The Black & The White (12 page)

I wondered where I would take eight
married men. They seemed too old to be going to clubs, but Andrew
was my boss and I had to comply.

Jeffrey came back to the table for the
last time.

“
Here’s my card. My cell
number is on the back. Call me. We’ll get together for
drinks.”

As soon as he left, Stephen snatched
the card from my hand.

“
Give that back!” I
demanded. Stephen recited the contents of the card with an
exaggerated British accent.

The card read:
A friend of Kim’s is always a friend of mine.
Especially the cute ones. Please call xoxo
Jeffrey
.

Stephen made vomiting sounds. I
reached over and took the card back from him. It was my first
chance at a date since the breakup. I was happy to be moving on
with my life.

I called Kim, but she said she was out
to dinner with M.D. and had plans to go to a loft party with him.
He was spending the night in the city, and she wanted to spend
every minute she could with him.

“
But I can make calls to get
you into the clubs if you want. Hey, babe, do you want to go to the
Hamptons with me this weekend?”

I agreed on both accounts.

Kim called back a little while later
to tell me she had managed to get me a table at a new club
downtown. Everyone seemed eager to make a fun night out of the
evening.

As we were leaving the restaurant to
head to the club, Andrew pulled me aside and said, “Isabelle,
Stephen really likes you. He’s our largest client. It’s in our best
interest if you’re nice to him and do everything he
asks.”

“
What do you mean? I am nice
to him.” His comments seemed very sudden.

“
I’m not saying you have to
sleep with him. I mean, you can if you want…” Andrew smiled at me.
I walked away before he had a chance to continue.

Sleep with
him
? I wondered if I’d misheard his
implication. “Jerk,” I said under my breath.

I walked over to Carin, lost
in thought.
What kind of job was it that I
was really hired for
?

“
You okay, girl?” Carin
asked.

I looked at her. “Yeah. Just…nothing.
No big deal.” I started to tell Carin my thoughts but held
back.

Who was that monster that
looked like Andrew
? I wondered.

We all headed to a new club called
Hue, in the West Village where guests sat on beds. I dropped the
name Kim had told me to mention, and we were able to get in with
unaffected ease. Those behind the velvet ropes complained of our
effortless entrance. I reveled in their complaints, wondering if
Stephen was impressed at my ability.

Stephen managed to secure a station
with his credit card. The young MAW looked up at him and smiled.
Her demeanor changed suddenly by the mere presence of his black
American Express card. I had seen one only once, with Zach, Kim’s
friend.

I clawed my way through the
fashionistas and made it to the bathroom. I sniffed through the
various perfumes provided and sprayed myself, then refreshed my
face with blush and another coat of mascara. Smiling in the mirror
to see if there was any food caught between my teeth, I felt
confident. I was enjoying the attention from Stephen.

I returned to find Carin lying down,
sandwiched between two men at our bed. Her head rested on Andrew’s
thighs and her legs were draped across Stan, a young, recently
married client whose business Andrew was after.

Andrew stroked Carin’s hair. I felt a
lump develop in my throat and pressure in my chest. The more I saw
Andrew, the more I was beginning to see that he was a lecherous
lout. I looked at Carin hoping she was able to read my mind. Don’t
let him lure you in, Carin, I said in my head. Fight him off Carin.
But she didn’t. On the contrary, she seemed to be enjoying his
attention.

I approached the table and attempted a
smile.

“
Well, well… it seems like
you’re having a good time, Carin,” I said, slightly annoyed. Her
lids were only half open. She was drunk. I walked over to the
bottles of Grey Goose at the foot of the bed and poured myself a
drink.

I kept sneaking peeks at Carin and
Andrew, wondering just how far both would take their flirting. I
had no idea what had gotten into both of them, but I didn’t
approve. I couldn’t help but think Andrew was a fraud. Were those
pictures of his wife and kids on his desk, the ones I stared at
nearly every day, just a cover for his true self?

The hostess came in with two more
bottles of champagne. I stacked the glasses, arranged the straws,
and placed the napkins to one side. Then, suddenly aware of my
neurotic habit, I decided to walk around.

I looked around for Stephen and found
him dancing with a tall, skinny blonde. A pang of jealousy hit my
body as I watched Stephen bury his face into the girl’s
hair.

This is
ridiculous
, I thought. I decided I couldn’t
stand it any longer. It was best to leave.

“
Carin, I think you’ve had
too much to drink.” I peeled her away from Andrew’s groping
hands.

“
Noooo. Don’t leave! Have
one more drink!”

I ignored her and dragged her outside,
nearly carrying her. I put her in a cab and gave the driver ample
fare.

“
Eightieth and Broadway.
Please take her home safely,” I said.

I was wishing Stephen would call for a
car to take me home. I contemplated going back inside and getting
him, but I was too upset about what I had just seen.

On my cab ride home, I reminded myself
that Stephen was married. Having a crush was a waste of
time.

It was 3 a.m. by the time I got home.
The streets of Astoria were desolate except for a few
street-cleaning trucks. Mr. Papagiorgio must have swept the
driveway, as there was no trace of leaves or litter on the blacktop
leading to my apartment. Thinking about him made me smile, giving
me the kind of comforting feeling one gets when thinking of a
grandfather.

As I was getting into bed, I noticed
my favorite book, Siddhartha, sitting on my bookshelf—it had
several colorful sticky notes protruding from the edges that I had
placed there to mark passages that I had especially liked. The
sight of the book reminded me to be present, conscious, and
thoughtful. I pulled out the book and reread some of my favorite
passages. Then I grabbed my journal from the nightstand and copied
one of them into it.

