Managed seclusion didn’t mean vanishing.
Jay and Boris drove to Bedford that evening. He wanted company on the ride to and from the arena the next night so he invited Boris to stay at the house for the weekend. Jay sold it by saying they could talk about the complexities of running the Asian operation but the fact was he did not want to be alone. Boris made himself at home in a guest room overlooking the paddock while Jay ordered dinner from a local restaurant. Boris could not understand why someone as wealthy as his cousin had so few servants—there was a maid who did not live on the premises, and a groom who cared for the stables—but the one time he asked about it Jay explained that he simply didn’t like people who were not family members lurking around.
The next morning, Jay saddled Mingus up and cantered out of the barn toward a trail. The animal snorted, pleased to be free of his stall. There was no snow on the ground and the morning sun caressed the grass. Old-growth trees revealed their spring line of buds. Crocuses and daffodils had started to appear. Jay turned his face toward the azure sky. A westerly wind chased strands of cirrus clouds. As he followed the trail into the woods, his problems seemed far away. Jay rode for an hour, and his mind ranged lightly over recent events. He thought about the speech he would deliver at the Tate College commencement in May. Aviva would come around. It was in her interest to have a father not viewed as a criminal. She could not have been happy that their family argument had become public. Perhaps he would use the platform to announce the endowment of a scholarship fund at the college for students committed to careers in social justice. By the time Jay returned to the house his mood had improved considerably.
Boris was standing in the kitchen drinking coffee and staring at his phone.
“You’re not going to like this,” Boris said, handing Jay the device.
Jay handed it back. “I don’t have my reading glasses.”
“It’s personal. You’re sure you want me to—”
“Read the damn thing, Boris.”
Boris took a deep breath and read, “Dag and Gladstones In Racist Sex Romp.”
Jay grabbed the phone from his cousin’s hand. He left the room and went upstairs. On the nightstand, next to his copy of Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider, was a pair of reading glasses. He put them on and looked at Boris’s phone. From the brief article, he determined the tape to which Nicole alluded had been distributed to several media outlets late last night. And there it was, the pull quote, the quote the person who edited this slag heap of a website believed most conveyed the tenor of the piece:
Why does everyone in this family want to have sex with black people?
When he got over the initial kick in the teeth, he noticed that the site had linked to the actual tape. He pressed play. And there, like a recurring nightmare rising from the murky depths of his consciousness, was his naked wife in the half-lit pool house pumping like a piston. One, two, three seconds elapsed, her orgasmic groans emanating from the tiny cell phone speaker with surprising clarity. At the peak of her ride, she turned and looked over her shoulder. Jay heard her bleat of distress when she saw him. Then the sound of what was unmistakably his voice: “Why does everyone in this family want to have sex with black people?” The feigned nonchalance, the slight slur of his words, the way sex sounded almost like shex. It was horrifying.
Sunshine saturated the room in mustard light. Outside the windows, birds laughed. It was not yet eight o’clock. The landline on the bedside table began to ring. Jay checked the caller ID: Herman Doomer. He composed himself and picked up the phone. Perfunctory greetings, then the lawyer said:
“This will cause difficulties in your case.”
Doomer was rusticating at his weekend house in South Salem, and they arranged to meet there. Over the next hour, there were texts from several reporters that went unanswered. He considered contacting Nicole but what would that accomplish? She must be reveling in her hollow triumph. He wondered how many more times she could betray him.
With the scent of the stable still on his clothes, Jay showered and changed into clean jeans and a chamois shirt. Boris refrained from asking about what was going on when Jay said he would drive himself to Doomer’s house.
The northern Westchester roads were winding and wooded, large homes set far back on lawns framed by towering trees. The overall effect was one of timelessness. The feeling of remove it provided was a quality that Jay cherished. Only the other cars that passed him in the opposite direction hinted at the year.
The phrase Racist Sex Romp kept recurring. What had he said or done that was racist? How was it possible for anyone to believe him to be a bigot? His liberal credentials were impeccable. He thought about asking Church Scott to make a statement on his behalf but realized that, since he was an employee, it would not have the optical purity the situation required. He needed black friends to speak up. The problem: He did not have any. Growing up in Scarsdale, the only black people of whom he was conscious (other than Claudie, the maid) were the athletes, authors, and musicians he venerated. In his current life, he knew plenty of black people but had no close friends who were African-American.
As the road rose and fell through the tree-stippled hills, Jay kept thinking about Nicole and how she could have done something so utterly self-destructive. She was an intelligent woman, and although Jay had blustered during their last meeting, he expected a negotiation to evolve. Instead, she had not only violated all bounds of decorum but destroyed whatever leverage she possessed. What incomprehensible strategy was this? No longer able to contain the impulse, he called her from the car. Nicole picked up immediately.
Before he could utter a word of condemnation, she said, “I have no idea how that got out there.” This denial brought him up short. “Jay, I swear.” Nicole sounded shaken. Could she possibly be telling the truth? It seemed unlikely.
“You said you would wait until Monday.”
