A Better Man (7 page)

The designer shifts in his seat as though his ass is suddenly itchy, then glances over at Nick, who, despite feeling bad for the guy, betrays nothing. In moments like this, he’s learned to let Larry be the heavy. His partner loves a good test of loyalty. The designer rubs his face and thinks, then rubs his face some more. Finally he settles on something he can say.

“Maybe if we did night shoots … I could try to arrange it with the owners?” He looks pained.

But Larry is shaking his head. “Nah, fourteen nights in a row with union turnaround time? My girlfriend would kill me.
I’d
kill me. My vampire days are over, man.”

For a moment this is the end of the discussion, but then Nick reaches over and plucks the photo out of Larry’s hand. He takes one more look at it and knows that’s where he’s shooting the spot. “I don’t mind supervising,” he says.

“But you’re directing. Who’s going to shut
you
down?” Larry says.

“I’m fully capable of producing myself—after midnight, that is.”

Larry leans back and considers Nick with a smirk. “Fourteen days of all-nighters just because you like the look of the place? What kind of workaholic perfectionist are you, anyway?”

Nick shrugs. He thinks of last night, finding Maya in a bleary heap on the sofa. The empty bottle of Barolo. The scornful look in her eyes when he woke her. “I just like the look of the place,” he says. “I don’t mind working nights. Nights are when all the best stuff comes out.”

Half an hour later Nick is back in his office, sifting through head-shots of model-slash-actresses (Larry is determined to find a girl with a “classy high school French teacher look”), when Ben knocks on the frosted-glass partition that separates him from the rest of the staff.

“What can I do for you, son?”

Ben arcs his neck around the doorframe at a jaunty angle, causing his linen scarf to fall away from his throat. “There’s a very large and scary man here to see you,” he stage whispers. “He seems
awfully
serious.”

Gray appears, lugging a wheelie briefcase that’s so stuffed full of documents it looks about to burst into a cartoon paper whirlwind. He falls back in a chair without being invited, releases a noisy gust of air, undoes a button and gives his tie a two-finger yank. “This place isn’t actually an office—it’s some kind of futuristic money-laundering front, right? Those replicants out there pretending to type on their shiny laptops don’t even look real.”

Nick grins. “Busted. Now to what do I owe the pleasure of an unannounced visit from the city’s busiest bloodsucker?”

“I prefer the term ‘judicial ambidexter,’ thanks.” Gray’s gaze passes over the smooth, clean lines of Nick’s office. For a moment Nick sees it through his friend’s eyes. The vast white-lacquer desk, concrete floors and floor-to-ceiling plate glass. A few high-gloss modern art books are stacked horizontally and at odd angles on a shelf “for inspiration.”

“Your office is very
American Psycho.
I assume that’s the image you’re trying to project?” Gray coughs at his joke. “Sorry. It’s my walking pneumonia. Chronic, not contagious. Doc says it won’t clear up till I’ve chucked the ciggies for three years straight. Can you believe that?” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his toy smoke and gives it a long, hard pull, then blows a vapour ring into the air between them. “Twenty-six days clean, not counting my birthday,” he says. His face drops into seriousness. “Listen, I was just in the neighbourhood—had a client meeting around the
corner—so I thought I’d stop in and share with you, confidentially, some thoughts I’ve been having on your, uh,
situation.
” He reaches into his briefcase, pulls out the calfskin document case and hands it back to Nick. “I thought you’d prefer it if I delivered you the bad news in person.”

Nick opens the file and sees that Gray has paper-clipped an extra page of scrawled calculations to the top of it. He casts his eyes down at the columns of numbers. Beside them in Gray’s tight, unforgiving handwriting are a series of headings like “family home,” “lake house,” “daycare and school fees,” “nanny salary, taxes and overtime,” and more alarmingly, “spousal support,” “child support,” “equalization of family income,” “upfront cash settlement,” “legal fees” and “payments in perpetuity.” He runs his eyes down to the bottom of the page and settles on a single figure circled heavily and underlined for effect. Its effect on him is, quite literally, staggering. He feels as if someone has wound up and slugged him in the stomach with a kettle bell. His vision goes fuzzy and a strange static invades his head, like a radio on high volume between stations.

All my things,
Nick thinks.
All my beautiful things.

