Carnegie Hill, page 14
“It’s great that you like it,” she said patiently, surveying all the hors d’oeuvres they’d been offered thus far, “but you have to not like something so we can decide.”
His phone buzzed with a message from Molly: “Do you have time to talk? I really need you.”
He held his phone against his chest to hide the text from Pepper. “Shit, I need to … there’s a work emergency.”
“We’ll be done in two minutes,” Pepper said.
“Just a sec, babe.” He texted, “What’s up?”
Ronald P. excused himself to fetch more food.
“A close friend just blocked me,” Molly wrote. “He said he can’t talk to me anymore.”
Pepper glanced toward the kitchen doors. “Why does everything taste like it came from the freezer aisle of a Trader Joe’s?”
“But I thought every dish was ‘crafted from scratch’ in their ‘world-class kitchens,’” Rick replied, quickly texting, “Why?”
“I told him I loved him,” came Molly’s text. “I really thought I did, really.”
He wondered if she’d ever met this “close friend” outside of Facebook. “He doesn’t deserve u,” he wrote.
“Could you just tell me which ones you like best?” Pepper asked. “I don’t want our wedding to be ‘The Penelope Show.’”
“Definitely this tuna thing,” Rick said. “And the mushroom cup, the micro steak on toast, and the caviar potato eyeball.” It wasn’t a real eyeball; it just looked like it should be served on Halloween.
“Ew, not the caviar,” Pepper said, wrinkling her nose.
“I’m in so much pain,” Molly wrote. “I feel like I want to hurt myself.”
“Don’t do that,” he wrote, cringing at how stupid it sounded.
“Earth to Rick,” Pepper said. “Why are you defending the salted bug paste they’re calling caviar?”
“If we don’t have caviar,” he explained with condescension that wasn’t entirely ironic, “your friends will not know we spent a third of a million dollars on this wedding.”
“And if we serve this mealy shit,” Pepper replied, “the entire world will think we have no taste.”
Another text from Molly: “I just fall so hard in love sometimes that it scares me.”
“Could you put that down for two seconds?” Pepper asked. “The stock market isn’t even open today.”
“It’s a new client. She needs a lot of attention.”
His phone buzzed again. “It’s really good to be able to talk to you,” Molly’s text read. “You’re a great listener and a great friend.”
Rick texted, “Got 2 go. At a tasting,” as Ronald returned holding a miniature Viking ship with lamb chops as passengers.
* * *
Molly arrived at their little lunch date a few days later in a too-tight skirt suit made of nubby yellow tweed. She’d gained a few pounds, she already had gray hairs, and her forehead was carved with worry, but she really was the girl from the photos. He’d partly agreed to see her just to prove that she existed, but of course she did; he’d googled her. When he typed in “Molly Radiance,” he discovered that Radiance1987@hotmail.com was an email address for one Molly Susan Weintraub, a performing-arts teacher at a private school in Brooklyn Heights. Molly had placed first in a spelling bee in Brooklyn in the late nineties. Her Goodreads list was heavy on Jane Austen and Dorothy Parker. She’d camped out with Occupy Wall Street. Her father was a life coach.
She held the initial hug longer than he did, the first step of an awkward dance.
“Just an FYI: you’re extremely handsome,” she said with a raised index finger. “Sorry.”
He couldn’t say he wasn’t flattered. “Apology denied,” he said, sitting down. “Your punishment will be a spanking.”
“I hope you’ll be gentle with me,” she said with a manufactured laugh.
“I’m very gentle.” He pushed the platter of oysters toward her. “Want one?”
She inspected one, sipped the brine, then went bottoms up, making a crunching noise. Was it possible she’d never eaten an oyster before?
“The shell’s not edible,” he said, suppressing a smile. He liked the feeling of having something to teach her. Pepper never admitted to ignorance; if she had a gap in her knowledge, she would pretend it wasn’t worth knowing. He tried not to think about her. He could manage not to feel terrible about what he was doing if he forgot that he was getting married in a week.
