The Black & The White (25 page)

“
Look!” he told his clients.
“Nice. You’re not even wearing a bra, are you?” he said to
me.

I suddenly regretted having listened
to Kim when she advised me not to wear a bra with that shirt. I
nearly left to go buy a bra just to get Andrew to stop staring at
me. The new clients didn’t know how to react either. They looked at
each other and continued on with conversation,
uncomfortable.

“
Come on! You’ve got to
admit, they’re nice and perky.” Andrew attempted to redirect the
conversation toward me again. The hedge fund clients, thankfully,
refused to look at my chest.

The transformation from intelligent,
capable girl to one who was insecure came at an astounding speed.
Was this what Andrew had made of me? Was I just a kind of geisha
girl for him on Wall Street?

Although I wanted to leave the client
dinner, it would have been unprofessional of me to do so. Instead,
I made several trips to the bathroom to inhale some of the cocaine
I had stolen from Kim’s purse several weeks prior. She’d made no
mention of its disappearance.

The dinner finished early, around
eight thirty in the evening. I called Carin and Kim who were at a
pub in the Meatpacking District. I took a cab and met up with
them.

“
How are things, baby
cakes?” Kim asked. I hadn’t spoken to either of them in
days.

“
Fucking boss!” I growled.
Kim and Carin then looked at each other.

“
Sounds serious,” Carin
said.

“
I mean, I didn’t think he
was like that when I first started.” I watched them look at each
other as if to say I told you so.

“
Oh, you haven’t heard the
worst of it yet. You get all types on Wall Street,” Carin said. I
wondered if she was defending Andrew. “I even had my boss once tell
me that he would give me an additional year-end bonus if I slept
with him.” Kim nodded in agreement.

“
You’re seriously defending
this guy, Carin?” I said. “You sleep with him and you defend him?
That totally sucks.” I was frustrated yet somewhat reassured that
such advances by bosses weren’t happening only to me. Both Kim and
Carin had obviously experienced comments like the ones I regularly
was getting from Andrew. Although it was nice to know I was not
alone, it still was not alleviating. What it was, however, was
clarifying.

Kim interrupted. “Listen, at least
he’s just suggesting all of this stuff and not really acting on
it.” She looked at me and then reached over to give me a hug across
the empty bar.

“
I think the best thing to
do is just accept it and move on. Wall Street isn’t going to
change,” Carin said as she took a sip from her glass of red wine.
“It’s just the way it’s going to be.” Carin paused and thought a
while. “So stop your complaining and have a drink. Too bad there is
no such thing as a cute boss or else none of us would be
complaining.”

The pub was starting to fill up with
thirsty men in suits. I felt I had consumed my fair share of
alcohol.

“
Tomorrow it’s supposed to
be nice out. Let’s do something outside,” Carin suggested. “Hey,
Kim, do you think we can go out on M.D.’s boat?”

I looked over at Kim. Her face looked
strange. She wasn’t smiling. “Is everything okay?” I
asked.

“
Yeah, I don’t know. I think
this is it,” she quickly explained. “It’s over.”

“
Okay, Kim, you like him.
You just had a fight,” I said, trying to reassure her.

“
I mean, why did he take me
to London if he was going to fucking ditch me and lie to me? Men
suck,” Kim said as she took another drink from her red wine glass.
She was on the verge of tears. Looking at her closely, I realized
it was obvious she had been crying earlier. “I can’t believe I fell
in love with him.”

Carin and I looked at each other. Had
we just heard her say that?

I ordered another round of drinks
before I headed to the ladies room to do another line for a
pick-me-up. One thing I had learned in New York was that alcohol
consumption cured sadness and coke cured shyness. Those were the
reasons half of New York was always drunk, drinking, or doing
drugs.

When I returned, I heard Kim saying to
Carin, “I guess one good thing is that I didn’t end up fucking
pregnant like Jessica.”

“
Wait! Jessica is pregnant?”
I asked. I had not heard Jessica’s name since the incident in the
office. Kim had only briefly mentioned that Jessica had quit soon
after and was going to be living with her parents on the West
Coast.

“
Yup. And guess who the
father is?” Kim replied.

“
No freaking way! Oh, my
God. That is bad. How far along is she?” I asked.

“
I don’t know. She found out
a couple of months ago. She’s going to keep the baby, I think,” Kim
explained.

“
Who’s Jessica again?” Carin
asked.

“
Butterface,” I quickly
explained. Carin laughed. She knew precisely whom I was referring
to.

“
So, wait. Where is she
now?” I asked. “Does Dover know? Does his wife know?”

“
I don’t know why anyone
would sleep with him more than once. He was the worst in bed,”
Carin said.

I hadn’t known she’d slept with
Dover.

“
I don’t know about Dover. I
don’t think they talk anymore.”

The bartender arrived with a bottle of
wine. “It’s from those guys at the other end of the bar,” he
explained. We turned around and smiled and waved to thank
them.

“
I love hanging with you
ladies,” Carin said. “I get free stuff all the time.

I wondered if I should tell them both
about Stephen and the kiss, but decided to wait for a better time.
Kim had a lot on her plate as it was. There was no reason to have
her worry about me, so I changed the subject back to Andrew, my
second sore spot of contention.

“
If you need female
reinforcement, just call us. You know we’ll be there anytime to
support you,” Kim said.

“
And plus, free dinners and
good wine. I don’t care who is there. I want to be fed!” Carin
rubbed her belly.

I teased Carin about Andrew, hoping
that she would confess to Kim what had happened in Vegas. We had
met several times after Vegas, but Carin had made no mention of her
illicit affair with my boss, although I had already told Kim what
had happened.

Carin grinned with guilt. “What do you
mean? I have no idea what you are talking about.” She gave a guilty
smile.

