The Adored (41 page)

“Why, are you going to run away with me if I say yes?”

“I’ll drive.” And they both laughed the way they had their whole lives. “Now answer my fucking question. Are you fucking ready now?”

“Jesus. That mouth, Val. You kiss your baby with those lips.”

She punched him hard on the arm, “Answer the fucking question,” she screamed.

“Maybe,” he said, looking at her seriously.

Valerie Samson looked at Edward Wheelwright. Humph. How to proceed? Push it. No. Rub it in, same old procrastination. Yes, but no. Probe? Yes. “What happened?” she said caringly at first. Then she asked it again with a little more vinegar, “What happened with you and little Miss San Juan?”

“It wasn’t Miss San Juan,” Edward said a little defensively, then in keeping with their openness, “just little Miss Mountain Town.”

“What happened, Edward?” her voice now raised in a sing-song way.

“I think she slept with Sebastian.”

“She would cheat on you? With Sebastian? Ugh!” she said disgustedly.

“That’s my Val,” he said, smiling at her way of phrasing it.

“Well, I agree he’s got more money than God, but he’s so full of himself and his do-goodness that he couldn’t piss if he didn’t have a valet or chauffer to help him.

“Val, it’s Sebastian,” he protested.

“I know.”

“When did you feel that way about him?” Wheelwright said, genuinely surprised.

“How about forever,” she offered.

“Always?

“Always!” she repeated. “He was too good for anyone. Even his “magnificent seven.”

“Magnificent seven?” he wondered where Val got that from.

“You guys were always so funny with your Brunswick thing. There were other people on the earth, and some of us thought you were pretty great without the group thing.”

“But the group is about loyalty and friendship.”

“Tell me I didn’t just hear that. Sebastian. Santa. Same bed. Loyalty. Wrong word, Eddie. If Sebastian didn’t have you boys for play things he’d still be home sucking Mrs. Ball’s tit.”

“When we leave here, you’re going straight to confession,” he said.

“When we leave here, we’re going straight to bed,” she said.

Chapter 55

And they did. Metaphorically. The desire returned—it remained, untouched with time, reawakened.

“Let’s go,” Edward said, standing now, starting to pant.

Smiling, Valerie said, “Where?”

“In back of the secret garden, the old mansion tower.”

She knew the spot, she laughed and got up. She kissed him. “You’re so creative,” and touched his cheek.

“There are times when expediency means something. I figure you’d understand.”

They left their beach gear on the sand, took the blanket, and got into Edward’s BMW and drove to the southern end of the peninsula and up a narrow path by the cow barn. They walked through the secret garden, a walled rectangle that looked out from a bluff over the sound and the sailing club below. They followed a path into the woods stopping to kiss and grope, gaining heat as they progressed down the path and then back up to the plateau that was all that remained of the Tod mansion, except for a round twenty-five-foot stone turret at the rear of the plateau. It had an open entrance that curled in a half circle enclosing visitors from view. The stone masons that Tod had brought in from Italy to build his estate had even included a cantilevered bench, that was a slab of stone imbedded in the turret’s walls and that now found itself supporting a prone Valerie Samson, who was beneath Edward Wheelwright, on the beach blanket.

The bathing suits had come off quicker this time than they did the first time the couple explored this space nine years ago.

Nothing had changed. The passion, the love making, the meeting of pounding bodies all remained intense, only more so now by the desperation of the woman and the timely rediscovery by the man. And when they reached the climax to the reignition of what had always been torrid love making, they could hear the voices of children approaching the plateau.

They laughed and dressed quickly and retraced the path back toward the car, passing two pre-teen boys along the way. The boys turned to look at Valerie’s body and giggled to themselves. Valerie and Edward smiled at each other.

“They would have got quite an education if they came along two minutes earlier,” she said, her arm around Edward’s waist.

“Naw, I’d have scared the shit out of them if they got too close.”

“With a growl or that big thing in your pants?”

Edward laughed as he continued to be reminded how fast Valerie was in any situation and how she always kept him happy. She was right, he told himself. It wasn’t that he was procrastinating on their future. It was a damn accident, a confluence of incidents: finding his father’s papers that he had paid for Val’s college, learning about his father’s affair with Val’s mother, and being in Paris, couple of days of partial downtime, meets an exciting and beautiful girl. He owed Valerie for the way he ended their relationship—their engagement, their planned life, their friendship—and that was why there had been no contact for the two years even though they were in the same business, in the same city.

When they reached the BMW, Valerie pressed up against Edward. “Eddie, I want you again,” she said looking up at him, the passion not yet subsided.

“Me too, Val,” he said. And then putting his arms around her he said he was sorry. “You should hate me, but you don’t. I shouldn’t have returned your call. I don’t deserve to be in your life.” He kissed her, and he remembered what it felt like to care deeply, sympathetically, lovingly for someone. The girl he had loved his whole life, who had promised to be his wife, and who he dismissed so easily was now standing before him. He thought, this moment should remain. They kissed again.

The moment was interrupted as a group of boys and girls came up the path from the cow barn that was now used for sailing lessons and boat and sail storage.

“That’s twice with the kids,” he said.

“I can stay over,” Valerie said. He looked startled, and then smiled, always a surprise—this girl.

“What about your husband?”

“He’s fine. He’s out of town, our nanny is with my baby, and I’m in the city with a girlfriend.”

“And what if I didn’t say, ‘Maybe?’” he said with a laugh.

“But you did,” and she punched him in the stomach.

“Let’s go take a swim.”

They swam in the chilly, late spring water of the Sound. They raced; they played in the water as they had as teenagers. Val’s bikini top came off, and she quickly pulled it back up. “It’s a tanning suit, not a swim suit,” she told the admiring Edward.

