Opening Belle (18 page)

I
DON'T ALLOW
myself out of bed before the first number on the digital clock is a five. Even though it's bonus day, I stand firm on this rule, so I lie still, inhaling the dried-out air of our home, and jump up when 4:59 turns to 5:00 a.m. Once again, Bruce slept somewhere else in the apartment. On evenings when I'm not out late with clients, he goes to the gym after dinner, stays until I have everyone in bed, and then prefers to shower and sleep in the back maid's room, where he won't wake anyone up. We haven't had sex in a month but I don't have time to worry about that right now.

I studied the mortgage papers until a mere four hours ago, until my eyes seemed to have cotton sticking in them, and the bottle of eye lubricant I was using ran dry. By then I had accomplished enough to email Tim and Henry the ideas I thought best to buy and sell in their portfolio. And that was the only email I sent Henry. All business.

The more I think about Henry's flowery message, the more I believe it to be misdirected. Maybe his thong-wearing wife was the intended recipient and he misfired? Maybe he has a girlfriend? Still, last night I couldn't stop flipping back to my in-box, rereading his message and trying to not let myself remember that he was capable of being a very different person.

Even though it's early, Brigid has delivered my shoes for the day, a sensible pair of brown loafers. My daughter must sense it's a serious day and has chosen to have me dress like a law student. She places them at the foot of the bed and I lean down toward her smell of cotton and fitful sleep. The sweet breath she exhales into my face calms me. She locks herself onto my neck but I don't have time for our lovey nose kisses this morning.

Greene hands out executive bonuses in fancy restaurants and I want to look neat but not showy. I have no time to deal with my daughter's brown loafer delivery. I'm so distracted I don't even bother to pretend to wear them for Brigid's sake. I opt for some cannot-offend-anybody Cole Haan pumps and Brigid's face scrunches up with tears of rejection. I feel a little heartless not indulging my four-year-old as I toss the loafers in the closet but today I have to be cut from stone. For some reason, before closing the bathroom door on her teary face I say, “This is not me. Real Mommy is coming soon.” She looks puzzled. I have to believe this is true for both our sakes.

Four hours of sleep is not enough for any human, no matter what anyone says about Einstein or other geniuses who exist on less. My sagging gray face reflects what's going on inside me. I slap on self-tanner, hoping it will make me appear slightly more vital, but the effect is a little orange. I poke conservative pearl earings into my ears, apply light mascara, and select a fitted suit. I look just okay, which is what I want. I pull out my glasses with clear glass in them—I have good eyesight but wearing them makes me look brainier.

Bruce snores away in the back bedroom despite the fact that all three kids are up, and the ransacking and mayhem is well under way. The apartment needs an entire day's worth of picking up and it's only 6 a.m. There's hardly one drawer that doesn't have something hanging out of it. No book ever gets read and returned to its shelf, no jar of food ever seems to be put in the fridge or the garbage. We dwell in a life of half steps, almost getting clothing to the laundry basket, almost getting the plates out of the sink, and almost closing the coat closet door. I bolt for the door before I become enmeshed in diapers, breakfast, voices pleading to be walked to school, or marital bickering. Like a soldier heading to war I can't think of my family, at least not until tonight.

I walk across the off-white sea of Lincoln Center and I rehearse my litany of accomplishments for the year. My speech to Simon rings like my own aria as I cross Central Park to get to the most power-charged breakfast scene in all of Manhattan.

The Loews Regency Hotel on Park Avenue has three doormen to whip the brass doors open. Those at the breakfast tables are seated by status. Private meetings are in the back, gawkers and tourists right in front, midrange power brokers fill the middle, while the real power sits along the sides, where they can be seen but not easily interrupted. The smell of expensive cologne mixed with fresh, dense coffee caffeinates the room. The only other woman I spot here is a
New York Post
gossip reporter, in place to note who is hanging out with whom. It's a testosterone-fest at 7:30 a.m.

