The Widow of Wall Street

by Randy Susan Meyers

  • • •

  A lifetime later, Jake and Phoebe staggered from the courthouse. They slipped into a car provided by Gideon. This would be the moment she’d remember her life rebooting. Her old life ended when Jake told her and the kids his version of the new truth. FBI agents in their home heralded limbo. When she signed over everything to keep Jake out of jail, she entered hell. The houses, boats—everything they owned—Jake had put in her name. He’d always said it was for tax purposes.

  She floated in an unfamiliar world, her new life, unaware of customs or language.

  Grilled cheese, the way she’d made it when Kate and Noah were small, seemed like the only desirable thing to eat. She used the American cheese she kept for her granddaughters, mild and soothing, pressing it between slices of Arnold Country-Style white bread. Large, fat slices. She dropped both sandwiches into the pan of sputtering butter, hypnotized by the edges crisping and sealing, turning them over and using the spatula to weigh them down to melt faster.

  They ate the butter-tight sandwiches in front of the television, avoiding each other’s eyes, saying little more than “Pass a carrot” or “Make it a little louder.” Episodes of Criminal Minds stuffed their TiVo, which, despite the irony of the title, they watched. The show rarely left the world of murder. At least Jake hadn’t killed anyone.

  • • •

  Friday morning, the two of them sat like orphans without a friend in the universe. The phone rang repeatedly, but they’d lowered the volume and screened calls.

  Phoebe poured coffee for Jake and remained standing, the pot in her hand.

  “What?” His weary, victimized voice turned her stomach.

  “Why? Can you give me one reason why?”

  “How many times an hour are you planning to cross-examine me? I don’t need this now.”

  “This isn’t something happening to you alone.” Phoebe let out the fishwife screech clawing at her throat. “You’re aware of the rest of the world, right?”

  He glared. “Who almost went to jail yesterday? Was it you? Was it my brother? The kids? Who, damn it? My assets are all in a voluntary freeze. I can’t do a thing without the court’s permission. Did you know that?”

  You made your bed, now you lie in it, blared in her head, but she didn’t want to offer him a fight, conscious of how much he’d welcome the distraction.

  “I only know what you tell me,” she said. “Are my accounts all frozen?”

  “Not yet.”

  She imagined packing her bags. Walking out. Taking a cab to Kate’s.

  She should do it.

  Now.

  Phoebe picked up the paper. She turned it so the headlines faced him.

  Bull S—T on Wall Street

  Sins of the Father: Children Turn In Jake Pierce

  The Post composed the most hurtful banners. The doorman bought it for her. Along with the Daily News, and every other paper that hadn’t been waiting as usual at their door. She picked up the front section of the Times, still pristine from delivery, the headline visible above the fold.

  Disaster Unfolds on Wall Street

  “Why must you torture me?” Jake asked. “Do you think I’m not in enough agony?”

  “Who are you feeling sorry for? Yourself?”

  Jake shoved away his plate of toast and dropped his head in his hands. “I’m sorry beyond what you can imagine. I never wanted to hurt you or the kids. I made sure you were above reproach. Do you think I don’t know this affects other people?”

  “People aren’t ‘affected.’ ” She pushed the paper closer to him. “They’re ruined.”

  “Don’t you think I’ll pay for this for the rest of my life?”

  “We’re all going to pay for this—”

  “I’ll be put away. My price is freedom.”

  Hateful words formed. The list of lives he’d smashed rolled till an infinite number of people snaked through every crevasse of her brain.

  And, still, she didn’t possess the coldness to walk out.

  Dissonant thoughts and anxieties sparked until they drowned one another out and the noise exploded into a screen of hot-red worry.

  The kids. Her sister. His brother. Her friends. Almost every single one, except Helen, had given Jake their money to invest. All their relatives handed over their life savings. Jesus fucking Christ almighty, what had he been thinking?

