The Widow of Wall Street

by Randy Susan Meyers

  The restaurant was tucked on a side street. Inside the door, floor-length curtains blocked the entrance, keeping the October chill from the small room. Suzy, seated at a corner table, smiled and toasted Phoebe with a tall glass of pale-gold wine.

  “So, here you are,” Suzy said as Phoebe took a seat. “The center of the most gossip Greenwich has seen since the McKennas and Coddingtons played switchies.”

  “I imagine I rated a bit more conversation.”

  “Don’t be so sure. Your dishonor had a lot less sex.” Suzy paused and wrinkled her face as much as Restylane and Botox allowed. “Barring that sleazy little mistress book, of course.”

  “Which I’m certain sold well at Diane’s Books.”

  “I’m afraid she couldn’t ignore the demand,” Suzy said. “But the library stopped short of bringing her to Greenwich for an author appearance. Out of respect.”

  Phoebe laughed more fully than she’d ever expected to laugh again. “Thanks for meeting me. And in public, to boot.”

  “Honey, you’ve done nothing wrong except marry a lying shark. If I stopped seeing every woman in that category, I’d be a lonely lady.” Suzy placed her hand on Phoebe’s wrist. “I’m so sorry about Noah. He was a beautiful boy and sweet as a ginger snap. What a hell of a scar you must be wearing on your heart.”

  Phoebe blinked. “If I weren’t sitting across from you, I’d hug you so hard you’d break.”

  “You’re the one who looks like she’ll shatter. You’ve always been thin, girl, but now you’re downright skinny.”

  Suzy beckoned for the waiter. His swift arrival testified to the size of her tips—never a guarantee in this town. More than once, Phoebe spotted miserly gratuities left by megamillionaires.

  “Mrs. Ramsland,” he said. “What can I get for you?”

  “Bring Mrs. Pierce a glass of the Bordeaux and another for me.” Suzy emphasized Mrs. Pierce enough to force a stiff smile from the waiter toward Phoebe. “With truffle fries to soak it up while we peruse the menu. And thank you so much.”

  He left. Suzy peered at her. “Happens a lot, that attitude, I bet.”

  “Let’s say I’m not the prom queen anywhere.”

  “Must be tough after a lifetime of being pretty and popular.”

  Phoebe thought for a moment, dwelling on Suzy’s true words. Her path had always been smoothed by someone else’s efforts, whether her father or Jake. “Neither of those matters anymore.”

  “Of course—it’s about Noah and wanting to keep Katie safe. Baby, that’s motherhood, and it never stops. Jesus, we’re only as happy as our unhappiest child. Truer words were never said. I understand. My sister lost her son. God sliced that loss right off her heart.”

  The waiter slipped in front of them a steel cone lined with paper; the parchment absorbed oil from a generous serving of crispy fries.

  “A mama’s station is always tuned to her child’s well-being, no matter how old. And losing a child”—Suzy shook her head—“well, you might as well die yourself. That’s what you think until your soul knits back together.”

  “I don’t know if I deserve healing.”

  “Hell, you didn’t kill the boy. Even Jake didn’t do that. I’m not gonna insult you with a bunch of God talk, but some of us are too fragile for the journey, and we gotta go home. I really believe that. You’re made of stiffer stuff, so you’re stuck with carrying on, pain and all.”

  Phoebe bit into a fry, the salty flavor waking up taste buds deadened by a steady diet of Campbell’s soup and crackers. “I need something huge from you, Suzy. I won’t pretend that we were ever the closest of friends, but still I am asking you to share two of your greatest assets: your money and your name. Not personally, but to make a mark in this world.”

  “Okay. I’m intrigued.”

  Crossfires of murmurs bounced around the room. Phoebe had developed extraordinary hearing for the whispers. “Is that her? I’m sure it is. What a nerve!” Awareness of the Gap sweater she wore while surrounded by women wearing Brunello Cucinelli threatened to overcome her resolve.

  Would she have been any more generous to a fallen friend than these former neighbors surrounding her? She scrutinized her ragged cuticles.

