The lunacy of that idea was evident, and I walked slowly back to the men when I was done. The worst was over; I had taken my perp walk and I had survived it. Besides, it was time to stop cowering in the Cotswolds and take some action.
Just then, I saw John and the children enter through the main doors, and I practically ran over to them. “Hi, Jordy,” he said cheerfully. “All ready to meet with Mr. Gupta?”
John and I left the children in Gupta’s anteroom with whispered admonitions (stern on John’s part, prayerful on mine) to behave, and were ushered immediately into the massive corner office, with its panoramic view of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. John settled easily into one of the comfortable armchairs at a polished round wooden table in one corner; I perched uneasily on mine. I could already hear the children starting to bicker (“He’s touching me,” Katherine whined).
The diminutive Gupta soon appeared, flanked by two subordinates who towered over him. I had seen pictures of the crusading prosecutor and knew that his small stature was in no way a disadvantage; he never craned his neck to look up at people, since they always bent their heads to his level.
We shook hands all around, and I wondered if the men were repulsed by my sweaty, shaky hand.
Gupta said, “Welcome back to New York, Ms. Greene. I’m sorry for not giving you any notice of the timing, but we had to make it look real.”
“The children?”
John said reassuringly. “We had a word in the car coming over. They think it’s all a great adventure.”
I drew a deep, cleansing breath and, for the first time that day, felt my muscles unclench. “I don’t know why I was so nervous,” I admitted.
Gupta grunted. “The day we lose our power to make bankers nervous is the day I’m out of a job.”
The other lawyer said briskly, “Thank you for coming in, Lady Grey. Since we have no hard evidence against them, our only chance is to goad Mr. Fellowes and Mr. Puccelli into informing on each other. It was obvious from the first that Mr. Fellowes was living far beyond his means. Even his recent marriage—”
My head snapped up in curiosity. “Marriage? Lucian got married?” The poor girl.
“Yes,” the lawyer said. “Just a few weeks ago. He married a young lady—a very young lady—”
“Nineteen,” the other lawyer supplied.
“—who happens to be the daughter of Mr. Vernon Wilmer. Perhaps you’re familiar with the name?”
Of course. Vernon Wilmer was the CEO of Asteroid, the hedge fund that Lucian had cheated of $72 million. I stared uncomprehendingly.
“She is a very wealthy young lady,” Gupta explained, in case I hadn’t caught the subtext.
“But don’t they . . . Don’t they know it was Lucian who . . .”
Gupta smiled slightly. “Not yet.” His smile became positively seraphic. “But they will soon.”
“Tomorrow, to be exact,” said the first lawyer.
“One wonders how long the annulment will take,” murmured John.
“Why? What happens tomorrow?”
“Sadly,” said the older lawyer, not looking in the slightest bit sad, “it appears that the newspapers have already picked up the story of your arrest and upcoming testimony. It will be in the morning editions.”
Gupta smirked slightly. “My source tells me that it will be posted on Matt Drudge even before that.”
I looked at John, who was smiling, too. He stood up and held out his hand to the lawyers. “Thank you for meeting with us,” he said.
Gupta grinned even more widely; if he weren’t the most famous and feared prosecutor in America, I would have sworn that he looked like a mischievous college boy. “Oh, now, Shaggy J, give us a hug.”
My husband shrugged and smiled, and the two men enjoyed a hearty embrace.
“It was fun conspiring with you again,” said Gupta. “But nowhere near as much fun as Crewes weekend. Will you ever forget the look on that dean’s face when the donkey head turned up in his—?”
John said hastily to me, “It wasn’t a real donkey.” To Gupta, he said sarcastically, “Thanks for bringing that incident to my wife’s attention.”
Gupta bowed slightly. “I owed you for that girl from Melbourne—you know, the one who looked like Farrah Fawcett?”
