We sat down, the waiter gently adjusting the chairs for us, and he thanked me for coming. And then with that look, his jaw inclining to the left and then to his chest, as if to pause and think how to say something uncomfortable (which made me infinitely curious), and then, as if coming up out of the water for air, Will lifted his head, looked me squarely in the eye and said, "I've quit my job. I'm leaving Wall Street."
"No, you're not," I said without pause, surprising myself. I said it as though he were my husband and this were news I had anticipated, with fear, for a while. All in one long instant I saw the following: on the table, a pouch-like envelope, big enough to hold a manuscript, and indeed the dimensions of the contents were alarmingly manuscript-like, an 8%-by-11-inch brick. More alarming, the brick was not small. In fact, it was very large. But most alarmingly, my name was written on the label. I sighed to myself; he was going to ask me to read this thing. That's why I was here. It would be terrible. He had quit his job. Before long the Chapmans would have to sell their apartment. They'd never be able to afford the Victorian shack (fleas and all) in Maine. Emma would have to adjust to a way of life that she was decidedly not accustomed to. (And, sweet Jesus, nectar of Schadenfreude, she might even have to get a job.)
"No, you're not," I said again, with an emphasis that indicated I'd read the future and had seen that this was not a prudent decision. It amused me a little that my first and thus most honest response was to save him.
"Is it that bad?" he asked, smiling, showing me that he'd understood my concern. His face had regained its general and more familiar air of confidence.
"You mean the life of the ungainfully employed?"
"I suppose you could put it that way."
"Does Emma know?"
"Of course," he said. Of course she knew. Of course he would not check with me first. And I knew too that she would fill the role in her way much better than I ever would have been able to, and I knew as well that that resilience of hers was what Will loved and what Theodor and I had always admired—to make the best of every situation. Not to complain, but to turn a challenge into a sport. I thought again of the shack on Pond Point. Will wore a light gray suit with a faint green pinstripe. He wore a shirt of the same green, which picked up his eyes and the pinstripe and the tie, all very quietly and yet perfectly upholstered. He's completely crazy, I thought. He's gone out of his mind. He makes something like one and a half million dollars a year, minimum. Any way you slice it, there is no way to bet on that as a writer. "She's supportive," he said.
"Have you already done this? You've already told them at work?"
"Yes, but India, I've not asked you here for your opinion of this decision."
"Then why are you telling me?" I asked. "Silly news" ran through my mind. The waiter brought me a cappuccino, frothy and splashed with cinnamon, the foam like a billowy cloud. Why did he meet me at this restaurant and not a place more appropriate to a writer? Why not a diner, the Cuban restaurant in my neighborhood? Why did he bring me into the mouth of the beast to tell me this news? "You're brave," I said.
"I've wanted this since I was a child. If not now, when?"
"Have you shared your work with anyone to get a sense of whether you could sell the book?" I asked.
"Pragmatic," he said and then answered in the negative. Was he a fool? I looked at the envelope. He was going to assign me the responsibility of judging his work. I was going to have to be the one to tell him that he was no good, which of course I would never do. A job like his wasn't so easy to go back to after time away. At best he'd need a few years to understand the lay of the land as a writer. I knew enough to know that a few years on Wall Street was an eternity. I looked again at the envelope. There had to be a good five hundred pages in there. It was going to be an awful slog. A waiter brought eggs Benedict. In the center of the table he placed a silver basket of croissants, flaky and soft.
"Were you fired?" I asked, showing an intimacy with Will that had never been articulated, though we were both aware of our unspoken mutual affection and admiration.
He laughed. "Would that make my decision easier for you?" He pierced me with his green eyes. This was the Will who knew and understood everything. He knew just now that he was leveling something for me, that his decision made me uncomfortable, perhaps as uncomfortable as it would make him if I were to have told him I was quitting my job as a writer to become a banker. We'd spent the past six years creating myths about each other, never mentioned, never stated, but in these myths we'd invested so much of ourselves that they lived vividly in our minds, palpable and real to the other. I was the successful, award-winning novelist and he was the smart, well-read, big-earning banker with a lovely wife and life, the epitome of the college friend who had gotten a responsible job and was thus able to afford to be a part of the world.
