Naomi & Bradley, It All Comes Down… (Vodka & Vice, the Series Book 1)

by Angela Conrad

  Unless I start your actual office on fire just to make your corny joke finally reality.

  It’s another long day of peddling stock lingo, staring at green screens, and watching waves of lines move up and down. My mind drifts back in time and I lean on my open hands and sigh.

  “You’re not good enough Naomi, you’ll never be anything.”

  My childhood critic haunts me. Mom with the stern looks and even harsher words. She stored all her anger built up from my father’s affairs and channeled it towards a safer target, me. From my earliest memories I only remember being criticized. It was her specialty along with serving Jell-O for dinner dessert and humming off key.

  “Naomi, you’re too tall to catch a man.”

  “No one wants to know a smart talker.”

  “Too bad your hair is such a weird blonde, off-color shade. It looks like wet rice soaked in butter.”

  She used to sling her insults like David threw rocks with his slingshot, all with deadly aim.

  Twenty-five years of hearing her slights and I wonder how I can barely hold my head up alone. Not to mention graduating tenth in my class from NYU Leonard Stern School of Business.

  I glance at my watch.

  Six o’clock at night and Bradley never stopped by or called.

  I rub my eyes and my finger comes away shaded blue.

  “Guess Mom was right, I’ll never get a man, and if I do, I won’t be able to hold him.”

  I might own a “Top Manhattan SoHo Tribeca, 11th floor loft” but I’ll never be a woman a man will want for long.

  Seems like my mother was right about something.

  Chapter Four

  The boys are back in town

  BRADLEY

  Thursday, February 4th

  Manny doesn’t work. He’s one of those people who stumbles into money and lucky situations like he’s covered in four-leaf clovers, riding a leprechaun. For example, this apartment I woke up in this morning, sunlight slicing into my closed lids like one of Naomi’s Santoku knives, belongs to this dude who is always away, taking pictures of the tops of mountains or something. They met on Avenue B, when the dude’s Beagle broke leash and ran out in front of a Zipcar. Manny shoved himself between the dog and the car, somehow denting the car, but not getting injured himself. See what I mean about the luck? Two years later, Manny’s still living rent-free on the top floor of an awesome building on the lower east side, two doors down from the hottest restaurant in the city. He’s also never been in a relationship for more than a couple of months, so he doesn’t get it when I say I have to go and make things right with Naomi.

  “Dude! Let’s go get some grub, man. I’m starving.” Manny walks out into the all white living room where I’ve been half-sleeping all night. He is completely naked. I wonder what Naomi did all night? Probably shredded my clothes and set my Nutri-bullet on fire.

  “Nah, thanks for the couch, but I gotta go find Naomi. Explain some stuff.” I run my hand through my hair, rub my eyes, and try to wake up. The next thing I see is a leggy red head, all creamy skin and freckles, emerging from the master bedroom, tying up a hot pink wrap dress.

  “Diane Von Furstenberg?” I ask her.

  She grins. “Yeah! How’d you know that?”

  “I did a shoot for them one time. Still have the tux.”

  She looks at me a little closer, and…wait for it…whump, there it is: the look.

  “Hey, I know you. You’re the Devil of Deveraux.”

  “Nah, I just played him on a book cover,” I answer with a wink and a smile. Harmless flirting feels so freeing, like taking off a too-heavy coat.

  “Well, nice meeting you,” she says then lays a big one on Manny. “Gotta get to work…call me later?”

  Manny grabs her ass, pulls her back in. I turn away, study the contents of a pizza box, think about eating it. “Sure baby,” Manny says, escorting her to the door. My stomach growls so loudly, Manny whips around. “Homes, you sure you don’t wanna get something in your belly? Soldier shouldn’t go into battle with an empty stomach.”

  “You know what? I’m in. Maybe Naomi needs to miss me a little. I mean, I didn’t do anything wrong.” I’m building up a little healthy resentment now, changing my hurt and fear into anger. Manny stands there, laughing at me growing a backbone all of sudden at thirty-one.

