Woman on Top (26 page)

Bypassing any of the knowledge gained in business school, it still appeared to me that Len wanted to maximize his returns while maintaining, what he would consider, a controlling interest. The acquisition itself, otherwise known for the moment as myself, did not necessarily have to be a benefactor of the transaction except as Len thought appropriate. A Wall Street deal transposed by Len onto of all things - me. And when Len’s greed was not satisfied because I was not one to be acquired or controlled, would he think it time to move on to the next acquisition?

A few nights after we dropped Chloe at college, Len sat in the corner of the couch in the living room of our apartment whispering into his phone. In our bedroom, I could hear him man giggle every so often, a flirtatious giggle.

Finally, I stood at the door to the bedroom and attempted to listen. The words were impossible to distinguish but the tone and the man giggles were not. I walked into the living room and stood squarely in front of him. He would not look at me and continued listening to the voice on the phone.

What was I supposed to do? Stand there watching him? Pull the phone out of his hand? The thought of another confrontation with Len seemed purposeless. I wondered if I just didn’t care anymore or if I was just too exhausted from banging my head against his steel frame.

Or maybe Len had done something that would finally encapsulate his character, relieving me from the desire to consume his bitter pill any more. He had obviously begun to see another woman. Yet it was only then, listening to him on the phone, that I became convinced of her existence. I went to sleep that night wondering about a possible escape route. But on the very next day I learned that I was pregnant.

“I don’t want to be tied down in any way. I don’t want any more kids, mine are grown and I’m done. You have to get an abortion,” Len said.

“Do you remember when Bill said that we should have kids when we get married?”

“I don’t care what Bill said. I don’t want more kids.”

“If you don’t want any more kids, ever, then you should get a vasectomy.”

“No way. It’s safer for you to have an abortion.”

I couldn’t even respond.

“There are no complications with an abortion but there are with a vasectomy. And those are the kind of complications I can’t even think about.”

“You mean there are no complications with abortions that will affect your body.”

We had used condoms as usual but one condom had obviously failed me at the worst possible time. Len felt so alien at this point and now something of his was growing inside me. There was a sense of urgency about this and I knew that Len’s behavior had determined my choice. I would not carry Len’s child.

“I’m pregnant,” I told Zoë that night on the phone.

“Oh no! What are you going to do?” She almost yelled.

“I’m going to have an abortion. Len told me I have to get an abortion.”

“It’s your body and you don’t have to get an abortion, you know that?”

“I know that. I’m going to have an abortion for my reasons, not for his. I would have done anything to have more children with Jake. We even talked about it. But not with Len,” I responded.

“I don’t think you need to pay the consequence for a failed condom the rest of your lives.”

“Look, I am not an eighteen year old impregnated by her teenage boyfriend. I know what it means to bring up a child and by myself. If I had the baby, I would be tied to Len forever.”

“But there are women who would keep the child, just to keep Len in the picture financially,” Zoë said.

“I have no interest in leveraging Len. You know that.”

“I do know that, Kate. I’m so sorry about this.”

Other than Zoë, I did not discuss this decision with anyone. There could not be a more personal action that I would have to live with the rest of my life. And a chorus of pro-abortion or pro-life voices in my head would not change my mind.

•  •  •

At first Len wasn’t sure that he would even come with me.

“Nine out of ten men I know who are working on a deal like this wouldn’t bother coming with you.”

We took a car service to the doctor’s office on West Broadway. I sat very still thinking about what I was about to do. Len babbled on about work.

“So the lawyer I worked with last night told me he thought I’m the best negotiator he has ever encountered,” he said.

I remained silent.

“I guess you don’t want to hear about this right now.”

He couldn’t possibly be trying to provoke a fight, even at this moment, could he? The benign bargain I had struck with myself to stay with Len as a safety net after Jake’s death was turning malignant.

As the nurse put the needle in my vein and the anesthesia began to take effect, I suddenly panicked and thought of capitulating to Len. Terrified of being alone, my final thought as I passed out was surrender.

When we finally left the doctor’s office, Len warned me that he’d be working on his deal throughout the night. I quickly called my mother to come spend the evening at my apartment. The sadness of the day felt overwhelming.

Long after Ben had gone to sleep, my mother and I sat on my bed while I recounted to her all that had recently transpired with Len.

“If you’d like, I’ll spend the night here, in your bed. You need the company,” she said.

For the first time in my life, my mother crawled into my bed. I desperately needed the comfort of her warmth and love and she was there.

CHAPTER 32

October

O
ne week later, on a beautiful brisk October morning, I went out for my first post-abortion run around the Central Park reservoir. Still emotionally distraught and hormonally unbalanced from the abortion, running felt a welcome relief. Len hated this path, too many people who didn’t have the sense to get out of his way. Neither the beauty of the skyline nor the tranquility of Central Park in the midst of the frantic City stirred him.

When I came back upstairs, Len sat reading memos from his staff.

I showered and dressed.

“It feels so good to run again.”

He looked up at me with a patronizing smile and returned to reading his papers. I pecked him on the cheek goodbye and left for work.

At noon I had an appointment with my gynecologist, a woman I had known since college and who had performed the abortion. She examined me quickly.

“Everything looks fine. Are you feeling okay?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And that man who came with you? Things okay with him?”

