Hotel Living

by Ioannis Pappos

  “He’s turning Accosting into the next Condé Nast,” Cristina said. “Oh my God, did I choose the wrong guy?” She laughed.

  That was impossible.

  “Cristina is psychic,” Alkis said with a laugh. “I mean, we’re all in the business of the future,” he added, this time seriously. “What’s the next premium, the next big thing? Health? Security? Sex?” He tried to reach Cristina’s neck, but she slowly pushed his hand away.

  “Are you guys here for work or fun?” Erik asked Cristina. He looked genuinely interested.

  “Both,” Alkis stepped in. “Cristina is here for work and I had a meeting in California. So we were like, let’s just take a couple of days off and hang out in New York.”

  “What does Cristina do?” Erik asked.

  “She’s with PPR.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Gucci.”

  I saw Erik’s but-of-course look.

  “You remember Erik from the forest?” I asked, trying to make Paul stop typing.

  “Yes,” said Paul. He gave Erik a glance. “You’re that journalist from Oxford, right?”

  “Well, not exactly. Not anymore,” Erik said. “Now I work for the city.”

  “Oh, my ex-girlfriend’s law firm was on Chancery Lane. I’m the only person I know who actually likes the city. We used to lunch on—”

  “I work for the city. Of New York,” Erik said.

  Paul narrowed his eyes. “Are you from New Jersey?” he asked Erik.

  What on earth . . . Erik would never acknowledge an insult to Jersey, and Paul somehow knew that, so I was both curious and terrified to see where Erik would go with this. But Alkis jumped in:

  “Hey, Paul!” he shouted. “Why can’t you lose weight as fast as you lose your hair?”

  Erik turned to Alkis slowly, signaling that he was not through with Paul. “How long we got you in town for?” Erik asked Alkis.

  “I was hoping to leave tomorrow,” Alkis replied. “But I’m not sure if Paul’s done with the third degree.”

  “What are you cooking this time?” I asked Paul.

  “Come on, now,” Paul said shyly, like he was asking for forgiveness about San Francisco. “We are covering the turnaround of a public telecom in Europe, and Alkis is advising them on private equity compensation for their management team.”

  I knew about Alkis’s project. I could see how this topic could go south, fast.

  “Are you guys doing private equity in the public sector?” Erik asked Alkis.

  “Well . . . I guess you could say that,” Alkis admitted. “But we are open-minded about it.”

  “And how exactly do you do that?” Erik asked, his laugh lines shaping. Here we go.

  Alkis paused, which was enough for Paul to butt in: “They are multi-stakeholder minded while bottom-line focused,” he said seriously. No one spoke, so Paul went on with his shit. “It’s in the art of giving advice, really. Stathis can explain this better. He’s a consultant.”

  “What about continuity and sustainability?” Erik asked. “Is that part of your art?”

  There was another uncomfortable silence until Cristina reached Erik’s arm. “I’m so thirsty. Darling, you are taller and stronger. Will you get me a Bloody Mary? Virgin, darling. Please.”

  “I’m not sure I can reach too far with this arm.” Erik gave me a dirty look and began to shuffle toward the bar.

  I was Paul-gripped.

  “What?” Paul finally yelled at me.

  “The art of giving advice, Paul? Seriously?”

  “Want my Erik review now or should I e-mail it to you?” Paul said.

  I was ready to “fuck you” him again, along with his website, his father, and his country—I mean, I’d never work there, or would I?—but Alkis laughed. “You twats!” he sneered. “What the hell are you crying about? You both bull for a living.”

  “We can’t all be in private equity, Alkis,” I said, annoyed by being equated with Paul. “Some of us have to think about R&D. You never know, you might need innovation after you cash-cow everything with other people’s money.”

  “Yeah, Alkis,” Paul shammed.

  “Watch it, I still have pictures of you on a leash,” Alkis threatened him.

  “Be my guest!” Paul chuckled. “It’s not like my father’s getting reelected anyway. Post them!”

  But Alkis wasn’t listening. He was busy lifting the Haring-graffiti kid.

