Something Great and Beautiful

by Enrico Pellegrini

  I tried to transcribe them in somehow legal terms. “The payments listed hereunder are to a consultant who has requested to be paid in cash. The wire transfers to the COA bank account are to a not-for-profit entity, pursuant to a grant the Company wishes to honor.”

  I faxed everything back to the SEC.

  On August 31 Rosso Fiorentino rang the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange and Focaccia House became publicly listed. People, and the Street, believed in a business that created more jobs than tech companies, and even more jobs than McDonald’s. The banks were happy to invest in a product that you could smell, touch, and eat, as opposed to impalpable software. Insurance companies saw their profits skyrocket with a diet not based on red meat and that decreased the risk of heart attacks. And frankly who wouldn’t invest in the business after trying a slice of Don Otto’s?

  Focaccia House’s IPO surpassed the one for VISA, which had taken place just a few months earlier. It was the largest IPO in U.S. history.

  CHLOÉ VERDI

  May 4, 2009, New York

  id you love Rosso Fiorentino, or did you want to take his place?” asked the prosecutor. I suddenly realized his terrifying strategy.

  “In those days everybody wanted to be Rosso Fiorentino,” I said. “Even Rosso himself.”

  ROSSO FIORENTINO

  Labor Day 2008, New York City

  hen I walked out on the terrace this morning I had a good feeling, just as I had on the day I started Focaccia House. I was in my pajamas and the sun was rising over Central Park. I could hear the distant whistle of the skyscrapers waking up, wind scraping against steal, sling, sling, that sound slot machines make when the coins are coming down. The gray and pink air over Harlem suggested the beginning of a hot summer day. For the briefest moment I thought I could do some writing, but the thought quickly vanished. While Franco was opening the terrace’s blue awning, Elena rested a tray with coffee and the papers on the table.

  I had flown Elena and Franco over from Italy; they had worked for my parents some years ago and were looking for jobs. Franco specialized in cooking Southern Italian cuisine and Elena (who had also been my nanny) Northern Italian cuisine; her handmade agnolotti were unbeatable. I now no longer heard old Greeks snoring, or the rattle of the N train in the distance. I occupied a $160 million penthouse at 240 Central Park South, but according to the IRS, I was living beneath my means. “At least get yourself a fucking penthouse, if you want to look like a respectable CEO,” had been Martin’s recommendation.

  I had hired an up-and-coming interior designer named Alexandra Sharpe, asking her to furnish the place to make me look like a CEO. I was terrified, though, that she might actually be able to do that. I guess that was my problem: Did I want to look like someone I didn’t want to be? Do something great and beautiful, the Maestro had said. Had I succeeded? Was this it?

  And if so, why did I continue to hear demons inside? A coma is like exposing film to the sun before the image can be printed: I couldn’t remember anything about those ten minutes that, seven years ago, had defined my life and taken that of Marinella, the woman I loved. According to the police report I was driving on the wrong side of the road. Why was I passing a car while a truck was coming at full speed in the other direction? The combined impact of the two vehicles in the collision was 120 miles an hour. Why was I driving into a wall at 120 miles an hour? According to the police report my alcohol level was zero. Why was I soberly going full speed into death? The money I was now making was not answering any of these questions.

  After the car accident I decided to change. I stopped going to parties. I was no longer a good-for-nothing and had rolled up my sleeves. The company I had founded was a success. So why were the demons still here, maybe louder than ever? Had I not changed?

