by Erica Katz
* * *
I was poring over the presentation I was preparing for the conference when I was interrupted by a cheerful “Hey, kiddo!” Peter was leaning against my doorframe, his arms folded over the front of his crisp blue shirt, one leg bent over the other.
“Hi!” I looked up from the stack of papers now forming a fort around me. I had just closed a deal for Matt and Jordan—only two hours behind our slated closing time. As soon as I had placed the receiver down from the closing call, my body shut down. The presentation for Miami could wait until after I slept. It was only five o’clock, but my lids drooped low, nausea overtook hunger, and my limbs were slow to obey my brain. Seeing the state I was in, Anna had already called a car for me to go home and sleep.
Peter stepped past the threshold of my office, where the carpet changed from the gray of the hallway to dusty blue.
“You’ll be at the Stag River party tonight, right?”
I jerked my head over to him and called my Outlook calendar to life. I had forgotten to put it in my calendar, and therefore I had forgotten about it entirely.
“I forgot,” I said apologetically. “I’m so busy . . .”
“Look. I know you’ve been getting killed lately, but everybody who does work for them shows up. That’s you now. Of course, it’s your decision in the end, but I’m just letting you know that it’s an important event for you to attend. I’ll owe you one.” It was as close as Peter Dunn would ever come to asking, rather than telling, an associate to do something. “Six thirty at the Rainbow Room.” He turned to leave, pausing in my doorway. “You look . . . stressed.”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes,” I said sleepily, and wrapped my arm around my far shoulder in a half hug, attempting to counteract the feeling that I was about to unravel.
“Look, my wife and I are going to her sister’s wedding this weekend in Mexico. She’s on her fourth marriage . . . don’t get me started. Anyway, our ski house in Killington is free. You’re welcome to take it for a long weekend with your boyfriend. Duck out after work Thursday, and the house is all set up to work from Friday. Wi-Fi, printer, everything.” He waited for my reaction.
Say no. It’s an empty gesture. He’s just being nice.
“Thanks so much, Peter. That’s really kind. But we have First-Year Academy in LA in February, so I’m sure I’ll get some rest there.”
“Are you kidding? Sitting in trainings with colleagues is not relaxing. You can even bring friends to my place if you want—there are five bedrooms. There’s no food in the fridge, but there’s everything else you need. It’s right on the mountain. And if the snow’s no good, there’s a spa and a jacuzzi. What do you think?”
Maybe this was exactly what Sam and I needed to get back on track, to reconnect.
“Alex?”
“Yes.” I looked up at Peter. “Yes. That sounds so amazing. I could really use a break. I cannot thank you enough.”
Peter reached into his pocket and fiddled with his key ring, prying one loose. He tossed me a key and fob.
“Fob is for the house. Key is for the ski locker just outside. Enjoy!”
“Peter, this is so generous . . .”
“It’s a pleasure, kiddo. You’ve been doing great work. It doesn’t go unnoticed or unappreciated. Consider this a token of gratitude.”
I smiled. “I thought that’s what a paycheck was.”
He laughed. “Alex, if you break down your salary by the hours you work, it’s a lot closer to minimum wage than you realize.” I groaned. “See you at the party.”
I turned back to work but couldn’t focus. What if a weekend away with Sam just proved how far we had drifted apart? No. It would be great. I would make it great. I checked my personal email in-box, which was filled with all junk, except for one email from Sam with Christmas vacation suggestions. I wrote him back that, bad news, I wasn’t allowed to take vacation this year, but that I’d be making it up to him with a long weekend in Vermont.
Growing annoyed at the presumption behind his email—was I supposed to pay for both of us to go to some Caribbean island?—and trying to put myself in the best possible frame of mind about Vermont, I distracted myself further by logging in to my checking account. I stared at the balance, which steadily climbed regardless of how much I put toward retirement, saved in my Roth IRA, and flushed down the toilet paying our astronomical New York City rent. I looked at the clock again and smiled slightly to myself as I realized I had just enough time to get a new outfit for the night.