Will Markle, an undercover detective, stops me to say hello. He spies for undisclosed hedge fund managers, letting them know if one CEO speaks with another and what if any takeover or deal implications that could have.

I barely acknowledge him because I see Greene, alone in the back and ready to get this bonus discussion going.

Greene likes to talk about money on neutral territory, away from eyes peering into the glass executive offices and yet public enough to avoid the possibility of raised voices and ugly scenes. Greene has managed to secure one of those unapproachable power tables.

Though paunchy, Greene is spry enough to jump up and pull out my chair to seat me. My brain goes on extreme alert. While most women would think this implies Greene has manners, the men I work with act this way when nervous, or trying to get away with something. Manners appear when someone either needs something or is guilty of something. Greene shakes my hand and his is sweaty. Mine is cold, assured, and I'm so glad I had my head-clearing walk. I can already tell I need all my brain synapses to be firing and Greene wastes no time. Before the bow-tied waiter can pour a glass of orange juice so magnificent the pulp threatens to rise up and turn back to a whole fruit again, Greene says, “I've got an opportunity for you.”

I'm not at all hungry for the sweet, delicate muffins but to appear relaxed, I push a piece of one into my mouth, where it sits sugary and unappreciated.

I fire back with my best cheerleader face. “An opportunity? Feagin is one big opportunity.”

I fake a breezy, light tone as I smooth the starched napkin across my lap. My phone is buzzing and while I lean down to turn it off, I never let myself release eye contact with Greene, which unfortunately allows me to catch his eyes falling to my cleavage. I sit up straight and adjust my blazer jacket.

“You've had a lifestyle change,” he begins.

“I have?” I am very cognizant of this common tactic of beginning a tough discussion with a surprise statement. I'm now on high alert.

“I mean, three kids, the demands of this job,” he continues.

“I'm terrific at this job and I've had these kids for a while,” I say carefully, because I have no idea where his train of thought is going.

“You are good at your job, but think of the suffering of the children.”

I'm knocked off my balance beam. This isn't at all what I envisioned. I try to stay calm.

“You mean . . . what?”

I feel my face get hot and for a second I flash back to Brigid's eyes this morning. Was that suffering I saw?

He continues, “Nobody can properly run a household, have three children, be an MD at Feagin, and keep firing on all cylinders. Even me. My wife mostly stays at our Florida home, my kid's at boarding school. That's how I do it. But you can't possibly do it. Not with babies and whatshisname.”

“His name is Bruce and he's essentially taken on most of the traditional mother roles,” I lie. “I have just as much free time on my hands as you do.” Second lie.

“So I'm doing you a favor and giving you a partner,” Simon continues.

“A partner?” My voice is very low.

I tell myself to wait, to count to some very big number before firing back, but I can't wait. I'm always waiting. There's no five-second rule here because I'm exploding inside.

“My husband is all the partnership I need,” I say evenly. “Giving me a partner on my accounts is a nice way of telling me my income will be cut and it would make no sense for you to cut one of your largest producers because you'd be taking away her motivation to ever produce again. You're too smart to do something like that.” Greene tries to interrupt me but I don't let him. “I came to a place like Feagin Dixon so I could operate alone, work as hard as possible, and reap what I sow. Feagin is a place that allows that, that pays like that. I'm already giving half of everything I make to a trader and some of them pull their weight and many of them do not. If I understand you correctly you're telling me that I'm now to cut my half into yet another half with some . . . some parasite?”

“You don't even know who I'm thinking of. And honestly, Belle, it's someone who will grow your accounts immeasurably.”

“Simon, you're a salesman selling an idea to another salesman. Give it a rest and just let me guess which guy it will be because I know it will be a guy and it will also be someone with no relationships and no accounts. Am I right?”

Greene is slightly rattled but remains direct. “Yes, he's a man.”

“
Which
man?” I say, but it sounds like a hiss.

