The Black & The White (18 page)

“
Well, if I can’t win you
over with my gorgeous looks and sexy hair, I may as well win you
over with my boyish charm,” he said. “I told you I’m better than
that loser at the restaurant.”

I rolled my eyes. “Jeffrey is
nice.”

Stephen was used to people treating
him with kid gloves.

I was one of a small group of women in
the room. All of the women were in suits except me. I had wondered
why Andrew had asked me to go home to change my outfit. Why
couldn’t I have come in the button-down shirt and pants I’d worn to
work? My outfit stood out, and I suddenly felt
uncomfortable.

“
Buddies!” A man rushed over
and gave Stephen a hug as he was checking my coat. Stephen had
introduced us, but I had immediately forgotten his name.

“
This fucking guy is the
man!” he said to me. Then he turned to Stephen. “How’ve you been,
buddies?” Stephen said hello but seemed rather
standoffish.

“
Can I get you a drink?” the
man asked Stephen. He shook his head.

“
Well, anything you need.
I’m right over there. Drink as much as you want, drinks on me. Ha
ha.” The guy winked and laughed at himself. I didn’t understand the
joke.

“
That was nice of him.” I
said, referring to his offer for drinks.

“
He’s a broker. I don’t know
how he was able to snake himself in here. Scumbag. Drinks are free
for everyone,” he said.

“
Well, he seems to like
you.”

“
I told you! They don’t like
me. They want my money,” he said. “Here, you want some too?” He
pulled a handful of one-hundred-dollar bills from his man purse. “I
have a lot of it. But that means you also have to be nice to
me.”

“
No, you can keep your
money.” I pushed him away and reached into my purse. “Here, you can
take my money too, but then you have to be nice
to me
!” I had eleven dollars in
cash.

“
Okay. Done deal. That’s the
best trade I’ve ever done working on Wall Street.” He laughed as he
took my dollar bills and added them to his collection of
hundreds.

“
Hey, that’s my cab fare,” I
yelled as I attempted to reach into his purse to get my money
back.

“
Ha! Nope. A deal is a deal.
I have to be nice to you.” Stephen took a sip from his
cocktail.

Just then, Andrew came back from the
restroom.

“
You hired a smart one,
Andrew. Best trader in town and you didn’t even know it! Because of
her, you’re now my new best friend, buddies.” Stephen placed his
arm around Andrew, spilling a tablespoon worth of his cocktail on
Andrew’s shirt.

“
What’d I miss?” Andrew
asked as he brushed the liquid from his collar.

“
Nothing, buddies!” Stephen
patted Andrew on his shoulder. “I just did the best trade
ever.”

“
With who?” Andrew asked as
he continued to pat dry his shirt.

“
You wouldn’t get it,”
Stephen said to Andrew.

Then, turning to me, Stephen said,
“Isabelle, that’s a sexy top.”

I wasn’t quite sure how to handle his
compliment. I blushed.

“
Yeah, it’s nice, but it
would look better on my bedroom floor,” Andrew said.

I looked at Stephen and could tell he
hadn’t heard Andrew’s comment. He was drunk and preoccupied,
scanning the room for someone. He gestured for a girl to come over.
The pretty waitress finally arrived. She put her arm around
Stephen. “You want vodka and cranberry?” she asked with a thick
foreign accent. I looked at her face. It was Ilana, Giovanni’s
girlfriend, whom I had met at Jeffrey’s restaurant.

Stephen kissed her head and said, “Two
for me, please!” He placed my eleven dollars into the plastic cup
she carried on her tray as a tip.

Anson, Stephen’s best friend, arrived
and made his way to the section of the crowded bar where we were
seated. I had been introduced to him several times but had never
had much of a chance to talk to him. Anson worked at a hedge fund
based in North Carolina.

Anson was short and out of shape but
just as smart and charming as Stephen, although funnier.

“
Hey, dudes,” Anson said,
waving his raised arm from side to side. He looked like he was
dancing.

Stephen gave Anson a hug, squeezing
him until Anson feigned a coughing sound. “I love you
buddies.”

“
Talk to Isabelle.” Stephen
introduced me to Anson before he excused himself. “I probably
should make my rounds. Sorry, Isabelle. Be right back.” I couldn’t
help but notice how awkward Stephen looked in his suit, with his
tie undone and his hair still disheveled.

“
So, how much money have you
made this year so far? You up?” Andrew asked Anson.

“
Not answering,” Anson
replied, attempting to divert the conversation from talk of
money.

“
Oh, Come on,” Andrew
continued.

“
La-la-la-la-la,” Anson said
as he covered his ears with the palms of his hands. Andrew got the
message.

We moved to a table in the back where
it was less crowded. I picked at the small bowl of variety nuts on
the table, eating the cashews first and eventually making my way to
the hazelnuts.

“
Andrew, I think Isabelle
will be good for you. She’s smart. She’ll do well in this
industry,” Anson said out of the blue.

Where did that come from? I wondered.
Did Andrew say something? Did Stephen? I didn’t believe a comment
like this could come from nowhere. I had just met Anson, so how
would he have known I would do well in this industry? Stephen must
have said something, I concluded.

“
I know. That’s why I hired
her,” Andrew replied with a straight face but he sounded
disingenuous. He then patted me on the back, which was out of
character. I wanted to believe him, but at that moment I
didn’t.

Sarcastically, Anson replied, “Yeah,
okay Andrew. She’s also smart, and that’s all I am
saying.”

Why were they having this conversation
in front me? They spoke about me in the third person as though I
wasn’t right there.

Andrew excused himself to the men’s
room, again. I was relieved that he left. It was the first time
Anson and I had been alone to talk.

“
Anson, is that true what
you said to Andrew about me and my hire?”

