The Widow of Wall Street

by Randy Susan Meyers

  CHAPTER 23

  Phoebe

  November 2008

  Diffuse morning sun lit the breakfast nook. Phoebe missed the brilliance of the ocean’s reflection. Even in a penthouse, Manhattan rooms never flooded with the spectacular light that bounced off the water. She shook the New York Times, both to straighten the pages and get Jake’s attention. “Listen to this, honey.”

  He made a humming sound from the back of his throat, which she took as permission to read aloud.

  “The mortgage crisis hasn’t merely caused millions of home foreclosures, cost big Wall Street firms tens of billions of dollars and forced layoffs.” She leaned the paper against the coffee carafe.

  “It has also made it harder to find willing participants for Wall Street Warriors, a cable television show that documents the lives of traders, brokers, bankers, and other financial professionals.”

  Jake twisted his lips into an expression of impatience.

  “Insane, right?” she asked. “Did you know they were doing a reality show about Wall Street?”

  “Jesus Christ, Pheebs, do you think I want to listen to that shit first thing in the morning?” He slapped the Wall Street Journal against the kitchen table. “A reality show? All the damned realism I need is waiting for me every morning when I walk in the office.”

  The beginnings of a Jake rant colored the atmosphere. Their mornings became worse daily. His clockwork schedule had fallen apart, and she didn’t know why. Some days he left for JPE an hour late, almost as though he didn’t want to leave the apartment; other days, he ran out to meet Charlie at dawn.

  She scanned the paper for something calming, news he’d enjoy, but the headlines all contained dynamite:

  Blame Not a Problem to Find in Mortgage Market and Credit Crisis

  Wall Street Markets Tumbled the Most in Nearly a Month Yesterday Afternoon . . .

  Finally, the word optimistic appeared in the business section. “Listen to this, Jake. From Athens: ‘The European Central Bank claims havoc wracking global financial markets showed signs of lessening, leaving its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 4 percent.’ Good news, right?”

  “If we lived in Athens.” He scraped up another piece of omelet. “Good eggs. How do you do it with all that fake shit?”

  “It’s real egg whites and low-fat cheese.” Jake’s talent for changing the subject rarely fooled her. “Athens should mean a lot to you. We’re part of the world economy.”

  “The world economy? When did you become an economist? Give me a break.” He shook his head. “You read your section of the paper, and I’ll read mine, okay? Stop sharing every word. You’re driving me nuts.”

  “Why are you being such a bastard?”

  Jake looked up from the sports section with his lopsided grin. “You just read me the reason why. Right? The news.”

  Phoebe avoided smiling back. “Well, which is it? We’re worried about the news? We’re fine? Should I cut back? Are we in trouble?”

  Half the people they knew wore pinched faces. She didn’t want Jake carrying the burden alone.

  He put down the paper and locked eyes with her. “I’d never let you down. No worries, but if you want to save money, you can start with this.” He held up his last bite of toast—dry, no butter or jam.

  Phoebe waved away his words. The older they got, the more she watched their meals. They were in their sixties. She had no idea of her natural hair color anymore. Appointments for Botox and wrinkle fillers were as regular as visits to her dental hygienist. Already Jake took Lipitor for cholesterol and Lisinopril for his high blood pressure, though he managed to forget his frightening numbers each time he left the house. Beyond her table, there was no controlling him.

  “Thank your lucky stars I watch out for you,” she said.

  After folding his napkin and placing it next to his plate, Jake came up behind her. He leaned down and kissed her neck. “Pheebs, you’re still the sugar in my coffee and the honey in my heart. Seriously. You know how much I love you?”

  Maniac to mushy and sentimental again—male hormone surges? She should ask Helen if Alan was like this. “I love you too. Now go earn money for that dry toast I intend to keep serving. I have to check in with Ira and Eva about the incubator store.” Eva’s newest idea excited her more than anything they’d tried: a small space right in Mira House. They’d take advantage of the growing moneyed population around the settlement house, while training unemployed women to staff the in-house Cupcake Project.

  “Got it,” Jake said. “Toast money coming.”

  He left to shower. His scraped-clean plate wouldn’t prevent him from barking at Connie for a bagel and lox within a half hour of arriving. No matter how many times Phoebe spoke to her about the heart problems in Jake’s family, she ordered Jake his loaded bagel.

