“If my marriage with Eddie is over at some point, I need to do what’s right for the kids, what Theo and Gigi really need.” Caroline turned back to her friend. “And, whether I leave him or not, I fundamentally believe my kids belong in the surf and sun and sand out here in their school years, instead of marching around in loafers and school uniforms on city concrete. Eddie promised me we could move back when I had kids. This very fall, Theo could start kindergarten out here; Gigi fourth grade.” Caroline looked back at the glistening water. “I mean, c’mon, they don’t even play on the bay beaches I grew up on.”
“I promise, a summer affair might finally give you real answers to where all that anxiety is coming from: the city, Eddie Clarkson, or both.” Annabelle raised her eyebrows at Caroline, forming that expression that often helped her crush life’s opponents.
“Well, I’m different that way,” Caroline stated, as she looked out at the harbor again, disturbed there was no Boston Whaler in sight. Though she would not admit it to Annabelle, an affair was, in the here and now of a summer’s twilight, something she might consider. Eddie was a good, playful father and surely in love with her. But it was impossible for any partner to satiate his appetite for attention. And when she couldn’t, he’d gorged elsewhere. And, yes, it made her furious and humiliated her.
“I might readdress your ridiculous plan at some point down the line,” Caroline said, finally. “You’re right about one thing: I’m sure I need something to change. Especially today. I’m feeling so strange suddenly.”
She grabbed her cracker wrappers and napkin out of her pocket and crumpled them into a tight ball as if that would help her resolve.
Chapter 3
The Titan Treatment
Thursday before Memorial Day Weekend, Midtown Manhattan
Caroline’s husband, Eddie Clarkson, laid his head back on the white leather Philippe Starck desk chair he’d bought at Art Basel Miami this past fall. He adjusted his headset and microphone, deciding he’d listen to exactly two more minutes of horseshit excuses.
He closed his eyes to temper his frustration while his partner in the Hawaiian poke bowl fast-food venture droned on, “I promise you, Eddie. We just need another infusion. I know I said three years to profitability, but it’s gonna take four. We have franchises to develop, and, in time, they’re going to make us strong gains. I’m telling you, the rare tuna, the cauliflower rice for all those low-carb freaks. What do you think all those women who take all those SoulCycle classes want for lunch? Poke bowls and poke bowls. Every single one of them.”
“I don’t know what idiot declared that the entire country should be fuckin’ gorging on cauliflower all of a sudden,” Eddie pointed out.
The window in his corner office on Fifty-Second Street looked down Park Avenue toward the building that stood above Grand Central Terminal. It used to say Pan Am in blue lights on the top when he was a young kid and visited Manhattan with his uncle Charlie. No one in his immediate family back in East Hampton ever went to the big city; they didn’t see the need, nor were they interested. And Eddie saw where that provinciality landed his parents: his mom stuck driving an assisted-living transport bus and his dad an oil delivery truck, making dirt money their whole lives. Uncle Charlie understood the city was the key to real cash flow. He taught Eddie that it was just a matter of figuring out how to get close to the people who had a shit-ton of it.
“And if you look at column four, admittedly, the projections were a little off, but . . .”
Time’s up. Eddie opened his eyes and placed his elbows on his glass desk. One phone, one small glass cube holding a dozen silver Cartier pens, and one small laptop lay before him. He wasn’t into paper. Eddie didn’t like records or reminders; it was always verbal with him, and everyone knew that by now.
A seating area with a white leather couch and two metal Knoll armchairs with white leather strips for seats stood on the other side of the desk. A spotless glass coffee table anchored them in a half circle. He demanded that his dark chocolate rug be vacuumed in the same direction every morning so he could see linear grooves when he walked in. That kind of thing made his day, boosted his mood, and got him ready to tell assholes like those on his phone right now to piss off.
“And on the next page, you see the P and L of . . .”
Eddie breathed in deep through his nose like a parent summoning patience with a three-year-old who wouldn’t get dressed. He rubbed his evenly cropped haircut, which was as carefully groomed as his rug. As the team’s justifications poured into his headset, he stood his stocky build up and walked over to the electric blue Yves Klein Venus statue in the corner.
