by Carter Blake
“Okay, just one more question.”
“Shoot, Columbo.”
“What was Kallie just doing here?”
Barrister starts to stand up gingerly.
“She wanted to go home for the day, to plan another presentation for something or other. It wasn’t the best time, I’ll confess.” Barrister finishes standing up and leaves the room without another word.
I don’t know why Kallie couldn’t do that here or why she’s so fucking obsessed with presentations.
But shit, to his credit, Barrister answered all my questions. I think he’s being honest too.
I think.
Ethan
In my neighborhood, they still roll up the sidewalks at 5:00 p.m. You can tell it’s still a business district, especially on weeknights when you can see tumbleweeds rolling down Broadway.
Wednesday, being as far removed from the weekend as you can possibly get, is the worst for this.
Now that it’s late March, it’s fucking finally starting to get warm enough to walk from my place to Lush Republic without feeling like you’re on an Antarctic expedition.
Transitioning out of the ghost town of the Financial District is a slow process on foot.
Walking through City Hall Park, things are so quiet and still that it’s almost eerie. Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge walkway entrance, the sound of witless tourist yells piercing the night is even eerier.
I’ll be happy to reach civilization soon. Things warm up walking through the Lower East Side along Essex Street, then East Broadway.
There are dive bars, rowdy college kids, loud motorcycles, and swerving taxis.
I’m going to miss this, even if I’m only gone a couple years.
It’s getting close to 9:00 p.m., and a chill is setting in. It’s still fucking cold, I realize. The winter does not want to let go.
People are trying to pretend it’s spring, though, and I can’t blame them. Crossing Delancey, groups of bar hoppers are making mad dashes across the middle of block while speeding bicyclists try to defy the laws of traffic even more brazenly.
I’m content to just stroll across at the crosswalk after waiting for the light.
I’m even smiling a little, I think. I’m pretending it’s spring, too, and that the near future is promising.
The wind really picks up once I’m on Avenue A, but now there’s only a few more blocks to fucking go.
Thank fuck.
It’s been two days since my little meeting with Barrister. Of course, it’s also been two days since I last tried to call Madeline.
I’d like to say I haven’t thought of her since, but old habits die hard.
For the past couple days, I’ve been doing what I can to keep mind on the future, which may end up being four thousand miles west of here, across the Atlantic.
For now, it beats thinking about the past, which lies a few thousand miles in the other direction, somewhere in the middle of the Pacific.
It helps that it fucking feels much more like Switzerland than Hawaii here in frigid-ass Alphabet City.
I don’t have to wonder for a moment if Ryan’s already at Lush Republic. After showing my ID to the bouncer and fighting through the crowd, I find Ryan in his spot, keeping it real at the end of the bar.
Ryan doesn’t notice me at first. He’s too busy looking down at his half-full plastic cup of whiskey and cola.
I knew he’d be doing that when I got here, and I knew what drink he’d order. I even predicted him being perched on the stool farthest from the entrance.
I’m going to miss this fucker if I end up in Basel.
“Another Jack and Coke for the man, Colin!” I yell to the bartender.
Ryan spins around on his barstool.
“The bartender’s name is Colin?” he asks a little too loudly. I’m starting to suspect this is not Ryan’s first drink of the evening.
“You need to be more observant, my friend.” I park myself on the empty stool next to Ryan’s. “You didn’t even notice that I’m here until now.”
“Fuck that. How am I supposed to know you’re standing creepily behind me? That was what you were doing, was it not?”
“Oh, come on. I was only back there for like fifteen, twenty minutes tops,” I joke.
“I knew it! The great Ethan Barrett, ladies’ man extraordinaire, has nothing better to do on a Wednesday than stand silently in bars.”
Colin deposits two fresh drinks on the bar in front of us.
“Read my mind, Colin.”
“It’s my one and only talent,” he responds. “Do you want to open a tab?”
“Absolutely. Open the shit out of that tab. I’ve got a long night ahead of me.”
“Don’t we all?”
“Cheers,” I say, holding up my plastic cup.
“Slow down for just a minute there, mack.”
Mack? Who talks like that? I’m going to miss the shit out of this place too.
“Colin, were you, by any chance, a 1940s cab driver in a past life?”
“That’s scary...how’d you know that?”
“Ethan’s a scary guy,” quips Ryan.
Colin pours a shot of whiskey for himself and raises his shot glass for the toast.
“Dammit!” I yell at Ryan, who’s gone back to staring at his drink. “Can’t you tell I’m about to give a toast?”
Ryan grumbles under his breath and raises his cup.
“A toast to…fuck, I fucking forgot already.”
“Cheers!” shout Ryan and Colin in unison, and we clink our cups together.
I take the first swig of my drink. It tastes like pure whiskey concentrate. I’m about to ask Colin if he bothered to put any cola in it, but he already vanished to the other side of the bar.
“So, is this your favorite now, Ryan?” I ask. “Because that can’t be healthy.”
“Is there a healthier alcoholic beverage I can start ordering instead?”
“Red wine—but just one six-ounce glass per day.”
