“Her husband works twenty hours a day. He wouldn’t know if Missy blew her trainer on their bed while he slept.”
“I guess I’m the last one to talk.” Phoebe took a napkin from the stainless steel holder and brushed crumbs off the table. “About not seeing things.”
“You? Come on, Mom. If anyone should have seen something going on it was us. Noah and I were the idiots.”
“Not true. What did you and Noah think was going on up there?” The box opened. Doubtless they’d pound on this for years. Phoebe imagined repeatedly picking at the same scab until she finally uncovered the answer.
“We thought Dad performed some old-school shit that he was both embarrassed by and proud of. The computers were a hundred years old; he didn’t use any of the new technology. We figured he sat around with Solomon and Charlie—’cause everyone knew he was a moron around computers—and used some sort of Daddy voodoo they translated into the computer.”
Phoebe said nothing, not wanting to interrupt their delicate connection.
Kate rubbed the edge of the laminated menu card. “Truthfully, we kind of believed he was an idiot savant when it came to stock picking and buying and selling.”
Phoebe examined the approaching waitress for any sign of recognition, but the woman shuffled as though the only thing on her mind was getting off her feet.
“Get you girls a drink?”
Phoebe’s and Kate’s eyes met in a moment of yes.
“White wine, please,” Phoebe said.
“Red for me.”
Phoebe shook her head at Kate’s words. “Um . . . the white is better.” She widened her eyes, hoping her daughter understood the message about the horrors of the tannic-ridden Carlo Rossi red served here, without Phoebe having to spell it out in front of the waitress.
“Uh. Okay.” Kate nodded at the waitress. “And a Greek salad. Dressing on the side, please.”
Phoebe shook her head again. “Not just that. Bring us a small pizza. With extra cheese. And pepperoni. You’re going to eat at least one piece, Katie.”
Kate shrugged the same way she had when forced to taste broccoli years ago. “I can barely get anything down.”
“Start trying. How’s Zach? Really?”
“A rock, but shaken, like all of us. His parents approach me as though I’m toxic.” She laced her fingers and brought them to her mouth. “They were invested with him too. Of course. Jesus, Daddy Voodoo spread his fucking tentacles everywhere.”
“Everyone keeps asking if I knew, if I suspected.” Phoebe groped in her purse for the cigarettes she rationed out like sticks of dynamite. “Who suspects their husband is operating a Ponzi scheme? I barely knew what the word meant. You and Noah worked with him, and you never mistrusted his honesty, right?”
“We wondered about his connections,” Kate confessed. “Noah and I worried that insider trading was how he kept those Club returns so high. We worried someone was giving him information.”
“Did you ever ask him?” This blunt analysis of Jake, mincing his actions without fear, soothed her, creating the connection provided only by family conversation.
“Once. Boy, oh boy, never again. Noah and I asked to take him out to lunch. Our dime. Like that was some proof of us being adults.”
The waitress placed small, thick-walled wineglasses in front of them.
“You might as well get us each a second one now,” Kate said.
The woman turned to Phoebe, who nodded. “And a plate of garlic bread, please.”
The moment the waitress left, Phoebe returned to the topic. “What happened at the lunch?”
“Daddy exploded,” Kate said. “He went nuclear. Some of it was the same as always. You’ve heard it: ‘This is my business. When I want to invite you in, I’ll tell you. Stick to what I assign.’ The usual, Mom, but also very different.”
“Different how?”
“I suppose it’s because we actually asked him, directly, about things like insider information. He went ballistic. ‘What, I can’t be smart enough to manage the Club without using bullshit methods? You think I’m playing the fucking edges somehow?’ Then he became scary calm: that thing where he’s wrestling with his temper—you know how he gets.
“He was like a machine spitting out orders,” she continued. “ ‘You will stay away from the Club. I’ve built up years of exacting methods—whether you think I’m capable or not—to make that place what it is. Nobody fucks with it, including my nosy kids.’ ”
“I’m so sorry,” Phoebe said.