After shoving my brown paper Bloomingdale’s bags into the trash can nearest the Rainbow Room entrance, and running my hands down the sides of my white-and-red organza Alice and Olivia dress to make sure I had removed all the tags, I glided into the Stag River cocktail party only thirty minutes late. I had never spent more than a few hundred dollars on an item of clothing, but I had just blown upward of $600 in under forty-five minutes, and the rush of it made me feel not only beautiful but that I belonged in this room full of real estate titans and Wall Street tycoons.
“Wow. Skip!” Jordan fell into step beside me as I made my way to the bar. “You look really nice.” He coughed awkwardly, as if he was unsure of what he should and shouldn’t say after the whiteboard incident.
I smiled to let him know all was forgiven. “Not so bad yourself,” I said, straightening his tie.
A jazz band comprised of musicians dressed like the Rat Pack filled the air with a 1950s vibe as the dim rainbowed lighting made everybody appear as though they were draped in swirling cotton candy. As Jordan pointed out the heads of banks and private equity firms to me, I waved to Vivienne White across the room. She smiled coolly but didn’t seem to miss a beat in her conversation with a stout Asian man.
Peter slid into place next to us. “So, what do you think of your first Stag River event?” he asked me.
“Great,” I told him, and meant it. It was the most beautiful room I had ever seen. The city skyline twinkled out the windows, none of the grit and grime showing and all of the magic.
“A little tame,” Jordan joked.
“Dunn! Glad you made it!” Gary Kaplan slapped Peter on the back, nearly knocking the drink out of his hand, looking animated, exuberant, and far from sober. He turned his attention to me. “Well, aren’t you beautiful.” He took my hand and held it in his moist palm.
“You’ve met Alex. She’s one of our associates,” Peter announced, a protective overlay in his tone. “And this is Jordan Sellar, a senior associate. He mostly does your deals with Jaskel.”
Gary continued to stare at me, making no attempt to avert his eyes from my body, but I finally wiggled my hand out from his grip.
“Excuse me while I get some food. Can I grab anything for any of you?” I asked the group, but before they could answer, I made my way to the display of oysters and shrimp cocktail on the far side of the room. I took a final sip of my wine as I waited for the server to place the shrimp on my plate. I was reaching for the horseradish and cocktail sauce when I suddenly felt an arm graze my breast. I snapped my back straight and stared over at Gary, mortified that I must have pushed my chest against his arm when I bent to reach the condiments.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered, desperately trying to shrug off possibly the most awkward encounter I could imagine with the firm’s most important client. He smiled, looking completely unruffled, the pools of black where his eyes were meant to be making me slightly queasy. It hadn’t been my mistake. And it wasn’t his either. The pervert touched me on purpose.
“Please, Alex.” Gary gave me a reassuring wink. “Don’t be sorry,” he said, reaching toward me and gently placing his palm over my heart, his pinkie finger dipping low to search for my nipple.
I froze. The timpani faded, and I heard only the beating of my heart in my ears. He took his hand away and grabbed an oyster. I couldn’t manage to move my legs to escape. When he turned back toward me, his eyes focused over my shoulder and
his voice lightened.
“Peter! Alex and I have been chatting. She’s quite ambitious! I’d love you both to be my special guests at the Private Equity Fights Hunger gala I’m chairing at the Met this spring. I’ll have my assistant send you all the details.”
I felt Peter next to me, but I continued to stare at Gary, trying to discern whether he’d intended the invitation as payment for his transgression or, even worse, license for future ones. As Peter responded to Gary in a pleasant tone, I did my best to compose myself, and as soon as my legs would move, I put down my plate and returned to Jordan.
“Peter told me that Japanese businessman over there with his wife just fucked his assistant in the bathroom!” Jordan cackled. I stared forward, shivering. “Skip? You okay?” Jordan bent low, his head cocked, and shoved his face into my line of vision.
I frowned. “Gary just grabbed my boob. Breast. Whatever. He felt me up. Right in the middle of this party.” I didn’t know how to say it, never having had to say anything like it before. It was the most unexpected, most disturbing thing to happen to me, and the fact that it happened so flagrantly, with my colleagues all around, made me question whether it had actually happened at all. “And then he invited me to the PE Fights Hunger gala at the Met.”
