Opening Belle (17 page)

Amanda laughs. “Consider the complaint filed.”

C
HAPEL? I
can't do chapel. I wake up feeling sweaty and sticky because I've slept in black Lycra running tights. I didn't actually run last night but I thought about it, so I dressed the part right before reading to Owen a book so boring it made us both pass out. We spent the night sweating on each other in my marital bed that contained no husband. That means I got nine hours of sweaty sleep while Bruce found another bed in some other room.

It's Environment Day at Kevin's school, so I got assigned religious duty while Bruce will learn about being green. Right now, sticky me thinks that was a bad trade.

I've avoided Henry since Florida and for the first few days, my research calls were directed right into Tim's office. I suppose that was Henry's punishment, Tim taking some of his responsibility away for a bit, reminding him who is boss, reminding him how it's done. The few times I've spoken with Henry our conversations are crisp business downloads. The type that cater to only one side of his personality, the one that doesn't remember us napping together or ever having known each other. Henry may be at chapel and I don't want to see him.

“Bruce, let's switch back. I can't do chapel,” I say when I find him on Brigid's floor, partially in her Dora the Explorer sleeping bag, which only comes up to his waist. He grunts but doesn't turn over. He must have been using Mr. Potato Head as a pillow because the ear of the toy is stuck in his cheek. I slide my Lycra body in the half bag next to him so that we fill every centimeter of the thing and Owen sees a good time in front of him.

“Me too,” he says, and climbs on top of us.

“Little guy, you are always cutting in on my action,” Bruce says, and envelops our baby in his muscled arms.

I position my nose behind his ear and say, “Honey, I woke up being more concerned with the vanishing polar ice caps and less interested in singing about David and Goliath.”

Bruce tries to roll over to face me but has to scooch in slight, almost painful movements to get this done. His face touches my face and Owen, outside of the bag now, straddles us. I want to be close to Bruce to say something funny to him, but I can tell he doesn't need a joke.

“What are you saying?”

“Let's switch. I'll go to Environment Day and you go to chapel.”

“It's over two hours long,” he says. “You'd be so late for work.”

“It's okay. I can call in.”

“No way. I did all the work on Kevin's green machine. What if it breaks? You won't know how it operates.”

I feel a gush of love toward a guy who both invented and really cares about the success of the green machine. I'm a sucker whenever he shows commitment to anything.

“I'm a fast learner,” I say with very little resolve. I know that Bruce is right.

“I don't want you there on the phone checking your CrackBerry 'cause that's not really being there. Chapel is forty minutes. Stick to fire and brimstone, lady, and besides, I told Kevin I was going with him,” he says.

Brigid appears in the bedroom, her hair standing on end and her clear, pool-blue eyes screaming,
Love me.
She looks let down by what she sees on the floor, her frumpy family being held captive by Dora and Swiper. She sighs. “Here, chapel shoes for Mama,” she says while thrusting the shoes toward me. She stands back and waits to be awed by the magic of my large feet slipping into something so fabulous. The shoes today are red, fire engine red tap dancing shoes done in a shiny patent leather. They are a leftover from my made-in-China Dorothy Halloween costume. I pull myself out of the sleeping bag and slip them on, resigned.

“Okay, Owen, Brigid, it's chapel time.” I sigh.

When the cab turns the block in the 60s between Park and Madison, it's stopped by a fleet of black SUVs jockeying for position perilously close to throngs of three-feet-tall people. I fling open the taxi door.

Brigid bolts out first, her cotton tights bunching at her ankles, her American Girl doll tucked under her arm like a newspaper. I think to myself,
If only I took the time to really dress that child, if I detangled her hair and put her in smocked party dresses, I'd be a better mother.
My thirty-seven-pound Owen begs to be carried, and because of how close we are to the front door, I comply. The smell of his morning hair with just a touch of strawberry jam is intoxicating and I feel slightly better about being here. Then I see Henry's Escalade parked directly in front of the door, the place where no parents are supposed to park. I know it's Henry's car from his license plate, “POLO V.” Yes, he's a polo player these days.

