Hotel Living

by Ioannis Pappos

  “Whatudoin?”

  “Who is this?” I text.

  “I have your jacket.”

  This can’t be . . . Fuck it. “What’s your address, Kevin?” I type, and the idea that I might get one last shot in my five-year war with Erik sobers me up.

  Something funny happens on my way to the Upper East Side. I don’t think of Erik, or of the hoops I might have to jump through to sleep with Kevin. Instead I think of the tiny amount of blame I have for Constantine’s death. It’s like I am going to have to account for losing his postcards, for not sooner passing on to Erik the one I did rescue. I could have made a difference. Strangely enough, I can’t even remember Constantine’s face. I try to re-create his eyes and voice from when he talked with me, high, on the balcony of the cottage at the Chateau. Constantine is becoming a new memory. He looked up to Kevin: “He’s smooth with girls, sports, everything,” Constantine said. “Erik is Kevin’s obsession. Kevin got the looks, Erik got the brains. They want to fuck each other.” Constantine, a junkie, laughed.

  KEVIN’S PENTHOUSE DOOR IS OPEN. He stands at the far end of his living room, looking out the window wall. I shut the door and he turns.

  “Are you here to talk about Erik or Constantine?” he asks. “Or antiangiogenic agents?” he chuckles.

  “Fuck you,” I say.

  “Where are we going to do that?”

  TWENTY-TWO

  November 2007

  GREEKS SURE HAVE STAMINA,” KEVIN says, and picks up the Amstel Light by his nightstand.

  I reach for my jeans on the floor and grab my cigarettes.

  “You can’t smoke in here,” he says.

  I get up and throw my pants on.

  “Go by the window. Make sure you blow the smoke out.”

  I light up and open the bedroom’s balcony door. Two Labs orbit Buddha-shaped bushes on a lit-up roof across the street.

  “When did you get those circles under your eyes?” I ask.

  “What?” Kevin mumbles.

  I turn, but I can barely see him in the dark. “When did you get those circles under your eyes?”

  “None of your business,” Kevin says. “None of my business. I don’t know. Why?”

  “Just things in common,” I say. “One can be impressive on paper and a mess in real life.”

  “Thanks for saving me the therapy bill,” Kevin says. He laces his fingers and turns his palms out, stretching his arms toward me. “Stick to your résumé, then. Stick to work.”

  “Kinda too late for that.”

  “Are you guys going through layoffs?” he asks sharply. He is more curious about or spooked by my job than he is by my come (his brother’s ex’s come) drying on his chin.

  “Don’t know,” I say. “And don’t really care.”

  He sits up. “How come? Do you have a better offer?”

  “Nope. I’m just sick and tired of the bullshit I do for a living.”

  “Marketing drugs works. Marketing works,” Kevin says, grabbing a Kleenex.

  “I can’t stand this up-or-out race anymore. I think I’m on my last legs at Command.”

  Kevin wipes my stuff off his torso and chin. “It looks like things are about to cool off a bit,” he says. “This race that you’re talking about won’t be the end of us after all.”

  “It ended Constantine,” I say, and try to read Kevin’s reaction in the dark.

  “It did not. Constantine was just stupid.”

  I take a long drag. “You are high on markets, he was high on breaking news. At the end of the day we are all high on something.”

  “The difference between me and Constantine was balance,” Kevin says. “He didn’t know where to stop. He was a danger junkie, among other things.”

  “That’s what men do.” I blow out my smoke.

  “It was a dumb death. And keep your smoke out!” Kevin says. “When you do drugs or you’re a war correspondent, you’re hot stuff. But when you overdose, or you die trying to get footage, then you’re an idiot.”

  “He knew the risks,” I say.

  “He thought he knew what his dealers gave him. He thought the Taliban would not fire at him because he was holding a camera. He had reached the point of no return. You met him; you know what I’m talking about. And I said, keep your smoke out.”

  I don’t. I can’t be the first smoker he has cheated on Helen with.