“Fuck! Skip!” Jordan’s jaw dropped. “Everybody goes. Or everybody wants to go. For somebody gunning for partner like me, it’s the single most important business development event I can attend. If I had tits, I’d let him grab them both to cop an invite!” He shook his head and made his way to the bar to refill his scotch, leaving me stunned.
I made my way to the ladies’ room, where I sat on the tufted circular ottoman and smoothed the fabric of my dress over my thighs. I’d thought the dress was modest. Did it make me look like a slut? I shouldn’t have worn lip gloss. Or maybe my eyeliner was too heavy. I wiped my finger under my eyes to lighten it.
“Hey, you okay?” Vivienne White sat down next to me as I nodded robotically. “I love these shoes, but they are the most uncomfortable, impractical things in the world.” She removed her feet from gorgeous black satin pumps with crystal-embellished straps to reveal a Giuseppe Zanotti label, then applied pressure to the arch of each foot and closed her eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”
I breathed in and forced myself to speak again. “Gary Kaplan sort of . . . grabbed at my chest. And then invited me to the PE Fights Hunger gala . . . like as payment for letting him feel me up.”
Vivienne sighed and rolled her eyes. “He’s so grabby.” I waited a moment for more—for a display of anger from her, a sign that she was horrified by what had happened. But it didn’t come. “That gala is a good opportunity for you. You should go. It’ll show your status in the M&A group. After Match Day, you can decline these invites. Just stick it out until then.” She slapped my knee and slipped her shoe back on. “Look, he doesn’t work for the firm. It’s sort of . . .” She held up her palms as if to say, Out of my hands. She clicked her tongue against the top of her mouth and walked out the door.
I sat there for a moment longer as two blondes with impossibly long legs and absurdly short skirts emerged from a single bathroom stall, one of them rubbing her upper gums with her index finger. I stared at them as they put their drinks down to wash their hands, each adorned with nearly identical and blinding engagement rings.
“Oh! Miss! You have a little . . . ,” I said to the taller one, wiping at my own nose to signal her to do the same to the white powder on hers.
“Whoopsies!” She giggled. “Better?” She bent over and leaned her face close to mine so I could judge, and I suddenly felt wetness on my leg as she emptied her glass of red wine onto my new dress.
“Oh my god. I’m so, so sorry!” she wailed as I jumped up. Her friend covered her mouth with her palm, laughing from behind it. “I’m so sorry.” The girl grabbed my arm as she repeated her apology. The bathroom attendant rushed over. “Here. Let me.” The girl grabbed the towel from the attendant and went to the sink to wet it. She returned and rubbed at my thigh, which only worked the red liquid deeper into the white fabric, making me look like a murder victim.
“Don’t. It’s fine,” I said, gripping her wrist before the towel did any more damage and moving it away from my waist.
“I have to pay you! I feel awful! And it’s so beautiful!” She spoke quickly, clearly feeling the effects of the cocaine. “Is it last season’s Marchesa Notte? Or is it Oscar? Oh god, please don’t be Oscar de la Renta!”
“No. It’s Alice and Olivia,” I said, staring down dejectedly at it.
“Oh, thank god. I thought it was couture.” She placed her hand over her heart and breathed. “I’m sorry again! But at least it wasn’t expensive,” she called over her shoulder as she and her friend burst back out into the cocktail hour, the jazz sax seeping in behind her for a moment before the door shut and muffled it.
I burst into tears and called a car to take me home, slipping easily out of the party without being seen by my colleagues, who busied themselves chatting with their clients. When I arrived back at the apartment, Sam was already asleep. I contemplated waking him, knowing he’d hold me close to comfort me and find my encounter with Gary appropriately appalling. But he looked so peaceful. I’d bring it up in Vermont, I decided. I suddenly couldn’t wait for a weekend alone with Sam—away from work and the city, with nothing to do but remember all the reasons I loved him.
