Wall Street Blues (Swashbuckling Romance) (2 page)

The Scariest Group Date Ever

     Group date: What a scary thing to do! I couldn’t conveniently imagine how a group of lovelorn people would hole themselves up in a hotel room for hours trying to relive the past romantic life they had miserably lost. On a more serious note, I had heard various terrible things about group dating, and the mere thought that I was going to be part of the madness truly terrified me. Some victims of group dating had complained about being mercilessly raped by strangers to whom they had mistakenly entrusted their safety. Others had met kleptomaniac who stole some valuables from their purses during the process.

    There was n
o definite dress code for the occasion but I had decided to go in my tight-fitting jeans and a thick blue shirt. My idea was that if I unfortunately ran into a rapist, it would take him a long time before he could forcefully undress me. Again, I worried about my reputation: it was the most sensitive thing I was putting on the line for this tryst. Any strangest outcome could have a chain-reaction effect on my self-respect, job and future.

   Filled with fear, I almost rang up Hillary to apologize for my change of mind: to be true to myself, I
wasn’t one hundred percent for this event. But, coincidentally, my cell phone came ringing and when I flipped it open to answer the call, it was Hillary: “What are you still doing in your apartment? Please get into your car and drive down here. I’m waiting at the hotel’s lobby for you,” she reprimanded me in her usual way. Hillary was a no-nonsense bitch.

   With no
apparent option for me, I strode to my garage and kicked my Ford Mustang into motion. A large meeting room at one of the ritzy hotels on Broad Street had been rented for the get-together. The first thing that struck me as I rushed into the lobby was that I had probably underdressed for the occasion. Hillary, that peacock of a girl, was in a pink, see-through blouse, and her skirt was too short for my liking. I winced when she inspected my choice of fashion and later shook her head without saying a word to me. At that moment, I felt like I was pushing myself too far just to satisfy Hillary. Was it because we had been quite chummy these past weeks because we freely shared secrets and the same office? Oh, snap! This wasn’t my nature; I disliked being pushed around by someone at my age.

   But my worries were
quickly assuaged when she gave me her don’t-go-gaga smile. It was physically reassuring. I realized I hadn’t done anything awful that might destroy our friendship.

“I know you are still in your college-day mindset,” she finally said with a simper. And I knew she was referring to my casual dress.

“Oh, yeah. It didn’t occur to me that it was going to be a gaudy party where everyone is expected to show up in their most resplendent clothes,” I said that as a joke.

“Oh, no! It should be casual. I was just pulling your leg as usual,” she said.

  
Not quite long, a dashing young lady appeared in a skimpy dress, her pink knees jutting under the hemline. She wore a pair of dark sunglasses that made her look like a CIA agent. Hillary sidled up to her and asked in a whisper, “Are you Laura?”

 
“Yeah,” the lady responded, shyly.

“I’m Hillary. Nice to meet you,” she said to her and I watched them shake hands like two professionals on an important business meeting.

“Please meet Jan,” she pointed to me. We both said “hi” at the same time. We could sense that either of us was very nervous about the whole situation. Exactly, twenty minutes later, three guys arrived one after another. They didn’t look like they had known each other before. That killed any negative thought in me that we, the ladies, might have probably been targeted by a gang of three related criminals.

   Hillary surprisingly turned out to b
e a wonderful emcee. Since we didn’t have time on our hands, having rented the hotel room for just two hours, we ended pairing up naturally. Everyone turned to the person next to him or her and immediately started a lively conversation.

   David Seymour, an Irish-American lawyer with a Chicagoan accent stretched forth his hand for a ha
ndshake. I grabbed his hand gingerly and avoided looking straight into his blue eyes. A curly lock of hair kept falling on his forehead, which he returned now and then to its place with the back of his hand. I was quite cautious about how much information I could reveal to this complete stranger. I only told him that I worked for a bank, but I didn’t mention which one or said where it was situated. New York City might appear to be a big place, but I reckoned it was small as well: people are quite connected in this age of furious networking. It was hard identifying who had met or known who.

  
David’s piercing voice struck me as strange and seductive. Such a voice should belong to a woman or singer. Another odd thing I discovered about him was that he was a mama’s boy; he intermittently made series of references to his mum.

  
“My mum is a quiet woman, too,” he enthused when I told him my personality type. “And she cooks a lot, just like you,” he concluded.

 
I didn’t feel comfortable the way he held my hand all the while. I tried to free my hand from his firm grip, but he resisted many times: he seemed to be deriving some pleasure from doing this. And his probing eyes! I was sure Hillary would caution him against staring into her body as though he attempted to x-ray her thoughts through some telepathic powers.