  “Constantine looked up to you. He told me that you could always focus and do the right thing,” I say.

  “He was high even when we were kids in Hyannis. Of course I was the one who could focus.”

  I was intimidated by Constantine—by the idea of him—until I met him. Then I liked him. Now I wanted to defend him to this rich, closeted son of a bitch. “Extremes have appeal—they take balls. Your brother thought so,” I say.

  “My brother always fell for crap like that. He always put himself in the backseat. Behind Constantine, or Warren, or . . . or behind mean fuckers like you,” Kevin says, and I see him smiling in the dark.

  “But the backseat is not good enough for Hyannis now, is it?”

  “If you say so.” Kevin takes a good sip from his beer. “So, who’s bigger?” He chuckles.

  Bitch . . . “What are you talking about?” I play dumb.

  “You’re the only one who’s slept with both of us.”

  “I haven’t slept with Constantine,” I say to gain time.

  Kevin laughs. “Of course you haven’t. I’m talking about Erik. So, who is bigger?”

  I don’t believe this. “You’ve never seen your brother hard?”

  “We are not perverts, Greek boy.”

  It’s my turn to laugh. “Right! What was I thinking?” I put out my cigarette on his door frame and flick it onto his balcony. “Hey, what’re you doing for Thanksgiving?” I ask, but Kevin doesn’t reply, and it’s too bloody dark to see his face. “Are you deaf?” I shout.

  “I might go to Boston,” he finally says. “Or stay here. Erik and Warren are cooking.”

  “Do you need a date?” I ask with a shrug, and lean against the glass door. I’m beginning to enjoy this.

  He lets out a nervous laugh. “No, thanks.”

  “’Cause it would be weird for Helen?” I smile. “Or Erik?” There. “We don’t want people to get the right idea, do we?”

  “Are you done?”

  “What if I run into Helen in the lobby?” I ask.

  “She’s out of town.”

  “So I should get back to bed then,” I say, and just the thought of it makes me ill.

  “You can’t spend the night here. I don’t want any doormen talking.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. I fucked you because you look like your brother,” I say. “What’s your excuse? You fucked me because I fucked your brother?”

  IT’S QUIET AT COMMAND. MOST people are either at clients’ or gone for the day. I swap between Reuters and Bloomberg on my screen, wondering if Alkis will call after the e-mail I just sent him.

  He does.

  “Is this a joke?” is the first thing that comes out of his mouth. We have not spoken since the Waverly Inn. No e-mails, no texts. Nothing.

  “How are you—” I pause—“mate?”

  “Fine,” Alkis says.

  “I’m sorry about the Waverly Inn,” I say, but Alkis doesn’t respond. He might be distracted; I hear phones ringing in the background, someone yelling “Fuck them, we’ll go with Deutsche on this one.”

  “I said I’m sorry,” I repeat.

  “Fuck the Waverly Inn,” Alkis says quickly. “We’re not in high school. Not today, anyway. Tell me you did not send that e-mail to Washington . . .”

  “Did not.”

  “Good!” He exhales. “’Cause no one in his right mind would ever send such a thing. That is a termination e-mai
l. I mean, what is this? Are you blowing the whistle?”

  “Call it whatever you want. Andrea changed BioProt’s numbers, not me. She buried the analysis so her fat fuck could grab the company on the low. That is fraud.”

  “I know what she did. You told me at the Chateau. I read your e-mail. Trust me, you made it very clear.”

  “I don’t want my name on her shit.”

  “Her shit has your name on it. You were the one who delivered her shit last September. What I don’t get is why you suddenly want to be all by-the-book. Why are you outing Andrea now?”

  “Because I wasn’t given a choice? Because I’m done with her. With the whole thing.”

  “That whole thing made you who you are.”

  “Look where that got me,” I say. “Your words.”

  “I’m talking about your savings account, for God’s sake.”

  “Didn’t you blast me and everything about me in LA?”

  “Stathis, if you want to leave Command—and you should—this is not the way to do it. You need to grow up and be smart about this.”