My voice has gotten louder all on its own and the waiter scurries away instead of refilling our coffee cups. I'm fighting to find composure, but I just can't do it. I haven't rehearsed this part. I thought I had anticipated every turn this meeting could have taken but I never saw this coming.

“Simon, a partner implies equality and I can't think of any man who's going to bring an account package equal to mine to the table. It'd be one thing if I was not producing, but I am producing. You gave me the worst accounts years ago, you gave me nothing and I've turned them into something and you still haven't told me which partner you're considering.”

“Stone Dennis.”

The guy who stole Brigid's Barbie head and considered punching me at the office holiday party. I don't think the guy has any accounts or any work ethic and he's been with us long enough to have found both. That is who Simon considers to be my equal.

Our conversation has spun far from the reason we were meeting in the first place, the bonus. It's time for me to take control. I can discuss the partnering idea later. I need the upper hand of this conversation. “Simon, you do realize that I'm your biggest producer over the last twelve months. I expect to get paid as such.” I say this with an icy cool that puts out the fire on my face.

“Well, you do have some of the largest accounts so I should hope you would be.”

“Yes, but please tell me you remember the important fact that they weren't big accounts when I got them, and that I grew them, and most importantly I can take them wherever I end up working.”

Simon and I begin to zing at each other. Like a Ping-Pong ball, our anger flies back and forth over a votive candle weirdly lit for breakfast service. We're very good at the pithy one-liners delivered in civil tones. He tries to make me believe Stone can grow my accounts even more.

“There's no low-hanging fruit that isn't picked off the tree,” I say. “Not on any tree I'm responsible for.”

“It's the fruit in the higher branches that Stone is going to pick for you,” he retorts with his cheek turning from red to white, from sheepish embarrassment of doing something unethical to anger at being challenged.

“Enough with the fruit metaphors,” I hiss at him. “Stone will bring nothing and take something. It's that simple.”

We sit in silence for a moment while I try to get my heart rate to settle and his face returns to a more neutral pallor.

“You do realize you're cutting my income in half?” I practically whisper. “Nobody gets their income cut like this when they're doing a good job.”

“I didn't say it would be a fifty-fifty split.”

“What exactly are you saying?”

“Sixty-forty.”

“Stone Dennis will get forty percent of my income for doing what?”

“Belle, he will grow the income. You will take sixty percent home of what will be a much larger pot.”

“You don't really believe that.” My voice quavers like a girl getting dumped.

“I do and you're not alone. Many people on the desk are going to be splitting accounts.”

“Name them,” I say, knowing there won't be one male named.

“It's not your business. This is your business.” Greene plants his fat fingers flat on my spreadsheet of accomplishments, my list of deals and trades executed in the past year and the stuff we've come to talk about.

“Simon, I came to this firm thinking the sky was the limit. Any ambition I had to run a department was slowly chipped away by the reality of the environment I work in. I
replaced
that ambition with another, the desire to use my brain to make money and my energy to do it quickly. I'm hitting the ball out of the park on every basis that is measured and you keep changing the rules on me, moving the boundaries, making things impossible. My job is a one-person job. Unless—”

I interrupt myself with a terrible thought. It's a one-person job unless they want me to teach Stone my accounts before they push me out. They can't fire me because I bring in too much money, but what if someone knew how to do what I do? What if someone also had good relationships with my accounts? What if I were to become more disposable? I freak just a little bit more.

“Look,” Simon says, trying to calm me down, “I see Stone being the party boy on the account, the guy willing to take the clients to strip clubs, the guy who'll drink shots with the junior-level analysts who will one day run those firms. How do I justify paying Stone if I don't give him any opportunity? The guy is getting married to a woman who is a shopper. Then he'll have kids and if he sees no place to grow his business, he's gone.”

“Yes, that would be a terrible loss,” I mutter.

It's time for me to play with Simon's head.

“Have you heard about this class action suit out of Goldman Sachs?” I ask. “Or the one that Merrill Lynch had to settle for fifty million dollars? Or maybe the Morgan Stanley one?”