by Adam Mitzner
The previous summer, Natasha had commuted with Jonathan, spending the weekends on the East End, and Monday through Friday in Manhattan. This summer, however, she is living on the island full-time, with Jonathan joining her on weekends.
On one particularly sunny day in mid-July, Natasha suggests that they make the pilgrimage to the Montauk Lighthouse, which is located on the easternmost tip of Long Island.
“I don’t want to drive all the way out there to see the same ocean I can see from our backyard,” Jonathan says.
“Jonathan, don’t be such an asshole all the time, okay?”
He gives in, and they drive the forty minutes or so to Montauk’s easternmost point, which from the United States is about as far out in the Atlantic Ocean as you can get. When they finally arrive, the air is moist, and refreshing enough on Jonathan’s face that it prompts him to inhale deeply, filling his lungs. The vista is breathtaking, nothing but open sea for miles.
“I’m cold, Jonathan,” Natasha says a few seconds after stepping out of the Bentley.
“Didn’t you bring a sweatshirt?”
“I didn’t realize it was going to be hot as hell in East Hampton and freezing a half hour away.”
“Well, you’re going to have to tough it out, cowboy, because it looks like there’s quite the line to make it up to the top of the lighthouse.”
“Then let’s just bag it and head back.”
“Seriously? You dragged me out here and you don’t even want to do what you came here to do?”
“Are you serious? You didn’t even want to go in the first place and now you’re telling me you don’t want to leave?”
“Now that we’re out here, I want to see the lighthouse.”
“And I see it,” she says, pointing. “Right there. The building with the long line in front of it.”
“I bet the view at the top is amazing.”
“You’re unbelievable, Jonathan. Didn’t you tell me an hour ago that it was the same view as from our house?”
“No, you’re unbelievable, Natasha. Didn’t you tell me an hour ago you wanted to come here? Now that we’re here, I’d like to go to the top. If you don’t want to come, you can just wait in the car. Turn the heat on, and I’ll see you in half an hour.”
Her look should be beside the word disgust in the dictionary. “Silly me. I almost forgot that what I want has never mattered to you, Jonathan.”
Neither of them says anything for a second. Then she puts out her hand palm up. “Give me the key,” she says.
* * *
There are at least forty people on line to enter the lighthouse, and a sign indicates it’s a twenty-minute wait from the place Jonathan is standing. Under other circumstances, he would have turned back, but given that he took a hard-line approach with Natasha, he has little choice but to wait his turn to climb the 137 stairs to the top.
Rather than the twenty minutes the sign promised, it takes more than an hour to reach the summit. Once he’s there, the wind is even stronger than it was at the beach, but damn, the view makes it all worthwhile. Infinite and awesome.
Jonathan has always loved the ocean, not only for its beauty but for its power, and its mystery. So long as you stayed above it, you were its master, but beneath the serenity were unfathomable depths to plummet.
Two weeks ago, Jonathan felt as if he were being pulled to the very bottom. But now, he’s certain that he will not only avert disaster but enjoy his greatest triumph.
The ruble is rising, as he expected it would, while the other currencies had begun to descend. With each tick, the fund nets nearly a million dollars, which, if it continues for just another few weeks, will earn a profit that’s more than enough to cover the second and third payments to Michael Ross. Best of all, he’ll have done it without anyone at Harper Sawyer being the wiser.
It’s enough for Jonathan to actually believe he might just be infallible.
* * *
On the last day of July, Jonathan’s sister, Amy, calls from Florida. “I just spoke to Dad,” she says. “He doesn’t sound good at all.”
Jonathan has no response. It’s been long enough since the last time he spoke to his father that he no longer has any frame of reference as to what constitutes good.
“Jonathan, you only live an hour from him. You should visit.”
Amy is the only person who calls him Jonathan and makes the name sound false. As if she knows that the persona he had created for himself since high school was a sham.
“We’re in the Hamptons every weekend, Amy.”
