It was the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. A fuzzy orange sphere shimmered on the glass tower across the avenue, drenching my office in thin, calming light. I stretched my fists above my head and yawned before picking up the collection of pages I’d been ignoring in my lap.
Peer group valuation multiples and secondary market projections slid around the pages and became a blur. Blowing out a deep breath, I refocused. I creased my brow and studied the numbers in earnest. It was time to get serious.
Nope.
I rolled up the pages of analysis and drummed my head, wondering if I could hammer out a tune by changing the aperture of my mouth. This is fucking hopeless. I flicked my wrist and the papers joined the heap on the floor.
The office was more deserted than the average Saturday, but this wasn’t the average weekend. Even William, captain of our little band of capitalists, was nowhere to be found, having disappeared in the direction of the Atlantic Ocean. A handful of edgy first year analysts puttered at their workstations, firing off emails to document their dedication, in the hope that someone who mattered would give a shit.
I was killing time, although I would have argued the point. My real objective was to convince myself I had something worthwhile to do while millions around me celebrated the long holiday weekend. They streamed out of the city toward lakes and beaches, put kegs on ice for rooftop parties, and rubbed against each other in steamy bars to toast the unofficial start of summer.
I picked up my phone and clicked on the photo that had arrived by text that afternoon. It was the thong adorned ass of a dripping sunbather bent over her beach chair. wish u were here, asshole.
I winced. They would be off the beach by now, showered and dressed for a night in the clubs. A group of friends had begged me to join them at a rented condo in Aruba for their annual pussy hunt. No, I told them. I had a deal I needed to close before the end of the quarter.
It was a lie, of course. Such was my state of mind that a week of wallowing in self pity seemed preferable to six tropical nights of guilt-free, anonymous sex.
I brushed my thumb across the display in my palm and watched images of Ellen scroll by. I knew them all by heart; knew when they were taken and where we were at the time. Her face was red with laughter in most of them, caught as she so often was, in an embarrassing position. I felt a smile creep into the corners of my mouth despite my determined melancholy.
I’d ruined it all. It was the tired, old story you’ve heard a million times and I was the cliché. I didn’t know I loved her. Yes, it really is possible to be that stupid. As I studied her pale blue eyes, I recalled the things she’d said when she finally made the break, her voice rasping through tears. Every painful word was true. It just killed me to know I was the one who made her say them.
Two sharp whoops of a police siren drew me to the wall of glass. New York City at street level is a churning contrast to the serenity of its soaring heights. A cop was out of his car, jawing through the window of a double-parked van while a bus squeezed past them, an accordion of brake lights coiling behind it.
Ellen had been gone almost a year. It took me three months and half a dozen hookups to realize what I’d done. She wouldn’t see me when I called - wouldn’t risk it, she said. There was someone else now. It might be serious and I was, well... I was a bad habit.
I looked at the guy staring back at me, hair tousled and a day’s worth of stubble on his face. The Black Crowes tee shirt was a gift from Ellen - grey with long red sleeves. I’d taken her to that concert for our first date. She’d had to scrape loose change from her bag to come up with the forty bucks, refusing to let me pitch in.
I dug my hand into my pocket and felt for the smeared scrap of newspaper I’d carried around for a week. I didn’t need to look at it. I’d committed the words to memory, along with the beaming faces. The engagement announcement had been given very respectable placement in the Times.
“Garrigan. What are you doing here?”
A slender figure bisected the rectangle of light beyond my shoulder, but it was the tinny voice that identified my visitor. I squeezed my eyes shut. Perfect, I thought.
“Chen.” I turned around and lifted my chin toward the open door. “This is my office. See? My name's there and everything.”
She looked at the polished brass plate and stepped inside, apparently satisfied that she hadn’t interrupted a break-in.
“Clearly,” she said to no one in particular, taking in the silent mayhem before her. Articles of clothing, back issues of Sports Illustrated, and random paraphernalia collected in piles and spilled from shelves. Her head turned like a gun turret, scanning the room.
“I’ve never seen you down here on the thirty-first floor, Chen.” I regarded her warily. “Are you lost?”
“Hmm? No, I…”
She drifted around the office, trailing her fingertips across the satin cummerbund draped over the back of a chair, and lifting the blade of a seven iron a few inches before letting it drop back into its bag. Her dark eyes narrowed and examined the black and white photos on the walls, loitering at the image of a young swimmer pulling himself out of a pool, water streaming from his lean core.
“So… is there something…?”