He sipped his wine and studied her. He couldn’t believe he had let their flirtation go this far, but she had pushed for a meeting, and he told himself it would be harmless. After they made the date, she started sending him messages about feeling his muscular arms and tasting his lips, which he’d dismissed as jokes. Now, as he watched her listening to him and laughing and touching her face, he understood that they were going to have sex. He had seduced women for so many years, he could predict every moment leading up to their orgasms and was powerless to stop it. He wasn’t even interested in her: he was being dragged toward her by the unloved boy of his past. It seemed that if he married Pepper before sleeping with Molly—or someone—he would regret it forever. The question was, why was he trying to destroy his life? And why wasn’t he more afraid of doing it?
He swallowed. “Molly, you’re a great girl. But I have to be honest with you. This has to be a one-time thing. I shouldn’t even be doing this now. Can I trust that you’ll be able to handle a clean break?”
“I guess I’ll have to.” Out came her desperate laugh.
“How about we go to the Soho Grand? Their sheets are incredible, and you can spend the whole night there if you like.”
“Is that a hotel?” She sucked through her teeth. “No offense, but doesn’t that seem a little … tawdry?”
“It’s a really nice hotel.”
“I don’t know. It’s not really what I had in mind.”
“Sure, fine, I get it. Where do you live?”
She winced. “My roommates don’t allow guests.”
He cocked his head. “Then how were you thinking…?”
“I was hoping we could go to your place?”
“Molly,” he said, glancing around before taking her hands. “My fiancée is home.”
“Oh, God, we shouldn’t do this.” She tore her hands away and placed them in her lap.
“You’re right. Let’s just forget it.” He called for the check, and they finished their drinks without meeting eyes, though he could tell Molly was sneaking glances at him. He was relieved to be done with her, relieved that, when he proved to lack all self-control and decency, fate had intervened.
When the check came, she got out her credit card.
“Don’t,” he said.
“I’ll pay next time,” she said, tucking her card back into her wallet.
Pepper called. Without apologizing or asking permission, he picked up. “Hey babe, what’s up?”
“Sweetie, none of the bridesmaid dresses fit. It’s like they picked measurements out of a hat. We’re at an emergency fitting at the atelier, and the owner is saying that we’re the ones who got the measurements wrong.”
“I’m sorry, babe. That sounds shitty. Hey, why don’t we go back to the idea of everyone wearing something they already own? I’m sure everyone has a gray dress.”
She moaned. “I wish we could. I know how crazy things have been for you lately, but could you swing by the Chelmsford Arms and pick up the receipts? They’re in the rattan box in the bedroom closet.”
“Babe, they’re working on the bedroom right now. Last time I checked, there was a huge roll of carpeting blocking the closet.”
“No, they’re done with all the flooring. I called the contractor to see if one of the workers could bring it over, and he said they’re taking a few days off until the fixtures are delivered.”
He watched Molly, rummaging through a canvas tote whose print reminded him that it wasn’t a plastic bag, and rode out a sickening thrill. “So no one is there?”
“It would mean so much if you could bring it. I really need to see you right now.”
“I’m finishing up with a client downtown.… Will you still be there in an hour?”
“We’ll wait for you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
“I wish you’d refer to me as your friend,” Molly said after he put his phone back into his pocket.
His blood fizzed in his veins, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn’t want to talk himself out of this. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
He swigged the rest of his wine, then his water. “To my apartment. You’re getting your wish after all.”
* * *
After they moved into the apartment at the Chelmsford Arms, Rick and Pepper discovered that the rear elevators, where their apartment was located, was the least prestigious of the three elevator banks, and the apartments were worth 20 percent less. The one benefit was accessibility through the back entrance: Rick could come home without parading through the lobby and jerry-rigging a smile for the doormen. He couldn’t live without them but wished he could walk through the lobby just once without worrying what they thought of him. He brought Molly in through this rear entrance, blocking the camera’s view of her until the doorman buzzed them in.
