clients I have that are the hardest to work with are the ones who don’t call you. Half way through the settlement proceedings, they’re kicking and screaming at me.” He ate the cheese in one bite and shook his head. “These women. You know as well as I do that most of the time they’ve dug their own grave. What’s that phrase? The suspension of disbelief. They sure as hell got that down.”
Celeste smiled and said, “Is that wife number two or number three that you’re talking about?”
“Ms. Amado, you offend me deeply. Wives number two and three signed solid prenups. There were no negotiations, and, if they had read what they had signed, there would have been no surprises.”
Celeste smiled at Victor again and shook her head. What a pragmatist. Ah, the pinot bianco was so cool and crisp, Celeste didn’t realize she had finished her glass. Victor filled hers, then his.
“What about you?” Victor said, with less dissatisfaction on his face and a hint of keen curiosity. “You and Keith still—.”
Celeste shook her head. “You know that I gave him his pink slip. A while back.”
Victor finished the last drop of wine, set his glass down with fervor, sat back and waved a finger at her. “This isn’t right, Celeste. I see now this meal is founded on false pretenses. You’re plotting my seduction.”
Celeste laughed. “You are one of the most insightful men I’ve ever known.”
“Hmm. I suppose I was hoping you wouldn’t have found that quite so funny.”
The waiter deftly removed their empty plates and changed the glassware. He returned with a bottle of red.
As Victor inspected, sipped and savored, Celeste glanced around the restaurant. She recognized a couple in the corner. She’d have to say hello before they left. She turned to Victor and saw him frowning.
“Something wrong with the wine?”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand why you’re not with someone,” he said.
“Why aren’t you with someone?”
“Me? Everyone knows I’m merely between wives. You, Celeste, you of all people, should know you’re between husbands. But you have to know that in order to realize that.”
“Victor, you’re very sweet to care.”
Victor stared at Celeste. “I mean it,” he said, “you’re too beautiful and too smart to squander this life, Celeste. You and I both know the world’s not just about money.”
She said, “I have two little nieces who remind me of that every time I see them. Miriam, I swear, she’s so grown up for eight years old. So smart. And Becky, I think she’s like my mother and my sister combined.” The same silky skin and bony body of Nataly. That same mischievous smile.
Victor shook his head. The sides of his face shook ever so slightly with him. “You see, that’s what I mean. You need a man, and you need a kid.”
“Jesus, Vic, look, I thought the unwritten agreement here was you speak about your love life, and I talk about business.” Celeste watched Victor set his fork down. There was a rupture going on inside of her.
“But come on—”
“Could we change the subject, Vic? Let’s not spoil this wonderful meal by talking about me? Really, who the hell cares?” She was not going to trot out that story of Michael. Display Skye, turn her into a wound that time still had yet to heal. She sipped her wine. Maybe that would quell what was going on inside.
“I do, Celeste,” Victor said, picking up his fork and looking down at his plate.
“Once again you’re the better man, because I don’t.”
The next morning—what a morning! Celeste had already had two clients. Both of them made her so angry she wanted to shake them.
Client #1: For the past fifteen years, she had been receiving statements from two different brokers and not opened a single envelope. She brought all of the (unopened) statements to Celeste.
Client #2: A young woman named Andrea Paz, clearly anxious, very attractive, very demure. She had a court settlement worth $100,000. Ms. Paz didn’t go into the details of the settlement, but for some reason Celeste thought it was related to sexual harassment.
“I’d like to be able to invest $50,000 for my children, for their college,” Ms. Paz had said. That had quite literally filled Celeste’s day with sunshine, and her business woman’s heart with joy. Halfway through the necessary questions, Celeste asked her what she was doing with the other half of the settlement.
“My husband invested it in his brother’s boss’ business.”
Celeste nodded, very slowly. “Did you happen to bring a copy of the paperwork?”
“What paperwork?” Andrea Paz asked, her large innocent eyes making her look fifteen, not twenty-seven. Celeste gritted her teeth and inwardly promised herself to make this money grow for Andrea’s sons.
Client #1’s statements revealed that one brokerage firm had kept her funds in a money market fund for the past fifteen years, where it had shrunk a bit because of the management fees. That was far better, however, than the other brokerage firm, which had simply churned and churned the money until they had the temerity to be billing her!
What was it about women that made them refuse to look? Okay, maybe once they looked they couldn’t see, couldn’t recognize the problem or the indicators, couldn’t decipher the financial statement. But they had to look first, in order to realize it.
What made them think that the money would take care of itself or that the money, their money, would be better thrust blindly into the hands of a stranger?
Celeste got so angry with these women—these women whose anxieties, neuroses and prayers were layered on to their funds. Money was neutral! Money can’t spend or invest itself, she wanted to yell at Client #1.
What the hell does your husband’s brother’s boss know about investing? she wanted to yell at Client #2. But she couldn’t. She knew they had both used all of their emotional reserve to just enter her office. No use scolding a person for that. She knew how to treat women like this, coddle them more gently than she would her two young nieces. Otherwise they would bolt, and who knew what kind of swindler would find them next?
What were these women so terrified of? To Celeste, the unknown was more terrifying.
Celeste sipped her coffee. She knew her own sin had been pride. She was once Celeste Amado, eighteen years old, National Merit Scholar, perfect 1600 on her SATs, invitations to attend nearly every Ivy League School back East and a hundred private colleges throughout the country. Celeste Amado, something bright and shiny, even to herself, an eighteen-year-old Celeste who had left midway through an insipid church service, choking on her tears. She wished she were far away. She wished it was next year.
“Whatever it is,” her mother said, following her, putting her cool hand on Celeste’s hot cheek, “it’s not the end of the world.”
That’s exactly what it was, the end of the world. The end of her world, at any rate, and of the way she had planned on living it. So many plans, they had made her dizzy with possibility. Dizzy with being eighteen, standing on the very edge of the world and the things that are the most important, the most meaningful.
“We love you,” her mother said. This was her mother, with the golden brown eyes and gentle touch Celeste had known all her life. This was the mother who had tied her shoes as Celeste read, who still dabbed a tissue at her face as she headed out the door, who continued to tuck all three daughters in at night. This was her mother—peace, consolation, solace all wrapped into one person.
Her mother stroked her face. “Everything seems impossible when we look at it for the first time. I know you, it will work out, it will be all right.”
Celeste felt her mother’s