She snapped out of her meditative state. “Oh! Yes.” She faced me and stood at attention. For an instant I thought she was going to sing the National Anthem. “I’m looking for Fernandez. Will you show me to his office?”
“Will I…” I thought about Fernandez’s frantic text begging me to warn him if I saw Chen on the loose. “Okay, two things. First, it’s Memorial Day weekend. The guy has four kids. He’s probably in bumper-to-bumper traffic on his way back from some theme park, singing Wheels on the Bus for the hundredth time. And second…” I extended my hand. “I’m doing very well, Chen. Thanks for asking. It’s good to see you, too.”
Chen took my hand and gave me her best deal-closing shake. She pursed her lips and fixed me with her inscrutable eyes.
Hillary Chen was the firm’s Chief Financial Officer, Director of Risk Management, and General Pain in the Ass. William brought her in after the shitheads down the street made headlines losing six billion dollars trading swaps. She had the pedigree – Imperial College London, two years with the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee, and stretches with banks in Hong Kong and Tokyo. Most significantly, she had played badminton with William’s daughter at boarding school in Switzerland.
She’d terrorized the firm over the eight months she’d been with us, replacing the entire treasury unit and reorganizing the brokerage department. It would be safe to say Chen hadn’t come to New York to play nice. She maintained a cool distance from officers and staff alike, huddling exclusively with William when she wasn’t busy resurrecting the Inquisition.
“You know, I almost didn’t recognize you, Chen.” I’d never neglected to give her a good once over in executive committee meetings or the occasional social gathering at William’s place, and I was sure she’d noticed. “I like what you’re wearing. You look very… liberated.”
At the moment, she could have passed for an undergrad at NYU. She wore faded Levis with a knee worn through to the strings and a loose gauze shirt, with sleeves pushed up to her elbows. Her hair, always in a tight ponytail during business hours, now flipped freely about her shoulders.
“You should take more care in the way you address a superior, Garrigan.”
“HAH!” I sat on the corner of my desk and folded my arms. “You are not my superior.”
“Have you looked at an organizational chart?”
She had me there.
“I’m a Managing Director, Chen.”
“I review your deals.”
“Y- Is this why you came down here, Chen? To piss me off? Because it’s working.”
“No. I told you I need to see Fernandez. I’ve been out of the office all week.” She buried her hands under her arms. “Fever… chills…” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “On top of that, my monthly arrived.”
“Ohh-kay!” I slapped my knees and pushed off the desk. “Let’s see if we can find Fernandez.” Sorry, you’re on your own, dude.
“And diarrhea… two days.” She placed a hand over her abdomen and looked at me with an ashen grimace.
I cocked my head back.
“Are you coming on to me, Chen?”
Blink.
“May I sit down, Garrigan?”
I sighed. “Make yourself at home… boss.” I waived in the direction of my seating area. Part of me wanted to toss her little ass out the door. The whole point of sticking around the city was to be alone to enjoy my suffering. Another part of me wondered what her hair smelled like.
She turned around and looked side to side at expensively upholstered furniture buried in financial statements and fast food wrappers.
“Where, exactly?”
“Jesus.” I stepped over the baseball bat that leaned against the coffee table and shoved my overflowing duffle bag to one side of a small leather sofa. I removed a basketball from the cushion and palmed it against my hip. “There.”
She pulled the ball away from me and sat with it on her lap, knees pressed together primly. Chen fixed me with an expectant look.
“Uhhh… can I get you something? A Coke?”
“Do you have any green tea?”
“No.”
“Whatever type of tea you have, then.”
“I have Coke.” I cast a nod toward the half empty twelve pack of red and white cans on the floor.
She looked up at me without expression. “Fine.”
I admit that she’d gotten my attention when she first arrived. She didn’t seem to mind William’s roving hands when he introduced her to the management team. I could swear her eyes remained locked on mine as she stood in silence at the head of the boardroom table while her resume and accomplishments were recounted in glowing detail. Impressive, I thought. Then I wondered what she might look like spinning around on my dick.
Draped in black Armani and Dior, she stalked around the executive suites kicking ass and taking names. Nothing she wore - not even the austere tunic that scared the living shit out of the accounting department - could disguise her killer body. She was an assassin in a size two, with smoldering eyes and an icy stare.
Chen accepted the drink and placed it on a side table without taking a sip. She looked at the surrounding mess, drumming her fingers on the tight, textured skin of the ball. For some reason, I couldn’t take my eyes from the movement of her long digits.
