Unsuitable Men

by Forrester, Nia

The brownstone was as she had left it. All was in order downstairs, but upstairs the bed still bore evidence of Friday night’s little encounter. The sheets were in disarray, and as soon as Tracy entered the room with Brendan, she hurried to pull them from the mattress, balling them up and tossing them aside. Once stripped, she remade the bed with clean, fresh sheets and lit a scented candle. Brendan watched her from the doorway, stepping aside when she dashed downstairs, returning with a large dark trash bag into which she deposited the sheets she’d stripped from the bed.

  “There,” she said, her voice falsely bright. “Done.”

  She knotted the garbage bag and tossed it down the staircase.

  “So,” Brendan said. “You straight? How’re you for dinner? You need to go out and grab something for later, or . . ?”

  “I’m fine,” Tracy said shaking her head. “I’ll walk you out. I need to drop this bag at the curb for trash pick-up tomorrow anyway.”

  “You have anything else that needs to go out?”

  “Yeah. Kitchen trash,” Tracy said. “Could you grab that for me?”

  “Sure.”

  When Brendan turned to head downstairs, she kneeled by the bed and looked around until she found what she was looking for. Until Brendan mentioned other stuff that might need to go out, she’d forgotten the used condoms. She vaguely remembered Kelvin dropping them unceremoniously next to the bed when they were done. She stuffed them into her bathroom trash and grabbed that bag as well, knotting it tightly and then joining Brendan downstairs by the front door.

  They walked together to the curb and dumped the trash bags near the growing pile of refuse that Tracy’s neighbors had already put out for Monday morning. Then it was undeniably time for Brendan to go. For a moment, they stood there awkwardly, neither of them knowing what to say or do. Tracy felt as though they’d turned a corner, crossed into new territory. However you wanted to say it, it was obvious that whatever they were now was something very different from what they had been just 48 hours earlier.

  “You took really good care of me,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “You know it’s no problem, Tracy.” He didn’t look her in the eye, and seemed almost embarrassed to have her mention it.

  “I want to thank you properly,” she said. “Maybe we can have dinner or something this week? If you want. If you have time.”

  “Yeah,” he nodded. “Sure. Call me. If this week isn’t too slammed, let’s do that.”

  Tracy watched as Brendan got in his car and started the engine, and was still standing there when he drove away. Then, remembering that she was once again all alone, she dashed up the steps and back into the townhouse, locking the door and setting the alarm.

  Tracy sighed, glancing down at her cell phone, wondering why it hadn’t rung. It was four hours since she’d called Brendan and left him the message inviting him to dinner. Four hours and he hadn’t so much as texted his acknowledgment, let alone an acceptance. And here she was, sitting at lunch with a client, looking at her phone every five minutes instead of politely listening to how great the man’s trip to the South of France had been.

  The truth was Tracy didn’t much like her clients. They were generally over-privileged people who had so much money that now their money made more money, eliminating the need for them to do any actual work. They were soft and indolent, and with a sense of entitlement that was often sickening to witness. They were rude and patronizing much of the time, even to her; because even though she helped them keep and grow their wealth that was all she was to them: help.

  The current asshole she was lunching with was Jason Miller, a thirty-five year old dotcom millionaire who had sold his company and was now living on the interest of the proceeds. He occasionally played with chunks of his fortune, almost like a gambler, curious about whether he could double, triple or quadruple his money in ever shorter periods of time. Having only been wealthy for about eight years or so hadn’t stopped him from behaving like he was one of the Rockefellers or Rothschilds. His net worth was rumored to be around $80 million, but his investment with Tracy’s funds totaled only about five hundred grand.

  Glancing at her phone, she wondered whether it was worth it to piss him off by ducking out for a moment so she could try Brendan again. Maybe he hadn’t gotten her message. She’d done that in the past, let a message linger without listening to it. Maybe he didn’t even know she’d invited him to dinner. That seemed far more likely than the possibility that he was just failing to call her back, or ignoring her.

