The Hazards of Hunting While Heartbroken (22 page)

“So how does it feel to be a full-fledged homeowner?” Oscar asks with a smile, when the waitress retreats towards the kitchen with our order.

“It doesn’t feel real.”

He stirs an entire packet of sugar into his coffee but doesn’t say anything. Because the silence makes me nervous—yeah, I know it’s irrational—I rush to explain myself. “It’s like I said on the phone. I can’t believe how generous you’re being, but I can’t accept an apartment from you.”

“Why not? I have the money and you need a place to live.”

“If only it were that simple.” I reach across the table and put my hand on his.

“Why isn’t it?” He looks genuinely confused. Could this possibly be normal in the elite socio-economic circles Oscar inhabits? No way. I know lots of very privileged people. Nobody buys real estate for non-family members. As if intentionally adding to my surprise, he says, “It’s not like I had to get a mortgage. Seriously, Zoë. I’m not stressing over it and neither should you. Manhattan real estate is one of the few sure things in the investment world.”

Right. That doesn’t explain why he’d buy real estate
for me
, although it explains the speed of the transaction. He didn’t need to wait for financing. How on earth lucrative is life at Takamura Brothers?

Instead of asking such a rude question, I tick off the responses I composed in my head at work yesterday. “It’s not that simple, because I can’t possibly repay you. I feel like I’m taking advantage. And it sort of makes me feel like a kept woman. You know, the kind who hardly ever leaves the boudoir and who wears garter belts and negligees all the time.”

“That last part can be our little secret.” He smiles and something inside my chest softens. I can’t help it. After the ego-bruising Brendan debacle, it makes me happy that this hot, wealthy, successful guy wants me, for whatever reason. The waitress reappears and unceremoniously dumps two omelets in front of us. “Enjoy,” she orders in heavily accented English, before leaving us again.

Oscar unloads a stunning quantity of Tabasco sauce on his breakfast. “I want you to be happy. I’ve got a decade on you in terms of age, so I have more resources than you do. I really don’t see why this is a problem.”

I poke at my omelet with my fork. In my head, this conversation went differently, but now I realize, I didn’t hash out the logistics. He bought the place and now I can either live there on his charity (weird), foist rent on him (unlikely), or make a stink and insist he sell it or rent it to a real tenant (which would render me homeless and possibly single). Faced with this absence of anything resembling a plan, I decide to stall for time. “I guess I’m a bit floored. Nobody has ever done anything even remotely like this for me before. It’s taking a bit to digest.”

Oscar glances around the restaurant. None of the harried customers are paying any attention to us. “I have a confession to make. I’ve put it off, because it’s not something I share with people, but I feel like we could have something real and you deserve to know.”

I hold my breath and wait. He’s going to tell me something that will force me to end it. I wish I could go back in time and prevent this conversation, because I’ve fallen for him and I don’t want the rug yanked out from under me.

Oscar says, “You know how I said my parents died and I was raised by an aunt and uncle?”

I nod. It’s an awful story. His parents died in a head on collision caused by a drunk driver. They were on their way home from a wedding. Oscar and his sister went to live with an older aunt and uncle who took them in out of obligation. He shared all this on our fourth or fifth date, when I asked about his family. He made it clear he didn’t like to talk about it. I can’t say I blame him.

“I lied.” Oscar said. “And for that I apologize. The truth felt too embarrassing.”

“You’re talking to the girl who failed to notice her fiancé was gay. For over a decade.”

“This is worse. My parents belonged to the Fundamentalist branch of Mormons. You may have heard of my father, Warner Parks. He was all over the news a few years ago. He’s serving thirty years for sexual assault on a minor, polygamy and a bunch of lesser offenses. My mother was the second oldest of his four wives. She died giving birth to what would have been my ninth full sibling when I was eleven. When I was twelve, three of the elders came for me in the middle of the night and drove me to a campground near the Grand Canyon. They left me there with a canteen of water and a bag of trail mix.”

I am speechless. I’ve read about this group in publications as diverse as
National Geographic
and
Marie Claire
, so I know they’re notorious for dumping their extra boys (it’s an ugly practice needed to sustain the multiple-wives-for-each-old-geezer thing), but I’ve never met anyone who’s even known anyone from that community. And evidently I’m dating a survivor of this cult.

