Greedy Heart, page 12
“Thanks. I would.”
“I’ll tell Mitch it’s authorized. Just one other thing. Drop the credit default topic with him. It’s kind of pissing him off.”
Chapter Fourteen
Money often costs too much.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life
As a kid, I loved to play with Monopoly money. There were peppermint ones, strawberry fives, lemon tens, lime twenties, blueberry fifties, apricot hundreds, and orange five hundreds. I sorted the bills in all different ways: by denomination, by color, or simply to create rainbows. The dull hue of real money was a disappointment. Why didn’t true legal tender come in even funner colors than play money, maybe with stripes or sparkles?
“How about some marbles?” Aunt Kathleen entered my pink-sprigged bedroom carrying a sack of clattering glass balls. She disapproved of my Monopoly money sorting. Nuns didn’t like money; they liked stories about saints who gave up all their money.
I shook my head.
“You’re what they call a tough customer, Delia.” Aunt Kathleen clacked the marbles back into the bag. She went to the bookcase where there was a deck of cards. She shuffled expertly. Every Tuesday afternoon, Aunt Kathleen’s day off, there was a rummy game in the basement of Number N among herself, the super, a neighboring doorman, and a lady named Judith Fisher who lived in a hotel. When Norah came in ’83, she joined the game.
“Wanna try?” Aunt Kathleen offered me the deck.
I concentrated on my small hands to get the shuffle right. Aunt Kathleen took the piles of colored money so we could use it to bet in gin rummy. Betting with Monopoly money was okay in Aunt Kathleen’s book because it taught you how to lose.
Aunt Kathleen dealt. Ten cards were a lot to hold. I rearranged the shiny rectangles, looking for possible melds and sequences. I had two sevens, but also a six, which went with one of the sevens, and a four. I hoped for a face-up five, but the face-up card was a jack.
“What’s wrong, kiddo?” Aunt Kathleen had amazing radar. I think that’s why Mom and I depended on her so much.
What’s wrong today was Angela. Being “friends” was hard. Angela was a chubby outsider from New Jersey with early-sprouting boobies and a testy temper. Today the cafeteria served pasta. It was an inspiration to Regina Maguire, one of the meaner girls.
“Look, it’s Betty Spaghetti,” Regina taunted Angela. Angela slammed down her tray on the lunch line’s metal rods and stomped off. Before Angela, I was effortlessly popular. Everyone liked me because I had the biggest house. Now, I had to deal with things like this.
I stood for a moment in line, debating whether to do the “friend” thing. Finally, I went to find Angela. I searched for her in the locker room, but she wasn’t there. I went to all her favorite toilet sulking spots, but still no Angela. I returned to the cafeteria where they were out of spaghetti and the other girls ignored me as much as they could without crossing the line that would get them uninvited to my upcoming tenth birthday party.
I narrated this to Aunt Kathleen, while I bet an apricot hundred and she saw my bet. I took a card from the facedown pile. It was the hoped-for five. I put down my four-five-six-seven meld.
“Good one,” she said, taking the face-up jack and not discarding anything.
I had only five cards left. “Angela is like homework.” Aunt Kathleen laughed.
“I’m glad you did your homework today.”
I took another facedown card, a useless nine. “I can’t wait until I’m grown up and I don’t have to do homework anymore.” Aunt Kathleen took a pad out of the pocket of her checked shirt, which was tucked into a nunnish navy-blue skirt worn with blue tie shoes. She opened a page and ticked a mark. She was tallying how many of my sentence started with the phrase, I can’t wait until I’m grown up and…
“How many?” I asked.
“Four hundred and fifty-seven.” I giggled. I wanted to jump up and ask her to prove it to me, but I was carefully fanning a hand of seven cards. The nine had just been joined by an eight, making use of the orphan seven. I put down my three-meld.
“Good one again, pal.” Aunt Kathleen took another card off the pile and put down a pair of fours. Her hand was going badly, which could have been for real, or just because she was letting me get ahead.
Another life lesson: when you’re playing with a beginner, you have to let yourself get behind to make it a fair game.
You didn’t want to be shooting fish in a barrel.