I command Owen, “Hug Mommy, really tight.”

Using my son as camouflage, I pretend to dash after Brigid and past the POLO-mobile, but my timing is off.

“Belle!” I'm passing too close to Henry to pretend not to hear.

I turn nonchalantly. “Hey, P. Diddy.”

“Nice shoes, Cassidy—er, McElroy.”

My heart stops. I know what he means before I even look down. Shoes. The famous doorman shoe-swap. Today I had forgotten the swap part because Brigid was with me. I look right in his eyes and past the dashing suit, the tint of gloss to blacken his hair, and the $25,000 Hollywood smile and try hard to remember when his teeth were crooked.

“Uh, they're not my shoes.”

“They
are
your shoes, so pretty,” says Brigid.

“Mom!” Owen is whining to get inside.

I have red patent leather shoes on. Bright red, with heels. Henry stands there with his sons, perfectly tailored, blazered, and khakied. One extends his hand to greet me. Are these kids robots?

“Um, I'm not wearing these, you see,” I say weakly as I bend forward and shake the tiny hand while lowering Owen to the ground.

Both of his boys are quiet now, both looking at me quizzically.

“I pick out her shoes,” Brigid matter-of-factly informs the sons of Henry. My kid is getting street cred.

“Yes, you do.” I look right into the eyes of the elder Henry offspring and tell him, “Brigid has the best taste in shoes. These are extra-special. They make me run fast. They keep me from being late for chapel.”

I turn decisively, to quickly escape from Henry and bracing myself for the eyeballs of the PA Ladies. Let them feast their damn eyes on shoes that cost $9.99. I think I even used a coupon.

“Belle, see me after chapel,” Henry yells after me. “I have shoes for you in the car.”

“You have shoes—women's shoes? What are you trying to tell me?”

“Not me, you know, my wife. She keeps supplies in the car.”

Henry lifts his finger and points to a coiffed Filipino man sitting in the driver's seat. The driver does something that magically makes the back door of the POLO-mobile lift open. Henry reaches in and lifts up a nubuck leather cover to reveal a virtual micro-mall. In the back underbelly of Henry's car there are clever little custom racks holding about seven pairs of shoes. There are five neatly folded cashmere sweaters, there are slacks, a jewelry box, running shoes, fur collar, hair accessories, makeup kit, yoga mat, and hairbrushes. Brigid, my future retailer, stands in awe and wants to touch. I can't act impressed.

“Is she going on a camping trip?” I ask.

“Nope,” he says simply.

I reach forward and touch a pair of the Jimmy Choos that look museum-worthy. They have never been worn. Who spends $700 on a pair of shoes and keeps them like a spare Kleenex box in the car? I flip the shoe over.

“Size seven and a half. You should remember, Prince Diddy, that us size-ten-and-a-half girls resent the seven-and-a-half-ers.”

“I remember, ten and a half narrow.” He smiles now. It feels so good to still be able to make him laugh and I'm relieved. I turn and proudly march my red-shod feet into chapel, feeling just a bit of my groove coming back and thinking everything is going to finally be okay, but then as I squat myself on the floor and have the extra minute to turn off my phone, I allow myself to open another Metis memo. This is number ten.

To:
All Employees

From:
Metis

Subject:
Equal Pay for Equal Work

As many employees prepare to be showered with money, let us hope that all persons who decide bonuses divvy money in a way commensurate with accomplishment and not according to gender, race, color, creed, time spent on the golf course, or time spent watching acrobatic women on poles.

The second I opened it, I wished I had not. The banjo player began booming out something about someone being his sunshine, his only sunshine, while I seethed at the stupidity of such a memo, so close to bonus season.

