What Men Want

by Deborah Blumenthal

  Reilly was seated at the bar with his hand around a glass of scotch. He swiveled around as I walked up to him and sat on the bar stool next to him.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said. He looked at me with a small smile on his face. No matter what he was thinking, Reilly always looked as if admiring a woman was the first thing on his mind. I turned away momentarily, breaking eye contact.

  “What are you drinking?” he asked as the bartender approached.

  “White wine,” I said, even though a dry martini seemed more appropriate.

  “I got a table,” he said after my drink arrived. The waiter carried our glasses over and we sat down at a round table covered with a starched white cloth. What I really wanted was to just sit back and enjoy what was sure to be a fabulous steak dinner. I wanted to finish the glass of wine and then order another and forget about the story, and about Chris and the fact that I’d have to move out of our apartment. All I wanted was to laugh, make small talk and be distracted and pretend that he was someone else, someone with a private jet who could fly me down to a posh resort for a weekend so that I could assume the role of society princess instead of hardworking, underpaid journalist. But instead, the meal would be wasted on me. Knowing that I was about to write a column that was sure to indict him took the edge off my appetite.

  “You’re still tan,” Reilly said.

  “I think it’s more of a windburn from the storm,” I said, smiling briefly. The waiter handed us menus, but neither of us looked at them. “Rib eye, rare, with fries,” he said. I ordered the same.

  “So what is it?” I asked, studying his face, aware of a small area of his chin where he had nicked himself while shaving.

  “You met Marilyn,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “What did you think of her?”

  “Smart, tough. I wouldn’t want her as my enemy.” He smiled.

  “I never intended to hurt her. We had an intimate relationship, but things change and you grow apart. At that point it makes no sense to continue working together on a day-to-day basis. She didn’t see it that way.”

  “Did you expect her to just smile benignly and walk away?”

  “I thought she was tougher than she is,” Jack said. “I thought she could handle a relationship with a married man. I never made any pretenses, but clearly I was wrong, and now I’m paying the price.”

  “What did she tell you about our meeting?” I asked, not showing my hand.

  “You did your job well,” he said. “I know what you have. She kept copies of everything.”

  “I wondered how you were able to convince Alex and the gang to be your guests,” I said. “She explained that to me.”

  “Despite what you may think about it, I’ve known these people for a long time. We had business to discuss. I’m part owner of the hotel so it didn’t cost me anything, and it really wasn’t a big deal to invite them to come down for a few days to go over details. It’s winter, who doesn’t want to get away?”

  I nodded, and he went on.

  “Anyway, we wanted to work in the city, not give the business to the Canadians,” he said. “It didn’t hurt the country or the city, just the opposite. I single-handedly brought in tens of millions of dollars.” Hmm, I thought to say, maybe they should have a ticker-tape parade for you.

  It always amazes me how people can explain away things that they have done wrong and, in fact, knew were wrong at the time. It is as though the laws simply didn’t apply to them, or were just plain irrelevant. He must have gathered my cynicism from the expression on my face.

  “I’ve done things wrong over the past five years,” Jack said. “I don’t deny that. But now that I’ve made all the money that I could possibly want, it doesn’t matter. Everything’s falling apart,” he said, “and you know what? I don’t give a goddamn anymore.”

  I looked at him strangely. I’d never met anyone like Jack Reilly. He was a real curiosity to me. The Hollywood honcho from a rarefied world who made his own rules. I sat there waiting for him to go on. Part of me wanted to pull out the notebook that I had in my purse, or click on the tape recorder, but I knew he wouldn’t talk as freely. Clearly, everything was on the record, but he wouldn’t be as relaxed if I were scribbling away.

  “You might not believe this,” Jack said, “but when you and I were sitting together on the beach talking about people getting married on the boat, it struck me that despite all the success I’ve had on a business level and all my relationships with women, I wasn’t happy with my life, or the way that I was living it. I really did want to stay and get away from everything.” He looked at me intently.

  I looked back at him, trying to decide how much of what he was saying was truthful, and how much was designed to seduce me to the point of being kind to him—in print. If he was acting, he was doing a bang-up job.

  “Anyway,” he went on, “I’ve decided that I’m getting out of the business. I’ve given the city notice that someone else is taking my place as the head of production, and over the course of the next few months, I’ll be meeting with my lawyers to close the company.”

  To say that I was shocked was an understatement. And because deep down my gut instincts are always to believe that someone is telling the truth, despite the kind of stories that fill my newspaper indicating that the opposite is usually the case, part of me wanted to say that it was okay, that I was killing the column and all the damning evidence that I had against him. I waited for him to go on, but he just sat there, staring at me. He reached over to put his hand over mine.

  “You’re full of surprises,” I said, pulling my hand back. “I wish it were otherwise, Jack, but you know that I can’t hold back what I have.”

  “I didn’t expect you to,” he said. “But now you know there’s more to the story, and I figured that I’d give it to you instead of having Slaid Warren report it with his particular slant.”

  “He’s a pretty good reporter,” I said, not knowing why I felt that I had to defend Slaid.

