The Book of Air and Shadows - Michael Gruber [151]
Meanwhile, my diary helps not at all, as I was now cut loose from my normal office routine. My appointments were cleared indefinitely, which turned out not to be such a good thing. People in stressful jobs are often told to take a rest, but sometimes it is just that stress that has held them together, like the proverbial ancient biplane kept in the air with rubber bands and baling wire, without which it falls from the sky. So, now, in unaccustomed idleness, all the little wheels started to wobble loose or jam up. I paced. I flicked channels. I watched pigeons and traffic out my window. I had a massive coronary….
What it felt like for a moment, but which was only the start of panic: short breath, sweats, tingling in arms, a little dyskinesia. The cell phone buzzed its simple factory-installed tweedle and I grabbed for it like life itself and it was Omar, and would I be going out today? Actually, I would. I had the usual number of friends and acquaintances around town, but there was only one person I thought I could go to after getting fired from my job for malfeasance, which was my wife. So I cleaned myself up, dressed casually but with care, checked my image for corporal signs of depravity, found many, took a Xanax so as not to fret about these overmuch, and away we went uptown. More dummheit! I always forget that my wife understands me.
I believe I mentioned that Amalie runs a financial newsletter out of a small office in our town house. This is somewhat misleading, because there is also an actual office full of gnomes down on Broad Street, and in other offices scattered throughout the planet in the time zones that matter to international money. My wife visits these as infrequently as she can get away with, because it is her fancy that she is a simple wife and mother with a paying hobby, as if she were crocheting pot holders instead of running a multimillion-dollar enterprise. It is something of a joke in the financial district, I am told, but it turns out (ask Mike Bloomberg) that after a while one’s financial information empire more or less runs itself, and the founder’s main responsibility is to resist kibitzing.
Thus I had every reason to believe that Amalie would be free for a nice consoling chat, but when I arrived at the house and was let in by Lourdes, and asked where Amalie was, she told me (with what I thought was excessive satisfaction) that Amalie was not available, that she was having a meeting. I could wait in the living room.
So I waited and fumed and wished for more drugs and got tight in the chest for what seemed like hours, but by my oft-consulted watch was less than forty minutes, until I heard voices in the hallway and sprang up and was able to witness Amalie showing out a trio of suits, who looked at me curiously, as at an exhibit (I imagined): unemployed ex-husband, lurking. Amalie, for her part, showed no surprise, nor did she introduce me to the suits but ushered them graciously out the door.
When she came back, I said, “Big meeting?” keeping the tone light.
“Yes,” she said. “What’s wrong, Jake?”
I related the law firm story in the most pathetic and self-deprecating manner possible, sitting on her/my leather couch while she perched primly on the chair opposite. I omitted only the horrible Russian of the previous evening.
“Poor Jake,” she said when I was finished. “What will you do?”
“I don’t know. Take some time off, think about life. Maybe I’ll look for this lost play.