Gray, meanwhile, has adopted his usual sit-back-and-wait-for-the-client-to-absorb-the-bad-news position. He’s leaning back in his chair, tie descending in waves over his barrel chest, scrolling through the never-ending flood of messages streaming into his phone. After a minute or so, he looks up at Nick with his unshockable basset-hound eyes. “Figures aren’t exact, of course—just a ballpark estimate based on the Divorce Act and my many years of experience.”

Nick finds he has to rub his tongue against the roof of his
mouth to generate a film of lubricant before he can get any words out. “So this is … normal?”

“Generally speaking, yes.”

“But don’t people get divorced
all the time
?”

Gray nods with a certain degree of satisfaction. “Sure. People go broke all the time too. If you’re looking for numbers, the current national rate’s just over a third of marriages—that’s down from 50 percent in the mid-1980s, right after no-fault divorce was legalized, though I find that people still cling to that statistic. People who are getting divorced, that is. It’s comforting to feel normal.”

“But how do they afford it?”

Gray shrugs. “They don’t! This is what I’ve been trying to explain to you, my friend. If you have money, divorce is
expensive.
Why do you think I’ve got an offer in on a condo in Palm Beach? It’s going to cost you dearly. Which is why, if you’re interested in keeping the trappings of your precious lifestyle, I suggest you find a way to work out your problems. Try counselling, take a holiday. Join a swingers’ club, for fuck’s sake. I don’t care. Just stay married and save yourself the cash and your kids the therapy.” Gray begins buttoning up his overcoat and hoisting himself out of the chair.

Nick motions for his friend to stay put. He is not so easily deterred. Gray must know this, because he sinks back down in his chair, letting his coat flap open. Nick picks up a pen and makes some scratches beside the list of figures. The bridge of his nose burns the way it does when he’s thinking too hard.

“Surely there must be a way to bring these numbers down a bit? Take the support payments—why on earth are they so high?
And … and this”—he picks up the paper, stretches it tight and flicks it with his index finger so it makes a sound like a snare drum—”this allocation of the value of the house seems completely disproportionate. She hasn’t even contributed to the household expenses since the twins were born, so why should she get more of the equity than I do? It makes no sense.”

“That, my friend, is precisely where you’re wrong.” Gray shakes his head at Nick’s mental midgetry. “It’s precisely
because
she hasn’t been bringing home the majority of the bacon—or even the bacon bits—that the court will furnish her so handsomely. I’m assuming you’re not planning to seek joint custody of the kids? Given their young age and with Maya being at home, it’s highly unlikely you’d get it.”

Nick is dumbstruck. With a pang of shame, he realizes he’s barely thought about the kids since the idea of separation occurred to him. “I guess ideally I’d aim for a flexible arrangement that works for both of us. Not one of these every-other-weekend deals—I want my kids to know that their father isn’t just some guy who buys them a Happy Meal twice a month.”

“Well, you should consider the fact that your wife—once she becomes your ex-wife—may not feel inclined to be ‘flexible,’ as you so diplomatically put it. Once you’ve left a woman high and dry with two little kids, you can’t expect her to be sympathetic to your needs. The same goes for the court, I’m afraid.”

All at once Nick sees how high the stakes are—how in seeking to gain one thing he could potentially lose everything else. He sees this and yet he knows one thing with absolute certainty: he has to leave. He has to, because he’s already gone.

“I can’t stay,” he says. “I have to move forward.”

Gray makes a palms-up, no-judgment-here gesture. “Then what you’re going to be dealing with is an angry, rejected stay-at-home mom with no means to support herself and a whole lot of reasons to hate your guts.”

A sick feeling rises in Nick’s chest. “That’s not true. I’ve taken care of her and the twins these past few years. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“Of course it does—it counts in her financial
favour
! This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. Maya is now your
dependant,
just as much as the kids are. She may be a qualified lawyer and perfectly capable of supporting herself, but in the eyes of the court she’s nothing but a poor, unskilled, unemployed, soon-to-be-single mother—a single mother accustomed to quite a cushy lifestyle. Add to that the fact that she’s unlikely to go easy on you considering your recent behaviour—”

“What behaviour?”

“Oh, come on, man! We both know you haven’t exactly been Super Dad these past couple of years. Don’t forget, I’m your wingman—I’ve seen the way you look at other women. Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.”

“No way around it?”

“Nope.” Gray is very still.

Something in his posture tells Nick there’s more. An addendum to the memo. Gray puts his head in his hands and rubs his eyelids until they turn pink.