  “Ms. Emerson,” Jason Miller said with a smile. “I’m getting the impression I don’t have your full attention.”

  And God forbid.

  Tracy smiled back at him. “Of course you do,” she said, sliding her phone into her purse and setting it aside.

  Unlike most of her colleagues, she walked a very fine line with her clients. Not only were there very few Black hedge fund managers to begin with, there were very few women. And as someone who was both those things, she was constantly on guard, making sure she not only met but exceeded every expectation or goal set by her clients and employer. It was a tricky thing to accomplish with investing, because no one could predict the markets, so even her missteps had to be spun to look like something else entirely.

  Jason Miller, she suspected, just liked to dabble. He liked feeling like he was a mover and shaker and had perhaps grown bored now that he wasn’t actively managing or building a business. These lunches, where he could bring people like her to heel, and remind them that they worked for him, were probably just one way he maintained his sense of self-importance. Tracy was prepared to indulge him, however painful it might be, because behind his five hundred thousand dollar investment could be much, much more.

  After lunch, there were two other meetings and then a conference call with a group of European investors, so it was well after eight that evening before Tracy was able to leave the office. She checked her phone and there were five missed calls. Three were from Riley and two from her mother. She called Riley back as she was riding in the car service’s Lincoln, on her way home, hoping that she would be on the line long enough to make a call to her mother in Georgia impractical because of the lateness of the hour. Thankfully, her mother was still old-fashioned enough to believe that it was ill-mannered to call past nine p.m. unless it was an emergency.

  “You’re not in labor, are you?” she asked Riley when she picked up.

  “No, unfortunately not,” Riley said groaning. “And I’m losing my mind from boredom over here. I don’t know what’s going on at work, and Shawn watched me all weekend like a hawk. Come to think of it, where the hell have you been? You never called me back. I wanted to hear how the opening of the club was on Friday.”

  Oh. That’s right. She hadn’t told Riley about the weekend. But for some reason she didn’t want to subject it to examination just yet.

  “The opening was fine. They did a great job with the decorating of the space. And of course, your husband left as soon as he could.”

  “Yeah, he got back early. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I wondered how it was with Brendan. Was Meghan there?”

  “She was. And I found other company.”

  “Oh.”

  Tracy let that hang there for a moment. Even if she didn’t feel ready to share everything, she wasn’t planning to lie to her best friend either. She just hoped like hell, Riley didn’t ask any pointed questions.

  “Well I’m still at the condo if you wanted to stop by this week,” Riley said after a few more moments of silence. “Shawn is in Philly with Brendan for a couple of days, so we can have some girl time.”

  Brendan was in Philly? He hadn’t mentioned that he was going away. But of course, why should he? If he did mention it to anyone, it would be to Meghan. Still, it felt unexpectedly hurtful that they’d spent all that time together and she’d mentioned dinner and he didn’t think to tell her he would be out of town. Tracy went through the rest of the conversation with Riley on auto-pilot and w
hen they were done she called Brendan’s number, opted to go directly to voicemail and left him a very nasty message about his failure to communicate. Doing that made her feel tons better and once home, she was able to eat her dinner with gusto and after a shower, fall directly into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  The cacophony of a dog barking woke her up around two in the morning and Tracy sat upright in bed, wondering who was out in the street with their dog at this ungodly hour. It took her a moment to recall that the barking was the ringtone she’d set for Brendan’s number. Now he wanted to call her back? At two thirty-six a.m.?

  She grabbed the phone from the charger and hit the answer button.

  “What is it?” she hissed.

  “What is it?” he repeated, his voice calm. “You call and leave me that shitty message and then you want to know why I’m calling you back?”

  “I don’t think it was shitty,” Tracy said, trying to clear her mind and bring it to full wakefulness. “It was direct. I was letting you know how I felt about . . .”

  “About what Tracy? The fact that I didn’t share my travel itinerary with you?”