  Alexandra Sharpe, the very talented interior designer I’d hired, had first furnished the penthouse with microfibers, blue couches, and dragonfly Tiffany lamps. “There,” she said. “You now look like a high-powered CEO…not cool?” Seeing my hesitation she had tried Sven grass-green sofas and Meurice rectangular chandeliers. “Or are you looking for the sophisticated executive type?” Because I wasn’t convinced, she transitioned to Venetian Gothic with yellow damask pillows and Murano lamps. “See, the beauty and imperfection of the Venetian Granita marble kind of gets it, no?” Still sensing some hesitation on my part, she refurnished the entire house in an Ottoman Turkish style. “Look,” she said at some point. “I know you’ve paid my full commission, but we’re getting nowhere. Do you want me around so that you can peek up my skirt?” she asked peacefully, without resentment. “And if it’s not even that, I have no idea what we’re doing here. I don’t have the faintest clue what type of CEO you want to be.” She ended up conceding that the best decision was to leave the place completely empty, and I should go out and buy myself some art.

  “And this,” said Elena, withholding a smile, placing a letter on the tray next to the papers, in the bright Manhattan dawn.

  I signed the H1-B immigration visa petition letter, and took a sip of coffee.

  “Wonderful. Now my nephew will be working for Don Otto as well!” Elena said, clapping her hands.

  “I don’t know if it’s wonderful,” I said. “Anyway, he’ll be working for Adam. Don’s left.”

  “Well, he’s in love,” said Elena, tidying her gray hair that was turning white. “I too would rather be in love than make money. And you, Rosso, when are you going to find yourself a nice girl instead of going out with prostitutes? There are a lot of nice girls in New York.”

  “But they’re more expensive than the prostitutes,” I objected reasonably.

  “You’ve changed. You think only about money.”

  It was six o’clock on a Monday morning when I arrived at the office. Sixth Avenue was oddly empty, and the streetlights were uselessly turning green. Once my life had been about going from one party to the next; now it was all about work. I walked inside our offices at 1203 Sixth Avenue, which were sitting on top of our first Manhattan bakery. I straightened my ash-gray double-breasted jacket in front of the mirror’s elevator. Had I really changed? After cleaning up my desk, I checked the futures on Focaccia House’s ticker (FH) in the Wall Street Journal, + 0.47. Yes, I have changed, I thought, relieved by how meticulously I was reviewing the data. The phone rang.

  “Delivery for you,” said the tired, rough voice of our security guard.

  “What is it? I’m not expecting anything,” I said.

  “Breakfast. Focaccia.”

  Even though I had already had breakfast, I couldn’t say no. I hated wasting food, especially focaccia. I walked into the empty hall. I watched the light of the elevator tick off each floor one by one with a ring. As the elevator doors slid open, the delivery boy walked out and said, “Promotional offer!”

  I looked in my pockets for two dollars plus tip. “Here you go.”

  The delivery boy energetically shook his head, which was hidden under a visor, refusing the money, and pulled the package from his satchel. The package brushed against the white T-shirt with Focaccia House emblazoned on it. The T-shirt slightly bounced. It was actually a delivery girl. The uniform was a bit tight and I could make out two firm breasts unsupported by a bra just below the white cotton.

  “Promotional offer!” she repeated, refusing even to take the tip.

  “Look, Miss,” I said, beginning to lose my patience. “I didn’t order any breakfast and there is no promotional offer.”

  Then from under the visor she looked at me, and I recognized the petroleum-green eyes that had carried away our generation. Now they sparkled, clearly but a bit tired, like the sea in September.

  “How did you know I was here?” I asked.

  “Where else would you be?” said Chloé. “Do you like my new uniform? I fired myself.”

  “You fired yourself?”

  “Kidding. I’m just on a leave
, I got a bit burned out by your IPO…but you’re not telling me if you like my new uniform.”

  “I like it,” I said, smiling. I looked at the white T-shirt with Focaccia House emblazoned across the front. “Maybe it’s a little tight.”

  She lowered her eyes, fixing them on the laces of her gym shoes. “Do you want to have breakfast with me in Central Park?”

  “I have a lot of work to do.”

  “Come on, Rosso, it’s Labor Day.”

