The Black & The White (39 page)

There was a knock on the door. “Close
it up. We’re closing down,” someone said through the
door.

Like clockwork, the girls started to
put their clothes back on. We did too.

“
Don’t go yet,” Miranda
whined. She invited Stephen and me back to her
apartment.

“
Darling, here is my address
and number.” She handed me a napkin with her scribbles on it. “I
will be home at five. Please come over.” She placed her lips onto
my mouth. “Take this.” She then reached for my hand, and I watched
as she put several hundred-dollar bills into my palm. “See you in
an hour, okay?”

“
Um. You take it. I don’t
work here. Thanks so much, though,” I said as I handed the money
back to her.

“
Oh, darling. But you did
such a great job. Are you sure?” she asked as she lightly touched
my nipples.

“
Um, yeah, I’m sure. But
thanks,” I said.

Stephen drew one more line of cocaine
on the table with the lights on before we left the club. “Stephen,
she invited us back to her place in an hour. Should we go?” I
whispered in his ear.

“
Of course. But we have to
get rid of Anson. Let me take care of it.”

Anson looked at his watch. “God, I
have investor meetings in like three hours. I am so dead.” He took
the car service back to the hotel while Stephen and I waited
outside for a yellow cab to take us to SoHo.

In the car, I told Stephen how the
stripper had attempted to hand me a tip.

“
Are you serious?” he said
with a strange smirk on his face.

I didn’t like his reaction. Part of me
was still angry with him from earlier in the evening. I wanted a
different reaction, not the one I received. I pushed his hands away
from around my shoulders. He didn’t realize I was
perturbed.

We stopped at the local deli to pass
some time as we waited for Miranda. Stephen assessed the various
condoms behind the counter. There was an array of choices and
flavors. “I’ll just get the Magnum.” Stephen laughed and then
reached for me and kissed the crown of my head.

I scoured the shelves for snacks,
wondering what Miranda might like to nibble on. Stephen was not
much into junk food, so I considered healthy alternatives. I
settled on Barbeque Baked Lays.

Stephen was at the counter drinking a
bottle of Gatorade. “We need to hydrate ourselves so we don’t get
hung over in the morning.”

“
Stephen, it’s already
morning,” I said as I drank from the bottle.

“
Amazing. I was drunk and
hungover in one day without sleeping. Incredible.” He reached for
the bag of chips and opened it. “Good choice. The breakfast of
champions.”

I was getting hungry as well. It had
been a while since I had eaten. The irony of eating something as
mundane as potato chips while waiting for a stripper seemed like a
scene only made for the movies.

“
You done?” the man behind
the counter asked.

Stephen looked at me. “Anything else
you want, baby?” He asked.

I shook my head as I continued to eat
the chips. Suddenly, Stephen’s phone rang. I worried it was his
wife again, but it was Miranda, telling us to come over.

It was almost five a.m. but was still
dark out. The streets of SoHo were quiet—nothing moved except a
street-cleaning truck in the distance. I started to wonder why I
was here. I would much rather be home, but looking at Stephen, I
knew he wanted this to happen. I did it for him.

T
hat morning, I was late for work, but I didn’t care. I set
down my coffee and checked for messages.

“
Carin called,” Andrew
said.

I checked for my email when I got to
work for messages. Stephen still hadn’t written me. I was a bit
aggravated, wondering if he was still with Miranda. I scrolled
through news articles and events to see if anything had happened.
It was a bad time to have been late. The Federal Reserve chairman
had stated that the economy might not need deep tax
cuts.

Phones began to ring incessantly. I
was hung over and ill-prepared. The rush of the morning had
temporarily cured my ailments. I yearned to do several lines to
stay alert, but I couldn’t leave my desk.

By the late afternoon, things began to
quiet down. I finally had time to eat and call Carin during the
lull. Stephen had called several times to trade. We didn’t get a
chance to talk much, but at least I knew he was at work.

Carin met me after work at the deli
across the street. We sat at the tables upstairs.

I wanted to tell her everything—about
Stephen, about the drugs, about the previous night, about Kim. I
was exhausted from all of the lying. I looked at Carin, who looked
back at me with a sisterly stare.

“
You look like hell,” she
commented.

I knew she was right. I felt like hell
both inside and out.

“
Late night. It was a bit
too much. I still haven’t slept,” I said.

“
So you know about me dating
Jeffrey and David…” I paused apprehensively. Telling the truth was
scary. “Well, I didn’t tell you about Stephen.”

“
Let me guess, you’re
sleeping with him?”

“
How did you know? Is it
that obvious?” I asked.

“
Sweetheart, no guy is that
overly attentive to you unless you are doing the horizontal mambo
between the sheets,” she said, making light of my admission. “And
plus, as much as you hide this shit, people can tell. They can
sense that stuff. For better or worse, you two have great sexual
energy. Tension. It’s obvious.”

I exhaled a deep sigh. “Don’t worry
about it, Isabelle. We’ve all done it. We’re human, woman. We make
mistakes.”

“
Yeah, I don’t know how I
feel. I do think I kind of like him.” I had never said this
aloud.

“
You like him? Oh shit.
You’re fucked.” Carin shook her head. “You’ve been marinating in
this stuff for a while, haven’t you?”

Carin didn’t seem to expect a response
from me. I looked up at her and gave her hug. Although I was
holding back my tears, I couldn’t control the few that managed to
fall on my cheeks.

“
I just don’t know if he
likes me. The asymmetry is hard.”

“
Isabelle, love. You have no
right to ask him that. I don’t want to sound like a bitch, but that
man is married.”

