“We should probably go now,” said Robbie. “I finished packing, and it’s getting dark quickly.”
“Okay,” I answered. “We’ll meet you in the garage in five minutes.” I ended the call and rushed to get Sophia’s coat.
“We’re going to buy a Christmas tree, and Daddy is coming with us,” I said by way of getting her full attention.
“Daddy coming too?” she asked eagerly.
“Yes, honey, he is.” Her eyes sparkled and she did a little dance before letting me put her coat on her. She hadn’t seen him in days, and she missed him dearly. And now she looked so happy. I ached at the thought that this was a goodbye to her dad and not a welcome back into our lives. I had thought of it as a way for us to separate in friendlier terms for her sake. Above all else, I wished that he remain present in her life. I knew all too well what the absence of a father meant.
I could barely hold her hand in the elevator ride to our parking floor. She jumped up and down, balancing on one foot, then the other, in her ongoing and awkward monkey dance. Clutched in her other hand, her security blanket—a soft white cotton diaper she called her ‘Papette’—flapped up and down her side.
“Sophia! Hi, baby!” he greeted her with a big smile. She tumbled in his arms, squealing with joy.
“Hi, Robbie.” I opened the back door and helped him put her in her car seat.
“I’ll sit in the back with Sophie, if you don’t mind,” he said.
“No, not at all,” I replied.
The memory of that evening will forever remain with me. In spite of the gloom in our hearts, we strove to maintain pleasant faces and played the part of the happy parents. We drove to Michael’s Tree-and-Trim store in Cliffside Park and bought a small artificial tree, and let Sophia choose a few ornaments to add to the ones I’d kept from previous years. After a quick pizza dinner, we set out to decorate and mostly watch our tot run around excitedly, picking shiny and colorful ornaments and handing them to us to hang.
Robbie looked different, thin and so handsome, in his tight jeans and black turtleneck. His sad blue eyes betrayed his state of mind and mirrored mine. I knew well that aching lust, open wound of our profound loneliness. It had been months without any intimacy between us.
“I have some white wine,” I said. “Would you like some?”
“Sure,” he said as he helped Sophia hang a gingerbread man on a lower branch.
I finished putting a golden ribbon on my side of the tree and went to fetch the wine from the kitchen. He appeared calm and collected, certainly a far cry from the suicidal man I had described to his mother only a week earlier. He didn’t even look high, as I had imagined he would. I wondered if he sensed the tension building inside me. It was hard to believe that this was perhaps the last I was going to see him in some time. I poured the wine in two glasses and handed him one.
“Cheers, then.” I raised my glass in his direction. “And happy early Christmas,” I said, forcing a smile.
“Cheers, Wafa.”
He touched his glass against mine and looked into my eyes, piercing through my shattered heart for a brief instant. His beautiful face was etched in sadness. Then he turned toward Sophia.
“You did a good job, baby,” he complimented her with a stroke on her head.
I fought back tears; the poignancy of the scene was too much to bear.
She rubbed her eyes with her closed fist, holding Papette tightly. I glanced at my watch.
“It’s well past her bedtime,” I said quietly. “I think tonight we’ll dispense with her bath.”
“I’d like to put her to bed,” Robbie said. I acquiesced, happy that he had offered, and began putting away the empty boxes.
After all those years, it had come to this. Tomorrow, he would be gone, and none of our individual grievances were close to being resolved or even acknowledged. But at that moment, all that I could think of was how much I had missed his warmth and how good he looked. I felt as if I were falling in love with him all over again.
“She’s fast asleep,” he whispered, pulling me out of my reverie. His eyes were red. “Is there some more wine left?” he asked, avoiding my gaze.
“Yes, I put it back in the fridge,” I said, overcome with melancholy.
He came back with the half-empty bottle and poured some wine into my glass before filling his, still standing on the dining table.
“I’m going to miss her so much,” he said. “I can’t tell you how it feels.”
I knew how he felt, and I ached for him, battled the urge to hold him.
“You will come back when you’re better, won’t you?” I asked. “You’re her dad, and she will need you to be there for her.”
I yearned to hear him say that things would be fine, that he would soon return, strong and changed, to take care of us, make everything alright forever thereafter.
“I don’t know what to say, except I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he said, reaching for my hand. “It was never my intention.”
“Robbie, we need to put all of this behind us and focus on what’s best for our kid. But first, you need to take care of yourself and be strong. You will be able to do that in Costa Rica. Sophie needs you.” And I need you too, I wanted to add.
But words often cut like double-edged blades and must be used with caution lest one’s heart get torn to shreds. He pulled me closer and, for what seemed like an eternity, held me in his arms ever so tenderly. On the radio, Whitney Houston’s latest hit came on faintly in the background. I will always love you, she crooned—words we ourselves could not speak. To this day, that song remains the anthem for our parting. I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply through the soft wool of his sweater, listening to the moving melody and the thumping of his heart. His scent awoke ripples of longing from the depths of my being. Nothing could hold my tears back anymore.