“So don’t go one weekend and visit your father instead.”
“I’m not paying four hundred and fifty grand for a summer rental to spend a weekend in East Carlisle.”
“You’re paying what?!”
“That’s what it costs, Amy.”
“I could . . . I could retire and live out the rest of my life in luxury for what you’re spending on . . . what, eight weekends?”
Jonathan resists telling her that it’s not eight weekends. It’s Memorial Day to Labor Day, for chrissakes, and he and Natasha take the two weeks leading to Labor Day for vacation. But Amy wouldn’t understand. She lives the life of their parents, while his existence is on a totally different scale.
“I thought you called to tell me about Dad. Now you’re complaining about how I spend my money?”
“It’s about priorities, Johnny. Yours are totally out of whack.”
She didn’t just casually slide the “Johnny” in there. Amy is too smart not to know when to use that leverage with him. She was making it quite clear that although to the rest of the world, he might be the high and mighty Jonathan Caine of Wall Street, barking orders at his minions, she knows him better than that.
“I’ll visit him right after Labor Day. I promise,” Jonathan says.
She sighs, which tells him not only that she disagrees but that she’s resigned to the fact that she will not change his mind. “There may not be much of him to see after Labor Day, Jonathan.”
“No reason to be so dramatic, Amy. He’ll be the same then as he is now. How much of a difference can a month make?” Jonathan hears how that sounds, so he decides to adopt a more concerned tone. “What makes you think he’s not doing well, anyway?”
“For starters, he asked if Mom was visiting me.”
“At least he’s not imagining that she’s in the house with him.”
“Not funny, Johnny,” she snaps. “This is a real problem.”
“What does . . .” Jonathan searches for his father’s private nurse’s name but can’t come up with it. “What does the nurse say?”
“You mean Theresa?” Amy says with an obvious edge.
“You’ve made your point, Amy. You’re the golden child. All I do for him is pay all the money for Theresa so Dad can stay in his home. But of course, none of that counts for anything. All that matters is that I don’t remember her goddamned name.”
“Jonathan, I’m not Mom, trying to guilt you here. You’re crazy if you think I don’t appreciate the financial support you give to Dad. I’m just worried that you’re going to regret not spending more time with him while you still can. Once he’s gone, that’s it.”
Jonathan likes to say that it’s an occupational prerequisite for a trader to live without regret. Opportunities present themselves for an instant, and they’re taken or not . . . but there’s never any going back. Ever. That’s true whether you’re about to make a billion-dollar investment in response to some market fluctuation you don’t fully understand, or you’re asked to give up a weekend in the Hamptons to sit on the crappy furniture in your father’s den in East Carlisle, New Jersey.
You decide, and then you move on. Always without regret.
“I’m really busy right now. I’ll go in September. I promise,” he says.
10
Five Months Later/December
Jackie pauses to consider just how much of a message she wants her clothing to make. Her closet has half a dozen ensembl
es that are appropriate for a married woman meeting a friend for dinner. She eschews them all in favor of what she considers to be her sexiest dress, a silver number with a plunging neckline. She pairs it with black thigh-high tights and three-inch heels.
Her kids, true to form, are oblivious to what she looks like. Their faces are buried in their screens. For once, she’s pleased by the self-absorption of teenagers.
“I need to go out for a few hours. A friend is having a Christmas party,” Jackie says. Neither Robert nor Emma so much as lift their heads. “Robert,” she says, which at least makes him look up. “Here’s twenty dollars. Order a pizza and make sure your sister gets to bed at a reasonable time. I should be back before midnight. If for some reason your father gets home before me, which I seriously doubt will happen, just tell him that I had to go out, and that I’ll be back by midnight at the latest.”
After taking the money, Robert buries his head back into the screen. “Earth to Robert. Please confirm that you heard and understood.”
“Uh-huh,” he grunts. “Pizza. Emma asleep. You out.”
Close enough, Jackie thinks.