But he cringed to see Birdie Hirsch, his perky French-Canadian neighbor, getting into the elevator. They nodded at each other. Molly said hi, then sat on the vestigial elevator-operator seat and ran her fingers along the ridged brass rail. “What floor, madam?” she asked with a stiff nod.
“Have we met?” Birdie asked Molly.
“Oh, this is Molly,” Rick said. “She’s…”
“I’m his ex-girlfriend,” Molly said, shaking Birdie’s hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Oh,” Birdie said, her mouth open as though ready to emit whatever response would surely come to her.
“We dated all through college. Rick proposed to me, but my family didn’t approve, because he wasn’t Jewish. By the time I came to my senses, he was engaged to Penelope.”
“My husband and I had the exact same problem with our families,” confided Birdie. “We eloped.”
The elevator stopped, and they stood by their respective front doors like guards waiting for their shift to end.
“She’s my cousin,” Rick said, searching for his key. “She’s just being funny.”
“Enchanté, Molly, whoever you are.”
“Are you crazy?” Rick asked once he’d closed the door and checked to make sure no one else was inside. “She’s my neighbor! She talks to Penelope all the time.”
“Maybe you deserve to be found out.” She slapped his ass.
He kissed her. Her mouth was soft and her tongue followed his lead. It was exciting to be kissing someone other than Pepper, and a little sad.
“Would you have a drink with me?” she asked, eyeing the sofa mistrustfully. He’d gotten it right after college—decorating his first apartment entirely with freebies—and had been proud of how stately it had looked, almost too good for him. Over the years, it had soaked up splashes of punch and beer, and it had been torn in the fury of half-clothed lovemaking by a stiletto heel. Now it was outclassed by the lavish apartment that surrounded it, and it looked as though it understood that when the renovation was finished and the last traces of Rick’s unpolished life had been eradicated, it would have to die, too, so that Rick might be happy.
She plopped down on the couch. “This is such a nice couch. Everything you have is so amazing. I just have to say, my heart is beating extremely rapidly.”
“How about an Ativan?”
She nodded, but only when he walked into the bathroom did he remember that all of Pepper’s medications were in their temporary apartment. There was a box in the second bedroom marked “toiletries,” but the only pills in there were over-the-counter painkillers and vitamins. When he finally returned to the living room with an open bottle of Pinot Gris, anxious about all the time he’d wasted and hoping she hadn’t stolen anything, she was kneeling in front of a box of books.
“Sorry, we don’t have any good pills,” he said, taking a swig from the bottle and handing it to her.
“You have an amazing library. I love how passionate you are about feminism.” She gulped down half the bottle.
“Those are my fiancée’s. She’s not that much of a feminist.” He couldn’t blame Pepper for banishing Rick’s business-advice manuals and political screeds to their storage facility in Queens: her books were hardbound editions in pristine condition, while his scrappy, dog-eared paperbacks mostly derived from stoop sales or waterlogged giveaway boxes dragged out with the garbage. Yet he wished he’d kept some of those books in the apartment, maybe to tuck behind Pepper’s when they filled up the new bookshelves, just to have them close. He felt a pang, as though he had already lost her. He didn’t want to start their life together by cheating on her. But a parallel voice in his head told him he would never forgive himself for backing down.
“She seems wonderful,” Molly said.
“I have an idea—why don’t we not talk about her?”
She looked around, taking in the new dentil moldings along the edge of the ceiling and the new commercial-grade kitchen, and nodded brusquely. “I guess this is how the one percent lives.”
“We’re not so different from you.” He thought of his bewilderment in his first months with Pepper, at her amusing snobbery and ignorance of financial realities. “Or at least I’m not.” He reached for her again, and she stepped out of his grasp.