  “Oh, thank you,” the kid’s mother said as she searched for her son’s iPod between the Week in Review and Sunday Styles. “It’s a white Shuffle,” she told Alkis, worried.

  I noticed the boy’s Athens 2004 Olympic T-shirt and thought of my niece, more or less the same age. How many times had I actually seen her? Three? Four? Then, from the corner of my eye, I caught Erik squeezing his way back through the waiting room, tomato juice spilling over the polo of mine he was wearing, and I was happy for the distraction, one of those everyday things—a bad haircut, an unprocessed hotel receipt—that help me forget where I really am in my life.

  “My hero!” Cristina welcomed Erik back. “Now, Alkis tells me that you grew up with Constantine.”

  Erik gave me a quick look. “Well . . . I know him,” he conceded. An Erik first. “Why? Are you a friend of his?”

  “I knew him at Harvard,” Cristina said. “I haven’t seen him for years and years. How is he? I can’t believe he’s getting married!”

  “He is. I don’t see him often myself. In fact, he was closer to my brother. He shows up out of nowhere every few years.”

  “That’s so Constantine,” Paul said, making both Erik and me turn. I hadn’t seen this coming. Things were getting odder by the moment.

  “His name is Zemar now,” Erik said, louder than necessary, and—surprise—one more silence followed as it dawned on me that everyone seemed to know Constantine or Zemar as this ghost, who randomly materialized in Greece, my EBS world, and Erik’s, too. A phantom that blurred segments of my life that I was trying to compartmentalize. I knew there was more here than I could work out.

  “Right,” Cristina at last giggled. “Of course. Makes sense. I knew he had converted—”

  “Oh, he was always a wildcat,” Paul interrupted. “But fun. Though somehow he always scared me. There was a darker side. After all, he did date you, Cristina!”

  “Cristina!” Alkis pretended fury, and Paul laughed.

  “Briefly,” Cristina said, and pointed at Paul. “Your ex dated him too. Gosh! Who didn’t? All my girlfriends were crazy about him. I mean, in those days. I haven’t seen him since that ski-safari at Val d’Isère. When was that?” She looked up. “Seven, eight years ago? He was high for the whole week. Still, I liked Constantine. I like Constantine.”

  “Think of him as a brand,” Paul said, which sent Alkis into a fit, and half a Bellini over my ass.

  I tried to dry my pants with my hands while scanning the dining room, pretending to be oblivious to the whole Zemar circus, but these guys wouldn’t stop.

  “Honestly, he needed to settle down,” Cristina said, her face brightening. “I was watching Reuters, streaming from Iraq, the other day and I thought of him. I even asked my HP for resolution.”

  “Your Hewlett-Packard?”

  “My higher power!”

  The maître d’ asked us to follow her.

  I was drained when I finally sat down and ordered a beer. As soon as it arrived, I had the longest sip and checked out. When Alkis started on his Schwarzenegger meeting—accents, cigars, Learjet seating—I got up for a smoke. “I love Americans!” someone from our table shouted as I left.

  WALKING BACK TO THE HOTEL, Erik and I did not speak. In the room I flipped through TV channels indefinitely, unable to concentrate. Everything blurred into one show, as if extreme makeovers happened after hurricanes in Florida, and polar bears were endangered in Iraq.

  Erik changed into running clothes and stood still in the middle of the room. I pretended to pay him no mind, trying to postpone the EBS
–Zemar tsunami coming my way, until I couldn’t anymore.

  “What?” I broke the silence, still looking at the screen.

  “This ain’t gonna happen.”

  He wasn’t talking about Zemar or EBS. He was talking us, already speeding down a one-way street. So I doubled, had to, hoping to salvage whatever I could. “It never was, Erik.”

  “I was about to say . . . again.”

  “You didn’t,” I said, still looking at the screen.

  “So you’re ready for an all out. Good. You and me both.” He walked out wearing my sneakers and slammed the door.

  I turned off the TV and looked at the remote control shaking in my hand. I got up, grabbed a scotch from the minibar, and dimmed the lights to Alkis-power-nap level. I downed the whiskey and lay back on the couch, listening to my watch ticking, feeling the ugly side of uncertainty building up in me. At work I sold clients “the beauty of potentiality.” “Its superiority to actuality,” the “value in not knowing” about the launch of a product, potential infidelities, or the success of a dinner party. Suddenly my “accept everything as a string of probabilities” line was a farce, a travesty.

