Present value, p.38
Present Value, page 38
“Peter,” Micah interjected, “Don! Listen to me. Don’t bother. I’m telling you, there’s no such thing as insurance in case you have to hire a lawyer to negotiate a sweetheart employment deal. Trust me. You have to pay Arthur yourself. That’s the way it is.” Micah had contrived to cross one long leg over the other, which revealed seven inches of hairless calf, a skinny shank the color of Sheetrock gleaming above the lawyer’s black sock.
Peter had met this Arthur Lutz. He seemed affable enough, a popinjay with a bow tie who worked in a Boston firm and had a squeaky laugh. He understood all about warrants and convertible preferred and stock options. Arthur Lutz could write the instruments in his sleep; that wasn’t the problem. It was this payment business. Arthur Lutz had come to meet with Peter in the executive suite last week, making his requirements clear. He’d been offered all the usual warrants and percentages, but he just laughed his jolly squeaky laugh and demurred: he had no interest in getting his legal fees in anything other than anachronistic cash, and he wanted a healthy slug in advance. Now Micah was saying that the company wouldn’t reimburse Greene. He suspected something was up. All these lawyers knew one another, and they were in cahoots.
“Why can’t you do it?” he demanded.
Micah’s calf bobbed in front of Peter, pale as a lawn grub. Greene straightened his own legs. Perhaps by power of suggestion, he could induce the guy to cover that thing up. But the leg only bobbed more.
“Because I represent the company. You want to do a deal with the company. The court would say that’s a conflict.”
Peter frowned. Count on the court to raise quibbles of this kind—what the hell was the court, after all, but another lawyer! Conflicts? The company, Peter Greene—the two had meant pretty much the same thing before all this bankruptcy business. He hadn’t had these problems before, not with Don Fink.
“I would think that if the court is going to raise some sort of legal technicality, then it ought to provide a person in my position with reimbursement for his trouble. The banks get their fees. The committee gets theirs. You get paid.”
Why Peter Greene should pay his own way was proving harder to explain that it ought to have been, considering he was a CEO and supposed to be sophisticated. Micah wondered how he should proceed. The eminent lawyer entwined his skinny fingers about his knee and pulled it toward him. This had the effect of liberating three more inches of grub-colored leg.
Micah was distracted: he was thinking about conflicts in bankruptcy cases. Maybe, he mused, he should give a brief disquisition on some of the latest legal precedents. The committee and the company lawyers were looking out for the company itself, that was the idea. The banks, well, there was a special rule that said they could get their fees paid if they had collateral. Which they did. (Did they ever! You name it, they had filed on it.) But Peter Greene was only a shareholder. He didn’t have the interests of the company to protect. His shares were now worthless, and he couldn’t get any value back without, in some way, buying the company.
Micah looked over at Greene again and changed his mind, wisely deciding to keep it simple. “Peter, I assume your interest would be in pricing the options as low as you could, and the company’s interest would be in pricing them as high as they could, so that’s where you’d have the conflict.”
God Almighty, Peter couldn’t look at the sonofabitch’s naked leg anymore. He stood up abruptly and strode over to the window. None of this was computing for him. Why would the company want to price them higher? He was interested in having the options fairly priced, that was all. Peter wanted what was fair, what made sense. He wanted to avoid confusion—that was in everybody’s interest, surely. What the hell was Fensterwald trying to do, create an auction? Let other people start bidding on options? That wouldn’t be in anyone’s interest. It would just create . . . confusion.
“God knows who might buy options, and then where would you be?”
His hands still clenched around the knee, Micah shrugged. “Depends on how much money God knows who has,” he said. “If he’s got enough, then where the creditors would be is . . . paid.”
Boy, was this guy irritating. Peter struggled to contain himself. How could a guy supposed to be so smart be such a simpleton? Screw the company for the sake of paying a few creditors?
