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That evening, after learning that Cassandra and Emily were out together again, John went down the elevator to the street to buy a crêpe and then back up to his office to eat it while looking out at his panoramic view. The crêpe artist had toasted a two-inch fringe of cheese that spilled out onto the hot griddle. The golden brown lacy fringe crunched just a bit and dissolved in his mouth as he bit into it. He watched a péniche motor slowly down the Seine and pass under the Pont Alexandre III, a riotously decorated bridge with gilt pegasuses, river gods, and cupids.
When he had savored the last of the crêpe avec jambon et fromage, he washed his hands, fingertips shiny with delicious grease, in his little bathroom. He dreaded what he had to do next. He sighed and sat down to do it.
John woke up his computer and opened the Excel spread sheet, the one that kept the score between him and other men, between him and his father, the one entitled “John’s Worth.”
The vast majority of his investment balance had nosedived. He was now worth a fraction of what he had been yesterday.
He felt nauseous. He looked out the window to get his bearings. A sleek cabin cruiser was racing downriver, the current helping to push the boat toward the sea. John felt with pain that he could no longer afford toys like that. Salesmen at the boat shows used to kowtow to him. Now it was possible that he couldn’t afford even a GPS.
He turned back to his computer screen. He had to do this.
Step one. The value listed next to his ETFs’ names had to be drastically reduced. John’s head spun as he typed in the new figures. When he summed up the column, he was heartsick. He used to have the advantage over most men. Now he was just an ordinary schmuck.
He studied the detailed list of his and Cassandra’s property and each item’s monetary value. When he saw mention of the Gull, his sailboat harbored on the Long Island Sound, his father’s face came to mind. His father had owned a boat, too, a fifty-foot wooden craft that Teddy Roosevelt had been aboard once, according to the ship’s log.
Shame over his father’s suicide, committed after the crash of 1987, perhaps after he’d made an evaluation like the one John was making now, washed over him. His father couldn’t take the losses in stride. John wasn’t sure he could, either.
John had put on his father’s cufflinks to go down to buy the crêpe. Parisians, he had noticed, dress for everything. Unless they were in spiffy nightwear. They answered the ring of the postman at the street door in their negligées.
He tugged at his cufflinks now. They had large squares of black onyx set on larger squares of silver. A marquis diamond glittered in the center of each one. He wore them to remind himself to work harder so he didn’t end up like his father, broke and broken.
It appeared as though his father’s failure had become his own.
Through the haze of his desire to deny the truth, John could see he would have to sell the mansion in Greenwich. He would have to fire people and close offices, to downsize and live and work somewhere more affordable in Paris. He would have to sell his vintage cars—the Model T, the Bentley, the Rolls, and the motorbikes, stored in the Greenwich mansion’s garage. What else? The Astin Martin Vantage in Paris.
What about the boats? No, you gotta have a boat! He couldn’t sell them. Not the Gull, that won regattas on the Long Island Sound. Not the Grey Skies, that challenged him in the English Channel. Oh, God, no, not the boats!
Next to each item of personal property, he typed what he estimated he could sell the thing for. The mansion’s potential price would have to be confirmed by a real estate expert. He sent off an email to the broker who had sold him the house.
He started a new sheet, listing what he could save when he downsized to a smaller apartment. He went online to research the rents for smaller offices. He calculated what would he save when he no longer had to pay garage fees for the Aston Martin.
Let’s revisit the boats idea. Maybe not two boats. Try to find a way to save the Grey Skies in Cherbourg. Sell the Gull, and that way, I’ll save on fees for its berth in Greenwich, and the cost of having a crew winterize her, pull her from the water in November, store her in the boatyard, and get her ready in March for the new season.
In his mind and on his spreadsheet, he sold and sold, cut and cut. Drastically.
When he saw what he was left with, he sat, aghast. No toys, no luxuries like a big apartment in the Sixth, and he saw that he might not even be able to hang onto the Grey Skies.
How could he have risked so much on just a few ETFs? How could he have been so loony?
He leaned forward, leather of his chair creaking, and held his head in his hands. He wished he could cry, but after a few minutes he sensed that there would be no relief for his emotions tonight.
