by Connor, Anne
It isn’t like how it looks in the movies. Rent in New York City is ridiculously expensive. Sure, I’ve had internships. Awesome internships. I interned at a huge weekly news magazine, I interned in the public relations department at a university downtown when I was still figuring out what to narrow my focus on. But the internships, if they even paid at all, paid a paltry amount - it was a stipend, really, just meant to cover a metrocard, a sandwich, and a cup of coffee, if you were lucky. It wasn’t enough to cover the cost of rent, and it certainly wasn’t enough to build up any savings.
So now, at 25, I’ve just moved out of my parents’ house and into a small apartment of my own. It isn’t amazing, but it is pretty nice, and I can afford it on my own. That is the part I like the most.
Jess moved out of her parents’ place right after college. She was always a little bit more corporate than I was. She got a good job right away.
Our apartments are just a few blocks away from each other, so on nights like this one, we often split a cab.
“Can you please explain to me why you didn’t jump at the chance to have Drew Anderson buy you a drink?”
“I already had a drink. I had already had two drinks, if we’re counting.”
“And clearly, you were counting.”
“Why would I want this Drew Arrington character buying me a drink? I’m not interested in dating some rich asshole.”
“It’s Anderson. And I wasn’t saying you should date him.”
“So you agree that he’s an asshole.”
“No. I didn’t say that.”
“You implied it.”
“Look. All I’m saying is that he clearly liked you, and he just broke up with his girlfriend, and from what I could see, he actually seemed like a decent guy.”
I don’t want to tell her the real problem - I was too attracted to him. That I did want him to buy me a drink. That the smell of his cologne and the touch of his hand drove me crazy. That I didn’t have time to stay out all night, and that if I started by letting him buy me a drink, that I would certainly have ended up staying out all night - or even gone home with him and let him show me whatever those things were that he wanted to show me.
“You’re right. He seemed like a decent guy.” I don’t tell her what he whispered in my ear. “I guess I just wasn’t interested.”
I’m not lying. I wasn’t interested. I was insanely interested.
That’s the problem. Better to not get involved.
“Hey, here’s a cab. Let’s get home.”
6. Drew
“You struck out? Damn. Find another one. It seemed like you really wanted that one.”
I put my elbows back on the bar as I sidle up to Eric.
“No. I’m not in the mood anymore.”
“This one was that special? Damn, you’re losing your touch in your old age. Especially a girl like that. She doesn’t look like she’s used to having men like you pay attention to her.”
“Don’t be fucking rude. That’s my future girlfriend you’re talking about.”
“I just mean that she doesn’t look like she goes out to bars a lot. Jeez. Lighten up. And how many times have you said that, anyway? That a girl is yours, and then they end up being one night stands. It’s not a huge loss, it is?” He looks around and waves his drink in front of him. “I mean, where’d she go?”
He’s right. But this one felt different. I’m sure she’ll be back. But now, I’m no longer in the mood for another woman. Molly’s bright, pretty face and gorgeous body are going to be in my mind all night. It wouldn’t be fair to take another girl home if all I’ll be able to think about is Molly.
“I think I need to take a break. Get out of the city for a while.”
“I think you know that is the last thing you need to do, bro. Get out of the city? Come on. With all the shit going down right now?”
“I got a letter from ma.”
“A letter? Shit. Everything okay?” He hooks his hand around the back of his neck and cocks his head to the side thoughtfully. “An actual letter usually means that whoever sent it is serious about something.”
“Aren’t you wise?” I put my drink down and squint at my brother. Ever since we struck out on our own, he’s been a little bent about our mom remaining upstate. He’s always been a mama’s boy. So have I.
“She’s fine,” I add. “I talk to her all the time. She also sent me a little memento from shop class. Those were the days. Back when we used to actually mean something.”
We were everything in that small town. With our time divided between our dad in the city and our mom in the country, we spent the school year in that small town upstate. And we shone. Everyone said we were going to be the ones to make it out of there. I guess I just never realized how much I wanted to go back as an adult until I was already sucked into my new life here in the city.
“Yeah. But look at how much we’ve accomplished,” Eric says, spreading his arms out wide as though the bar is his kingdom and the patrons his subjects.
“Do you think it’s worth it? I mean, all we do is push numbers around on a spreadsheet and shakes hands and make deals.”
“Speak for yourself. I’m the numbers guy. You’re the deals guy. And anyway, you can’t leave town until we meet with these guys tomorrow. I got a text while you were over there wooing little miss bridge and tunnel. Their attorneys are going to be in our office at seven tomorrow morning. I already emailed Sarah to set up the conference room and get the good bagels.”
“Fabulous. Great idea. A few of the good bagels and schmear and they’ll drop their multi-million dollar lawsuit.”
“Quit jerking around. The fact that they want to see us on a Saturday is a good thing. It means they’re in a position to bargain if they want to see us so soon. And anyway, the point is that you better not leave the city. Don’t even leave the island. Not until tomorrow’s meeting is over. And then, you can do whatever the hell you want. Go visit ma. I’m sure she’d love to see her favorite son.”