I pushed aside a sleeve of tennis balls and sat on the coffee table a few feet in front of her. I leaned forward, forearms resting on my thighs and a Coke can in my hands. The top popped open with a fizz.
“Cheers,” I said.
Something caught her attention in the duffle bag next to her. She reached inside and extracted a flimsy garment constructed of elastic fabric and two large loops. Knitting her thick brows, she held it up for inspection.
“What is this, Garrigan?”
I counted the holes in the ceiling tiles over her head. “It’s a jockstrap, Chen.”
“A jock…?”
“An athletic supporter?”
She looked at me blankly for a second, before her eyes widened in recognition. She drew a breath. “Ohhhhh.”
“Yeah, so how ‘bout you put that back where you found it.”
Chen curled her fingers to form a petite fist and pushed it into the ribbed cotton pouch. “So this is where your…”
“YES.” I leaned forward, snatching the stretchy material out of her grasp. “For Christ’s sake, Chen, give me that.” Balling it up in my hand, I stuffed it as best I could into my back pocket, part of one leg loop dangling loosely. “Are you from, like, fucking Mars?”
“I was born in Shanghai but my parents moved to England when I was twelve.”
Was that…? No. Couldn’t be. That wasn’t humor was it?
A twitch whispered past the corners of her mouth. Chen looked at the ball in her lap and traced her finger along the seams. I wondered what the hell was going on. This little visit was completely out of character for her. While this was painfully awkward by any reasonable standard, she did seem to be making an effort. But at what?
Her gaze sliced up at me without warning. Her eyes had somehow changed. They were softer, glossier… and something else. I felt my heart lurch inside my chest. We stared at each other for a long second or two before she broke away.
“Well, thank you for the Coca Cola.” Chen stood and let the ball roll off her fingertips, dropping it into my hands. Whatever I had seen had disappeared. “I suppose you’re right about Fernandez. He’s not here.”
I had no idea what had just happened. All I knew was that my heart was thudding in my chest. That, and the thermostat in my office needed adjustment. I thought maybe I wouldn’t mind too much if she wanted to stick around to finish her Coke.
Chen stood in the doorway, her pulse visible beneath the tender skin of her neck. I hadn’t noticed that before. And the hollow at the base of her throat, that little notch…
She cleared her throat. “Well.”
Shit.
“Yeah, um… good talk, Chen. Thanks for dropping by.”
“Enjoy the holiday, Garrigan.”
I watched the tight seat of her jeans glide toward the elevators. God. The words were out of my mouth before I could catch them.
“Hey, Chen.” She turned as the chime sounded. “Any plans for the weekend? Just, you know… curious.” What the hell was I doing? This is Chen, I thought. I - don’t - care what she does with her free time.
Her face remained impassive except for the nearly imperceptible tweak of her eyebrows.
“I’m driving to William’s house in Southhampton tonight. I’ve been invited to spend the long weekend with his family. Julie left her car for me.” She took a breath and swallowed. “She’ll be there with her husband.”
“Right. Your old pal,” I said. “That was some wedding. Had to be, what? Four hundred guests?”
I remembered checking out the maid of honor sitting at the dais, never imagining that in less than two years she would spend every waking hour finding ways to bust my balls. She gave possibly the worst wedding toast in history, quoting Ayn Rand and Oliver Cromwell. Even so, I admired the way she blasted away up there, hopelessly tone deaf, but also brave and genuine, looking so determined and so positively edible in the slanting light of late afternoon.
Chen straightened her back and lifted her chin. “Yes, it was a lovely wedding.” She caught the closing elevator door in her hand. “I should go, Garrigan… traffic.”
ooOoo
I couldn’t get Garrigan out of my head. Why did he have to look at me like that? With those eyes. Those soft, brown… terrible eyes. I was much happier when I knew that I annoyed him, or thought I did. This - this was something new. I didn’t come to New York to find a replacement for Nick. And I wasn’t about to have a fling, despite Julie’s urging. I don’t know what I was thinking when I wandered into that disgraceful excuse of an office.
The squeal of brakes and the blast of a horn echoed off the cement walls as I steered Julie’s Mercedes up the circular ramp. I detested driving in New York. Everything’s on the wrong side, isn’t it? And climbing to the surface from the underground car park was like an ascent from the gates of Hell. Fetid yellow walls were scored with deep gouges and ugly black smears, while suspicious looking liquid ran along the curb. The turns were so tight and the lighting so dim, I would surely scrape the front bumper right off the car if I went any faster. To make matters worse, an idiot in a Smart Car was practically in my boot, flashing his headlights at me.