  “I’m his secretary, not his doctor,” she’d say.

  What could Phoebe say? She knew how impossible it was to say no to Jake.

  She cleared the dishes, brought them to the kitchen, and stacked them in the sink for Shirley, who’d be there soon. Getting the clean sponge from the dishwasher, she wiped down the counters and then carried a cloth over to the table, making sure to wipe every crumb. Jake’s need for order, always strong, had bordered on obsessive since they moved to Manhattan. If she didn’t have Shirley, she’d give up either the Cupcake Project or Jake.

  Too bad Shirley couldn’t clean up his tantrums along with the dishes.

  After refilling her coffee cup, Phoebe walked out the door to the patio. Sixty-six degrees—warm for mid-November. Russian junipers in giant pots swayed. She imagined the hundreds of tulip bulbs planted behind a protective grassy screen blooming in the spring. Soft pillows and cushions covered the seating running the length of the terrace. Soon she’d have to pack them up for the winter. Owning two homes made her life twice as hard. She’d give up Greenwich, but the grandkids loved it there.

  Phoebe pinched back dead bits of foliage as she walked along the perimeter. Recently she’d sensed something seriously wrong with Jake. His mouth had thinned to almost invisible. He drummed his fingers until she felt like chopping them off. The kids said his snapping at work had gotten out of control.

  She tipped her head back and let the sun penetrate. Tall buildings surrounded them, but the sky was always available up in the penthouse. Blessings undisguised, blessing in the skies. Skyline of New York here, vast views of the Atlantic in their Greenwich home brought joy, but she’d give it up in seconds for calm.

  He should retire. They didn’t just have enough; they had too much. No matter how many charity checks she wrote, it didn’t seem like she gave away enough. Jake had to stop. The pressure on him kept her up nights, knowing how he carried the entire family on his shoulders. Every one of their relatives either worked for Jake or had money invested with him. They couldn’t all keep leaning on him.

  His work remained as much a mystery to her today as it always had been. Phoebe was welcome at JPE by everyone except those who worked on the thirty-seventh floor. Nobody went there unless expressly invited. Not that she wanted an invitation. The one time she’d entered, needing papers for Jake, who was home sick, the people working there, especially Gita-Rae, looked at her as though she carried bedbugs, which could only improve the filthy place anyway. They’d be like pets up there.

  Afterward, Phoebe asked Jake how he let the thirty-seventh floor stay so disgusting—stacks of old computers, piles of papers, battered wooden desks covered with tchotchkes—when he wouldn’t let the rest of the company display anything personal except one photo in a silver frame.

  “I don’t give a shit as long as they do their business. Nobody goes in there,” he said. “Just stay away from them. They’re a bunch of animals—animals who work well. They should. I pay them enough. Case closed.”

  • • •

  Noah grabbed Phoebe in a bear hug the moment she opened the door. As usual, he, his wife, and their daughters arrived before Kate’s family.

 
“You’re shrinking, Mom. Old age is starting already. Better get some Fosamax. Kids, come here! Holly, Isabelle, can either of you see Grandma?”

  Phoebe reached up and ran her hand over Noah’s smooth cheek. He had a heavy beard—like Jake he often shaved twice a day—although everything else about him screamed Phoebe, from his fine black hair to his slight build. “My comedian son has arrived. Grossinger’s Hotel lost big when they lost you.”

  “Oh, poor Mom,” Noah said. “The Catskill hotels closed so long ago. Is dementia starting?”

  “Grandma isn’t shrinking! And Daddy isn’t a comedian!” Five-year-old Holly hopped on her right foot and then her left. “And she doesn’t have dementa.” She turned to her mother. “What’s dementa?”

  Before Phoebe’s daughter-in-law, Beth, could answer, Isabelle, at nine, a been-there, done-that sophisticate, rolled her eyes. “It’s dementia, not dementa. It means getting confused from being old.”

  Holly turned to Beth, stricken. “People get confused when they’re old?”

  Beth glared at Noah. “Daddy was teasing. Nobody’s old or confused.”

