Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 65582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
“When are you going to stop in The Hideaway again?”
She raises her hand and wiggles her finger. “No more Hideaway for me. The boyfriend has become the fiancé.”
“Whoa,” I say, thrilled for her. “That’s fantastic news. Congratulations.”
“Thank you. Just happened over the weekend, so it’s new.” She shrugs to play it off.
“I’m happy for you, Luisa. You deserve good things.”
That brightens her back up. She hands me my coffee—simple, classic, black—and leans in. “You do too, Hardy. Don’t settle for anything less.” Speaking in her usual chipper voice, she says, “Coffee’s on me. Have a great Tuesday.”
“Thanks. See you soon.” I start walking, but say, “Congrats again. He’s a lucky guy.”
“Yes, he is.” She laughs and I leave feeling a little lighter myself.
The street has gotten more crowded with the rush to work happening all around me. Two blocks down, I punch in the code for my building and head up the two flights to my second-floor walk up. I toss my keys in the silver bowl my mom sent me from Europe last year for Christmas. I kick the door closed and bolt it. My sneakers are toed off just inside the door, my socks pulled off and left in the hall as I start for the bathroom. I set my coffee on the kitchen bar as I pass. My three shirts are pulled off as one and dropped just inside my bedroom. I start the shower and peel my pants off waiting for the water to warm.
I rest my palms to the cold marble and check my complexion. It’s clear with a healthy sheen of sweat earned from my run. Running my hands through my hair, I look back at my reflection and for the first time in years, I wonder if this is it. Is this how life is always going to be? Simple and uncomplicated, like my coffee? I glare at myself. Thoughts like this haven’t crossed my mind since I was working seventy to eighty hours a week in the city. Thoughts like this are the reason I cashed out financially and left a career I thought I liked. I didn’t. It was making me into a person I didn’t want to be, a person I didn’t like, but didn’t realize it until I woke up between two women who were traders down on Wall Street in an apartment in SoHo that belonged to my boss.
My boss was found under the nanny by his wife when she came home from visiting her dying mother with their two kids. The divorce papers cited cocaine and philandering and listed me as a liability. My hands were clean when it came to the drugs, as for the philandering—I didn’t make him do it. But I didn’t stop him either.
I resigned that day and I found a new job. He went on to marry his secretary and had another kid within the next year. After I heard about his first wife’s large settlement, I figured she was off living the high life without the baggage of her cheating ex-husband. Then I ran into his wife in Saks Fifth Avenue three years ago. She was on the phone arguing. I heard her tell the other person that her kids missed him and that they hadn’t seen him since his “new” family was complete with the little boy he always wanted. She hung up on him and broke down crying.
I approach with caution, with care. She looks tired, not like the woman I knew years earlier on the arm of my boss. Everything I had seen was one-sided, his side. Now staring at the other side, I felt like shit. I was part of this. I helped cause this. Sure there was a huge group of us always partying together, living the high life as we raked in the money. But there were consequences I never had to face. I was single. I only had to think of myself, and that’s all I had done. Until that moment. Seeing her break down after losing her husband, her kids losing their dad, and that love for money is no substitute for the real thing, I walk up to her, and say, “I’m sorry.”
She looks up. The beautiful woman that was once the star of the holiday parties now carried dark circles under her eyes and her wounds in the blues. As her eyes look into mine, I wait for her to speak, for her forgiveness, for anything. I don’t get her words. I get slapped across the face, and left with words that scar me to this day. “Don’t ever fall in love, Hardy.” She walked away that day, I hope feeling a little lighter.
I walked away from Manhattan. I walked away from the girls who I was dating because they fit an image I was trying to uphold, but had no depth. I walked away from my parent’s pride in my accomplishments and took on their worry that I would be homeless. They didn’t realize the size of my bank account, the money I’d earned off the hard work of others while I bet theirs on the stock market. It had paid off. It was legal, but certain investments made me feel dirty. The clients were thrilled with their profits, but I only felt a sense of loss. That was when I left the life I’d been living behind, donated what I call my dirty wealth to charities that my mom helped me find. I took everything else and put it into the bar to start over. I sold my apartment with the great view in a trendy part of the city for millions and invested the rest. My financial advisor says I’m set for life.