Granted, Garrigan was handsome, in a rugged sort of way, and all outward appearances to the contrary, he had brains, lots of them. And, yes, muscles - those too. He liked to strut around the office with his shirtsleeves rolled up and tie pulled away from his unbuttoned collar near the end of the day. That was - that was nice.
And judging from snippets I’d heard in the Ladies, Garrigan was almost single-handedly responsible for the record number of female sign-ups when he decided to join the company’s Wednesday night tennis league. Word was that someone had broken his heart. Estrogen production was on the rise.
But we didn’t get along and that’s how I liked it. That’s how it was supposed to be. He was arrogant, stubborn, and coarse. So why did the tips of my ears heat up and my stomach start to flutter when he asked me about my weekend plans?
My pursuer’s high beams pierced the rear windscreen and flooded my eyes. I pressed down on the accelerator. A ghastly screech echoed off the walls when my front tire scraped the curb. Are all New Yorkers homicidal or just those armed with automobiles?
Garrigan didn’t act like other men I’d worked with. He wasn’t intimidated by me, for one thing. I secretly enjoyed his biting commentary and subtle insults when he wanted to be difficult. Even his habitual vulgarity was strangely disarming. I should have been appalled by his locker room language, but it was refreshing to be around a man who didn’t treat me like a porcelain doll.
William had warned me about him. He had given Garrigan unprecedented freedom to run his unit, and knew that he would bristle at any interference from me. Still, I had a job to do; did I not? I told William he was making a big mistake; that Garrigan and his team, while uncommonly profitable, took risks with without any oversight. They would have to be reeled in and that’s all there was to it. William just chuckled. Together, you two are going to make me a very, very rich man.
The sharp report of a horn jerked me from my thoughts. My eyes flashed to the rearview mirror just as the driveway finally straightened toward the exit. The driver was gesturing obscenely. Maniac! I shifted my attention forward, just in time to see a dark figure crossing my line of sight.
Shit!
My clavicle slammed painfully against the shoulder harness just as a pedestrian landed on my bonnet with a sickening thud. The figure spun around, slid across the high gloss paint, and disappeared to my right.
The Smart Car peeled around me and flew off as I flung open the door, the driver yelling something unintelligible. I ran around the front of the car, dreading what I would find.
He was sitting upright with his back to me and feet planted on the ground. He appeared to be checking the contents of a satchel briefcase. My heart sank and stomach twisted.
Oh, good God, no. It can’t be.
“Garrigan? Are you all right?”
His head jerked upward.
“Chen.” He chuckled, not needing to turn around. “Of course it’s you. Who else would it be?” He planted a hand on the pavement, spun himself to his feet, and faced me. “You’re a regular guardian angel, aren’t you?”
I looked in horror at the tear in his jeans and the bloody scrape visible through the shredded sleeve of his shirt.
“We must get you to a doctor immediately. Get in the car. I’ll take you to the emergency room.”
“I’m fine, Chen, don’t worry about it.” He picked particles of dirt from his oozing arm.
“Garrigan, I insist. You’re injured.”
“Do you even know where the nearest hospital is?”
“Well, no.”
“It’s settled then. I’m going home. See-ya next week, Chen.” He picked up the leather satchel and hooked it on his shoulder. “Have a good one.”
“I’ll drive you.” I couldn’t let him leave like that, bleeding and in tatters.
He gave the car a sideways glance. “Yeaaah, no. I don’t think so, Chen. I’ll take the subway. It’s a short hop.”
“You’re being stubborn. At least let me clean that wound properly. I happen to be certified in first aid.”
“So you thought you’d drum up a little business.” He broke into a one-sided smile, a trace of satisfaction in his voice.
People rushed around the little island formed by the car, barely giving us a glance, much less a second look. Why was he being so glib? Couldn’t he see that I was trying to make it up to him? That I was upset? Out of nowhere, I felt my lips start to quiver and eyes well with water. I struggled to keep the muscles in my face from scrunching up. Don’t - do - this, I told myself.
“Please,” I croaked.
The mockery in Garrigan’s eyes melted away and his expression softened. His lips separated as if he wanted to say something. He… he cared? Something moved inside my chest and my knees began to tingle. Inexplicably, I felt the urge to wrap my arms around him and rest my cheek on his broad shoulder.
“Tell you what.” Garrigan’s voice was different now. It was low and velvety. A big hand surrounded my arm. It was a very nice hand. “You can take me home, okay?” He opened the passenger door and guided me inside. “But I’ll do the driving. Maybe even get you that cup of tea. How’s that sound?”
