Ghosts of Manhattan: A Novel(31)
Now I’m self-conscious about looking at the girl, so I drink my beer and order another round for us.
I ask Matt about his career and he tells me about some auditions for Broadway productions and a pilot he did in L.A. that he hopes gets picked up and some actresses in their twenties that he’s dated or slept with. He tells it in a way that shows he’s happy with it. He’s not trying to convince himself that it’s more than it is, nor does he dress it up in a way that is trying to prove something to me. He has a quality that is selfish and uncompromising but is not about harming anyone.
I think about mentioning Oliver Bennett or that I met Rebecca James but decide not to. He doesn’t know them and they shouldn’t matter to me.
The conversation comes back around to my work because my misery is like a third person sitting with us whom we’ve been ignoring and whom we can’t ignore any longer.
“What specifically is it about your job that’s so bad?” Matt blurts this out without any connection to the conversation, which shows it has still been on his mind the whole time.
I think for a moment, trying to identify the one main thing at the heart of it. The word comes to me and I hate it and so I know that it’s right. “The hypocrisy.”
Matt seems not to want to press until he knows what I mean. He’s listening.
“The difference between what people think about a person like me and what a person like me is really like is bigger than in any other job. People think I have a sharp mind for economics, and the reality is that I’m a sales guy who doesn’t know much about economics and I don’t really even read financial statements. People think we make a pretty good wage, and the reality is we have twenty-eight-year-old traders making so much they have running jokes about chump CEOs slaving away for one-fifth the salary we make. People think we’re sharp-dressed bankers working long hours, and the reality is we’re eight to five and the rest of the time the suit is draped over the back of some ratty chair while we get an X-rated massage.” I’m reveling in self-loathing, which I also find repulsive.
“Sounds like a dream come true. You don’t have to know anything, you get paid enormous money, and you get to screw off most of the time.”
“Exactly. You can’t blame anyone for doing it. When we have young kids out of college start up in trading, they’re shocked. For the first few years they can’t believe they get to do this for money. The trouble starts later when that’s how you live your life and you’re not shocked anymore.”
“God, you’re miserable, Nick. No wonder Julia’s sick of your job.”
“I know. I’m spiraling down, and I’m taking her with me. I was one of those kids, and she was duped more than anyone because she couldn’t understand the hypocrisy until long after I did.”
“Do you want it to work with Julia? Is that important to you?”
“Of course.”
“Then get out. Of the job. You obviously hate it. Make a commitment to something else. You must have some money saved up after these years.”
With every January bonus I calculate how far we could stretch our savings. “We have some. We’ve had some lifestyle creep over the years too, but we could cut back. We have savings and a house in Sag Harbor we could sell and try to make the money last. Not long enough, though. I need more years in.”
“It won’t be the last paycheck you get. Go do something else. Joe Kennedy said he wanted to give his kids enough that they could choose a career based on what they wanted to do, not what they needed to do. You have that much money. Look, there are plenty of people who came out of college and took a job in a ski town or teaching at their high school thinking it would be for only two or three years, and a decade later they’re still there. This isn’t much different. Part of the problem is you guys on Wall Street are the only people who make two million dollars a year and don’t think you’re rich.”
He’s right but only because we’re surrounded by other Wall Street guys making ten million or twenty million a year and living lives we can never afford. The bartender steps in front of us. “The lady at the end of the bar bought you a drink.” He puts a single beer in front of Matt. Matt shrugs and tips his glass to the girl and says to the bartender, “In a minute please get her another of what she’s having.”
I think she must go in for the artistic-looking type or maybe just the not-miserable-looking type. Anyway, she seems to have decided we’re not gay and I guess that’s something.
I have a sense of how uncomplicated his life is and I’m envious. It could be just that the grass is greener but I don’t think so. “If you got married at twenty-two, do you think you’d still be married?”
“I don’t think I’m the best test for that. I’ve never even been close to getting married.” He seems to be weighing this for a moment, so I know I’ll get a real answer and not a snap response. “Probably not. I’m such a different person than I was at twenty-two and I’m motivated by different things than I was then. Big changes that were unpredictable. The chances that the right person back then could change in a compatible way and still be the right person now have to be less than fifty percent.” He pauses the way a person will before walking into a strange house. “Are you thinking about having an affair?”
“No.” I say this right away and I have the image of Rebecca James walking into Starbucks. “No,” I say again, as though the first time wasn’t real and I was just trying it on for size. “I’m not.”