The Hazards of Good Fortune

by Seth Greenland

  For several months Nicole couldn’t walk down the street without some paparazzi shoving a camera in her face. Interest in her travails withered when shiny new scandals flowered, ones that had nothing to do with Nicole or her notorious husband, but bloomed again when she became visibly pregnant. The usual innuendo and conjecture saturated the media, and she was offered large sums of money to tell her story but declined to capitalize on the scandal. There were no magazine profiles with which she cooperated, or television talk show appearances, or interactive Internet engagements.

  Nicole and Audrey usually met at the Alice in Wonderland statue. She was early today and sat on a bench facing Central Park West. Caretakers of multiple nationalities surrounded her and the excited shouts of their charges rang in the air. She pulled out a bag of goldfish crackers and gave a handful to her son, who shoved them into his mouth and ran toward the Lewis Carroll characters. As she watched the boy try to figure out how to navigate the stepladder of bronze mushrooms that would deliver him to the Mad Hatter, she thought about how little it took, finally, to achieve some facsimile of contentment.

  “Nicole, did you see this?”

  There was Audrey pushing her daughter in a stroller. She waved a copy of the New York Post with the headline:

  Feds Nab Gladstone Bomber

  Nicole took the newspaper from her friend and glanced at the first paragraph of the article. The FBI had caught up with Axel Testa in New Mexico. Nicole was relieved that the government was going to punish this domestic terrorist although she was still troubled by her role in what had transpired. She marveled at how a single rash act could lead to an unforeseeable cascade of misfortune.

  Audrey wiped her daughter’s face and lifted her from the stroller. The girl shouted when she saw Nicole’s son and toddled off to join him. While Audrey watched the kids, Nicole devoured the article, eyes widening as she scanned the page, transported through time to the bejeweled existence that had so swiftly and irreversibly slipped from her grasp. There were pictures of her and Jay, and the grand estate where they had lived. Seeing all of it rendered in the grainy black and white of a New York tabloid, crowned with lurid headlines, was to be reminded how much she treasured her new life. She shuddered and returned the newspaper to Audrey.

  The boy and girl were chasing each other around the statue as Nicole leaned back to let the dappled rays of the afternoon sun play on her winter-pale skin. It would be good to get some color in her cheeks. She was going to a gallery opening that night with a divorced sculptor. This was their third date.

  A few years later, on a winter night in New York, two men met for dinner.

  “I was shocked when I heard that Jay had surfaced in Israel,” Robert Tackman said, cutting into the last of the breaded lobster tail on his plate and dipping the meat in drawn butter before forking it into his mouth. “How did he manage to get there?”

  Herman Doomer chewed pensively on his rare filet mignon and swallowed. He lifted his wineglass and sipped the cabernet he always ordered, wondering exactly how much to disclose. “Jay Gladstone is nothing if not resourceful.”

  The dining room of Doomer’s club was a burnished old shoe of a space where gold-jacketed waiters bustled between the tables and the menu had not changed since the Kennedy administration. Because it was unusual for a Doomer client to require the services of a Robert Tackman, they had not spoken for some time. The dinner was purely social.

  Tackman said, “I never understood why he fled in the first place.”

  “The district attorney believed he might have had a role in the bombing. Despite our considerable efforts, Jay was not beloved. No one was going to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

  Tackman considered this, tried to remember the degree of opprobrium heaped on his former patron. “Why did he agree to return home?”

  “Being a fugitive is undignified,” Doomer said. “After taking stock of his circumstances—he was exhausted and beaten down from the ordeal, you see—he chose to face his legal difficulties. Jay Gladstone loves his country.”

  “Brave man.”

  “The charges were renegotiated, and he pled to lesser offenses.”

  Tackman arranged his utensils parallel on the Wedgwood plate to indicate to the waiter that he had finished. “Where is he serving his sentence?”

  “Auburn Correctional Facility,” Doomer said. “It’s a maximum-security prison in the Finger Lakes region.”

  A graying eyebrow lifted. “Maximum security?”

  “He pled guilty to a violent crime.”

  “Poor bastard.” Tackman shook his head in sympathy. “Have you gone to see him?”

  “I haven’t been able to get up there,” Doomer said. “It’s a five-hour drive.”

  “Life intrudes.”

  “And I haven’t heard from him.”

  With his tongue, Tackman dislodged a piece of lobster that had become stuck between his teeth. He took a drink of water. “Hard to believe he’s making a lot of friends.”

  “The prison population is predominantly African-American, and I’ve heard they consider Jay to be a celebrity sportsman who didn’t deserve what happened to him.”

  Alert to the paradox, Tackman said, “Welcome to America.”

  “The prisoners understood the nature of his crime, and they absolved it.”

  Doomer sipped the remains of his wine and wiped his lips with the linen napkin. A busboy materialized to remove the plates.

  “Where are you getting your information?”

  “Someone is writing a book about him,” Doomer reported. “A journalist. She came to the office and interviewed me last week. I imagine she’ll want to speak with you.”

  Tackman would be happy to cooperate. “How’s our friend holding up?”

  “Well, apparently. He’s adapted to prison life and become quite self-reliant. I hear he reads a great deal, teaches a weekly class in basic job skills—and this is extraordinary—he serves as the commissioner of the prison basketball league.”

  Tackman guffawed. “Oh, that’s perfect!”

  Doomer didn’t laugh. “Poetic justice, I suppose.”

  A waiter appeared to ask if the gentlemen would like anything else. The chocolate soufflé was available; it would take twenty minutes to prepare. They briefly discussed sharing a slice of cheesecake, but the lawyer had recently learned that his blood sugar was elevated and the P.R. man was trying to lose ten pounds. Tackman requested an espresso, Doomer a snifter of brandy.

  After the waiter departed, the two men briefly returned to the tribulations of Jay Gladstone, and when the topic was exhausted, they began to gossip about someone else.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’d like to thank Susan Kaiser Greenland, as always, my first and best reader. I want to thank my agents Henry Dunow and Sylvie Rabineau for their friendship and advice. I’m grateful to my friends who read this novel in its various stages and offered valuable suggestions: Bruce Bauman, Barry Blaustein, Cliff Chenfeld, John Coles, Larry David, Drew Greenland, Panio Gianopoulos, Sam Harper, Albert Litewka, Tom Lutz, and Diana Wagman. Thanks to Francis Carroll for filling in the blanks with regard to the legal system. Thanks to my editor Kent Carroll and the team at Europa Editions. I appreciate the time and consideration everyone gave me and salute them all.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Seth Greenland is the author of five novels. The last two, The Angry Buddhist (2011) and I Regret Everything (2015), were published by Europa Editions. Greenland is also a playwright and screenwriter, and has worked as a producer for HBO. Born in New York City, he currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

 

 

 
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