“What exactly do you do?” she asked, rubbing the spines of Pepper’s books. “I mean, I googled you. I know it’s an investment banking thing.”
“It’s asset management. Helping high-net-worth individuals invest. I’m an adviser, not a banker.” People had a tendency to lump all careers in the financial industry into one fork-tailed monster, but he’d had nothing to do with subprime mortgages, bank bailouts, or any other left-wing shibboleth. He invested in green energy and B Corps as much as he could, too. But he wasn’t going to defend himself to this woman.
“Like hedge funds and stuff?”
“I work with hedge-fund managers, but I’ve never managed a fund myself.”
“I’ve never thought it right that people who spend their lives playing with money should get to take home so much of it.” Her sneer gave her a menacing squint.
“Hate me if you want, but the fact is, I take a lot of shit from a lot of people, and there’s never a moment when I’m not trying to attract new clients. Anyone could make the same money, if they wanted to.”
“I wouldn’t do it,” she said with a shrug.
“Then you really can’t complain.” It came out harsher than he intended. He smiled at her, which made it worse.
“I read in The New Yorker that the reason we had the financial crisis was because bankers are rewarded for lying,” she said.
“We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Oh—sorry. I’m sorry.”
He finished the wine and took her by the hand to his trusty sofa, then undid the buttons on her blazer and blouse with one hand while kissing her neck and ears. Her skirt resisted unzipping but soon gave way. A flick of his fingers and the bra fell open. Sometimes he used to enjoy undressing women more than the sex itself. But now the process felt rote, like making an espresso or taking out the trash.
“You have a beautiful body,” he whispered, running his fingers over the bumps of her rib cage.
She held her arm over her breasts. Standing beside her, Rick put his hand on her belly and felt it tighten, then relax. He pried her lips open with his and melted his tongue toward hers.
“Do you mind if I put my bra back on?” she asked, wiping her mouth. “I think I’ll be more relaxed.”
“I do mind,” he said, pushing her arm out of the way. “Your breasts are too beautiful to cover up.”
She took a deep, loud breath. They sat on the couch and he lapped at her nipples. They tasted like rose-scented lotion.
“Oh, Rick,” she moaned. “Will you say my name?”
“Shh.” He kissed her on the mouth and began rubbing her clammy inner thighs. He was ready to be done.
“Do you think Penelope might walk in on us?” she asked as he unrolled a condom.
“Don’t worry, I locked the door chain.”
“Could we maybe … unlock it?”
He stopped stroking her. “Why would you want my fiancée to catch me in bed with you?”
“Then I could have you all to myself.” She laughed.
He plucked off the condom. “This is insane.”
“I wan’t being serious! It was just a fantasy, to restore your honor by marrying you. Of course I know you love Penelope, not me. I would never dream of taking you from her.”
He teased his underwear from his pants, pulled them on, and tucked his rapidly deflating erection beneath the waistband. “I think you should leave.”
“Just forget I said that, okay?” She laughed again. “I say a lot of things I don’t mean.”
“I’ll show you out.”
He turned the light on—it was a caged bulb hanging from a wire—and waited for her to dress. After practically pushing Molly out the back entrance, he sprayed Pepper’s perfume over the couch, opened the shades, scrubbed his face and hands, found the bridesmaid dress receipts, took one last look at the sad old couch, silent witness to his infidelity, and cabbed over to the atelier, feeling as though his life had been spared.
* * *
“Who’s ‘Molly’?” Pepper asked Rick as he walked into the kitchen that Saturday morning, desperate for coffee.
The shock of hearing Pepper speak her name took a moment to penetrate his fog. He drew an even breath. “Molly…”
She looked up from a wedding magazine, one of about twenty in her collection. It was weird to be looking at that thing a week before the wedding, he thought. Was she planning on adding to the spectacle? “She’s been messaging you all morning. I wouldn’t have looked, but your phone was buzzing like crazy. I thought it was a flood warning. ‘I need to see you.’ ‘I’m freaking out.’”