  She said nothing. Well, if he wanted to look at it that way.

  “You are so spoiled,” he said. “I told you I had stuff this week and that I might be slammed, didn’t I?”

  Tracy said nothing. Oh, yes.

  “Didn’t I?” he insisted.

  “Yes,” she said meekly.

  “Then what is your fucking problem?”

  She normally might have objected to having him speak to her that way, but there was an undertone in his voice, an amused indulgence, like he was saying she was spoiled but didn’t actually mind spoiling her. And besides he was calling now; he hadn’t even wanted to wait until the morning, and that made her feel somewhat smug. She liked the idea that he may have struggled all evening with the urge to call her and not been able to sleep until he did.

  “Tracy,” he heaved a deep sigh and mumbled something to himself that she couldn’t hear.

  She waited.

  “I’m back on Wednesday afternoon,” he said finally. “I’ll pick you up at your place for dinner at eight.”

  “Okay,” she said quietly, stifling a smile.

  “Alright?” he demanded.

  “Yes,” she said louder. “Okay.”

  “Good. And Tracy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t leave me any more shitty messages,” Brendan said before he hung up on her.

  Tracy put the phone back on the charger and turned to hug her pillow once again, smiling into it.

  She didn’t need anything new and it wasn’t as though tonight was a date or anything, but Tracy felt compelled to shop, and it was an urge she rarely resisted. She moved through the boutique, slowly, taking in the shape and cut of each dress, each pant, each blouse, pointing out to the sales consultant, which she wanted to try.

  “This is a lot of effort into a ‘quick bite to eat’,” Russell said from behind her.

  Tracy shot him a look. Russell was her and Riley’s former housemate, from way back when they’d first moved to the city after college. For the past year he’d been living in Atlanta where he thought—mistakenly it turned out—that he would meet what he called “an interesting new crop of men.” But after several months of dating men he referred to as “flaming drama queens” he had returned to New York where, after all, Tracy believed, he really belonged.

  “I like having new things,” Tracy said.

  “Hmm,” Russell said skeptically, looking at his nails. “Whatever you say. It’s obvious you’re into him.”

  “He’s a good friend,” Tracy said pulling out a short orange linen tunic. She remembered having the distinct impression that Brendan liked her in that orange maxi.

  “No. I’m a good friend. Riley is a good friend. You would never go shopping just for a quick bite to eat with either of us,” Russell pointed out.

  He paused to regard himself in a nearby full-length mirror. Tracy couldn’t blame him. He was pretty damn cute. The color of dark chocolate with eyes as black as coal, and the physique of someone who spent many vain hours in the gym. Needless to say, Russell and Tracy had a lot more in common than Russell and Riley did. He was the one Tracy consulted about fashion, hair, make-up and all things trendy since Riley was hopeless in that arena.

  “Why couldn’t you be straight?” Tracy said glancing him over. “I think it’s an act of aggression to be as fine as you are and not like women.”

  “You’re trying to distract me with flattery,” Russell accused. Then he paused. “But go on. How fine am I again?”

  Tracy laughed and nodded to the sales consultant, letting her know that she was ready to try on her selections.

  “No, but seriously,” Russell said. “I’m still trying to wrap my mind around why you’re not all over this dude.”

  “Because he’s just not . . . right for a long-term relationship. I could never see myself married to someone like him.”

  “Someone like who? A man who dropped everything and drove like a bat out of hell to Brooklyn to rescue you from unspecified danger?”

  Tracy had shared with Russell only some of the details of Friday night’s misadventure; just enough so that she could tell him about Brendan’s visit, but not sufficient information to make him alarmed and go blabbing to Riley. As far as he knew, it was just some guy who wouldn’t leave; a predicament Russell himself had plenty of experience with.

  “He’s in the entertainment business,” Tracy said. “He’s a player. He travels to a million places, sits around in clubs sipping Dom Perignon and socializing with music video girls and models.”