  Worst-case scenario, Suzy said no. What the hell—Phoebe had already had so many doors slammed in her face, she’d barely feel Suzy’s rejection. “How’d you like to help some terrific women, partner with one of the oldest settlement houses in New York, and become part of a women-only entrepreneurship? How would you like to use those two things I mentioned—funds and connections—and be the female version of Newman’s Own?”

  “Will it excuse me from the next ten charity balls?”

  “A lifetime’s worth and more. I can guarantee meeting three wonderful women and one terrific man. The only charity balls you’ll attend will be the ones you decide to throw. Which you might, because you’re gonna love working with us so damned much.”

  “Is it legal?” Suzy smiled to take the edge off her question.

  “One hundred percent. You’ll probably never make a dime.”

  “Better and better.”

  “But there are a bunch of women who’ve never had enough. You may well guarantee them rising higher than they ever dared hope.”

  “So what’s this golden opportunity for being a do-gooder?”

  “How’d you like to buy the Cupcake Project?”

  CHAPTER 39

  Phoebe

  After the meeting with Suzy Ramsland, Phoebe’s life veered. Her world would always be deeply damaged from Noah’s loss, but the hours of flagellating herself lessened more each month. She threw her heart into her family and her hours into work.

  Twinkling blue and yellow lights decorated the Christmas tree guarding the Cupcake Project’s entrance in Greenwich. Soft white cleaning cloths waited on the counter; brooms and mops leaned against the wall. Phoebe and Eva wore Christmas-red aprons emblazoned with the Cupcake Project logo. Hours of scrubbing faced them, but neither wanted to stop talking. Maybe they had poured just that much more brandy than usual into their tea, or maybe the full moon loosened their tongues—whatever the reasons, secrets flew like rare birds.

  “Eleven of them rattled like glass marbles in a can.” Eva clutched her mug as she spoke of her cousin’s worst days in Rwanda, the girl Eva had adopted after she and other members of her family had made a rescue operation for the family left behind.

  “One day she was home on college break, the next, hiding in their neighbors’ basement—which was nothing like you think of a basement. She escaped there after watching men use machetes to murder her family to death. Her mother. Her father. Her brothers. My girl hid in a box after her parents and siblings were butchered. She had escaped to a dirt hole where she lived for seven months. Eighty thousand people were killed in a hundred days. We all know people who hacked children to pieces.”

  Phoebe tightened her arms, gripping her elbows until the points dug into her fingers.

  “My cousin’s daughter arrived in America with images of her family during their last moments carved into her heart like initials in a tree.” Eva reached for Phoebe’s hand. “And still, she wants to return home. She wants to look at the people who killed them and see how they survived. Do they fall to their knees in shame each and every day? She wants to see how our country managed reparations.”

  “Is she truly planning to go back and visit?” Phoebe asked. “Would you go with her?”

  “I don’t think it can be just a trip. Most days my darling girl can’t bear the thought of returning and other days she feels she must return and stay.”

  “She survived a massacre. How can life not be filled with impossible choices?”

  “Survival isn’t the only point, Phoebe. Afterward, you must endure with dignity and then you must learn how to live without your loved ones. Why be surprised you want closure with Jake?”

  “What your cousin, your family, went through—was that part of why you could bear to connect with me afte
r all Jake did that hurt you?”

  “My life isn’t a mythical lesson to explain your troubles.”

  “I didn’t start this conversation.” Phoebe slammed her teacup.

  “Hey, we don’t have much money backing us. Watch the damn cups,” Eva said. “I snap around the topic of my country. We’re not a made for television movie. And I am not an African fountain of wisdom for Americans.”

  “Duly noted.” Phoebe poured more brandy in her teacup and then tipped it toward Eva, who nodded assent.

  “The people who hid my cousin were Hutu. Their relatives most likely slaughtered Tutsi, our people. You and I both saw evil we can’t make sense of, and it haunts us. Sometimes that malevolence exists in people who also hold strands of good. And I suppose there are some who are purely wicked. Which do you think describes Jake?”

  Phoebe fumbled in her apron pocket for cigarettes and found the chunky beaded bracelet Kate had given her, with the note “Fidget with this when you want to smoke.” Phoebe considered it her antismoking rosary. “I’m not sure. He writes me every day. Why does he do that? Are his pleas for forgiveness a sign of some hidden good? Or does he just want a caretaker? Someone to fill his jail bank account?”