    For over an hour, I
didn’t find anything quite interesting about him. He spoke slowly, and he could be sometimes incoherent. Was he also afraid or nervous?

  
“You’ll like meeting my mum, “he said as we were about to depart from the hotel room.

  
Hillary and Laura and their men appeared to be having a wonderful time chatting. They had only drunk a little of the wine served by the hotel; they were obviously engrossed in their conversations. On the other hand, David and I had plenty of free time to drink, munch on the croissants and other snacks supplied by the hotel catering services.

  
We received a reminder call from the front desk that our time would elapse in five minutes. While Hillary’s and Laura’s boyfriends were negotiating with them about going to bars or restaurants to continue their discussions, I didn’t expect such a suggestion from David.

   At the lobby, I said goodbyes to Hillary and Laura as they departed from the hotel holding hands with their
lucky guys. I was about to say goodbye to David Seymour when he grabbed my hand again and pulled me close to his chest.

 
“Do you think we have also finished our discussion?” He asked.

   I was about to correct him that we
hadn’t been discussing anything reasonable since we met over two hours ago. As passersby walked past us, I started to feel ashamed of myself snuggling up against a total stranger on the boulevard. I watched each car that went past with caution, hoping that none of them would belong to any of my relatives, friends or even our bank’s clients.

 
“It’ll be cool if we can go to my house for a change,” he announced, unexpectedly. A statement that occurred to me as strange as himself! How dared him that he would expect me to follow him to his house and carelessly expose myself to be violated and ridiculed? He might have been a careless dreamer.

  I jerked my hand from his and was about to hurry away from his presence when he passionately lunged forward to grab my shoulders.

  “I understand you are justified to be afraid, girl. But believe me sincerely, I’m not a rapist or a ruffian. I’m a good guy,” he said, almost in an emotion-laden whisper.

  
I looked slyly at his face and something in me shouted “believe him!” I was short of words to say. I just nodded as he took me through his family background.

“I don’t know if this counts; I’m glad to tell you that my father is also a banker,” he said. My heart skipped a beat. “But he’s one of the senior managers at JP Morgan,” he revealed.

 
“Oh, really?” I asked, noncommittally. Not that those revelations would change my mind, though. Any desperate dog could tell a lie in order to get whatever he wanted.

 
“And today is my dad’s birthday! It’ll be great introducing my very first female friend to my family,” he said.

   
I could sense certain desperation in his voice and action. At thirty-three, he was probably one of those guys who believed that he should have settled down long before now.

   Having accepted that I c
ould leave within minutes if none of his family members was home by the time we got there, I decided to follow him to his house, located somewhere in Brooklyn.

   We walked in silence towards the hotel parking lot where
my car and his, a Bentley, were waiting. Fighting all negative emotions, I tried to concentrate on something that was real. David didn’t seem to me as a dangerous person; his slim physique and some feminine features (like his sonorous voice) confirmed his softness and gullibility. What did he know about me that he was willing to take me to his home? What of if I turned violent there, hitting him or killing one of his family members? His gullibility was evident in his behavior.

   My guess was very correct: David
’s family lived in a posh mansion with nineteen century architectural design in Brooklyn. That instantly gave me the impression that his father and mine would love each other’s company. My dad was a great sucker for anything archaic, including out-dated fashion and architecture. Romanesque and Shakespearian niceties!

     But as we entered into their expansive living room, I hardly could see the people in it. The place was awash with candle light as it appeared everyone huddle together to break his father
’s birthday cake.

   
“You are in at the right time, David” a male guttural voice sounded from the corner of the living room. It seemed quite familiar but, hell no, people could sound similar all over the world. However, when the lights were switched on, I became frozen with shame and surprise. Perched on the huge sofa was my boss, our CEO Mr. Henry Russell.

      I had silently prayed that the ground would cleave open and swallow me alive.
He, too was shocked to have seen me. Even for the simple reason of accompanying a guy he knew—perhaps his friend’s son—to his house might send a disturbing message to his heart. He had always regarded me as a chaste, quiet and undiluted lady. He once promised to help me find a responsible boyfriend whom he was sure would take a good care of me.

   
“So, you know David,” was all Mr. Russell could utter.

   After exchanging brief
pleasantries with David’s parents and his younger sister, I quickly took my leave, claiming that I had got an appointment somewhere else which I couldn’t afford to break. It was all a white lie I couldn’t help but fabricate.

   
“You didn’t tell me about that before, Janet,” David looked disappointed.

  
“I’m very sorry. I’ve got to go now,” I said and hurried out of his house, my feet clicking dangerously, but I tried to maintain my balance so that I wouldn’t fall flat on the stony ground. My heart was beating quite fast. I knew I had let myself down. I had ruined my reputation with my boss, someone who held some respect for me before now!