Because that wasn’t sporting.
“Some people keep doing their homework even when they grow up.” I knew we were now talking about something other than homework.
“Why?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Why do you think?”
This was the part where I was supposed to say for God or for love or something similar, but I didn’t.
I tattled instead. It was risky. A known informant, Aunt Kathleen would spill the beans to other adults when she thought they needed to know. But I was upset by the day’s events, so while I took more cards, I told her.
After lunch was art class. Regina of the Betty Spaghetti comment was the best artist in fourth grade and her folder was filled with masterpieces. When she opened it, she discovered a pen—the kind with the liquid ink that stained your jumper—had bled its black payload all over everything.
It was, in military parlance, an asymmetrical response. A whole year’s artwork destroyed over spaghetti. It was also my first real introduction to Angela’s mean streak. Art teacher Sister Louise said Regina probably left the pen there herself. I didn’t believe it for a minute. Neither did Regina. Neither did Aunt Kathleen.
Aunt Kathleen stopped playing cards. That meant it was serious, since Aunt Kathleen could have continued playing cards through a hurricane. She adjusted her expression in the way that said she was concealing a grown-up thought and readdressed her hand, discarding a five meld she’d clearly been holding.
We went a few goes quietly. Aunt Kathleen’s pink seashell nails were light against the dark cards. “Friends change, you know.” She reordered her hand. “It’s healthy. Maybe next year you and Angela will get new best friends.” Angela was now on thin playdate ice.
But it came to nothing. After that one big retaliation, Regina backed off. The Rosemont girls were soft. The Sorrows crew was tougher. There, full capitulation required laxatives and hamster assassinations. By then, Aunt Kathleen was dead, and there was no one to tell.
Ironic, how life worked out. Today Angela, not Aunt Kathleen, was the one remaining in my life. Angela searched for me and helped me get my apartment. She was my friend and neighbor without so much as a single quotation mark.
*
In my apartment, Angela shook her head at the wallpaper sample. It was November and we were planning the new décor for my living room. I was finally going to remove the bordello-red wallpaper and replace it.
“Wallpaper is a pain to remove,” she said. As if to prove her point, through my beloved window, the rose vine pattern in my old bedroom still clung doughtily to its walls.
“Why would I remove it?”
“If you want to renovate again in a few years.”
“How many times do you think I’m going to redo the apartment?” Angela shook her head at me as if I was a hopeless case. “Paint’s cheaper, I guess,” I added.
I was starting to get concerned about my burn rate. The renovation was costing me twenty-five kay. When I first moved to the Grandhope, I was like Dorothy entering the Technicolor half of the movie, delighted by my strangely vibrant surroundings, spending hand over fist. Now, I wondered if I should maybe throttle back. Perhaps give up the lease on Cinnamon for a while. Maybe help ride one of the misbehaved horses at the barn.
“You’ve convinced yourself about this epic crash.”
“I don’t know.” Goodman didn’t think one was coming. And, seemingly, neither did Priest.
“Have you ever thought you could be wrong? I mean it has happened before.”
Angela meant that I had been wrong about Aunt Kathleen. That I hadn’t known she was gay. Bringing up Aunt Kathleen was not exactly cricket since it was a painful memory. But no-quotation-marks Angela had been good to me, so I let it slide.
This dithering was ridiculous. I needed to get on with things. If no one was pursuing my short strategy, maybe I was wrong. Why was I so worried about money? Perhaps, I unconsciously absorbed Aunt Kathleen’s values regarding money. She and Peter Priest could have had a spirited conversation about polar bears.
Tinker Bell was doing just fine, thank you very much, as we headed into the end of 2007. I only had to make it to December 2008, when my million-plus bonus would be a done deal. I’d pay down some of my ridiculous mortgage, bank a bit, and even give Mom a tidy sum. At that point, if a crash came, I could ride it out.
I had to act like a new-and-improved kind of princess in a new-and-improved kind of castle. I would buy that car-priced purse, maybe two. Renovate every three years, if possible. Someday, if I had a three-year-old, I would put her on private jets to birthday parties without batting an eyelash. Any reserve about money was to be obliterated. I was making tons now and on my way to making even more.
