I found myself in the midst of the madness and not knowing quite what to make of it. It all felt weird and, at times, uncomfortable, but I had neither the desire nor the guts to stand up and express reserve or dissent. Indeed, I partook as best I knew how. Barely a year after the co-op sponsor had officially repossessed my apartment I re-purchased it and closed in the summer of 1998. Six months later, in December, I bought Mom her very first home, a corner two-bedroom apartment she had been renting for two years in my building. And exactly a year after that, I helped my sister buy her own, identical to mine, two-bedroom two-bath apartment, on the sixteenth floor of the Versailles, by co-signing her mortgage loan.
But instead of feeling satisfied with my achievements, under a year later, in the summer of 2000, just as the market had begun what would become a prolonged decline, I bought the apartment adjacent to mine, expanding my home from thirteen hundred to twenty-two hundred square feet, and embarked on a complete, hugely onerous renovation that went on for over fifteen months.
I had never before experienced a serious bear market, only short-lived downturns, quickly followed by heightened speculation and volatility, and renewed market highs. Furthermore, no one, neither clients nor experts-save a few doomsayers, seemed to be noticing the looming crisis.
Over the years, my clients had been pushing for greater returns. A carefully balanced portfolio with moderate returns was deemed a shortsighted strategy, and I was increasingly under pressure to meet or beat those unbelievable S&P returns.
“Come on, Faith, the S&P yielded thirty percent annually between 1995 and 1999-don’t tell me that fifteen percent is a good return!” the voice on the end of the line argued in frustration.
“But, Alan, you’re not invested only in stocks. Thirty percent of your portfolio is in bonds. You’re almost fifty years old. That’s a prudent allocation,” I replied with vehemence. “We already discussed this.”
“I’m speaking of the freaking stock index returns, Faith. I’m not even talking of the small tech stocks. Those are doubling within months,” he went on, deaf to my argument.
“Well, would you be ready to take on that kind of risk and lose as much as you’re willing to gain? That’s how it works, you know. There’s no free lunch out there,” I protested.
“Look, I’ve been doing some online trading on my own, and I can tell you this, I made more money with less investment in five months than you have in a year,” he said, exceedingly agitated. “I really don’t know why I pay you so much money!”
There it was the familiar threat; if it was so easy anyone could do it. Why pay a broker? The menace never failed to send shivers down my spine and tie my stomach in a knot.
“You pay me to responsibly help you invest your savings, manage your liabilities, and grow your assets, not gamble them away,” I retorted. “I know you’re upset because some people have made a lot of money in a very short period of time, but they’re betting on a few speculative stocks, not investing. There’s a big difference.”
“I understand that, but couldn’t we, at least, spike those returns with a few IPOs here and there? Merrill Lynch underwrites many of them, and you never offer me any. Some of those skyrocket in a single day of trading.”
That too I’d heard before. The truth was I didn’t get any of the highly sought-after initial public offerings to propose to my clients. Those were allocated to the big wigs, the mega-producers and their clients, and to institutional investors. My clients, many of them with million-dollar portfolios, were still considered small fry. When I was presented with IPOs, they often were lesser or undersubscribed issues or leftovers.
“Tell you what, I’ll go over your accounts again, and I will identify places where we could afford a little more risk. I think we may be able to add some of the best tech stocks, like Cisco Systems, Yahoo, and Amazon, although they may be a bit pricey. But before I suggest anything, I want to make sure and scan not only Merrill research but also other firms’ ratings on those companies. I’ll put together a list for you with only the best recommendations. How’s that?”
“Sounds good, Faith. And let’s see what you can do about some good IPOs, too,” he said grudgingly.
I put down the phone feeling drained. Few of my clients were willing to hear the voice of moderation anymore; playing it safe was outdated. They all wanted a piece of the action, a position in all the sexy Internet stocks that everybody talked about.
