Gabe
“Scott, I can’t tell you how much it means to me you’re giving me this chance.” I looked him square in the eye. He twirled his remaining scotch in the glass and settled back into his chair, signifying the interview component of our lunch had ended, and we were back to family friends.
“Happy to do so. I know how much you’ve always meant to Caroline. And as you know, my daughter is my everything.” His tone brought back memories of his firm greeting when I’d picked up Caroline for a random debutante event back when we were in school.
“Yes, sir. As she should be. She’s a one of a kind. How is her interior design business going? I always forget to ask her about it.” The interior design business had been her connection to my mother. I supposed my mother had probably been her mentor.
“Gabriel…you can’t forget to ask a woman about her business. Let me give you a little premature father-to-son advice. At this stage, Caroline is so over the moon with you she probably overlooks it, but you need to make them think you care about how they spend their day. You may not, really. I mean, trust me, fabric, wallpaper…” He waved his hand and scanned the room as if looking for some other item to throw into his description. “It bores the hell out of me, but you’ve got to ask and listen. It’s important.”
“I’ll take that under advisement.” If I’m ever in a relationship with your daughter. “Now, tomorrow morning, I’ll meet with—”
“Gabriel, you understand I wouldn’t be giving you this chance if it weren’t for Caroline, right? I expect you to treat her well.”
What the hell did Caroline tell him?
He slipped his black American Express into the leather folder and signed the bill, then stood and excused himself for the restroom. I watched him walk away. He nodded a greeting to a couple of the tables.
Caroline and I ended years ago. We’d gone on dates in high school. I’d taken her to some dances. We’d had drunken hook-ups in college. We’d dated for a few years after college. But we’d both had relationships since then. She’d had serious relationships since then, had lived with a guy for a while. This had to be miscommunication between his daughter and him. It had to be.
After saying goodbye to Caroline’s father, I stepped off a curb right into a mass of black, disgusting drain water. The deep water soaked my dress socks and my entire right shoe. Squish. Squish. The sound followed me the entire walk home. My foot grew cold. I tried not to think about all the substances in the filthy water that now coated my skin. Fuck.
Back in my apartment, I took off my shoes and socks and dumped them in the kitchen trash. The city lights twinkled outside. In the apartment building along the way, the blue glare of television sets lit up a couple of different windows. The modern furniture in my apartment bore an austere quality.
I set my shower to a high temperature and let the water rain down on me until my skin turned pink. After putting on my pajama pants, I lay down in bed. I pressed a button, and the drapes closed on the city outside. I called Poppy. Voicemail picked up, so I hung up.
A quiet filled the apartment. Subtle sounds infiltrated from outside, but with the drapes down, the noises were almost indistinguishable. I lay on my pillow, eyes open. Inside, in my chest, I ached—a physical pain. I picked up the phone to check the time. Hours had passed. I sat up in bed and opened a drawer. I plugged in an old sound machine. I hadn’t used it in a long time. I set it to ocean sounds. The irony was not lost on me. And no, I still didn’t sleep well.
In the morning, I left my apartment to meet my mom at a nearby breakfast place. A homeless woman with a skinny dog leaned against a building. She held a cardboard sign that read “Please help us.” People on the sidewalk sped by her. As I passed, I bent and dropped a twenty in the old, worn blue and white paper cup she held out.
I pushed open the door of Pershing Square Cafe. A younger woman rushed out and knocked right into me. She never looked back and never apologized. Nice.
“Gabriel. Over here.” My mom waved her arm. I stepped through the crowd of people hovering in the wait area. When I reached her, I bent to give her a hug and a kiss on her cheek. “We’re next for a table.”
Twenty-five minutes later, a hostess picked up two menus and asked us to follow her.
Once seated, I quickly scanned the menu, and prepared my order for the server. Mom dug in.
“How’s it feel to be back?”
“Fine.”
“I bet it’s good to be back in your apartment. Back in your bed.” I refrained from telling her about my poor sleep. She’d probably have a doctor friend prescribing sleeping pills within hours. Or she’d suggest a tea.
“How’ve you been?” I asked her.
“Oh, good.” She went on and filled me in about a home in the Hamptons she was decorating. Our food arrived, and I picked at my omelet. You could see butter residue lingering over the outer shell of the extremely thick concoction. They must’ve used eight eggs.
“Is it not good? You can send it back.”
“It’s fine.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Gabriel? What’s going on?”
