But one of the women in the courtroom gallery that day obtained a copy of the transcript, framed this page, and gave it to Glory as a present.
It sounds like I would’ve liked Simon’s mom.
The last two photos were near the end, when Glory was bound to a wheelchair and had lost a good amount of her functioning. The animation in her face was replaced by a more deadened stare, her beaming smile now a crooked turn of her lip. I don’t know why Simon keeps these around. The last two years of her life were difficult for everyone and not the way to remember her, not the way she’d want to be remembered, if everything I’ve heard about her is true.
I think Simon keeps those photos to remember how everything fell apart.
Here it is, the password list, in his sock drawer. The password to his trust account is Glory010455, his mother’s name and date of birth.
I head downstairs. Simon put on coffee before he left, still hot in the thermos mug. It’s delicious. He uses good beans. And he sprinkled on some pumpkin spice before he brewed it. It’s not quite September, but it reminds me of autumn, my favorite season, which I’m sure is why he did it. He does little things like that for me all the time.
I wish it could be different with Simon and me. I wish he’d come out of that bubble more often. I don’t know if the law became his refuge after everything that happened with his parents or whether he’s just hardwired that way, but teaching and talking and writing about the law is everything to him, his passion, his life. The way he lights up when he breaks down a legal issue into simple parts and then reconstructs it, the way he brings it to life like a breathing organism. Even I, knowing only as much about the law as I’ve seen on television, can get sucked in listening to him.
They say the law is a jealous mistress. But that’s not true. The law has an ironclad grip on Simon’s heart. I’m the jealous mistress.
That’s what I tell myself, at least, the problem I focus on, probably so I can pin the blame on him. The bigger problem, why we will never work, is children. Simon wants them. He wants it all, marriage and kids, a nuclear family. The family I had growing up was nuclear, all right, but not in a good way. I’m not doing it.
Simon says I’m just scared, like any future parent would be. Yes, I’m scared. I’m scared I’ll wreck them. I’m scared they’ll turn out like me. What could I teach them? What kind of role model would I be? What if I had them and realized I couldn’t handle it after it’s too late?
I love my nieces, the M&Ms. I like being the aunt. Isn’t that enough? Not for Simon, it isn’t.
Oh, he’d compromise, I know. He’d live without children. But I don’t want to be the reason he settles.
We just don’t work.
I sit down at the kitchen table and open my laptop. I pull up the website and type in the password to access his trust account.
Simon inherited money from his father after his father died twelve years ago. As far as I know, he hasn’t touched a penny. It was substantial to begin with, but it’s built up with interest and some conservative but decent investment decisions made by the trustee, who is not Simon. Which is good because Simon is terrible with money.
As of today, the balance in Simon’s trust is $21,106,432.
Twenty-one million and change.
Talk about delicious.
I continue the Google search that I started previously, looking for investment advisers. I’ve narrowed it down to four. A guy by the name of Broderick, middle-aged and bald, who talks about his personal relationship with his clients. I’m guessing he has halitosis and high blood pressure.
A man named Lombardi, in high-end “wealth management,” a phrase I see repeatedly. He has a full-wattage smile and kind of a waxy look to him, like he should be selling carpet shampoo on an infomercial.
A guy named Bowers, with tons of initials after his name, offers “full-service wealth management and security,” which I think means he’s going to want to sell me insurance as well as being my investment adviser. Kind of a bookish guy, with small eyes and a pencil neck.
The last one is Christian Newsome, who doesn’t look like any investment adviser that I’ve ever seen. He looks like a Calvin Klein model, at least from the chest up in his photo.
Younger, mid-thirties, two different photos of him on the site with a nice suit but no tie, just an open collar of a crisply starched white shirt. Wide shoulders, thick neck. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t wear the tie, to give his neck room to show off. Athletic, back in his day, I’d venture, but probably nothing too violent; he wouldn’t want to mess up that pretty face of his, the strong, rough-shaven jaw, large blue eyes, the sweep of hair with the bangs falling forward—the carefully practiced messy look. He knows he’s handsome, which is annoying.
But he looks like a winner, I’ll give him that.
I probe further. The bio stuff is impressive: Harvard undergrad and MBA, made a killing in the market before he was out of school.
There’s an article on his website from Fortune magazine from thirteen years ago—March of 2009—about how young Christian Newsome, at the ripe age of twenty-one, was one of the first to invest in “credit default swaps” before the mortgage crisis hit in 2008, correctly predicting what others did not—that the market for “mortgage-backed securities” would crash.
Another article featured on his website, from Newsweek, from three years ago, was about how Christian Newsome’s new venture features a small group of investors in a fund worth more than five hundred million dollars. “Newsome, notoriously tight-lipped about his next moves in the market and the investors he represents, would only say his next idea ‘will make credit default swaps look like penny stocks.’”
I sip my coffee. Reread the articles. Look at his photo for a while.
Then I pick up my cell phone and start making appointments.
14
Tuesday, August 16, 2022
I met you at your condo on Michigan Avenue this afternoon. Having that condo makes everything so much easier. I can pop over from the law school, you can use whatever excuse you need to be downtown.
I’m doing this. We. We are doing this! Everything I said about Vicky, I know, but we’re doing this and I can’t stop myself.
And I couldn’t wait to show you the phones! I hadn’t told you about it. I wanted to surprise you.
First things first, when I got inside your condo—we stripped and did it against the window overlooking Michigan Avenue, fourteen stories up, you planted against the windowpane. It’s a lot harder than it looks in the movies, and I thought my back might give out, so we finished up on your bed.
Then we drank some wine, and I was bursting to show you. So I did. The hot-pink phone for you, the green phone for me.
You didn’t speak at first. My heart started doing calisthenics, not the good kind, the burn kind.
“Am I your mistress now?” you said, looking up at me.
“I just . . . I thought it would be good if we could communicate—”
“You want to be able to call me whenever you want to fuck me.”
“No, it’s . . . not like that,” I said.
“I’m your call girl, is that it?” you said. “Like your wife was before you met her. You want me to be like your wife? You want another Vicky?”
“No, listen, it’s not like that at all.” I said something like that, I think. I’m not really sure what stammering protest was coming out of my mouth.
But this part I remember clear as day. You walked over to me. You have a way of sauntering over to me that makes my legs weak. I think the word “saunter” was invented for you, Lauren. There should have been a saxophone playing in the background.
You leaned up and whispered in my ear, “Do you want me to be your whore, Professor Dobias? Tell me. Tell me what you want.”
I don’t want you to be anything but you, Lauren. I don’t need role plays or dirty talk. That’s never been my thing. I just want you, exactly as you are.
But it seemed like the right thing to say at the time, so I went with it.
I gripped your hair and made you look at me. “That’s what I want,” I said.
Your eyes lit up. The corners of your mouth only curved up slightly.
“Then fuck me that way,” you said.