  All his employees. Thousands of faceless people. More? She ran her hand over the newspaper as though the answers would seep into her skin.

  Jake cradled his head in his arms. His hair, always so impeccable, so perfectly tended, stuck up in pieces, so suddenly grey it seemed that any remaining brown had disappeared in the courthouse.

  Without her, Jake would be entirely alone.

  With him, Phoebe would only have but him.

  Maybe he was mentally ill. She prayed it was true. She left the kitchen, ready to call Eva. After pulling on a thick sweater and boots, she went to the screened-in portion of the patio, wanting the privacy afforded only by the outdoor space with Jake home, a portent of the days facing her.

  She dialed the phone.

  “Phoebe.” Eva’s even tone gave away nothing. Had Phoebe called Zoya first, shrieks would have greeted her. “How are you holding up?”

  She’d walk on the thinnest of ice answering that question. Sympathy seemed the last thing to expect. The Cupcake Project necessitated calling Eva, but she was also the first friend Phoebe had called.

  “I’m about as bad as you envision. I can’t lie.”

  “I hope that’s true,” Eva said. “That you can’t lie.”

  “Do you mean did Jake tell me?”

  “Not asking is impossible. I’m certain you’re devastated, but we’re ruined. Everything. We put everything with your husband.”

  Phoebe struggled against crying. Forcing Eva into any sort of sympathetic position shamed both of them. Not only had Eva lost all her savings, her work, she was now supporting the daughter of her cousin, who she’d managed to get out of Rwanda years ago, along with some of her husband’s family.

  “I knew nothing,” Phoebe said. “Linh and Zoya?”

  “As you can imagine. Zoya is swearing in Russian, Yiddish, and English. Her son is ready to come and kill your man. Linh hasn’t stopped scribbling numbers since we read the papers.” Eva paused for a moment. “Thank you for calling.” The words were clipped and cold.

  “Did you doubt me?”

  “Certainly you could have left it to lawyers. Calling took fortitude.”

  “I’m planning to sign the Cupcake Project over to the three of you,” Phoebe said.

  “I don’t think that’s going to be possible.”

  Eva understood more about the nuts and bolts of the Cupcake Project than Phoebe ever had. Of course, this idea of transferring the business, conceived in a flash, wouldn’t be straightforward.

  “The papers are complicated, but I think it ultimately belongs to me. Jake’s assets are all frozen, but not mine.”

  “Phoebe, I don’t think you are aware of the implications. Are you in shock? Everything you possess will also be frozen in moments, if it isn’t already. You no longer have the ability to transfer anything.”

  “Don’t I own the business?”

  “Soon, I think, nothing will be yours.” Eva’s voice became iron. “We will run things until someone tells us otherwise. The receipts always went to the accountant. Where should we send them now?”

  The business end of the Cupcake Project had drifted over to Gig Baumer, Jake’s accountant, more each year. She virtually gave him the keys to the business, paying no attention to where he put the money.

  “Can you use the cash to pay the staff and vendors?” Phoebe asked. “No, never mind. I’ll ask—” But there was nobody to ask but Jake, and how could she ask him? “Send me your bank account information, and I’ll transfer twenty thousand dollars to you immediately.”

  “Phoebe, we’ve already locked the shops for the weekend. Ira is getting us a
lawyer from the Mira House board. You can’t fix this. You don’t want to see the truth. You think you’re in hell. That Jake’s crime is your tragedy. But it’s not. You have no idea where you’ll end up. My guess? Someplace decent.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Phoebe

  Three weeks later, New York showed through a scrim of white as light snow fluttered over the city.

  Phoebe and Jake settled in to reread soothing books—him, a Lee Child thriller; her, a Susan Isaacs novel—as Christmas Eve dusk fell. Phoebe read constantly. An unoccupied mind meant wrestling with perseverating choices: Did she lack the courage to leave or was it staying the course that revealed bravery?