“I promise you; I have no fucking idea how this happened.”
“You had nothing to do with it?”
“Someone must have hacked my phone.”
“Who would have wanted to do that?”
“How am I supposed to know? I’m not a public person. I don’t have enemies.”
“I have enemies who would want to destroy me?”
“The tape is of me, Jay! Me!”
“YOU THREATENED TO RELEASE IT!” He was shouting now. The trees on either side of the road were a blur. His foot was heavy on the gas pedal, the car going over sixty on the country road.
“I never would have done that.” Her voice was tremulous, threaded with pain. “I don’t want a divorce, Jay. I know how this sounds right now, but I want to reconcile. I haven’t given up. Why would I release that tape?”
Jay took a corner and felt the centrifugal force of the Mercedes loaner pull him hard to his right. Only then did he realize the vehicle was nearly out of control. He pressed the brake and slowed down.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Look in the mirror, Jay. Don’t blame me for this.”
He hung up, uncertain whether Nicole was dissembling or this was just part of some larger more sinister plan to undo him. She had left his office in a rage—her unruffled demeanor did not fool him—and he knew she wanted to advocate for her interests, but his wife was not one to wage total war. She was more strategic in her thinking. Yet who else could have been responsible? From the plaintive notes she just now sounded, he again considered the possibility of her innocence. Nicole was not that good an actress. But it was impossible to know. His phone rang. He geared himself up to deal with Nicole once more, but it was his sister Bebe. He hesitated before answering but realized he would have to talk to her eventually.
“I assume you heard about the tape,” he said.
“How are you holding up?”
“It was bad. Now it’s worse.”
“Is there anything I can
do?”
“Not unless you can wave a wand and make it all go away.”
Jay thanked his sister for checking in with him and said he would speak with her soon. He concentrated on maintaining the speed limit, gripped the steering wheel tightly, and thought about what he would say to Doomer.
The Doomers lived in a country contemporary up a long driveway on a bluff of land overlooking a lake. Jay parked his car in the circular driveway and rang the doorbell. Doomer answered wearing khakis and a fleece. As Jay followed him into the open-plan house, he could not recall ever having seen him in anything other than a business suit. The matriarchal Mrs. Doomer waved hello from the kitchen and went back to her crossword puzzle. In a knee-length skirt and down vest, glasses on the end of her nose, she was a model of constancy and rectitude. Was she aware of the perverse circus Jay’s life had become? Did she believe his racial attitudes were suspect? As a lifelong Democrat, she would have taken a dim view of anything illiberal, so he was unsure how to interpret her aloofness.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the sunny living room a lone canoeist could be seen paddling in the distance. Several pieces of modern art hung on the walls. Family photographs arranged on tables. A man who appeared to be in his mid-sixties was leafing through an art book. Slightly overweight, gray hair cut short, he wore a maroon cardigan over a white shirt with a paisley ascot, dark pants, and oxblood cordovan shoes. He closed the book and looked Jay over.
“Jay, meet Robert Tackman,” Doomer said.
“Bobby,” Tackman said, extending his hand, which Jay shook. “I should probably tell you, old boy—I’m a Knicks season ticket holder.”
Jay could only manage a wan smile. Ordinarily, he would have offered his standard riposte of “My condolences,” but he was not in a jocular mood. And what was with the “old boy”? The Tackman accent was indeterminate, a mid-Atlantic mélange typical in movies of the 1940s.
“Where are you from?” Jay asked.
“Originally? Rhode Island.”
The tea and crumpets attitude affected by Tackman reminded Jay of the time his uncle Jerry came up with the name “Windsor Village.”
“I invited Bobby here today,” Doomer said, “because we’re going to hire him.”
Jay looked from his lawyer to Tackman, unsure how to react. In his world, he was the one who did all critical hiring. Doomer’s assuming this function was a breach of protocol but these were uncharted waters. “All right,” he finally managed.
The men faced each other on two leather sofas arranged perpendicularly on a thick rug, Jay and Doomer next to each other, Tackman alone on his. A fire crackled in the stone fireplace.
Tackman asked, “Is that your voice on the tape?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Then we’re not going to bother with a denial?” Before Jay could answer, Tackman continued, “Because voice recognition software is still dodgy.”
“I think we should skip the denial phase,” Jay said. He proceeded to outline his dealings with Nicole leading up to their recent phone call. Doomer asked Jay who he thought leaked the tape to the media.
“I have absolutely no idea,” Jay said.
Doomer liked Jay’s wife and, to him, something about the situation did not compute. It was not as if there was a history of erratic behavior. “Could it have been Nicole?”
“She swears it wasn’t her and told me she doesn’t want a divorce, so I don’t know. Someone who intends to ruin the two of us, perhaps. Nowadays, personal destruction is a sport.”
“It could be some pimply teenager living in his parents’ basement,” Tackman said. “But at this point how it got out there doesn’t particularly matter.”
Doomer leaned back and crossed an ankle over his knee. He picked a piece of lint off his sleeve and rolled it between his fingers.