  “Alright, alright, lemme just put on some clothes. I know a great place, couple blocks away. Let’s have some fun, man.” The doorbell rings and Manny, still buck naked, opens it up. A parade of models walks in, each kissing Manny on both cheeks before settling down around me on the couch. “Give me a sec, ladies; this here is my good friend Bradsky.” Manny has called me that ever since he met my Russian parents. The girls stare at me like I’m a tall frosty Diet Coke. Luckily, Manny’s a quick dresser.

  We end up in this secret Mexican speakeasy called Ole, hidden behind a Duane Reade on Fourth Street. A few years back, Manny loaned the owner some money to help open the place, and now he eats and drinks for free whenever he wants. It’s only around eleven in the morning, but damn if the place isn’t hopping with models, suits, a couple of Hollywood types, maybe in town for the Independent Film Festival. The food starts the second our asses hit the tooled leather seats.

  “Tequila?” Manny asks.

  I should say no. I should go to Naomi and explain everything. I should at least text her, let her know I’m not giving up that easy. But.

  I hear myself answer, “Oh hell YEAH.” Let the games begin.

  Chapter Five

  Seeing is believing

  NAOMI

  Thursday, February 4th

  Mr. Carl Swartz, balding, boney as a starving child, with fingers that can pinch you until you’re bruised, is my boss. He’s the keeper of my future, an old friend of my father, impossibly wealthy, and a horny old devil. He’s been married six times and had seven live-in mates. You can’t say he didn’t try.

  He’s been after me since I turned twenty-one, on my college graduation day, when he came to what my parents called a party for me. It was packed with their friends, Mother’s diverse group of trophy wives, artists and painters, past clients, future buyers, and ever-present admirers. Father’s cronies all huddled around the patio bar, swirling imported whiskeys and wines like robots with artificial hands. They talked about the stock market, as if it was a mystical palace holding stacks of golden bars, more Fort Knox than Wall Street. Carl Swartz was one of a few of Dad’s rowing buddies from his university days. I pictured them as the cast from the Great Gatsby book, all superior, self-indulgent, and hideously unhappy.

  Carl, and he insists I call him that, is only held off by the knowledge that I’m living with Bradley. A handsome, younger man in my bed keeps Carl’s nasty hands more in his pockets than on me. If he ever learns about my breakup with Bradley, Carl would move in for the kill, and I’m not sure I can stop him without jeopardizing my job, income, and future.

  My breakup with Bradley.

  I still can’t believe we are apart, that he cheated, then didn’t come back to talk or try to explain. In my fury at seeing him and Molly together in my loft, I told him to move out, leave, but I didn’t believe he would actually take me at my word and just disappear.

  I thought I meant more to him than that.

  I even believed he loved me.

  A large part of me expected him to come back that night, beg my forgiveness, give me a reason why he was seeing Molly. Offer me anything so I could forgive him and we could be together again.

  He didn’t.

  Worse, Bradley hasn’t called or sent me one text.

  It’s as if he’s fallen off a sailing ship, just like my parents had on the night of their mysterious deaths, and vanished under heavy waves. Never to be seen again. No bodies to mourn over, no last faces to see, just gone, snuffed out.

  I’m suddenly back to living in New York, a city of millions, and yet totally alone. I sniff as I walk, carrying heavy files along with my heavy heart. Carl has sent me down t
o Darren Broderick’s office with spreadsheet printouts like some damn intern. He has his two thousand dollar slacks in a twist because I shifted away from his lingering hand in this morning’s meeting. I know what this is, a lesson. Play along with me or you’ll be out on the street without a reference. If there is anything Carl loves more than himself, it’s power, and he jerks me around on a waxy thick string, making me dance when he feels rejected.

  I am so furious, I decide to walk and blow off the steam threatening to whoosh out of my ears. Until I remember how far this client’s office is from Wall Street. It’s a good forty-five minutes away on foot. I hail a cab, gaining one after several attempts, and climb inside the nasty bench seat, wiggling my painful toes. My heels pinching, my arches burning, I realize screaming or crying is about five seconds away from escaping my throat. I direct the driver to swerve over and drop me off outside a drugstore. I limp inside; buy some first aid cream, and a small box of Band-Aids, and fumble for my charge card. Blowing loose pieces of blonde hair out of my face, my crisp blouse now soiled and damp, I growl out loud, “Dammit!” Could this day get any worse?