“Is that what you do, Ethan?”
“Fuck fucking no.”
“That’s what I thought!” Ryan shouts before taking a gulp from his new drink.
“What number is that for you, Ryan?”
“I’m not counting.”
“You can still talk, which is good.”
“Is it?”
Ryan takes a smaller sip, maybe in an effort to slow down.
“I’ll try tonight, Ethan. But another time might be better.”
“Another time for what?”
Ryan sets down his drink and looks at it, resisting the temptation for more.
“You know, conversation.”
“Fucking shit, dude. Don’t worry about that.”
Ryan nudges the cup away from him.
“What’s up, Ethan?”
“Christ, how well do you fucking know me? You’re the scary one.”
Ryan finishes his little dance with the drink, giving in by taking another tiny sip.
“Yeah, you’re probably right, but quit stalling already. What’s eating away at the Great Ethan Barrett?”
I hear myself sighing heavily as I take a gulp of whiskey and ice. There’s a Lorde song playing on Colin’s iPod through the speakers.
A few of the lyrics hang in the air as Ryan waits for my response.
Something about rumors—and viciousness.
“I might be moving to Switzerland.”
“Oh, that’s all?” Ryan takes a sip of his drink, and a split second later he nearly does a spit-take, but he stops himself from actually spitting. “Fuck. Did you say Switzerland?”
“Yeah. What did you think I said?”
“For some reason, at first I thought you said Staten Island…”
My laughter interrupts Ryan.
“Why would I move there? I’m like two seconds from work.”
“That would be weird, and you’ve got that bomb-ass apartment.”
“Right. But then you realized what I said a second later?”
“It was a short circuit or something, right in the ole brain. But Switzerland…”
“They’re offering me a contract, for two years.”
“In fucking Switzerland? Is it in Geneva or something?”
“No. Basel.”
Ryan takes a more generous sip of his drink, and I do the same with mine.
“Damn, dude,” Ryan comments, “you’ll be in Switzerland, but hours away from any good skiing. Why would you take a contract there?”
I don’t answer Ryan’s question. I don’t even give him a look. All I do is watch his face for the two seconds it takes him to realize the obvious.
“Is it that much?” Ryan asks quietly.
“Let’s just say it’s fuck you money. As in, after two years, I’ll be able to say fuck you to the entire industry.
Ryan finishes everything left in his cup, which is quite a bit, in one gulp.
“Will you want to say that to the industry? Do you want to now?”
I follow Ryan’s example and chug the rest of my caustic drink.
“I’m really starting to look forward to retirement, I’ll say that much.”
“Another round?” Colin is back at just the right moment.
“Yes, but this time could I get a pineapple juice and…rum.”
“I can do that,” Colin reassures me.
“Just another Jack and Coke for me,” Ryan says. “And put it on his tab.”
Colin disappears again, and I notice Ryan scoping out the room behind me. Drinking and talking is not what Ryan wanted to do tonight. Not drinking and talking to me, at any rate.
He’s doing his best, though. He knows I’m going through some shit.
As Ryan scans the room, I can tell by the way his face drops a little that the other person I invited tonight is making her way over.
“Hey, Carina,” Ryan almost grunts.
“That’s some greeting, Ryan,” my sister says while taking the empty stool next to me. “And you, Ethan…”
“And me, what?”
“We have important things to discuss, and you have me meet you here? At a goddamn dive.”
“It’s not such a dive,” Ryan tells Carina. I’m sitting between them, and it’s like he’s trying to talk through me.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Carina responds. “Where are the restrooms?”
“That door right there.” I point to the bathrooms a few feet behind me.
“Thanks.” Carina gets up from her barstool. “It’s about our mother, just so you know.”
“Is she okay? Has anything changed?”
“Nothing’s changed. Still not okay.”
“What’s that all about? Your mom’s still marrying that guy?” asks Ryan once Carina’s off to the restroom.
“Yes, still happening, it seems. My sister’s also getting kicked out her apartment soon, so she’ll need my help in some way. She’s just embarrassed to ask.”
“Damn, did she not pay rent or something?”
“Nope, just more city real estate fuckery. Her rent’s going up to some crazy high level, and she’s having no part of that.”
“What else?”
“With Carina? I don’t know.
“No, what else is going on with you?”
Colin returns with three drinks and plops them down silently. He always accounts for newly arrived guests.
“I told you about Switzerland. That’s it. That’s big enough, I think.”
I take the first sweet, citrusy sip of my drink.
“What else?”
“Just getting over a crush.”
“A crush? What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know what else to say.” I take a gulp from drink.
I have a lot of other things to say, but that might have to wait for another time.
Ethan
“Happy Friday!”
I don’t know who says it. It sounds like everybody’s saying it at once in the hallway as I arrive.
By now, with less people showing up every day, most people know that their days here are numbered.
Today, I’m appreciating the atmosphere of warmth and conviviality in the air. It’s bittersweet, and I almost don’t even feel like going to my office and closing the door like I always do.
The only problem is, after years of being the lone wolf hedge fund manager at the end of the hall, if I do anything but go straight to my office, it’ll probably come across as insincere bullshit.