  “Are you sure?” Jake came into the entry and swept up Holly in one swift motion. “This one’s getting pretty old. Huge! Jeez, you’re breaking my arms, kiddo.”

  “You’re teasing, Grandpa. Right?”

  “I don’t know. You seem kinda heavy. Are you getting fat, or have I become weak?”

  “I’m not fat! Am I, Mommy?”

  “I’m teasing, babykins.” Jake raised Holly’s arm as he held her. “You feel like a little chicken. Are you sure you’re not hollow?”

  Kate and her family arrived as Beth comforted Holly and chided Jake in one long sentence. In the midst of their huge apartment, the nine of them crowded in the foyer. Phoebe’s tension abated. Dinner would be fine. Nothing in the world made Jake happier than having the family together.

  “I love this, Grandma,” Amelia said. Phoebe’s oldest granddaughter beamed as she held out her plate for seconds of chicken polenta casserole.

  “Say ‘please,’ Amelia,” Kate reminded. Amelia and Kate were almost visual twins, though Amelia had inherited Phoebe’s father’s red hair. Both carried Jake’s don’t-screw-with-me attitude.

  “Grandpa, tell the story about selling the cookies,” Isabelle asked.

  “Not now, kiddo.” Jake reached for a baking powder biscuit and then shoved it whole in his mouth. He looked at Phoebe with a “What? What?” expression.

  “Tell it, Grandpa!” Amelia said. “Tell it.”

  The grandchildren loved the story—just as Noah and Kate once had—of Jake and his friend pretending to be Boy Scouts, going door-to-door taking orders for nonexistent Boy Scout cookies.

  “Come on, Dad. Share your finest hour.” Noah pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose.

  “Tell us!” Isabelle shouted.

  “Enough already with the stories.” Jake’s voice sharpened. “Must we go over old shit for the rest of our lives?”

  The children reared back. No one spoke. Holly began crying. Beth swept her out of the chair and carried her from the room.

  “Dad? Are you okay?” Noah asked.

  “I just don’t need any crap tonight.” Jake papered over his obvious shame with pugnacity.

  “All the girls did was ask for a story,” Phoebe said. Amelia and Isabelle didn’t say a word. “Don’t worry, darlings. Grandpa’s not mad at you. You didn’t do anything wrong. He’s just in a bad mood.”

  That was a bullshit excuse. Jake never turned on the grandchildren. She waited for him to do one of the head-spinning emotional shifts he’d been pulling lately, but instead he stood too quickly, knocking over his water glass. He slammed his chair under the table and stormed out.

  “Girls, go in the TV room. Amelia, put something in, or—a DVD. Take the plate of cookies from the kitchen.”

  They waited in silence for a few minutes. Kate’s husband, usually the quiet one, spoke first. “Is he all right?”

  Zach was a doctor; perhaps he saw signs of disease.

  “What the hell’s going on with him?” Kate balled up her napkin and threw it at Jake’s place mat. “This is what he’s been like at the office. An asshole.”

  “He’s a wreck.” Noah removed his glasses and rubbed his temples. “When we ask him what’s wrong, he bites off our heads. Last week, we asked him to go out for lunch, and he refused. ‘Too busy, too busy,’ he said. Half the time, he’s holed up with Charlie or working the phones like a lunatic. If he pulls at his hair anymore, he’s gonna start looking like me.” Noah ran a hand over his thinning hair. “He darkens the windows every day.”

  Jake’s office, like all the offices, was a fishbowl, with glass that electronics could turn opaque.

  “I’m worried, Mom,” Kate said. “Noah and I—”

  Noah interrupted. “Let’s face it, the market is shit. The brokerage is hurting—not layoffs bad, but tense.”

  “Funds are switching all over the place,” Kate said. “He keeps taking money out of the brokerage and sending it up to thirty-seven. Or into the trust.”

  A fog of inexplicable fear seeped in. “What do you mean?” Phoebe asked.

  “What I said, Mom.” Kate rolled her eyes as though she were fifteen and reminding her mother to listen. “He’s switching millions from the holding accounts into the family foundation and the Club. Accounting, he keeps saying. Bookkeeping. But it’s hurting the company’s numbers. He ignores everything we say. Can you talk to him?”

