Jerry had reached a plea deal with the government that would spare him a jail sentence, which had created quite the outrage in the media. Jonathan had to appear on CNBC three more times, and even though he wasn’t there specifically to defend his boss, but rather to comment generally on the fate of the company, the fact of his employment at Winstar made him feel like the secondary villain. After his second appearance, Becky Quick complimented him on his improved television demeanor. You’d think she’d handed him an Academy Award the way he crowed afterward. A week later he received a call from a producer at CNBC asking him to return to the show, but this time to speak only about market trends in the energy sector, not about his workplace catastrophe. He accepted happily and chose his favorite suit and tie to appease his mother, who’d chastised him for having a wrinkled shirt on his last appearance.
It was true he was getting the hang of the whole television banter. A little humor, some sports analogies, a friendly smile—it wasn’t rocket science. Hours after his last guest spot when he was in line getting his lunch at Dishes, not one but two people stopped him to say they’d seen him on-air earlier that morning and to ask him some follow-up questions about his market theories. The recognition was surprisingly intoxicating, but even more so, the fact that it was his face spouting knowledge instead of Jerry’s made him feel like he could be the front-runner for a change. He’d always seen himself as a behind-the-scenes guy, but the turn of events at Winstar had forced him into the spotlight. During commercial breaks, the anchors would keep grilling him and he realized he wasn’t just filling airtime for them—they thought he had something valuable to offer. Maybe he’d have the balls to do what Cass had long ago suggested and start something on his own. Probably not, though.
There was a lot of hullabaloo over which bank or rival fund was going to buy Winstar and who would keep their jobs after they did. He knew raising his profile with the media appearances would help shore up his chances of staying employed after a takeover. For the moment, Goldman Sachs was the lead contender in the contest to swallow the fund, and although the idea of working at Goldman would once have made Jonathan euphoric, he had soured on his industry lately—and he knew why. The entire business was created on the premise that you could make money with money. He sometimes imagined his job as taking dollar bills and putting them in a photocopy machine. And that was when things went well. Often it was like taking dollar bills and running them through a shredder. Marty Spiegel created art. Yes, he made people rich with his business (the actors, the coproducers, not to mention himself), but he brought entertainment to hundreds of millions of people too. Jonathan pictured Cass’s glazed expression on the occasions he tried to tell her about his work and shuddered. How she must love working with Marty, the two of them feeling so superior for contributing to “culture.”
His office phone rang. Jonathan scooped up the receiver when he saw it was his brother Michael calling.
“You’re calling to ask if Becky Quick is hot, aren’t you?”
“What? No. I’m calling to see you if you’ve spoken to Mom today.”
“No, I haven’t. Is everything okay?”
“I’ll let her tell you. You’d better call.”
Jonathan immediately pushed for an open line and dialed his mother’s cell.
When she answered after four rings, her voice was raspy. She sounded a million miles away.
“Mom, I just got a call from Michael telling me to call you. What’s going on?”
She snorted.
“News travels fast. Your father left me. After thirty-six years together. One day before the Cheshire clambake, he packs himself up and tells me he rented an apartment in South Boston of all places. And do you know why?”
“No,” he said, but assumed it had to do with his father’s favorite pastime. During Jonathan’s childhood, Christopher took more “business trips” than a traveling salesman. He thought his father had slowed down in his old age, but perhaps not.
“It was you and Cass. You inspired him.” Jonathan could hear his mother putting air quotes around “inspired.”
“He said to me, ‘Betsy, I’m taking a page from Jonathan and Cass. They separated to see if they could be happier apart. I’m going to do the same. I should have done it decades ago.’ Can you imagine? Who’s going to want him, with his limp penis that he can barely get up and his all-night flatulence?”
Jonathan flinched at his mother’s lack of decorum. Not offended—just shocked to hear her this unhinged.
“Mom, you can’t blame me and Cass. We didn’t make you have a bad marriage.” He wasn’t automatically on his father’s side, but he could understand where he was coming from in wanting a woman who didn’t try to crush his balls daily, whose judgmental gaze wasn’t crippling. Even though his father had told his mother this was a separation à la he and Cass, was there really any chance they would reconcile? It was hard to imagine absence making the heart grow fonder for Betsy and Christopher.
“You put ideas in his head. Your whole generation thinks marriage is about being happy every second of the day. It’s childish.”
Well, she was somewhat right about that. It was childish. He’d thought that about Cass and her grand plan many times, especially after she first departed. Life wasn’t about choosing to be single on Mondays and married on Tuesdays, or getting to be a parent every other week. It was picking a lane and committing to it. That sounded awfully rigid, but it was the truth, unless you were Cass Coyne and married to a chump like him.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I’ll call Dad if you think it’ll help.”
“Don’t you dare,” Betsy said.
She hung up abruptly and he found himself numbly holding the phone in his hand. He wasn’t ready to hang up, even from his mother, who was probably off to spread her wrath to Wallace or Katie.
Jonathan needed to talk to someone. And he knew just who that was.
In high school, he and Brett would trade stories about their dysfunctional parents, and then in the summer, when both families were on Martha’s Vineyard, they’d elbow each other when said dysfunction was on display. They hadn’t spoken since he dispatched that terrible message from Hazel Park.