  “He said the same thing about you.” That surprised me. Maybe it was just his way of showing Jack that he was an all right guy.

  “That’s a switch.”

  “What does it take to break through that protective bubble around you?” Reilly said. I couldn’t help feeling his presence closing in on me, like air that was imperceptibly filling with poison gas. I looked back at him in his five-thousand-dollar black silk Brioni suit with the cool yellow silk necktie and wondered what he liked more, the women or the challenge.

  The food came and we sat there for a few minutes without talking as we ate. Finally, I turned to him.

  “There’s no protective bubble,” I said. “I just try to keep my professional life separated from my personal life.”

  “I tried that too,” Reilly said. “So much for my resolve.” I started to laugh, and so did he.

  “So what are you going to do now?” I asked, changing the direction we were going in.

  “Meet with my lawyers and try to straighten things out,” he said, as if he assumed that he could unwrite history if he had the right legal defense. Of course, he was partially right. He paused and then added, “And my wife and I are filing for divorce.” I looked up at him, surprised. It was none of my business, but I asked anyway.

  “Was that her idea or yours?”

  “Mutual.”

  “She knew about your dalliances,” I said, unable to help myself. “Why did she stay with you?” He looked at me as if the answer was obvious.

  “Love.”

  “So where is your new life going to take you?”

  “I’m going to buy a place in the Caribbean and live down there for a while. I’ll buy a boat and…” He shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  It struck me that our encounter might have been responsible for changing the course of his life. I wondered whether he wanted to thank me or murder me.

  “I hope you can start over when all of this is behind you.”

  “I have to try,” he said. At t
hat moment, the waiter came over to clear our table and handed us both dessert menus.

  “Devil’s food cake?” Reilly asked with a wink.

  I shook my head, sliding my chair back. “I have to get back.”

  He motioned for the check. I was going to get up and leave him at the table paying the bill—then thought better of it. After being in this business for a while, I’ve learned that the moment you think the interview is over and put away your notebook, you sometimes get your best material. I waited while he signed the check and then we walked out together toward the street.

  “I’ll get you a cab.”

  I’m fine,” I said, starting to flag down a cab as it pulled up to the front door. He opened the door for me and I stood there for a moment. “Which way are you going? Can I drop you off?”

  “I’ve got a suite upstairs,” he said. He turned to me. “I’ve brought millions of dollars into New York. No one was hurt. Isn’t that more important than pointing a finger at a few people?”

  “You can’t operate outside the law, Jack.”

  He shook his head in frustration. “I’m sorry we didn’t meet under other circumstances. We would have enjoyed each other.”

  I nodded and my cab sped off. After a few minutes, it occurred to me that I hadn’t asked him whether he was pulling out of his investment in the Caribbean hotel as well. I dialed the hotel and asked for Jack Reilly. A moment passed, and then I heard the phone ringing. On the third ring, a woman answered. I hung up without saying anything. The voice struck me as familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Just as the cab reached the front door of my building, I realized who it was.

  When I walked through the door of Chris’s apartment now it seemed as though I were returning to someone else’s place, and an earlier chapter in my life. I felt like a stranger to the man I had been sleeping with. So what did I do? I started to look through Chris’s drawers. What was I hoping to accomplish? Evidence, I guess. I was curious to know where he had been taking her, how serious it was, what would happen between them—everything, really. Methodically, I went through his underwear drawer, his desk drawers, even his appointment book, like a thief combing for any nugget of value.

  What I found: not a lot. There were receipts for dinners for the week when I was away, but they certainly didn’t indicate that he had been taking her to four-star restaurants or had been shopping in fancy Madison Avenue boutiques. Of course. Why would they go out to dinner in top restaurants when they could frolic in her giant hot tub and screw on her white silk lounges overlooking Central Park. As far as gifts, no, Chris didn’t shower women with luxurious trinkets, but anyway, what could she possibly need?

  Most models I knew dressed down when they weren’t working, as if they made a point of trying to look as plain as a gorgeous girl could look which, of course, had the opposite effect, accentuating their perfection. Still, I felt as though I wanted to know the enemy and I kept on checking. After desk drawers, bureau drawers and the basket of odds and ends near the phone didn’t reveal much, I thought of one more place to investigate: Chris’s laptop.

  Did I dare go through his e-mails? That really smacked of sleaziness and distrust. It was base and unethical, like going through someone’s diary. Once the thought took possession of me, however, I couldn’t get rid of it. What the hell, the relationship was in the gutter. He had cheated on me, why should I take the high road? As far as unethical, he’d raised the bar.

  I sat down and opened his Outlook Express e-mail program, going through various files, but most of them were filled with e-mails about passwords and user IDs and the occasional business transaction or notice of upcoming meetings. Then I went to Sent Mail. That way I could read the e-mails that he’d sent her or at least how he’d replied to hers. I went through a bunch of back-and-forths with the office, and then came to an ID—Bridgetcvrgrl. Obviously when Bridget wasn’t posing in front of a camera, she enjoyed sending out e-mails. There must have been a hundred. I scanned through some of them.

