The Widow of Wall Street

by Randy Susan Meyers

  Noah pulled himself up as tall as possible. At ten, he was always the shortest in his group. “I think Cupcake Project’s a great name.”

  “Me too.” Kate stuck her tongue out at Jake. “You’re being mean. All you want to do is make money. Mom wants to make the world better.”

  “Okay, okay. You show me the written plan, then I’ll look at how I can help out.”

  Jake might think he kept his soft spot for the kids’ opinion of him hidden, but anyone with a heart saw it. Phoebe rose, walked around the table, and gave Jake a kiss. He needed to bluster, but he’d come around.

  The Cupcake Project.

  Finally. Something of her own.

  CHAPTER 13

  Phoebe

  As far as Jake knew, the Cupcake Project bubbled low. During the past five months his support came in waves, first praising new recipes and then peppering Phoebe with nervous questions about how he or the family could survive without her constant attention. Phoebe veiled the gritty parts of the work, hoping to slide as much as possible past his radar.

  The previous evening, after dinner, he’d given in to his reservations. “Who’s going to take care of your business when we’re out of town?” After the question, he had grabbed an oversized cupcake covered with pink peppermint frosting and dusted with crushed red and white candies. “What about when I want to go out for dinner or a movie? What’s the plan if there’s an event where I need you?”

  “Who takes care of JPE when you’re away?” she asked.

  “Honestly? Sweetheart, we can’t compare JPE to the Cupcake Project, can we?” He shook his head and laughed.

  At night, sleep eluded her as she planned ways to run a business around Jake’s schedule, the kids’ school, and their myriad Greenwich community activities. Her parents weren’t getting any younger. Nor were Jake’s.

  Still, and he couldn’t deny this, Jake’s interest in Phoebe had renewed with her concentration on the Cupcake Project. Last week, he’d pointed to an awning idea she sketched and then stilled her hand with his.

  “How about using cooler colors? Literally. Ice cream shades, but better. Pink and green is too girly.” He motioned for her to rise and then sat in her chair. “You don’t want to limit your customer base to women and children.” He held his hand to his chin. “You don’t want the place to seem like Baskin-Robbins. We gotta make the store upscale. Blue. Sky blue and white. With touches of yellow. French country-looking.”

  “I can picture that!” Phoebe wrapped her arms around him from behind as he sketched rough pictures, dazzling her with visions. They worked well past their usual nightly news routine until they fell on each other, burning off heat so searing that the sex, unlike their usual weekly lovemaking, reminded her of when they first discovered each other’s bodies.

  At that moment, Phoebe believed she could have it all.

  • • •

  Cupcakes covered Phoebe’s butcher-block counter. Linh, Eva, Zoya, and she had spent the day testing recipes and now taste-tested for what they’d include in their first Cupcake Project lineup. They batted ideas all day: seasonal menus, specialty items, which would be the regularly featured cupcakes versus cupcakes of the month.

  One thing they never wavered on: knowing that Greenwich would be the perfect place to open the shop. Storefront rents seemed almost reasonable compared with New York City. The commuter rail would make an easy commute for them, and Phoebe could be within reach for the kids and Jake. In a few years, Kate and then Noah could work at the Cupcake Project.

  “So? What do you think?” Zoya held up a cupcake frosted in a perfect swirl of caramel and chocolate.

  “Magnificent looking,” Eva said.

  “Tastes even better.” Zoya offered the cupcake to Eva, who leaned over from the end of the table where she was making concentric circles of red, white, and blue sugar for a batch of Fourth of July cupcakes and took a small bite.

  “Oh, that’s heaven,” Eva said. “Though by now, my palate is sugar deadened.”

  “Me, me!” Noah said. “My mouth is alive!”

  “You already tested a Ginger Heaven,” Linh said. “Can he have another, Phoebe?”

  “What the heck. Eventually he’ll get tired of them, right?” Phoebe wiped her hands on a red-striped apron and glanced at the clock. Five. She loaded baking tins into the dishwasher and then wiped smudges off the copper backsplash.