  Jake was in virtual lockup despite being out on bail. He was allowed on the streets within a prescribed radius until seven o’clock in the evening, but the barrage of screaming reporters, photographers, and furious investors waiting outside kept him marooned at home. Phoebe was the one who fetched supplies, braving the glare of the world. She might as well be considered under paparazzi arrest.

  Revulsion poured in acid waves each time she left the house.

  “Phoebe! Phoebe! Phoebe!” the reporters screamed as though calling a runaway dog. “Over here!”

  “How much did you steal?”

  “Where’s the money?”

  Their home and cell phones rang with tearful and raging messages from the bilked: strangers, friends, and family.

  “I hope you and your evil bitch wife die.”

  “We have nothing now. We can’t even afford Paul’s cancer medicine.”

  “Jump out a window, why don’t you!”

  They spent their days in bathrobes or sweatpants; Jake with his eyes locked on the television, hers on the computer or a book. They slept by Ambien; Phoebe stumbled through on Xanax.

  Their apartment held the grim presence of a family in mourning. No sheets covered the mirrors, but Jake and Phoebe sat a solitary shivah, where no one visited except lawyers, who brought papers to sign instead of casseroles.

  Jake offered his proffer the previous week, which meant little to her. Luz described it as a confidential meeting, with Jake receiving limited immunity for the day, regarding what he said. Luz’s words only confused Phoebe. The moment she hung up with the clipped lawyer, she looked the word up on the US Legal website:

  In the context of criminal law, a proffer agreement is a written agreement between federal prosecutors and individuals under criminal investigation, which permits these individuals to give the government information about crimes with some assurances that they will be protected against prosecution. Witnesses, subjects, or targets of a federal investigation are usually parties to such agreements.

  Proffer agreements are not complete immunity agreements. Although the government cannot use actual proffer session statements against the individual in its case-in-chief, the information provided can be used to follow up leads and conduct further investigations. If those leads and further investigations lead to new evidence, the new evidence can be used to indict and convict the individual who gave the information in the proffer session.

  As Phoebe understood it, the legal system tried to obtain information it could use against Jake and others, while he worked toward getting some leniency. But all outcomes led to prison.

  “What if he were mentally ill?” she’d asked Luz. “Would that keep him from jail?”

  “Nothing is impossible.” The attorney bit off each word. “In such an improbable case, he’d be put in a facility for the criminally insane.”

  Phoebe still waited for details from Jake, who swore that he had managed the scheme alone. Not one person had helped him. Somehow she was supposed to believe that Jake, who asked her for help turning on their home computers, had pulled off this insanity himself. She’d stopped asking, no longer willing to bang on a locked door.

  They remained caged in their luxury jail, speaking with almost no one but each other, lawyers, and whichever doorman was on duty. Helen and Deb checked in daily, though the strained conversations added more stress than not. The children refused to talk. Noah, however, sent an email, again urging her to leave. “Don’t stay on a sinking ship,” he’d written.

  When guilt overwhelmed her, Phoebe reminded herself that Kate had her husband, and Noah, his wife. They’d be all right.

  She wrote both kids long emails every day, filled with attempts to make them understand her position. None bounced back, so at least they hadn’t blocked her address.

  Today’s words probably blended into those from yesterday:

  My sweet children,

  I hope you are all well, even as you go through hell. Daddy and I are locked in a combat-free war, where he refuses to talk about anything more than the television schedule for the night. I do consider leaving hourly. How can I not? At the same time, incomprehensible questions plague me. What if someone learns that their child has, God forbid, murdered someone? Did they stay there for a loved one—even as they hated the act?

  Hate the sin and still love the sinner. Phoebe’s emails sank under the need to explain herself and her stubborn loyalty. The children wanted her to stop caring about Jake, but how fast could one fall out of the habits of love? The caretaking? Few understood the experience of being married to someone you met when you were fifteen. Jake was as much brother, father, and sometimes even child, as he was husband.