  “Do you read the letters?”

  “Most I put in a box. Once a month, I open one, looking for changes.” She stood and grabbed a broom.

  “Do you find any?” Eva began refilling the napkin dispensers.

  “No. His letters are repetitive. He recites his day-to-day routine, justifies his crimes repeatedly, and then begs for forgiveness, spotting the paper with crocodile tears as he writes of needing and missing me.”

  “No wonder you can only read one a month. Does he mention Noah?”

  “Every time. He’s waiting for me to forgive him for our son’s death along with everything else. Kate shreds his letters the moment they arrive. Why can’t I?” She swept debris and cupcake crumbs into the standing dustpan. “Keeping them makes me feel like I’m still caretaking him, still bearing witness. Still connected.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “No. I want to sever all ties, not just physical ones. I need to figure out how to make a final psychic separation.”

  “I doubt a complete break ever comes.” Eva moved behind the counter and brought out the unsold cupcakes. At the end of each day, they boxed them up for the senior center. “I think of Jake’s crimes as crueler than they even seem. He had so much; why did he need to steal more? He should be graded on a curve of most awful.”

  “Even worse. If we’d stayed in Brooklyn, living the way I did as a girl, we’d be doing fine.” Phoebe sprayed organic cleanser. “I wish we’d never left.”

  “I dream of home every night,” Eva said. “Do you dream of Jake?”

  “I do. In my dreams, we’re still together. I’m aware we’re not supposed to be, that he should be in jail. He whistles around as though everything is fine, while I panic, trying to figure out why he’s there and not locked up. It’s never a happy dream.”

  • • •

  Jake approached the visiting room table. Her breath stopped for a moment as she assimilated his image with the many Jakes she carried in her memory: the muscular eighteen-year-old; the young adult, bursting with ambition and chutzpah; the father twirling his daughter; the grandfather, happily surrounded by his girls.

  This man in prison cloth, shorn of his thick hair, ropy from exercise; this man she didn’t recognize.

  Jake sat. He took her hand. She let it lay limp in his and then, unable to resist, she stroked his familiar skin—just for a few seconds—before pulling back.

  “Pheebs. My God, you’re really here. You didn’t warn me. I’ve missed you. When they said I had a visitor, I was afraid to hope. Are you okay? Jesus. I missed you,” he repeated. “Happy New Year, honey. I pray 2011 is a better year for us.”

  “Our son died,” she said.

  Silence sat between them for long minutes. Finally, he spoke. “I wish I had died instead.” He reached for her again. “My poor Pheebs. How did you get through?”

  She ignored his outstretched hand, his words. “I won’t forgive myself for standing by you. For leaving Noah alone.”

  Jake buried his head in his hands. She remembered this: her awareness of his tactics hadn’t been erased. More quiet surrounded them as he waited for Phoebe to fill the space, expecting the wife and mother who’d rush in and stitch up the family.

  She remained still. Finally, he said, “You . . . you aren’t responsible for his death.”

  “No. I am. You are. We both deserve blame. We were given this sweet, sensitive boy, this funny, quirky, brilliant boy, and you tried to shape him into the person you wanted as your son. And I let you.”

  “No, sweetheart,” Jake said. “He rode his motorcycle drunk. He crashed. He was an adult. He made an awful choice, a wretched choice—but he made the decision.”

  “Life isn’t simple like that,” she said. “A choice. Boom. Done. I chose to marry you, not a crook. Noah didn’t choose a thief for a father, and he certainly didn’t decide to work for a criminal father, to be tied in so deeply with you that the world painted him with the same brush.”

  “That’s the media, baby. How many times did I tell everyone you weren’t involved, that the kids—”

  “No! You said you did it alone. There’s a difference between denial and honesty.”

  “What, you’re a lawyer now?”

