8
DAVID DIDN’T STOP until he climbed inside the cab, and then he was forced to sit, forced to think. It wasn’t supposed to be difficult to say goodbye when you’re having a jet-setting intracontinental affair. It was supposed to be easy. The brain of a man last screwed by the female sex did not filter through a hundred excuses to get her to stay. The brain of said man, who really didn’t need to be thinking like this right now, should not want to pull her close and whisper promises—unless they were promises of the sexual kind. David whapped his forehead with his palm, telling his half-wit brain to get it in gear.
And then came calm, rational reasoning to explain said half-wit thinking. Ashley was right. It was the distance. It made things seem better, more mysterious, more erotic. He kept telling himself in the cab all the way to his financial district apartment, skipping the afternoon at the office. When he got home, he sorted the mail, paid the bills, ordered groceries for the next week, skimmed through all the shows on TiVo, but by the time eight o’clock came around, he was still restless, still itchy in his own skin. So, ignoring the actually functioning part of his brain that said he was making a mistake, he called her.
“It’s David,” he said stupidly, racking his brain for something mundane to talk about that wasn’t boring, and on the other hand, didn’t indicate he was calling simply to hear her voice. Because he wasn’t. He wasn’t.
“Hey,” she told him.
“Any problems on the plane?”
Scintillating, dude. Late night snooze-a-polooza.
“Miraculously, not a one.”
“You’re a regular Captain Kirk now, aren’t you?”
“You watch Star Trek?” she asked, her voice dripping with amused scorn.
“Never,” he defended.
“Liar,” she told him softly, and the word wrapped around him, nearly as soft as her. Nearly as warm as her.
“Maybe,” he answered truthfully because a weakness for Star Trek and the accompanying jokes was much safer than explaining a month was a really long time to wait. A freaking long time, and she’d been in Chicago for less than thirty minutes, and his apartment was way too lonely, and she’d never even been there. And why hadn’t she been there? Was there something taboo about his apartment?
“What did you say those Miami dates are?” he asked
“I didn’t. I’ve got to check in with Jenna, the designer, and then my store managers will have a collective hissy fit if I’m not around to hold their hands, and then there’s Val…”
Ashley had responsibilities. She had ties. She had things that occupied her time, rather than sitting in an empty apartment with a great view of the South Street Seaport. When had his apartment gotten so empty? “Oh, yeah. Stupid me.”
“You’re not stupid. Why did you call?”
“It was good to see you,” he started to say, but then switched channels before he could freeze up. “I wanted to make sure the plane didn’t crash.”
“No crashes.”
“No crashes are good.”
There was a long pause when he knew it was time to say goodbye and hang up, but he didn’t. He sat there listening to her breathe.
“You could come to New York next weekend. I’d spring for the ticket. I know things are tight for you.”
You’re being stupid, you shouldn’t say this. You really shouldn’t say this.
“I can’t do that. Work. I’ve been playing hooky too much already. Weekends are the busy times.” She didn’t even have to think about it. Not a second of hesitation.
“You’re right. It was an idea. A stupid idea.”
“You’re not stupid.”
“No, I guess not. Ashley…” David forcibly restrained himself from talking. He was a smart guy, but something about this whole situation was turning him stupid. He liked to think it was his Boy Scout personal ethics and sense of nobility—the idea that he wasn’t a guy who would do anything for a quick lay. But it wasn’t a sense of honor that had him pushing her for more. It was the simple fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
“Listen, I have to go,” she told him, stopping him before he could get really carried away, which was only a good thing, and he should be grateful that one of them was seeing sense.
“I should go, too,” he said, lying back on his pillow, wondering if he’d ever see her in his bed. On his pillow. Stupid.
“’Bye.”
“’Bye.”
“David?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks for calling,” she whispered, and the hesitancy didn’t sound as if she were being polite, didn’t sound as if she were lying, and he told himself that maybe he wasn’t being so stupid after all.
WHEN ALL ELSE FAILED to occupy his time, David threw himself into work. Every night, he was haunting the downtown offices of Brooks Capital, pouring over 10Ks and 10Qs and building models of company financials. If his instincts were starting to go on the fritz, there was always the hard truth of numbers. Numbers didn’t lie, numbers didn’t sleep with your brother and numbers were not afraid of flying.
It was the middle of a bustling Wednesday afternoon, and he’d just spent two hours on a conference call with an adhesive supplier to a vinyl-composition-floor-covering manufacturer. By the end of the call, he was propping his eyes open with paper clips. Retail, yes, biomedical, yes, technology, yes, energy, not great, but okay, but vinyl flooring? God deliver him from vinyl flooring. He had just switched over to the warm comfort of his spreadsheets, when his cell rang. David checked the caller ID. New York. It was safe.
“David McLean.”
“This is Robert Golden from Goldstein, Goldstein and Lowe. I’m calling to discuss the property at 357 East 39th Street.”
His mother’s old apartment. “Yeah?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt your workday, but I think you’ll find this good news. The building’s going condo. You’ve been making some tiny rental income up to now, but with a sale we believe we can make you and Christopher McLean a nice chunk of change. Is Christopher your father?”