Gently, he pulled my face up and wiped my tears with his hand. Then he lowered his head and kissed my lips. That was all that was needed for lightning to hit and spark raging wildfires through my loins, scorching all thought, all doubt. Wistful winds fanned the flames of my desire, blowing over the dry, drought-plagued grounds of my solitude. His kiss conjured images of paradise lost, memories of blissful times, and all I could think of was how much I loved him still. Gone was any recollection of pain and searing disillusion.
We let ourselves be swept by the waves of our bursting emotions and spent our very last night the same way we had our first—making passionate love to each other. Only this time, our teary fervor was engulfed in a kind of despair known only to those faced with untold tragedy, war, or plague. There is something to behold about human sexual appetites that they find their clearest expression in times of greater loss and uncertainty, as if we, poor souls, need to leave a trace of us behind, should we come to pass and be forgotten.
The next day, Sophia and I took Robbie to LaGuardia Airport. He was not to return to the States until some fourteen years later.
23
New Identity
My mother, who had been following my traumatic break-up and was affected by it, also paid a price. My sister was still in Tunisia with Sami and could be of no help. I became alarmed by Mom’s growing petulance and restlessness. Those were early indicators and signaled mania and psychosis were not far behind. In spite of her denials, I was certain she had discontinued her medication, and my arguments could not get through to her to resume taking them. She felt way too good, but when her irritability and anger against one of my sisters-in-law became unmanageable. I literally had to trick her with the help of a friend in order to take her, without delay, to the emergency room.
And so, on March 9, 1993, three months after Robbie left for Costa Rica—and almost three years after her first hospitalization—she had to be readmitted. This time, I took her to Englewood Hospital, where she stayed two weeks. Once again, the whole battery of nightmarish drugs—Lithium, Haldol, Cogentin, Paxil—were force-fed to her. Once again, she turned into a zombie, suffered from slurred speech, impair
ed memory, a short attention span, slowed reflexes, lack of coordination, tremor, even bladder incontinence, until she stabilized again and recovered a semblance of normalcy.
Her relapse added layers of anxiety and fear to my already overtaxed existence. At a time when I struggled just to survive, I had to drive daily to the hospital to visit her and consult with her attending psychiatrist. My income was dwindling, and I was inundated by hostile calls from creditors. Robbie had left me with two mortgages, two co-op maintenances, and a mountain of credit card debts. He had exiled himself and relinquished all responsibility leaving me to care for a young daughter and an ailing mother, with no steady income, no child support or alimony, and no health care.
Professionally, the real-estate crisis had hit bottom, and there seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel. Buyers were scarce and housing inventories way up. The values of both my apartments were well below their purchase prices and the amounts of their mortgages—which meant I owed more to the banks than they were worth. Compounding the problem were sky-high co-op maintenance fees and real-estate taxes. Nothing was selling in the Versailles anymore.
Nursery school tuition and basic living expenses were already devouring every penny I earned from vanishing commissions, made worse by the full weight of self-employment taxes. I was forced to liquidate my retirement accounts and faced, not only steep early withdrawal penalties, but also late payments fees, which I then struggled to pay in installments. Not only did I deplete every saving and retirement accounts I owned, I also went through every dollar I could borrow.
The months seemed to fly by at a greater pace than normal, and I felt under siege and ready for the kill. Despite it all, and for over a year and a half, I fought to pay every single bill while frantically trying to supplement my income moonlighting. My efforts failed to keep me afloat and collection agencies stepped up their harassment, pestering me night and day.
All efforts to work out individual arrangements with my creditors failed. They expressed regret and turned me down, my financial profile being simply too grim. My emotional stress was so consuming that the well-being of my child and the care of my mother were seriously threatened. After Robbie left, it took me over a year to find a steady job and, slowly, ways to get back on my feet.
On a frosty January afternoon in 1994, I walked into the tightly packed conference room of a Fifty-sixth and Fifth Avenue office building, inside a Merrill Lynch recruiting seminar. I was one of only a dozen other women in the midst of some two hundred professional-looking men in dark business suits. The floor-to-ceiling drapes were drawn, the room hot and stuffy, and the coat I was wearing felt like a heavy blanket. To say that I was intimidated would be an understatement. My first encounter with Wall Street was literally making me sweat. My knowledge of finance was limited at best. I knew politics, international relations, and diplomacy, and I was familiar with residential real estate, but I could hardly tell the difference between a stock and a bond. Had it not been for the ad in the New York Times, I would never have been there.
The quarter-page Sunday ad had explicitly stipulated that all the firm was looking for were people who were personable, charismatic, and had some sales skills, adding “we will teach you everything else.” I had no doubt I could learn anything I put my mind to. A phone number was listed, inviting prospective consultants to call for an appointment.
“So sorry,” the woman on the other end had told me when I called the following Thursday for a reservation. “We’re already fully booked. But let me have your name and phone number, and I’ll call you if we get cancellations.”
“Really? You’re completely booked?” I had asked surprised. “You don’t have a spot for one more person?”
I had no clear idea of what it was she was referring to, but I had been very intrigued by the advertisement after my sister had brought it down to me insisting it looked perfect for me.
“Not right now, sorry. A lot of people have been replying since Sunday. But you never know,” she’d apologized.