He texted first because he knew there was no shot she’d pick up the phone otherwise. Choosing to be as direct and succinct as possible, he wrote: I’m about to call you. Please, please, please pick up. He added the praying hands emoji for emphasis.
“Well, this is unexpected,” Brett said after three long rings. Her voice, normally as velvety as tomato soup, was strained. At least she’d taken the call.
“I really appreciate your answering,” Jonathan blurted out. “I’m so sorry, Brett. About everything. I handled things terribly. Cass and I aren’t back together, by the way, but that’s not why I’m calling. I just got off the phone with my mother and she shared with me the fact that after thirty-six years of marriage, my dad is leaving her. Technically a trial separation, but not really. You were the first person I thought of. Remember how much we used to make fun of our crazy families?”
There was such a long silence that Jonathan almost told Brett he was sorry he called before hanging up.
“Of course I do,” she finally said. “Your parents have hated each other for ages. What took them so long? I bet your mom is going to have some bohemian sexual awakening now.”
Jonathan heard the tension melting in Brett’s voice and he found his body responding in kind. His rib cage must have dropped three inches.
“That I don’t need to picture. She says Cass and I are to blame.”
“Betsy never did like your wife, did she?”
“Nope,” Jonathan said simply, this time not filled with anger toward his mother but a resigned détente.
“So?” Brett asked.
“So. I am beyond sorry about the way I handled things. I just needed to say that.”
“Hang on a second,”
Brett said, and Jonathan heard a trail of sirens and the blare of car horns that could only come from New York City traffic.
“Where are you?”
He could hear Brett hesitating, letting the fading sound of the fire trucks buy her time.
“I’m in New York. Doing a girls’ weekend with college friends in the city. We’re downtown.”
“Can I see you?” he asked. The loneliness became the blood in his veins, running through him in repetitive loops. “I know it’s asking a lot.”
“You know, I don’t even blame you, Jon. I kept tabs on you, a little bit anyway, since we broke up. By all accounts, Cass had a pernicious hold on you. Trust me, if I could figure out how to have that effect on people, I’d do it too.”
He almost started to defend his marriage and say things weren’t really like that, but he stopped himself. Brett didn’t even know the truth about the separation. Lies were everywhere he looked, in coffee cups and mirrors and the wind that flapped at his collar.
“Will you meet me for coffee? Take a few minutes out of your wild girls’ weekend and see me?”
“Let’s do a drink tomorrow night.”
“Drinks it is.”
When he hung up the phone, he closed his eyes, actually dizzy. He felt like a yo-yo, released and pulled back, released and pulled back, over and over and over.
29. CASS
IN THE OFFICE screening room, Cass was with Aidan, Josephine and a few others watching a screener of the Indiana Jones reboot. Not the movie she would have chosen. It reminded her of watching a tape of the Harrison Ford original with the volume on full blast to drown out one of her parents’ epic fights. And then the VCR broke midway through and never got replaced, so she was at the mercy of friends if she ever wanted to see a movie from that point on. To make matters worse, Jonathan was an Indiana Jones freak. She hadn’t communicated with him in over a month—not even by text since the “Screw you”—and now she was heading to Percy’s memorial service without him. Of course she wanted him by her side when she went, but she was petrified to reach out. If he rebuffed her again, it would be him hammering the final nail in the coffin. No second act for their relationship. Baby steps were needed to get back in Jonathan’s good graces—not asking for another favor.
It was early September; Labor Day was around the corner. The final squeeze of summer was in full force and nobody even jumped when Marty sauntered through the lounge and saw their group sprawled out in front of the screen in the middle of a workday. Cass longed for a challenging project to throw herself into, but post-Rebels, her assignments were a steady stream of second and third installments of franchises that would kill it at the box office even though they were prepackaged, predictable, and almost impossible to watch. If she wanted to get ahead at Spiegel, in earnest, she’d have to commit herself to learning more about the film industry and reaching a different demographic than she was used to. The only problem was, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to adjust her professional self. There had been too much adjusting lately, the line between the “old her” and the “new her,” and the “real her” and the “reinvented her” like a scribble drawn in disappearing ink. When she was with Jonathan, there was significantly less fluctuation, though she suspected—with a certain amount of resignation—that she’d never have the luxury of being wholly fixed.
“Should we pop in Raiders of the Lost Ark for good measure?” Josephine asked when the credits started rolling.
Cass glanced at her watch. Her flight to New York wasn’t for another five hours. She was about to voice her agreement when Minka burst through the swinging door with a hand truck overflowing with magazines and newspapers tied up with twine. Brie trailed behind, carrying a large cardboard box that nearly outsized her.
“Finally!” Minka exclaimed.
“Cannot wait to show Marty!” Brie squealed.
