Ghosts of Manhattan: A Novel(16)

Julia gets off her stool and gets between me and this thing. Her movement is slow and nonthreatening. She just places herself there, which doesn’t surprise me at all. Julia always gets my back. She always fights for me first and only later does she ever wonder whether or not I was in the right. I love that about her.

“Your boyfriend took my husband’s seat, and he knew it. My husband just taught him some manners.”

The thing puts a finger right in Julia’s face. “First of all, bitch, he’s not my boyfriend. Second of all,” and she wags the finger, “why don’t you shut your mouth before I smack you?”

Julia doesn’t flinch from the finger wag. She doesn’t even look at it but keeps eye contact and her expression only gets more calm. It’s clear the girl is waiting for a response from Julia and it’s clear Julia is about to give one. “Why don’t you . . . pluck your eyebrows?”

The conversation pauses like a needle scratch and we all look at the thing’s eyebrows. They stand out as pencil thin against her thick head of hair. They look perfectly waxed. Impeccable.

The girl’s eyes seem to roll back to get a look and check in on the eyebrows too. Her face looks terrified.

The guy with the tweaked nose lets out a moan and looks at the floor. “Oh, God.”

The wagging finger is long since back to her body and playing defense. She turns on a heel and runs back to the girls’ room. Two other girls from a table nearby run in after her. The nose guy retreats back to a table and Julia and I are left standing alone, shoulder to shoulder, as though everyone else had just been carried off by a tornado.

“My hero.”

She looks at me. “I couldn’t have you trading blows with that insane person.”

“Should we get out of here before round three?”

We turn back to the bar. It’s pay as you go here so we have a small pile of cash on the bar top that has been changed back. I pick up a few bills to figure out a tip, then decide just to put them all back down. We take a last sip of beer and before we can get away from the stools, the women’s room door opens and the Italian girl comes out with mascara spread around her eyes and goes directly for the exit, followed by one of her girlfriends. The guy at the table gets up and goes after them. The last girl comes over to us.

“I’m sorry, but I have to know. How did you know to say that? What made you say it? We just looked at her eyebrows in the mirror. They look fine.”

Julia shrugs. I guess she isn’t going to explain her genius.

“There’s nothing else you could have said that would level her like that.”

Julia isn’t gloating but she isn’t saying anything either. I offer, “Is she going to be okay?”

The girl nods, still amazed at the exchange. “I think so.” She turns for the exit after her friends.

Julia sits back down. “Another drink?”

“On me, darlin’.”





6 | WIVES


November 20, 2005

WILLIAM LIVES IN MURRAY HILL WITH HIS FIANCéE, Jen. It’s a new high-rise, doorman building on Twenty-ninth Street. Everything is new and nice in those buildings but they have no character, just a set of box-shaped rooms stacked next to each other, and it feels sterile.

He invited us to this dinner party forever ago, so it’s hard to avoid. I’m always rude about asking who else is invited to these sorts of things because I like to prepare for how much of a nightmare the evening might be. These nights are always lousy for Julia but relative to other work dinners this shouldn’t be too bad. William and Jen are hosting me and Julia, Jerry Cavanaugh and his wife, Alison, and Conrad Bradbury and his wife, Janice.

The night seems like a butt-kissing opportunity for William to advance his career. The title hierarchy at Bear goes associate, senior associate, VP, director, managing director. William’s a senior associate, which is normal for a young guy. Jerry and I are managing directors. Conrad is a trader on the foreign exchange desk and is either a VP or director. William is always networking, which is why he’s a natural sales guy.

I don’t know Conrad Bradbury very well. He’s a southern guy and seems to come from money. He likes to wear seersucker around to claim his southern roots. His southern accent is softened and refined by years of living in the North. He’s skinny and sort of frail but not in a feminine way and he has blond hair that he’s always touching. He never runs his fingers through it, he just smooths it over with his palms.

Conrad and Janice get to the lobby at the same time as we do. He and I are both holding a bottle of wine. Conrad’s a good-looking guy and I would have thought that with the money he’s making he’d have a hot wife, but Janice is just sort of average.

That’s the funny thing about Wall Street wives. There are almost no tens. They all have plenty of money, so they dress well and have expensive handbags. They go to the gym and are usually pretty toned. They compete on looks as best they can, but you almost never see a ten. When someone on Wall Street has a hot wife, it’s a big deal and talked about. It’s rare enough that people at Bear know which guy at which firm does. Nobody trading at Bear does, though Julia is talked about some. Nobody on the desks at Goldman or Chappy does. There’s a guy at Merrill.

Janice is just finishing her cigarette. She takes a final drag, which nearly ignites the filter, then snubs it out in a trash can by the elevator.