"You don't want my opinion, but I am curious to know how much thought you have given to this," I said.
"Pragmatic again."
"If you want to succeed at writing, you must have a certain amount of pragmatism."
"I have an appointment with Lucinda Blankman," he said, pulling out his trump card but bungling the name. Everyone in the business called her Sig, because her signature had come to mean everything. Sig was the most prized literary agent in New York City. Regularly she made million-dollar deals for unknowns. A flash like a shooting star streaked across my mind: he'd hit the jackpot. I reassured myself by resting my eye on the bulk of his manuscript.
"That's wonderful," I said, which fell a bit flat, because an appointment with Sig Blankman was, well, beyond wonderful, was as close to the jackpot as one can get without owning the jackpot, and he'd learned enough already to know that. It was just like Will to seek the best immediately. When he bought a Mogul miniature there was no learning curve. His first choice always included the rarest, the oldest, the one with the most colors, that depicted the most complex scene, and was always bought for a song. Though his song and my song had very different notes. He didn't give me any more information on Sig, on how he'd arranged the meeting, who had helped make it possible. And I didn't ask.
"I've rented an office not far from here. It's small, in an old cold-storage building, and I've been working with a friend on an Internet marketing campaign for the book. I realize I'm ahead of myself, but if I know one thing about business, it is that it's all about marketing. I've sold junk on the Street that people thought was gold..."
As he carried on about his office and the marketing schemes and plans to reach millions on the Internet, all I could think about was my desk, facing a brick parapet out the window of my tiny rooftop maid's room, not even the size of our big bathroom, the bookcases crawling up to the ceiling, so as I sat at my desk it seemed I was smothered by books, reminding me of all the books out there. So many books, a ridiculous sum, about two thousand published per week. Then I remembered that my office would soon have to go. We could no longer afford it. Will Chapman, on a whim, it seemed to me, decided to become a writer, got himself a fancy office overlooking the Hudson and all those beautiful sailboats and the Statue of Liberty, plunked down a few grand, bought himself a laptop, set up shop, and he thinks he's Balzac.
"Where do you go when we finish?" I asked.
"To my new office," he said.
"In that suit?" I asked, and I couldn't help laughing. It was a warm, endearing laugh, though, and he laughed too, explaining that he'd dressed for me and that later he would be meeting with the man who was helping him with his website and marketing campaign. He went on to explain more about this man, Jack. Jack was excellent at publicity strategies, that was really his forte (he pronounced it for-tay, with two syllables—not as the French do). He, Perfect Boy, knew better, so I corrected him.
"Forte," I said.
"You've spent too much time in European novels. But that's what I like about you, India, you eat your salad after the meal. Elegance and sophistication grace each step. You crave only the finest." He took a sip of his cappuccino, almost daintily. "I
n any case, Jack believes we can get a lot of mileage out of the fact that I left a high-paying job to pursue art. A ploy to get people interested in me, and then, with hope, the book. A riches-to-rags story, if you will, which I find very clever. And we'll create a fan base on the Internet. What do you think? I hadn't realized how much one had to think about these things. It seems more must go into the marketing than the actual writing. Is that how it works for you? What do you think—Wall Street to art?"
"Art," I said in a small voice. The eggs Benedict looked at me like two sorry eyes. I punctured the yolks. The only capital Theodor and I had was the time we had put into our art. We'd paid in blood to be where we were, for our art. And where were we? Now I found myself sitting across from a friend, Will Chapman, heir to a noted New England family name and legacy, if not a lot of family money (but he'd made up for that, in spades), a man with an excellent job (doing I'm not sure what, but excellent nonetheless in terms of remuneration), and he decides he's had enough; he's tired of having merely everything and wants to give it up for the incalculable luxury of talking shop with me. I'd seen enough of the people who populated Will's world to know that when they got bored, they concocted deep-pocketed adventures to show each other up.