Kate stared at her mother with pleading eyes. “Mom, stop seeing him. Noah needs you. He’s falling apart. He’s drinking. Noah thought he was honoring our fucking father by not drinking. Now that he figured out why Dad didn’t touch alcohol, he’s making up for lost time. He told me you’re emailing, but you need to really be in his life, which means cutting off Dad.”
Emails with Noah were lopsided conversations, with him writing lengthy tirades about Jake and having given up his life for his father, and Phoebe answering with attempts to apologize for Jake and then steer her son to a healthier place.
“I contact him every day. Like I do with you,” Phoebe said. “Each time I email or leave a message, I ask him to meet me. I don’t want to pressure him to the point of adding to his pain. He refuses to get together.”
“He won’t see you until you stop visiting and talking to Dad.”
“All I do is force myself to visit him once in a great while. Trust me, I hate every—”
“It doesn’t matter if you hate it,” Kate said. “As long as you keep going, you’re attached. It reflects on all of us when you give him some sort of forgiveness or tacit approval.”
“Approval? I fooled myself into thinking it took courage, standing by your father simply so he’d have one person in this world, but you think it makes you and Noah somehow complicit? That’s the opposite of—”
“Mom. He doesn’t deserve your courage.”
• • •
Phoebe didn’t ask Kate to come back to the apartment. She wasn’t ready for her daughter’s sympathy. The cracks in the wall, a few sticks of furniture ordered from Bob’s Discount, carpet soaking up spilled wine like a drunk on holiday. Economic changes provided an education in why poor people’s houses seemed rickety. Cheap furniture retains value for about two weeks. The polyester blanket she bought only a few months ago already appeared diseased with pills.
The things Phoebe missed mostly represented sentiment, but occasionally comfort took center stage. It was for emotional connections that she’d wanted her mother’s red bowl and the handmade mugs that she and Deb had found in Vermont. But her sheets? Pratesi cotton felt so much better than Kohl’s polyester that Phoebe felt ashamed for not realizing it before.
She thought about her favorite art, especially the quirky copper mosaic she’d bought in North Carolina—an ache she admitted to no one, because it only added to her Phoebe Antoinette persona, and, anyway, who the fuck cared about art after losing her children and grandchildren? Sheets and copper meant shit after Jake robbed the world.
But damn it, she sometimes missed beauty.
And comfort.
Most of all, she was lonely.
Phone calls were the highlights of her day. Along with haunting Noah and Kate, she called Helen every day, careful not to be unremittingly depressing—a difficult job while her existence included keeping her bare feet from touching the rug and scouring Goodwill for books to read. She put off joining the library, afraid of being recognized. These were things she told nobody. People hated whiny victims, reserving their admiration for those who suffered nobly, so she acted as though she lived a plucky sitcom.
At the end of every day, she called Deb, both of them working overtime to sound chipper, Deb making the fact that Ben now bagged groceries at Publix into a series of funny stories.
Mail cheered her. Friends who hadn’t been struck down by Jake snuck out of the past. They weren’t ready to meet or call, but they�
�d pen occasional emails, inching their way toward, Phoebe hoped, a closer connection.
She stood, still wobbly from the wine and hopeful that the postman had left his delivery. Her apartment, on the first floor, was just steps from the bank of mailboxes, the kind that had been in Jake’s building growing up, where the mailman had the key to unlock all of the boxes from the top.
People, Time, and Newsweek were jammed into the box. She subscribed to more magazines than any one person should, but along with the New York Times, they were her links to the world—plus, subscriptions were far cheaper than the newsstand price.
A cable bill. Her daily letter from Jake, announcing to the world, or at least to the postal carrier, that her prison pen pal was the most notorious financial criminal in the United States. The return address gave his name, what they called his identification number, and the words Federal Correctional Institution Ray Brook along with the post office number and address. Jake wrote her name in his sprawling style, usually bigger than the space allowed, forcing him to cram in the final letters at the end.