“Well, there is one thing. I wouldn’t even call it a
thing.
More of a strategy, really. A long-term plan that requires a great deal of self-control, not to mention …” he tails off. “Frankly, I don’t think you’re up to it.”

Nick spreads his fingers, places both hands palms down on his desk and stares at his friend. “Try me.”

Gray seems bothered—or like he’s pretending to be bothered. Nick would find this interesting if it weren’t so strange.

“It’s not something I recommend to my clients officially, you understand, but it is something I like to think of as a ‘strategic option’ in extreme cases like yours.”

“And what sort of case is that?”

“The kind where you’re about to be taken to the cleaners and hung out to dry.” Nick starts to object, but Gray lifts a finger to silence him. “In a way you’re lucky, because your situation has what I like to think of as ‘room for improvement.’”

Nick straightens in his chair. “Really?”

Gray’s heavy shoulders hitch up around his ears. There is an almost imperceptible rip in the silk lining of his coat. Then he begins, “If you want a better divorce settlement, you’re going to have to become a better husband first. And by ‘better,’ I don’t mean picking up some tulips and takeout on the way home from the bar on Friday night. I’m talking about a sustained period of commitment and support, resulting in a marked and—this is key
—quantifiable
improvement in conjugal relations.”

Nick looks unsure. “But I’ve already tried to improve things—the point is
I can’t.
I’ve failed. That’s why I want to leave and move on.”

Gray shrugs. “That’s what I figured. Never mind, then. I should get back to the salt mine.”

He starts to button his coat, but Nick keeps talking.

“Wait, just … first tell me a bit more. What would I have to do?”

Gray takes a deep hit off his e-butt and exhales through his nose like a dragon. “You need to be a better man.”

Nick blinks. Laughs uncertainly. “Don’t I know it! But what does that have to do with
this
?”

“Everything. Don’t you see? You need to transform yourself into a better husband, you selfish cocksucker. Do right by her for a while.”

“Look, if I wanted a lecture—”

Gray gives a single exasperated snort. “I’m not giving you one—though you certainly deserve it. You asked me for an alternative strategy and I’m offering one, so if I were you I’d listen carefully.”

Nick nods. The back of his neck tingles. “Go on.”

Gray begins to speak in a practised monotone that tells Nick he’s made this speech many times before. “Tell her you love her. Boost her confidence. Encourage her to go back to the law. Make sure she follows through. Support her pursuit of outside interests—and I don’t just mean the gym. Take her away on holiday. Entertain the kids when she’s busy. Take a break from your Saturday morning cycling races and actually spend time with your family. Offer to paint her toenails—whatever it takes. Just make sure that when you finally drop the bomb, she can no longer reasonably accuse you of being a bad husband. Not only will this weaken her case financially, but she’ll feel subconsciously indebted. The settlement will be tipped in your favour. I’ve seen it many, many times.”

“What sort of a time frame are we talking about here? I want to get on with my life.”

“I’ve never seen it work in less than six months.”

Nick leans back, raking his nails through his hair, and exhales. April seems like a lifetime away.

“The main thing is to keep up the act until you see tangible results,” Gray explains. “I’m happy to check in every couple of weeks or so to monitor the situation.”

Nick rubs his face. “But Maya’s a family lawyer. Hasn’t she seen this trick before? And even if she does buy it, won’t she feel like the rug’s been pulled out from under her when I
do
deliver the bad news?”

A look of satisfaction crosses Gray’s face. Nick sees that this is the side of his job he loves most: the military strategy of the human heart.

“You see, that’s just where you’re wrong, my friend. Believe it or not, most people are genetically predisposed to believe good news even when it’s patently ludicrous. Even if they are trained—as in the case of your wife—to sniff out a rat when others can’t. It’s called the confirmation bias, and it’s what keeps us getting out of bed in the morning in spite of climate change, collapsing economies and the fact that the party’s over once the crude oil’s gone. Maya may question Nick 2.0 a little at first, but if you’re persistent, she’ll quickly become accustomed to her new and improved husband. More crucially, when you finally
do
announce that you want out—for reasons of self-actualization, in the most non-acrimonious way possible—her reserves of anger and resentment, which I suspect runneth over at the moment, will be sufficiently depleted to allow a
much
more civilized dissolution of the marriage—that is, one in which she does not end up taking you to the cleaners. You’ll still need to do some divvying up, of course, but the final
amount will be significantly reduced. Who knows? You might even be able to settle out of court. Especially if you’re successful in encouraging her to go back to work.”