  Jake and her mother were due at six thirty, giving her just enough time to shower and make dinner for the kids and Lola. The chicken marinated. A fresh rye loaf waited for slicing. If she and the kids worked hard, they could whip the place into shape. At one point in the not-too-distant past, she’d have chosen a wine for dinner, her tool for shaving away Jake’s irritation, but he’d recently become a teetotaler. She tried to remember when he’d stopped completely but could only recall a gradual cutback from a few cocktails after work, to one, to a small glass of wine, to nothing. “I lost my taste for the stuff,” he’d say.

  She considered her formerly flawless nails: only flakes remained of the eye-bleeding red she’d applied two days ago. Add repainting nails to the list of chores to be done before leaving for some temple dinner with Jake.

  “Mom, listen to my idea.” Kate jumped down from the stool where she’d been shaving chocolate for Eva. “Listen, everyone listen!”

  “We’re all listening,” Zoya said.

  “We make aprons, in all sizes—including ones for kids—and sell them at the store. People will buy them for their daughters and their granddaughters.”

  “You should make them for boys also. Boys bake,” Noah said.

  “I’ll draw designs,” Linh said.

  “We can do T-shirts also.” Kate twirled in excitement. “And little notebooks and other things.”

  “Maybe we’ll be the new Hello Kitty,” Phoebe said.

  “We should invent Cupcake Kitty!” Kate said.

  “Two Cupcake Kitties—a boy and a girl,” Noah said.

  “Is that your goal, Noah?” Jake’s unmistakable voice boomed. “To be a kitten boy?”

  Jake stood in the entrance to the kitchen, Lola behind him. The same lines around the eyes and initial grey hairs that had aged Phoebe—every sign engendering another purchase for her arsenal of antiaging products—added another level of gravitas and attraction to Jake. His middle had broadened, but so had his back and shoulders. He looked more imposing each year.

  “Why not just buy him a rhinestone tiara, Pheebs?” Jake smiled as though he were making a joke and then examined the kitchen with a theatrical expression of shock. “We’re zoned for factory work now?”

  “You’re home early,” Phoebe said.

  “I planned on taking my wife for a glass of wine before we went to the synagogue dinner. Who knew I’d be interrupting the Sara Lee sweatshop?”

  “I told you we were working here today,” she said.

  “You did?”

  “I did.”

  Frozen expressions spread through the room. Zoya was the only one who didn’t appear about to curtsy.

  Lola pushed in front of Jake. “Are these the extraordinary women I’ve been hearing so much about? Finally I get to try one of these temptations. What do you recommend?”

  Phoebe’s hand shook as she grabbed a caramel chocolate cupcake and handed it to her mother, grateful for her presence. Lola helped soak up those moods of Jake’s that Phoebe absorbed in seconds. The older Phoebe became, the more she appreciated her mother’s wisdom and the more she saw the beauty of her parents’ marriage. They might not experience the same highs as she and Jake, but at this moment, Phoebe would sacrifice those to lose the lows.

  “We’ll straighten up in here,” Eva said. “Go put on your finery.”

  “I need to drive you to the train first.”

  “Don’t worry, honey,” her mother said. “I’ll call a cab for them.”

  Jake peeled off three twenties and laid the bills on the counter. “This should cover the fare.”

  T
he taxi’s meter wouldn’t rise above ten dollars. Phoebe squeezed the sponge hard enough to feel her nails through the cellulose as she attempted not to scream at Jake’s need to smooth his every move with cash.

  • • •

  “You embarrassed me.” Phoebe’s words came after a long silence during which she’d showered and dressed.

  “Coming home to the international house of baking isn’t my idea of fun. For God’s sake, this is my home.” He picked up the paisley tie Phoebe had placed on the bed. His burnished leather belt offered a rich contrast with the silk mauve bedspread.

  “Those are my friends. My coworkers.”

  “Seriously, Pheebs? They’re not your friends; they’re your project. They make you feel good about yourself. You’re their Lady Bountiful. We can write a check and bring the same result.”