I knew that people like Will had to come up with an original act that would distinguish themselves from each other, save them from being simply, predictably wealthy. Richard Branson, for example, sailed around the world in his hot-air balloon. And here was Will's version of that deep-pocketed adventure. To boot, he'd figured out the marketing angle, From Riches to "Rags," always in quotation marks, for here was a man who would never know anything about rags. (I didn't know that much either, but I felt I did in this city.) And now he wanted to speak about art! Next he would be discussing "process" with me, telling me about his dreams and how he discovers in his unconscious the themes he finds worthy of pursuit, the depths of truth, of the struggle to rip the words from the mind, talking as if he'd been doing this for decades.
"It's not easy," I said at last.
"I know that," he said. "Wall Street isn't easy either."
The waiter brought a bowl of fruit—kumquats and kiwis and mangosteens and passion fruit and mangoes and champagne grapes dangling over it all—flown in from the tropics that morning. Were they ever going to stop bringing food? Our glasses were repeatedly refilled with freshly squeezed orange juice and sparkling water from Austria. The water was presented to Will like a bottle of fine wine.
"Any fool can make money, India. I don't care about money. I've made money, enough anyway. For two years or so we won't need to think about it. Emma is supportive. Children are chameleons. They adjust."
I thought of my own children, thought of the many times we considered pulling them from their fancy school. It never occurred to us they would be chameleon-like. We could only imagine their questioning eyes: Why do we have to change schools? What about our friends? Was this another difference between the haves and the have-nots? By this fear of letting our daughters down, we were propelled forward, to seek other ways to keep this fantasy of the good life we'd imposed on them, promised them simply by serving it up as an option, alive.
"India, you and Theodor are our models. You don't seem to need very much."
"I must stop you now," I said. I realized that he had bought my act hook, line and sinker. He had no idea how fast I was headed down.
"Stop me, then," he said. "But you are my model. I admire you profoundly." I looked around at all the other pairs concluding their morning business. How many of them were selling air? I was air. I was Enron just before the fall, and savvy Will Chapman was an investor late to the party, begging to be let in so that he too could own a part of the magic. Fool, foolish hope. Picking up the large envelope holding the manuscript, he handed it to me. "Will you read this for me?" he asked simply, but again with that vulnerable look, and I wondered if that was what he wanted, what he loved about Maine: the vulnerability of simplicity.
"Of course I'll read it," I said, accepting the manuscript. It was heavier than I had imagined, weighing my arms down. "Is it finished?" I certainly hoped so.
"I think I'm halfway there," he said.
"Halfway?" I asked, trying not to sound shocked. "This feels to be about five hundred pages."
"Long?" he said, posed more as a question he knew he didn't need to ask.
"I don't know where to begin with you," I said. Didn't he know that people don't like to read much anymore? When they do, they want short, clever books that make them feel smart. I thought of Sig Blankman with Will's thousand pages on her desk, how fast they'd end up in the garbage can. "What was the last book you read that was a thousand pages long?"
"Remembrance of Things Past."
"Are you Proust?"
He smiled.
"A Suitable Boy, Lonesome Dove, War and Peace, the For-syte Saga, Tom Jones."
"You were fired, weren't you?"
"Just read the first chapter. If you hate it, don't worry. If you hate it, throw it in the trash and tell me the truth. I won't be offended. In fact, I'll be offended if you don't tell me the truth." He wiped his lips with his napkin and replaced it in his lap. He took a kumquat from the basket, rinsed it in a bowl of water, then popped it into his mouth. Two years, I thought. How fast it passes when you subtract vacation, time with the children, weekends, holidays, doctor visits; it becomes a year, and a year is squandered in a blink. I saw Emma standing before me, her face fractured with worry as she learned what it meant to want.
"I will do that for you, of course," I said. Art, the great leveler, I thought. Go ahead and try.
"India Palmer," a familiar voice called as I stepped from the restaurant into the street. The voice belonged to Darwin Smith, who was married to Theodor's tall and plump cousin Sally. He was a small, deliberate, bespectacled man who enjoyed telling people how to do things better in their lives. Only in New York, a city of eight million people, do you run into your cousin's husband by accident.