  He’s not listening to me. “Growing up is what I’m trying to do.”

  “Do you have a job lined up?”

  “No.”

  “What?” Alkis blurts out to someone who is talking to him. “I don’t care what time it is over there, we are doing this tonight. Hold on a second, Stathis.”

  The on-hold tune on Alkis’s phone, “. . . skies are sunny, bees make honey . . .” makes me smile, thinking about what would have happened if I’d told Erik about Lehman’s “I’d Love to Change the World” sound track during our patio days. “You have your memories,” Tatiana said to me the last time I saw her, in LA—as if I was supposed to be happy about them. I’m not, though; they haunt me. They make me ask what if about everything. What if Erik hadn’t sucked the cut on his thumb when we fought? What if I’d never seen past Constantine’s wrinkles? What if I hadn’t sat down with him and listened to him telling me that both Erik and I would change? What if Alkis hadn’t woken me up when Constantine died? What if I’d never woken up from LA myself? What if I hadn’t fucked Erik’s brother, in lust and disgust for Erik’s world? What would have happened then? There are infinite possibilities; not all of them play out. But they start together. They’ve all been building on each other. Had I not gone to EBS, I would never have met Erik. Had I not met him, fucked him, and planned a week with him in Bequia, I would never have walked into the Command headquarters looking like I owned the place. Had Erik not told me that he cared for me—cared—I probably wouldn’t have come up with my “Simplicity” shtick at work. Had he not fixed the patio, I might not have been promoted.

  I am an addict now, but I can still change my life, just as Constantine said. I can hang up the phone and send the e-mail. Then I can walk down to Gawel’s office and leave him a note about coffee, take responsibility, and have some closure before I leave for Paris to see my family. I can start my life all over again, I think as I look at the note on the three Olympic Air tickets on my desk: “Stathis, please check names and dates. I can FedEx the tickets to Greece tomorrow. You are booked at the Lancaster from 11/22 to 11/25.”

  After seven years, I am going to see my family.

  “Sorry,” Alkis says as he pops back on the phone. “We’re trying to close a deal and things are turning into a colossal fuckfest. Where were we?”

  “You were trying to scare me,” I say, checking my watch; it’s midnight in London.

  “If you send that e-mail, you’ll be cleaning out your desk by noon tomorrow.”

  “Perhaps. But she put pressure on me; I was following orders. She breached everything Command is supposed to—”

  “Shut up!” Alkis cuts me off. “If you’re trying to sue them, you picked the wrong month, mate. A year ago, maybe. Maybe you could have gotten a settlement that would’ve floated your ass for a bit. But not today; they have bigger worries. You should be worried. Clouds are everywhere. We’re trying to wrap the simplest thing with Bear and we can’t. Something spooky is going on. Could be nothing, could be everything.”

  “I’m not suing anyone. I just don’t want this shit in my life anymore.”

  “Talk to your lawyer, ’cause you’re playing against the house.”

  “Living in New York is playing against the house. You said this city is all wrong for me.”

  “Stathis . . .” He sighs. “I don’t understand why every fucking lesson you learn, you need to learn in the hardest way possible.”

  I have no answer there.

  “Do me a favor and sleep on it,” Alkis says.

  “I don’t need to sleep on it. I need to sleep.”

  There is another pause. “Fine. How’re you doing with money? How broke is your ass?”

  “I’ve been on expenses for a while, I can bridge things,” I say.

  “Better make this the Golden Gate Bridge. No one will hire you if this blows up. People talk. On that note, scoop has it that you hit the ground running in New York, after LA, after I saw you. Paul told me you’re all over town with—” he lets out a quick laugh—“Warren’s brother-in-law. Sorry, Paul’s text.”

  “Paul said Warren’s brother-in-law?” I ask. “Really? He didn’t say Erik’s brother? Or Kevin?”

  “Seriously, is that what upset you the most out of all the things I said? Okay, I can’t babysit your ass anymore. Do whatever you need to do, I got problems of my own. Just one last thing. You’ve never been unemployed, you’ve never been without a business card. You send this e-mail and your life will change forever.”