At first, I resisted the temptation to give them what they begged for, sticking with what I had learned, buying blue chip companies with a long history of profits and experienced management. Then, slowly, as I began to learn more about the so-called “new economy,” I too became complacent and fell prey to the widespread hi-tech lure, buying more technology stocks and funds for my clients and my own personal accounts. Soon, my clients loved the superior returns, and I loved pleasing them. My sole concerns were how to minimize the fiscal impact of short-term capital gains and avoid wash sales.
26
Up Close and Personal
My first affair as a single woman took place almost a year after Robbie left for Costa Rica. Financially, I was bankrupt then; emotionally, I felt lonely and empty. My mind tortured me with elaborate schemes of my ex seeing the light and returning to be the man I had always dreamt he would be. For in spite of the wretchedness of our marriage, our sex life had always been rich and satisfying. Finally, after much mental wrestling, I answered a personal ad in New York Magazine with a short note and no photo.
The header had advertised: “Extra-Special Man,” and gone on:
I am a very handsome, 6’4”, slim, fit, salt-pepper hair, brown-eyed businessman. Adventurous, uncommon sense of warmth and caring. I am a complex, very special man with very deep values and a good heart. I am looking for a very special woman—probably someone who rarely, if ever, answers ads. You are a very attractive brunette, who is totally fit (physically, emotionally, and spiritually) Warm heart and soul. Passionate about life. Nonsmoker, 32–42.
After all, I was a fit and attractive thirty-seven-year-old brunette with a “warm heart and soul,” I thought.
I didn’t hear back from the “extra-special man” until some eight weeks later, after I had all but forgotten about him, and when we met for the first time, I was stunned by his good looks and dazzling smile. A well-off, Hungarian-born fifty-year-old, Elek was indeed warm, loving, and caring, and a divorced father of two grown children. We dated for a little while, and he seemed to be doing everything right, working hard to please me in every way—that is, until we became intimate and all our efforts failed to accomplish their purpose.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, contrite. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It never happened before.”
Shit! I thought, just my luck. It was too good to be true. No wonder it took him so long to get me in the sack! I took a deep breath and silently prayed that my disappointment did not show.
“Oh, no,” I reassured him. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not all that important.”
Like hell, I kept thinking. I should’ve known from the moment he kissed me, on our second date—such a lousy kisser! Still, with my help, the kissing had gotten a lot better. Perhaps, if I were patient enough, he might recover from erectile dysfunction too!
“We can have fun in other ways,” I teased to relax the tension.
We did indeed find other ways to enjoy each other but what was missing did not get much better with time. These were the days before Viagra! His ED never went away, but it was not the only reason for me to want him out of my life after only three months.
In fact, I’d liked him so much at first that I really convinced myself I could live without a fully satisfying sex life, and we began to spend more time together. A highly accomplished skier, he took me to Vail for a long weekend and helped me perk up my skills. He met my mother and the rest of my family. Then Sophie and I spent the holidays with his friends and relatives. But, at four and a half, she disliked him. He was strict
and not much fun with her.
“You have to finish your spinach if you want your dessert,” he had once insisted, leaning over to push the plate toward her. “My kids always ate their vegetables.” And to make it easier to swallow, he’d sprinkled sugar on the green leafy vegetable.
“Come on, baby, it’s good for you,” I’d encouraged her, not wishing to overrule him.
She’d beseeched me with teary eyes, aggrieved that I had taken his side, tried a tiny bite, and almost immediately spit it out. Elek had been incensed, and I’d had to intervene to calm him down and rescue her.
Furthermore, it turned out he suffered from pronounced obsessive compulsive disorder, which, during the first weeks, he’d masked as best he could, until I started going to his upstate house and discovered the full extent of his battle with germs.
The place was covered with thick, white carpeting, a small child’s nightmare. Shoes were banned indoors, of course, and no child drinking cups, outdoor toys, or pets were allowed. Bath towels could not be used more than once after which they were thrown in the wash. He ran a washing machine daily and cleaned his hands at every turn. He showered before bed and upon waking, and meticulously cleaned the bathroom every single time he used it.