Peter Greene was a CEO in America. He had a position to maintain. Like most CEOs in America, he believed that no matter how much money he got from Playtime, he shouldn’t have to offend any of it with personal expenses. He should never have to pay for his membership at the country club in Brookline. Nor for the Mercedes sedan that he drove there, nor for his greens fees, nor for the three-bedroom apartment in the East Sixties that his new wife used on shopping trips to New York. Nor for the chef who prepared sushi lunches for him at Playtime. He should not have to pay for life, health, or disability insurance, nor for his personal trainer, telephone, personal computer, fax machine, or BlackBerry. He must never never fly on a commercial aircraft; a self-respecting executive flew only on a company jet, even if flying the family to a week’s vacation in Aruba. And while it was true that he might not be able to expense quite all of the vacation bills, he could work that out with his personal financial planner, whose fees should be paid by the company.
In Greene’s mind, it wasn’t about cost: it was a question of honor. A CEO was of such value to his company, devoting so much of his energies to its well-being, that the company had a moral obligation to cover these trivial personal expenses. Any failure on its part to do so would be a moral failure and, when you got right down to it, a kind of insult. You wouldn’t expect the president of the United States to write a check for his meals at Camp David. Was Greene any less important to the creditors and shareholders of Playtime than the president of the United States? In America, the more money you had, the less of it you should have to spend on your personal needs.
However, try as he might, Greene couldn’t get the point through to the lawyer from New York. “Peter,” said Micah, at last releasing his knee. “Write the man the check. You get your options priced, we get the case done, one day this all seems like so much cab fare. Okay?”
“YOU’LL BE OUT in a hundred days,” said Ronnie. It was warm in the visitors’ center that Saturday afternoon in October. Indian summer had come and confused the central heating at Deer Path. She was wearing a clingy Izod shirt and capris. What was this? She’d dressed so formally before, had made herself so prim and correct. She seemed more like her original self today, and playing about her in the warm air was a hint of the old delicious belly pie. The shirt was a little small. Oh, for that peek of unutterably lovely pie, Fritz thought. God, what a body!
He shouldn’t be looking, he knew. Or even thinking. It wasn’t fair to her. And it would distract him from what he’d decided he needed to do. He needed to get this done before he left Deer Path. What had she asked him? Oh yes.
“If I play my cards right, it’s fifty-three. I’ve got some good time coming, as long as I’m on my best behavior.”
“Are you?”
“I salute everyone in sight and never miss count.”
“Dude, you’re such a brownnose.”
She was part of a conspiracy. The weather, her cute clingy clothes, her bright conversation, and most of all, thoughts of the end of his term—it was a conspiracy of pleasantness to distract him from his mission. With difficulty, Fritz brought himself around to task. He caught a mental flicker of belly pie—but no. It was time to lay the cards on the table. He took a breath. Damn, she looked good. Damn, it had been a long time. No, he scolded himself again—the mission. He had to stick to it.
“Ronnie, how are you managing to get up here every week? It’s a long trip.”
She could tell now that something was coming. “Told you a dozen times. I drive—”
“No, I mean the time. How do you get the time?”
“I take a day off here and there.”
“Let me ask you something. I’m forty-five, forty-six in a couple of months. I’m a married man with two children. I’m outside your formula, remember? I’m also a prisoner in a federal penitentiary.”
“Dude, I noticed. I’m the one who has to go through intake before every visit.”
“So what are you doing here?”
“You fishing for a compliment?”
He’d spoken too sharply. He hadn’t meant to be sharp, only firm. But the words kept coming out that way. “No. I’m trying to get you to face facts. Look, Ronnie, you’ve got options.”
“Every option has a price,” she said. This was making her upset, and she had to look away. “Do I have to spell it out, Fritz? What if I . . .”
She had a determined expression, almost a fierce pout that he could watch in profile, along with the delectable rest of her, as she stared at the wall of vending machines. He started to answer, but she cut him off with “Don’t you say it!”
“Say what?”
“Don’t you say it!”
“What!”
“Don’t you say I don’t know what love is, or I’m too young to understand, or whatever you were about to say.”