That brunette lesbian art adviser told him to buy it and hold it for at least ten years. Too bad she didn’t respond to his jokes about having a threesome with one of her girlfriends if he bought the art she pitched. She answered that every banker client in the city made the same proposal. And that he was “profoundly pedestrian” in his assumptions.
He wondered if her instincts about Yves Klein were golden and he’d cash in as she promised. He massaged the blue goddess’s breasts with his fingertips, though he was told that his prints would mar the surface of the pigment and decrease the statue’s value.
He did it anyway because the image of lesbians and their nipples rubbing up against each other got him stiff in his pants, even if only for a brief moment. Then, the thought of that lesbian art adviser kicking him in the nuts if he asked her how she got her own nipples hard caused his erection to wilt.
Out of nowhere, he barked into the phone. “Shut the fuck up with this speculative bullshit. I’ve had enough. I’m out.”
Eddie punched the end call button hard with his index finger.
“Eleanor!” he screamed. “They are going to call back. Tell them when I say fuck off, I actually mean fuck off for fuckin’ real.” He shook his head.
Eddie had a feeling this deal would never work. He’d write the Hawaiian fast-food disaster off on some tax loss statement. If Caroline and her friends didn’t order tuna tartar so much every time they went out, he’d never have put a penny into this poke bowl food scheme to begin with.
He needed some tax write-offs anyway, so even if the three poke bowl franchises in this cockamamy deal were booming, he’d have been out and figured a way to make it look like a loss. The partners didn’t know that. They didn’t need to. So many things people didn’t need to know. That was a primary goal in his business life: remembering the link between limited knowledge and limited fall-out. Uncle Charlie, Lord rest his soul, taught him that too.
“Eleanor!” he yelled again. “Get the car outside. Tell him I’ll be down in five, and I hope the company sends that amazing driver.”
His assistant knew when to push her boss and when to hold back. Every day, for thirty years now, Eleanor used the same thick tortoiseshell clip to firmly nestle a short bun just above her neck. Today, she’d chosen one of her bright suits, peach in hue, with a white silk blouse, and sensible heels that helped support the weight of her sizable calves and ankles.
“You have the people in the waiting area,” Eleanor said. “We canceled on them three times. Remember they helped you last year: your lawyer’s cousin’s friend. I think this time you should . . .”
“Really? They gave me shitty advice last time. Put them in the conference room, and I’ll talk to them from the car. I’ll FaceTime you once I get downstairs. Show my face on the video conference projector. Just as good.”
Eddie pushed open the glass door of his office, marched out, and pushed the elevator button. He stared at his reflection in the bronze-mirrored panel. At five feet eight, he may not precisely tower over people, but, he figured, his strong limbs, cropped brown hair, and large, full lips and eyes, made him a damn good-looking male specimen.
He was wearing a Thom Browne suit that hugged his crotch a little too tightly, especially when he got a hard-on from imagining frisky lesbian art dealers, but he’d lose the weight soon. Though that stylist at Barney�
�s explained Thom Browne designed for lanky models, not men who cut such a muscular girth, nor with such thick thighs, he ignored him. Eddie figured the suit would fall better with the ten pounds off. That was two years ago.
He adjusted his testicles a little and then loosened his flashy purple Prada tie. Caroline never liked that tie and told him he looked silly in it, like a disco dancer, like John Travolta in the old days. She would have liked it a lot less if she knew Hélène bought it for him. He always wore it on the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend. Hard to believe, but it was the tenth anniversary of that very, very bad day.
Waiting for the elevator, he looked at the strange geometric lines and shapes in the drawing he’d bought at the recent contemporary evening sale at Sotheby’s. He couldn’t ever remember the artist’s name. He looked again at the plate: Julie Mehretu. That’s right, Mehretu.
The three other companies on this floor didn’t seem to care about what art Eddie hung in the public spaces. They didn’t have any taste anyway. All he knew was Goldman Sachs had a big Julie Mehretu painting in their lobby on West Street in the Financial District. His company wasn’t exactly Goldman, but the feel of his entrance should match the lobbies of the Wall Street giants.