It sounded so perfectly lovely that I felt a subtle tugging sensation deep inside my pelvis.
Garrigan yanked the car onto the blacktop and zigzagged through narrow downtown streets. I began to calm down, kicking myself for the ridiculous display of emotion. I supposed that nearly killing a colleague had knocked me off my feet momentarily. Perfectly understandable, I assured myself.
“What part of Manhattan do you live in, Garrigan? Upper East Side? Gramercy Park?”
The fortress-like tower of an ancient suspension bridge rose above us.
“Brooklyn.”
“Brook- but that’s not… Brooklyn?”
“Yup.”
It wasn’t that I’d never heard of Brooklyn. I’d seen Saturday Night Fever, for God’s sake, and GoodFellas. It’s just that I’d never expected to actually have to go there.
“Garrigan, isn’t it supposed to be somewhat… untamed?”
“It’s a borough, Chen, not a penal colony.”
Garrigan turned onto a ramp that carried us to a span high above the sluggish waters of a wide river. Blue-black clouds edged in pink drifted in formation beyond the cables draped above our heads. They seemed indifferent to the unending throb of human passions below them.
My thoughts picked through the rubble of the emotional landslide that had brought me here. Nick loved me, he swore, and I still believed that was true. But there was something missing, he said. In me, he meant. There was something missing in me. He wouldn’t say it, but it was clear. I would never make him happy.
I had difficulty connecting with people; it was true. I would never dazzle effortlessly in social settings or display the graceful prowess of a power wife. I wished I could be that person for Nick. I tried. I truly did. But it was no good. I thought he understood me; that it took time for me to open up - that my feelings ran deep. But it didn’t matter. We would not marry after all. I wasn’t what he wanted.
A tire slammed into a deep pothole and rattled me back to the present.
“Here we are, Chen. Brooklyn. Soak it up.” Garrigan turned to face me, his devastating smile sucking the air from my lungs.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was happy I was with him.
ooOoo
Chen gave my shirt a tug. “You’ll need to take this off.”
She hadn’t said much since we’d left Manhattan, which was fine by me. All I wanted was to let her do her Florence Nightingale impression so she would finally leave me alone. Then I would point her hood ornament toward the highway and she’d be on her way to William’s twenty-room midlife crisis on the south shore of Long Island. I’d be free to enjoy my orgy of self-pity for the rest of the holiday weekend.
Chen had recovered from the guilt or shock or whatever it was that had nearly made her cry. I never expected that from the ice princess. The closest thing to an emotion she’d ever shown at work was impatience. But that look of vulnerability gave me a glimpse of what she was hiding behind her carefully constructed walls.
Even more surprising was my own reaction. Something about her helpless expression and that one, shuddering intake of breath had gotten to me. Crazy, I know, but I felt a connection. It was all I could do not to take her face in my hands and kiss her trembling lips. Thank God I shook it off. This was Chen the Impaler we were talking about.
Now here she was in my loft - about the last place I would’ve ever expected to see her. It was just an empty expanse of concrete walls with views of the river when I’d bought the place. Ellen had drawn up the floor plan and hired all the contractors - one of the advantages of having an architect-girlfriend. She’d even won a design award and had some pictures published in a trade journal. I wrote the checks. No awards for that.
It seemed empty now that Ellen was gone. She’d never moved in, not officially - more evidence of my hollow devotion, you might argue - but her presence had been unmistakable.
I tried to look at the place through Chen’s eyes - weathered grains, straight lines, comfortable utility. She seemed to take everything in with an expression that was a cross between between curiosity and cold calculation. She looked exactly the way she did when she wandered through my office. It was kind of cute actually, making me wonder what went on inside her head beyond quarterly revenue projections and SEC filings.
“Garrigan,” she said. “Your shirt. I can’t work on your arm this way.”
She stood next to my bathroom sink. The sad collection of first aid supplies I’d pulled from cabinets and drawers were laid out on the granite vanity as neatly as a surgical tray in an operating room.
“Uh, yeah, Chen. Sure.”
Right, the tee shirt. Leave it to Chen to destroy my last tangible connection to Ellen. I sighed. Just as well, I thought, under the circumstances.
As I grabbed the back of my collar, her eyes flicked away and played nervously over the articles strewn across the vanity. A can of shaving cream and a safety razor spared her from the uncomfortable intimacy of clothing removal. That was twice, now, that I’d seen a rift in the surface of her composure.