  Phoebe pushed away her plate, the smell of meat revolting. She clenched her hands in her lap. “If you were worried about money, why’d you let him help buy you the house?” she asked. Three million dollars he sent to Kate’s lawyer to speed the sale. “Chicken feed,” Jake had said.

  “Dad wanted us to buy it,” Kate insisted.

  “That’s the problem.” Phoebe crossed her arms to keep from throwing her own napkin. “How can he slow down if he keeps buying, buying, buying for everyone?”

  “Don’t worry, Mom. You know it’s gonna be fine,” Noah said. “Dad always finds a way.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Phoebe

  Freezing rain beat against the terrace door. The world felt as if it were going to explode this morning. Knots twisted Phoebe’s back. A vague apprehension suffused her every breath. Thanksgiving the previous week had been a subdued time, with everyone on best behavior and Jake nearly silent.

  Last night, he’d ordered her to put money that he’d give her into her bank account, which made no sense with redemptions flooding in, but when she asked for his reasons, he wouldn’t clarify the request.

  “Just do it.”

  Two days ago, he couldn’t eat supper. Not a bite. He’d tried to hide his lack of appetite by picking at the fish, moving vegetables around on his plate, and barking about her lousy, boring suppers. Last night, she had found him with a giant bag of M&M’s, reaching steadily, hypnotically, hand in, hand out, while he watched some old John Wayne movie. He lived on sugar, water, and movies.

  • • •

  Phoebe slipped into the elevator and pressed the gold button for the thirty-eighth floor. She’d come for the money. Her hands trembled against the tissues and change in her pockets. December had turned so cold and wet that morning that she had put on her mother’s old fur coat. Jake said the same thing every time she wore it: “Why do you wear that ratty thing? Makes me look like a miser.”

  Jake would take her into Fendi tomorrow and buy her anything if she so wished, but she didn’t wish at all. She hated fur and wrapped herself in this one only because it reminded her of Lola. Phoebe never would have imagined she’d miss her mother so much. In any case, her coat would be the last thing on Jake’s mind today. He had verged on unhinged when he called at eight that morning to remind her to get the money now!

  “What’s the rush?” she’d asked, the phone crooked in her neck as she put together papers for a meeting with Eva.

  “Don’t ask que
stions.” He sounded frantic. “Gig will have the check ready for you. Ten.”

  “Ten million?”

  “No, Pheebs. Ten dollars. I gotta go.”

  She’d wanted to ask a thousand questions, but hearing the answers might have been worse than not knowing. Seeing Gig tempted her to dig—he took care of the Cupcake Project’s books, so that gave her rights—but terrifying article after article in the paper locked away her curiosity. Bear Stearns taken in a forced sale. Lehman Brothers, bankrupt. Merrill Lynch sold. What if something happened to JPE? Only remembering that they were part of a crowd soothed her. Everyone in New York ran scared these days. Jake was bookkeeping. He had handled crises before and would again.

  Light poured through the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows. She forced a smile at the receptionist. “Hi, Wendy. How are the kids?”

  “Jesse finally got his braces off. He’s thrilled and . . .”

  Phoebe nodded, hearing nothing as the woman unrolled her life.

  Jake’s secretary waved as Wendy babbled. Phoebe waved back, but avoided eye contact with Connie. Ordinarily, Phoebe never came into the office without chatting with her, but Jake’s insistence drummed. The money needs to be there before noon. Got it?

  “Excuse me, Wendy.” Phoebe interrupted midgush as the receptionist expressed her gratitude to Jake for paying for her son’s braces. “Gig’s waiting for me. We’ll catch up later, hon.”

  Secretaries, drivers, data entry clerks—staff at JPE were always thanking her for operations funded, overdue tuition bills paid. In a field known for people leaping from one dangled carrot to another, at JPE, they settled in for the duration.

  Phoebe headed down the corridor and entered Gig’s office.

  “Phoebe, doll.” Gig came from behind his desk and pecked her on the cheek. “I have everything ready.”

  He handed over a thin envelope with her name. She didn’t check it, simply tucked it in her purse. She didn’t stop in to see Jake, whose words rang: Get the fuck over to the bank, pronto. When she reached the waiting Town Car, Leon put down the Daily News and hurried out from the front seat, but she had the back door opened before him.