  “And yet here you are, acting like you’re going to prom when all you’re doing with him is getting a so-called quick bite to eat,” Russell pointed out.

  Tracy looked at him but said nothing. It was true. There was no way to account for, or explain why she was feeling this giddy about seeing Brendan. All she knew was that she liked him more than she remembered ever liking any man, and more than that she liked the way he made her feel like a little girl who, when she was with him was totally safe; and like a sexy, desirable woman too because when he looked at her, he so obviously wanted her. It was an intoxicating combination and one that she was not accustomed to. Men who wanted her had never made her feel safe. In fact, often, it was strikingly the opposite.

  Russell followed her unselfconsciously into the fitting room, ignoring the raised eyebrow of the sales consultant, and Tracy smirked. Russell had probably seen her undressed more times than all her ex-boyfriends combined. It gave her a kick to sometimes be completely naked in her bedroom walking around getting ready for some event, curiously checking his package every now and again as he lay across her bed, waiting for her to get done. One time he’d caught her looking and rolled his eyes.

  Nope, he’d quipped. Still gay.

  “Did you ever tell Riley what happened that night?” Russell asked as he helped her with the zipper of her first selection, a cream Reem Acra pantsuit.

  “No. I was putting it at first and now it seems like it might be too late. She’d be pissed if I told her now, several days after . . .”

  “Well yeah,” Russell said. “I don’t understand why you didn’t call her that day.”

  Tracy lifted her hair and turned in front of the mirror, checking out her derriere. She seemed to be losing it. Maybe a size two had been taking her diet and exercise routine too far.

  “Riley’s life is different now,” Tracy explained. “And when the baby comes it’ll be even more different. She’s thinking about babies and nesting and here I come with some seedy story about my one-night stand.”

  Russell nodded. “I know what you mean. You see I didn’t show up for that brunch baby shower thing she had. I mean, what the heck would I be doing out in Jersey oohing and aahing over silver rattles and shit?”

  Tracy laughed. “It actually wasn’t that kind of party. But I get your point. She hasn’t turned into som
e kind of Stepford Wife or anything don’t get me wrong. It’s just that she’s happy, y’know? And all my self-inflicted drama just doesn’t seem to . . . fit.”

  “Yeah but you were there for her drama. She at least deserves to have the chance to be there with you for yours.”

  “Oh shut up,” Tracy said reaching back to unzip the pantsuit. “I hate it when you’re all reasonable like that.”

  “She’s still at the condo, right? We could stop by and bring her a cup of coffee or something. Last time I talked to her, she told me woke up to find her precious Lamborghini espresso machine missing.”

  “Ah, the joys of obsessive love,” Tracy sighed. “I think her husband needs to be committed to a mental institution honestly.” She would never admit it out loud but she was beyond pleased that Shawn was taking such good care of her friend. If anyone deserved it, it was Riley.

  After settling on a Stella McCartney poplin dress with a very demure neckline and a very short skirt, she and Russell took a cab to Central Park West and Riley’s place. These days, you had to punch an elevator code to get to their floor, a security feature for which Shawn and the only other tenant on their floor had agreed to split the cost.

  Upstairs, Riley looked even bigger than she had been just the prior week and Tracy’s eyes involuntarily widened upon seeing her. Russell, never one to mince words, clapped a hand over his mouth.

  “Oh my god, girl, you are huge!”

  Riley rolled her eyes. “Yes. Thank you. I am well aware.”

  She hugged them both and made her way over to the sofa where she had clearly been camped out, reading magazines. She eyed the Starbucks coffee cup Tracy was holding and her eyes lit up. Tracy held it out of reach as though Riley might pounce.

  “Before I hand this over to you, I need to know two things. One; how’s your blood pressure?”

  “Slightly high within range of normal for pregnancy,” Riley said promptly, moving toward her.

  “You’re not lying are you?”

  “No Tracy, I’m not lying. What’s your second question?”