  I cut through a disgusting alleyway, and get lost, pass a Mexican Restaurant hidden behind a Duane Reade on Fourth Street, and with the files slipping in my hands, I stop and adjust my grip while flexing my burning feet.

  While leaning against a lamppost, a delicious aroma hits me and I glance inside the Mexican Restaurant window and nearly drop my armful of paperwork.

  Bradley’s inside.

  With a group of people, several women, one is leaning closely into him, practically licking his lips as she listens to his words. I recognize Manny. Bradley’s friend and a guy that’s tried to hit on me several times when Bradley’s back was turned. They are all drinking tequila at lunch, toasting something.

  Probably Bradley’s newly found freedom.

  I didn’t think it could hurt this badly.

  Hell, his new date isn’t even Molly. How many women has he been seeing behind my back?

  Has Bradley tolerated me only for the use of my trendy Tribeca loft while dating as if he’s single?

  I just stand and stare, my mind both numb and pinched with disappointment. Manny looks up and sees me. He winks and grins. He thinks it’s funny, I can read the mischievous glance in his light eyes.

  I can guess what he’s thinking.

  “He doesn’t even miss you. Bradley has someone else the very next morning you stupid fool.”

  Our eyes lock and I feel mine flooding with tears. Manny grins wider. The sight of my pain excites him. He’s feeding on it, as if he’s a vampire watching my blood flow out of my veins and dripping onto the crowded pavement.

  He looks over at Bradley who is whispering intimately in some redhead’s ear, and I practically run down the street, gasping in shallow breaths as if my chest has been torn in two pieces.

  My pricy high heels tapping a deadly message with each step I take.

  Bradley and Molly.

  Bradley and Manny.

  Bradley and anyone but me.

  When I arrive at Darren Broderick’s office, he greets me personally, his eyes full of questions as to why I hiked through bad winter weather, too many city blocks, carrying these heavy files instead of just using our messenger.

  Darren is handsome, but not over the top hot like Bradley. Darren knows he’s attractive but he never flaunts it. I always thought he looked like the perfect husband kind of man, wide shoulders, secure with himself, and blessed with a shred of decency. I’m guessing he’s late thirties but he could be older. He has the face of someone who could be a father to children or faithful to a wife if he loved her enough.

  His mysterious deep green eyes hold concern and I wonder if my tears have left hideous marks embedded in my makeup, like a trail of blue smeared sorrow. I hand him the files, and softly brush my cheeks to see if I do have mascara lines, but they come back clean.

  “Naomi, what’s old man Swartz thinking, sending you out in this weather, coming all the way over here to my building with these heavy files?”

  We exchange glances and I see it. Darren Broderick knows. Probably everyone knows, but Bradley, who never cared enough to catch the hidden touches Carl injected, the nudges to my hip, Carl licking his lips when he looked at me too long.

  “Punishment,” I blurt out, wanting to be honest about something. I know it’s not professional, but my mind is encrusted with grief, and I feel suddenly vengeful.

  “Come back to my office,” Darren says rather harshly and I wonder if I’ve overstepped everything with my one word complaint.

  We enter his slick corner office, all leather, and old money, and he pours me a glass of water, adding ice cubes from his bar.

  “That damn bastard.”

  “What?”

  “Swartz. What did you do this time; have to push his hand off your thigh?”

  I smile. It feels good. Sharing my predicament with someone. Never once in eighteen months have I been able to make Bradley understand my position at work. When I’d try to explain, he’d laugh it off with a smart remark, like, “Well, sure he’s going to look honey, you’re hot.”

  I come back to the present and reply, “His hand on my ass.”

  “Old lecherous bastard. Why do you put up with it?”

  “I risk my job if I say anything. Carl Swartz is a powerful man on Wall Street. I can’t risk having him ruin my name. And he would. He’s spiteful when he doesn’t get his way.”