“Brother. Mom gave the apartment to both of us before she passed away.” Their mother had thought two names on a deed would mend fences. Their mother had been wrong. David managed the rental, and every month he wrote out a nice check to Chris. Look, Ma, no talking necessary.
The lawyer named a figure that caused David’s blood pressure to spike. “That much?”
Money was a tricky thing in the McLean family. Pete McLean, David’s father, had been raised on a cotton farm in Arkansas before moving to New York to make his mark as an electrician. Pete McLean hadn’t trusted money or flash, he valued hard work and honesty. David valued hard work and honesty, too, but he knew what money meant. He knew what a college education meant—choosing a different path from Chris, who was now a practicing electrician in Illinois. Chris would never make the money that David had already made, but he had a three-bedroom house in the burbs and an SUV in the garage. Like his father before him, Chris never wanted to be anything more than solid middle-class. In a family of sturdy everymen, David was the ambitious outsider.
The lawyer droned on, explaining all the benefits of selling the apartment. “You’d be foolish to turn it down. We want the transition to be a win-win for everyone.”
“And if we’re not interested in selling?”
“That’s what the court system is for.”
Spoken like a true shyster. David interrupted him before he got too deep into his spiel. “Let me talk to Chris,” David said and then hung up.
For the next seven hours David went through spreadsheet after spreadsheet, studying the numbers until everything ran together in a big blot of red.
It was ten at night before he decided to call his brother. It was late. He hoped they were in bed. He hoped he was interrupting. Unfortunately, Chris sounded wide-awake.
After David finished explaining the apartment situation, he added the single cherry to the top of what felt like a melted ice cream sundae.
“I don’t want your money,” his brother explained, while David took his desk magnet and trailed paper clips around in circles.
“Stop being a proud idiot,” David told him.
“I’m not saying this because I’m a proud idiot. It’s because I won’t give you the satisfaction of showing Christine how much money you have and exactly how much money we don’t.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” David said, not denying the other remark. It was probably true. Okay, it was true.
“No. We split it up even. Half to you, half to me,” Chris insisted.
David set his mouth in a hard line. Chris couldn’t see it, but he could sure as hell hear it. “No. I don’t need it.”
“David, this is insane.”
“There’re a lot of things that are insane, Chris.”
“You’re not going to get over this, are you?”
That was the heart of the matter. Exactly the reason he now hated talking to his brother. “Would you get over this? Would anybody? I’m the guy who’s been screwed, Chris. Screwed in the ass. Don’t be all martyr because your brother is pissed that you slept with his wife.”
Chris was quiet for a long, guilty minute. “I love her.”
Like that absolved him of sin. Not in David’s world. Not even close. “I loved her, too, asshole.”
And of course, Chris picked up on the least important part. “But you don’t, anymore?” he asked, and David heard the hope in his voice. Yeah, betraying your own brother did that to you.
“You don’t get a free pass because my feelings change. Love can be killed, Chris. Spousal love, brotherly love.”
“I miss you, David.”
David stopped pushing paper clips around his desk. He didn’t want those words to hurt, didn’t want his brother to have the luxury of opening one of David’s veins and letting the blood flow. It had been four years. David hardened his heart because only a stupid man would get sucker-punched twice.
“Screw you, Chris.”
After he hung up, David threw his cell phone across the room. A second later he listened to the tinny ring, ignored it and ran a muddled hand through his hair. He wasn’t a phone-thrower. He was an analyst who watched Star Trek and read to feel better about his own life. It used to be easy to look around and know his life was the best. Arrogant? Yes. True? Yes. But now…something had changed inside him. His balance was off, the arrogance felt gratuitous, thrown in without anything to back it up. As if he didn’t deserve it anymore, and David didn’t like it.
Right then his boss stepped into his office. Not Jamie, Andrew. “Bad time?”
“No.” David frowned at the phone in the corner. BlackBerry on Berber. Classy. “Sorry.”
“I wanted to talk to you about Mercantile Financials.”
The bet. “The earnings report came in today. I forgot to look.”
“You blew the call.”
David stared into Andrew’s impassive gaze. Always cool. Not a phone-thrower. “They’re up?”
His boss nodded.
A thousand questions sped through his brain like a CNBC crawl. He had been sure about this. Seven down quarters, and then oops. You’re back in the black. The numbers had to be wrong.
“The euro’s up. They made a killing overseas.”
David wanted to stick to his guns, but it was really late on a Friday night. His brother was snug in bed with David’s wife. The only woman David wanted to be snug with was eight hundred miles away in Chicago, and he’d blown a call because he’d assumed that nobody could have an up-year in this financial environment. There were no guns in his holsters to stick to.
Yet still he couldn’t stop. “Their model’s off.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t have to make sense. It just is.”
David’s phone began ringing again. Andrew looked in the direction of the BlackBerry. Looked at David.
David stared at his boss impassively. Always Be Cool was a good motto to follow. “I was so sure they were overshooting their projections.”
