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Authors: Evelin Weber

Tags: #wall street, #new york city, #infidelity signs, #lust affair

The Black & The White (41 page)

BOOK: The Black & The White
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Thank you so much. I am
indebted. You’re a great guy, Stephen. Thanks again. I have to
go.”

We both got up slowly and walked out
the door. The finality was difficult.

We hugged each other goodbye,
embracing tightly on the sidewalk before we went our separate ways.
I saw his reflection in the glass walls of the restaurant. I saw
him turn to watch me walk away.


Isabelle,” he called as he
walked toward me. “What is your new email address? I want to send
you something I wrote last week while I was on vacation. I promise
you, I will never write you again after this, but there is just one
letter I need to send you.”

I gave him the address.


Maybe one day we can be
friends,” I said with a smile.

I was sad when we parted, but I knew I
had done the right thing.

That night, I received a heartfelt
email letter from Stephen. It was a journal entry he had written on
his phone while away on vacation. At the first line, I began to
cry.

I am deep into the ‘beautiful’
melancholy that is us.

I hate the pain. I truly hate it. It
blinds me from enjoying the rest of life. The pain eventually
shifts into fear and dread, then on to fate. Fear of making bad
choices and dread of living a partial life, particularly knowing a
complete one with you was a possibility which I failed to
hold.

Each day on this boat has been akin to
solitary confinement. Prison on water. Good food that tastes like
bread. Great wine and drinks that might as well be water. I am dead
in this world, alive with struggle over you in my mentality. Every
night from 3am or 4am when I wake and can’t sleep, I lament and
worry over you. If I believe in love, why can I not trust in fate?
If I believe we are so connected, so perfect, so perfect for one
another, why am I unable to keep that fact foremost? Instead I
worry that you will coldly destroy our chance. And I worry that I
could stop you, but in respecting your wish for space, I will let
you go and later not recover you.

I feel lost without contact. I want to
share each thought with you. Each minute, each morning, I think of
you first. Every sunset I want to send to you, every sunrise I want
to see with you.

There are more miserable places to be
miserable. More melancholy places to be melancholy. I prefer this
place to many, yet if I can be miserable in this place, I am that
much more assured that I would be miserable anywhere. There is only
one way to recover, and that is to recover you.

The letter continued but I refused to
read more, afraid of being drawn into his world again. I could not
do it. I could not allow myself to think of that possibility. The
week before, I had chosen to end all drugs, one of which was
Stephen.

I called Kim the next day to meet me
for coffee at Timothy’s, a place that had many fond memories for
me.


Of course. I want to see
you. I have missed you, you Bitch!” she said jokingly.

Kim had called me a few times after
the incident with Stephen, but I refused to communicate with
her.

The initial awkwardness of seeing her
was awful. We exchanged niceties before I opened up.


I was hurt when I saw you
letting him touch you. You knew I liked him.”


Yeah, I kind of figured you
liked him, but he was married. That relationship was going nowhere.
So, I thought all is fair in love and war, right?” Kim
explained.


No,” I said. “Kim, you’ve
lied to me about so much. I looked up to you. And you just hurt
me,” I said. I began to cry. “Blatantly hurt me.”


Oh, come on. Look up to me?
You’re the one who has her shit together. I wanted to take
something from you. I was jealous and I am sorry.”

Kim sobbed on my shoulder. “I’m sorry
baby. I knew you were involved with him even though you didn’t tell
me. I am sorry.” Her tears began to soak through my thin sweater
onto my arm. “I was just jealous of you.”

Now both in tears, we hugged each
other.


Jealous of me? There’s
nothing to be jealous of. You betrayed me,” I said.


I am so sorry. I just don’t
know, Isabelle. You just seemed like you had it all together. I
didn’t. I was a wreck. I don’t know why I was selfish. I am sorry
for wanting to hurt you. I have regretted it ever since. All you
have been to me was nice. I just hate myself for it. I
do.”

We cried in each other’s arms as she
continued to apologize. It was cathartic for both of us.

We left the restaurant laughing at our
swollen faces, red from tears.


I love you. I really do,”
Kim said as she gave me another hug.


Me too. You’re forgiven,” I
said. “But don’t let it happen again.” I smiled at her, although my
message was serious.


Never. See you tomorrow?
Let’s do dinner like good ol’ days?”

I nodded and we went our separate
ways.

The day was drawing near when I had to
put on a suit and be in an office, but something was holding me
back from embracing this new part of my life. I felt I was on the
right path and wanted to continue. I opened my closet and stared at
my suit. My heart raced, I contemplated putting it on, imagining
myself at work. I looked at myself and still, I wasn’t ready to go
to work.

I knew I had to call Chris the very
next day.

I informed him that there had been a
change of plans. I could not accept the offer, as generous as it
was. I needed time to myself.

I didn’t have any plans, but I felt
okay about it.

A week later, Jeffrey left me an
urgent message in the morning. “Isabelle, get up. Your boss is in
the papers.”

I called him back as soon as I woke
up. “What’s up?”


Let me read the newspaper
headline and you will know. ‘Rogue trader responsible for nearly $1
billion in losses.’”


Holy shit,” I said. I got
off the phone immediately and bought the New York Times. In my time
off, I had been reading only novels with spiritual and
self-improvement themes—nothing business-related.

Stephen had been right all along. As
Andrew was building up his large positions, he was covering up his
losses by issuing fake confirms and breaking into the bank’s
computer systems. A major red flag was raised when a compliance
offer noticed that one trade had reached the bank’s threshold. The
officer then phoned another brokerage house with which Andrew had
supposedly traded and discovered that the other firm had no record
of such transactions. That discrepancy led to an investigation.
That investigation led to Andrew’s secret accounts, belonging to
credit clients where losses mounted to nearly a billion dollars.
The bank attempted to keep it a secret, but a leak of a possible,
massive unwind caused massive activity and created greater losses
for the firm.

A week later, headhunters began
calling me throughout the day. The fact that I had been Andrew’s
junior trader and had quit just before this all came to light
piqued the curiosity of many potential employers. During my
interviews, it was always the first thing the interviewer would
ask. “Did you know what was going on? How was it working for
him?”

I became well known in the industry.
With a handful of offers on the table, I decided to choose the best
one.

I took a job at a hedge fund. This
time, however, I had done my research. My boss was a well-respected
man in the industry in his late forties. I went so far as to meet
his previous assistant, who had left him to go to business school.
She had nothing but great things to say about him. I was
relieved.

After I signed the paperwork and
formally accepted the offer, I rode my bicycle to Jeffrey’s
restaurant. He was behind the bar taking inventory.

I came through the door,
smiling.

He walked over to me and gave me a
hug, then lifted me up and gave me a kiss.

ABOUT THE
AUTHOR

 

 

Evelin Weber left her successful
career in Wall Street to follow what she considered to be more
worthwhile pursuits, such as drinking with friends, doing
conservation work in Africa and Costa Rica, dancing like no-one’s
watching in the fashion capitals of the world, surfing in Bali,
enjoying yoga bootcamps and getting her sommeliers license while
trying not to crash her plane. Evelin is always on the lookout for
her next experience and it’s these life experiences which have
inspired her to write “The Black and The White,” her first
novel.

BOOK: The Black & The White
10.73Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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