The Good Twin(3)

Yet, in the end, he’d learned that money, once had, was hard to abandon. His goal in college had been law school, followed by a job at a Wall Street firm, with an eventual foray into politics. He’d earn a more-than-respectable living. But he now pulled in a seven-figure annual salary at a job he hated but didn’t want to give up. If he left Charly, his father-in-law would certainly fire him. And then what? Go back to school six years after his Princeton classmates? No. He no longer had the appetite for that.

He exited his building on West Fifty-Eighth Street, then flagged down a taxi to take him to East Twenty-First Street and Second Avenue. He nodded to the doorman as he entered the twelve-story building on the corner, then rode the elevator up to Apartment 812. Lisa was waiting for him with a vodka martini in her hand. She greeted him with a long kiss, then handed him the drink.

“You look tired. Tough day?” she asked.

“No. I was ambushed by Rick at the elevator.” He shuddered. “I hate that man.”

“Well, I’m not crazy about him myself, since he seems more of an obstacle to our being together than your wife. I wish you’d leave his company.”

“And live on what?”

“You have money saved.”

“Not enough. And you can bet that Rick would put the word out to every other hedge fund to blackball me.”

“You don’t like doing that, anyway. Go back to school. Get your law degree. We can live on my salary.”

Ben looked around Lisa’s 520-square-foot studio apartment. Once, he would have been happy in this space, with its tiny kitchen and a mere alcove for a bedroom. It was the kind of apartment the newly graduated moved into along with their first grown-up taste of independence. It was the only kind of apartment a social worker like Lisa could afford. It wasn’t the kind of apartment a man could live in after experiencing the luxury of his 3,600-square-foot, three-bedroom townhouse on East Sixty-Second Street, just east of Fifth Avenue, and right across from Central Park.

He sat down on the living room couch, then motioned for Lisa to join him. “I don’t want to think about that now.” He pulled Lisa into his arms, then began kissing her, running his hands through her thick, untamed brunette hair. She was so different from Charly, with her smoothly perfect blonde bob, cool blue eyes, and model’s body, her slim but toned arms and legs from years of tennis and sailing. Lisa was soft, full-bosomed. She was formed from the earth, Charly from the sky.

After a few minutes, Lisa pulled away, then took his hand and led him to the bed. “I need you now,” she whispered. “Dinner later?”

Ben nodded. He wanted her.



Shortly before ten, Ben returned to his townhouse. It couldn’t be more different from the apartment he’d just left. Instead of mismatched pieces of furniture garnered from friends and family’s discards, every inch of the space had been meticulously planned. Although Charly had worked with a decorator, Ben knew that his wife had been instrumental in choosing every piece of furniture, every item that went up on the walls or down on the floors and over the windows. Every lighting fixture was unique, and every decorative item was a showpiece. Ben didn’t know one type of furnishing from another, but he’d been told their home was decorated in the Mediterranean style, in colors of the sea, mixed with terra-cotta and yellow. It felt comfortable to him, and that’s all he cared about.

Fifteen minutes later, Charly walked in, just the time he’d expected her. She had attended Canada’s international annual fair for modern and contemporary art the past few days, and her flight had been scheduled to land at 9:30 p.m.

“How was it?” he asked his wife after she’d gotten settled.

“Tiring. But I sold a few pieces, enough to make the trip worthwhile.” Charly attended a number of art fairs throughout the year, although she didn’t always attend Toronto’s. She never missed Art Basel in Miami Beach, or Tefaf in Maastricht, Netherlands, though, and with their hip scene, she always returned from those fairs energized rather than fatigued. At first, she’d encouraged Ben to take a few days off work and join her, but it quickly became clear to him that he just didn’t fit in with that crowd. It was bad enough that he had to smile through their endless social events in New York; he didn’t need to extend the forced socialization. Besides, it gave him more time with Lisa.

“That’s great!”

“Dad said you met some friends tonight?”

Naturally. His father-in-law would make a beeline to his daughter. “A couple of old high school buddies. You don’t know them.”

“Have a nice time?”

“Actually, it was kind of boring. Not much in common anymore.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t tell me beforehand.”

“Last-minute thing. One of them called me at work to say the old group was in the city. Invited me to join them.”

Charly nodded. “I’m beat. I think I’m going to head to bed now.”

His wife walked into their bedroom, leaving him alone. He took a bottle of Sam Adams from the refrigerator, then turned on the TV in the den to watch the last quarter of the Knicks game, wondering the whole time how his marriage had become so barren, so devoid of love and tenderness. They never talked about it, but Charly had to feel the same way. When did it start? he wondered. Was it because he didn’t want a child? No, it preceded Charly’s request that they start a family. Maybe it was when she’d opened the gallery? Yes, that was it. Before then, he’d been happy. At least, as happy as he could be working for a man he hated, at a job he loathed. But he’d been happy with Charly back then. He’d come in from work grumpy, and she’d never fail to cheer him up. That’s why he’d been attracted to her in the first place—because she’d always been able to read his moods and know precisely what he needed.