  I was still on the sofa when Erik returned. His nose was running. He undressed and jumped into the shower. I stared at my underwear in the middle of Erik’s puddle of soggy clothes on the bathroom floor until steam filled the room and I could no longer see them. The running water stopped and the shower door swung open. Erik came out in a hotel robe, took a V8 from the minibar and National Geographic from the side table, and spread out on top of the bed covers.

  “Good run?”

  “Yes. Did you power-nap?” He raised his eyebrows. I could see his balls.

  I didn’t reply, still trying hopelessly to avoid the inevitable.

  “What?” he said. “Are you gonna chicken out now?”

  “No,” I said. “Let’s fight. Isn’t that what you came here for? And cross your legs, will you?”

  “I don’t do that.”

  “Then wear some underwear, ’cause I’m tired of being shown your hangers.”

  “You should try and show yours every now and then. You still got them, right?”

  He made a cylinder with the National Geographic and started to tap his thigh.

  “Dude, if you’re going to keep tapping your bible like that, swear to God, I’m gonna puke.”

  “Nah, I’m just a joker, man. Isn’t that what you’re into?”

  “Yes, we’re all clowns. And you’re too fucking quick for us, Erik.”

  “You’re not bad yourself. Negotiation-analysis guy! Come on, pick a frame. Isn’t that how you guys talk when you fight? No, wait! I got a couple for you. How about Alkis and his futurism? Or Cristina’s ski-safari? Yes, you are all clowns. You belong onstage. Really.”

  “And how’s that different from . . . Oh, me? Oh . . . er . . . I . . . see . . . went to school in, uh, Connecticut.” I went for his Southie accent. “Hmm . . . well . . . it was in New Haven, you know.”

  “I ain’t your fucking Gawel, Stathis! You haven’t figured that out yet?”

  “Answer the question,” I said. “You went to Yale. How’s that shitty little stage any different? ’Cause it’s hysterical, really.”

  “There is a difference. There’re ways to spend your time and money. You sell privileged ignorance or indifference. I’m done with your EBS bullshit. You’re on your own.”

  My heart was pounding. “You need to make money to be able to spend any,” I said.

  Erik stared at me, stunned, for a good three seconds. “I don’t have sixty bucks for fuckups like you,” he said, stood up, and grabbed his backpack, searching for something inside. “Fuck,” he muttered.

  “Neither do I. That’s why I see them when I see them. And I eat with Melissa and listen to her. It’s called life. And if I wanna have an impact, I have to listen and talk. I don’t ban. I don’t become binary, Erik, with-us-or-against-us.”

  “You excuse them, and that makes you a pathetic little dick.” He started packing.

  “Man, you’re not listening to me! Are they clumsy? Fucked up? Sure. But who isn’t? Look around you. Sustainability? There was never any sustainability!” I pointed at his magazine. “Open your fucking bible. It’s full of life cycles. This notion of perpetuity is made up! Fahey went to fucking business school. Mike Davis used analysts to write his books. What the fuck?”

  Erik laughed. “You cunt! Weren’t you the one asking Zemar for sustainability? Know what? You think you can consult me, but you’re just being dumb. Or you’ll say anything out of desperation.”

  I was standing next to him without breathing. “Either way, fucked up,” I said.

  He let his backpack drop. “I don’t want to see them again.”

  “How old are you?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I want to punch you so hard right now.”

  I pushed him onto the bed and pressed hard against his torso. “Look at me, man.”

  “Fuck you,” he whispered.

  “Look how good I am. Just look at me.”

  He cupped my face, hurting me. “Move to New York,” he said.

  Locked in his stare, I felt his breath. I was living by the day.

  EIGHT

  DEEP, DEEP DOWN, SOMEHOW, SOMETHING didn’t go exactly as planned, and that’s why most of you are here.” That was our dean’s opening line in his EBS welcome speech. Four years later, nothing could better have captured my move to New York.