  For the second time in an hour, she used tricks against crying: Biting her tongue just past the edge of pain. Squeezing every muscle in an isotonic feat of unseen rigidity. She smelled a fight coming, but she wasn’t in the mood for backing down. “The Cupcake Project is the opposite of charity. This project means dignity. Work.”

  He pulled on a fresh white shirt. “That’s not the issue. I feel as though you’re half here. You’re ignoring the kids—”

  “Ignoring? The kids love this. They’re spending more time with me than with their friends.”

  “They love being able to eat sugary crap whenever they want. What are you teaching them?”

  “About helping people. Hard work.”

  “You’re in another world half the time,” he said. “I feel as though we’re losing you, baby.”

  Again, she felt twisted in confusion. Did he think she was always going to be here tending to any need he and the kids had at any given moment?

  Jake tightened his tie. “You complain about your mother watching you and Deb like a hawk, but she cared a hell of a lot. You guys were number one for her. I want the same for our kids. For me. You’re the best wife and mother in the world, Pheebs. You hold us together. Don’t let go.”

  • • •

  Two weeks later, tangy ocean air rushed through the open windows. Indian summer had slipped in. Phoebe lifted the covers to slide out of bed.

  “Wait.” Jake put a hand on her arm and pulled her toward him. “Why are you jumping out of bed?”

  “It’s early,” she whispered. “Sleep.”

  “It’s not sleep I want.” He brought her down to the cave of warmth their bodies made. He slipped his hand between her thighs. “It’s you.”

  “I want you also, but—”

  “But you’re running away from me to work. I know. Because I’m a bastard.” He rolled her to her back and raised her hands above her head. “I’m sorry. We can’t lose this time, or someday we’ll regret it. This life might not always be ours,” he whispered.

  Jake sounded scared, as though they were back when she was in college, and he’d wanted her to stay with him in Brooklyn. He lifted himself above her, his still-muscled arms on either side. “You keep me together.”

  After, he fell back asleep, and she tiptoed downstairs. As the coffee brewed, she sketched out a menu board. More important projects needed attention—a budget, an ordering system, and the many other tasks to divide up between her and Eva as business managers—but designing with colored pencils invigorated her. Writing up lists of people to approach for funds? Not so enjoyable.

  Women people.

  Jake didn’t know, but Phoebe’s intent was to eventually fund the Cupcake Project without him, to make it a woman-owned business, funded by women, for the benefit of the women served by Mira House. Helen thought it might interest Ms. Magazine, with the magazine listing it as an ethical investment.

  An hour flew by while she worked during the quiet early morning. Jake and the kids would be up soon. After planning breakfast in her head—slow-cooked oatmeal—she checked on her list of donors to approach, beginning with Helen. Helen had a load of money but Jake still refused to take her and Alan into the Club, because Alan’s law office did work for Fidelity Investments. “He’ll be hocking me for details. I know the type.” Jake repeated the same bullshit anytime Phoebe mentioned them joining.

  Phoebe and Helen maintained their closeness despite Jake’s and Alan’s enmity, agreeing that husbands were an entirely different breed of humanity. If women let the success of their friendships rest on their menfolk, there’d be nothing but lonely women out there.

  Helen had lots of rich corporate clients. The only break she took for each of her kids’ births was three months. Her mother, who lived with them, virtually raised Helen’s three daughters, and the arrangement worked. Helen’s commitment to women’s rights had brought her all the way to serving on the board of the National Organization for Women. If Phoebe didn’t ask her to invest, she’d feel insulted.

  Everything about the Cupcake Project delighted Phoebe. From the moment she’d slipped Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique from her mother’s nightstand a month before Phoebe’s high school graduation, she’d believed there had to be more to life than marriage and children. Two lines from the book remained wedged in her memory: “It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself,” and “The only way for a woman, as for a man, to find herself, to know herself as a person, is by creative work of her own.”

  First Mira House, now the Cupcake Project, and soon, she hoped, like Jake, she’d travel in boardrooms. Boardrooms of her own.