“I didn’t—”
“I can tell. I can tell you were about to say it.”
He resisted the urge to point out that if she could tell, maybe it was because that was what she thought, too. He looked over at the table to his left, saw that they had an audience. Ditto the right. Still, how could you not look at this woman?
“Ronnie,” he said quietly, “whatever you know, you don’t know what it’s like to have a wife and two kids. If you love me, then you love a forty-five-year-old felon so tangled up in history and obligation that you can never untangle it. Why would you do that?”
“Love isn’t something you do.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Don’t think I haven’t asked myself the same question. You aren’t the only guy available.”
“No. I appear to be the only guy unavailable.”
“Well, that’s a matter of choice,” she sniffed.
“Where do you see this going?”
“Look, at least I do love you. Isn’t that worth something?”
It was an elegant way of bringing Linda into the debate without mentioning her name. Ronnie never asked whether Linda had come to visit. She never had to.
“You know, Fritz, it wouldn’t kill you to be a little nicer to me.”
“We need to be frank.”
“Instead of attacking my interest in you, maybe you could say it’s nice to see me.”
“Okay. It’s nice to see you.”
“Great. I feel better already.”
It was nice to see her. And today was it ever! She came almost every Saturday, and occasionally even to the evening visiting hours during the week, and it was true, he counted the days. He liked to see her walk through the door. How lean and confident she seemed. That young, handsome body she seemed to ride like a proud horse. That smile she had, the way she seemed to float around him. And how glad to see him she was!
“Fritz, why are you fighting it?” she implored.
But he dodged her with a question. “Why aren’t you? Ronnie, as your friend, I’m telling you you’ve got options. Better options than this.”
32 THE GRASS WIDOW
SUMMER HAD ALWAYS BEEN the season of Fritz. It was Fritz who organized the sailing, Fritz who loaded up the car for the trips to Nantucket, Fritz who strolled around the lawn in Bermuda shorts, his legs tawny, the hair on them silky and filigreed with gold, his smile broad, his eyes squinting in the sun. But in the suburbs west of Boston, the summer of 2002 had come and gone without him. Gone were the tennis-court antics that in past years could excite a laugh from Kristin at will, and even on occasion from the more somber Michael. Linda used to resent that it was she who made the family trains run on time while Fritz got the party going in the club car. As she lay alone in bed during those warm August nights, a party in the club car no longer seemed like such a bad thing. The family train had become a commuter, chugging along to its next stop with all passengers correctly silent, each studying his own newspaper.
The family train had become very like the real commuter train that thundered through Wellesley Hills, three blocks away from Linda’s new home. The rental house was not a step but a whole flight of stairs down from the Palazzo. It was a real person’s house. A regular guy might eat in its kitchen, watch TV in the living room, have a beer on the small deck, sleep in one of the upstairs bedrooms. A regular guy wouldn’t have overwhelmed the deck the way Linda did with the wrought-iron garden furniture from the Palazzo, and the postage-stamp yard with the lawn furniture from the tennis court, but where else could she put all this stuff?
It was a McHouse: a small, clean three-bedroom colonial painted in eggshell, with a pressure-treated deck out back standing on ugly stilts. Downstairs was one room in each corner, centering a staircase that led straight up from the front door to a landing. Three small bedrooms and a bath fed off it. Michael’s room was on the other side of Linda’s bedroom wall, instead of off in a different wing.
The noise took some getting used to, and it wasn’t just the trains. Trucks, too, rumbled down Route 16, which followed the tracks through town. Inside the house, through the thin walls of the bedroom, Linda heard the blasts of Michael’s computer games late into the night.
Linda passed solitary days in the McHouse that summer: the kids went off to camp, the commuter trains thundered past on their way to the city, and she was left alone. Across town she was hammering the checkout line at Barnes & Noble with divorce and self-help books. By studying the divorce textbooks, she recognized her regret for what it was. It was just a stage, a form of grief, something everyone went through, even if the marriage’s end was a good thing.