  “What does it matter where you live?” Alkis said over the phone from London. “You are a consultant. You live where you work.” Plus, I had nothing to figure out about New York, he argued.

  “I got New York credit!” I joked, but he had a point. Empire Diner, US Open seats from Command, Melissa, ambitious misfits. I could see my move as a simple technicality.

  In February 2006 I called my super in San Francisco and told him that I wouldn’t be renewing my lease. He could keep my airbed and coffee table. In return, he agreed to ship my EBS books across the country.

  The night I moved in, the bartender at Billymark’s fixed three tequila shots. “Here’s to our neighborhood newbie!”

  “Easiest move ever!” I cheered my sublet of a small studio—it had a decent patio, though—down the street from the bar.

  “You call this moving?” Erik laughed. “Stathis, you never moved! Everything’s furnished, delivered, how do you call it, er, outsourced!” He kept laughing. “Three times a day, seven days a week.”

  “Who cooks for one?” I said with a shrug.

  “You’re making a Chateau Marmont cottage in west Chelsea,” Erik said, and downed his shot.

  “Yeah, okay,” I said, and threw mine back.

  Erik nodded to the bartender. “Keep them coming.”

  My first official fall in New York was split between workdays in Princeton and weekends in my studio, on West Twenty-Ninth Street. In New Jersey, I led a Command team in building an oncology strategy for a major pharmaceutical company that was fighting off a biotech. I was assigned Gawel and Justin—an Alkis mini-me, a fresh-from-Tuck, work-and-party-hard associate. Things ran smoothly.

  Erik—his place a couple of blocks from mine—was on my patio with or without me. He fought off squirrels and brought over leftover plants from Hudson River Park by Twelfth Avenue. He had people over, and let friends of friends crash in my absence. He drank my wine and moved my Economist stash next to the toilet because “they wanted Clinton to walk,” he explained.

  “I thought they kinda retracted that,” I lazily protested.

  “The damage was done, wasn’t it?” Erik responded quickly. “And they didn’t exactly oppose the invasion in Iraq either.”

  He made Greek salads—good ones, too—in my strictly-one-person kitchen, and talked about how he’d make “real salads” when the tomatoes he planted came into season, “if those damn squirrels don’t get ’em first.” He began to befriend my neighbors and the kids on
the basketball court across from the post office at the end of my block. He went to “organic bullshit” markets and found furniture on the streets on Wednesday nights, our neighborhood’s recycling day, and carried them up the two flights of stairs.

  “Have you heard of bedbugs?” I asked once. But when it came to domesticity, I was always brushed off.

  “Didn’t you use to take in dogs from around your village?”

  I began to register details, the silly trivia people talk about when they describe relationships: the exact spot on Erik’s face where he always started shaving. The way he took off and put on his work shirts—already buttoned up. His gymlike rhythm while working on the patio: brisk before a halt, then all fired up again as he moved a plant or a bag of soil. His caring, protective voice when he talked on the phone to his older brother, Kevin—a strange dance that I couldn’t explain except by the fact that Erik was the book-smarter of the two. In a way, Kevin gave me hope. I would never become Jeevan, the saint, or Zemar, the daredevil, but I could be Kevin, accepted and loved just the way he was, the fund manager absolved.

  “Plants are more important than art or work,” Erik said that spring, and another time I would have fired back, “What about people?” But the patio was bonding us, we were getting along, and I was in New York, finally making a home.

  SOMEHOW THINGS BEGAN TO MAKE sense. Between managing Andrea and having Erik and that silly patio, between reading, cooking, and drinking, I thought I was on my way to adulthood. I was relaxed, and it turned out to be one of the most peaceful, productive, and loving times of my life.

  We read on a futon that Erik had dragged onto the patio next to the tomatoes, beneath quarreling squirrels, neighbors having sex, and sirens screaming down Ninth Avenue.

  “I kinda like the police sound track,” I said during a nonfiction Sunday.

  “Narcissist!”

  I chuckled. “Where did that come from?”

  “You’ll get it,” Erik said, and kept reading.

  “I grew up listening to waves. Sirens are exciting.”

  “They’re exciting ’cause you’ll never be chased by them.”