“This,” said Angela, choosing a paint chip of the lightest, creamy lemon. “Your mother will love it. When is she gonna visit?”
“When are you going to do your kitchen?” I asked, changing the subject. Angela had been wanting to rip out her kitchen for a while. It backed up to Judith’s, which backed up to mine so they could all share the main plumbing line. Papa Conti approved of these kinds of renovations. He believed in real estate, in contrast to hedge funds. Real estate was solid and an appropriate activity for his New York lady daughter.
“I’ll get around to it,” she said. “First things first. We have got to get this stuff off your walls. You are never going to have the time for it with your crazy work hours. Since you have this business trip coming up, the workmen have a solid week. I can manage it while you’re gone.”
“Why don’t I do my kitchen too?” I congratulated myself on the idea. A kitchen renovation would be at least a hundred and fifty grand. It was justifiable as well, since the stroke victim woman had last done the kitchen in the eighties.
“Delia.” Angela looked up from a book of fabric swatches. “You’re like a pendulum. A second ago you wanted paint because it’s cheaper. Let’s pace things out.”
“Says the woman who helped me get a two-million-dollar apartment with no assets.”
“That was different. You had to.”
I did have to. Daily, the view through my window anchored me and reminded me what this was all about. I was heading backward to the original me. Just a bit more time with my ridiculous salary and epic bonuses, I would be the me I was born to be, one in possession of my rightful fortune.
Chapter Fifteen
Μην τρέχεις γυμνός στα αγγούρια!
(Don’t run naked into the cucumber patch.)
—Bawdy Greek proverb
I hadn’t flown first class since the trip back from Athens with my spurned mother. The modern first-class cabin to Las Vegas had lovely enclosed little pods where you could stretch out. Around me, in other pods, nestled gamblers wearing silver neck slides. There were also blue-dress-shirt finance types headed to the same subprime bond conference as me.
I adjusted the pillow behind my head, tucked the quilted comforter around my legs, and took a sip of the pre-takeoff champagne. I reached into my white, lizard-skin Prada handbag ($1800)—still eleven months away from my twenty-thousand-dollar one—to dab some makeup around my bruised left eye and cheekbone.
Yesterday’s riding accident.
The flight attendant rolled by with a cart of today’s papers. I took the Financial Times and read the headline.
Frankfurt Raid Uncovers Trove of Art Stolen by Nazis
The over 1,200 artworks, including paintings by Monet, Rembrandt, and Titian, are estimated to be worth about €750 million, according to a preliminary analysis by authorities. The art, believed to be stolen by the Nazis, was unearthed in the clutter-filled apartment of an elderly Frankfurt woman, German authorities confirmed Monday. This spectacular find of lost treasure is reverberating across the art world.
Lost treasure found in the apartment of a hoarder? Sounded familiar. Maybe blind Judith was not so cracked about that spoon jar after all.
I set down the paper. A man in a nerdy, short-sleeved dress shirt on his way back to coach stared hard at my face as he passed, probably forming all kinds of stories in his head about the woman in first class with the abusive husband.
Cinnamon was not the culprit. In fact, she was the quietest horse I’d ever ridden. When I commented on it, the people at the barn said these days the horses were doped with tranquilizers because wealthy clientele didn’t want to get kicked off.
I had finished riding and was rubbing down Cinnamon, when a commotion erupted in the indoor arena. A man named Eugene who worked as an HR manager for Bear Stearns had recently bought his daughter a new show horse. Even janitors at Bear got six-figure bonuses. The stallion of famous bloodlines was purchased ($115,000) and shipped in from Sweden ($43,000). Unfortunately, the horse had a hollow leg for tranquilizers. The vet recommended gelding. That didn’t work either. It just pissed him off.
The horse had, once again, thrown his rider. She fled crying, and her father, Eugene, looked around helplessly for an instructor.
The horse pranced to the far side of the arena, snorting, his tail held high.
“I can hop on him.” I stepped onto the turf.
“Would you?” It was a plea.
“Sure.”