His phone buzzed with a message from Molly: “Do you have time to talk? I really need you.”
He held his phone against his chest to hide the text from Pepper. “Shit, I need to … there’s a work emergency.”
“We’ll be done in two minutes,” Pepper said.
“Just a sec, babe.” He texted, “What’s up?”
Ronald P. excused himself to fetch more food.
“A close friend just blocked me,” Molly wrote. “He said he can’t talk to me anymore.”
Pepper glanced toward the kitchen doors. “Why does everything taste like it came from the freezer aisle of a Trader Joe’s?”
“But I thought every dish was ‘crafted from scratch’ in their ‘world-class kitchens,’” Rick replied, quickly texting, “Why?”
“I told him I loved him,” came Molly’s text. “I really thought I did, really.”
He wondered if she’d ever met this “close friend” outside of Facebook. “He doesn’t deserve u,” he wrote.
“Could you just tell me which ones you like best?” Pepper asked. “I don’t want our wedding to be ‘The Penelope Show.’”
“Definitely this tuna thing,” Rick said. “And the mushroom cup, the micro steak on toast, and the caviar potato eyeball.” It wasn’t a real eyeball; it just looked like it should be served on Halloween.
“Ew, not the caviar,” Pepper said, wrinkling her nose.
“I’m in so much pain,” Molly wrote. “I feel like I want to hurt myself.”
“Don’t do that,” he wrote, cringing at how stupid it sounded.
“Earth to Rick,” Pepper said. “Why are you defending the salted bug paste they’re calling caviar?”
“If we don’t have caviar,” he explained with condescension that wasn’t entirely ironic, “your friends will not know we spent a third of a million dollars on this wedding.”
“And if we serve this mealy shit,” Pepper replied, “the entire world will think we have no taste.”
Another text from Molly: “I just fall so hard in love sometimes that it scares me.”
“Could you put that down for two seconds?” Pepper asked. “The stock market isn’t even open today.”
“It’s a new client. She needs a lot of attention.”
His phone buzzed again. “It’s really good to be able to talk to you,” Molly’s text read. “You’re a great listener and a great friend.”
Rick texted, “Got 2 go. At a tasting,” as Ronald returned holding a miniature Viking ship with lamb chops as passengers.
* * *
Molly arrived at their little lunch date a few days later in a too-tight skirt suit made of nubby yellow tweed. She’d gained a few pounds, she already had gray hairs, and her forehead was carved with worry, but she really was the girl from the photos. He’d partly agreed to see her just to prove that she existed, but of course she did; he’d googled her. When he typed in “Molly Radiance,” he discovered that Radiance1987@hotmail.com was an email address for one Molly Susan Weintraub, a performing-arts teacher at a private school in Brooklyn Heights. Molly had placed first in a spelling bee in Brooklyn in the late nineties. Her Goodreads list was heavy on Jane Austen and Dorothy Parker. She’d camped out with Occupy Wall Street. Her father was a life coach.
She held the initial hug longer than he did, the first step of an awkward dance.
“Just an FYI: you’re extremely handsome,” she said with a raised index finger. “Sorry.”
He couldn’t say he wasn’t flattered. “Apology denied,” he said, sitting down. “Your punishment will be a spanking.”
“I hope you’ll be gentle with me,” she said with a manufactured laugh.
“I’m very gentle.” He pushed the platter of oysters toward her. “Want one?”
She inspected one, sipped the brine, then went bottoms up, making a crunching noise. Was it possible she’d never eaten an oyster before?
“The shell’s not edible,” he said, suppressing a smile. He liked the feeling of having something to teach her. Pepper never admitted to ignorance; if she had a gap in her knowledge, she would pretend it wasn’t worth knowing. He tried not to think about her. He could manage not to feel terrible about what he was doing if he forgot that he was getting married in a week.