W
HY AM I
the only one who thinks this Metis is ridiculous? It's setting up a war. The few of us women who are close to the executive floor are going to be seen as the enemy. “I hate divisive tactics like this,” I tell the GCC over cold and seasonably inappropriate March margaritas in Grand Central Terminal. I spent the bulk of my day speaking to an MBA class from Dartmouth and a group of Boy Scouts from New Jersey and they left me feeling better about where the human race was headed. “Our old-boy culture may dissolve on its own without any help from Metis memos.”

Amy twists up her face. “Sometimes, Belle, I have no idea where your reasoning comes from.”

“It comes from her bank account,” says Violette. “I can't blame her, though.”

“I love when you speak about me as if I'm not here. Hello? Aren't women supposed to talk behind each other's backs?”

“We don't have time to be sneaky,” says Violette. “And we certainly don't have time to be Metis.”

For whatever reason, the drink order seemed better as an idea than in reality, because nobody is drinking. The GCC, along with every other employee of Feagin, will be informed of their bonuses tomorrow, and the brittle feeling, the edginess of the moment, has us snapping at each other. The timing of the most recent Metis memo couldn't have been worse.

I'm supposed to be touring business schools this spring, recruiting women for the firm by convincing them that I am the perfect trophy of a woman with the whole life package and presenting that as something attainable. The GCC wants me to be more transparent with prospective hires, even if it means embarrassing whichever banker gets sent on these missions with me.

“Look,” Amy says, as she re-spikes her hair into place. “When those kids really know what it's like to pay a mortgage, to buy a car, to have kids, their tune will change. Something has to give if they want to make the money they'll need in this town. Maybe Isabelle and the jocks should give more realistic presentations. Not the ‘work hard, wind up rich' theme, but the ‘work hard, get rich, and be miserable' theme.”

“How about the ‘golden handcuff' theme?” asks Violette. “You know, where you start to hit six figures and then seven and then you think you're incapable of doing anything else because nothing will ever seem as worthwhile because it pays a tiny fraction of what this job pays?”

“All I know is that today I spoke to young people who asked about ethical things I never even thought about at their age. Maybe future generations have stuff more figured out.” I rise from the table.

“Where are you going?” Amy asks, looking like she actually likes me.

“Look, I have three neglected kids and a stack of mortgage products to review for Cheetah tonight. I also have to rehearse for bonus day. This night could be endless, and sipping frosty beach drinks in a train station is not getting things done.”

“You don't sell mortgages.”

“I know, but I'm tired of being stupid. I'm constantly asked about them, so it's time I had some intelligent answers.”

The women look at me like I'm abandoning them and I have a weird déjà vu of leaving my children behind each morning.

I push on the brass-handled door of the restaurant and into the misty air of New York. I walk the many blocks toward home, both west and north, thinking again of Violette's opinion that I need to tell the truth when pitching the firm. If I did, who would ever work at any top investment bank? Speaking the truth would make me look like a traitor.

In just a few hours it'll be bonus day for the McElroys. I'll be paid for the home runs of the year, the Emergent Biosolutions, the CeeV-TV. Bonus day means that the graph I keep on my computer, the one that represents the amount of money we need to live comfortably in some suburb, grows more black than red. We are getting so close to moving somewhere easier. I envision my children attending a decent public school, Bruce working at something he loves to do, once he finally figures out what that is, and me looking back at these years as being the price we paid to land in a deeply secure financial place.

My BlackBerry buzzes with a plunk of emails. I notice Henry's in the mix and feel slightly enraged. I haven't even gotten home and he's probably looking for those mortgage securities recommendations. This will be a very long night.

Henry has asked me for something no investor takes the time to look at. He wants to know exactly which mortgages are in each bundle, the actual bricks and mortar they represent. To get this information I pulled many strings, and now I have to review it. I have to be up to speed on the stuff most clients don't even look at. We have yet to say anything to each other about our night in Palm Beach, and as the weeks pass, my loneliness seems to grow too.

I click open his email as I stand there in Columbus Circle. Blue lights glisten in the trees behind me, giving my screen a hallowed glow. I read:

In my ocean, you were the drop of ink that turned the water blue.

I stand there for many seconds, forgetting to breathe.