Marcus McCree was waiting downstairs for him, out front of the Lever House restaurant where Eddie and every other power macher in Midtown ate lunch. Marcus rarely chauffeured anymore, but when he did, he always drove one of the two navy-blue Maybachs in his fleet.
All through high school, Eddie had driven a navy-blue Ford F-150 pickup. Uncle Charlie had agreed to split payments with him, as long as he did well in school and worked hard at his summer jobs. Eddie’s father had only driven that oil truck his whole life, no reason he had to be so tough on his son. Charlie thought it wasn’t the kid’s fault Jake drank himself into oblivion all the time.
Jake Clarkson egged his son on every time Eddie walked through the door of the home he’d bought for them. “Why don’t you come home more often,” he’d slur from the worn, rust-colored corduroy Barcalounger he’d installed front and center in the new living room, despite his son’s disagreement. Or rather, because of it. “You too good for us, now?” There was nothing much Eddie or Caroline could do to appease him, not that he was ever sober enough at night to hear them. When Eddie would splurge on anything—from a navy Mercedes AMG S65 to a set of soft, navy Louis Vuitton loafers—he often did it to spite his dad. Just to prove he could live any way he pleased. Most material things in his life had that instant ability to make him feel like a badass motherfucker. Especially navy blue things, the color of winners.
“Hey man, good to see you; glad it’s you today, Marcus.” Eddie slapped the driver’s shoulder and stepped into the quiet womb of the plush back seat. “Take the FDR Drive, would ya? I hate the lights, even if that traffic app tells you to take First Avenue, just ignore it. Jesus Christ, it’s hot today.”
“You got it,” Marcus said. “We’ll take the drive.” After sealing Eddie into the back, he moved like Fred Astaire as he walked to the driver’s side. Marcus McCree ran the Executive Coach enterprise with sixty cars and a hundred drivers with different shifts.
Marcus served in the police force for a dozen years, which allowed him to watch things, speculate intelligently on things that weren’t right. He was shrewd in many areas, not only in starting a business from scratch. A forty-year-old African-American man with a shiny, clean-shaven head and an elegant, slim frame, he looked even taller than his six-foot-three height. Marcus didn’t drive anymore because he ran the enterprise. He only started driving Eddie because he’d gotten that phone call to check on him. He knew that he was in a position, like the man who’d called him, to tidy things up, and to protect people.
The Maybach crossed the hustle of morning in Midtown and entered the FDR Drive downtown at Sixty-Third Street and the East River. The car hovered over the jagged cracks in the pavement and the deep potholes as if on a sea of clouds. Eddie FaceTimed Eleanor from his iPhone. His image appeared on the office video screen; Eddie could see the three losers in suits sitting around his conference table. He yelled into his phone, “Go ahead with the pitch. You got ten minutes.”
His personal cell phone rang twice, and he rejected the call before Brittany could get through. She was a little needy sometimes, and it made him nervous he’d be found out. He hoped the man—or woman—upstairs in the sky wasn’t watching through the sunroof. Eddie often got superstitious, and he looked for signs.
Birds were always telling him things, swooping down and sending him messages. Rain always meant good luck. After big pitch meetings, he’d make sure every little thing the rest of the day was done with good intent, energy, and generosity. If he saw a wrapper on the sidewalk, he’d pick it up and throw it out. Sure, sometimes he’d walk past it, and then huff and go back and get it. He’d give up a taxi he’d hailed to a woman waiting, or to a man, and even hold the door for the woman or the guy—even though it made him look super gay. Eddie didn’t believe God controlled the cash flow, but he felt someone was watching. Someone was judging him, he knew that much. Like Uncle Charlie said, You earn your luck.
The Maybach rounded another curve near that tacky restaurant on the water. Those lousy shrimp puffs from that sweet sixteen entered his mind—he had to go, the father was an investor. Eddie opened the window and stretched his head out. It felt as if he’d stuck his face near an open oven door, but the wind dried the sweat on his forehead. Another masterpiece banger of a song came on.
