Well, let her.
I waited. One minute. Two. I guessed Stacy was waiting for me to speak next. I didn’t much want to but I had to pick up Sally from her basketball practice. I didn’t want to be late for that on top of everything else that was going wrong with today. Anyhow, Stacy’s sad-puppy face was making me nauseous.
‘Shall we do this?’ I said and wondered how long it would take her to mention her recent elevation to partner.
‘You know The Firm has to make difficult decisions sometimes. Neither I nor any of the other partners take any pleasure from this.’
Not long.
She shook her head slowly, as if I was somehow to blame. As if it was my fault that I hadn’t slept with Brad Schmidt at the Reno conference. Because if I’d done that then I could have been the one sitting behind the big desk instead of her. But I hadn’t. And she had.
My mistake. I’d just have to live with it.
‘Spit it out, Stacy. I’ve got to be somewhere.’
She looked surprised, then reached into the desk drawer where she’d had the file waiting. The HR files were always green. She placed it in front of her, tapped it twice, as though she were reluctant, then slid it across the table. She left it just out of my reach, so I had to lean forwards to pick it up. It was deliberate. She had probably measured the distance.
I opened the file. It contained a letter – addressed to me.
‘You’ll find we’ve been very generous,’ Stacy said.
That, at least, was probably true.
After all, I knew enough about The Firm to put Stacy and the other partners in a federal penitentiary for a very long time.
‘You knew it was coming,’ Doug said. ‘Once she made partner instead of you.’
Doug was right – but he could have dressed it up a little. I looked him over. His jowls and his gut. The way the extra weight had started to push in around the ice-blue eyes that had drawn me to him. Other women said he was still handsome, but I’d been looking at him for a long time and it was hard for me to tell for sure.
‘It’s the way it works. Winner takes all. It’s partner or out. You know that.’
‘I didn’t lose, Doug. She won, yes. But I didn’t lose.’
I’d lost, all right, but a girl was allowed a little grieving time. Twenty years I’d put into The Firm – only to get cut just as the goose was about to crap golden eggs. Twenty fucking years. Two less than I’d put into Doug; but he was different. I don’t curse much but – seriously? Twenty fucking years? And all because Stacy gave Brad Schmidt head in a Reno poolside cabana?
‘It’s nothing personal, Amanda. It’s business.’
But it wasn’t just business. And it sure as hell was personal. When Stacy Kropotkin came back from Reno she’d called me the moment she landed and told me about that damn poolside cabana. Oh, she’d been crying and wailing and saying how she’d made a terrible mistake, and what would she do if Jack found out, and how she was a terrible wife, and how she’d been drinking. Every word had been bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Because Stacy knew, and I knew, that she’d won. Right there. Right at that moment when Brad had dropped his towel and she’d dropped to her knees.
And she’d wanted me to be the first to know. From her.
And she wanted me to know why I’d lost as well – that when it came down to it, Brad Schmidt’s dick decided who got the first partnership to come up in three fucking years.
To the victor the spoils.
‘I’m already past it,’ I said. ‘I’ve moved on. It is what it is.’
‘I know it’s hard. But you’ve got to tough it out. About tomorrow? We could cancel but, you know…’
‘It wouldn’t look good?’
‘I think we should go. It’s not just about The Firm.’
This was the problem. Stacy and Jack were our friends. Our kids went to the same school. Their daughter was upstairs in our son’s bedroom, at that very moment. Probably giving him head.
She took after Stacy.
Whether I liked it or not, I was going to see a whole lot of Stacy Kropotkin over the next while. It would be a couple of years, maybe more, before Stacy and Jack would move to the Lakeside mansion. All the other partners did. Just like it would be a couple of years, maybe more, before we’d have to ‘downsize’, or however we dressed it up.
Brad Schmidt’s dick.
‘It will be fun,’ I said.
We were sitting on the porch, watching the empty street. Nothing ever happened in River Hills, and people paid a lot of money to keep it that way. The only movement was generated by a sprinkler on the lawn. It made jagged rainbows out of the last of the sun.
I should never have let Doug talk me into moving to the same gated community as the Kropotkins.
I should have remembered that, sooner or later, it would be winner takes all between Stacy and me.
We were dining at the country club, like we were most Saturdays. Jack and Doug had been drinking whiskey sours in the bar since four and were starting to slur their words. Stacy had a new necklace – a diamond the size of a cockroach. She thought she deserved it.
I had a migraine. The wine wasn’t helping it much.
‘I guess you’ll be working pretty close with Brad from now on,’ I said, allowing my gaze to stray towards Jack. He was talking to Doug about a baseball game they’d watched. They’d forgotten we were here.
‘I don’t think so,’ Stacy said. ‘I made a proposal to the partners last week and I’ve just heard back. I’ll be running a special project. My own team. Brad wanted oversight but the other partners want it independent.’
I raised my glass in tribute. I knew better than to ask what kind of special project. The Firm was discreet – but we weren’t off the radar. The Feds kept tabs on us. Just like we did on them. We didn’t discuss shit in public that could get us jail time.