The others in the room barely glanced in their direction. Everyone was accustomed to the Bobbsey Twins flitting around in varying states of hyperventilation. But Cass’s attention was piqued. A feeling she couldn’t name came over her and demanded that she take notice. The girls headed off to Marty’s corner office and Cass excused herself a moment later, ostensibly to confirm her flight status, but really to skulk behind them and see what the fuss was about. A feeling of dread was upon her inexplicably. For the past few weeks—since Jasmine’s bat mitzvah if she had to put a date on it—she’d known there wasn’t much longer she could go on cavorting with Marty. She knew what it felt like when a relationship had substance. It was like a weight you could hold in your hand, and this wasn’t it.
His door was already shut when Cass approached, but fortuitously Abby was away from her post, so she was able to position herself close enough to eavesdrop. She was lucky that news of the Indiana Jones marathon had spread around the office, which left most cubicles abandoned. If anyone saw her, she’d make like she’d just arrived and was about to knock.
Cass heard Marty’s muffled exclamations first.
“Finally, goddammit! I thought these pictures would never go to print. Paid that dipshit paparazzo two thousand pounds.”
Cass peered down the hallway furtively. Still nearly empty. She leaned closer to the door, her earring scratching against the wood.
Next she made out Minka’s voice in fragments. “Fresh off the Federal Express truck . . . forty advance copies of Hello! magazine. They ran three half-page photos.”
Then Brie. “And Daily Mail . . . the one of you and the girls at the zoo was priceless.”
Minka: “Next to a picture of Philippa and the boyfriend at a nightclub . . . both of them totally wasted.”
Brie: “Was so worth it . . . stalking the editors . . . Took forever to run them but paid off. We should . . . champagne . . . call Stefan Diller.”
Marty (loud and clear—his voice boomed when he was happy): “Well done, ladies. Philippa will be hysterical. I look like father of the year, and she looks like a washed-up stripper partying all night. Brie, that photographer you found turned out to be perfect. The girls look so happy with me. The picture of the three of us in the Harrods toy department is fucking priceless. Had to bribe Olive and Stella with a shitload of new clothes to get them to smile like that. Fuck, wasn’t it just one of their birthdays? I have too many fucking kids to keep it straight.”
“I’ll deal with . . .” Brie said. “Now it’s . . . celebrate.”
“To screwing over Philippa!” Her boss cheered. Cass pictured Marty raising a glass.
“Let’s see if we can’t find a good picture of me and Cass to send over to Perez Hilton. While Philippa’s with Zoolander, I’m dating someone substantial. Fuck, I think Cass went to Princeton or something. Have that detail put in. Just make sure they don’t mention she’s married.”
“On it,” one of them responded. “What if Tamara sees the picture?”
Tamara? The Aussie actress. Of course.
“Not gonna lose sleep over it.”
In unison came evil chuckling, like villains in a cartoon.
Cass started to back away slowly. Acid was working its way up her esophagus, and she thought she might throw up on the spot.
The door flew open unexpectedly.
“Cass!” Marty said, sweeping her limp body into a hug. He kissed her on the lips, his breath steamy and full of garlic. “It’s a good day.”
Nothing could be less true. There was only one way to get her life back on track. One person who would never do anything so cruel. One person who was loyal to a fault, until she’d pushed him away so much that he had no choice but to lash out at her. That person was in New York City, hating her.
* * *
♦ ♦ ♦
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, she gulped down a Xanax she had filched earlier from Alexi as the plane took off, enabling her to sleep for most of the cross-country flight. Cass wasn’t normally a pill-popper, but anything not to
think about where she was headed.
After Marty kissed her brusquely outside his office, Cass had freed herself from his embrace and muttered something about getting on an earlier flight and needing to run. He called something after her, but Cass pretended not to hear. By the time she reached her car in the studio parking lot, she’d ended the relationship with all the pomp and ceremony someone like Marty deserved. She dialed his private office line and left a voicemail with a terse “It’s not you, it’s me” message. She knew with near certainty that Marty wouldn’t fight for her. He had Tamara, and if not her, then a dozen other options. She, Cass, was fungible when it came to feeding Marty’s appetite.
She landed in the very early morning and breezed into the city from LaGuardia, arriving at her hotel before seven. Emmet had specifically chosen a long weekend so that Percy’s siblings would be able to make it. Staying in a hotel in her own city felt excruciating, especially when Puddles was a stone’s throw away from her, but she was too afraid to ask Jonathan if she could stay in the apartment when they hadn’t spoken since the Michigan debacle. What a mess she’d made of her life. And not just hers.
After fueling up on caffeine and purchasing a price-gouged umbrella on the street during a sudden downpour, she checked into a hotel in SoHo. There was little chance of running into Jonathan, as his office was three miles north of her and the husband she left behind didn’t cross below 42nd Street without good reason. The memorial service was going to be in the Tribeca loft Emmet and Percy had shared. She’d refined her notes from the first draft (which, in retrospect, made her seem suicidal and might have had the same effect on the other guests) and ran them by Alexi and Aidan, who both approved of them. Matters were simplified when Emmet didn’t ask why Jonathan wasn’t coming. He probably assumed it had something to do with the mess at Winstar, which, for all she knew, was still going on. She had purposely avoided the morning financial shows after seeing Jonathan’s smiling face too many times. She’d cringed when he was awkward on-screen, but somehow seeing his newfound polish was even more disarming.
The Intermission Page 33