Alejandro, Alejandro . . .
Marcus glided off the FDR Drive at the Avenue C exit. A few twentysomething men played handball in gated, worn-down courts. Girls in booty shorts and colorful halter blouses sat nearby on overturned white painter’s buckets. Travis Scott blared from a speaker by their side. As Eddie and Marcus drove into the depths of Alphabet City, near Tompkins Square Park, they passed twenty-four-hour bodegas selling cigars, vaping paraphernalia, soda, and chips, alongside trendy restaurants with French names he couldn’t pronounce.
The high and low pulsing in this great city was awesome. Caroline, for some reason he could never understand, wanted to move back to the wood-and-sand hinterland of Long Island. Another million in his bank account might help sway her; although he knew she didn’t care about all the cash like he did.
Marcus stopped a block up on the corner of Avenue B and Sixth Street by the Le Chien Noir bistro. Eddie opened his own door. This is how he always wanted it downtown. This area was half hipster, half somewhat poor, and he didn’t want to look like a bougie banker guy. He’d instructed Marcus the first time they came to this block to never forget how he wanted it done: wait behind the wheel and stare ahead. Don’t even look sideways.
Eddie walked into the small French bistro, one with a down-and-out, seedy decor that surely took more time to curate than a spanking new one. Above the counter, the menu was written on a blackboard with white chalk in letters that looked a tad too French and swirly for his taste. He didn’t really get the French, or even twentysomethings these days. The place was hip, but red linoleum chairs looked pretty down-market to him. At least, he didn’t need to order and try to figure out what the menu said.
He sat down in the far corner. Véronique brought over his French grilled cheese, ham in the middle, white sauce inside, as usual. It was called a croque something, but he didn’t like to try to say it. He cared far more about the fact that Véronique’s leggings looked as though they had been plastered onto her bulbous beach ball of an ass. He loved that her blouse was strategically buttoned at the very bottom of her lace bra, right where her messy blond curls ended. She leaned her bountiful tits into his ear. “Your Tabasco is by the napkins. You want a regular Coke again or you want to be a little wild and have a 7UP,” she asked. Her butt rubbed his shoulder firmly as she turned away.
Uncle Charlie had told him only safe women could be indulged in. “Safe” meant a woman who would lose as much as you if word got out. But sometimes Eddie slipped a little: ju
st that one blow job from Véronique, that one time. Life was too short not to experience those comic-book-level lips around his cock once. Just like Veronica in the Archie series, he kept telling her.
No matter how hard Véronique tried to seduce him again, Eddie promised himself he’d resist. Uncle Charlie was right: you only screwed women who were safe. Véronique was not only single, but looked at him with longing. Also, she didn’t have any money, and now, he had way too much: the very definition of unsafe. Uncle Charlie up in heaven was wagging his finger: Stay away from that French woman, they’re all seductresses.
Still, he wasn’t to blame for treading into dangerous territory a few times since he got married. What the hell was he supposed to do when he wanted a little activity and minimal risk? Do a rich housewife with equal standing? Women in velvet Gucci loafers didn’t turn him on, even the purebred hot moms in his neighborhood. He didn’t see why Constantine, the doorman, called them yummy mummies. He and Constantine would argue over whether the moms were horny. Eddie always maintained it had been a decade since most of them had come for real. The cruder he got, the more Constantine laughed.
Véronique returned with the sweet potato chips he loved, even though he hadn’t ordered them. He pushed them aside and adjusted the waist on his tight slacks. “Thanks, but not today, baby.” He patted Véronique’s ass and, studying it for a moment, figured it was the size of a basketball, not a beach ball. The kind of thing you could cup in one hand.
“Where is my man?” he asked her. “I’ve been here five minutes already.”
“You know the drill, honey. You made the rules, now you forget them? You eat your croque monsieur. You drop the napkin on the plate. I get it. He comes in when you’re done. You told us you don’t like to eat and do business. You like to eat, then do business, or do business and then eat. So, if you tap the table like you did when you came in, I bring the food, and Thierry is going to chill outside near the lamppost.” She nodded toward the opposite side of the street.
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