Oscar watches me digest the information for a moment before continuing. “I bounced through a couple of foster homes until I basically hit the lottery and landed with the headmaster of a private boys’ school in Scottsdale and his wife. They took me in and somehow sorted me out. They let me change my name. I was Luke before. I picked Oscar, because when I first arrived
The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde
was on the nightstand in what became my room, and no one from the FLDS was named that. Stupid, right?” He shakes his head. “But I guess it suits me as well as any other name. I had tutors for every subject. I played soccer. I managed to make a few friends, probably because I was such a goddamned novelty. Richard and June—those were their names—they helped me apply for the scholarship to the University of Colorado, which turned out to be my ticket to the life I have now.”

“Wow. Oscar, I don’t know what to say.”

“Nobody does. So I don’t usually tell anyone. Olivia knows, and Seiji, my friend from B school. And two of my college friends. That’s about it. Anyway, Richard and June died in a car wreck, when I was seventeen and a half. Their daughter, Jennifer, she’s forty-eight now and an art teacher in Sacramento, managed to get custody of me for the six months until I turned eighteen. She’s the one I call my sister. My biological family is dead to me. Before I left for college, I changed my name to Thornton. Partly to honor Richard and June, but I had planned to do it anyway. Before the accident, I mean. I didn’t want people hearing about Warner Parks in the news and making the connection.”

He pauses to glance around the restaurant. “Which brings me, after that long and arduous detour, back to your apartment. Don’t worry about the money. I made a small fortune when I sold my story right after business school. Ever hear of a book called
Surplus Boys
? It was on the bestseller list for months. It’s basically my memoir, as told to a friend of Jennifer’s who ghost wrote it. She changed all the names at my insistence. Too many kids in my situation weren’t nearly as lucky as I was. It felt wrong to lord my triumphs over them. Most of the extra boys never even finished high school, and I know at least two who died of drug overdoses. I have a half-brother serving time for a string of burglaries. One girl who ran away, she was my cousin and she was barely fifteen, hanged herself in her foster family’s basement.” He shakes his head as if trying to erase the mental image. “Anyway, I brought you a copy.”

He reaches in his briefcase and pulls out a hardcover book with a dusty desert road on the cover. A quotation from a review on the back calls it
“a look inside one of the most sinister and secretive cults in modern America... a riveting read... a powerful message of hope and redemption.”

I’m glad Oscar trusts me enough to tell me all this. Though I can’t help wondering if anybody can be as well adjusted as he seems after enduring such a horrific childhood. Doesn’t that kind of trauma stay with a person? I feel out of my depth as I leaf through the first pages.

“Zoë? Are you okay? You don’t hate me now, do you?” His face contorts with worry and I realize I’ve checked out of the conversation. It’s the first time since meeting Oscar that I’ve seen even a flicker of insecurity from him. I’m embarrassed to admit it’s reassuring. If he has moments of self-doubt it means he’s not insufferably perfect.

“Of course I don’t hate you. I’m glad you told me.” I reach across our untouched omelets and touch his hand.

“Good.” He smiles. “So I know you’ll tear through the book and waste your day researching the FLDS, but just promise me that we won’t have to talk about it all the time.”

“Of course,” I say, though I suspect it might be a challenge.

Oscar takes another scan of the restaurant. “One of my colleagues is at the counter,” he whispers. He launches into small talk without missing a beat. “How are things at the office? You know, we had a co-op meeting last night, and I was sorry to miss it. I would have loved to meet the famous Carol Broadwick.”

“She doesn’t go to those things. She sends one of her lawyers.” I can’t believe the ease with which Oscar changes gears. I wonder what really goes on in his good-looking head. Does he obsess over me like I do about him? Does he think about me while sitting in traffic, or between meetings, or for no reason at all?

He’s mopping up the remains of his omelet with a triangle of toast, seemingly oblivious to my silly obsessing, when my phone buzzes. Carol. “Speak of the devil,” I say, throwing caution to the wind and letting her roll to voicemail. My stock is high enough with the Niles Townsend deal pending to put her off until I leave Oscar’s earshot in a few minutes.