* * *
The butterflies flutter in Jackie’s stomach the entire drive over to Crowne Road, and intensify when she sees Jonathan’s car parked in the driveway. She doesn’t know its make, although she can tell even at a distance that it’s expensive. When she gets out of her car, she bends over to read the nameplate. A Bentley. She’s never seen one for real, only in movies. Of course Jonathan Caine drives a Bentley, she thinks to herself.
Jonathan greets her at the door, kissing her on the cheek as he did at the Château, but this time he hugs her a little tighter, holding his hand in the center of her back, so he must have discerned that she’s not wearing a bra.
“It’s so nice to see you,” he says, welcoming her inside. “You really look beautiful. I’m kind of embarrassed that I’m so underdressed.”
Her eyes take him in. No reason for him to be even a little bit self-conscious. He looks great. Jeans, a button-down blue shirt, and, it appears, the same expensive suit jacket he had lent her at the reunion. Handsome, successful, not overdoing it, but not just throwing on sweatpants like some men she knows.
“It smells great in here,” she says. “What did you cook for us?”
“Cassoulet.”
“Sounds delicious.”
Jackie looks around the house. Hardly out of Architectural Digest, that’s for sure, even if it was a forty-year-old issue. Lots of orange and brown, a matted-down shag rug in the den. But she quickly realizes that she can’t ascribe any judgment to Jonathan because he doesn’t really live here.
“Can I offer you any wine?” Jonathan asks.
Jackie smiles. Yes, wine is exactly what she needs to calm her nerves.
“That would be great,” she says.
She follows him into the kitchen. She had expected a similar period piece, but the kitchen, while certainly not modern, at least isn’t a relic. Early Seinfeld era, she figures.
The wine is a dark purple in color. When Jonathan hands Jackie her glass, their fingers touch, and she flashes on that moment at the reunion—the lingering when she handed him back his phone, even though she’s since wondered whether she’d imagined it. This time, however, she’s certain that the contact is intentional.
“Come here, take a look,” he says, motioning toward the stove. She follows, and he places his hand on the lid of a large simmering pot, as if he’s a magician, about to flourish the big reveal.
“So when I remove it, lean in and take a deep breath.”
Jackie does as directed, and it smells truly amazing. A mélange of sausage and duck, stewed with white beans, and a toasted bread-crumb crust at the top.
Jackie takes a swallow of wine for courage, and then puts out there what she’s been meaning to ask Jonathan since they arranged this get-together.
“What does your wife think of all this?”
Jonathan doesn’t appear the least bit off balance by the question’s implication. He cocks his head to the side and says, “You mean what does my wife think of my cooking dinner for a beautiful woman whom every person at East Carlisle High School was crazy about back in the day?”
“Yeah. That.”
“To be honest, I haven’t told her.”
“Rick is in the dark, too.”
Jonathan nods. Jackie takes the gesture as evidence that they’ve entered into a tacit agreement that whatever goes on tonight remains only between them.
“The cassoulet has been simmering for six hours,” Jonathan says. “I think it’s more than ready to eat. Shall we?”
He takes Jackie by the hand and leads her to the dining room. Like the other spaces in the house, it has a bit of a grandparent feel to it. A heavy mahogany table fills the room, with six wood-carved chairs around it. There are two place settings—one at the head and the other catty-cornered to it—and in the center of the table are a pair of candles in tarnished silver holders. Jonathan certainly has gone all out for this. She can’t deny that she likes that.
Jonathan lights the candles, and then he dims the overhead chandelier. Jackie is tempted to comment that it’s all very romantic, but she decides not to say a word, for fear it will spoil the moment.
In addition to the cassoulet, Jonathan prepared a salad and string beans sautéed with butter and almonds. She tells Jonathan that it’s all delicious, and by that she means that she’s having the best time she’s had in years.