In the fall Kristin turned twelve and started the seventh grade at Chaney. But Chaney went through only eighth grade. Last spring that fact had presented the increasingly worrisome question of what to do with Michael when fall came. Unfortunately, his grades were poor, and not even Harriet Tichenor could be induced to pull strings at Milton or Nobles. She just shook her head sadly and said, “I don’t know if private school is right for Michael, Linda, and with all the . . . you know, the problems . . .”
“You mean Fritz?”
Harriet nodded.
“They won’t take Michael because of Fritz?”
In May Linda took Michael out to St. Mark’s School for an interview. It lasted twelve minutes by her watch. The boy emerged sullenly from the office of the admissions director, who gestured at Linda from his office. After the door closed behind her, he shook his head, too, much as Harriet Tichenor had done.
Michael climbed into the backseat of the Navigator and flipped on the new DVD screen, which Linda had replaced.
“Michael, please turn that thing off.”
He turned the sound down. She glanced up at the rearview mirror.
“Look, Michael, I’m trying to help you.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“If you don’t take this seriously,” she snapped, “you’re not going to get in anywhere.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Michael—”
“The guy was a dork, Mom.”
“It’s an interview, Michael. You have to at least be civil.”
She glanced again at the rearview mirror, but he was looking away.
“If you’re not going to cooperate with this, I can’t do it myself.” When he didn’t answer, she added, as ominously as she could, “You’ll end up in public school.”
In the backseat, Michael adjusted the joystick, giving the video game just enough sound for his mother to hear. “Whatever.”
She’d done what she could. In September, Linda enrolled Michael Brubaker in the ninth grade at Wellesley High School.
With Labor Day gone, Linda decided that she needed to get moving. Standing still opened a woman to depression—all the books said so. Fritz had left her with this mess, and she couldn’t trust him, or the weasels at Elboe, Fromme & Athol, or anyone else. So she got busy with new beautification projects for the McHouse: a new hanging plant, a newly scrubbed kitchen floor and painted bathroom wall, a window box, a set of curtains. By mid-September she was driving the librarian of the Chaney School crazy. She kept showing up to volunteer, then trying to reorganize the shelving plan.
Linda had passed through perils previously unimaginable. The Palazzo was gone, Fritz was gone, the partnership at Elboe, Fromme was gone, and yet she carried on. Although she didn’t understand it, something much more profound was happening to her. At forty-six, she was being liberated from the fear of being Subject to Criticism. She began to catch the pungent whiff of freedom.
After long confinement, a prisoner may show erratic behavior, and Linda was no different. Ever since her triumph over Marvin Rosenblatt (followed by a hasty letter from HR explaining that a mistake had been made, accompanying a fat check), the fear of criticism had lost some of its potency. She’d survived Anne Shermerhorn in the Dover post office, and she’d put her son in a public school. Then, one September afternoon as she picked up Kristin from Chaney, Linda ran into that art teacher again, Philippe, the one she’d had such an intriguing meeting with last winter when Michael was having his problems. Three days later, on a reckless whim, she telephoned him. That led to a drink downtown, three blocks from his gallery on Newbury Street. Which led to a brazen dinner at Ginger Blow’s, Wellesley’s tony new restaurant. Which led to fierce and furious gossip all around the grocery aisles and post-office lines of Wellesley and Dover. Which led to Linda not giving a damn about it anymore. Which led to— Well, you’ve met Philippe: you can guess what it led to.
Linda had gone from fearing criticism to courting it.
After that first furious tumble, Linda rose from Philippe’s bed like an NCAA wrestling champion springing from the mat, her face the picture of triumph. This young man’s desire had been terrific—he’d been a hungry wolf! This was no Marvin in pajamas—this was a lover! (If only Fritz could have known about this, then Linda’s satisfaction would have been complete. Send home his wedding ring without explanation? Then write a lot of philosophical letters?) It was midnight. She drove the Navigator back to Wellesley with the radio blaring. She was not to be kept down, not by the weasels at Elboe, Fromme, not by Fritz’s inane stunts.