  Phoebe prepared a feeble version of Christmas Eve dinner. The television played while she cooked. When she returned ten minutes later, Jake glanced up from an ancient episode of The Twilight Zone, evidently the only thing he’d found that didn’t touch on Christmas, family, or happiness.

  She placed a platter of bagels with cream cheese and lox—delivered by Zabar’s, paid via knippel—on the coffee table.

  “Can you at least tell me the outlines of what they asked and what you said?”

  He sliced a bagel, slathering the surface with cream cheese before covering it with oily orange lox. “Let’s be peaceful, sweetheart. For tonight,” he said.

  “Help me figure out how I can stand by you.”

  “Are you questioning your choice?”

  “Of course.”

  “I never thought it would go this far,” he said. “That’s the truth.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It started . . . The problem started because I never wanted to see it happen again—what happened with your father.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “It got out of control. Everything seemed so good, and then it wasn’t. Everyone wanted their damned money, like I was a bank . . .” His words trailed away.

  “When?” she asked.

  He looked up from his knees, and she saw wheels turning, decisions being made.

  “A while ago. Not that long. I always thought I’d fix it.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “The problems became worse.” He put down the bagel and wiped his hands on a napkin. “I couldn’t figure out how to stop.”

  “Or step up,” she said.

  “Should I have ruined our family? Lost everything? Gone to jail?”

  “But that’s what’s happening,” she said.

  “Does the past matter at all, those long years of success?”

  Insanity now seemed Jake’s proper legal defense. She stood on an eroding beach, digging in with her toes as raging waves washed away the sand.

  She’d thought Jake a god; an original iconic deity of Wall Street.

  “That’s madness. All that ever mattered was you and the children. Now the kids are gone, and you’re a stranger.”

  “Why do you stay?” he asked.

  “Who would even talk to you if I left?”

  “You’re a good woman, Pheebs. No one knows that like me.”

  “I always thought you were a good man.”

  “And now?”

  “Now? Now I think you’re a criminal. A weak man.” She reached for his hand, his palm so familiar she might be holding her own flesh. “They claim you’re
evil, a monster, but I hope that’s wrong. Maybe you just lack courage. Maybe you’re filled with hubris. A greedy man.”

  Another moment breathing the same air he’d expelled from his lungs threatened to choke her. Maybe standing by him was possible if she saw Jake through a lens of his being pathetic—her limited child.

  Phoebe tried to imagine the bravest choice. She filled two glasses of wine. “Might as well drink it, Jake.”

  He picked up the glass, swirling it for a moment before taking a few gulps. She drank hers more slowly, but finished first. She topped off his and then refilled her own.

  “There’s nothing in front of us,” he said. “Nothing good faces us.”

  Jake was right. Their life was effectively over. They might as well make it easier on everyone. No trial or lockup or shame spilling over to the children. They’d be devastated, but they’d grieve, and then it would be over.

  He offered his arms, and for the first time since his confession, she let herself collapse into him.

  • • •

  They pooled their Ambien. They would go together. Phoebe put both bottles in the kitchen and then joined Jake in the living room. He held a pen above a pad of paper. “I don’t know what to say.” His watch collection gleamed from the coffee table.

  “Write about love. Apologize.”

  Phoebe took a sip from the brandy snifter, sifting through her jewelry as Jake wrote. She slipped an antique diamond bracelet into a baggie with the rope of pearls Kate treasured.

  She held the engagement ring Jake had bought to replace the tiny diamond chip she’d originally worn. Gleaming, from Tiffany’s, and perfect. She didn’t add it to the pile, nor did she put it on. Only things from long ago seemed appropriate to send.

  She picked up everything her mother had once owned. The locket she’d removed from her mother in the hospital with the familiar clouded pictures of her and Deb. After the funeral, Phoebe hadn’t taken it off for months, rubbing the worn gold as though her attention might alleviate her guilt at having loved her father more. The cool metal heated in her hand.