My throat tightened when I heard the
reference to his being married. Ignorance was bliss.

“
He had his hand up Kim’s
skirt yesterday.” The more I thought about the night, the angrier I
became. “She sat on his fucking lap!”

“
Jesus. Kim? There are some
lines you just don’t cross in friendship. That is one of them. But
you can’t forgive him either, Isabelle.”

I looked up at Carin. Why couldn’t
I?

“
This is going to be a
longer conversation. Let’s get out of here and go to that small
restaurant you like. What is the name? Serafina?”

I nodded, wiping my tears. I was
thankful she was patient, listening to me confess. Still, I went to
the bathroom to do some lines. I took a few more than
usual.

While we were in the cab en route to
the restaurant, my nose began to bleed. Carin took a napkin from
her purse and wiped my nose. I apologized.

“
Cocaine?” she asked. I
nodded. I felt defeated.

Carin sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me
what was going on with you, Isabelle? I am a friend. This is what
friends do. It’s not a one-way street. You have to be able to trust
on me and lean on me when you can. A friend in need is a friend
indeed.”

I leaned over and gave her a hug. “I’m
sorry,” I said. I wanted to cry again.

We arrived at the restaurant, and
Carin immediately ordered two glasses of wine. “It’s been a
loooooong day,” she told the bartender. I smiled at her.

“
How often are you doing
drugs?” she asked when the bartender left. I told her I did drugs
every day.

“
Do you do it at
work?”

I wanted to lie to her. I could tell
by her voice that I should say no. It had never occurred to me that
it was worse to do at work.

I nodded yes. “But it’s not as bad as
it seems.”

“
Isabelle, I’m not trying to
be a bitch here. I am your friend. But look at you. You are bone
thin. You do drugs nearly every day. At work, even! You do it by
yourself, and you hide it. You have all the excuses in the world.
You can’t go a day without doing it. I think that’s a
problem.”

I took several large gulps from my
wine.

“
I mean, it’s no wonder you
are feeling down. You’ve created a lonely world for yourself, love.
God! I feel so guilty that I didn’t even notice,” she
said.

I began to cry into my hand. “I just
don’t know what to do.”

“
Yes, you do, Isabelle. You
are strong. You know what you need to do.”

But I didn’t.

“
My whole world is in
upheaval. My friends, my boyfriend, my work, my self. Nothing is
going right.” I sobbed

“
Get ahold of yourself,
babe. First of all, Stephen is not your boyfriend. Second of all,
you are going to get promoted. Third, you have me. I am your
friend. You are fine.”

I hadn’t told Carin about
work.

“
Well, there’s
more.”

I confessed about the illegal activity
Andrew and I were doing in order to inflate his books in exchange
for my promotion. “We’re passing off losses to the other book,
front-running Stephen, and passing the losses on to him. We’re
about $750 million in the hole. Andrew just can’t stop trading.
Work is out of control also. He’s addicted to trading illegally,
and I am going to get in trouble. I can’t even tell anyone without
getting implicated.”

Carin was shocked.

“
Jesus, Isabelle. You think
you’ll get in trouble? Oh, my God, Isabelle. I don’t know what to
say.”

She questioned me about the
losses.

“
Risk management should have
been calling you. Have they? You can’t lose that much money without
alerting the bank, Isabelle. Something doesn’t sound right
here.”

I explained that I didn’t know the
extent of the fraudulent activity and had limited information about
the overall situation.

“
Whatever it is, you have to
get out of that situation, Isabelle, or you will no doubt be put in
the slammer and raped by butch chicks. Forget the money, the bonus.
It’s not worth it.”

It was the end of the year and I was
waiting to hear from Andrew what my bonus numbers were. It was,
like Kim said, the reason people stayed at their miserable jobs on
Wall Street, to live for that one day when your bonus would be
announced.

• • •

Several weeks later, I got a timely
call from a headhunter named Chris. He offered me a job. It was the
season for headhunters and job seekers alike. Bonus numbers have a
way of shifting people around. My bonus number was insultingly low
at $15,000. I overheard the secretary complaining about her $30,000
bonus. That was the last insult I would take from
Andrew.

“
Listen, Isabelle. I’ll get
to the point. I’m looking for a junior trader to work with me and
you came highly recommended by several people. Would you like to
meet and hear more?” Chris, the headhunter, asked.

I needed a cleansing and a new life. I
said yes.

Andrew was out that Friday to attend a
parent-teacher conference in Connecticut. He called in
periodically.

“
What’s going on in the
markets?” he asked.

“
Nothing much.” I recapped
the trading activity over the phone.

“
On a more important note,
so what are you wearing? Anything sexy?”

“
I have to go.”

I hung up the phone. Immediately, I
called Chris back and asked if we could meet that day. We met at
The Four Seasons Hotel lobby in midtown, several blocks away from
my office.

After several meetings with Chris and
the new employer, I decided to take the job. It was a promotion
from where I was, with a salary increase. I felt liberated. I no
longer needed Andrew.

I came in late to work on
Monday.

“
Where the hell were you?
I’ve been calling you,” Andrew snapped.

“
I had a doctor’s
appointment.” I lied, reluctant to even answer him.

“
Thanks for letting me know.
Jesus. Markets are going crazy here. The Fed just announced an
interim cut. Good fucking time to go to the doctor.” We were
betting on no interest rate change. I knew we were
screwed.

I took my time getting settled in to
work. The longer I took, the angrier Andrew became.

“
Jesus fucking Christ,
Isabelle. Start unwinding trades, goddamn it!” he
screamed.