Ghosts of Manhattan: A Novel(22)
He sips again, and again with the pinky. “See, you have to understand something.” This could be the most irritating phrase in the language. He pauses to let it sink in and then regales us. “Someone like Fogg can do great on Wall Street, but you can always tell by his clubs where he really stands. He can get into National Golf Links, that’s fine. But they’ll let even Bloomberg in there. Bloomberg’s as bad a new-money as there is, and he’s Jewish. But he’s got billions and he’s working as our mayor for free. So Fogg can get in there and it’s a great club and even the best also belong. But something like Seminole? That’s aristocracy only. No Foggs allowed. Now you’re in Dinny Phipps territory. The last chief at Morgan who was also aristocracy was Parker Gilbert and I don’t think there will ever be another. It will never be Fogg anyway. He’s from goddamn Ohio.”
I doubt Oliver or his dad belongs to Seminole Golf Club either, but I won’t risk asking.
“You boys certainly enjoy talking about work,” says Sybil. I get the sense she knows I’m not enjoying it at all and is throwing me a lifeline.
I don’t grab it fast enough and Oliver continues, “No one likes what we actually do for work. We just like the trappings that come with what we do. Influence with companies and huge amounts of money, fancy dinners on expense accounts, first-class travel. The nightlife can be a draw if you’re young and into women and drugs.”
I wonder if he already knows Julia and I have friction in this area or if he just assumes.
“You’re also paid very well. That doesn’t hurt,” says Julia.
“It does and it doesn’t,” he says. “We’re paid excessively. It takes strong character to deal with excess of anything. A girl that’s too pretty, a guy that’s too handsome or smart. It can wreck a person because he doesn’t have to strive for anything. And money’s the worst. Look at these young kids trading bonds who are suddenly making millions for a bonus. They end up going bananas on the town. Once you cross a threshold of having your basic needs met, there’s actually a negative correlation between more money and more happiness. Many people just aren’t strong enough to deal with a lot of money.”
I’m so prepared to dislike Oliver that I can’t give him credit for making sense. Julia is agreeing with him with her whole body, which is also pissing me off. It makes me feel small even to think this, but I hate to see her agree with other men. It plays into all my insecurities that I’m on the wrong track. Julia’s never been one to want the biggest house or fancy things. She’d be happy with a normal life in a normal town on a normal salary. I say, “Easy for you to say, making five million bucks a year.”
“Well, not being so excessively handsome as you, it was the only way for me to get firsthand knowledge of the issue,” Oliver says.
“Why don’t you give a few million to charity every year. That should solve your problem.”
“I can’t. My character isn’t strong enough.” He laughs and the girls laugh too. Damn.
“Are you boys please going to talk about anything other than work and money?” Sybil breaks in with a laugh that shows she understands work talk is part of the deal and her role is to make sure we don’t spend more than fifty percent of our time on it. I also sense that she’s trying a second toss of a lifeline, which I appreciate.
“Of course not.” This time I seize the opportunity to get away from Oliver’s domain. “Sybil, what school did you pick for your kids on the Upper East Side?” Like starting a ball down a steep hill, I’m rewarded with easy listening all the way to the arrival of our entrées.
The way a person with a stutter can be timid in groups, I can feel that I don’t want the conversation to come back around to me. “Sure, Kent and St. George’s are also good boarding schools,” I hear my voice with detachment like a pilot watching the instruments adjust by autopilot. I’m pretty sure my comment is relevant and at the appropriate time.
It isn’t that I’m shy or that I can’t deliver on pretty words, it’s just that I have no content to offer. I can start off a topic but I’m too out of practice to maintain anything. If I were an architect, I could talk about Renaissance versus modernist styles and the Guggenheim renovations and have a civilized dinner conversation. If I were anything other than what I am, I could talk about ordinary current events in a way that people could relate to me. My problem is that my career has consumed my lifestyle. I need to unlearn and relearn human interaction. I could touch on the topics of my last few work dinners. Maybe discuss William’s theories on fidelity or that the coke dealer everyone uses just got arrested and where is everyone going to get their blow now? Sybil’s jaw would drop in her soup. At this table, I’m like a rifle with no ammunition.
Even worse would be for the conversation to come back around to the earlier type of work talk that doesn’t include strippers and hookers and cocaine but is about the actual work, where Oliver has already established the high ground. Like two silverbacks, I can feel that we have had our tussle and I lost and he is now the leader of our table of four. I look across at his pretty features that show no signs of ever forming whiskers, as though made of a smoothed putty, and I curse myself for choosing the type of career where Oliver can be a king. There’s a new kind of Darwinism and Oliver has been selected.