  Memo to Self

  
The relationship between my CEO, Mr. Russell and I had surprisingly turned cold and worrisome. Was it because we had bumped into each other at his friend’s house and, as it was clear to him, that I was dating his friend’s son? Unlike before, he rarely exchanged pleasantries with me. Our interaction had turned from supposedly uncle-to-niece to that of cat and mouse, and we only interacted when there was an official duty to accomplish together.

 
  It apparently took Mr. Russell two weeks before he could put himself together and addressed whatever might have prompted this cold relationship between us.

   
“You do not necessarily need me to make recommendations for you about who you should date or not. However, the idea that you participated in a group date strikes me as odd and unimaginable,” Mr. Russell began as he paced up and down his expansive office. Only two of us were there.

     I
didn’t exactly know how to respond to that because my secret had already been leaked to him and, like a towering uncle that he used to be to me, he had got plenty of complaints stacked up in his chest and it appeared he wasn’t going to hold anything back.

   
“I’ll be glad to see you grow up into a successful professional and a woman that would enjoy a happy home. But, to be honest with you Janet, David Seymour is not the right guy for you,” he dropped the bombshell and looked away.

    
I couldn’t precisely describe my feeling at that moment. Even though I had not met David again since that time, I wondered why it should be Mr. Russell’s business to dictate for me who I should date or not.

 
When he didn’t get a reply from me, he pressed on: “David used to be a good boy of his family. But he got mixed up with some bad friends and immersed himself in hard drugs, cocaine, heroin and whatever you can ever imagine,” he revealed.

   It would amount to telling a lie that this revelation
hadn’t made my heart stop for like ten seconds! See what you had foolishly got yourself into, a part of my mind was accusing me right there. My feet felt wooden under me, and my roving eyes met Mr. Russell’s frown. His message, though unspoken, was crystal clear: get out of that messy relationship, Janet. As fast as you can!

 
  At the end of the tensed conversation with Mr. Russell, I thanked him for his concern and walked out of his office with faltering steps. I had momentarily lost my composure, and any misstep would get me rolling across the concrete floor.

   During lunch
that day, I intimated Hillary through cell phone conversation about the shocking discovery that David was a substance abuser. Hillary had been on a working trip to San Diego for almost two weeks. So, we hadn’t had time to discuss the progress of our relationships with the guys we got from the group date.

  
“The whole dating thing is a scam, Jan” she said in her common dismissive way. Whenever Hillary referred to something as a “scam”, she meant to say that it was a disappointing event or show or happening. Hillary once proudly referred to the whole “banking industry” as a “scam”

  
“Yes, it is,” I quickly agreed. “I never expected anything good can come out of it, you know,” I indulged her understanding.

What Hillary
didn’t like about the current happening was that our CEO, Mr. Russell had been aware of the inglorious meet-up or group date. It was not immediately clear whether he knew that Hillary was the brain behind the idea.

  
“I will disable the SVNY’s site this evening and delete its Facebook page: I believe my boyfriend, too, is a scam. Now we can imagine what manner of people get on the internet to hook up with the opposite sex,” Hillary said and excused herself in order to return to her loads of after-lunch assignments.

   No doubt, Mr. Russ
ell had destroyed my day with this revelation. He should have kept it to himself. But it was also good for my safety and future, I thought. So, when I returned home that day, I made two independent decisions: I sent a message to David Seymour’s cell phone calling off our undefined relationship; I removed myself from SVNY’s mailing list and “unliked” its Facebook Page. I decided to take the later action in case Hillary would be preoccupied with work and fail to fulfill her promise to get the damn thing down. I was desperate to clear my name and disconnect myself from this disgraceful event. In my wildest imagination, I had never expected things would come to this for me, threatening my professional growth and personal worth.

     
It would be an understatement to say that the happening had not affected me in a big way. I lost appetite for dinner, though I had ordered my best cuisine over the internet—Napoli pasta with seafood. I reclined on my loveseat all evening ruminating on how a slight mistake could ruin one’s chance at living a spotless life. A life that one had invested time and reputation to build until now, but just thrown away because of careless decisions! I couldn’t completely blame Hillary for what had happened, but I thought I needed a break from doing her bidding most of the time. Constructive friendship should be about lifting one another up; it shouldn’t be about pushing one’s friend into a messy relationship.

   With hunger-bitten st
omach, I slept fitfully throughout the night. Thank goodness, the following day was Saturday; so, I didn’t need to bother about waking up on the wrong side of bed and wrecking a whole working day.

