“What?”
“I’m sorry,” Phoebe said. “That came out just awful. Can I blame the drugs they gave me at the hospital? Baby, we’ll have to hunker down for another humiliation.”
When she finished telling a G-rated version of Bianca’s story, Kate sighed. “He’s humiliated himself, Mom, not you, but this will be bad for Noah. He confronted Dad about other women in the past. Guilt ate at him, as though he hid something for Daddy. When is the book coming out?”
“Next month,” Phoebe said. “I need to see Noah. Help me.”
• • •
Bloat obscured Noah’s fine features. He wore rumpled chinos and a too-small sweatshirt she recognized from college. Nevertheless, he was there, and the sight of him meant everything.
“When are you going to tell him you’ll never see him again?” Noah asked. “You’re not going there again, are you?”
“I went there to tell him, honey, but that’s when I fainted. I’m not sure—”
“Did he get the message?”
Phoebe thought of the letters still coming daily. The phone calls she didn’t answer. “Sort of.”
“What does ‘sort of’ mean?”
“It means he heard, but didn’t accept it.”
Noah paced in a small circle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art seemed like a good place to meet when she proposed it—Beth thought they shouldn’t be at their house, not with the kids still so confused—a neutral space where they could sit and not be faced with Noah having to say yes or no to alcohol, but it had been a horrible choice. They avoided the museum restaurant that served booze, leaving only the cavernous cafeteria or sitting on uncomfortable benches, facing first the sentimentality of American impressionist Mary Cassatt—a reminder of just how shitty their lives were in comparison to her subject—and then Salvador Dalí’s Crucifixion, a message of life’s cruelty.
She tucked her arm in his. “Walk with me.”
They strolled past a wealth of brilliance, seeing nothing.
“Just write him and say fuck off,” Noah said as they waited for the elevator.
“I’m tempted.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
They walked a bit farther, until she’d found her way to the Chinese courtyard. They settled on one of the graceful benches, Phoebe grateful to sit someplace peaceful.
“I’m not joking, Mom.” Noah twisted on the wooden seat, straddling it so he could face her. “You don’t owe him a thing. Just send a short letter. A note. ‘Fuck you; leave me alone.’ Tell the prison you don’t want to hear from him. Get off the list of people he can call, or write. Damn it, Mom. Don’t offer him another ounce of kindness.”
She wanted to gather him into her arms, her poor son, his sweetness eaten up with shame and bitterness. “It’s not about him, honey. It’s about doing it right for me.”
“That’s a lie.” He swung his legs back around and rested his head in his hands.
“How am I lying?”
“Writing means you’re trying to do one last thing for him. Same with seeing him or calling. Do you still think something can get through? He’s fucked up and useless.”
Noah moved closer, and she put her arms around him. He leaned toward her, coming to rest his head on her shoulder. “Everything hurts.”
“Oh, baby,” she murmured. “Sweetheart, let me help you find your way out. You can do it. For you, for Beth, for the girls.”
He shook his head as though telling her he was lost. “I feel as though I’m being crushed.”
“By who? By what?”
“By the hate directed at us. Don’t you feel it? Have you seen what people say about us? The cartoons? The comments? I want to stand up to it, answer them, tell the truth—but I don’t know how.”
“You can’t take on the world one person at a time, Noah. Especially not when you’re like this.”
“Like what?” he asked.
Phoebe wasn’t sure if he’d become truly disconnected or if he was in denial about how low Jake had knocked him. “Baby, your drinking is out of control.”
“Beth told you?” He drew away. “She doesn’t understand.”
“She didn’t tell me, and, by the way, she understands plenty. She’s the one taking care of the kids, of you.”
“You’re right.” He blew out a large sigh. “Remember the last time we were here?” he asked.
She put a hand to her chin, rummaging memories. “No. I don’t.”
“We took the girls to F.A.O. Schwarz, and you bought half the store for them. Then you felt guilty about buying toys instead of giving them education and values, so we came here. When they got tired, which was pretty fast, since they were far too young for the Met, you took us to the Patrons Lounge. We didn’t have to sit on benches that day. Jesus, how much did you and Dad pay for that privilege?”