  • • •

  Phoebe kicked off her too-high heels and rubbed her instep. “Thank God that’s over.” The awful country club they’d visited for cocktails receded in the side mirror view. If Trinity Chapel in Manhattan married Stonehenge and then birthed a faux Guggenheim in a frightening version of modern meets caveman, the result would be that building.

  “Want to go to the movies?” Jake asked.

  “Are you kidding? I can’t wait to take off this dress. We can watch something at home.”

  “Come on. It’s only eight. We’ll go to the movie theater at the mall in Stamford. I’ll buy you a damned sweat suit at Saks on the way if you want to be comfortable.” He placed a hand on her thigh and squeezed. “I need this right now. A little escape.”

  She looked at him as though he’d grown a second nose. “Jake. Really. It’s too late. We can watch a movie on TV.”

  “I want to relax in a big dark theater. Do you think these nights are fun for me?”

  “They’re sure not my idea of a good time.”

  “They’re not supposed to be fun. They pay for being able to have our lives.” Jake opened the heating vent. “I need a break.”

  “Let’s have a true break.” She squeezed his knee. “Seriously. We can ratchet everything down and make our lives simpler.”

  “Really?” He pulled off the exit for the mall. “You think it’s that easy? Boom, we ratchet it down? Are you ready to give up your project?”

  “We’re not out nights and traveling for my business.”

  “You don’t have a business, baby. Cupcakes? You have a charity masquerading as a business-to-be that I’m underwriting.”

  Jake could turn mean in one second. She felt as though he’d slapped her. Their marriage undertows, these hurricanes of love disassembling, were impossible for Phoebe to follow. When Jake spoiled for a fight, he’d twist through any road to spew out his mood. If she simply remained still, the storm passed, but immobility brought another kind of poison.

  “Fine,” she said. “Hide your checkbook. I don’t need you.”

  “Oh? And just exactly how do you plan to pay for opening your bakery? Selling your jewelry?”

  Phoebe looked at the upgraded engagement and wedding rings that hung too heavy on her small hands. She wished. Trading these oversized jewels for a leaded glass window for the Cupcake Project would thrill her. She drew dream windows from memory, based on an art deco storefront she’d once seen in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

  �
�I’m getting investors. Four are already lined up. Ethical investors.”

  Jake pulled the car over to the side of the road, slamming the brakes as he parked in a shallow inlet of sand surrounded by weather-dried rosebushes. He captured her wrist with a grip that bordered on painful. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  Phoebe went rigid. “I didn’t mean anything. Calm down.”

  “ ‘Ethical investors’? You didn’t mean anything?”

  “I meant approaching groups of women who pledge to invest in programs designed to do good. Like organic farms. Windmills. Or businesses to help immigrant women.”

  Jake’s hand loosened.

  “What did you think I meant?” She curled her toes till they ached to keep from crying, from screaming.

  “Nothing.”

  “You didn’t mean ‘nothing,’ Jake. You almost broke my wrist.”

  He took a series of deep breaths. “Why didn’t you just say yes to the damned movie? Then this wouldn’t have happened. You do this to me all the time. By the way, I don’t want you begging for money, making me look like a cheapskate. Just let me know what you need. Do you hear? I’ll pay for it.”

  War raged in her chest. Swears bubbled up. Screw you, Jake. Cravings to bolt from the car, march away, and never return, filled her.

  “What do you think it will look like—asking strangers for money? Did you think of how it looks?” He took her hand and held it softly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Phoebe ripped a ladder up her stockings as she raked her legs to keep hateful words at bay. “Not everything is about you. Not everything is about the business.”

  “No!” His face became so red that Phoebe worried about a stroke or heart attack. “Everything is about the business! How we live, how we walk, how we talk. We’re selling dreams, for God’s sake! Do you understand? Nobody is funding this but me.”

  She didn’t understand. Phoebe really didn’t understand a word of his reasoning except this: his dreams would always trump hers.

  CHAPTER 14

  Phoebe

  Phoebe had learned to use silence and smiles to ensure the maintenance of both her marriage and the Cupcake Project since the inception of her business almost a year ago.