“I was probably just lucky,” Andrew said, showing humility for absolutely no good reason except to protect David’s ego. David didn’t reply.
“You okay?”
“I’m good.”
“Jamie said—”
“I’m good,” David interrupted because he didn’t need sympathy. He didn’t want pity. He was fine. He’d be fine.
Andrew looked at him, nodded. “Okay. You’re in L.A. on Thursday? McKinsey Partners?”
David checked his desk calendar. “L.A. Then Phoenix. Sigeros Labs.”
“You’ve been logging a lot of miles. Maybe you should take a break.”
Which was a nice way of saying his judgment was starting to blow.
David shrugged, choosing to ignore the unspoken directive.
“You can take time off. I won’t stop you.”
“I’ve got a long weekend scheduled in a couple of weeks, but I can double up the week before.”
“You don’t have to clear your schedule with me.”
“I thought I should say something.”
“She’s nice?”
“Who?”
“Long-weekend she.”
David nodded.
“Good. Not the reason you’re throwing the phone?” Andrew picked up the BlackBerry and tossed it back to David.
David stuffed it into the desk drawer. He didn’t want to hear the ring if it began again. “No, she’s easy, low-maintenance. It’s nice.” Out of everything, Ashley was the one thing that made him smile.
“Nice is nice.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
FIVE DAYS LATER, Ashley broke down and called David. She wasn’t supposed to, had convinced herself that she was throwing gasoline on an emotional bonfire, which really didn’t need to be stoked, but she had thought David would call again. There had been that last conversation when she’d tried to put some much-needed distance between them because apparently eight hundred miles wasn’t enough. Silly man, he had listened.
That same silly man sounded stressed when he picked up.
“Is something wrong?”
“No, why?”
“You sound mad. I’m not making you mad, am I? I shouldn’t have called, should I?”
“Nah. It’s stuff with my ex.”
Ashley heaved a long sigh of relief. “Sorry.” She didn’t want to pry. She was dying to pry, but this was a closed subject. Pandora’s box.
“You ever talk to Jacob?” he asked, and she was surprised he remembered the name. She didn’t know the name of his ex-wife. Ashley thought about lying about her relationship with Jacob, and pretend that she was one of the mature adults who could be close friends with their ex. But David didn’t need her to be a mature adult now. He needed a soft shoulder that he could lean on.
“No. It’s like it’s all an embarrassment to him now. You know, as if we’d both like to forget about it.”
“You think that way, too, or is that just him?”
“It used to be just him. But now it’s me, too. Marriage is hard. I didn’t used to think that. You really have to love somebody—really have to like somebody—to want to invest so much work in it.”
Over the line, she heard him quietly swear, and she hated that he still hurt. For now, she’d just call his ex-wife “bitch.” It made her feel smugly superior. “David? What’s wrong? With your ex, I mean. Do you still love her?”
“No.” His voice was flat, emotionless, and she wished he trusted her. “It’s nothing.”
“I’m sorry. I wish I was there.”
“Me, too.”
Ashley bit her tongue because she wanted to get on a plane, which was a damned fool idea any way she sliced it.
“If I did, you know, it’d be better than Spanish Fly.”
“Are you teasing me, Ashley Larsen?”
“Does it help?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m teasing.”
“Embarrassing myself.”
He laughed, just as she intended.
“I wish you were here, Ash.”
“Ditto.” In the back of the house, she could hear Val’s restless padding. Never a good sign. “I should go.”
“Miami.”
“Yeah, Miami.”
9
DAVID’S GYM downtown was a beaten brick warehouse that looked more like an automotive garage than a health club. But this was no ordinary health club. It was a place where the white-collar types fled their desks, pulled on the gloves and proceeded to beat the crap out of each other. And it was all sanctioned by the New York State Sports Authority. White-collar boxing. Yahoo.
The newfound desire for bloodshed had started shortly after the divorce. He was spending too much time alone, too much time wondering how he’d screwed up, and a guy from work had invited him here. David had taped up his hands, pulled on the gloves and ended up with a full set of blisters, a serious dent to his confidence and a walloping punch to the gut. He’d had the time of his life.
Today was no picnic. A few rounds with the heavy bag, and then sparring with Tony DiNapoli, a trader from Goldman still who had a house in the Hamptons and a Lamborghini in his garage that cost more than David’s monthly rent.
David narrowly dodged two jabs in the general direction of his chin, and Tony landed a lucky slug to his chest, but in the end, the bout was never in doubt. After they climbed out of the ring, David pulled off his gloves and flexed his fingers. He shouldn’t brag. It was a sign of poor moral character.
So, he was a scumbag. He grinned happily. “Money does not buy happiness, nor does it buy stamina and the ability to whip my ass.”
Tony was still hunched over, breathing heavily. “Some day, McLean.”
“In your dreams,” he quipped, pulling the tape off his hands.
“Trish wants you to meet her cousin.”
David dumped the tape in the trash and grabbed a towel, heading for the locker room. “No.”
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