“Do you miss it so much?” she asked.
He shrugged. “It’s just a memory of when we were somebody. Let’s go upstairs and find someplace they serve drinks.”
Phoebe wanted to say no. Bring him to his senses. Nurse him back to health. How did you do that with a grown child—what could you offer to heal them?
“Please, Mom. I know you want me to stop. And I will. But for today, let me pretend to be happy for one afternoon. And I don’t know any other way.”
CHAPTER 37
Phoebe
March 2010
Phoebe divided her possessions into “keep” and “Goodwill,” covering the fragile items first in plastic supermarket bags and then wrapping them in newspaper. The donations covered a wide swath of floor; the “keep” stack filled only a few cartons. Noah would come later today to bring a few boxes to her new apartment. The place was empty, and the owners were fine with her bringing things in early. If she moved a little each day, with Zach and Noah transporting the heavier stuff on April 1, she’d save the cost of hiring a mover.
Her new space was half the size of this apartment—which wasn’t much to begin with—but she’d be in Montclair, New Jersey, with her children and grandchildren nearby. The train to Manhattan would get her to Noah’s apartment quickly. Kate’s house was a ten-minute drive.
Phoebe swathed the last white Ikea mug and placed it with the rest of her service for four. In her before life, she’d owned multiple sets of china: the treasured Rosenthal lapis, blue edged in gold; the expensive and gaudy Flora Danica—so overpriced it embarrassed her—that Jake had insisted they buy; and others that she could barely remember. What else had she left behind in the penthouse? Though the feds had banished her only seven months ago, she’d forgotten so many of her things. Still, visions arrived at odd times. The cashmere throw in which she’d wrapped herself for comfort. Densely woven wool socks. Did some woman wear them now, or were they displayed like the pelt of a captured animal?
Sometimes she dreamed her objects all returned, stuffed in every corner of her tiny apartment. She’d wake smothered by the memory of things. With her children back in her life, with being able to hold her granddaughters, she didn’t care if she drank out of Ikea for the rest of her life. Though there was something to be said for fine bone china touching your lips as you enjoyed a perfect cup of coffee and not the gritty edge of cheap ceramic.
She imagined the field day the press would have if a thought like that got out: “Phoebe Purses Lips Against Cheap Pottery.”
The phone’s shrill ring shattered the quiet. Phoebe dropped a half-wrapped water glass, watching as it rolled on the rug.
“Mom.” Kate’s panicky voice held no tone Phoebe wanted to hear. She clutched the receiver. Dread spiraled down her throat.
Tears muffled Kate’s words.
Noah.
Blood alcohol.
Motorcycle crash on 95. Near Greenwich.
• • •
Beth barred her from Noah’s funeral.
Kate brought the message: Phoebe would attract the paparazzi, Beth said.
Hordes of media would follow Phoebe, allowing Jake’s apparition
to mar the ceremony. He was forbidden in body and spirit—even if the prison system had allowed him a compassionate leave.
Phoebe knew that Beth blamed her for not helping Noah more. She couldn’t disagree. She charged herself with her son’s death.
“We might be able to talk her into letting you come, Mom,” Kate had said. “Right now she’s so angry she can barely form words. I took Holly and Isabelle to my house.”
Phoebe visualized the three little girls huddled together in one bed. She ached to hold Noah’s daughters, bury her grief in being there for them. “No,” she said. “Let her lash at me. What else can I offer?”
All previous pain meant nothing. Jake’s crimes fell away, diminished in importance. But she blamed him. The misery he brought Noah. She blamed herself. Staying by Jake’s side.
For brief moments, she imagined Jake. Him tortured. She questioned so much about him—their marriage—but never his love for Noah and Katie. The part of her still unbelieving of the tornados in her life, those vestigial emotions that hadn’t yet caught up with the unraveling of her life, of knowing her husband was a crook, a cheater, and a bastard, that part of her ached for Jake’s arms.