I put my sport coat on and throw a bill on the bar to cover my and Eric’s drinks and then start to book it for the exit. I have to get home, but I know I won’t be able to sleep. Not with the meeting tomorrow, Clarissa dumping me, and being rejected by the pretty little thing in the sensible shoes.
“Thanks, man. That’s what big brothers are for. Picking up the tab.”
“You know that’s not the only thing I’m good for,” I shout over the din, but I don’t think he hears me.
7. Molly
I’m finally on my way back to my apartment about an hour after leaving the bar. I have the cab driver drop us off at Jess’s place, and I walk the few blocks home and take a mental inventory of everything I have to do tomorrow. I’ll get up at eight and do my fitness routine. If I get up at eight, that will give me a solid seven and a half hours of sleep. That’s perfect. I won’t be tired when I wake up, and I won’t be groggy like I always am when I oversleep.
Then I’ll have my egg white omelette and some juice. Then, I’ll get to work researching the newspaper. I’ll just need to do some reading up on the people I’ll be working with. I already read up on the people who interviewed me and the the man who will be my direct boss.
But even though I’m planning out my day and trying to forget what happened at the bar, I can’t stop thinking about Drew Anderson.
What was his angle? He just broke up with his girlfriend. He probably went home with some gorgeous blonde after talking to me and Jess.
I finally get to my apartment, and even though I’ve pushed any remaining thoughts of him out of my mind, I can’t shake the feeling he gave me. He is sexy, that’s a given. But he also looked at me like he knew we were surrounded by people and decided to pay attention only to me, but at the same time, strangely, like we were alone: just the two of us, no swirling nightlife around us.
I feel my insides stir again. I change into my pajamas and rest my head on my pillow. I’m going to bed alone, but I’m more than okay with that.
His words from the bar tumble through my mind as my fingertips slip just past the top of my panties. I close my eyes and imagine his words tumbling softly from his lips and into my ears as I slide my fingers down further. I’m already turned on, and as my middle finger traces slowly around my wet clit, I wonder if I’m really okay with going to bed alone.
What would he have done to me if I had let him? I recall my roommate from Junior year of college telling me she had sex with a guy once in the bathroom of a bar, and I wonder if Drew’s ever done that. I’m sure he has. I pretended to be distantly amused by my roommate’s anecdote at the time, but deep inside, I wondered what it would feel like to be a girl who would say yes to that. To just take an opportunity like that if it were to present itself.
My fingers slip past my folds and slide inside, my eyes squeezing shut. I bet Drew’s big, too. He’d have to be, with the big game he talks - right? I imagine him above me, his eyes drinking me in, his mouth consuming mine. My breaths come quicker and quicker as I move my fingers in and out and onto my clit. My body sharpens up as a wave of pleasure breaks inside me.
My eyelids relax as my body drifts away into sleep. I still don’t know if I’m okay being alone, but I’ll have to be.
I wake up at 7:50 the next morning without my alarm having to wake me. But as I do my morning routine and get on my computer to start jotting down notes, I find myself researching Drew Anderson instead.
Jess was right. He certainly has it made in the money department. But I already knew that - it was obvious as soon as he stepped into my eyeline at the club. And as I look at pictures of him and his fiancee - ex-fiancee - I remember that he has it made in the looks department, too.
A strong nose and a jawline that makes him look like a cartoon prince, and deep, saturated green eyes. But unlike his good looks, he wasn’t born with his money. As Jess explained to me last night, his father started a real estate firm in the late ‘70s, several years before Drew and Eric were born. He didn’t start out wealthy. Like a real entrepreneur, he had a series of failures and setbacks before striking it big. But when he struck big, he hit gold.
He saved up his money and purchased a small stake in a residential building, and, trading his way up, finally wound up with holdings in the millions.
The boys, it turned out, weren’t always exposed to all that money.
Drew Anderson Senior started out in the city, the son of second-generation immigrants who settled in Brooklyn around the turn of the century. But Drew Senior met a woman from the Catskills, so it was farewell to the city and hello to selling houses as a broker at a small firm in a small upstate town.
Things ended up not working out between Drew Senior and Mrs. Elizabeth Anderson, and when the couple divorced, Drew Senior moved back to the city and their two young sons ended up shuttling back and forth between the city and the country, starting around the time they started high school. The couple thought it in their boys’ best interest to have them attend high school in their mom’s rural town, and spend the summers in the city with their dad.
And the boys excelled in high school - in everything. In sports, in academics - you name it, they could conjugate it, beat it in a cross-country race, calculate it or spell it.
When it was time for the two brothers to go to college, the older brother, Drew, pursued a double-major in architecture and economics, and then, a year later, Eric attended college for finance.
It was after the brothers were both done with their degrees that they went to work for their father. But not wanting to be in the shadow of one of the city’s biggest real estate moguls, they started their own firm, raising capital from investors who had faith that the two scrappy brothers from upstate New York would be able to turn a small cash investment into towers of money.
And they succeeded. I imagine their father’s name couldn’t have hurt.
