From her desk, Abigail reveled in the Chrysler Building’s beautiful austerity, the sun dropping away in its own time. She admired nature’s independence. Her Harvard Law School friends wondered why she worked in an investment bank, no adventure, no social meaning, they teased her, but she believed everyone had a right to happiness, and that took money. Mostly her friends came from privileged families and didn’t have her special fervor, so, in a crucial way, they didn’t get her. But as a scholarship student, Abigail grew up observing them and learned to recognize the secret operations of class and power.
Nathaniel Murphy walked past her glassed-in office. He still had most of his hair, his good looks, he was almost too handsome, though his nose had thickened since she’d first seen his picture when he was twenty-eight. The Internet golden boy had grown fleshier, even as his world had shrunk, but there he was in his Armani suit. She could smell his aftershave lotion, Vervain probably.
The numbers on the accounts blurred, Abigail pushed her glasses to the bridge of her nose, thrust her face closer to the papers, and self-consciously tugged on her short skirt. He was headed to the vault, distracted or worried, she thought, and he should be. He would soon open a security box, which probably held birth certificates, his parents’ wills, some gold, jewelry, certificates. Abigail had helped the elder Mr. Murphy draw up his will; he had left most of his fortune to charitable foundations, but his son’s fortune had vanished, along with other dot-commers.
Nathaniel Murphy stayed in her imagination. His fall had been dramatic, public, and she wondered at his profligacy and hubris. While the sun sank at its own speed, Abigail imagined the younger Murphy’s hand hitting the sides of the metal security box. He was in a dark hole, yet everything surrounding him gleamed. He was like a character from a Patricia Highsmith novel, not Ripley, but others whose guilt registered on a human stock market. Abigail felt she had suffered too much to be guilty about anything, but Nathaniel had cost people millions, he’d wasted everything he had from birth and more. Being poor again terrified her, the thought made her sick, but he had no idea what it was like, and, rather than provoking resentment, it added allure to his mystery, even innocence.
The elder Mr. Murphy once revealed that Nate’s wife had asked for a divorce right after the crash. He couldn’t help him, Nate made terrible choices; he gambled, not invested; he’s a playboy, his father confided, with time to kill. He’s drinking too much, and the girls sail in and out of his life. She liked Mr. Murphy, who was a gentleman, but she would have protected his son better, guided him. Abigail kept close watch on her own money, talked to her broker daily, and flushed with warmth when, each month, she saw her accounts swell.
A guard closed the vault’s massive doors behind Nate. He turned a corner and walked down a hall, where Abigail encountered him. Abigail hadn’t planned it, she’d gone to the women’s room, and their paths crossed. They had several times before, when they would nod indifferently, but Abigail was never indifferent, she’d admit later. This time she stopped, and he did also.
— I’m sorry about your father, I liked him, Abigail said.
— Thank you, he said. He liked you, too.
She had never noticed how green his brown eyes were, almost olive, then she realized they were just standing, not talking, and she must have been staring into his eyes. She tugged at her short skirt, meaning to return to her office, when he smiled familiarly at her.
— You like it here?
— Sure, I’m here, yes, I do.
— They let you wear short skirts.
— I wear what I want.
Five weeks later, the younger Mr. Murphy moved in.
That first night in a corner of the bar at the Hotel Pierre, Nathaniel kissed her with restrained ardor, and Abigail knew much more inhabited him. He told her about his insecurity because of his father’s reputation, she told him her mother cleaned houses, her father couldn’t keep a job. But what mattered was being close to him. The next night, he whispered words that infuriated her, yet her breath stopped anyway. He’d been in love with her since he first saw her, his father told him she was the one, and with him her life would be happy — I am happy, she said — he could make her happier, babies, if she wanted, millions of orgasms. I’ve heard that in hundreds of movies, Abigail said, maybe not the bit about orgasms. After he kissed her without restraint, Abigail lost the sense of where she was. I’m not a movie, Nathaniel muttered into her ear, I’m just a soft touch for you. Curiously, she saw old Mr. Murphy in him.
You’re the soft touch, her friends insisted, you’re nuts, he’ll screw you. They’d never seen Abigail like this, she had never felt like this. You’ll wash his stocks at night, her best friend quipped, but nothing swayed Abigail. Against her exasperated friends’ advice, Nate moved in.
They were happy. What her friends hadn’t realized was that Nate was crazy about Abigail, devoted. He lived up to his promises, she told them, he quit drinking completely, and every week he took meetings with smart entrepreneurs like himself. She knew both his desire and his drive, they both loved the game of business, and she adored him, he made her swoon. With her, she knew he’d succeed, and Nate told her he’d thrown away his little black book. But Nate had seen that in too many corny movies, so actually it went into the security box, a document of his bachelorhood, Abigail wouldn’t mind.
They married in a mauve room in the Hotel Pierre, where her friends and his celebrated, his dotty mother in attendance, Abigail’s family discreetly absent. A few days before, almost as a joke, they had signed a prenuptial agreement. It didn’t mean anything; she was a lawyer, that was all. The newlyweds were delirious. She felt sexy and content with him, he felt like a man again.
Abigail’s clients loved her, she helped them, a few lost big, there was some ruin, some bankruptcies, but, bottom line, she made money for the firm. A partnership came next. There was hardly time for sex, though Nate persisted in wanting to add to Abigail’s orgasm account, as they called it. She turned him away once, saying, I’d prefer you made money, like, Make money not love. He was shocked and angry, and she took it back, but he was hurt, even wounded. You’re soft, his father used to say, toughen up. Abigail tried to soothe him, but really she wanted him working, back on his feet, emotional support was one thing, financial another. She saw him retreat a little, but he’d come back, he’d understand. She didn’t notice his drinking, he hid it, doing it only when she was at work or asleep. Now, less and less, he wanted to have sex, and she was too tired anyway.
Nate’s best friend at Princeton called with a brilliant idea, and since Nate owned the sharpest biz head he knew, he wanted him as a partner, if Nate liked what he heard, and he did — an environmentally important and scientifically significant venture to develop microbes that absorb waste in the ocean. Nate needed a couple of million to invest, not much really, but he didn’t have it. He would borrow it from Abigail, be told his friend, he’d pay her back when the business saw its first profits. She trusts me, Nate told him.
Later, Abigail unlocked the door to Nate’s embrace. He repeated the conversation, every word, with embellishment more bubbly than the champagne he’d opened. She looked into his olive eyes, at his too-handsome face, and her friends’ and his father’s admonitions returned, as if written upon that face. He would use her, leave her, he’d take her money, he was a playboy. She fought her fear, an instinct maybe, after all she must love Nate, her husband, she should help him to succeed. Even so, she told him she needed time to think, because that kind of money was serious. Nate was stunned. Abigail saw disbelief in his eyes or weakness, like in her father’s eyes, a beaten dog’s eyes, in bed, far from Nate, Abigail dreamed someone was trying to kill her. Nate couldn’t sleep.