The Buy Side (26 page)

EIGHT MONTHS
later the city is blistering hot, concrete heat, brick heat. Opening the cab door is like opening the door of a pizza oven. There’s a Mister Softee truck parked across from me. It sells ice cream, not computer software and Xboxes. The radiated heat from the street rises in front of it. It looks like a mirage. August can be brutal in the city.

There’s a coffee shop with a large front window just down the block from my appointment. I go check my reflection to make sure I look okay. I’m wearing a black Armani sport coat and pants. A tie is standard-issue for a co-op board meeting, but I’m not wearing one. I’ve decided to live dangerously. I duck into the coffee shop to kill some time. Since I’m early, I order an iced coffee and sit at the counter. The shop is small. I imagine myself on Saturday or Sunday mornings coming in to get some coffee and all the employees saying: “Hey, Turney.” I drink half of the coffee and check my phone for the time. I
still have about five minutes until the meeting. I put five dollars on the counter and make my way outside.

Out in the heat, I hit my speed dial for my new girlfriend, Jenn, and wait for her to pick up. “Hey, I’m about to go in,” I say.

“You’ll do great,” she says in her positive tone, a survival instinct she’s acquired from a career filled with personal rejection. “They’ll love you.” There’s an uncomfortable pause when she says that. Jenn has changed my life. She’s been my girlfriend now for almost seven months, and we’ve been flirting with using the word “love” for the last couple. I’ve been joking with her that the first time I say it will be in a text message. She doesn’t think it’s funny. But I don’t let that stop me. I’ll text one letter at a time, I tell her. I might even let her buy a vowel. I say goodbye and hang up. I make my way to the building and knock gently three times. I can hear some commotion inside, but I’m not sure if they heard my knock. I wait.

“I”
I met Jenn on a blind date. My cousin Ethan is a friend of a friend of hers—a girl who used to work with her. Jenn is a singer and backed up Enrique Iglesias on tour. She actually got fired from the gig because of jealousy. Iglesias was—maybe still is—dating the tennis babe Anna Kournikova, who, according to Jenn, thought her boyfriend’s backup was upstaging her in the looks department. Jenn said that Anna even took to throwing Jolly Rancher candies at her from her seat by the stage. Jenn is so beautiful, she’s caused at least one car accident I know of, and probably more. One look at her and you forget you’re driving.

Back in front of the door at the co-op office, I knock a little harder. This time they had to have heard it. A few seconds later the door is opened by an older gentleman with coiffed white hair. He welcomes me in with a thin smile. The room is not very impressive. It’s a cross between an unorganized office and a maintenance room. There are
stacks of paper all over the desk and several filing cabinets mixed in with some tools and broken furniture. The building, 27 Bleecker, was built in 1910 as a fabric mill. In the 1980s some tenants banded together to buy it. It’s seven stories high, and along with this co-op office, the ground floor houses an art studio. It makes you laugh. This is supposedly an “artists’ building,” but the apartments sell for a couple million apiece. It’s a good guess that not a lot of the people who live here are painting portraits in Washington Square Park for a living. There are two apartments per floor—the “A” line ones are around 1,100 square feet, and the “B” apartments on the north side of the building are all around 2,200 square feet. I want 5B. It’s listed at $1.8 million, but we agree on $1.75.

“I L”
On the night of our blind date Jenn and I made plans to meet at Bread, a cute, tiny restaurant on Spring Street. I was dressed in a button-down shirt that wasn’t tucked in, jeans, and flip-flops. My hair was long and tangled. She walked in like a vision: long, luxurious light brown hair, radiant eyes, and full lips. She was wearing a dress that was just a rhinestone or two short of an evening gown. I lost my swagger. I felt like an awkward teen talking to a girl for the first time. The restaurant was crowded and overheated. I asked her if she’d mind if we went to another place a few blocks away. She was game, and we hustled out the door. When in doubt, go to Mexican Radio. The food is great and margaritas even better. We must have had a half dozen of them apiece, but I’d begun to fall for her before I finished the first. We remember two different versions of what happened at the end of the night. She says I shoved her in a cab and ran back into the bar to drink. However, I distinctly remember telling myself that if I tried to hook up with her I might ruin the best chance I’ve ever had. I kissed her on the cheek, put her in the cab, and told her I’d call her the next day. The perfect gentleman. Then I walked back to the bar and got
properly drunk. The very next morning I gave her a call—and every other day after that.

The co-op board consists of six middle-aged men and women who sit on one side of the table, and I take a seat facing them. I decide to take off my sport jacket and hang it on the back of the chair. I unbutton my sleeves and roll them up. I try to sit comfortably, somewhere between formal and relaxed. I want to convey that I’m professional and mature, but also relaxed and easygoing. I want to be someone they’d feel comfortable borrowing a cup of sugar from. The thought makes me laugh. On Laight Street they’d have a better chance of borrowing a cup of blow.

“I LO”
I think it was on our third date when Jenn asked if I just wanted to be friends. She was concerned because I hadn’t put the moves on her yet. I thought I was playing it cool. I didn’t want her to get the impression that I just wanted to get into her pants; she’s more of a skirt girl anyway. And all the time, she was wondering when I was going to make the move. She actually called one of her ex-boyfriends (who is now gay) to ask his advice. “We have such a great connection,” she exclaimed, exasperated. Her gay ex-boyfriend’s advice was to straight up ask me—so she did. I practically pulled Jenn out of the restaurant and into the taxi to her apartment.

