Chapter Three
TED ARRIVES AT the iconic Tribeca restaurant first. The reservation is under his brother’s name.
Greg had called Jill a week ago and invited them to dinner; Ted is not sure why.
He hasn’t spoken to his brother in a few weeks.
Now he’s afraid that Greg’s ex-wife has told him about her disastrous investment and how it is all Ted’s fault.
He hopes that Min might be keeping it to herself to avoid Greg making her feel even worse.
But mostly Ted believes that if she’d told him, Greg would have been on the phone to him by now.
Perhaps Greg wants to make an announcement of some kind.
Something annoying but benign – maybe Greg has acquired another company to sell off for parts or wants to celebrate a victory of some kind and needs an appreciative audience.
Maybe he has cancer. Or maybe – Ted’s heart skips – maybe he’s met someone new.
He hadn’t mentioned that he would be bringing anyone.
‘How many is the reservation for?’ he inquires of the busy hostess as he’s escorted to their table.
‘For three.’
It’s astounding how relieved Ted feels. He is weary of the parade of women in his brother’s life since his divorce from Min two years ago.
Ted and Jill had liked Min, but apparently she couldn’t put up with his egotistical brother any longer.
Ted assumed that she no longer wanted to live in his shadow.
Greg admitted that he hadn’t wanted the divorce, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.
Min wanted out and she got a hell of a lot of money for it – though Ted isn’t clear exactly how much.
They didn’t have any children. Min had confided to Jill one night when she’d had too much to drink that they’d been trying for a baby for years and they were giving up; that could have been another reason why she left.
It gave Ted some satisfaction to think that his brother might want children and be unable to have them, that there might actually be something Greg wanted that he couldn’t have, and that he might have lost a woman he actually loved because of it.
It would have been very satisfying to Ted to father a bunch of smart, good-looking, overachieving kids and rub Greg’s face in it at every opportunity, but even that prospect wasn’t enough to make him and Jill want to have children.
Ted has a habit of being just a little early for everything; his brother is usually late, and Jill is always right on time.
As Ted waits alone with his thoughts, he admits to himself that his relief isn’t just from not having to get to know another superficially attractive woman who wouldn’t have much to say and wouldn’t last long, but from something else.
Ted is his older brother’s sole heir. Greg told him so after his divorce, when he’d changed his will and was still bitter about how much money Min had received from the divorce settlement.
He was clear that she wouldn’t get another cent out of him.
He said that it would all go to his little brother instead.
This had less to do with affection for his little brother than with anger at his ex-wife, Ted knew.
But it had pleased him nonetheless. Greg currently has no wife and no children.
Their parents are dead, and there are no other siblings, so who else would Greg leave his fortune to, if something should happen to him?
A small amount would go to charity, Greg had told him, but he wanted to keep the bulk of the money in the family, with the family name.
Ted has been afraid that his brother will marry again.
Maybe the fertility problem was Minerva’s.
And if that happened, if Greg remarried and had children, of course the fortune would all go to Greg’s own family, and Ted would get nothing.
That’s the way of the world. But if Greg were to die before he remarried …
and it’s at this magical moment that a plan begins to form, although Ted doesn’t immediately realize it.
It’s nebulous – it begins as curiosity, as fantasy.
How much is Greg really worth? What are his health prospects?
Is it awful to think this way, or merely human?
Ted sits alone at the table and considers his own financial crisis. And it occurs to him that he has a window of opportunity, before Greg remarries and possibly has a family. Even if he can’t have kids, should Greg die, the wife would probably get everything.
Jill interrupts his thoughts, coming up behind him, with her familiar scent of Mon Guerlain, and bending down to kiss him on the cheek.
He looks up at her as if she is a revelation and then stands up.
They smile at each other. They are always smiling at each other, like people do who are in love.
But now he’s also smiling because he knows what the solution to his problem might be.
It’s a shocking idea; he’s shocked that he’s even thinking it.
He’s thinking it as he looks at Jill, and she has no idea.
What a good thing that people can’t read each other’s minds.
‘I need a drink,’ she says breezily, sitting down across from him, and he sits back down again. ‘Order me a martini, please. Have you been here long?’
He shakes his head. ‘No, I just got here.’ He suddenly wants a drink too, something to steady him.
He signals for a waiter. They order drinks – a martini for her, a Negroni for him.
He checks his watch. Greg is almost ten minutes late already.
Arrogance, that’s what it is. Making people wait, to show that he’s more important than they are.
He did that even when they were kids. It’s not that Greg’s not aware of the time; he’s aware of everything.
Jill begins to tell Ted about her day at the gallery, but then Greg arrives and the atmosphere immediately changes.
Greg always seems to take up a lot of space, a lot of air.
He brings a different energy to the table.
