for him to have people say he’s a nice guy. He’s pleasant only for a purpose.

  I recognize this sort of people around Bear. The ones who appear to dislike no one and to like everyone. But it isn’t so much that they like or dislike anyone as it is that they are indifferent to everyone.

  It’s healthy to dislike some people. It’s natural and honest. I’ve come to hate Oliver.

  “Nick, goddamn it. Tell UBS they better make us whole on this. They hung us out!”

  I don’t turn around. My personal line rings and I’m relieved, thinking I can hide behind the phone against my ear.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey, big bro.” It’s Sue’s playful voice, and I feel calmer as though I’ve been transported to a comfortable w
icker chair on a porch with lemonade on a sunny day.

  “Sue, how are you?” I need to decide quickly how much I want to get into this.

  “I’m fine. I want to hear how you are.”

  “The usual. Crappy.”

  She laughs. “What’s going on? Are there some changes happening at work?”

  “None. That’s part of the problem. It’s arrested development hitting a crisis stage.”

  “Sounds like it’s time for a change.”

  “It’s not all that easy. At my age I can’t change careers like a T-shirt.”

  “Is anything going on?”

  “Sue, I’m in the goddamn office.”

  “So whisper.”

  I look up at the television screen on one of the columns that hold up the ceiling and Rebecca is delivering a report on corporate earnings from the stock exchange floor. The volume is off but she looks gorgeous and I avert my eyes like I’ve been caught peeping in the women’s dressing room. William and Ron are off the desk screwing around somewhere, so I have a little privacy.

  “Julia and I are having some problems.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “We’re barely speaking.”

  Sue has always adored Julia and I can feel that her level of concern has gone higher.

  “Sue, there is so much hitting at once that it’s hard to isolate, but the source of it is my job. I know it sounds like I’m pointing to something easy for a problem that is really inside the two of us, but I think work is playing that big a role. It’s like the Marines—not a job, an adventure. It’s a lifestyle adventure and it’s a ride I can’t get off.”

  “Well try, Nick.”

  “It’s not a ride anymore, it’s part of me. This is who I am; I just need to figure out how to correct course a little. I’m working on it.”

  “Nick. You’re focused on the wrong thing.” Her voice sounds fed up, which I don’t expect at all. “People’s lives are the way they are because of the choices they make. So before you focus on the job as the issue, you need to focus on you as the issue. What is it about you that got you here?”

  I’d have hung up on anyone else, but I know she believes in me and is rooting for me. “Sue, I didn’t have a crystal ball when I was twenty-two. If I had known, I’d have made different decisions.”

  “I don’t buy that. I can see taking the job to start, but not sticking with it. You’ve had every opportunity to make a change at any point and you never have.”

  I don’t want to say anything until I feel less defensive. All I can think is that I don’t remember when I was last happy, even since long before Bear. Maybe sprinkles of happiness from Julia, but nothing independent. Nothing that would make a person think I was anything other than a miserable, cynical bastard. Maybe I choose to stay in this career because it is exactly what I deserve.

  I’ve been silent long enough that I want to make sure Sue knows I’m not angry with her. “I’m not ignoring you, Sue. Just thinking.”

  “How bad is it with Julia?”

  I haven’t directly considered this before. I have never even tried to envision life without her. I always assumed the same laws of physics that make the rivers flow would also hold us together. This is to be our place in the universe even if comets collide around us. “I’m not sure. It’s bad, and what’s worse is I don’t know if I can make it better. Every interaction we’ve had lately widens the gap.”

  “Take a few days off and go somewhere. Maybe it’s better to go just by yourself to pull it together. You love Julia. That will take care of itself if you let it. You need to get your head screwed on straight first.”

  I have a mental image of myself in a remote hotel room, face down in a bowl of cornflakes next to an empty bottle of scotch tipped on its side. “I could take a few days and drive out to Sag Harbor. Quiet out there this time of year.”

  “Just focus on you for a little while. That has to be the first step. You don’t sound good.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you and Julia coming to the birthday party for Andy?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it. Nine years old? How is he?”

  “He’s gone from threatening to leave home if we make him play soccer to now loving it. He’s dying to see his uncle Nick.”

  “What does he want for his birthday? I could renew his subscription to Penthouse.”

  “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

  “See you in a couple weeks.”

  The phone hits the cradle. “So what did those rat bastards at UBS say?” I turn around to see Jerry with both arms up over his head like goalposts, one hand wrapped around a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.

  I give him the finger and sit back in my chair. I’m still thinking about Sue’s words and the emotion she had behind them. Sue still has the same fondness for Julia that she had when Julia and I first met, and it brings me back to a happier time.