“
Stephen’s told me about
you. So, no, your looks are not the only reason he hired you.
Although I think it helps.” I wondered how Stephen had described
me.

“
Listen, that idiot is busy
either making money or front-running Stephen or any other client of
his for that matter, that he definitely needs help finding craftier
ways to cheat the Street.”

I didn’t know what “front running”
meant.

“
Listen, if I had the choice
of going to dinner with any of my five-year traders, I’d rather go
to dinner with a girl than a guy. And
anyone
over Andrew. Why do you think
that every salesperson you know isn’t ugly? It’s just human nature,
but you have to understand that and accept it. It’s Wall Street. It
is what it is. The ugly ones don’t get to see clients because the
clients don’t want to see the ugly ones.
Comprende
?”

I thought about what he said and
reflected back on our own trading floor. He was right.

Randomly, Anson blurted, “Hey! Did you
know that sharks with bipolar disorder have shorter life spans?” he
asked.

“
No. Really?” I
asked.

He laughed. “No, I just made that up.
But funny, right?”

“
No, but did you know that
one in three snake-bite victims is drunk? And of them, one in five
are tattooed?” Anson said with confidence.

“
You lying
again?”

“
No. Seriously, it’s true.
Did you know that 35 percent of the people using personal ads for
dating are already married?”

“
That I believe. What
percent of them are on Wall Street?” I asked.

“
Probably all of them,” he
responded.

We both laughed and toasted our wine
glasses.

Stephen and Andrew returned to the
group.

“
I’m hungry. Want to eat?”
Stephen asked Anson and me without looking at Andrew.

“
I can’t. I told my wife I’d
be home at nine. Got to leave soon to catch the train,” Andrew
replied.

Stephen laughed. “Dude. Go home. You
weren’t even invited.”

Andrew didn’t say anything—and seemed
to have no reaction to Stephen’s bluntness.

“
You, however, have no
choice,” Stephen said directly to me. “Come! We’ll go somewhere
around here. Where would you like to go, Isabelle? Vong?” Stephen
urged. I looked over my shoulder trying to come up with an excuse
to not go. “Um. Well…” I started to say.

Stephen noticed my
hesitation.

“
Bring a friend along if you
want,” Anson said who seemed to also notice my
reluctance.

I agreed finally only on the condition
that I would not have to stay out late. I still wanted to see
Jeffrey.

I called Carin, because Kim was away
with M.D. in Europe, under the guise of a financial conference.
Their relationship was becoming increasingly volatile. One week
they were together, one week they were not. Some days she was
elated, other days she was depressed.

Carin was home watching Sex and the
City episodes on DVD while her boyfriend was still at work or
“wherever he pretends he is.” I knew she wouldn’t refuse my offer
to eat at a nice restaurant.

“
Vong? Whoever these friends
are, keep ‘em! Be there soon,” Carin said.

“
We’re going with Him,” I
said. Carin and I referred to Stephen as “Him,” our code word
around Andrew.

“
Ohhhh. Him will be there.
Uh-huh. And you still won’t admit you like him!”

“
Whatever!” I hung up. It
was a short, blunt, and to-the-point conversation. Trading had
abbreviated my text and speech, leaving it without the frivolity of
niceties. I even began to hang up on people without saying goodbye.
Carin once said “It’s like I am still talking to you and I realize
I’m talking to myself. You’re the fastest hanger-upper there
is!”

Fifteen minutes later, Carin
arrived.

“
I see you changed,” I said,
teasing.

“
Shut up. I had to rush
here. And I did change. It’s just that this outfit looks like the
other one.”

We both laughed.

Vong, a midtown restaurant, was
decorated in an Asian-inspired theme, a fusion between Saigon and
Bangkok. The scent of lemongrass was pervasive. It somewhat
reminded me of home.

We walked past waiting patrons lined
up at the maitre’d’s station.

“
Reservation was for four,
right, sir?” the host asked Stephen.

“
You’re sneaky! You made
reservations beforehand?” I nudged him as we walked to our table.
He grinned devilishly.

We were led to a banquet table near
the back of the restaurant.

“
Let’s order,” said Stephen
excitedly as he flipped through the overly decorated
menu.

He ordered a bottle of Dom Perignon
and a tasting menu for all of us.

“
You’ve found an M.D.,”
Carin whispered to me. “Him.” She indicated Stephen with her
eyes.

“
No way!” I said, loud
enough for Stephen and Anson to look up. “He’s a client!” I said
when they went back to their conversation.

“
Just saying,” Carin said.
“Good to have clients like that.” She winked. I smiled
back.

“
Hey, no whispering,” Anson
said. “You have to share with the rest of the table.”

“
I was just saying that I
have never been here and it’s fun,” Carin said to cover for
us.

We rapidly consumed the champagne.
Stephen raised his hand and gestured to the waiter for another of
the same bottle before we finished our second course.

Carin and I looked at each other and
smiled.

At the end of the dinner, without
having looked at the bill, Stephen reached for his pocket from his
well-tailored jacket and handed over his black American express
card.

“
Is that what they call a
black card? I heard about that when I first got here, but never
knew what it was,” I said.

“
Well, you’re about the only
New York girl that doesn’t know what this is. It’s called a
Centurion. It’s a dangerous weapon, made of titanium. A girl like
you could do a lot of damage with a card like this,” he said with a
smile.

“
What great fun. Let me know
when you guys are going to dinner again, and I’m there!” Carin
said.

“
Well, how about Vegas next
week?” Stephen said.

“
You serious?” Carin looked
at him and seemed to be trying to determine the sincerity of his
offer.

“
When it comes to Vegas, I
don’t play around.” Stephen looked to Anson. “Dude, tell
her.”