Consumed at first with loneliness,
Siddhartha starts to listen more to his inner voice no longer
ignoring it as he has done so before. This voice drives him to
continue walking, with no destination. Siddhartha soon then rejects
the teachings of others and begins to teach himself through his own
personal experience.

I went back to reading the book until
something else struck a chord. I copied that passage into my
journal as well.

Gambling, drinking, greed, and
lust consumes Siddhartha. It overpowers his true Self. The once
found voice is now quiet and his selfishness increases, becoming as
arrogant as Kamaswami himself.

Siddhartha’s selfishness is
finally destroyed when he realizes how petty his worries are. The
world has feelings. The world has hardships. For what about his
struggle makes it unique? The world has greater hardships, why
should he be pitied by any or at least, more so than
others.

I closed the book, bewildered by how
lost I felt, caught in a world where I had only myself to blame,
yet I couldn’t ask for pity or pity myself, for like Siddhartha,
the world had harder struggles.

I missed Dani but it wasn’t the same
feeling it had been in the past. I simply missed sharing my
intimate thoughts with someone.

I
loved the beginning of summer in New York. Trees were greener,
women tanner, men more fit, and the energy of the city more
intense.

Kim decided to rent a house in East
Hampton for the summer, just a few miles from M.D.’s beach
house.

“
Out east,” as it was
called, was the playground for the rich and the already famous.
Women gamboled, men frolicked and children played. It was a place
to see people and be seen. Driving exotic cars, eating at
overpriced restaurants, attending polo matches and being seen at
celebrity-laden charity events were typical to-do’s. Social events
no longer became a place to gather, but a competition of social
rank.

Memorial Day Friday arrived after a
few weeks of anticipation.

Kim called me that afternoon on my
cell phone. Her voice was excited. “So, um. Well. We’re going to
stay with M.D.! I hope it’s okay. He’s so cute!”

I knew she hadn’t bothered to consider
whether it was okay for me or not. I wondered where his wife and
kids were. When I asked, she told me that M.D. had convinced his
wife to go back to the city, claiming he had planned a boys’
weekend of poker and golf. Under that pretense Kim and I filled her
spot

“
Out with the old! In with
the new!” Kim chuckled at her comment. “He didn’t like it so much
when I said that to him.”

“
Go figure, Kimmie. Fine,
I’ll go. But you’re not going to try to get me involved in some
Asian fantasy threesome, are you?” I asked.

Kim laughed. “I already told him
‘Hands off!’”

I was taken aback that an actual
conversation about this had already transpired.

“
Although it is a fantasy of
his,” she added.

“
Puh-lease.” I laughed.
“You’re out of your mind.”

“
Oh, come on. Get that stick
out of your ass. I was just teasing, baby.”

Kim had tried to persuade M.D. to send
the helicopter for her at the 34th Street heliport but M.D. had
stood his ground against this. He explained to Kim that even his
wife wouldn’t have asked him for that.

“
My wife may be boring, but
she’s not spoiled rotten like you,” M.D. had said to her. Kim
seemed to think he was just teasing, but I suspected it wasn’t all
a joke.

Kim had told me that M.D. had met his
wife during their freshman year at Cornell, a private college in a
small upstate New York town. He had grown up in an even smaller
town in Wisconsin. He had never been that popular with girls, and
when his future wife admitted to having a crush on him in their
sophomore year, he was overwhelmed. No girl had ever been so
forward with him. Soon after, they began to date.

In college, M.D. was teased for being
skinny, and unathletic. As he aged, his body began to fill in and
his face became better defined, and as he got richer, he attracted
quite a lot of women—younger, older, models, mothers, and others.
He began to employ expensive hair stylists, a personal shopper, and
a personal trainer. In contrast, his wife didn’t change much after
college. They inevitably grew apart and that’s when he met Kim. She
was a contrast to his wife. She was exciting, different, exotic and
unpredictable.

We boarded the 6:00 p.m. luxury Jitney
bus on 40th Street.

Earlier in the day, I had asked Andrew
if I could leave early for the Hamptons.

“
The Hamptons? Why there?
Come on, Isabelle, just tell me where you want to go. Anywhere in
the Caribbean and we can go together. We can even stay in separate
suites,” he said, laughing. “But hey, the Hamptons are okay too. Go
ahead. See you Monday.”

I had looked at him, unsure what to
think. His suggestive comments were becoming more and more
frequent.

“
Okay, thanks,” I said,
trying to avoid eye contact.

I had written a “Have a good weekend.
I am going to the Hamptons” message to Stephen. Within ten seconds,
he called with a barrage of questions: “Who are you going with?
When are you leaving? Can you meet me at MOMA before you
go?”

“
I can’t. I have to go now,
Stephen.”

“
Are you going with a guy?”
I wondered where the sudden urgency about seeing me came
from.

There was a long line for the bus. Kim
had also invited her colleague from work, Jessica, to accompany us.
I looked at their matching designer bags as we got on the bus,
regretting having taken the blue and green canvas bag I had
received as a gift from the Human Resources Department as part of
my employment package. I wasn’t aware that weekend bags could be so
fashionable, and I yearned for one.

Jessica was having an affair with
M.D.’s ten-year trader, Dover (a play on his name Ben and his
affinity for “bending Jessica over”). He had used the same excuse
Eric had to get to the beach.

Jessica was a statuesque blond known
to the small group of traders at the firm as ButterFace, a play on
“Everything’s good, but her face.” Jessica and Kim had started the
analyst training class at Morgan Stanley simultaneously. Although
they had never been great friends in the past, they had recently
bonded over their affairs with married men on the trading
floor.