I approached. The red-bay horse threw his head back and rolled his eyes. They had rims white like hard-boiled eggs. Also, he sported not one, not two, not three, but four white socks, rising to his knees, no less. In Hungarian terms, this was the worst kind of horse imaginable.
Before he could bolt, I got my toe in the stirrup and leapt on. The horse took off, wheeled to reverse, and took off again. He reached the end of the arena and executed an acrobatic shy with three rolling bucks. Eugene stared open-mouthed. Unlike Cinnamon, this white-eyed fiend was as sensitive as a raw nerve. Every kick of sand or rattle of the aluminum sides of the arena caused a swerve, a twist, a spurt.
“Wow,” Eugene said.
I laughed. It felt amazing. I was a-throb with adrenaline and power. I was the horse-riding me of days gone by. I was an excellent rider—as only the Hungarian cavalry could produce.
“Sometimes they just have to get the butterflies out of their system.” The white-eyed horse took a few nice trotting steps. The Hungarian taught me that when a horse surrenders to a rider, the capitulation is complete.
I was considering a halt and dismount. Just then, the horse went for a desperate last-ditch move, The Scrape. It’s typically performed against a tree trunk or under a low branch. Today, the horse threw himself against the side of the arena.
My head crashed into the wall. Twelve hundred pounds of horse writhed and thrashed against the aluminum, lunging away, and hurling himself again. A thought sprang up.
I could die.
Had I really not ever considered dying before? Was I that far into teen oblivion, grief, and despair? Or was that feeling of invulnerability just part of being young? Whatever the case, now at thirty-six, I tasted my mortality, tangy like the iron-edged blood in my mouth.
The horse prepared for a third attempt. I felt my body shrink up in terror. My thoughts jumbled together, my mind unhinging with the blows.
Go! bellowed the long-dead Hungarian in my head. On through no-man’s-land!
With a surge of Hungarian training, I straightened my back and vised the animal’s sides. He lurched forward, twisting and bucking. I jabbed him with my spurs. Vaulting and rearing, we did four rounds at eye-blurring speed, my heart pounding, my ears ringing, sweat dripping down my back despite the cold. On the fifth circuit, he threw three bucks. Round six, just two. By round seven he slowed. On round eight, he arched his back and took a gentle hold of the bit, snorting in the way horses do to say “uncle.” Round ten was perfect. We’d acquired an astounded audience. They oohed and aahed at his world-class, six-figure movement.
I had done it—the very thing the Hungarian said might not even be possible: I’d mastered the white-eyed horse.
The ride was worth it, despite my throbbing face. I replayed the sensation of taming that magnificent devil all through our ascent to thirty-thousand feet.
*
Denizens of the bond world boiled through the gilt halls at the Las Vegas Venetian Hotel. Baroque urns overflowed with Little-Shop-of-Horror-sized blossoms. Somewhere in the distance, fake gondoliers plashed thin-prowed boats along a dyed-green Grand Canal under the dome of an indoor sky.
You had to pass through the casino to get anywhere, which was repeatedly depressing. Working in finance was a form of gambling, but we were professionals. Las Vegas attracted suckers who never learned Aunt Kathleen’s lesson: the house always wins. On my way to the main session, I saw a woman, gray faced like she’d been up all night, bracing herself against an ATM.
The conference ballroom hosting today’s sessions accommodated five thousand. Years ago, a bond conference would attract a mere few hundred. That was before the era of subprime and a trillion-dollar market created out of thin air.
I was grateful to Rob Goodman for sending me. I was surprisingly happy to get away from New York while Angela directed workmen around my apartment. It was a chance to sleep in a hotel bed, get room service, and take a break from my eighty-hour weeks. I took my seat, a strange combination of conference chair and ducal throne.
A nearby trader wearing a wedding ring he didn’t attempt to hide ogled my legs, which were sleek in my new Barney’s suit ($1250). He was good-looking, fit, and the dark type I found appealing. I made eye contact. He held my gaze. I didn’t work for him or with him. Fair game. I ran a finger along my skirt’s hemline, skimming my thigh. He shifted antsily in his seat. Maybe some fun of a nongambling kind was in order.