And now, they are in the midst of a battle over the rights to some land, which both the brothers and another company believe they have the rights to.
The picture of the brothers on their official website doesn’t really do them justice. Maybe they just look better in what seemed to be their natural habitat: surrounded by beautiful women, expensive clothes and overpriced drinks.
And it looks like before he met Clarissa, Drew was used to having one short-term paramour after another, and there’s plenty of evidence online to prove it.
As I scroll down a list of articles, I imagine how I’d write the headlines a little differently.
Rich Real Estate Dude Beds Gorgeous Women all Over the City
Cocky Schmuck Brags to Young Woman in Bar
Young Journalist Struggles to Maintain Composure when Man Promises to Keep Her Up All Night
Woman Turns to Pile of Goo Imagining what Sexy Guy’s Tongue Can Do
I do a quick image search to see if there are pictures of Drew’s newly-ex-fiancee.
And boy, are there ever. The woman looks like she hasn’t worked a day in her life. She has a slim, almost waif-like look that I would never be able to achieve, even after six months of a low-carb diet. She looks like she survives on a diet of fashion magazines and dirty martinis. She has the kind of look you hear about and only rarely see, even in the city: the girl who thinks the sidewalk is her catwalk, the girl who has a kind of old-New York glamor that can only be achieved with the biggest designer sunglasses money can buy.
Apparently, this Clarissa person is the daughter of a generations-old commercial real estate firm with its name placard on the insides of office buildings and malls across the tri-state area.
Her father and the Anderson brothers’ father are old friends. Imagine that: two old rich guys being friends with each other, and having their children meet, fall in love and marry.
That’s an old tale if I’ve ever heard one.
There aren’t just pictures of Drew and Clarissa, though. There are also pictures of Clarissa and some other guy, and it looks like they were just posted within the last few days. And these pictures don’t make the other guy look like he is her brother or just a friend.
That’s cold. And it would certainly explain why Drew was already out on the prowl himself last night, trying to flirt and pick up a lady to spend a nice evening with.
Haven’t we all been there? Even though I’ve never been one for a one night stand after a breakup, it’s only because I never had the courage to make myself vulnerable again so soon.
Maybe I shouldn’t have judged him like I did.
8. Drew
“I see that you were successful in procuring the good bagels.”
Eric sits down and opens his laptop. The sun is just coming up and starting to bleed over the tops of the buildings to the East and sneak into our large conference room. I’m already in the office, busy in the conference room, doodling on the dry-erase board.
“And it wasn’t easy, either. I had to ask Vinny to open the store early for me,” Sarah says, leaning against one of the windows, peering outside and yawning, a cup of coffee in her hand.
“See, that’s why we keep you around. You have good relationships with all the key players in the city.”
“Oh, is that why?”
“No,” I say, lifting my head from my 3D Gothic arch sketches. “It’s because you’re a good worker and because you go above and beyond the call of duty.”
I shoot a look at my dumb brother.
“Well, it’s my pleasure. What else do I have to do at six on a Saturday morning?”
“We really do appreciate you coming in. And you know you’re getting paid at double your hourly rate for coming in on a Saturday,” I say, capping the marker and tossing it down on the table.
“I know. I wasn’t kidding about having nothing better to do this morning.”
“Oh, yeah?” Eric peels his eyes away from his computer. “You didn’t leave some hot guy tangled up in the sheets of your bed?”
“You know, that little comment could be construed as sexual harassment.”
“He�
��s kidding! Don’t listen to him.” I sit down next to Eric at the head of the table.
“No worries. Actually, I just left from the bar. Had a really late night last night. I haven’t even been home yet.”
Eric and I look at each other and then at Sarah.
“Now I’m kidding!” She goes over to the breakfast on the small table in the back of the conference room and pours herself another cup of coffee. “I’m going out to reception. The other boys should be here soon. Play nice, will you?”
Sarah leaves the conference room and closes the door behind her. She certainly knows a lot about men and power. It’s a total power play for her to close the door - when she brings the boys from the other firm and their attorneys around once they arrive, they won't know what they’re walking into.
One of our own attorneys, Martin O’Malley, comes through the door a few seconds later.
“Alright, this shouldn’t take long.”
O’Malley is an older guy, seasoned in real estate disputes. He started off handling small landlord-tenant issues after hanging a shingle on his own law practice in Brooklyn in the 1970s, but made the move to commercial and large land-use clients shortly thereafter. He’s a real old-school Brooklyn guy with a lot of heart and a slightly larger temper.
He’s an old friend of our father’s, but I don’t like to think about that. And anyway, we’re paying him enough. It’s not like he’s doing us a favor by being here.
“Good of you to be here so early, and on such short notice,” my brother says, rising from his seat and giving the man a hearty handshake.
“Yes, thank you,” I add. “I know you probably have a yacht you’d rather be on right now.”
“I see Sarah got the good bagels. And it isn’t short notice. We’ve known for weeks that something was brewing with these guys.”
“We really appreciate your time anyway, O’Malley,” I say, sitting back down.