I had been so engrossed in the tale that I had been able to tune out the increasing sounds of madness and mayhem from the anteroom. Now a harassed-looking older woman tapped on the door and sidled in, casting a furious glance at Gupta.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she hissed, looking not the slightest bit sorry, “but I’m afraid I really can’t control those children. The oldest girl keeps asking me questions about pre-contracts and marriages, and the little boy has managed to break the soda machine so that it’s raining Diet Cokes and Mountain Dews all over the waiting room. Really, Mr. Gupta, I must insist—”
“Never mind,” said John, getting to his feet with alacrity. “We’re done here anyway.”
Chapter 43
IN A DAZE, I helped John remove “our” unrepentant children, and once again we rode down an elevator in silence.
Finally, John cleared his throat and said unenthusiastically, “Children, I’m very disappointed in your behavior.” It was clear, though, that his heart wasn’t in it.
“I was just asking questions,” Jane protested. “Aren’t they supposed to know all about the law?”
“The machine ate my pounds, so I kicked it,” Henry complained.
Jane explained, “That’s because you don’t use pounds in America. You use dollars.”
Katherine tossed her silky curls. “Honestly,” she said, “you can’t take them anywhere.”
Even John smiled at that.
I laughed out loud in a burst of relief and pleasure and, yes, even joy. “Henry,” I said, “I will buy you all the soda you want while we’re in New York.”
Henry bounced up and down, giggling.
John opened his mouth and closed it again.
Katherine huffed, “Well, really!”
“And I will buy you all the designer jeans you want,” I promised recklessly.
“What about me?” demanded Mary.
“All of you!” I said sweepingly. “Everyone gets what they want in New York!”
John grinned. “What about me?”
Our eyes met and clung. “Especially you,” I said.
— – — – —
Back at the hotel, John gave Jane some money and sent the children downstairs to the game room. Being the Four Seasons, it was paneled in rich dark wood like an upscale men’s club, but it had a foosball table and a pool table and vending machines that would keep them busy for a while.
I directed my computer browser to the Drudge Report, and as John started to say something, my attention was caught by the top article.
“Spanky the Banker” Arrested for Securities Fraud
Mr. Lucian Fellowes, executive vice president of AmCan Bank in New York, was arrested last night on charges of solicitation, resisting arrest, and assault and battery on a police officer, the article began.
I looked at John in some bewilderment. “What does this have to do with securities fraud?” I asked.
“Keep reading,” he said.
Fellowes and a colleague, Gary Puccelli [oh my God, they got Gary, too?], had been under investigation by U.S. Attorney Nirav Gupta for some months in connection with securities fraud at AmCan Bank. An anonymous tip last night led police to a gentleman’s club in lower Manhattan, where Fellowes was caught with a paid escort wearing a Marilyn Monroe wig and a purple-tasseled thong (the lady, that is, not the banker).
Again I looked at John. “But that’s not right,” I protested, trying to make sense of it all. “Gary’s gay; he wouldn’t be at a—”
“Keep reading,” he said again.
&n
bsp; Drudge was clearly enjoying the story.
The “lady” was in fact a transvestite, a burly lad with a discernible mustache who gave his name as Inamorata. His nickname for Mr. Fellowes was Spanky the Banker, since “he liked to spank us and we knew he was a banker.” Police suspected that the two bankers’ judgment was impaired by the copious use of cocaine, as Fellowes appeared to be unaware at first that his escort was a man. Mr. Puccelli’s escort—a massive brunette who goes by the name of Brutalia—told police that the foursome did multiple lines of cocaine before proceeding to “business.”
Cocaine. That didn’t surprise me.
Fellowes appeared not to have realized that the “lady” was a man, and he took a swing at Mr. Puccelli when he realized the situation.
How I wished I’d been there to witness that!
Fellowes missed Puccelli and hit one of the police officers, thus adding the charges of resisting arrest and assault and battery on a police officer.
In the course of questioning, both Fellowes and Puccelli offered to give evidence against the other in the AmCan Bank securities fraud case in exchange for dropping the solicitation and assault charges. Apparently, they were afraid that an ex-colleague had agreed to testify against them and were trying to get immunity before she did.