  
Every Saturday morning always held some magic for me, but this one was bland and uninspiring. Maybe because my mind was already troubled with annoying and worrisome thoughts. I managed to do the laundry I had avoided during the week and watched too much TV.

   
                               ********************

       The very first
thing Hillary did when she returned to New York City was to profusely apologize for putting me into such unsavory condition. I believed her apology was genuine because tears welled up in her beady eyes as she spoke with me: “Please forgive me. That was another of my hot-headed action based on shallow thinking,” she said, her hands quivering in mine.

    For no clear reason, Hillary was transferred to the Human Resource Department of our bank; our contact was thereby minimized except occasionally messages we exchanged through the cell phone. My new workmate at the CEO
’s office was a twenty-one-year-old rash but very pretty intern named Isabella. Unexpectedly or expectedly, she lacked workplace ethics and behaved whichever way she liked.

    Five days after she joined our bank, Isabella had caused a
rare commotion by drawing unusual attention to Mr. Russell’s sloppy character towards women.  It was a fact everyone knew but no one ever dared kick up dust about it.

  
“Do you people take shit from that maggot of a man with all pleasure?”Isabella retorted.

“
What’s the matter?” I inquired.

“I went in to serve him his usual morning coffee. And I saw him unbutton his shirt in my presence. Did he think the sheep-fur-like hair on his damn chest would be hot enough to get me going crazy for him? He’s just kidding!” Isabella screamed, loud enough to be heard in the adjacent office.

  I tried all my best to calm her down. I let her know that we were not new to Mr. Russell flashing himself to female employees. He was a complete pervert, and he
didn’t hide his foible from anyone in that regard.

  
“That rabid man should be taught a good lesson: Why no one has summoned courage to sue him ever since?” She asked, bewildered.

    I saw it coming that Isabella
’s days were numbered.  And I was not surprised when she was booted out of the bank the next day. The CEO announced the termination of her engagement with the bank during the daily board meeting.

  
“She’s rude and doesn’t show the required professionalism everyone must demonstrate to stay here with us,” Mr. Russell gave the reason for her sack. But I and some other employees knew that he was hiding some truth about his supposedly clash with Isabella.

      After the exit of Isabella, I was the only secretary at the CEO
’s office. I appeared before him almost every passing moment, and a kind of rare intimacy started to exist between us. It was hard to define its nature at first, but I discovered that Mr. Russell was becoming more and more protective of me, asking me some personal questions that bordered on invading into my privacy and/or demonstrating unprovoked protection on me.

“
Who are you seeing now?” He would suddenly ask. “Do you think he’s a good guy?”

  Whatever the seemingly amorous advances he was making, commonsense still prevailed on him as he shied away from doing anything that would break his long-time relationship with my uncle. Unlike the complaints from
other female employees, he never patted my butt nor made an attempt to grope me. But he couldn’t desist from flashing his hairy chest whenever he felt frustrated with everything around him.

   I never for once thought of dating Mr. Russell. Apart from the fact that I
didn’t want to break his wife’s beautiful heart—a heart full of genuine kindness towards everyone fate had placed around her, Mr. Russell didn’t possess that charm that can sweep me off my feet. At forty-five, he was plump, physically unappetizing. Whenever I thought of him, my mind often went to a cold salad with a dressing that had gone bad and sour with age. Do you know what people do to such useless salad? It gets thrown away into the garbage can!

    This was not attempt to completely dismiss him as a useless, unromantic pig, but the truth was that I held no fancy for
whatever handsomeness he believed he possessed.

   
Memo to self:

(i)
              
A frown face:-
I sincerely thought that maintaining a frowning face every time might kill the probable thought of seducing me right inside his heart before he could think of actualizing it. I had read a couple of articles on the psychology of angry people. One significant characteristic of sad and angry people was that they frown a lot. And this singular action was responsible for driving people away from them.

(ii)
           
Constantly reminding him of his family:
- I thought that a simple but weighty statement like “
How’s your wife doing?”
might hit like a ton of bricks, dissuading him from straying off the sensible demarcation, as far as I was concerned. Or how about throwing this punchy question at him once in a while: “
Did you see my uncle lately?”

I
wasn’t out there to completely frustrate him, but I was being kind to him so that he wouldn’t commit a lamentable mistake that might destroy his precious family and cause huge misunderstanding between him and my uncle, his long-time friend and a resourceful business associate. Who knew how far such damage could go? It might also destroy his business interests and undermine his entrepreneurial success. Yes, that is how far infidelity can wreck havoc on someone’s life and fortunes!

 
Though, he hadn’t done any inappropriate thing so far, but his recent actions spoke louder than his words about his concealed intentions towards me. It was just a matter of time he would voice out his feeling. And that was what I hated to hear from his talkative mouth.