‘Brad was becoming a problem,’ she continued. ‘It’s better this way.’
His dick had served its purpose – he could have it back now. I raised my glass once again. She smiled and I couldn’t help myself smiling back. She was good. Very good.
‘What about you?’ she said.
‘I’ve seen a few recruitment people, made a few calls. And taken some as well. There are opportunities, but I’m in no rush. It’s Matt’s last year in high school and Sally will be sixteen in June. I haven’t been there much for them the last few years. I could spend some time at home, I think.’
Doug and Jack were still talking but I could tell Doug was listening now. That interested me. We hadn’t talked as a couple about my plans as yet. I’d been the main earner since he’d been let go by Klein & Lynch two years back. He still pulled in money from consultancy and whatnot, but I doubted it would be enough if I wasn’t earning. I thought about that and wondered how much he made from the consulting. He’d been on edge since I’d told him about The Firm. I’d left the money side of things to him the last few years, since he’d been at home with time on his hands. He’d looked after the tax returns, insurance, investments and pensions. He had access to everything. But I was only aware of, at best, half the picture.
That would have to be rectified.
‘I need a cigarette,’ I said, pushing back my chair. ‘Jack, you want to keep me company?’
We all went along with the story that I was the only smoker out of the four of us. It was easier that way.
Outside, as Jack dipped his head to bring his cigarette close my lighter, I found myself looking back into the restaurant. I saw my husband, his eyes smiling, reach his hand across the table to touch Stacy’s. I thought at first that he was reassuring her about something. But no. He was congratulating her. On her victory. Over me.
And he liked her. He liked her a lot.
And the thing was, I’d known this for some time.
I just hadn’t realised it.
We had a new neighbour that summer – Angela Romano. Not her real name. I liked her; Stacy didn’t – for the same reason, I was pretty sure.<
br />
When you work for The Firm, you meet people like Angela. That was what The Firm did – help people like Angela do what they do. Or, in Angela’s case, did.
I missed people like Angela. I missed the way they looked at every object, every situation, every person as an opportunity. How nothing is as important in a decision as the balance of risk and reward. Criminals are the purest of capitalists. At The Firm you learned early that morality is a hindrance to success – that money is just about the only pure measure of anything.
Brad Schmidt, before he started thinking with his dick, used to say this to us: ‘A dollar is a dollar. It’s a unit of currency – not a page from the fucking bible.’
He made a good point.
Anyhow, Angela was funny and charming, but her eyes were always moving, her brain was always working, and I knew, from the first moment I met her, that she was not a florist by choice. And I knew I saw a reaction when I told her I worked at The Firm. She tried to hide it but she knew who we were and that we didn’t just do tax returns for small businesses.
I was careful around her at first. If she was here, in this community, running a florist business that clearly didn’t make anything like enough money, then it was because somewhere, sometime, somehow she’d given the Feds what they wanted. And this was the Feds looking after her.
Maybe Stacy knew what Angela had done before she’d ended up in River Hills. It didn’t matter. The fact was, if you ran Angela Romano’s barcode through a checkout it would come up ‘Mob’.
Which didn’t bother me. We all do what we have to when it comes to putting food on the table. And working at The Firm didn’t give me much moral high ground, even if I cared a damn. What was more, I liked her. She was easy company. I discovered I could be relaxed around her. There was no need to pretend to be anyone else but me. And after eighteen years of being a mom, that was a relief.
We became friends.
And because I liked Angela, when she asked me to propose her to the country club, I did. But, because Stacy didn’t like Angela, she killed the application – and made sure Angela knew it.
Which I did not think was a good move on Stacy’s part.
Anyhow, if we couldn’t play golf out at the country club, we could do something else.
The first time I took Angela to Scott’s range, she was surprised. I take shooting seriously. She understood this when I opened the trunk.
‘Holy shit.’
The weapons were cased – but there were a few of them.
‘You can use whatever you like. Except the Remington. It’s been adapted for me.’
There were twelve weapons in total. Everything from a Hudson H9 up to an AR 15 assault rifle. And then there was the Remington MSR – my joy. It cost as much as a new BMW, but it was worth it. Angela ran a hand along the cases, very carefully. She respected guns, I could see.
‘You can use these?’
I smiled at her. She had no fucking idea.
The thing I like about Scott’s range is that it has everything – a two-hundred-yard distance range for longer guns, as well as shorter ranges for the pistols. He also has a tactical range that offers something more realistic. I always save that for last. But best of all was the outside range out back that only a select few of his shooters even know about. It’s the longest in New England, so Scott says, and perfect for the MSR. Plus Scott allowed me to shoot .388 Lapua Magnum ammunition out there.
Which is nice of him.
I like to shoot the Remington MSR fresh. Scott came out of his office to watch me. He spotted for me as I adjusted for range and conditions. Then I fired six bullets in quick succession. I knew the grouping was tight.
Scott handed the binoculars to Angela.
‘Holy shit.’
A playing card would have covered all six strikes.