“Not really,” I said.

“I’m not surprised. I only spoke to him for a few minutes, and I really shouldn’t say this but I’ve known you forever. I didn’t like him at all.”

At three o’clock that afternoon the phone rang in my office.

“I’ve packed my stuff and moved out,” Len said.

I sat at my desk for a moment and dreaded the thought of being alone.

“Please don’t. I’m sorry about arguing over the prenuptial, for not trusting you,” I said.

As the words left my mouth, I felt horrified that I’d said them. I knew Len could not change. Compromise was part of the art of relationships. And I had compromised with Len, having bargained away so much of myself. But we had crossed the line, hadn’t we? The line when too many concessions of what felt important to me, to my character, to my happiness, left me a skeleton of my former self.

“I had already called my lawyer to put you in my will. I knew you weren’t after my money, you just wanted security for your kids, didn’t you? You should have trusted me on the prenup,” he said.

My lawyer had told me that the prenup clearly stated that it took precedence over his will and that Len had left me in a worse position under the prenup than if I were in his will. The lawyer explained that the protections a wife received in a will under the law were waived under this prenup. Len was underestimating me but I kept thinking what being alone would be like.

“Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have fought with you so much,” I tried.

He said nothing.

“And…I really thought you were attractive,” I offered.

Could I possibly be saying this? No one would believe it. These strange words were leaving my mouth but there had to be a limit to my desperation to stay with this man. I should have just felt relieved but I didn’t. Since I couldn’t be the one to walk out, he finally had and I should have happily skipped out through the exit door. But I couldn’t, yet.

Nothing but silence from Len.

“Can we try just one more time? I won’t say anything bad,” I said.

I was scared enough to keep us going, even though I had known for months that life appeared more pleasant in a Gulag, and that I didn’t want to end up like Judy, on medication. Len had taken control and I had lost it.

But could he really walk out a week after the abortion? Could there be a more cowardly way to end our relationship? And then I found my strength.

“Men like you think they come out on top because of a willingness and ability to win at any cost, and you do win -for the moment. But that meanness, that anger defines you. The money, the connections to powerful people won’t compensate for the person inside. I know you won’t hear or understand what I’m saying. You learned from a master, your mother, and chose to treat people as she taught you. You had the opportunity once to live as a good man.”

Len remained silent.

“I wanted you to save me after Jake. And I am grateful to you because you did save me. You showed me your world of Wall Street, of privilege, and what’s in your heart. There are good people with enormous amounts of money who do wonderful things with that money. But not on your block. How someone earns that money defines who they are. So thank you. You saved me, alright. From spending any more time on the outside wishing I could enter a world that isn’t worth the price of admission.”

There was silence for a moment.

“Goodbye Kate.” He hung up.

I had embraced Raskolnikov. No reason to be shocked now to find what he was capable of.

Three weeks later Len left me a voice mail.

“Please let me know when you’d like to pick up your things at my house.”

Zoë came to visit for a few days and sat near the phone when I called Len back. I pushed the button for speakerphone so she could witness the conversation.

“Hi, this is Len, please leave me a message and I will call you back. Thank you.”

“Zoë, I know the passcode to his voicemail.” Zoë looked at me. I pushed it.

“You have one new message,” the voicemail reported.

“Hi, I got the flowers. They are just so beautiful. Thank you so much. I love you. Can’t wait to see you this weekend,” a female voice cooed into the phone.

•  •  •

It came as no surprise, however, that my friends let out a universal yell of joy and relief. As I told each one, their replies were uniform. “Finally.” “Good riddance.” “I’m thrilled.”

I wasn’t so sure, often finding myself feeling lonely and sad without Len or maybe the life with Len. Not quite as confident as my friends that he had done me an enormous favor.

And then Zoë summed it up with a quote from Oscar Wilde.

“Kate, think about this and which one is you and which one is Len.
‘Some people cause happiness wherever they go. Some people cause happiness whenever they go.’
Let him go.” she said.

•  •  •

One night that fall driving home very late from a birthday party for a colleague in Westchester, Zoë called me. It was long past midnight and she sounded in an unusually thoughtful mood.

“I went for a long ride today. The leaves were gorgeous. Did you notice?” She didn’t wait for my response. “Last year, I bet you didn’t even notice there were leaves, let alone the color of the leaves. Life must have been like watching a black and white television the last year or two you spent with Len. Is it back to living color?”

“You know what I realize now? I don’t care about country clubs, jewelry, designer gowns. I want to travel to Antarctica, Bhutan and Africa, not St. Bart’s. I can leave Len’s world behind,” I said.

“And be grateful you didn’t marry him because that soon would have been your world. It’s not you, honey. Figure out what Kate wants and find a man who enjoys what you like. Don’t just fit into his life because he has money.”

“Sometimes I think there is more method to my madness than I get credit for. I might have bumbled my way through the relationship and stayed too long, but I didn’t marry him. And I walk away with an even better sense of what I want and don’t want. I didn’t need him to rescue me after Jake’s death after all.”

“That’s the Garth Brooks ‘Thank God for Unanswered Prayers’ theory. You rescued yourself,” Zoë laughed.

SPRING/ SUMMER 1998

CHAPTER 33

April

O
n a lovely warm spring evening, I had just walked in the apartment when the phone rang.