  “Have your live-in boyfriend Brian speak to him.”

  “It was Bradley, and we’re not together anymore.”

  He sits behind his massive desk, old Mediterranean and expensive. He folds his hands like a church steeple and frowns.

  “When did that happen?”

  “Recently. Thanks, but I can handle Carl myself. I’ve been doing it for five years.”

  “You shouldn’t have to handle it at all. That old buzzard should be in prison.”

  I wasn’t touching that line. I’ve never mentioned the court case, the federal charges, or the old rumors.

  I sigh. I’m exhausted. No sleep. No Bradley. No anything anymore really.

  “Hey, don’t look so sad, it will be okay. Have lunch with me. Tell Swartz you got mugged and had to spend three hours at the police station filing a report.”

  I laugh.

  It feels good.

  “Okay, I would love to have lunch with you Mr. Broderick. Thanks.”

  “It’s Darren, call me Darren.”

  I finish my water and Darren stands and slips into his designer suit jacket. He’s fit, tight waist, strong chest. I can’t help but notice when his shirt buttons pull and open his white shirt in small gaps, like revealing waves.

  As we walk out of his building together, Darren’s arm loosely wraps around my waist. I glance off by the elevators and see Chase from the gym leaning against the wall. He doesn’t try to hide, nor does he wave. He just watches.

  Even more bizarre, Darren looks over at Chase and gives him a nod.

  Chapter Six

  Déjà vu all over again

  BRADLEY

  Thursday, February 4th

  Well, I’m trashed. One o’clock on a random Thursday and I’m completely obliterated. Fucking Tequila. Now I have this dumb model—Luba? Lesya? shouting in my ear in broken Russian. Channel No. 5 and cigarettes. God I want a cigarette. I stare out the window, dreaming of a smoke, the forbidden act ever since moving in with Naomi. Not even on the balcony she warned me. Won’t even kiss me if I’ve been at it. So I just quit. It was time, terrible habit. Lesya/Luba takes my face, tells me to pay attention, she’s not used to guys who are oblivious to her charms. When my eyes return to the window, I swear I see Naomi, turning and running away. Nah, couldn’t be. I shake my head to try and clear it. Her office is like, a forty-five minute walk from here.

  “You come to condo with me?” Lesya/Luba has her hand on my thigh.

  “No thanks,” I say, removing said hand. This is o
ne of the many English words she doesn’t seem to know.

  “Okay, I call Uber. We go have sexy time.” She starts tapping away on her cell.

  “NO,” I say so loudly Manny and his model look up. I don’t care. This girl has no idea. “No sexy time. I’m married.” Whoa, where did that come from?

  “I don’t believe you. American husbands wear ring.” She takes up my left hand and caresses the naked ring finger.

  “I mean, I’m getting married, in the future,” I say, extracting my hand.

  “Ah, you are fortune teller?” She laughs, pulls a pack of Marlboro Lights from her bag. Holds it up for me to light. A waiter swoops over, tells her to take it outside. She rolls her big mascaraed eyes at him. “America,” she says like she’s spitting a bug out of her mouth.

  “Russians,” I spit back at her. She has no idea.

  Just hearing that accent, I’m fourteen years old, meeting the next soldier in a long line of housekeepers/nannies who have been defeated by my mother. My father, a pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps, first generation Russian, forbid my mother from working, even housework. She was the glamour puss of the secretarial pool at the financial management company where he began his career. Charming and stunning, she was just the accessory he needed to complete the portrait of success he had been painting in his mind ever since his first job cleaning subway platforms.

  Trouble was, my mother hated having other women in the house. She followed these ladies around, nit-picking their work, demanding they redo everything. Except when it came to me. For some reason, she was perfectly happy to shove off her maternal duties on these ladies who spoke very little English and had no children of their own. One would show up, fresh off the boat (literally—mother picked them up at a pier on the Hudson), fresh-faced and optimistic, only to leave in tears a few years later, mother screaming Russian insults and throwing vases at them as they scrambled out the door.