Oscar takes care of the check at the counter on the way out, and I feel a familiar twinge of guilt about not paying my way, even though the coffee money means nothing to him. His car is waiting. He’s heading downtown but offers to drop me first. I decline, since the subway will be just as quick at this hour, but mainly because I don’t want to call my boss in front of him. His kisses me goodbye and disappears into the traffic.

When I call Carol back, she, as usual, doesn’t pause for pleasantries. “It’s done. He accepted.” I can’t see her, but I know her eyes are gleaming the way they always do when she’s counting her money.

Even though I feel like squealing and jumping for joy, I force my voice to stay level and professional. “That’s great. I think this move will catapult Niles’ career.”

“Plus the client is happy, happy, happy,” Carol practically sings. She’s not raising her voice, or berating me for savoring a success while neglecting the pipeline for the future. It’s bizarre. Then she says something even more out of character. “Nice job, Zoë.” She hangs up as I’m stammering, “Thank you.”

“When it rains, it pours,” Angela says moments later, once I’ve related the details of my brief but momentous conversation with Carol. “It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about men or job offers or money. A little action always attracts more.”

“I was hardly rolling in it before today. I’ve only placed two junior people since Brendan left, but luckily, placing Niles puts me in another league altogether. I can’t thank you enough for sending him my way.”

“Don’t mention it. And don’t change the subject. I wasn’t talking about you making placements. I meant, now that you have no money issues, because you’re not planning to pay rent to Oscar, more money will come your way. That’s always the way it goes.”

“Interesting theory.”

“It does explain why the rich keep getting richer,” she muses. “Anyway, Susie is thrilled. She was all worried that she’d overplayed her hand when she called you and demanded more money. She says Niles would murder her if he knew, and she wasn’t sure she could get away with playing the hormonal card on this one.”

“Good thing I was smart enough not to mention it to him.” My other line beeps. “Have to take that. It’s the man himself.”

I switch over and say congratulations before Niles has the chance to say anything.

“Thank you,” he says. “But I’m afraid we have a logistical problem.”

This stops me dead in my tracks. A heavy set man in a blue suit crashes into me on the stairs to 33rd Street Station, sloshes coffee on his hand and curses me, the Starbucks people, and Jesus, before barreling past me into Manhattan’s underworld.

“What kind of logistical problem?” I try to ask as levelly as possible, but I’m sure he can detect the waver in my voice.

“My firm wants me gone today. In fact, I’m standing on the sidewalk outside my old building with my secretary. They had security escort us both out.”

I start to exhale. “Remember? We talked about this. Firms remove their ex-partners unceremoniously all the time.” I had given Niles a heads up that this could happen, and I told him to download his contacts, somewhere other than his work issued BlackBerry, to take with him before giving notice. Junior associates may get cakes and going away parties, but defecting partners almost always get ejected immediately. Even the stodgiest law firms operate with lightning efficiency when it comes to locking people off their computer networks and confiscating their communication devices. “Didn’t you warn your poor assistant?”

“She knew something was up with me, but for some reason, she never assumed she would be part of the deal. When I asked her last night to follow me to Cutler, she was surprised.”

“Yeah, I’m sure nobody enjoys being manhandled by security. But listen, Niles. I will take care of everything. I’ll have the Cutler people send movers over today to pack and deliver your office. You’ll be up and running this afternoon. I’ll let them know you’re on your way now.”

“Um, Zoë, could we hold off on that for a few hours?”

My stomach lurches. I rack my brain for the prefabricated speech I most dread delivering:
What To Say When the Candidate Changes His Mind (After Accepting an Offer from One of Carol’s Very Important Clients)
.

I’m about to explain to Niles that he cannot march back into his old firm and throw himself on the mercy of the managing partner. He’s damaged goods. He’s thought about resigning, and indeed has resigned, once. The other partners will never look at him the same way again. And for that matter, why would he want to go back upstairs? They just forcibly removed him and his secretary, a loyal servant of nearly two decades, from the building in front of hundreds of gawkers and passersby who might or might not know them.