  I remember our second date. The first had gone so well that I had flowers delivered to her office before I picked her up to take her out again. The note said, “Looking forward to seeing you tonight.”

  At dinner she thanked me for the flowers. I thought I detected something odd in her thank-you. It was tiny but there was something about her that seemed cautious. After denying three times that there was anything to it, she confessed.

  “I dated a guy who would send me flowers a lot. I love and appreciate flowers and I know they’re expensive. But every time, they would come with a computer-printed card that said, ‘Thinking of you.’ It felt like it came from his secretary and could be going to girls all over town. And it’s all he would ever do. No letters or notes or surprise drop-bys or even a long email. It got so I came to resent the flowers a little. They’d get dropped to my office, and every time I’d hope for something different from the computer-printed card.”

  “So no flowers.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t want to sound ungrateful. I love the flowers from you. You’re not that guy. Not at all.”

  “So no flowers with one-line notes?”

  “Just don’t substitute flowers for everything else. Flowers are great but not intimate.”

  “It’s a deal,” I said. Her smile was beautiful. These are the kinds of things people love to learn on early dates, and she’s already saying how much more promising I am than an ex-boyfriend.

  “Here’s a deal. Never send me another flower. Just send me a letter once in a while.”

  “A no-flower policy. Not another flower ever?”

  “Exactly. No temptation.”

  “Okay. I accept the deal.” We shake hands and I think, damn, this will be harder. Getting the flowers to her took thirty seconds to dial the phone and read out my credit card number. I also think I really like this girl. She’s different and honest.

  Before our next date I sent to her office two dozen roses, a bottle of wine, a box of chocolates, and a singing midget who reads:

  Roses are red

  Violets are blue

  Please forgive me

  Breaking my deal with you

  I’m using my words

  To make sure that you know

  I feel very strong

  About how far we can go

  They’re no substitute

  The flowers are real

  I hope you accept

  I’m changing the deal

  It will be a big night

  So rest up and get ready

  I’m planning to ask you

  Can we go steady?

  I made sure nobody at Bear ever caught wind of any of this. It would have been humiliating, but sometimes it feels good to humiliate yourself if you can do it only to the person you care most about.

  Four months later we’re lying in bed in a suite at the Rock House in Harbour Island. We wanted a quiet vacation that would be just us in a place where we could sit on the beach, read books, eat seafood, and ride around the island in golf carts. The kind of place that requires two planes and a water taxi t
o get there.

  She rolled over in bed so that she was sitting on my stomach and looking me in the eyes. “Nick, I love you.”

  I was so happy to hear this. I had felt this and thought about saying it and where, when, and how to say it, but she said it first. It didn’t feel like losing a race because I really did love her. But it has always been a reminder of who is the more courageous of the two of us.

  “I love you so much, Julia.”

  PART III

  Nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.

  —ALEXANDER SUPERTRAMP

  15 | SOHO GRAND

  January 20, 2006

  CHAPPY CAN BROKER A SINGLE TRADE THAT GENERATES enough commission to warrant a celebration. These types of trades can come together over a period of days or in an instant. Celebrating only in response to a big commission would make Chappy seem cheap, so there are also arbitrary parties. Celebrating without cause is the key to swagger.

  Tonight is in response to a trade we put through Chappy. The brokerage fee on the transaction is about six hundred thousand and Jack Wilson will spend a good piece of that tonight. At any rate, I’m in an elevator at the Soho Grand on the way to a suite Chappy has for the night. I used to crave this kind of night. Like rounding the bases after hitting a home run, I thought I would always have the energy for it. Now I have the premonition of a heroin addict who looks down at the needle in his arm with the vague recognition that this crap will kill me one day.

  Jack knows enough not to put the room in his name anymore. He’ll have some broker on his desk do it and let him know the expense will be covered. I get off at the penthouse level and go to Chappy’s suite knowing exactly what I’ll find. The Soho Grand has two penthouse suites, one with a view north and one with a view south. We’re in the southern-facing one looking over Canal Street to the Statue of Liberty and Staten Island. I hope the northern one isn’t rented.

  There’s a full bar set up but no bartender. Any other party would have bartenders and a few cute waitresses to pass hors d’oeuvres, but this party needs more discretion. I count five hookers in the room, each with a martini glass and a grip on the stem as though it were a ski pole. One bends down over the coffee table to rip a snort of cocaine. She straightens up like the yellow plastic bird in chemistry class that perpetually dips its beak in water, and her momentum pours her martini down her chest. A pimply kid who could pass for nineteen tries to drink it off her.