Forty-five minutes later, when a preoccupied Spilsbury quietly approaches me during the Chicken Kiev dinner and asks to speak to me alone, I feel my stomach knot. I somehow know what’s coming.
“I heard what you said on the patio,” he says, avoiding my eyes. “About friends.”
I nod.
Spilsbury almost whispers it. “I think I’m the kind of guy who would tell a friend about that.”
“You have something to tell me, Ford?” I reply, my voice warbling. But I already know he does.
Friday evening has segued somehow into Saturday morning. Newly armed with the knowledge that my wife has been having an affair for the last six months with her college friend’s husband, I plunge through the darkness of the Backcountry, heading to the other side of the looking glass. I recognize this quest can only end badly — scandal, ruination, utter self-destruction — but it no longer matters. I’m powerless to stop the forces that have overtaken me.
A fantasy torments me: I arrive at the beach and she spies me... She pulls away from her friends and comes so close that I can feel her breath on my cheek. “I knew you’d come.” She locks up my eyes in hers as she says this, a note of triumph in her voice. She is such eye candy, I can barely contain myself. We are intoxicated — ot just by alcohol, but by the electric danger of being so close. I spirit her away to a secluded beach at the ass-end of Sound Beach Avenue. With the languid hiss of low tide in our ears, the au pair steps forward. She kisses my neck, puts her hot hands up my shirt. I grab her apple-bottom ass and pull her toward me. She responds with a tongue-loaded kiss. I can taste the salt on her skin and smell the soap in her hair.
This is going to happen, I convince myself. This is redemption. This is revenge. This is justice.
I punch the accelerator and push on toward Greenwich Point Beach.
I arrive within minutes, and the scene is surreal. Kid Rock’s “Bawitdaba” throbs in the background, and yet the Nanny’s Ball has come to an undignified end. Five Greenwich police cars have pinned down at least a hundred stoned kids, all tongue-studded, belly-ringed, lip-pierced, and tattooed. Blinding blue-and-red strobes light the beach in psychedelic hues, and the squawk of the radio dispatcher says backup is on the way. The acrid smell of pot is heavy in the salt air. Six half-naked, soaking-wet party animals are led by in cuffs. I’m numbed by the commotion, but amidst the crowd, I see the object of my desire. Fiona Ranieri’s au pair is in the epicenter of this frenetic scene, crying her eyes out. She looks scared and vulnerable and... oh, so incredibly young
I swing the Aston Martin into a dark corner of the parking lot and kill the headlights. I don’t take my eyes off Fiona’s face as I begin to formulate a daring rescue mission. How far away is she? Thirty yards? Forty? I could edge up on the far side of the crowd, grab her by the arm... then a short sprint back to my car, and we’re home free. I can almost hear the sweet relief in her voice. “I knew you’d come.”
I open my car door and step out. And nearly fall.
Just then I realize how intoxicated I am. My head is swimming in Grey Goose, my legs are jelly, and I’m now bathed in a panic-induced sweat. I climb back in my seat and grip the wheel. Static blasts from a nearby police radio, and I jump. I can’t make out the words, but when I squeeze my eyes shut, they become clearer. The words are my own:
Where you going with this, Barston? You put yourself in the middle of this — to what end? So you can wind up in the police blotter for DUI and God knows what else? And for what — some chick who chatted you up in the bar car for less than an hour? This is your grand plan to get back at Ranieri — fucking his nanny?
Another squawk of static and I realize it’s coming from the radio of a Greenwich cop glaring my way. As he strides toward my car, I fumble the door closed. The cops is shouting something, but somehow I get the vehicle in gear and kick up a cloud of sand, which I pray obscures my license plate.
Miles from the beach, I pull over. I’m sweat-soaked and shaking, and I rest my head on the steering wheel and gasp for breath. And suddenly I’m pounding the dash in fury and self-loathing.
What were you thinking, you pathetic, sorry-ass sonuvabitch?
It’s nearly dawn when I get home and stumble to the front door. On the third attempt, I jam the key into the lock. At first I don’t see the white envelope propped up against the door, and I kick it across the foyer. I stagger toward the stairs and almost leave it there on the Kashan rug, but something catches my eye and pierces the alcoholic fog around my brain: the Fischer Brothers logo.
I have to sit to retrieve the envelope, but I manage. Crosslegged on the floor, I thumb-wrestle it open and look inside. And I know instantly.
It’s nothing short of a miracle: the last-ditch Hail Mary pass thrown desperately with seconds to go, the game-winning homer in the bottom of the ninth, the sudden-death eagle on the eighteenth hole at the Masters — impossible victory from certain defeat. It is the life preserver that will save me from going under for the last time, that will save me from myself.
“Terri,” I whisper reverentially, the papers trembling in my hands. I say my loyal assistant’s name over and over.
I enter Ranieri’s glassed-in corner office on Monday morning, and I am ready to bite the ass off a bear. For his part, my enemy is bouncing a blue rubber stress ball off the windowed wall. He receives me exuberantly.
“Happy Monday, Sparky. How was the weekend?” He resumes throwing the ball against the glass.
“Must you do that?” I ask pointedly.
“You mean this?” He sidearms the ball again and smirks. “Why? Does it bother you?” I decline to engage in this lame banter, and silence prevails.
Moments later, Brian Horgan arrives with my thick personnel file. Sauntering in right behind him is Senior Managing Director Ian Becker. Becker is Ranieri’s ultimate boss, and mine too — here to see that I’m officially terminated, and that the empire I’ve created is handed over seamlessly to his Harvard roommate.
“Guess this is show time,” Ranieri says. We lock eyes for a moment and he quickly looks away, shoving the door closed. He ceremoniously circles back to his chair, slouching into an elaborately casual posture. “Let’s pick up where we left off on Friday. Ian, you care to kick things off?”
Becker clears his throat and speaks in an authoritative British baritone. “Let me start by saying we commend you for the contribution you’ve made to this firm. You’ve gotten us off to a respectable start, a decent standing in the league tables. But, candidly, you’ve developed something of a reputation for not being a team player, especially when it comes to matters involving your co-head. So, it’s the consensus of senior management that we need to have a single focal point for the future of the business. Regrettably, that means that one of the two co-heads needs to move on. It’s nothing personal, Mark, but—”
“Not true, Ian. It absolutely is personal.”
“If that’s how you feel about it, then fine.”
“That’s exactly how I feel about it. As for my people, let the record show that they consider Ranieri to be a rodent-faced, backstabbing, Mickey Mouse amateur who will crash this business into the ground within a year. By which time they’ll be poached away by our competitors.”
Ranieri’s eyebrows climb his forehead in offense, but he holds his tongue in check.
Becker’s face softens in saccharine compassion. “Be that as it may, Mark, you should know that there will be a formal announcement about a restructuring shortly, possibly as early as Wednesday. I’m working to find a proper place for someone with your skill set, but we’ve got headcount pressures from upstairs. If these efforts fail, well, we’re committed to ensure proper protocol is followed with regard to your termination. We’ve all pushed hard to be fair — no, to go way beyond being merely fair — and we’re—”