  Sounds cool, I’ll call you later—was his response to:

  Hey Chris, finish at 4. Wanna order Pizza and try the Jacuzzi? Need to have fun, this day is A DISASTER!

  Can’t wait. Thanks Bridge came after:

  My masseuse is coming over at 7. She’s great. (And so am I!) Want a massage?

  I’ll pick up some sushi. Call me!

  Bridge—stuck at the office. The campaign is swallowing up my life. Want to come up here and keep me company? Otherwise I’ll meet you at your place. Keep the bed warm. Chris

  And from Bridgetcvrgrl: I’ll be waiting in bed. Totally YOURS, B

  And finally the one from her inviting him up to her country place. He replied: So hot to see you, I’m ready to run outta this place now. C After she wrote:

  Come with me to Connecticut. We can sleep late and go sledding. It’ll be fun to just get away together, don’t you think? Kisses and more, B

  So hot to see her? And keep the bed warm? I could do that. I wanted to get a can of gasoline and light a match under his bed. I resisted the temptation to slam the screen. My other temptation was to turn off his antivirus program so that he’d come back to a laptop full of viruses. Was there a Web site where you could pick up viruses to send them to others—justdeserts.com?

  I packed enough clothes for a couple of days. If it was okay with Ellen, I’d go to her apartment. If not, I’d go to a hotel. I liked small boutique hotels, so I could pretend that I was just getting away for a few days. Even though Chris probably wouldn’t be coming back to sleep, I hated the idea of spending another night in the bed that we’d shared. I called Ellen.

  “My guest room’s ready,” she said. “It’s all yours.” I already had her keys.

  When my tote bag was packed, I grabbed my laptop and locked the door behind me.

  I entered Ellen’s apartment on East Seventy-second Street and felt as though I was beginning a new life. How long would it be until I had a place of my own? This was like going back in time. No doubt I’d end up with a studio apartment. With rents and co-op prices what they were, one room would probably be all that I could afford. Ellen was already asleep, so I locked the door and went into the guest room. It was cozy, inviting, painted forest green. Against the wall was a queen-size brass bed covered with a pale yellow and white Amish quilt. A stack of folded white towels were at the foot of the bed. The walls were lined with bookshelves. I walked around the room looking at the pictures that she had on some of the shelves. There was a new one that I hadn’t seen in a small Adirondack-style wooden frame. It was a picture of Ellen and Moose standing on the edge of a mountain in their snowshoes. They both looked red cheeked and healthy, wearing thick jackets and hats. They had big smiles on their faces as though they welcomed having their picture taken and that moment in time recorded.

  Did I have pictures of me and Chris? Somewhere. I wanted to study them now to see if we looked that happy together. We hadn’t traveled much together since one of us was always tied up when the other was free. And if we did take pictures, what would they tell me? Would I be able to divine how well we had related to each other? Would his expression tell me how close he’d felt to me? There were psychics who could look at current pictures of people and intuit enough information to tell you what was going on in their lives. Would I be able to look into Chris’s eyes and know what was ahead for him, or for us?

  I washed up and undressed, slipping between the fresh white sheets. I was just a guest in Ellen’s house, but I felt as though life had arbitrarily relocated me to an unfamiliar world. I was single again, unattached, but this time, instead of feeling free and open to new relationships, I felt as though life had deserted me. With more and more time passing, my options were running out. Breakups were harder when you were older, and whether it was justified or not, I began to feel as though some personal failure of mine was behind the fact that I couldn’t link up with someone who was right for me, while just about every other woman, good-looking or not, smart or not, successful or not,
managed to find someone to spend her life with.

  “Every pot has its cover,” my grandmother used to say. Well, this pot was still uncovered, exposed and ready to boil over.

  Ellen would already be gone when I got up in the morning. She was energetic, committed, a real dynamo when it came to getting things done. Maybe she was the perfect match for Moose. I pulled the covers up around me. Instead of relationships, I fell asleep thinking about Reilly and the column. I didn’t look forward to writing it. It was never fun to do pieces that were basically character assassinations. Still, it would be a bombshell. It would blow Slaid out of the water.

  The next morning, after stopping for coffee, I made my way into the office, arriving earlier than usual. It was quiet, almost deserted. Good, I wasn’t in the mood to make small talk with my colleagues or overhear their phone conversations as I was writing. There was no privacy in the office. No one had offices, they had cubicles, and inevitably voices rose above the overall din. If someone’s kids didn’t get into a school, or if someone had to refinance their mortgage, you not only heard about it, you heard it being discussed and then analyzed as the recipient talked to others and chewed it over. I remember writing one column while hearing a blow-by-blow of the birth process right down to “nine centimeters dilated,” and then the “crowning.”

  I sat down at my computer and pressed the power button. I was about to go right to work, but before I did, I opened the Trib to glance at what Slaid had done. I started reading and immediately put my coffee cup down and pushed my chair away from the computer. His column started out about the benefits of taking up residence in St. Croix, and then zeroed in on Reilly.

  Warm weather, sunlit skies and pristine beaches are just one reason to buy an ice cream-colored home in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Another one is to dodge the need to share your hard-earned money with Uncle Sam.