A package for Phoebe sat in the open area. Helen probably sent it. The return address read “Offprint Books.” Small presents of books and magazines arrived from her often. Phoebe grabbed the box and headed back to the apartment, ready to fortify herself with one more glass of wine before opening Jake’s letter, hoping that a soothing new detective novel waited afterward.
She stood on tiptoes to reach her one decent wineglass, having splurged at the Crate and Barrel outlet, and poured a hefty serving of Riesling.
Dear Pheebs,
How are you, my love? Did you speak to the kids this week? News—anything at all will be welcome, but you know that, right? And the little ones? Did you send them my love? I’m getting good in the woodworking shop. My plan is to make dollhouses like the other guys are doing for their kids.
Her insides twisted at the thought of the girls getting Grandpa’s love, and yet she hurt just as much at the idea of them thinking he didn’t care. Noah and Kate told the girls that Grandpa stole money at work, a lot of money, and he’d be in jail forever. And when they asked why he did it, their parents told the truth: nobody knew.
Believe it or not, my skill with the saw gets better every day. They have me making stools now. I told the guard the other day that if he let me sign it, I bet they could charge a hell of a lot more money.
Phoebe laughed before she could catch herself. Moments like this knocked the wind right out of her; times when she responded to Jake’s twisted humor and fell into an old pattern of connection.
My canteen account has sunk pretty low. If you could give me a little replenishment, I’d be grateful. I continue to think of ways to make it up to you, any small thing I can do. This for better or worse thing isn’t exactly going in your favor, huh?
Gideon told me that Charlie, Gita-Rae, Nanci, and Solomon were arrested. I’m putting my money on Gita-Rae to fold first, but we’ll see. Not that anyone but me did anything at all.
Jake had become a junkie about himself. Rather than avoiding articles about his crime and punishment, as had been his habit before his sentencing, he immersed himself in media, becoming his own biggest fan and defender. His blindness stunned her as he retold how much money his early investors made from the Club—intimating that their guilt matched his.
Descriptions of prisoners watching football followed, along with chummy games of cards they played. Jake had escaped to a strict summer camp, while she bore the brunt of his criminal aftermath. He’d bragged to her in the past about how the inmates admired him, even asking for financial advice.
She dreaded the onerous weekly phone calls with Jake. At least during the visits, he worked at amusing her, probably for the benefit of his nearby buddies. On the phone, all she heard was his relief at having the huge weight of keeping the Club going lifted off his shoulders.
Jake might not love prison, but he prized being free of the burden of his awful pretense. She put aside the letter to file with the rest. Why she kept this record was a question for Freud, she supposed. His letters were toxic and irresistible all at the same time. Sympathy for and fascination with the man one had loved forever didn’t vanish in a puff of smoke, even at the worst of news about him. Repeatedly, she tried to understand her disconnect: hating this Jake; still locked into the man she married.
CHAPTER 35
Phoebe
A dozen monkeys could crash through the window and jump on her head, and Phoebe would still be reading He Stole More Than My Money by Bianca Miller. The sky darkened as she squinted to read the last few pages of the book.
The package, most definitely not from Helen, contained an advance copy of a tell-all memoir by this Bianca person, this mistress of Jake, who’d slithered into her mailbox to reveal sordid details of a story costarring Phoebe as an unknowing and now horrified participant.
Pain throbbed from her teeth to temples. No amount of aspirin would touch this headache. Bianca Miller owned truths about Jake that Phoebe never suspected, further fracturing her misaligned memories. Again and again she chastised herself for caring so damned much: how dare it matter if Jake cheated their entire marriage? He had stolen the blood of her family, friends, and more strangers than she could count in ten lifetimes. Who cared if he’d bedded this woman?
She did.
Decades of love and marriage couldn’t be wished away. It turned out she could be hurt repeatedly. Knowledge of Jake’s hideous crimes didn’t inoculate her against his personal corruption. Fuck you, Bianca Miller, for taking your own humiliation and splashing it over me.