“Here’s the problem,” the lawyer said. “It gives the prosecution a motive.”
Although this was obvious, the dissemination of the tape had so derailed Jay that he had not given any thought to the legal ramifications. He felt his weight sinking into the soft leather.
“What do we do?” His voice was lifeless.
“Just because they have a motive doesn’t mean they’ll convict you,” Doomer said. “They can only present it as a theory. The prosecution still has to convince a jury.”
Jay shifted uneasily. An awful word: Prosecution. He was going to be hearing it a lot. He wished he had never divorced Jude. None of this would be happening if he had followed his father’s path and stayed in one long marriage.
“I’m going to survive this, Herman.”
“For heaven’s sake, you’re a model citizen. Accidents happen. We’ll convince them, don’t worry. And I think we should hold off on trying to lower the boom on your cousin. At least until this latest thing blows over.” Jay reluctantly agreed. “Robert?”
Tackman leaned forward and focused on his new client. “First thing,” he began.
“I’ll keep out of trouble, don’t worry.”
“I know you will. It’s not that. I don’t think you should go out in public without a bodyguard.” This advice did not sit well with Jay, who looked askance at his new adviser. “Not permanently, of course, but for the time being. Herman tells me you pride yourself on having the common touch, but there are a lot of unbalanced people out there.”
After some back and forth, Jay acceded to this request.
Tackman asked, “When do you next expect to be at a public event?”
“I’m going to the game tonight.”
“Really?” The news surprised Tackman. “You’re a brave man, Jay. So soon?”
“I’m not going to hide.”
“All right, that’s admirable. Kooky, but admirable.”
Jay did not appreciate Tackman’s familiarity.
“I’m a public man.”
“Where do you sit?”
“Courtside.”
“Not tonight,” Tackman informed him. “You have a skybox? Obviously, you do, you’re the owner. Tonight, that’s where you’re going to sit, above the crowd.” Jay agreed to do that. “Have you talked to any press today?” Jay reported that he had not spoken with anyone other than his sister, his wife, and Boris. Tackman was pleased. “Media strategy is vital. I know you have a lot of relationships with reporters and you get positive coverage in the press, but right now you’re not going to talk to anyone, no radio, newspapers, or websites. I want to give someone a television exclusive. Either Diane Sawyer or Anderson Cooper.”
Jay glanced at Doomer, who indicated that he thought this was a superb idea.
“You get a chance to introduce your character to the world,” Tackman said.
“My character?”
“The likable chap who caught his wife cheating and deserves everyone’s sympathy.”
“Oh, god,” Jay said. Each time he was reminded of the particulars was like absorbing another kill shot. “I can’t talk about that on television. You expect me to discuss the tape with Anderson Cooper?”
“Or Diane Sawyer, yes,” Tackman said. “It’ll help you, I promise.”
“Let me understand this,” Jay said. “I’m supposed to go in front of an audience on national television and convince the world my racial attitudes pass muster?”
Tackman looked at Doomer like a dog unsure of his master’s intent. Did the worldly Jay Gladstone not understand his role?
“I agree with what Bobby is suggesting,” Doomer said.
Jay gazed beyond Tackman toward the backyard where a deer was peacefully feeding on the leaves of a bush. Jay noticed the fragile limbs, muscles twitching barely perceptibly as she chewed, ever alert to peril.
“All right,” he said.
Tackman wanted to be familiar with Jay the man and Jay did his best to oblige the request. They talked for the next hour. Despite the fr
iendliness he affected, Jay was not the kind of person who revealed himself to strangers but Doomer’s endorsement of Tackman eased his mind on this account, and the consultant seemed to like him personally, a factor that always weighed heavily with Jay.
“If the television interview goes well,” Tackman said, “and I’m sure it will, you’re going to visit the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem.” This idea alarmed Jay. It was one thing to stare down a television camera in an antiseptic studio. A sea of disapproving black faces in a Harlem church was a different matter. Tackman was sensitive to his reluctance. “One thing at a time, I know. But the reverend is a friend.”
“Let’s not get carried away, Bobby,” Doomer said on his client’s behalf. Tackman agreed that a church visit would only be used to build on a positive television appearance.
Fatigue began to overtake Jay. He had not slept well and wanted to rest before going to the game. Although he valued Doomer’s counsel and was beginning to accept Tackman’s presence, the two men had exceeded their client’s capacity for taking advice. As he had so many times in his life as an executive, Jay adjourned the meeting. Tackman said he would write a memo outlining the plan. They would meet for lunch on Monday. When Doomer retrieved Jay’s coat from the closet by the front door, Mrs. Doomer asked if he would like to stay for the meal she had prepared. Pleased to be invited, he could not imagine that this lifelong liberal did not know what he had done and the invitation indicated that she did not consider him a pariah. Perhaps there was hope. But he had no appetite so politely declined.
When Jay returned to his house, Boris was in the kitchen.
“I drove back to my place and got something for you.”
“What is it?”
The Hazards of Good Fortune Page 41
