Ghosts of Manhattan: A Novel(73)

This is starting to get good. No wonder Jerry’s so excited. He’s come across his first good story. “And so he started reading out loud from Verizon’s income statement.”

“No. He was with another woman.”

I feel the blood drain from my face as though an SOS had been sent and all the blood raced back to my heart to try to save it. I let out a low whistle and lean back into my chair. I’m light-headed and have lost my balance and need the support of the seat back.

“Not only was he with another woman, but he starts getting into it with the other woman. Immediately.”

Like a punch-drunk prizefighter after a blow, I try to keep my hands up and recover before the next words put me down for good. “Everything into the wife’s voicemail?”

“Yup.” Jerry nods, satisfied that he’s impressed me.

The image of Oliver with Julia that comes to me is so real and vivid that I know it had to have happened. There is a level of detail in the clothing and the placement of limbs that I couldn’t have painted myself but had to come to me from across the universe. For a moment I wonder if Jerry knows the identity of the other woman and he’s come here to torture me or to find out if I even know I’ve been made a cuckolded man. I look at him with a new interest, as though discovering the rumor of something extraordinary about an ordinary person. But all I see is genuine enthusiasm for chaos. Jerry isn’t so sinister as to come torture me under a pretense of ignorance. He doesn’t know the woman is Julia. For the moment only I hold that information. “What happened?”

“Right after the dope does his non-hang-up, there’s some rustling around and some kissing, heavy panting.” I think of a split screen on TV capturing the simultaneous moments, one side with me at the Cedar Tavern behind a ring of empty pint glasses and the other side of the screen with Oliver and Julia throwing their clothes into piles around the room. I manage to say, “Huh.”

“Then they go on to say they wish they had all night and it’s the best sex they’ve ever had.”

For Oliver this I can believe. Whatever Julia said had to have been just bluster. “This whole thing sounds like an urban myth.”

“Bennett’s wife played the whole message for the neighbor.”

“Really.”

“Over and over.” Now Jerry leans back, swallowing the last bite of his strip steak, contented.

“What did the wife do last night?” I’m careful not to say the name Sybil.

“She dead-bolted the door and put a note outside that said, ‘I hope you had fun tonight and don’t bother coming home again, you can speak with my divorce attorney.’” Jerry’s laugh is the kind of full, loud laugh you hear at a comedy club, with his body rocking back and his hands moving up as though trying to grab something for balance. Nobody turns to look though. There’s already plenty of yelling and other noises on the trading floor.

This story is less than twelve hours old and already is racing around Bear. Jerry is so focused on the telling and not on my reaction that I’m in no danger of being identified as a character in this drama. And even so, the story is so bizarre that there is no inappropriate reaction. I could have passed out cold or jumped up and down on the table or anything between and Jerry would have laughed along with it. “Doesn’t sound like there’s any coming back from that. It’s already playing out in public.”

“This guy Bennett is screwed. This is going to be like lead around his neck.”

“An albatross,” I mindlessly correct, for some reason wanting accuracy.

“Exactly. It’ll be the first thing anyone thinks about him the rest of his life. It’s that good a story.”

It is sensational, I think. Except for the part about my wife, it’s sensational in every way. Oliver blew himself up, but I’m collateral damage.

I don’t want Jerry in front of me anymore. I try to think of something to end our conversation and make him go away. “Wow, mission accomplished, Jerry. Good story.”

“Incredible. And the moral of the story is don’t be a moron. Hang up your goddamn cell phone.”

Really? Is that the moral? “Yup. It’s a new age.”

“Okay, buddy. See you later.” He starts his waddle back to his desk and I swivel my chair to change my view. I make several attempts to process the information and to conclude how I feel so I can pack it away like a fact I would write down and put in a filing cabinet where it can’t touch me, but I can’t reach an answer. I try more scientific approaches to solving the puzzle—if-then statements, and a plus b equals c. If Julia slept with Oliver last night, then I am angry. Then I am depressed. Then I am suicidal. Then I am homicidal.

But every time I start down a train of thought, it is obliterated like a TV screen going to white fuzz. My mind isn’t functioning right. It’s compromised and I notice I’m sweating and my heart is beating fast but not hard. It’s beating with quick and tiny pumps that don’t seem to move the blood but just blow on it lightly.

I stand up without knowing where to go next, and so I just stand by my chair. My mind is working furiously and producing nothing. I think maybe I should sit back down, but I don’t complete the thought and I stand rubbing my hands over the top of my thighs in a slight crouch like a toddler wetting himself.

“You okay?” William calls from across the desk, not with genuine concern but with genuine amusement and a half smile.