I’d given her the information she asked for and promptly forgot about the matter—until I got a call a couple of days before the seminar informing me that there was room for me if I still wanted to attend.
On the day of the event, snow and ice were piled high on Boulevard East and the forecast warned of frigid temperatures. Throughout the morning, I had debated whether I should go to the city at all, hoping to receive a call informing me that the meeting had been postponed.
The session began with a lengthy video presentation of the firm’s over-a-century old illustrious lineage and achievements. It was followed by a description of what it meant to be a financial consultant at a prestigious firm such as Merrill Lynch. As I sat fretting on my chair, deep inside the room, and listened to the tall, impossibly blond preppy lecturing the crowd about the necessity of long and hard work hours to succeed in the industry, I kept thinking this was such a waste of my time. I had responsibilities that put limits on how many hours I could spend at work.
Mentally, I was preparing to leave the premises and go back home to my child. Only, the room was overflowing with attentive, middle-aged men jam-packed at the door and along the walls. I was trapped in my seat and forced to wait till the end of the presentation. But instead of releasing us into the icy streets of Manhattan, the organizers directed the attendees line by line to the awaiting interview screeners.
When my turn arrived, I got up and hesitantly followed as instructed. As soon as I entered the small, sparsely furnished office, the young man behind the desk stood up and extended his hand to greet me. Another blond and blue-eyed preppy in a suit! I thought to myself.
“Hi, I’m Prescott. How are you?” he said with a wide smile.
“Faith O’Brien,” I answered, shaking his hand.
I had been informally using my married name ever since I began selling residential real estate in the city in the spring of 1990. The first broker who hired me had suggested that I also use a Western first name to advertise the properties we sold. Without hesitation I chose “Faith” the literal translation of my Arabic name “Ouafae”, not realizing then that, in so doing, I had completely obliterated my ethnic background.
In October 1993, I legally sealed my cultural individuality by applying to the superior court of New Jersey for a name change. I adopted “Faith” as middle-name and simplified the French spelling of my first name from the clumsy “Ouafae” to “Wafa”. By December, I was officially authorized to assume my new identity.
“Nice to meet you, Faith. Take a seat, please. Can I have your application?” he asked.
“Well, to be honest with you, I didn’t bother to complete one.” I sat on the edge of my chair.
He looked surprised, and I hurried to explain. “Actually, I don’t think this position is for me. I’m a single mom. I have a four-year-old daughter and a sick mother. I cannot be working twelve-hour days and Saturdays, as they were emphasizing out there.” I gave him an awkward grin with my thumb pointing toward the door.
“Oh yeah, I know the spiel,” he chuckled, shaking his head. “I can tell you this—I hardly ever work past 4:00PM, and never on weekends. Do you have a résumé, by any chance?”
I nodded. “Well that’s a relief,” I exclaimed and handed him my CV.
“Where’s your accent from? I can’t make it out,” he asked, intrigued.
“I was born in Morocco. French is my first language,” I replied, adding, “And I learned English in England, which explains the British hint.”
“Yeah, I can hear that!” beamed Prescott.
I leaned back in my chair, finally relaxed and thankful for the young man’s affability. He took a minute to go over my educational and work history. He was in his late twenties, early thirties, I speculated. He was rather nice-looking and oozed self-confidence. I was not aware then that this was all part of a masterful hiring show, not unlike the one Michel had put up for countless reps some twenty years earlier.
“I’m impressed,” he
said at last, looking straight at me. “You’re more educated and have more sales experience than most people starting in this business.”
“Do you think so? You know, I never studied or worked in finance,” I pointed out incredulous.
“Yes, I do. Don’t worry about that. We’re in fact interested in your personal qualities, not your knowledge of the industry. If we like your persona, we’ll teach you everything you need to know about the business. Trust me, if I could learn this stuff, you certainly can,” he chimed.
He went on discussing my background and extensive travel, and closed by telling me to expect a phone call from his branch manager for further interviews. Then he bid me goodbye and handed me his business card.
“Don’t hesitate to call me if you have any questions,” he said.
The interview had taken almost forty minutes. When I stepped out of the building, it was dark and snowing but my outlook was bright and sunny. Prescott had uplifted my spirit and made me feel good about my prospects. I waited two weeks to call him back, wondering why nobody had contacted me yet.
A couple of weeks later, I went on a string of meetings with various middle managers and senior consultants, and successfully took a few tests, before ending in a final face-to-face with a branch manager.
“What makes you think you can excel in this job and work with wealthy individuals?” he asked me point blank the minute I introduced myself.
His tone was measured but provocative. He was an imposing man, heavy and tall with grayish hair. He commanded respect in his large office with panoramic bay windows framing shiny skyscrapers behind him. It had finally all come down to this; this man’s opinion was the one that counted. Though, by then, I felt more confident about my abilities and self-worth. I was not going to let him intimidate or bully me, I reminded myself.
“I have a great deal of sales experience; I’m well informed, highly educated, and worldly. I’m comfortable with wealthy people coming from a well-to-do family. They know they can trust me,” I explained.
THE ROAD FROM MOROCCO Page 21