Chapter 7
seven
“You gonna order or what?”
I press my palms to my bleary, burning eyes and sigh. “More coffee.”
My new waitress is not impressed. “That’s it? Deanne says you’ve been sitting here for hours.”
Deanne’s not wrong. After a torturous pow-wow with Grayson’s wedding planner, I hiked back Downtown just in time to watch my father blow out of our office at noon. I tried to settle myself in my usual windowless room and rectify accounts, but the stagnant air made me claustrophobic.
The idea of working at my apartment didn’t appeal to me either. Instead, I wandered into Katz’s—an old-school deli in the Lower East Side, one block up from my place. After sitting there for the better part of the afternoon and all of the dinner shift, I still can’t get the numbers in front of me to make sense.
What the fuck is wrong with me ?
I know the books are correct. The deals went through years ago. I’m only reviewing them to be conscientious. And I have a fucking finance degree. I know what I’m doing.
So why can’t I understand them?
Maybe I’m dyslexic. Or attention-deficit. Or just dumb.
A steady stream of weak coffee and angry servers hasn’t helped. But I refuse to admit defeat. And I refuse to allow myself any reprieve until the goddamn math makes sense.
My mood darkens by the hour. It was already shit, thanks to Miss Rivera’s elevator assault. Not to mention my nagging conscience and the pressure of closing my first major deal. But the longer I sit at the metal table, staring into a soup of accounting gibberish, the worse it gets.
“Is that it?” the waitress demands again. “It’s after dinner, and you haven’t ordered any food.”
Unbidden, Ella’s concerned expression pops into my mind. She has a point about my suits fitting looser. Having them all re-tailored would be such a bitch.
“Fine,” I grunt, still glaring at my ledgers. “Pastrami and latkes.”
“Sour cream or applesauce?”
“Both. Obviously.”
She harrumphs and stalks off, but it doesn’t cheer me up. Normally, arguing with strangers amuses me. I enjoy fighting in general. Something about ruffling other people’s feathers while remaining completely calm pleases me. I consider myself unflappable.
Except when beautiful Latina women slap you .
Growling, I flip back a few pages and re-read the ledger notes for the millionth time, then flip forward again.
Nope. I don’t get it.
Have I lost my mind?
First, I chased down a random woman and basically harassed her in an elevator. In the middle of Midtown, during a work day. Then, I brokered a deal I didn’t have permission to make. Now, I can’t read a basic accounting ledger.
Disgusted with myself, I slam the books shut, only to realize they aren’t the right ones. I’ve pulled them from my usual stack, but the binders are green instead of the typical blue. Who knows what I’ve been looking at?
“Fuck me.”
It’s Friday night, and I’m in a deli . Easting pastrami. Alone.
How the mighty have fallen. Four months ago, I would have been out with Grayson at whatever club no one else could get into, drinking too much in some VIP section and meeting women we had no intention of remembering.
Now, I’m working late and clogging my arteries while he writes love poems to his fiancée’s pussy. Or whatever engaged dudes do to convince themselves they won’t get bored sleeping with the same girl for… ever.
My phone chimes, and I snatch it up. Ever since I got Juliet’s email address from Beth and shot her a few terse lines about arranging our first meeting, I lunge every time I get a notification.
Because you want the contracts signed so you can make a shitload of money , I tell myself. Obviously .
But it isn’t an email from the sexy-ass lawyer. It is an all-too-familiar text.
My stomach sinks, taking my appetite along with it. Even so, I flag down my server and tear my wallet out of my pocket.
“My order?” I mutter. “Double it. And wrap it up to go.”
My dark mood is a black hole by the time I get the food and take a cab to Greenwich Village.
If I didn’t feel like shit, I might find an entertaining sort of irony in my surroundings. Five years ago, these dorms were a familiar hook-up spot for me. I went home with a lot of NYU girls in my college days.
Now—wearing my three-piece suit, holding a briefcase full of account ledgers—the damp dorm hallway feels wrong . The girls seem uncomfortably young. The music is way too loud.
And— God —has it always been so grimy ?
I slam my palm against the door with more force. “Chris!” I yell, pounding again. “Let me in, damn it.”
The slab falls away, revealing a cramped rectangular room. Two twin beds occupy the back corners. The desks shoved against the ends of the mattresses are both overflowing—one with laundry, the other with pages and pages of shit.
Pieces ripped out of magazines, printed sheets, loose-leaf covered in scribbles.
And there, hunched over the notes, is my half-brother, Christian.
Before I even step over the threshold, he starts babbling. “—going to be huge, Graham. I swear. I know I’m right about this. You have to look at the markets in Asia to see the trend, but?—”
Cocaine tonight .
Some nights, I find him falling in the other direction, down an opioid-induced rabbit hole of depression. I have a hard time deciding which I hate more.
I can’t focus on his words. I’m too preoccupied with the way he twitches and scratches at his wrists. His eyes are normally blue, but they look black in the dim glow of his desk lamp. I step closer and realize it isn’t a trick of light—his pupils are blown.
An instinctive rush of fear trickles through me. The urge to act rises, as strong and noble as ever. You’ve tried , I remind myself. He doesn’t want help .