He sipped his wine and studied her. He couldn’t believe he had let their flirtation go this far, but she had pushed for a meeting, and he told himself it would be harmless. After they made the date, she started sending him messages about feeling his muscular arms and tasting his lips, which he’d dismissed as jokes. Now, as he watched her listening to him and laughing and touching her face, he understood that they were going to have sex. He had seduced women for so many years, he could predict every moment leading up to their orgasms and was powerless to stop it. He wasn’t even interested in her: he was being dragged toward her by the unloved boy of his past. It seemed that if he married Pepper before sleeping with Molly—or someone—he would regret it forever. The question was, why was he trying to destroy his life? And why wasn’t he more afraid of doing it?
He swallowed. “Molly, you’re a great girl. But I have to be honest with you. This has to be a one-time thing. I shouldn’t even be doing this now. Can I trust that you’ll be able to handle a clean break?”
“I guess I’ll have to.” Out came her desperate laugh.
“How about we go to the Soho Grand? Their sheets are incredible, and you can spend the whole night there if you like.”
“Is that a hotel?” She sucked through her teeth. “No offense, but doesn’t that seem a little … tawdry?”
“It’s a really nice hotel.”
“I don’t know. It’s not really what I had in mind.”
“Sure, fine, I get it. Where do you live?”
She winced. “My roommates don’t allow guests.”
He cocked his head. “Then how were you thinking…?”
“I was hoping we could go to your place?”
“Molly,” he said, glancing around before taking her hands. “My fiancée is home.”
“Oh, God, we shouldn’t do this.” She tore her hands away and placed them in her lap.
“You’re right. Let’s just forget it.” He called for the check, and they finished their drinks without meeting eyes, though he could tell Molly was sneaking glances at him. He was relieved to be done with her, relieved that, when he proved to lack all self-control and decency, fate had intervened.
When the check came, she got out her credit card.
“Don’t,” he said.
“I’ll pay next time,” she said, tucking her card back into her wallet.
Pepper called. Without apologizing or asking permission, he picked up. “Hey babe, what’s up?”
“Sweetie, none of the bridesmaid dresses fit. It’s like they picked measurements out of a hat. We’re at an emergency fitting at the atelier, and the owner is saying that we’re the ones who got the measurements wrong.”
“I’m sorry, babe. That sounds shitty. Hey, why don’t we go back to the idea of everyone wearing something they already own? I’m sure everyone has a gray dress.”
She moaned. “I wish we could. I know how crazy things have been for you lately, but could you swing by the Chelmsford Arms and pick up the receipts? They’re in the rattan box in the bedroom closet.”
“Babe, they’re working on the bedroom right now. Last time I checked, there was a huge roll of carpeting blocking the closet.”
“No, they’re done with all the flooring. I called the contractor to see if one of the workers could bring it over, and he said they’re taking a few days off until the fixtures are delivered.”
He watched Molly, rummaging through a canvas tote whose print reminded him that it wasn’t a plastic bag, and rode out a sickening thrill. “So no one is there?”
“It would mean so much if you could bring it. I really need to see you right now.”
“I’m finishing up with a client downtown.… Will you still be there in an hour?”
“We’ll wait for you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
“I wish you’d refer to me as your friend,” Molly said after he put his phone back into his pocket.
His blood fizzed in his veins, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn’t want to talk himself out of this. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
He swigged the rest of his wine, then his water. “To my apartment. You’re getting your wish after all.”
* * *
After they moved into the apartment at the Chelmsford Arms, Rick and Pepper discovered that the rear elevators, where their apartment was located, was the least prestigious of the three elevator banks, and the apartments were worth 20 percent less. The one benefit was accessibility through the back entrance: Rick could come home without parading through the lobby and jerry-rigging a smile for the doormen. He couldn’t live without them but wished he could walk through the lobby just once without worrying what they thought of him. He brought Molly in through this rear entrance, blocking the camera’s view of her until the doorman buzzed them in.
