Ghosts of Manhattan: A Novel(38)
“Everything’s good. Thanks.” I wonder if trying to solve problems at home will create more problems at the office. I don’t know that I can make both work, or if I want to.
14 | SUE FARMER
January 11, 2006
WITHOUT KIDS, THE HOLIDAYS CAN PASS RIGHT BY IF you want them to, and if you aren’t happy, you want them to. We told our parents that we decided to celebrate alone in the city. I bought a tree, which we decorated without any ceremony and with the TV on. We kept it for a week, then I dragged it down to the sidewalk for trash pickup. I don’t think we watered it once. I was relieved when activity picked back up at work.
Come January I’m on the trading floor hung up on a trade of casino bonds. The market for them is going the other way. The UBS salesman had asked me to wait on him, thinking he had a bid. By the time he confirmed he didn’t have a bid with his trader, the whole buy side had dropped away and I’m screwed holding the bonds. If I sell at the current bid, I take a six-million-dollar loss to our books and Jerry won’t shut his fat mouth.
But I’m not thinking about the bonds and I’m not thinking about Jerry. I can’t get the squirrelly little bastard Oliver out of my head.
He’s always walking around smiling and shaking hands, but his eyes are never smiling behind those phony, prescriptionless glasses. The eyes are always thinking and working and making the smile work for them. The smile is never for the person he sees, because he isn’t motivated by friendship. He’s motivated by money, advancement, and power, so the smile is only for what that person can do for him. He acts nice because he knows it’s better for him to have people say he’s a nice guy. He’s pleasant only for a purpose.
I recognize this sort of people around Bear. The ones who appear to dislike no one and to like everyone. But it isn’t so much that they like or dislike anyone as it is that they are indifferent to everyone.
It’s healthy to dislike some people. It’s natural and honest. I’ve come to hate Oliver.
“Nick, goddamn it. Tell UBS they better make us whole on this. They hung us out!”
I don’t turn around. My personal line rings and I’m relieved, thinking I can hide behind the phone against my ear.
“Hello.”
“Hey, big bro.” It’s Sue’s playful voice, and I feel calmer as though I’ve been transported to a comfortable wicker chair on a porch with lemonade on a sunny day.
“Sue, how are you?” I need to decide quickly how much I want to get into this.
“I’m fine. I want to hear how you are.”
“The usual. Crappy.”
She laughs. “What’s going on? Are there some changes happening at work?”
“None. That’s part of the problem. It’s arrested development hitting a crisis stage.”
“Sounds like it’s time for a change.”
“It’s not all that easy. At my age I can’t change careers like a T-shirt.”
“Is anything going on?”
“Sue, I’m in the goddamn office.”
“So whisper.”
I look up at the television screen on one of the columns that hold up the ceiling and Rebecca is delivering a report on corporate earnings from the stock exchange floor. The volume is off but she looks gorgeous and I avert my eyes like I’ve been caught peeping in the women’s dressing room. William and Ron are off the desk screwing around somewhere, so I have a little privacy.
“Julia and I are having some problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
“We’re barely speaking.”
Sue has always adored Julia and I can feel that her level of concern has gone higher.
“Sue, there is so much hitting at once that it’s hard to isolate, but the source of it is my job. I know it sounds like I’m pointing to something easy for a problem that is really inside the two of us, but I think work is playing that big a role. It’s like the Marines—not a job, an adventure. It’s a lifestyle adventure and it’s a ride I can’t get off.”
“Well try, Nick.”
“It’s not a ride anymore, it’s part of me. This is who I am; I just need to figure out how to correct course a little. I’m working on it.”
“Nick. You’re focused on the wrong thing.” Her voice sounds fed up, which I don’t expect at all. “People’s lives are the way they are because of the choices they make. So before you focus on the job as the issue, you need to focus on you as the issue. What is it about you that got you here?”
I’d have hung up on anyone else, but I know she believes in me and is rooting for me. “Sue, I didn’t have a crystal ball when I was twenty-two. If I had known, I’d have made different decisions.”
“I don’t buy that. I can see taking the job to start, but not sticking with it. You’ve had every opportunity to make a change at any point and you never have.”
I don’t want to say anything until I feel less defensive. All I can think is that I don’t remember when I was last happy, even since long before Bear. Maybe sprinkles of happiness from Julia, but nothing independent. Nothing that would make a person think I was anything other than a miserable, cynical bastard. Maybe I choose to stay in this career because it is exactly what I deserve.