The Family Tabor

by Cherise Wolas

  Okay. Max Stern. What about Max Stern?

  Think, Harry.

  He remembers the afflictive slumping of Max’s bullish shoulders, the hard chest concaving, the unexplained exhaustion, the dramatic weight loss, the diagnosis of leukemia, Stern on leave for the brutal treatment of his disease.

  Yes, I remember all of that. I sent flowers. I sent books. I called regularly to check in, to ask how it was all going, to make him laugh. He always laughed when we talked.

  A caring man, through and through.

  I was, Harry says, to himself, to the dry voice in his head.

  The timing, Harry, the timing was perfect for you.

  Timing? What timing?

  What was going on for you when Max Stern took a leave of absence?

  The usual.

  Nothing usual about any of it, Harry.

  I’m thinking, I’m thinking.

  Your thinking, what can I say, it’s worth nil. I’ll give you a nudge. You were wearing a new gray pin-striped suit. Narrow chalk stripes, first suit made to order, first time you were wearing it.

  Harry remembers that suit, made for him by a tailor in a tiny shop in the city on Lexington Avenue, a costly birthday present from Roma. And the first time he’d worn it was when?

  He closes his eyes, pictures himself in that suit. He was wearing a silk tie—he can see that. Blue and silver and white, finely checked. He was wearing that suit and that tie on a chilly fall morning. That’s right. The trees were turning, leaves stippled in red, orange, and gold, muted in the uncolored dawn when he drove down the long drive of the Connecticut house, sped into the city.

  He’d felt sad that early morning because—why? He pictures himself in that suit, in his silver Jaguar, turning on the news, shutting it off, feeling how long the next twelve hours would be because—because—because Max Stern wasn’t going to be there.

  Max Stern wasn’t going to be in the office because the day before had been Stern’s last day before taking medical leave. They’d thrown him a small best-of-luck party in the conference room, cake and scotch, and the chief had cocked his head at Harry, and in a corner said to him, “Meeting tomorrow in my office as soon as the market closes.”

  Right, that’s right. And that day, ten minutes after the closing bell rang, Harry, in his new suit and that sharp tie, was in Carruthers’s office, and Carruthers said, “Want to keep things working smoothly and Stern’s gone for how long is anyone’s guess, poor fucker. We’ve got feelers out for a replacement, but in the meantime, you’ll take over settlement. Here’s Stern’s confidential access codes,” and he handed Harry a slip of paper.

  Correct. But what was happening right then?

  I went back to my office, logged in with Stern’s user name, plugged in his password, and settled the day’s accounts.

  Solomon, Moses, and David. Stop fooling around. What was already happening when the big man handed you Stern’s information?

  Harry feels cold sweat trickling down the back of his neck.

  Oh, fuck.

  That’s right.

  Carruthers.

  Exactly.

  I kept my mouth shut.

  You did.

  He remembered.

  He’d already overheard the first of those insider tips. He’d already made a few cautious trades using those tips, was sitting on profits he hadn’t figured out how to bring under his personal control, had only been able to segregate the money and park it in his private overflow account. Then Stern’s illness, and his leave, and Carruthers giving him Stern’s confidential codes, saying not a word about appropriately documenting that transfer of power, and Harry keeping his own mouth shut, and, snap of the fingers, he had the express and authorized ability to settle every trade, including his own illicit ones, without leaving a trace. That had been on a Thursday.

  Yep.

  On Friday, he canceled his dental appointment and, as he was forced to remember this morning, he made that trip to the Cayman Islands and set up the CST account, named after Cantor Simon Tabornikov. A day trip. Three and a half hours there, three and a half hours back. From the Caymans, he’d called his office, let them know he needed an emergency root canal, would be back in on Monday. Then he called Roma, told her to hire a babysitter for the girls, and by eight forty-five that night, they were sitting at a window table at the finest restaurant in their town, the sommelier uncorking a rich Barolo, filling their glasses.

  What had Roma said when she lifted her glass? “What are we celebrating?”

  And what had been his response? “Not a celebration, just a toast to the health of Max Stern.”

  That’s right. But what were you actually thinking at that moment?

  “Who could have imagined such a perfect confluence of events.”

  Correct.

  But I didn’t manufacture Max Stern’s leukemia.

  Of course not, but …

  But what harkened bad luck for Max proved fortuitous, providential for me, putting me in control of both sides of the firm’s legitimate activities, and my illegitimate ones—in charge of both the trading and the settlement. If not for Max Stern, then—

  Exactly. And then what happened?

  Harry shakes his head.

  I don’t know. You’re asking me to remember what I don’t remember.

  Try, Harry.

  You showed me everything that happened on the day I quit and afterward. I quit and I never spoke to Max Stern again. I was gone before he returned to the firm. If he returned to the firm.

  He returned to the firm.

  Stern returned, which means Stern survived his disease, made a recovery, walked back into the firm and picked up his wiring reins. But that’s wonderful, right? He didn’t die.

  Didn’t die.

  So he’s not dead?

  Not dead.

  So why are we talking about Max Stern?