Jackie isn’t much of a drinker and can’t remember the last time she’s had a third glass of wine. But the high she’s experiencing now is too wonderful to let go, so all other considerations—like the fact that she’s about to be drunk in the home of a man whom, for all intents and purposes, she’s just met—fall by the wayside.
“How long will you be staying in our humble little town?” Jackie asks.
“I’m not sure, exactly. A lot depends on how my father is doing.”
“Your wife . . . is she okay with you being away from home?”
“Yeah. I travel a lot for work anyway, so I think Natasha just views this as another business trip.”
“And your job doesn’t mind?”
“I’ve actually taken a leave of absence. It’s not like I’m going to be able to spend time with my father when it’s more convenient for me to be away from work. I figured it was now or never.”
“I really think it’s amazing that you’re doing this. Your father is very lucky.”
“I don’t know about that,” Jonathan says with a shrug. “I do know that I’m lucky to have this time with him. I wish . . . you know, the usual, that I’d done some things differently. Do you ever feel that way?”
“Every day and twice on Sunday,” Jackie says.
Jonathan raises his wineglass. “Well, then. To fewer regrets in the future.”
Jackie clinks her glass to his. There is nothing she wants more than fewer regrets in the future.
* * *
Jonathan knows that dinner is going very well. He’s seen that look in a woman’s eyes before, the one that suggests there’s no place on earth she’d rather be. She threw him a bit when she asked about work, but he thinks he covered well enough.
“Can I ask you something stupid?” Jackie asks.
“Of course. Stupid questions are the best ones.”
Jackie laughs, a nervous giggle. “What did you think of me in high school?”
“Ah,” Jonathan says with a smile. “Let me ask you this first. Why would you care about what I thought of you twenty-five years ago?”
“Because I think it influences what you think of me now.”
“So maybe I should just tell you what I think of you now.”
“If you’d prefer.”
“You’re obviously still very beautiful. You don’t need me to tell you that, I’m sure. But you’re also now sadder than I remember you being in high school. It’s almost as if you’re unsure about who you are, and back then, everyo
ne knew you were queen of the Cliquesters.”
She laughs, but its shaky tenor confirms Jonathan’s assessment was spot-on. “I was just as insecure back then. Believe me.”
He does believe her, although he never would have thought so when they were in high school. Back then, she seemed to be all confidence. But isn’t that always the way? The popular girl forever fearful because her power is so ephemeral?
“You sure hid it well,” Jonathan says. “But that still doesn’t tell me what fills you with regret now.”
Jackie looks at him impassively, as if she’s letting his words come to a resting point before she responds. Finally, Jackie says, “I don’t know how my life ever got so . . . I don’t know . . . far away from what I wanted it to be? Does that make any sense?”
Make sense? Jonathan could be Exhibit A for that sentiment. He’s not ready to share that with Jackie, not yet, but he is willing to dispense the advice he repeats in his head every morning. The words that keep him alive for one more day.
“I’ll tell you something you learn early when your life is tied to the financial markets. It’s never as bad as it seems at any given moment because it can always get better.” He waits a beat. “And worse.”
“I so want it to get better,” she says quietly.
He views that as his opening and slowly leans over to kiss her. He gives her enough time to pull away, but if anything, he senses that she’s moved closer.
He feels an actual tingle when their lips meet.
“Jackie . . .” Jonathan says in a whisper, his face close enough to hers that he can feel the warmth of her breath. “Do you think we can go upstairs?”
She doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
He stands and takes her hand. They walk together up the stairs, and at the top he has a decision to make. Jonathan turns into his childhood bedroom, rather than the master.
“Sorry about the twin bed,” he says, “but I promise I’ll make it up to you in other ways.”
* * *
Jackie wakes with a jolt and a sense of complete disorientation. It takes her a moment to realize that she’s in Jonathan’s house—his parents’ house, actually—and then a second more to comprehend that she’s lying naked beside him. She feels like she’s in that scene in Big. She’s a grown woman in the bedroom of a thirteen-year-old boy.