My application sits in front of each of the co-op board members. A few pairs of glasses go on. Next to the older gentleman with the coiffed hair sits a heavyset guy in a black Megadeth T-shirt that is stretched to its limit over his belly. “So,” the large guy says. “What’s a Fatburger?” On my application, under “other investments” I listed the million dollars that I’d recently sunk into the fast-food franchise. It’s a West Coast chain and we’re bringing it east.

“Casual dining,” I say, as offhandedly as I can. I tell him we had a grand opening for our first store in Jersey City last week. “There are
more stores to come,” I say, trying to sound businessman-like. I notice that he’s hanging on my every word.

“So if we approve you, do we get burgers?” he asks.

“Of course,” I say with an uneasy smile. But he’s not smiling at all. He looks like he’s going to eat my application.

The older gent wants to go over my salary: “At Argus?” he says, in sort of a half-suspicious, half-pretentious way. I tell him my base is two hundred k a year, but I also have a percentage of the firm’s management fee. I uncross and recross my legs. I don’t have to tell him the number; it’s in the financials of my application. I know he sees it. Even though he’s trying hard not to show it, I know he knows money isn’t an issue.

“I LOV”
After the first time I made love with Jenn, I knew things were about to be different. I’d never felt this way about someone before. I started thinking about her at work, and even after. I’d go to the White House and find myself wondering what she was doing. Even the guys noticed. More than once, Randy and Gus asked me what was going on. They even seemed a little worried that my life was going to change too much. A steady girl is one thing, but what if I got married and moved to Westchester? What would they do then? Who would they entertain?

The youngest person on the board happens to be a woman; she looks like she wishes it were still 1976. She’s not the most attractive woman in the world, but definitely a free spirit. She’s now smiling at me. I’ve just figured out that they are taking turns asking questions. “Tell me, Turney,” she says, like she’s on some kind of dating show. “What do you like to do in your spare time?” Is this where I’m supposed to talk about booze, drugs, sex, and pornography? But that was the old Turney. The new Turney has a girlfriend.

“I like to go out to dinner with my friends, read, play sports,” I say.
“Oh, and I’m a huge movie guy. I love movies.” She’s looking at me as if she’s expecting me to ask her to one.

“I LOVE”
Jenn was worried she was coming between me and my roommates. “They’ll be fine,” I assured her. I’d lived with Jason for almost ten years—just about the length of my Wall Street career. And Ethan is family. Besides, it’s not as if I’m throwing them out in the street. They both have girlfriends and plans of their own. “I just don’t want them to be mad at me,” Jenn said. But the thing is, I’m the one who’s just a little upset. Although they never asked for it, I’ve spent a lot of money on them and our apartment, and I never really felt they were grateful enough. It’s my own fault. I’m the one who told them not to worry. “It’s all good,” I tell Jenn. And it really has been since I met her.

“Why should we approve your application?” the co-op board head is saying. Good question. And just for a moment I’m quiet while I think about my answer. Ten years ago I was living as the third guy in a two-bedroom, and now I’m buying a $1.75 million apartment. At the rate I’m going, five years from now I’ll be able to buy the whole building. I look at each of the board members one by one. If I’m supposed to be nervous, I’m not. My morning meetings are more stressful than this. But the last thing I want to do is come across as arrogant. The truth is, I want this apartment. I want it for Jenn.

“I understand the process, and why it’s so important for you to be careful. It’s not only the financial concerns—which are paramount, I know—but you’ve undoubtedly worked hard, and sacrificed a lot for this building, and want to protect your considerable investments. Who am I? I’m a stranger. It can’t be an easy decision. I respect that. So let me put my cards on the table. I love this place, and I’d love to live here. And it’s more than just how great the apartment is. It’s the feeling I get when I walk through the front door of the building; it’s
the people, like you, whom I’ve already met. It’s the neighborhood. It feels like home to me. I’m not going to lie. I’ve been single for a lot of years, working on Wall Street, and I’ve made good money. And I did exactly what you’d expect a single guy with money to do. But those days are over. I’m almost thirty-five. I’ve met a girl; we’re in love. I’m ready for the next chapter in my life. And I can’t think of a better place to write it than right here.”

As I look around the room again, every set of eyes is trained on me. The seventies chick looks like she might cry. “I’m not going to sit here and give you a hard sell,” I say. “I’d like to thank you for your time and the opportunity to meet with you. If you don’t think I’m the right fit, then you should deny my application.” I sit up a little straighter in my chair. “That’s what I’d want you to do if I lived here,” I say. “You have to be sure.” At this point I’m kind of shocked that they haven’t handed me the keys already.

It was Jenn who found the apartment on Bleecker. My two-year lease on the Laight Street triplex is up in October, and it’s time for me to put on my big boy pants and get my own place. Jenn never really voiced her opinion about my moving. That is, until she saw me looking at fifteen-thousand-dollar-a-month rentals in Tribeca. That’s when she intervened. “Why are you throwing all that money away on rent?” she asked. I just shrugged. I hadn’t given it much thought.

The older gent stands up to signal that the interview has concluded. I thank each of them and look them directly in the eye as I do. Outside, the heat has abated not one bit. I walk down the block and light up a cigarette on the corner of Bleecker and Lafayette. I’m going to love this neighborhood. It’s real. It hasn’t lost its grittiness the way the Meatpacking District has. There’s Planned Parenthood across the street, next to a homeless shelter, which is across the street from several posh restaurants. It’s perfect.