I loved to listen to Darwin when he'd go on to Theodor and me about how our lives would be so much better if we lived in the country. He could paint such an inviting picture that I really could envision us in Vermont, in a sweet antique farmhouse, the kids in public school, a barn for Theodor's studio, the attic for mine. I found it entertaining because it seemed Darwin wanted to be a savior, as if by saving just one person, he would consider his life worthwhile. Darwin spoke slowly, he walked slowly. He had a gimpy leg, partially paralyzed by a childhood illness. Actually, he was forced to drag his leg, but over the years he had done a good job of masking the effort so that it seemed only a slight limp.
"Darwin Deals," I said and kissed and hugged him, swallowing him whole he was such a petit man. "How are you?" Somewhere along the route to adulthood (at one time selling Italian sandwiches for a hefty price in his college dorm and other entrepreneurial escapades) he'd picked up the nickname Deals and was now so known to most of his friends.
"You get an early start," he said and examined his watch.
"Breakfast with a friend," I said.
"I didn't think writers did breakfast."
"This writer does. How's Sally?"
"She's well." Sally was a lawyer who defended white-collar felons, perps of hideous scandals usually involving enormous sums of money, and on occasion prostitutes from exotic countries, paid extravagantly with company cash.
"Any good cases?"
"Nothing too exciting. Your book? Is it out yet?"
"October sixteenth is the publication date."
"Reviews?"
"Too early for that," I lied. The prepubs should have been in by now.
"I look forward to reading it. I've been meaning to call you. I wanted to ask if you had a thousand dollars."
"Are you kidding me?"
"I'm not." He had to look up at me, since I towered over him. "You look beautiful. You've done something new."
"Just the hair. The older I get, the lighter it gets. A thousand bucks for what?"
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"I want to help you," he said. Gold flecked his brown eyes, which were set a little too close together and made bigger and bug-like by the glasses. He kept his reddish hair slicked back in ripples with gel so it looked pasted to his scalp. His suit was light and a little too big for him. "Coffee is going to burst," he continued. "We've got an opportunity and I want you and Theodor to take advantage of it. There's going to be an eruption in the coffee futures market and we're going to get in on the ground floor with an option. It's going to explode. The price pressure is completely on target. I haven't seen anything like this since the early 1980s."
"You want me to trade coffee?"
"Buy a futures option. You're going to buy it for less than it will be worth, then sell. Simple. I'm telling you, it's about to shoot to the moon. I want you to come for the ride." Then he whispered. "I'm speaking about a good old-fashioned Wall Street tip. Coffee's where it's at. Explode," he said again and went on to explain the simplicity of the situation, of coffee calls and coffee futures and options and the right to buy 37,500 pounds of coffee without the requirement of margin deposits of cash, how together we, like surfers, were going to ride the wave and keep riding it all the way up to the moon. And just then he pointed upward into the September sky, to the pale and very full moon. "We're headed there. Coffee's going two hundred and fifty thousand miles high. Six weeks and a thousand dollars will become a quarter to half a million. I've worked out the numbers. It's a no-brainer."
He spoke with that passion of his, his desire to be the savior, and I felt then as I did about the farm in Vermont. I could see it as clearly as I could see the moon. But I did not understand the nuances he offered, that he carried on about at length, the simplicity or the complexity of how one thousand would become half a million. And yet I believed him, and it made me warm to his idea. Indeed, his enthusiasm seemed to make him grow. He had made plenty of money in the past in the commodities market, so I'd been told by Sally, usually when everyone else was losing money. "There are always one or two making money in a down market," he was fond of saying. In times when I'd been more concerned with art, he'd bored Theodor and me about corn and soy and sugar and pork bellies. He was married to a sane, smart woman. Sally was always proud of him and his accomplishments, always regaling us with his financial savvy. Somehow I did believe irrefutably in answers dropping from the clear blue sky to change one's fortune. And here was the preposterous Darwin Deals in the nick of time. And indeed, the moon was gorgeous up there, my empyrean of security. No creditors up there. Even Will's manuscript didn't feel so heavy in my arms.
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