I knew she wouldn’t let it drop. “Two blocks away, there was a homeless woman. I keep thinking about her.” It wasn’t entirely a lie.
“You’ve lost your city armor.” She sipped her tea and assumed her all-knowing posture.
“What do you mean?”
“You spend enough time here, and the homeless become invisible. You’ve been away so long, they aren’t invisible. Give it enough time, it won’t bother you.”
“Is that a good thing?” I asked, incredulous my mother would even think like that.
“Honey, it is, and it isn’t. We have so many homeless, what are you going to do? You can’t hand out money to everyone you see.” I stared down at the black grout between the white hexagon tiles on the floor. “If it really bothers you, you can find a good charity that gives to the homeless. That’s what your father and I do. I bet if you ask Caroline, she can give you a good idea of the charities she favors.”
That got my attention. “Why would you mention Caroline?”
“Well, you know, dear, she and I spend a lot of time together.”
“Mom…nothing is going on with Caroline and me. You know that, right?”
She strummed two of her thick, squarish nails against her lips and squinted behind her tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses.
“You like the girl on the island. The one we didn’t get to meet. Am I right?”
I thought of Poppy’s tear-streaked face, her hand held high in a vigorous wave. The pain reflected on her face matched the ache ripping my insides to smithereens. I crumpled up a paper napkin then realized my mother waited for my answer.
“I do like her. Why?”
“Is it true, what they said? Is she a prostitute?”
“Wha—who is they?”
“Caroline. And Lauren. They told me about her.”
“How do they know anything at all about her?” Even as the words were coming out of my mouth, I knew the answer. Reed.
My mom held her hand up in a defensive gesture, shaking her head to assure me she didn’t know. I exhaled and took the pressure off her.
“It doesn’t matter. They’re wrong. She was a…model. She earned quite a bit from a modeling business, but no, Mom, she was never a prostitute.” She placed her hands in her lap, and her lips did the peculiar puckering thing she did sometimes when she doubted something. “It’s okay. I promise you. She sold her photography business and is now launching her own restaurant. She hopes to build it into a chain.”
“What you call photography, Lauren explained it to me.”
“And?”
“You can do better than her.”
“Why? Because she built a business and a portion of that business had to do with photos?”
“In lingerie.” Her chin tilted upward, defiant.
“What gives you the right to be so judgey?”
“And you didn’t judge her?”
The waitperson stopped by our table. I let Mom deal with him, as I thought over her question. After he moved on to his next table, I could have let her question drop, but I needed to get it off my chest.
“I did judge her, in the beginning. But now, I don’t. She built a business. I look at models. I watch porn. Who am I to judge the people who participate?”
“So, she did do porn.”
“No. She didn’t. I was making a point.”
“Don’t you think you’d be happier with someone like Caroline? Someone with your background?” She immediately held up her palm to keep me sitting. “I’m not saying Caroline. Someone like her.”
I stretched my neck and debated. “I admire Poppy. She didn’t grow up with all the advantages I had. When times got tough, she did what she had to do. And she was good at it. What she did, it’s competitive. It’s not easy. And yes, she posted some sexy photos. But you can find similar photos in magazines. Why are people so judgmental?” I lifted a napkin and wiped the corners of my mouth out of habit, not because I’d taken a bite of food.
“You care about her.” Her eyebrows knitted together, and she held her teacup with one hand.
“I do.” It wasn’t exactly news. “She’s a good person. She has a lot of drive. If you’d met her, you’d like her. She’s full of energy, she’s funny. Warm. Creative. Talented. Everybody down there loves her.” I trailed off. “So, where did you say you’re meeting Dad?”
“Gabriel…if you have feelings for her, why aren’t you with her?”
“She’s got a life there, Mom. And I have no interest in living in North Carolina permanently.”
“Well, of course not. That would be preposterous. But we have restaurants in the city. Surely she’d rather live here than out in the middle of nowhere.” I couldn’t be positive, but it looked like she trembled. “If she loves you, she’ll move here. People make accommodations for those they love. Many a woman has moved for the man she loves.”
“They’re breaking ground on her restaurant this week.”
“So? Did you ask her to move here?”
“Of course not.”
“Honey, this is the first time you’ve ever, in your entire life, talked to me about a girl. And you even attempted to introduce us. Something is there. Although maybe wait to invite her up until you’re cemented into Caroline’s father’s firm. No sense ruffling feathers.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, I think he has dreams of you and Caroline eventually working out. I think Caroline has those dreams. And speaking of, you need to be careful. She’s at a marrying age, and you don’t want to lead her on or waste her time.”