  He didn’t die, but for many years, he wished that he had—

  He wished that he had what? What did Stern wish?

  He wished the leukemia had carried him off.

  Why? Why would he have wanted that? To be cut down in his prime? Come on, that can’t be possible. I remember his password, TJRTTT. I didn’t know what those letters stood for, but knowing Stern, I figured it was something like “The Jew rockets to the top.” A man with that password wouldn’t have wished to be carried off.

  Come on, Harry. You know.

  I don’t know.

  You know. You know. You know.

  I don’t. I really don’t know.

  Impossible …

  Impossible? What’s impossible? Impossible what?

  Impossible that you don’t know. Impossible that you never took a minute to discover what had become of him. Impossible to think you never gave him a single thought again.

  But I didn’t.

  Out of the twin bed, through the sun-shot house, which seems hollowed out, emptied of everyone but him, into his study, to his chair and his desk and his computer. He types in Max Stern. A raft of articles about various Max Sterns—a philanthropist, a poker player, an artist, a composer, a newly deceased WWII veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, a movie producer, the lead singer of a Midwestern rock band, the name of an athletic center home to the Yeshiva University Maccabees, several dog lovers, and many, many lawyers are named Max Stern—but none of them is his, or rather that, Max Stern.

  He types in Max Stern and the name of his old brokerage firm. Not nearly as many as are devoted to the Yeshiva University Maccabees, but there are several archived articles about the right Max Stern, and Harry pulls them up and begins reading.

  Time slows to nothing, his breathing catching and stopping, until he must take several lung-filling inhalations, and then his breathing catches and stops again. He has no idea how many times he repeats that same cycle, but there is a rhythmic phrase hammering in his head: You are a bad man. You are a bad man. It goes on and on and on, until his own name is appended to the end of the phrase. Each time he thinks You ar
e a bad man, he hears Harry, and that emphasis makes sense, because now he knows the full truth of what his actions wrought, what he wrought, the anvil he’d unwittingly brought down, because of what he had done.

  It dawns on him that someone else is calling his name, not himself or the dry voice in his head, and he yelps like a frightened dog when a hand touches his shoulder and looks up to find Roma’s smile fading, her eyes confused by his reaction. He automatically closes the computer.

  “I’ve been calling you for nearly three minutes. What are you reading so intently? You need to shower and dress. We leave in thirty minutes. Blanca is already here for the girls. Come on, put yourself in gear, hero.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  DO YOU REMEMBER …?”

  This is what Phoebe and Camille kept asking each other all afternoon. After Roma shepherded Lucy into the house for dry clothes and what she calls savah time, and Elena finished her bout of quick, hard laps, and said no, she didn’t know where Simon was, and she’d be on the back patio if anyone needed her, it was just the Tabor sisters roasting under the sun, drinking down fresh Arnold Palmers, the cubes melting fast in the heat, weakening the strong tea and the sourness of their mother’s undersugared lemonade.

  “Do you remember when we were young and this desert and this house were new to us?”

  Camille had been struck by the palm trees that didn’t exist in the place she had thought was still home. It had taken her a long time to understand this place was now home, and not some strange vacation they were on, that they wouldn’t again experience winters with snow falling in their own front and backyards.

  Phoebe had loved how her and Camille’s new bedrooms were linked by an immense bathroom that became a magical realm when the doors were left open. Their beds were against the abutting walls, and at night, after being tucked in, lights turned off, bedroom doors closed, they’d tell each other secrets. Sprawled on their stomachs, their spiraling voices would sail past the white shower, the white tub, the white double sinks, the tiny room inside the big bathroom where the toilet had its own door, knowing that whatever was said in their post-bedtime hours would end up in the other’s ears. Sometimes they met in that sanctum, their pale nightgowns floating in the dark, and they’d sit on the cool white tiles, staring up through the skylight, wishing on the stars their father had given them.

  “Do you remember how Mom would laugh because we always wanted to brush our teeth at the same time, and take showers and baths together?” Camille asked.

  Phoebe did remember, and she also remembered turning sixteen and rearranging her bedroom, putting her bed on the far wall, insisting the bathroom doors be kept closed at all times, setting a rotating schedule for brushing teeth and washing faces and showering before school, and for baths at night, so she could be in there alone, inspecting the changes to her face, to her body, out of reach of her younger sister, who, at fourteen, seemed far too young to be her friend any longer.

  Camille was only inches away on her chaise when Phoebe realized it was her fault they’d lost their sisterly closeness, that all their intricate talk about their hearts and dreams had stopped. She had thoroughly altered the nature of their relationship when she shut her bathroom door on her sister, created the distance that still existed between them, and she wanted to change that, wanted them to be best friends again, wanted her sister to be the person to whom she told all of her secrets. But she wasn’t sure what to say, and so she said nothing, and they talked on about unimportant things.

  When it was time to think about preparing for the evening, they swam a desultory lap, then saronged themselves in their towels and carried the glasses and pitcher to the kitchen sink. They walked together to their bedrooms, and Phoebe said, “Do you want the bathroom first?” and Camille said, “No, you go ahead. I’ll lie down and close my eyes. I think the long drive took a lot out of me.”