Offprint Books had obviously sent this advance copy of Miller’s book for a response, but what kind? Fighting Bianca Miller in public? Most likely, a publicist hoped the shock of the book would send Phoebe to the nearest tabloid for a media version of hair pulling with Bianca and give her trashy book a sales bump.
Fat chance. Photos of Phoebe along with cruel theories about her were splayed across every continent already, and she had never responded. She’d been analyzed and found guilty in the court of public opinion. There wasn’t much Phoebe took pride in anymore except for sewing her mouth shut from day one. She owned herself, if nothing else.
Shaking with hunger and rage, but unable to put down the book long enough to even make a sandwich, she grabbed a jar of peanuts from the kitchen and continued plowing through.
Jake came to my bed at least once a week (sometimes more), never getting what he needed at home. Yes, I was ashamed of sleeping with a married man, but it seemed clear that his wife couldn’t care for him as I did. He was a father with still-youngish kids, so he couldn’t leave, but though his responsibilities lay with them, his dreams were about me.
I prepared for him body and soul. In the morning, I cooked dishes she refused to make. Eggplant parmigiana was his favorite. I’d dream of our night to come as I dipped the thin slices (the way he liked it, layer upon layer) into an egg bath, coated them with seasoned cornmeal (my special touch), and then do it again. I call it twice dipped. Then I dropped the slices into bubbling oil. She refused to fry anything. Jake said she hated the smell because it clung to her silk dresses! A new kind of selfish invented by Ms. Stuck-up.
I planned and made our meals ahead of time, wanting to devote every minute to Jake when he arrived. The eggplant. Pasta drowned in homemade sauce, covered with fresh-grated parmigiana. I put pats of butter in the hot pasta before smothering it with the cheese. Asparagus tips with pepper and butter. Plum tomato slices, salted and drizzled with oil.
The first dessert was something like ice cream with homemade fudge sauce or chocolate chip brownies. The second dessert? A piece of me.
Jake’s “special desires,” all rejected by her, really cemented him to me. Listen, if a wife doesn’t take care of her man’s needs, he’s bound to stray. Jake said she was a lazy lover (the worst kind!). I guess at her age that happens. (He seemed young, but women get older much faster than men. So they got to work to keep their men intere
sted and happy.) Jake told me that just once he wished she did more for him in the bedroom. (But she never did, and I was glad.)
I’d open the door dressed just the way he liked, wearing tight, low, and slutty (yes, might as well call it what it was) outfits. Sometimes my black lace bra poked out of a sheer pink shirt; the top three buttons opened. Trampy and see-through, which the salesgirl called diaphanous. A push-up bra, of course, with me spilling out.
Total truth: I am a 38D. She’s a 32B, if that. Hardly a handful, he’d tell me, and believe me, this man likes breasts. Looking. Touching. Blush coming on . . .
Perfume meant a lot to him. He bought me a huge antique atomizer filled with my favorite perfume, Poison, and begged me not to wear any other.
Okay. If I’m going to tell it all, I will. ’Cause I think Jake Pierce’s kinks explain him. That’s what a shrink friend told me. What did he like? Having his hands tied up while I “took care” of him. In all sorts of ways, and I think you can picture it, yes?
Phoebe threw the book across the room. Yes, she could picture it, all right.
• • •
Phoebe woke up sure of a few things:
1. She’d break all connections with Jake.
2. She’d get on her knees if needed to see Noah and her granddaughters. She’d stand in front of his house twenty-four hours a day if that’s what it took.
3. She’d call Ira.
Phoebe began her program by calling Kate, leaving a message when her daughter didn’t pick up. “I loved seeing you yesterday, though I hate seeing you so sad. We need to reconnect: you, Noah, and I. I’m severing connections with your father. I promise this with all my heart, though it might take a tiny bit of time. Not more than a month. I need to confront him in person, and getting up there is tough. Please tell Noah. I want to address this as the family we still are.”
• • •
The next day, Phoebe reached out to Ira. She didn’t lack insight into her timing. Miller’s book, no matter how full of half-truths, bequeathed permission.
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