“I haven’t spoken to her since you and Dad visited. I don’t—Caroline and I have been over for years. Where is this coming from? You and her dad. Both of you. I have done nothing at all to lead her on.”
“I’m sure that’s true, honey. I know she cares for you. Maybe her father read into the situation when she asked him to consider taking you on.”
“But you did, too.”
“No, no. I…hoped. That’s different. She’s a good friend of Lauren’s, so it would make for pleasant holidays. Ideal, really.” Her nail tapped her lip again. “Maybe just get a few weeks in before you—”
“Ruffle feathers?”
“Exactly.” She smiled and lifted her teacup.
Later that evening, I swung open the heavy glass door into Cipriani Wall Street. A heavy deja vu sensation washed over me. I’d swung these doors open countless times. All the meetings blurred together into one.
The managing director from Scott’s firm had a conflict with our interview time for tomorrow and asked if he could meet me for drinks after the business dinner he had scheduled here. The back-to-back meetings were the kind of thing I used to schedule regularly. Back when every fifteen-minute block of time had a purpose.
The young blonde hostess smiled at me before leading me to my table. She could have pointed me to the bar, but she ushered me to the stool. Her fingers lightly stroked my forearm. It could have easily been an accidental brush as she stood, waiting for me to sit so she could hand me my menu, but it felt flirty. I jerked away, turned off. The vision of her fingers on my arm repelled me. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was about her, but I had no interest in a one-night stand, or whatever she might be offering. I had no interest in her phone number, or her name. I directed my attention to the television screen over the bar.
“I’ll be over there if you need anything.”
I gave a curt nod in response.
A weather map on screen showed a disturbance somewhere out over tropical waters. Arrows showed possible paths, and several arrows pointed directly to North Carolina. The subtitled captions stated it was remarkably early in the season to see these formations occurring.
I pulled out my phone.
Are you worried about the tropical formation?
A response came through immediately.
Haven’t heard anything about it. We broke ground today.
A photo came through of Poppy, Suzette, Mr. Baird, and a few men I didn’t recognize. A yellow backhoe dominated the background, and Suzette and Poppy both held champagne glasses.
Congrats! Wish I could have been there.
My chest constricted. If I was there, I’d take her out for a nice celebratory dinner, order her the most expensive wine on the menu, or champagne if she preferred. I’d make sure we had a window with a stunning view over the ocean and have them set up a candle-lit table with flowers. Or, hell, maybe we’d order in. Or charter a sailboat for a sunset cruise. But I’d like to hear her tell me all about it. No, I wished I’d been the one taking the photograph.
The weather report ended. A commercial for State Farm Insurance aired. I glanced around at the familiar scene. Suits at almost every table. Business in action.
How did your meetings go? Is the case behind you?
Not behind me, but I gave them everything. Answered all their questions.
What kinds of questions were they asking?
Interestingly, not as much about my business as you would think. Much more about the parties in Asia that I’d been to, who had been there. Places Cyr owns that I’d been to.
They had drilled me about which celebrities attended. Jewelry he’d given as gifts. Things I suspected they could dig up with a Google search or a perusal through TMZ. They were on a hunt all right, but after sitting through hours of questioning, it became clear the Justice Department saw me as an information source. Now, the SEC…
How do you feel about it?
Better.
And the interview?
Now that I didn’t feel better about. I wasn’t about to try to explain to Poppy via text the odd vibes Caroline’s father had given. I wasn’t against leveraging connections, but I preferred to believe he wanted me for my skill set rather than for some bizarre seventeenth-century dream I’d be with his daughter.
“Mr. Chesterton?” A balding man in a suit extended his hand.
“Mr. Drake. Please, call me Gabe.”
“And call me Phil.” He slid out a barstool and joined me.
“How was dinner?”
“Superb.”
“Just a moment.” I picked up my phone to return her text.
In another interview now. Can I call you later?
God, I missed her. I wished when I finished this meeting, she’d be at home for me—a bizarre notion for a man like me.
The guy droned on with cordial conversation. Five minutes in, and I determined his mission was to determine if I’d fit within the company culture. He gave zero hard-hitting questions. He didn’t stoop to sports talk, but he delved into politics, preferred trade publications, and research sources.
Poppy’s response came through, and the entire room blacked out as I zeroed in on the screen.
I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Not sure my heart can take it. I do wish you all the best. Good luck!