  Phoebe washed and dried her hair, put on her makeup, spritzed herself with perfume, then knocked on the internal door to Camille’s room.

  “All yours.”

  Camille walked in and said, “It smells lovely in here.”

  “You can borrow my perfume. It’s right there on the counter.”

  “Thanks. But I never use it.”

  Phoebe had nodded, then asked, “Do you want this door shut?” hoping her sister would say no, but Camille said yes.

  Camille used to sing from the moment the bathroom was hers, silly songs she made up, songs sometimes with made-up words, and standing on the other side of the closed door Phoebe had waited, hoping to hear Camille singing again, but there was only the roar of the water, then the whine of the dryer.

  When the bathroom was quiet, Phoebe tiptoed through it, quietly turning the doorknob on Camille’s side. She planned to say, “Hi, I want us to return to those old times. I want us to tell each other everything again,” but Camille stood naked, staring at the flowers and palm trees outside her bedroom windows, her body marbled by the late-afternoon light. Phoebe watched her unmoving sister, aware she hadn’t seen her fully naked since they were teenagers, and even though she recognized the constellation of freckles just below Camille’s right shoulder blade, Phoebe knew she could not intrude, could not simply alter their pattern by walking in unannounced, that she’d have to figure out another way to revive their prior closeness, and tiptoed back into her own room.

  AT HALF PAST SIX, Phoebe walks down the hall. Camille’s bedroom door is already ajar. Her sister is again at the windows, her dark hair long and shiny. She is dressed in the white satin suit she told Phoebe about. Sunbeams catch its slight iridescence, flaring a rainbow around her.

  Camille turns and sees Phoebe, and the look that comes over her face is a plea for approbation, tinged with fear, and Phoebe knows she’s probably entirely responsible for this insecurity of her sister’s.

  She would have shortened the white satin trousers so they struck above the neat turn of the ankle, and she would have tailored the jacket so it fit snugly, but she will not make those useless suggestions to Camille, who has tried hard to pull this look together, and has done a commendable job.

  Phoebe smiles. “You’re right. I love that suit. And it’s perfect on you.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Where did you find it?”

  “I got it at a boutique,” Camille says, and Phoebe senses she’s lying.

  Camille pulls up her pant legs. She’s wearing high-heeled sandals dotted with silver rhinestones. Phoebe would actually have bought them for herself. She wouldn’t have painted her toenails gold, not with those sandals, but it works pretty well.

  “Wow. They’re fabulous. You look fabulous.”

  “I do? Really? What about the earrings?”

  Made of finely spun silvery mesh, they remind Phoebe of waterfalls. They, too, sparkle in the early-evening sun when Camille pushes her hair back from her shoulders.

  “The whole look is outstanding. Do you feel great? You should.”

  “I feel okay. Do I need more makeup?”

  Camille with her au naturel look, who doesn’t understand that au naturel requires a talented hand and something more than the minimal, does need more makeup, and Phoebe debates whether to say what she thinks.

  “Your tan looks great, considering how pale you were hours ago. But yes, maybe, come on, I’ll do it for you. I’ve got a lipstick you’ll love. And a tad more mascara. And I could line your eyes, just a little. Make everything pop a bit.” She can’t stop herself, wanting only to help, for Camille to feel her absolute best. She used to do this for Camille when they were in high school, she a senior, Camille a sophomore, until Camille said, “Makeup is for frauds.”

  Camille hesitates. “Okay. But not too much. Not too heavy.”

  “Is my makeup too much or too heavy?”

  “No. It’s perfect.”

  “Okay then. So can you trust me?”

  For a very long moment, the sisters stare at each other. Then Camille shrugs and follows Phoebe, trailing behind exactl
y as she always used to do as a kid, and Phoebe thinks, It’s a start.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  ELENA HAD ASKED HIM to do up the long secret zipper of her gown, the knitting of the teeth like a scream, and Simon imagined a knife brutally sundering skin, as if that was the damage those few words he spoke hours ago had inflicted.

  She is at the bathroom mirror now, brushing her hair, the blush-colored chiffon revealing her body’s lush curves. But her spine is staunch and straight, and it alarms Simon how quickly Elena has erected a protective wall, laid mines at her feet. The electrified force field around her is more impermeable than that of an upset woman indicating she wants to be left alone for a while, that her husband not trespass, that she is exercising decorum at her in-laws’ by not instigating the fight they are going to have down the road. It feels ominous, the sexy shroud she has wrapped herself in, the crackling air.

  He brought this on, never anticipating that what he thought was a rekindling of their love in this room, on that bed, at the height of the afternoon, could shrivel up and die in no time at all. But that’s the thought in his head, its validity thudding hard in his heart, and he knows that his potential new terms—though as yet neither disclosed nor discussed—are already not agreeable to her, and perhaps not the old ones either, not anymore. Her posture states she will be making her own determinations going forward. That perhaps she’s been making her own determinations for far longer than he’s been aware, that what he’s been sensing in her, with her, the division between them, wasn’t a pathology of his sleeplessness at all.