His expensive aftershave overwhelms Jill’s more subtle perfume.
He’s six foot three, broad-shouldered but slim and athletic.
They both have the family good looks, dark hair and blue eyes, and although Ted is two inches shorter, he thinks he is slightly more handsome than Greg, whose nose is just a bit too large.
‘Hey, Ted,’ Greg says, as he pats Ted on the back and sits down across from him, beside Jill. They’ve all come from work and both men are wearing expensive suits, although Ted knows that Greg’s suit is bespoke, from Michael Andrews, and his is not.
Ted smiles at his brother, remembering what he was just thinking. ‘Good to see you.’
‘Jill. You look ravishing, as always,’ Greg says.
She does look ravishing, in her tailored summer dress, and Ted is proud to be married to her.
She smiles at Greg. ‘Thank you. You’re looking rather well yourself.’
‘I’m good,’ Greg agrees, smiling broadly and looking at his brother. ‘Fit as a fiddle.’
It’s almost as if Greg knows what he’s been thinking, and Ted looks down at the table and picks up the menu. Greg orders a whiskey as Ted peruses the choices.
The evening proceeds in a bit of a blur for Ted.
He orders more to drink than he normally does.
As they eat, he finds himself fading out of the conversation, letting Jill carry it.
He’s thinking instead about his own problems. Every once in a while, he looks across at his brother, oozing health and success and telling them how great business is.
How great life is. About his latest trip to Europe – a mix of business and pleasure.
Greg has always been a blowhard, has always dominated the conversation.
They make it all the way to dessert, and there is no announcement. Ted realizes that he’s been clenching his jaw and makes a conscious effort to relax.
‘So, Ted, you’re awfully quiet tonight. How are things going for you?’ Greg asks. ‘At work?’
It wrenches Ted out of his thoughts. ‘What?’ But he’d heard the question. He understands then that Min has told him. He immediately tenses. It would be just like his asshole brother to say something in front of Jill.
‘How’s work going?’ Greg repeats. And he’s got a look in his eye, as though he knows something. Ted knows that look, he’s seen it often enough. The I’m going to be a prick look.
‘Good. Yeah, quite good, actually,’ he lies.
Greg is studying him carefully. Jill is glancing between the two of them, as if sensing something. Ted begins to feel slightly ill. He shouldn’t have had so much to drink.
‘That’s not what I heard,’ Greg says.
Jill turns a questioning gaze on him. ‘Well,’ he says smoothly, ‘nothing we can’t weather.’ He sounds convincing. He has always been smooth; it’s a gift. He can usually convince almost anyone of almost anything. ‘Can’t be too focused on the short term.’ He smiles at his brother.
Jill looks reassured, and as long as Greg stops now, it will be all right. But he hates his brother at this moment, for goading him, for kicking him when he’s down, for doing this in front of his wife.
Greg regards him as if he’s toying with him, swirls the amber liquid in his glass, and says, ‘Min told me, Ted.’
He sees Jill glancing from Greg to him, concern on her face. ‘Told you what?’ she asks.
‘Ted here,’ Greg says, ‘recommended a risky investment to Min, told her it was a “sure thing” and she lost her shirt. Isn’t that right, Ted?’
Ted feels his stomach fall away. He sinks under the shame of failure, of not being good enough, of not being as good as his successful brother. He can feel his face flush. ‘A lot of smart people at the firm lost money on that investment. It wasn’t just her,’ he says.
‘No. I understand you lost heavily as well.’
Jill turns to him in alarm. For a moment Ted is speechless; he doesn’t know what to say.
He reminds himself that Greg doesn’t know everything; he doesn’t know about the loan shark and just how bad things are for them.
He only knows about this one, spectacularly bad investment.
‘Yes, well, easy come, easy go,’ Ted says, sounding glib, like Jamie Pollard, and a little drunk.
Greg looks back at him in contempt. ‘Are you sure you can afford to lose money hand over fist like that?’
‘You know what, Greg?’ he counters. ‘You worry too much.’
They part soon after, and as he and Jill Uber home there is noticeable tension in the back of the car. Once they arrive home and walk up the steps to the front door of their brownstone, she asks him, her voice cold, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
They make their way inside before Ted answers. ‘It’s all under control, Jill,’ he lies. ‘No big deal. You know what an asshole Greg is.’ Even as he says it, he wonders how much longer he can keep her in the dark.
She lets it go.
But later that night, after they have gone to bed and Jill has finally fallen asleep, Ted lies awake, staring at the ceiling. How he hates his brother. His taunting, his superiority, his blatant success. He could kill him.
He could kill him. The idea of it almost takes his breath away.
Could he? He certainly wouldn’t miss him.
How could he do it without getting caught?
Maybe he is about to find out what kind of man he is.