Ahhhhhhh. I was beginning to understand.
According to one source in Gupta’s office, “It was a prosecutor’s dream come true. Fellowes was desperate to keep the soliciting charge from his wife, and Puccelli was angry that Fellowes had taken a swing at him. “They implicated each other in everything from insider trading to fraud; all we had to do was take notes and keep supplying the coffee.”
Yes, Lucian and Gary would be quick to turn on each other in a moment of panic. They had the instincts of hyenas.
I turned to John, who said, “So hasn’t this all turned out well?”
I beamed at him.
“Now, then,” he said. “What was that about giving me everything I want?”
— – — – —
After John and the children fell asleep that night, I rummaged in the antique walnut desk and pulled out the embossed Four Seasons stationery and pen. At the top of the paper, I wrote:
What I should have realized
1. I “fled” New York because I wanted to, not because I was really afraid that I would be convicted of a crime I didn’t commit.
2. If the prosecutors really were after me, they certainly hadn’t tried very hard.
3. I must have known that Nirav Gupta and his team were much too smart for that.
4. I wanted to escape from the bank, from Lucian, from my sterile apartment, and from my sagging career.
5. I left New York because I wanted to leave my life there. Not because Lucian and Marcus were passing on dire warnings about subpoenas and fraud charges.
6. It was a great excuse for doing what I’d wanted to do all along.
— – — – —
I studied my list and understood for the first time that I hadn’t been an innocent victim, swept along by forces much greater than myself. I had chosen to escape my New York life at the first opportunity; I had chosen to stay with the children; and I had chosen their father.
For the first time, I acknowledged that if I had been powerless against Lucian, I had taken back all of that power when I crossed the ocean. I could have refused to become a nanny and a mistress and then a wife. John hadn’t forced me into bed; I had practically leaped there with him because I found him wildly attractive.
And I had chosen to marry him. I may have rationalized my decision to stay with the children by telling myself that I was being towed along by larger forces, but in fact, I had been making my own choices all along.
With a jolt, I realized that I was like the real Lady Jane Grey in more ways than I knew. She, too, had wielded power; she, too, had chosen her own man. I had made my own decisions and followed my own heart: to England, and to the children, and John.
John and I chortled together over the newspapers the following morning; one had a blurry but still recognizable photo of Lucian dressed only in Scooby-Doo boxers with a pink feather boa around his neck, swinging wildly at Gary. The moniker “Spanky the Banker” appeared to have stuck, much to John’s delight, and the “massive brunette” Brutalia gave a full interview to the Daily News about Gary’s rather peculiar tastes. “He really, really loves to lick lime Jell-O off my tummy” was one of Brutalia’s gems. Inamorata, not to be outdone, claimed that Lucian liked to “insert himself” between “her” giant plastic breasts.
“Ugh,” said John, looking at the picture of Inamorata. “I wonder if any of it’s true.”
Probably not, I thought. It all sounded much too inventive for Lucian and Gary.
— – — – —
As the plane started its descent toward Orlando, Disney gear started popping up all around us. The children in the seats in front of us pulled out black Mickey Mouse ears from their carry-ons and put them on. Across the aisle, a chubby, middle-aged man rather shamefacedly tugged on a huge Donald Duck sweatshirt while his wife put on a matching Daisy Duck shirt. Our children watched, round-eyed.
Mary, who was sitting between me and John, tugged at my shirt and asked, “Can I get Mickey Mouse ears, too?”
That was only the beginning. By the time we had traversed the airport to our waiting limousine (John traveled in style, I had to give him that), Henry had acquired a pirate hat, Katherine was wearing a Disney princess crown, and Mary’s eyes shone like stars under her plastic tiara. Even our limo driver was wearing the biggest pair of Mickey Mouse ears I had ever seen with his formal black chauffeur’s uniform.
“Bloody hell,” John said.
Chapter 44
IT’S HARD TO say exactly when John unbent.