But only for seconds, until she pushed away the feeling.
Anguish hollowed her into a brittle vessel holding nothing but Noah’s specter. Death seemed reality and life an apparition. Nothing could staunch this grief except draining her body of all blood, all life.
• • •
Phoebe was alone the day Beth buried Noah.
Neither alcohol, food, nor pills passed her lips. No coffee. Only sips of water. She wouldn’t satisfy her needs. Allowing relief after ignoring Noah’s desolation for so long, after months comforting herself with the belief that Beth could care for Noah, seemed obscene. Jake alone wasn’t responsible. Phoebe owned the blame and welcomed laceration.
Mortification seemed vital that day: suffering in mind and body until nothing but pain filled her. Jake tried to reach her, but she refused his call, afraid the hate would overwhelm her—more frightened that he’d offer comfort and that, in her anguish, she’d clutch at his consolation.
They’d killed him, she and Jake.
Cold metal pressed against her forehead, splintered wood from the edge of the sill ground through her black pantyhose as she knelt against the door. Her wet cheek took on the imprint of the rough mesh grid covering the door panels.
Security measures. To keep the thin door from being kicked in. Phoebe wanted that protective barrier knocked in and gone, that steel, the mesh. She prayed for the roughest of thieves to break in and steal her life, end what she lacked the guts to do. She wanted the thud of a boot against her face.
A clutter of half-packed boxes surrounded her. She wore black, an ugly dress woven of smothering polyester that made her first hot and then cold. How did you not put on a black dress the day of your son’s funeral? That morning, she carefully inched on black pantyhose, new, from CVS, and too-tight black shoes from Target.
Tomorrow she’d throw them all out.
Helen, Ira, Eva, and Deb all implored her to accept consolation, to let them come to her, but she refused everyone. They didn’t understand. Their comfort would bring only more pain, reminding her she was alive. They were alive.
If she were brave, she’d have accepted their offers, let herself feel the agony of their love working to fill the space where Noah should be. Instead, she pressed harder on the mesh and tried to feel nothing but the metal grinding against her flesh.
Part 6
* * *
Good-bye, Jake
CHAPTER 38
Phoebe
More than six months passed before Phoebe rose from the metaphorical steel mesh on which she’d leaned since the day of Noah’s funeral.
Until August, her new apartment remained as Spartan as when she’d arrived; the moving day had been so close to Noah’s death that the events merged in her memory. Upon arrival, she’d unpacked some clothes, a few dishes, and essentials such as toothpaste and soap. Decorative items—the very few she’d bought after everything she owned was sold at auction—remained buried in cardboard.
The nights she didn’t have dinner with Kate, Zach, and Amelia, she numbed herself with curated television as she ate a Lean Cuisine with about as much pleasure as she would have received from intravenous feeding. Anything remotely connected to emotion cut straight to muscle. She set her DVR to record Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Nothing with families, happy or troubled—families broke her in half. Reruns of Friends, showing carefree young adults, were impossible.
Documentaries about animals, just animals, no humans, were best.
Now, reunited with Beth, each day she took the train to Manhattan to pick up Noah’s girls from school. Isabelle and Holly unthawed her enough to unpack a few comforts, like the crochet hook and wool she’d bought but never used. Now she worked on creating afghans to give at the holidays.
In September Beth returned to work as a math teacher, traveling up to the Bronx and back by train each day. She needed Phoebe, who picked up the girls from school and stayed with them until Beth got home. She left hot meals for her daughter-in-law and granddaughters, freshly laundered clothes, and a clean house, grateful to be busy. Once a week, they ate dinner together, but no more than that, not wanting to give Beth a reason to tire of her presence.
Phoebe rose to the occasion with her fragile granddaughters, so needy, so reminiscent of Noah, and became stronger.