As they toweled off by the beach chairs, from a distance a person would have thought Edward and Valerie were a happily married couple. They held hands as they emerged from the water, smiling, drying each other, hugging, spreading out beside each other on the blanket on their stomachs, looking at each other as they talked, constantly smiling and laughing.

The girl was back in the woman. In an afternoon she had been given her spirit back.

They rolled over and were on their backs on the blanket now, her head resting on his arm. “Where will we spend the night?” she asked, following it with a suggestion, “How about that sleazy hotel in Stamford by Exit 9.”

“How about my house?” he offered, “I’ve kept my space in the guesthouse.”

She smiled. “That would be very nice, Eddie.”

They lay in the sun silently after that decision; each with their own perceptions of what was occurring. Each with their own hopes of what this meant. At this moment if they laid out all they felt and all they were thinking, they would not have been apart by more than the breeze of a flapping butterfly wing.

After some time Valerie spoke, “Now, can I talk with you about this opportunity?”

“Isn’t that why we’re here?” Edward laughed.

“You fuck,” she said laughing. They both giggled themselves silly at what they were finding in each other once again.

Chapter 56

The white Colonial home sits at the end of a private road in Old Greenwich, just up the road from Tod’s Point. Its smaller counterpart, the former carriage house on the estate, serves as the living quarters for Edward Wheelwright when he is not staying at his apartment in the city. It is to the right and front of the main house. The two acres overlook Long Island Sound. There is a tennis court in back of the carriage house and a swimming pool to the right of the main house in back of the tennis court. The main driveway was moved to the left of the property some years before, and when driving through the tall hedges and winding diagonally to the right, the Wheelwright estate appears before you: main house, pool, tennis court, and carriage house, all framed by the same high hedge that fronts the property.

Val Samson always pictured herself as the mistress of the property, and as she and Edward pulled in through the hedges, she felt her pulse quicken.

“This was to be my home,” she said to Edward.

“It is to be your home,” Wheelwright responded. “Let’s see Dad first. Seeing you will cheer him up.”

“When he heard we had split up, he was pissed,” he said as they pulled in front of the large home.

“At me?” Val asked, puzzled.

“No, of course not. At me. For ending our engagement. This will be a shock to him.”

Inside his home, Mark Wheelwright, the former Senior Vice President for Risk Management at Oceans Bank, was playing it over in his mind. It was all there, all for the taking—the merger, bringing together the three main financial elements: banking, investment banking, and insurance. Then it was gone.

Oceans Bank was a target from the beginning. Everyone wanted something from it. That was why it made perfect sense. But the target was too big. It couldn’t feed all the fish in the ocean. The capital demand in New York City was astounding. Everyone came calling; everyone saw the advantages of one-stop financial shopping. The borrowers, empire builders who wanted to create the next skyscraper to fit their egos pushed the bank for higher and higher leverage—less capital put in, more of the total cost borrowed, spread over longer and longer time frames. But it was all in a market that was overbuilt, with depressed rental prices.

He lifted his glass, took a drink and said out loud, “What were we thinking?”

And then he remembered, we were thinking we were big enough, we had the three-legged stool. The retail bank for the world, the investment bank for profit and tough times, and the backing of the insurance giant would outweigh the risks of recessionary times. Our ego started to match our customers. We were morphing, no longer bankers, our roots, and not yet the new moneymen for all seasons.

There we were snug in the middle of Wall Street, admired for our inventiveness, for our boldness. But it was inevitable. The target was too big. After the borrowers came the beggars. Congressmen, senators, prospective presidents, all with their hands out. All offering us a seat at the table. Access. And we bellied up to the bar with them.

The more we dealt with the borrowers and the beggars, the more we felt part of them. We saw the target also; it was enormous. We raised our salaries, our bonuses skyrocketed. We felt like ball players. Our parachutes were no longer golden; they were platinum. Payoffs for silence about the plunder were taking place.

And the wealth spread across the world. Our offices reached everywhere. Civilization demanded prosperity, and we were capable of financing it all. Even the little guy wanted in. Sure, a home with nothing down, no payments for a year and low interest for five years. You don’t have a job; that’s hilarious. Get one. You’ll need it when the loan resets in five years or when the Fed raises rates. But for now, don’t worry about it. That’s what we told them. We didn’t learn from the dot com bubble. Same thing happened: big target, lots of money available. Start-up. Sure we can finance you. The banks became angel investors. The mentality of the investment bank permeated the lending bank. No revenue, no problem. You have a business plan; it’s on the back of a napkin? Your plant is in your garage? How much do you want? Then the crash of the technology bubble.

Where was I, the risk guy? I was there. I was part of it. I saw it happening. I helped it happen. Sure I raised my hand, “But…”

But I wasn’t effective. I raised my hand like the good traffic cop I was. Trying to slow the speeders down. I gave them warnings, and they said thank you and sped off.

So now, I would be smarter, this time with the housing situation, we would all be smarter after the dot com ending.

Still, though, the target was too big. After nine eleven we realized we had become a different kind of target. Terrorists saw us as evil. Saw capitalism as evil. Us. Bankers. Evil? And there it was. We had changed. We had become evil. Even the beggars were after us now. They saw us as a quick way from congressman to senator. We became a stepping stone from Attorney General to Governor. They were shoo-ins. Spitzer used us. Cuomo used us. The same guys that wanted to shackle us also made sure we paid a thousand dollars a plate for a table of ten at every rubber chicken dinner they popped in on. Damn. They were worse than us. They’d have us under indictment for conspiring to fix rates and at the same time have their underlings looking for us to send a bundle of contributions to the campaign. They expected a grand from every vice president in the bank. They even knew how many vice presidents we had—and it was too many.