I had seen him mischievous before—in bed, with “Foxy,” choosing our wedding music. But I had never seen him like this.
Perhaps it was when we took pictures of him blushing as a yellow-haired Cinderella kissed him on the cheek in front of her castle. Or when he was pulled out of the audience at the Indiana Jones stunt show to play an extra, and was ordered to scream as loudly as possible. (“Daddy screams like a girl,” Henry commented.) Or at the Hoop-Dee-Doo revue, when a cowgirl pulled him out of his chair and galloped him around the room in a wild two-step, shouting, “Git ’em, cowboy!” (Our solemn Mary fell out of her chair, she was laughing so hard.)
Katherine made me take her to the Beauty and the Beast stage show five times, while Jane fell in love with the country exhibits at Epcot. She made me take her to the 360-degree China film three times, and Henry could have spent his entire day shuttling between Splash Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean. We discovered that John had a deeply hidden love of roller coasters and terrifying rides—the scarier, the better—that was, astonishingly, shared by Mary. The two of them roared, screaming with laughter, up and down every roller coaster from Expedition Everest to Space Mountain, and acquired a full wardrobe of I SURVIVED THE [INSERT NAME] T-shirts. When they got off the Tower of Terror, John’s hair was practically standing on end; Mary, clinging to his hand, begged, “Again, Daddy! Again!”
We learned to break up every day after lunch with a swim at our hotel, the Yacht and Beach Club, which had a sandy-bottomed pool and multiple water slides that the children flew down, gasping and shrieking. After John stopped muttering about sun poisoning and overchlorinated water, I persuaded him into the lazy river with me, and we snuggled together on a Minnie Mouse lounger in the water, circling again and again in the gentle stream. Katherine took a photo of her father floating on an inner tube in the cool water, his face turned up to the warm sun with an expression of pure bliss. Mary didn’t reach for her inhaler once all week.
Over a mountainous ice cream sundae from the hotel’s café, Jane leaned against me and confided, “I love Disney World.”
I studied her sunburned nose and lightly freckled cheeks. “So do I,” I admitted.
— – — – —
On our last night, we went to dinner at the teppanyaki restaurant in the Japan pavilion at Epcot. I’d bought silk robes for myself and the girls at the Japanese department store before dinner, and we all presented John with a black silk smoking jacket, which he promptly donned. The dining was hibachi-style, so we all sat around a high-topped L-shaped table with a chef in the center. He juggled his knives in the air, popped an onion into his hat, and diced shrimp with a samurai sword. I happened to look over at Henry, whose bright little face was filled with wonderment, at the same moment John looked at him. Our eyes met, and John smiled at me.
That night, we slipped into the bathroom for some privacy after the children fell asleep. John locked the door while I spread towels on the floor; wordlessly, effortlessly, we made love in total silence.
It was lovely.
As we filed disconsolately onto our airplane the next morning, we looked like a different family. All of our faces were in various stages of sunburn or suntan, with freckles lightly dusting the children’s cheeks. John sported a bright green Mickey Mouse sweatshirt, while I wore a Winnie-the-Pooh T-shirt. Henry was decked out in a pirate’s costume with a plastic sword in a scabbard, and a wide-billed Donald Duck baseball hat on his head. Jane wore a Lion King T-shirt with her new Seven jeans, and Katherine proudly wore a Nala T-shirt.
The return to the dreary, gray Cotswolds was hard, but I had softened our landing by buying all of the Disney DVDs, which the children had previously disdained as babyish. Harry Potter was discarded in favor of Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and The Lion King, and Henry pranced around as a pirate or lion cub. It was a definite improvement.
And then, at last, it was spring.
— – — – —
My birthday was on April 2, and I knew the girls were planning to bake me a cake; I only hoped that Doris’s shiny kitchen would survive the experience.
I woke up early to the sound of the shower in our adjoining bathroom. John must have gotten in from London during the night or early in the morning.
Nannyland Page 24