Chapter 13
I did exactly as Peter had suggested, and went right to his ski house Thursday afternoon after an almost full and luckily slow workday. The house was as magnificent as I’d expected—the quintessential ski chalet punctuated with oriental carpets and chocolate leather, the plush carpeting offsetting the grandiose scale of the rooms. A gaping stone fireplace beckoned us into the great room, where 180-degree views of the mountain awaited us. I had been asleep for four of the five and a half hours that Sam drove, and was still groggy as I explored.
“No way. It’s too weird,” I said, standing in the doorway to the master bedroom, staring at a picture of Peter and his beautiful blond wife on the nightstand next to the California king. “We have four other rooms to choose from!”
“Are you saying you want to sleep in bunk beds?” Sam smiled.
“Fine, three other rooms,” I said, and rolled my eyes sleepily.
Sam pushed a button on the wall, and the windows let out a soft groan as the blackout shades recoiled, revealing a huge screened-in balcony with heat lamps, oversize chairs, and a glass table. Beyond that, Killington Mountain was streaked with moonlight bouncing off the snow-covered trails. I put my bag down and slid open the balcony door while Sam clicked on the heat lamps, and then he slipped his arms around my stomach and leaned his chin on my shoulder from behind.
“Can we stay in this room? Pretty please?” he whined. I laughed and turned to him.
“Sam?” I said into his chest. “What if this job is changing me?” The question surprised me as I spoke.
He kissed my cheek. “I loved you before this job. I love you now. And I’ll love you after,” he said, making a sweeping, circular gesture around my body. “In the meantime, I’ll just have to grin and bear the perks of your career.”
I breathed in, believing his words and allowing myself to appreciate his goodness for the first time in too long, allowing myself to see all the things that had made me fall in love with him. I looked into his kind eyes and knew that he’d never grope a woman in public, he’d never cheat on me. I pulled him onto Peter’s bed.
Eventually the animalistic need for sustenance trumped the one for sex, so we dressed quickly and got into the car. Aware that all the restaurants in the village closed at ten thirty, we walked into the first cozy Italian joint we spotted. As we waited for the maître d’, Sam pressed his stomach to my spine. I slipped my hand around the back of his thigh to pull him closer.
“How many will you be tonight?” the maître d’ asked politely. I felt Sam lean into me, and I turned to him.
�
��Should we just take our food to go?” I asked, giving him a wink.
We were on our second bottle of red wine, and the pizza was nearly frozen as we bobbed our shoulders out of the hot tub to steal bites of it before resubmerging ourselves. I thought momentarily about telling him what had happened at the Stag River Christmas party, but the night was so perfect I didn’t want to derail it, so I rambled to him about interoffice politics instead.
“. . . and all the first-years only hang out with each other. It’s totally bizarre. And they all know everything about each other.”
“How do they know?” Sam was drunk, but he looked entertained.
I was drunker. “I have no idea. I only know because Carmen tells me.”
“Carmen,” Sam repeated.
“She’s only terrifying before you get to know her. You’ll meet her at the Klasko holiday party!”
I took another sip of wine and slid next to Sam, who craned his neck to look up at the stars. “You hate that I work at a BigLaw firm,” I said poutily, running my fingers over the jet by my hips.
Sam continued to look at the sky. “You’re becoming an Icarus,” he mumbled.
“What?” I furrowed my brow and took another long sip.
Sam lifted his head. “You’re being ridiculous!” he enunciated. “I don’t hate that you work at a big firm! I just hate that you’re so stressed.” He looked at the house hulking over us. “How much do you think Peter makes a year?”
I contemplated lying for a moment before yielding to the desire to see Sam’s reaction to the truth. “Four to six. Depending on how good of a year he has.”
“Million?” Sam asked, but he knew the answer. He inhaled the cold air sharply and groaned. “Who needs that much money, honestly? It’s like . . . absurd. You can live well off of so much less.” If you think that’s a lot, you should see what our clients take home each year. “And it doesn’t buy you happiness, obviously. He said he never uses this place. Bet he doesn’t want to be stranded on a mountain with his family.” Sam snorted. “Six million a year. Fuck me.”