  She clutched the edge of the table, feeling the cold rounded steel, imagining metallic odors clinging to her fingers. “Telling the truth would be admitting Gita-Rae and Charlie and Nanci and the rest of them were involved. Anyone could see they were. But you protected them. By denying their involvement along with ours, you lumped us right in with them. You know they’re guilty. Maybe they didn’t know exactly how much of a total scam it was, but they knew they were making false statements. They knew the investments were fairy tales. They knew they mailed out fiction. Their case comes up soon, and they’ll end up right where you are and then—”

  “This isn’t about them,” Jake said.

  “Bullshit. You placed loyalty among thieves in line with fidelity to your family. Jesus, you could barely look up an address on the computer. Did you think anyone would believe you could carry off that scheme alone? Thus, what did it mean when you said that I wasn’t involved? Or the kids? It meant nothing. Nobody could discern the difference between you being true-honest and lying-asshole honest. No wonder Noah fell into a black hole.”

  She stood.

  “You’re leaving?” Jake’s panic became a palpable mass around him. “Already?”

  “I’m going to the machines.” She walked away gripping a roll of quarters.

  The last time she’d been on the prison message boards, she’d become lost in a piteous discussion of vending machine choices, as wives and girlfriends advised one another on the best deals, tastiest snacks, and options for vegetarian boyfriends. Sinking into that world could have been her fate. She prayed she’d have stopped supporting Jake on her own—that it wasn’t simply Noah’s death that broke the final threads—but she couldn’t lie to herself. Or deny that Bianca’s tawdry book forced her eyes open.

  A young, oh-so-young, woman stood next to Phoebe at the line of vending machines. Ten cultures seemed to have merged into this one beautiful, sad Madonna holding a baby, staring at the choices behind glass as though mentally adding figures.

  “I swear they charge twice as much here,” Phoebe said.

  The baby whimpered. The woman shifted her to the other shoulder and bounced her in the manner every mother knew. “It’s worse down in some other places, where they only have pop.” She patted the baby’s back. “Although I guess that might make life easier. You could figure out exactly how much money you’ll need to spend to make your guy happy.”

  “They bleed the cost of prison right from our veins,” Phoebe said.

  The woman nodded, seeming grateful for a moment with a prison wife wh
o understood.

  “Let me help you,” Phoebe said. “I need only one thing . . .” She took a quick glance at the machine in front of her. “Some M&M’s. Then you take the rest of my change. Less for me to carry out.”

  “Oh no! Your man wouldn’t like that.”

  “Trust me. He already possesses more than he deserves.” Phoebe fed twelve quarters into the chipped metal slot and then handed the remainder to the woman.

  “Are you sure he won’t be mad?” She tipped her head in Jake’s direction. Even here, everyone knew who he and Phoebe were.

  Phoebe got a bit closer and whispered, “Honey, when they’re in here, we’re in charge.”

  The young woman’s face brightened. “So there’s an upside, huh? Thanks, Mrs. Pierce.” Renewed hope showed in her shoulders as she turned back to the machines.

  Phoebe carried the candy to Jake, dropping it in front of him.

  “What were you talking to that girl about?”

  She ignored his question. “See this?” Phoebe held up the pack of M&M’s. “This is the last thing you’ll get from me. I won’t ever be here again.”

  “You’re saying good-bye with M&M’s?” Jake scoffed as though this was just one more marital spat.

  “No. I’m leaving you with words.” She pushed the small, shiny bag closer to him. “This is simply kindness.”

  “You are kind, Pheebs. Always have been. Feisty, but compassionate. You’re also my other half, and I love you. Nothing changes that.”

  She wouldn’t let this king of bullshit force her onto his field. “Our love is long gone. I’m destined to be known as your wife, a footnote to the biggest crook in years. I’ll be considered either a stupid woman clueless about what went on beneath her nose, or a Marie Antoinette eating stolen cake. The world will think what it thinks without my insight. I wasted too much on you already.” She laughed. “You deserved your mistress’s words. Not mine.”

  “Do you realize how much shit I took for that?” he said.

  “The breadth of how much I don’t care is endless.” She held up her hands to stop him from talking. “I’ll never write about you. The more I’m in the background, the happier I am, but I’ll offer you one last chance to unload. Right now. A one-day sale on bearing witness, and it’s happening today. Tell me the truth, Jake. What, when, and for God’s sake, why? Give me the honest narrative of the life I didn’t understand I was living.”