Still, I start to try to calm him down. “Christian?—”
He bounces his leg, continuing his rambles. “—gonna be huge. You have to tell him. He won’t listen to me, but he’ll listen to you. You have to tell your dad.”
“ Our dad,” I correct automatically, fighting the heavy sensation spreading through my chest.
“Our dad,” Christian mutters, then gives a humorless smirk. “Right.”
He can’t stop moving. Jiggling his legs, itching his forearms, tugging the sleeves of his sweatshirt, tipping his head back and forth. I recognize the usual symptoms.
Even so, I ask, “What did you take, Chris?”
Christian doesn’t look up from his pages of nonsense. “Bunch of stuff. Here.” He hands me a list covered in a barely visible layer of white powder.
“Chris. Jesus Christ,” I mumble, feeling sick. “Do you need to go to the hospital?”
He shakes his head, but then he can’t stop. He twists it back and forth for a full minute. “I’m fine,” he lies. “Did you bring me food? I smell pastrami.”
It’s incredible that he can smell anything apart from the sharp stench of BO. Then again, he knows to expect a meal when I show up.
It’s our uncomfortable arrangement. Christian uses all of his meager allowance on drugs, forgets to grocery shop, and then texts me for help. I always bring him food. I used to bring him cash, too, but I’ve learned that just leads to more drugs and more texts.
“Katz. I got latkes, too.” I offer him the bag—he can eat both sandwiches. My appetite isn’t going to come back.
He grabs the bag and starts ripping into it. At a loss for words, I wonder when he last ate. I’m guessing it’s been a couple of days because he downs half of a sandwich before I manage to speak.
“Listen, Chris,” I try again. “You need to come with me. If Dad saw you, he would…”
Help? I don’t want to say it because I’m not sure I believe it.
Guilt swamps me. If I were the one with a drug problem, my parents would spare no expense to make me well again. But life has always been different for Christian. He was born four years after me, seven years into my parents’ ill-fated marriage… to a woman who was not my mother.
My father had many affairs throughout the years. I guess Mother usually ignored them. But she couldn’t ignore a bastard, especially when Christian’s mom sued Dad for child support and shared custody.
The lawsuit splashed our family’s drama all over town. Mother never recovered from the humiliation of the whole ordeal. She filed for divorce—to save face, I always suspected. Shortly after, I got a part-time brother.
Luckily, I was too young to really understand what all the fuss was about. After four years of solitude, I thought Christian was a delightful addition.
We stayed fairly close all our lives, though he never attended the schools Dad selected for me. It took a while for me to realize—I was sent to top-tier establishments while Christian went to B-list private schools.
When I turned sixteen, I got a car and driver. Christian got a cab allowance and a subway card.
When I graduated from prep school, I went backpacking in Europe for two months. Christian got a steak dinner.
When I got into Columbia, my father gave me a limitless credit card for all my expenses. Christian had to go to NYU, take out loans, and live on a stipend.
Stupidly, I always assumed that Christian would come work with us at Everett Alexander. He’s better with numbers than I am—and normally, I’m pretty damn good. He also has investing instincts that put mine to shame.
Now I know better. Though no one’s ever said as much, Christian won’t get a job offer from our father. He won’t get anything from him ever again.
It’s taken me twenty-some years to understand, but I finally get it: my father only has enough love for one of us.
And he picked me.
So here I am, with a bag full of accounts I can’t understand, holding a list of investment strategies Christian made while high as a kite.
And they are brilliant .
Inspired, really.
I swallow the lump in my throat and hold the paper out to him. “I can’t take these.”
The food tempers Christian’s manic high. He finishes the first sandwich and moves on to the next with much better manners. “I want you to have them,” he murmurs, subdued. “I made them for you.”
The knot in my gut swells, pressing into my lungs. “Chris, if you showed these to Dad, maybe he would?—”
Christian’s dilated gaze meets mine, unwavering. His mouth curves into a bleak smile. “He would use them, take all the credit, and keep all the money.”
The truth sends a burning bolt of hatred through me. “He’s a fucking dick.”
Grim acceptance fills the features so similar to mine. “At least, this way, you get the glory. Not him. He’s limited. I’ve accepted it.”
I gesture at the general squalor around us. “Is that what all this is about? Trying to be okay with things the way they are? Because it doesn’t have to be like this, Chris. You know you can stay at my place any time. For as long as you want.”
I don’t have a second bedroom in my current apartment—but, hell, I’ll move.
Christian’s next smile almost looks believable. “Won’t help. Because you’d still be you, and I’d still be…”
A drug addict.
That’s what he means—it doesn’t matter where he lives, because he’ll still be sick.
Chris looks down at the remaining half of the sandwich, licking his cracked lips. I know he wants it. In the end, though, he hands the pastrami on rye to me. “Here. Eat. You look almost as shitty as I do.”
I hold the Katz wrapper in my hand, not wanting to turn him down. What if it’s the last time he ever hands me something? What if this is the last meal we ever get to eat?
Will he pull himself back from oblivion again next time? Or finally slip over the edge?
I don’t have any answers. So I fold his notes into my jacket pocket and take a bite of the sandwich, silently accepting his offer.