Walking down to my office, I keep my head down, promising to myself that next time I’ll try not to shut myself off from everything so much.
Passing the partially open boardroom door, I know that some weird shit is about to happen. I’m right—that executive laughter resounds through the corridor. I hear Barrister, Rosen—and, yes, that’s Fern.
The latest fit of laughter is followed by Phil’s voice telling a story about...someone. I slow down my pace.
“And then he thought he was leaning against a wall, but there was nothing there—he almost fell over!”
I don’t know who they’re talking about, but there’s more fucking laughing. I start legitimately dragging my feet down the corridor when I hear Kallie chime in.
“From what I can tell,” she says, “all his friends are from like, San Francisco, just like he is, so they’re all computer programmers, or whatever, like he is, so he doesn’t know how to exist with normal people.”
The laughter rings out again, and I regret eavesdropping. Kallie’s probably talking about one of the IT guys.
“And you know that weird thing he does with his eyes when he talks?” Kallie continues.
“Oh, Jesus, yes,” says Phil. “He’s one fuckin’ guy I’m glad to be rid of.”
More laughter follows. It’s fucking sickening—they’re talking about someone who already lost his job.
I shouldn’t have stopped, and I shouldn’t have listened, but in an office this size, it can be hard to ignore this shit when it happens. It’ll probably get even worse after the move.
At this point, I’m happy to walk into my office and close the fucking door.
Time to get to work—whatever that means these days. Time to...
Take out my personal phone and dial Madeline, with no idea why I’m doing it. Maybe it’s because I’m not sure what’s really going on with the company and the move anymore, and I want to touch base and get her perspective.
Maybe I’d just like to hear the sound of her voice. Even if it’s only for a few words.
The kind of ugliness I overheard can ruin a day for me. That might sound extreme, but I really fucking hate it—and Maddie’s phone is already ringing.
“Hello?”
Standing in the middle of my office, I realize how little I expected her to pick up. I’m completely unprepared.
“Ethan?”
“Madeline! How are you?”
“I-I’m good, Ethan. I know I haven’t been in touch recently...”
“Well, me neither.”
“Is everything okay, Ethan?” Maddie asks, as if she knows something’s wrong and she’s trying to get it out of me.
I don’t think too much about that, though. For a moment, all I feel is giddy shock that this conversation is happening after I tried so hard to convince myself that it’s over.
“What are you doing tonight, Madeline?” I ask, knowing there’s a slim-to-none chance she doesn’t have plans for her Friday night by now.
“I thought I had a lot of work to do...but I don’t know. I think I might not be doing anything.” Her answer is puzzling, but now is not the time to dwell on that.
“Would you want to get a drink? I could use a drink.”
It’s a weird thing for me to say. It’s even not a quarter past nine in the morning, and if we do get together, it won’t be for another few hours—but I’m letting instinct take over for this call.
“Okay. Sure. I could use one, too. You want to meet at the Iron Horse or something?” Before I can respond, Madd
ie offers another suggestion. “Or that place we went a while ago? In Alphabet City?”
“Lush Republic.”
“Yeah,” Maddie says. “I have trouble remembering that name for some reason. They have food there, right?”
“They do, but why don’t we start the drinks there, and...” Okay, time to reel myself in just a little. “And some food, if you’re hungry. Whatever you want.”
“I’m in. I’ll see you there at 7:00 p.m.”
“I’ll be there with bells on.”
“And I mean 7:00 p.m. sharp, bellboy. See ya.” Madeline hangs up.
For once this week, I’m feeling motivated to get some fucking work done.
With my laptop, tablet, and business smartphone going full blast, I work the shit out of this Friday, reading news and analyzing data. It’s pointless, since the fund is probably closing soon, but it passes some of the time before my date with Maddie.
At 5:00 p.m., I leave with the crowd.
In my suit and overcoat, I embark on the half hour walk to Lush Republic. It’s still crazy fucking early when I get there. I stake out a table and order one of the dark stouts they have on tap.
I nurse my pint of beer until Maddie shows up at seven, on the dot. Like me, it looks like she’s still dressed in her work clothes.
Maddie and I make eye contact the moment she walks in the door. My heart starts pumping a little harder—and harder still as I watch Maddie pleasantly show her ID to the bouncer.
She’s wearing a light jacket—maybe a little too light for the weather—over an incredibly well-fitting charcoal gray skirt suit. She slips off the jacket before walking to the table, draping it over her arm.
She looks so fucking good in that suit.
“Is this where Rich Uncle Pennybags likes to spend all his time?” Maddie down across from me in the worn yet comfortable booth.
“I don’t know, I don’t think I’ve seen him around here. I like spending time here, though—especially with you.”
Fuck, I need to turn it down by about a hundred fucking notches. That was so...
Maddie smiles, and my brain goes blissfully blank.
I smile back, because I have no other choice. I am so fucking glad I decided to call.
There’s a Monkees song playing through the bars iPod-connected speakers—Charles must be presiding over the playlist tonight.