But he cringed to see Birdie Hirsch, his perky French-Canadian neighbor, getting into the elevator. They nodded at each other. Molly said hi, then sat on the vestigial elevator-operator seat and ran her fingers along the ridged brass rail. “What floor, madam?” she asked with a stiff nod.
“Have we met?” Birdie asked Molly.
“Oh, this is Molly,” Rick said. “She’s…”
“I’m his ex-girlfriend,” Molly said, shaking Birdie’s hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Oh,” Birdie said, her mouth open as though ready to emit whatever response would surely come to her.
“We dated all through college. Rick proposed to me, but my family didn’t approve, because he wasn’t Jewish. By the time I came to my senses, he was engaged to Penelope.”
“My husband and I had the exact same problem with our families,” confided Birdie. “We eloped.”
The elevator stopped, and they stood by their respective front doors like guards waiting for their shift to end.
“She’s my cousin,” Rick said, searching for his key. “She’s just being funny.”
“Enchanté, Molly, whoever you are.”
“Are you crazy?” Rick asked once he’d closed the door and checked to make sure no one else was inside. “She’s my neighbor! She talks to Penelope all the time.”
“Maybe you deserve to be found out.” She slapped his ass.
He kissed her. Her mouth was soft and her tongue followed his lead. It was exciting to be kissing someone other than Pepper, and a little sad.
“Would you have a drink with me?” she asked, eyeing the sofa mistrustfully. He’d gotten it right after college—decorating his first apartment entirely with freebies—and had been proud of how stately it had looked, almost too good for him. Over the years, it had soaked up splashes of punch and beer, and it had been torn in the fury of half-clothed lovemaking by a stiletto heel. Now it was outclassed by the lavish apartment that surrounded it, and it looked as though it understood that when the renovation was finished and the last traces of Rick’s unpolished life had been eradicated, it would have to die, too, so that Rick might be happy.
She plopped down on the couch. “This is such a nice couch. Everything you have is so amazing. I just have to say, my heart is beating extremely rapidly.”
“How about an Ativan?”
She nodded, but only when he walked into the bathroom did he remember that all of Pepper’s medications were in their temporary apartment. There was a box in the second bedroom marked “toiletries,” but the only pills in there were over-the-counter painkillers and vitamins. When he finally returned to the living room with an open bottle of Pinot Gris, anxious about all the time he’d wasted and hoping she hadn’t stolen anything, she was kneeling in front of a box of books.
“Sorry, we don’t have any good pills,” he said, taking a swig from the bottle and handing it to her.
“You have an amazing library. I love how passionate you are about feminism.” She gulped down half the bottle.
“Those are my fiancée’s. She’s not that much of a feminist.” He couldn’t blame Pepper for banishing Rick’s business-advice manuals and political screeds to their storage facility in Queens: her books were hardbound editions in pristine condition, while his scrappy, dog-eared paperbacks mostly derived from stoop sales or waterlogged giveaway boxes dragged out with the garbage. Yet he wished he’d kept some of those books in the apartment, maybe to tuck behind Pepper’s when they filled up the new bookshelves, just to have them close. He felt a pang, as though he had already lost her. He didn’t want to start their life together by cheating on her. But a parallel voice in his head told him he would never forgive himself for backing down.
“She seems wonderful,” Molly said.
“I have an idea—why don’t we not talk about her?”
She looked around, taking in the new dentil moldings along the edge of the ceiling and the new commercial-grade kitchen, and nodded brusquely. “I guess this is how the one percent lives.”
“We’re not so different from you.” He thought of his bewilderment in his first months with Pepper, at her amusing snobbery and ignorance of financial realities. “Or at least I’m not.” He reached for her again, and she stepped out of his grasp.
“What exactly do you do?” she asked, rubbing the spines of Pepper’s books. “I mean, I googled you. I know it’s an investment banking thing.”