Scott did three tours with the Green Berets in Afghanistan and, when he laid out the tactical range, he’d had a professional clientele in mind. Scott and Angela followed me as I moved through it. Bad guy: shoot. Civilian: don’t shoot. Scott had changed it round since my last visit and he’d ramped up the reaction times.
I flowed.
Target – shot to chest, shot to head. Move. New target, same again. The gun was hot but my mind was cold.
Fuck golf.
When I was finished, it was silent – except for the sound of the last brass cartridge tumbling across the concrete floor.
I looked round at Scott, who smiled. You didn’t see Scott smile often. I could almost hear his lips cracking with the unexpected strain. Angela was also smiling but there was a kind of calculation in the way she looked around at the flattened targets.
‘Holy shit.’
I breathed in deeply, sucking the cordite into my lungs. I felt good. In control. I missed being in control.
Scott lifted up the final target I’d knocked down. A little girl with a balloon. I’d punctured the balloon with my last shot.
Scott chuckled. ‘Showing off?’
‘Maybe,’ I said, and nodded to Angela.
I don’t know why I nodded to her. Why I wanted her to know just how fucking good I was. Maybe I just knew. Sometimes fate puts two people together.
Angela was quiet on the drive back to River Hills. I guess we’d reached that stage where we didn’t need to fill silences between us. It began to rain and the wipers squealed across the windscreen. My shoulders hurt, but in a good way. I smiled. Here I was, less than a week after leaving The Firm, and I was relaxed – happy to be in this moment. Maybe Stacy getting the job instead of me had been a good thing after all.
I smiled again. Maybe not though.
When Angela spoke, it was a practical question: ‘What goes through your mind when you shoot?’
‘Nothing. Shooting is a series of problems and challenges that you don’t have to think about. You just do it. I like that.’
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the slight nod she gave. She wasn’t surprised by the answer. She’d expected it. I wondered where she was going with this.
‘And what do you feel – when you shoot?’
‘I feel nothing. Emotion would complicate something that needs to be simple.’
‘You can do that? Shut down your emotions?’
‘I can step back from them – when I need to. When decisions need to be made. When things need to be done. You know how it is.’
Another pause, while she considered this. ‘The way you shoot is … well, it’s exceptional. Beautiful even. But let me ask you this: if you were in a different situation, if the bad guys were real, if you or your family was under threat, if you had to make a decision – them or you – do you think you could do it? Press that trigger? Wouldn’t emotion play a factor?’
‘Most decisions are an attempt to shape the future. I wouldn’t shoot someone unless I thought the consequences of not shooting them would be worse than if I did.’
‘But, by that logic, if there were no consequences and some reward, then you’d blow someone away?’
I considered this. ‘There are always consequences. Anyhow, this is a conversation about hypotheticals – you can’t know what way you’ll go until the choices are there.’
Angela said nothing more.
I thought it had been an interesting conversation.
When the kids were younger I had some software installed on the family computers by a young man called TJ Milbank; I wanted to make sure they were safe. I thought it best if Doug didn’t know about my concerns – he’d only have worried and, now I was checking in on them, he didn’t need to. And, anyway, the way the software worked, I was able to check up on him as well. And who really wants to know that every key stroke they make might be monitored?
As it happened, I hadn’t monitored anything of Doug’s – I hadn’t felt I’d needed to. But now I was curious about the state of our joint finances. And now I entered Doug’s world.
That he liked to watch porn wasn’t exactly a surprise. There were some variations that I hadn’t a
nticipated – clearly there had been more to the male bonding in his fraternity house than I’d been led to believe – but most of it was pretty straight.
The gambling was something I hadn’t anticipated. At least, not in the amounts he had been risking. So far, the damage was minimal. He had been lucky. By which I mean, he should have lost more. A lot more.
What kind of asshole bets on basketball spreads when he doesn’t even watch basketball? My husband, it would seem.
The consultancy work? There wasn’t any. There was golf with Jack. And squash with Sam. But there wasn’t much that paid money. And what there was of that was done badly.
Doug had been an investment banker with Klein & Lynch for twenty years and now I knew why they’d let him go.
The worst of it was that his incompetence extended to our investments.
I blamed myself. I had a husband who liked to roll the dice and didn’t know when to quit. I had trusted him. I had been a fool.
I had some thinking to do. I drove to the beach and took off my shoes and walked in the sand. The water was cold and there was a strong breeze. I could feel the salt drying on my skin.
I had to make a decision. But before I did that, there were some things I needed to know.
I drove back home and accessed Doug’s email. I found the messages he’d exchanged with Stacy. I read them. There were a lot. They were intimate. They spoke about the things they did to each other. I could handle that. If they were having an affair, they were going to be fucking each other. That was logical.
But they also spoke about me sometimes. It was clear that Stacy didn’t much like me. It was clear that Doug went along with things. But Stacy instigated them.
I thought about Stacy. About her affair with Doug. About how she spoke about me and how she spoke about him in those emails. She was noncommittal with him. But she was not noncommittal when it came to me. It seemed to me that Stacy Kropotkin had most likely fucked my husband to get at me.
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