I could not sit or lie down on the bed still wearing street clothes, since one never knew what those public seats had been through. If we sat on the carpet to watch TV and ate popcorn, God forbid I picked up a fallen kernel and put it back in my mouth! The very thought of ordering a delivery-pizza made by some filthy pizza-men was an anathema.
He began criticizing the way I cooked and how well I cleaned my hands or washed the veggies before preparing them. I failed to recognize then that his OCD may well have been the primary cause of his ED.
Perhaps, most damaging of all was his steadfast “conservatism” as he viewed it, more like unswerving hypocrisy in my eyes. As an entrepreneur, he railed against high taxes, but he cheated on his returns and admitted reporting only a small portion of his actual revenues. He helped his elderly mother conceal all her assets so that she could be eligible for Supplemental Security Income and then fumed against wasteful entitlement programs. Slowly but surely his true nature was revealed. The last straw came one night when he referred to homosexuals as “faggots and dykes,” and Italians as “dagos.” I hadn’t even heard the latter term before. Suddenly his “very deep values” appeared shallow and prejudiced in the extreme.
I wanted nothing more to do with him. Oddly, the news came as a shock to him. Even so, four weeks later he showed up at my door with flowers and an engagement ring and asked me to marry him! I turned him down flat and never again answered a personal ad in print.
A few days later, I came across the Merrill Lynch ad in the Sunday Times, and my life quickly got very busy. I had no time for a relationship anyway, and before I knew it, it had been more than three years since I had one. By the summer of 1997, my professional life had begun to show some promise, and I was badly in need of a vacation. That summer, Sophie and I were invited to my cousin’s beach house in Morocco.
I first saw Najib, a distant relative I had never met before, at a family wedding we attended and was instantly drawn to his wide grin, warm sexy voice, and confident laughter. I immediately ached for his toned, tanned body and I pursued him until I had him, which took all of twenty-four hours. Our first night together was at once ardent and blissful. At thirty-six, he was tender, loving, and infinitely giving. Every inch of my body hankered after his touch like a starved animal presented with a raw steak. It had been far too long.
By the next morning, I had barely slept a wink. Everyone was deep asleep still. The big house was full of children—his young son, my daughter, my cousin’s three boys, all occupying different rooms. I had sneaked into his after the house settled into nighttime slumber and found him waiting for me. All through the hours of darkness, long after love-making, I had felt his soft hand caressing my body, my back, my hair. At dawn, I slipped out barefoot onto the sandy beach, my feet sinking in the wet sand taunted by the flirty waves, watching the sun rise behind the dunes, tears of elation streaming down my cheeks. I breathed the salty marine air, blown away by the sensorial overload of the night, already longing for another embrace.
Forty-eight hours later, he drove me to the Casablanca airport. Sophie was staying behind for another two weeks with her little cousins, and he was going to take care of them. I gave him a long good-bye kiss, invited him to the States, and left with a heavy heart. A month later, I picked him up at Kennedy Airport. I had fallen in love with him and had been counting the minutes that separated us.
“I’m falling for you, hard,” I confessed one night as we lay side by side in my bed. “It’s crazy how fast that happened.” He gave me a kiss, gently, but did not say anything.
His reluctance to respond to my declaration became a source of consternation for me. On our very first night he had admitted that I was the first woman he had been intimate with since he left his French wife three years earlier. He’d also told me that he was still not completely over her. I quickly assumed he hadn’t met the right woman yet, and I was certain, even cocky, that I would be able to make him forget her in no time. After all, the woman had betrayed him in the most despicable way, humiliated him time and again, and was still living with another man.
“I do care for you a whole lot,” he’d said to me. “More than I have any other woman in a long time. Only I’m not sure I can love again the way I loved her.”
“You think you loved her so because your ego won’t let you accept the fact that she preferred someone else,” I snarled once as we drove back from a late party in Manhattan. “She cheated on you, fucked a man in your own bed, twice, and you’re still hoping she’ll recognize her mistake and take you back.” The thought of competing with a long-gone spouse infuriated me. “You know what they say, nice guys really do prefer bitches,” I snickered.