  So we walked out toward Seventh Avenue, where there was now the usual late-summer activity. People were starting to arrive from the suburbs, and the police were blocking off Fifth Avenue to let the parade pass by. It was a hot, windy morning. I don’t know why I felt out of place being there with her and not being behind my desk working—just as in the past I would have felt uneasy without a gin and tonic in my hand. We didn’t talk much. Now and then, she tossed her visor up into the air and caught it coming down. Then she pointed to the steps of the University Club, where two barefooted men were eating a tray of sage focaccia.

  “See, that there is a promotional offer…you’re giving out free food!” said Chloé with a little cry; with her enthusiasm she manipulated the world, but no longer me. “It’s all over the papers that Focaccia House’s stands are feeding the bums across the five boroughs.”

  She picked up the visor off the ground, which, this time, she had missed coming down.

  “It’s all free publicity,” I said.

  “Feeding three thousand bums a day?” she said, unconvinced. “A first-rate ad agency like BBDO would cost you a third of the price.”

  “BBDO would cost the same and is not entirely tax deductible. Didn’t you go to the University of Chicago?”

  Chloé covered her eyes from the sunlight to look at me. “You’ve changed, Rosso.”

  We continued down Seventh Avenue toward Broadway. The sun was already strong and it shimmered over the hot dog vendors’ stands. It was one of those days when you wish to be in love, but I could only hear the harsh sound of my own voice. I had spoken to her as if she were my employee. Now and then we walked into a shop, then out again onto the dirty sidewalks of Broadway beneath the billings for the musicals. She stopped in front of a red Spider Man’s cape that was blowing in the wind on the corner of Forty-second Street and Seventh. The shop was a mix between a costume store and a video rental.

  “I’ve never seen it,” said Chloé. A broken light barely lit the inside. “I’ve never seen your film.”

  “What film?”

  “I’ve done my due-diligence, remember?” she said with a defiant look.

  “There’s nothing to see.”

  “There’s a lot to see!” She laughed. “It’s a porn movie. Do you think it’s out on DVD?”

  Even though I had learned to be afraid of desires, she looked at me in the same way she had looked at me that night on the promenade in Rapallo, against the railing, the moment before she kissed me. This time, I felt nothing. Also her breasts bouncing under her T-shirt left me unmoved. I have changed, I thought, comforted.

  “It’s better if you see if SL&B will take you back.”

  “Rosso, how could you be a star in a porn film?”

  “I was an extra,” I said, and started walking again.

  By the time we strolled down the last stretch of Broadway, it was almost evening. Chloé had spent the day going inside every shop on Sixth Avenue, trying on flip-flops, baseball caps, and all of the Uniqlo’s sweaters on sale, but without buying anything.

  I was still trying to find a way to get rid of her, or to have her disappear. The skyscrapers on Central Park South were lighting up in a checkerboard pattern. Dark gray clouds were regrouping in the sky for a last summer storm.

  “And now, where are you going?” she asked. “It’s dinnertime and we still haven’t had breakfast. And it’s about to pour.”

  When I stepped down below the grating in front of the Pierre Hotel on Sixty-first and Fifth, the usual smell of pot was floating up. The joint now looked like a cross between a storage space and a home office, with its flat-screen TV, the new iBook computer, and a laser printer. I immediately noticed, however, that the moving company had not followed my instructions. The Crate & Barrel’s boxes were piled up next to the iron ladder while the one with the pricey Claremont double-deck glass coffee table had been opened.

  “Why did they leave everything here?” I asked.

  “I told them to do so,” said Martin, the bum-economist.

  He was sitting on the pricey crystal table and was gazing at the fishnet—which in theory was supposed to decorate the top of the coffee table, and which instead he had hung just below the grating, so that it would catch the cigarette butts and chewing gum that passersby threw down.

  “It looks like an art display in a loft. Don’t you think?” said Martin, pointing to the fishnet catchall.

  “Why did you tell them to leave everything here? They were supposed to take everything away…”

  Martin crossed his legs on the glass coffee table. “How much did you spend on all this stuff, four hundred grand?”

  “You told me that if I wanted to look like a successful CEO, I needed to get myself a penthouse. Do you think that a credible financial consultant lives under a grating?”