Today, with unseasonably warm October sun begging first for walking slow and ice cream, and then sand and teeter-totters, they stopped off at the playground on First Avenue. Swings and cones were the only tonic available for Phoebe’s eleven- and seven-year-old granddaughters. She sat on the bench, smiling faintly as the girls pumped their legs, side by side, seeing who could swing higher.
A slice of peace.
A novel waited in her bag, a small paperback copy of Jane Eyre, her current speed these days, but the frenetic activity in the playground made her too nervous to take her eyes off the girls for even a moment. Older children hovered over the little kids, anxious to take over the swings, looking for an opportunity to help a smaller child fall so they could grab the spot.
Within ten minutes, a familiar stare burned her neck. Sensing the eyes drilling into her before she saw them no longer surprised her. There they were: a clutch of women a few benches away, rubbernecking. A quick glance at their pocketbooks told her that these weren’t nannies.
The blondest of them stared openly, her chin tipped up as though to say, “So what?”
Phoebe hoped they’d tire of gaping at her if she ignored them. Don’t engage was her mantra when in Manhattan.
The blonde marched over, purse swinging on her arm. Why would anyone wear heels to a park? Granted, they were wedges, but Blondie swayed on the uneven, springy rubber surface—the wobble detracting from her aura of righteousness. She plopped next to Phoebe and crossed her legs, the leathery tan skin of her calves denying her smooth, injected face.
“You have a hell of a nerve coming here,” Blondie said.
“Are you representing the Park Bench Committee, or is this your singular mission?” Phoebe tipped her head and smiled as though they were in the midst of warm negotiations.
“Grandma! Are you watching?” Isabelle screamed. “Did you see how high I went?”
“Me too!” Holly yelled. “Look at me!”
“Incredible, girls!” Phoebe called and then turned back to Blondie. “Well, which is it?”
Blondie shook her head as though clearing away Phoebe’s words. “You don’t belong here, Mrs. Pierce. Those women over there?” She pointed. “They know people who lost everything with your husband. The two of you are poison and—”
Holly appeared in front of Phoebe, tugging at her arm. “Grandma. Come push us!”
“In less than a minute, honey. I promise. Go, quick, before someone takes your swing! Go.” Phoebe hugged her and then tu
rned back to Blondie, replacing her smile with venom.
“You want to hate me, hate me. You want to believe bullshit about me, it’s your fucking prerogative. But don’t you dare talk to me. I don’t give a damn what you think. And never again make my granddaughters uncomfortable in any way.”
Phoebe gathered the girls’ lunch sacks, stood, and flung her purse over her right shoulder. “Pray you always know exactly what your husband is doing, honey. And then prepare for the worst.”
She rushed to the swings and wedged in next to two doughy women wearing uniforms: nannies pushing their small charges with strong arms as they spoke to each other in what sounded like Russian. Not seeming to recognize her was enough for them to seem like merciful angels.
Stretching her muscles eased Phoebe’s tension as she moved from Holly to Isabelle and back again. Sun warmed her shoulders. Gratitude for these lovely girls, for being needed, and for being able to offer help overcame her.
Phoebe said a silent prayer of thanks to her mother, who, she swore, had sent the right words to her from heaven at just the right moment.
• • •
Walking down the street in Greenwich, it seemed as though she’d never left and never been there, all in one shifting moment. The long-gone family who had lived in that house on the water, built on air and theft—were they real? If nothing from her marriage rested on a foundation of truth, what did it say about her life, her experiences? Who was Phoebe if the entire narrative of her life were lies dusted with fool’s gold?
The closer she got to Le Penguin restaurant, the more determined she was to fight for Suzy Ramsland’s support. Suzy of the Ramsland Insurance–husband-money always showed a willingness to walk on the wilder side. The first time that Phoebe met her, at the long-ago Hair-themed fund-raiser, Suzy had crackled with seductive energy. More important, the Ramslands never invested with the Club, leading to Jake calling Suzy “that crazy cracker bitch.”
For years, Phoebe convinced people to invest in something she knew nothing about—why not try it with something she loved?
The Widow of Wall Street Page 30