After his first month-long sojourn, he left for Morocco to take care of some business before returning to live with me in America. At least, that was the plan. But only two weeks later, I had made up my mind. I packed up all his things in a large carton and sent them back to him, signifying in no uncertain terms that I no longer wanted him.
“I’m sorry,” I told him when he called, astounded. “I love you, but I’m not willing to play second banana in your heart indefinitely. You first figure it out for yourself, and then we’ll see.”
“But you’re not giving us a chance,” he replied calmly.
“Oh, yes, I did, for five months. The more love I showed you, the more you held back. I need a man to be madly in love with me, without the slightest reservation. If there’s one thing I have learned in my life so far, it’s that I will listen to my instincts and not settle for less than I deserve. I can’t let you make such a huge move and then find out we’re stuck in a dead-end.”
I hung up the phone and put my face in my hands, holding back tears.
“Are you okay, Faith?” Leslie inquired at my door.
“I’m fine, thanks,” I answered without looking at her. “I just broke up with Najib.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. You want me to get you a glass of water?” she asked. I shook my head.
“No, thanks. But I’d appreciate if you could hold my calls for a moment.”
Within days, I got a call from his sister, an older high-school friend of mine, urging me to reconsider.
“I realize it’s none of my business, but I thought I’d give you a call anyway. My brother loves you, and he’s very hurt by your break-up. He doesn’t care about his ex anymore, I assure you. And I hadn’t seen him as happy as when he was with you in a long time. I don’t think you’ve thought this through,” she said with her customary bluntness.
“Well, actually, I have thought it through, Laila. For once, I haven’t let my emotions override my deep instincts. He’s your brother. Of course you’ll take his side. But he missed the boat with me. That’s all there is to say!”
/> I threw myself back into work, delved into more material indulgence, and put my emotional life into prolonged hibernation yet again. The mood of the time, cleverly depicted in The Long Boom, the bestseller by Peter Schwartz and Peter Leyden, conspired to make me believe in a new gilded age of prosperity, a dawning twenty-five-year period of “radically optimistic meme.” So what if I was still single and alone? I was neither lonely nor friendless, but independent and more self-assured than ever, and I had no time for affairs of the heart.
It was in that spirit, and to celebrate the turn of the century in style, that I decided to throw a huge New Year’s Eve party—perfectly scheduled for Friday, December 31—complete with great Moroccan and international food, French champagne, multicolor hanging balloons, and an artful music medley. Some forty friends and relatives were invited, including Carlos, a young, striking Argentinean diplomat I had met only a couple of days before in a Manhattan nightclub. That, in and of itself, was bizarre because I had not set foot in a club in ages, and I had only agreed to go after having been literally harassed by two of my old Moroccan friends, one of whom was visiting from Geneva. I had asked him in jest, not expecting he would actually show up at my party—in New Jersey.
He did, arriving late and in great form. He danced a lot, laughed with abandon, engaged in animated conversations with a fat and hilariously funny Spanish accent, and shamelessly flirted with me.
Within an hour of his arrival, he asked me if he could use the master bathroom, since the second one was occupied. He followed me to my room and, without further ado, kissed me with fiery passion, giving me a taste of what I’d been missing for two and a half years.
As the party drew to a close, with Sophia in bed and all gone, he was still pretending to help me pile glasses and dessert plates in the dishwasher. In my head, I was struggling between bidding him farewell and using him to quell my repressed sexual craving. I needn’t have worried. Before I had time to close the appliance door, he bent his six-foot-four frame over me, picked me up, and carried me effortlessly to the bedroom with the resolve of a man who knew what he wanted. The rest of the day, I still remember as one of the greatest, sleepless stretches of love-making ever. I barely took a few minutes to take Sophie upstairs to my mother’s. The following Monday, to Leslie’s astonishment and my mildly embarrassed, glowing look, four dozen long-stemmed red roses were delivered to my office.
THE ROAD FROM MOROCCO Page 24