“It’s asset management. Helping high-net-worth individuals invest. I’m an adviser, not a banker.” People had a tendency to lump all careers in the financial industry into one fork-tailed monster, but he’d had nothing to do with subprime mortgages, bank bailouts, or any other left-wing shibboleth. He invested in green energy and B Corps as much as he could, too. But he wasn’t going to defend himself to this woman.
“Like hedge funds and stuff?”
“I work with hedge-fund managers, but I’ve never managed a fund myself.”
“I’ve never thought it right that people who spend their lives playing with money should get to take home so much of it.” Her sneer gave her a menacing squint.
“Hate me if you want, but the fact is, I take a lot of shit from a lot of people, and there’s never a moment when I’m not trying to attract new clients. Anyone could make the same money, if they wanted to.”
“I wouldn’t do it,” she said with a shrug.
“Then you really can’t complain.” It came out harsher than he intended. He smiled at her, which made it worse.
“I read in The New Yorker that the reason we had the financial crisis was because bankers are rewarded for lying,” she said.
“We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Oh—sorry. I’m sorry.”
He finished the wine and took her by the hand to his trusty sofa, then undid the buttons on her blazer and blouse with one hand while kissing her neck and ears. Her skirt resisted unzipping but soon gave way. A flick of his fingers and the bra fell open. Sometimes he used to enjoy undressing women more than the sex itself. But now the process felt rote, like making an espresso or taking out the trash.
“You have a beautiful body,” he whispered, running his fingers over the bumps of her rib cage.
She held her arm over her breasts. Standing beside her, Rick put his hand on her belly and felt it tighten, then relax. He pried her lips open with his and melted his tongue toward hers.
“Do you mind if I put my bra back on?” she asked, wiping her mouth. “I think I’ll be more relaxed.”
“I do mind,” he said, pushing her arm out of the way. “Your breasts are too beautiful to cover up.”
She took a deep, loud breath. They sat on the couch and he lapped at her nipples. They tasted like rose-scented lotion.
“Oh, Rick,” she moaned. “Will you say my name?”
“Shh.” He kissed her on the mouth and began rubbing her clammy inner thighs. He was ready to be done.
“Do you think Penelope might walk in on us?” she asked as he unrolled a condom.
“Don’t worry, I locked the door chain.”
“Could we maybe … unlock it?”
He stopped stroking her. “Why would you want my fiancée to catch me in bed with you?”
“Then I could have you all to myself.” She laughed.
He plucked off the condom. “This is insane.”
“I wan’t being serious! It was just a fantasy, to restore your honor by marrying you. Of course I know you love Penelope, not me. I would never dream of taking you from her.”
He teased his underwear from his pants, pulled them on, and tucked his rapidly deflating erection beneath the waistband. “I think you should leave.”
“Just forget I said that, okay?” She laughed again. “I say a lot of things I don’t mean.”
“I’ll show you out.”
He turned the light on—it was a caged bulb hanging from a wire—and waited for her to dress. After practically pushing Molly out the back entrance, he sprayed Pepper’s perfume over the couch, opened the shades, scrubbed his face and hands, found the bridesmaid dress receipts, took one last look at the sad old couch, silent witness to his infidelity, and cabbed over to the atelier, feeling as though his life had been spared.
* * *
“Who’s ‘Molly’?” Pepper asked Rick as he walked into the kitchen that Saturday morning, desperate for coffee.
The shock of hearing Pepper speak her name took a moment to penetrate his fog. He drew an even breath. “Molly…”
She looked up from a wedding magazine, one of about twenty in her collection. It was weird to be looking at that thing a week before the wedding, he thought. Was she planning on adding to the spectacle? “She’s been messaging you all morning. I wouldn’t have looked, but your phone was buzzing like crazy. I thought it was a flood warning. ‘I need to see you.’ ‘I’m freaking out.’”