  I look at the three Fiji bottles on my desk as I ask Alkis: “What do you think I’m doing with Kevin?” Then I open the draft of my e-mail to Washington.

  “Listen to you . . .” Alkis says. “Schoolgirl. I don’t give a toss what you do with Kevin, it’s none of my fucking business. But Kevin drinks expensive red. If fucking your ex-brother-in-law will keep you from unemployment, so be it.”

  “Don’t worry. They’re not pulling me back in,” I say, and press Send.

  Now what, Constantine?

  TWENTY-THREE

  MY COMMAND E-MAILS HAVE GONE down by 80 percent. Firmwide invitations, Command CARES, and sale promotions make up page one of my in-box. “Accepted” work meetings are all of a sudden postponed or canceled. Although I have nothing to do, I still go to the office religiously, hoping to bring about the termination call from human resources. That, and to prepare myself to face Gawel.

  So far, my preparation has amounted to aimlessly digging around in my desk. I examine unsubmitted receipts, key cards from hotels that I never threw out, old PowerPoint decks, and photographs that Paul sent to me at Command from Trikeri—one of him playing backgammon with my father, another of him showing off an octopus.

  Then I think of Gawel again and hope that he manages rejection better than I do, that his anger and pain have diminished by now, and that after our talk, eventually, somehow, he’ll forget how badly I treated him. I stand up, take a few breaths, and start the fifty-foot walk to his office. By the time I get there, I want to throw up.

  Gawel is in a light-blue sweater, typing on his keyboard. He faces the window, so I knock at his open door.

  He turns and stares at me. It’s been a year. “Can I help you?” Gawel finally says, hesitantly.

  “Hi. Yes. I wanted to talk to you for a moment. If that’s okay.”

  The expression on his face is blank. “I’m listening,” he says.

  I motion toward the door.

  “Leave it open,” Gawel orders. “I don’t have much time.”

  He is wearing reading glasses—he didn’t use to—and his Tintin hair is a bit longer. I notice a framed photo on his desk, but I don’t dare give it a good look while he is keeping me hanging there.

  “Right,” I say.

  Gawel stands up. “
I’m listening,” he repeats.

  “Right, right.” I breathe. “I won’t insult you by saying that I suddenly care about how you’re doing, although I do. But I want you to know that I know that I was a bad manager. A shitty one. And all the things that went down, they had nothing to do with you.”

  “I know,” Gawel says.

  “You are a good guy and a solid analyst.”

  “Is that all? Because I don’t care for an apology.”

  “Ignore it, ignore me. But if you ever want to know why things happened the way they did, I will tell you. That’s all.”

  He nods. I nod back, and we stand there. Then I head to the door to leave.

  “Why?” Gawel’s voice stops me. “Why were you such an asshole?”

  I have to turn and say this to his face; I owe him that much. “You were collateral damage.”

  I see a tiny pleasure in Gawel’s eyes, the first sign of emotion since I walked into his office.

  “I hope the rumor that you’re about to get fired is true,” he says. “Now fuck off.”

  I HAVE NO FRIENDS IN New York. I have no friends, period, and I don’t mind it that way. I’ve stopped going to restaurants, even Sant Ambroeus. I’m happy to stay home and party by myself, staring at the crap that Tati put on my walls—a framed wad of bubblegum she spat out, a half-finished martini with Teresa’s lipstick on the glass. I experience an adolescent excitement about my upcoming trip. I count the days until Paris, where I’ll spend Thanksgiving with my sister and her children, even if I may be on drugs.

  I have become obsessed with checking my cell phone. I need to make sure I haven’t missed a call from human resources, or my sister, in case she needs something, but all I get is incoherent voice mails from Ray, and Paul’s mass texts about “AccostingTV, a Game Changer.”

  With nothing better to do, I text Paul at his personal number: “Is hacking your next thing? ’Cause I have a bio billionaire for you.”