“
Something happened in Vegas
that people aren’t telling me?” Kim probed.

“
Carin will have to tell
you.” I winked at Carin.

Carin gently shoved me. “Come on.
You’re the one who should be telling everyone something,
Isabelle.”

Kim looked at me, and I quickly looked
away. I couldn’t imagine that Carin would be able to see through
me. Did she know I used cocaine?.

“
I have to go. Feeling a bit
too buzzed. You guys are coming to the dinner tomorrow with the
clients, right?” I asked.

“
Of course! I would love to
meet this infamous boss of yours,” Kim said.

On my way home, I decided to stop at
Jeffrey’s restaurant to say hello. To get there, I walked through
the garment district, where racks of individually plastic-wrapped
garments were being transported via truck or onto rolling racks.
Colorful banners that hung from lampposts read “WELCOME TO THE
GARMENT DISTRICT.” People in vans double-parked next to stores and
loaded their vehicles up with imitation perfume, toys, fake
designer bags, and an array of cheaply made Chinese imports. It was
easy to forget that New York had working-class citizens.

Outside the Biltmore Room, I found
Jeffrey sitting on the dirty, urine-scented street curb looking
pensive as he drank coffee from a travel mug. “You’ve missed me
that much? I didn’t mean to drive you to alcoholism,” I
said.

“
Hey, Isabelle!” He stood
up. I could tell he was happy to see me. “I did miss you,” he said
as he kissed my forehead.

“
You seemed like you were in
deep thought,” I said.

“
Yeah, just sitting here and
watching people and enjoying the weather. In about twenty minutes,
I’m going to the Chelsea Piers. You want to come? Are you
busy?”

It was late, but Chelsea Piers was
only twenty blocks away from my apartment.

“
Sure thing,” I
answered.

I hadn’t been to Chelsea Piers since
the day I’d kissed M.D.’s friend, Peter, on the boat. That thought
led me to think of kissing Stephen in Vegas. Two married
men.

“
They have a bar there, so
you can have a drink if you want,” Jeffrey said. “We could also
bring a bottle of wine and sit in my friend’s boat.”

Jeffrey went to the kitchen of the
restaurant and prepared a small picnic basket filled with
antipasti, tuna tartare, cheeses, and wine while I waited at the
bar. We went to the Piers, found his friend’s boat, which wasn’t as
large as Peter’s boat, and sat on its cushioned seats. I looked
around to try to find Peter’s boat but couldn’t. I wondered if he
was out with other girls. Then I wondered whether he was out with
his wife.

“
Who’s thinking now,
Isabelle?” asked Jeffrey. “Looks like you’ve got your gerbils on
overdrive,” he said, unloading the basket. He handed me a glass of
wine in a plastic cup. I couldn’t think of drinking anymore but
forced myself to.

“
No, just enjoying the
view,” I replied. “You’re not drinking?”

“
Nope. I am trying to be
healthy. This industry will kill you with alcoholism if you don’t
watch it.”

“
I thought everyone in New
York was an alcoholic,” I said wryly.

“
Then you haven’t met many
people in New York,” he added defensively. He seemed suddenly
serious.

A large dinner boat passed in front of
us.

“
You’ve been hanging out too
long with Kimmie,” Jeffrey said.

“
Well, she’s my best
friend,” I replied as we rocked back and forth in the larger boat’s
wake.

The water glistened like sparkles
during the Fourth of July. The clouds were illuminated around the
edges.

“
Yeah, she’s wonderful. She
used to be so sweet when we first started dating,” he
said.

“
What?” I asked. “You and
Kim dated? When?”

Why would Kim not have told
me?

“
A while back. We didn’t
date for very long. Maybe a year and a half or something,” Jeffrey
explained.

“
Kim never told me that.
Ever!” I said. I wondered why Kim had encouraged me to date
Jeffrey.

Jeffrey explained that he’d met Kim
while she was still in college in Boston. He moved back to Boston
after he left his high-profile Wall Street position. He was opening
his first restaurant at the time. He noticed Kim, a sweet-looking
girl with glasses and a ponytail who was studying feverishly at a
café during one of his coffee breaks. It was hard to imagine Kim as
nerdy, but there were many facets of her that I hadn’t yet
discovered. I wondered what Kim was like in college. Had she been
like me—kind of quiet?

Jeffrey and Kim dated seriously her
senior year of college, and she helped him open the
restaurant.

“
I don’t think she even
started drinking until we came to New York,” he said.

“
You two lived with each
other? You two came to New York together?”

“
I came back to New York
four months after her to open another restaurant. I don’t know. I
guess she and I got busy with our own things. She started to change
a lot, partying, drinking, that type of stuff. I was just consumed
with opening my restaurant.”

“
Biltmore Room?” I
asked.

“
No, another
one.”

I hadn’t realized he owned more than
one restaurant. Jeffrey was so humble about everything. I admired
that most in him.

“
New York is tough on
relationships, Isabelle. We just took divergent paths. It happens,
I guess,” he said with a slight tone of regret. “She wanted a
different lifestyle. I just wanted to settle down. I’m just a
small-town Boston boy at heart.” He put his hands to his heart and
batted his lashes.

“
You silly boy,” I said
flirtatiously. I wanted to tell him he was adorable but
didn’t.

Instead, I said, “Yeah, I was dating
someone seriously in college just before I came to New
York.”

“
And…?” Jeffrey
asked.

“
Same thing, I guess. I went
to New York, and he realized that we had grown apart. He broke up
with me on the telephone.”

“
On the telephone? Ouch! But
you know what? It was probably over before you left college. You
just didn’t know it then,” Jeffrey said.

It was one in the morning. There were
no stars in the sky.

“
People just lose sight of
what is important. Your industry takes nice girls like you, eats
them up, and spits them out,” he said.