  “I have no incentives to leave. I have the chicest grating in town.”

  Just as I was slowly transitioning into being a CEO, he was taking his time transitioning out of being a bum.

  “Let’s see,” I said as I took out my cell phone, “if the NYPD has a better incentive plan and kicks you out.”

  “I’m kidding,” he said. “Tomorrow the moving company is carting everything to the place you got me in Astoria.” He looked out onto the sidewalk at Chloé with her black, loose hair, who was tossing her visor up under the first drops of rain and who was still waiting for me. Then he picked up two pieces of paper that resembled our company’s balance sheet. He must have printed them off the Internet from our Edgar filing with the SEC. “Keep your eyes on the numbers, Rosso. You’re expanding too quickly. You’re taking on too much debt.”

  We arrived at 240 Central Park South completely soaked. My double-breasted jacket had turned into an exotic salad—dressed with Norway maple leaves and mud—and her T-shirt clung to her skin and was see-through. Chloé had refused to disappear and now wanted a tour of my house. When the elevator doors opened onto my apartment, our ears popped from the change in pressure. As a good-for-nothing, you may take a certain pride in showing your nine-bedroom apartment. I diligently walked her through the completely empty penthouse, across the Tuscan tile floors (the sole contribution of my interior designer), in front of the old masters’ paintings (which I had purchased from a Manhattan gallery—can you imagine that they cost less than a Damien Hirst?), in front of the El Greco, the Cranach the Elder, the Rosso Fiorentino (to whom I owed my stage name), and through the oleanders, which I had planted inside the library to impress the escorts. When the tour was over, though, so too was the fun.

  I could do some writing at The Deck, or go and see McEnroe, I thought randomly as she disappeared inside a powder room to change. I remembered I had tickets for the Senior Tournament at Madison Square Garden that night. Could I go and leave her here? You can lose all the money, but never lose your manners, my father always said. To my surprise, while Chloé freshened up, I began to groom myself with great care. I slipped inside a light end-of-summer gabardine suit, put on a pigeon-blood-red Battistoni tie, and squirted Drakkar Noir (which I no longer inhaled but used conventionally as cologne) on my wrists—perhaps too much care for an over-fifty tennis exhibition. But if I invite her, she’ll think that I’m still into her. I went to sit on the terrace.

  The opening of the terrace’s glass door interrupted my thoughts. If she had walked into the powder room as a delivery boy, she emerged as a cross between a Whiskey Park waitress
and a Ghirlandaio Madonna. She was naked up to her thighs, wearing only a white monogrammed shirt of mine that she must have found somewhere. On her head she had tied a towel. A few curls fell out, along the white line of her neck, like a handful of problems.

  “Wow, we’re up high,” said Chloé with a little cry, letting herself fall on one of the terrace’s deck chairs. “The house is a bit empty though. Maybe an interior designer could come in handy…” She paused in our awkward silence. “You could at least offer me a ginger ale. I did save your IPO, after all.”

  I took out the bottle of Drakkar Noir from my jacket’s pocket.

  “Okay, no ginger ale,” she said. “Why are you not saying anything?”

  I read the instructions on the back of the Drakkar Noir bottle, searching for the words.

  “You didn’t like me when I was broke,” I said. “You like me now that I’m rich.”

  “I liked you when you were broke. I didn’t like that you were spoiled.”

  “What’s the difference?” I asked.

  “Maybe I should go,” Chloé said, standing up. “There’s a party downtown at nine.”

  Although I had been hoping all day that she would leave, at that moment I felt a stitch somewhere between my chest and my lungs.

  “Where are you going, to see Franz, Andy, or Buvlovski?” Suddenly all the words were coming out at once.

  “It was better when you didn’t say anything.”

  “Or are drugs enough for you?”

  The wind had pushed away the black clouds, and five stars appeared at the far end of Central Park above the Reservoir. They formed an O with a crooked accent.