I can say, I’m managing that money. I made it, I can lose it.
But Eric was mute, not argumentative at all. Instead, Eric was uncertain whether he should even continue to handle Tom’s money. If he gave up the Boston Beans, why should he continue to handle Tom? And if he continued to handle Tom, then why should he give up the Boston Beans?
He wished they had nicknamed the Boston money something else. With Luke’s diet in his belly, the word “beans” made his bowels churn.
“I think you could be a little burned out,” Joe said. “You’ve done remarkably — one of the hottest runs ever — for two years. Maybe you should back off. Give yourself a chance to grow some new ideas.”
“It doesn’t make sense for you to handle Boston and not Tom.”
“Then I’ll handle Tom also,” Joe said. “Maybe you want a week off?”
What is this shit? He’s going to manage them and I’ll continue to get my management fee?
“Let me think about it. For the moment, let’s keep things as they are.”
“I want to reposition the Boston money,” Joe said. “You handle Tom.”
“No,” Eric said. “Tom will be suspicious if that happens.”
“I’ll explain it—”
“No,” Eric repeated, volume climbing in his voice.
“You’ve lost two accounts!” Joe shouted. “I don’t want to lose the rest! At least get out of some of the hi-tech garbage. You told me we were taking profits in New Systems a year ago! You’re getting killed. This is a flight to quality. They want—”
“Joe, I read the papers. Everybody is saying the same thing!”
“And who are you suddenly! To disagree!”
I’m Eric, the Wizard of Wall Street. One day I’ll duck into limousines, past the hoards of admirers, my camel-hair coat swirling around my legs, my jaw set, my brain a machine that never knows fear, or hesitation, or error.
“Think about it,” Joe said. “One week and then if nothing changes, I may have to call the Boston Beans and even your father-in-law and tell them I don’t agree with your current approach.”
That would finish Eric. They’d either give Joe control or withdraw.
“You know something, Daddy?” Luke shouted. He was dancing across the living room floor, ecstatic now that the sludge was out of his system. “I’ll have better ideas when I’m older. Right?”
“Better ideas?” Eric said. He tried to think back to the meeting with Joe again, to continue the rerun, but Luke had said — Maybe I can’t adjust on the stocks because I’m busy with his damn bowels. If Nina were a real wife, if she cared about money! If she only knew what money means on this earth!
“Yeah, Byron has better ideas right now—”
“Better ideas about what?” Eric’s tone was so sharp that Luke paused, his clear, glowing blue eyes clouding to a deeper, worried color.
“Forget it,” Luke said, and swung his arm in the air. “I have the power!”
“No, no,” Eric said, and got on one knee. “Say it again, I’m sorry, I was thinking — say it again.”
“When I’m older, I’ll have better ideas than Byron. When I get to be older than he is.”
“I’m sorry, Luke, I don’t understand.”
“Daddy!” Luke clenched his fists in frustration. “Okay,” he said with a manly sigh. “Byron is older than me, right?”
“Not really.”
Luke stood still. He stared into Eric’s eyes like a deer frozen in the lights, paralyzed by surprise.
“Byron is six weeks older than you, Luke. That’s nothing. We call that being the same age. A year, two years, that’s older. But six weeks is nothing. And another thing,” Eric said, a chill running down his spine as he realized what he was really saying and to whom he was saying it, “age has nothing to do with whether your ideas are good or not. Even if Byron was much older than you, it doesn’t mean his ideas are better.”
“Yeah,” Luke said slowly. “I don’t think his ideas are so good. But he said—”
“I don’t care what he said, Luke!”
“Okay.” Luke bowed his head, shamed. “I’m sorry.”
“No!” Eric picked him up so they were face-to-face. “There’s nothing for you to be sorry about. Byron is a liar!”
“What!” Nina had been peacefully reading on the couch. “Eric, what did you say?”
Ignore her. She doesn’t know. She thinks we’re going to survive just because we’re good people, because we love each other. Maybe we don’t. And maybe we’ll go under.
“What did Byron say to you?”
“Nothing.” Luke tried to look away. He squirmed in Eric’s hand.
“Come on, Luke.”
“He said because he’s older, his ideas are better.”
Nina laughed. “He’s not older than you, Luke.”
“He isn’t?”
“No,” Eric said. “He isn’t. And even if he is older, that doesn’t make his ideas better.”
“Okay, Daddy.” Luke smiled.
Eric put him down on the floor.
“I have the power,” Luke called. Eric watched him run, swinging his invisible sword.
Nina, her face soft, solicitous, said, “What was that about?”
“That Byron is a bully.”
“That’s what Pearl said today. He’s very bossy, but Luke loves him.”
“Maybe it isn’t love.”
“Oh, no,” Nina said. “He can’t wait to get to the park to play—”
“That might not be love.”
“Eric,” Nina said, frowning at him. “Byron is pushy, but Luke holds his own, and if he can’t, he has to learn to. There are plenty of bullies in the world.”
Luke was back. “Watch how fast I fly, Mommy.” He ran with his hands out in front. “I’m Superman! I’m Superman!” The little toddler, his legs still chubby, his head still a little too big for his body. “I’m Superman!”
I’m gonna go in there tomorrow and scream at Joe. How dare he tell me he’s going to take the Boston Beans away? That’s my fucking money to win or lose.
Lose.
Lose.
Lose.
“What did you say, Eric?” Nina asked.
He gasped. Can’t tell her. Would Tom call her?
“You were mumbling,” she said. “What did you say?”
“Nothing,” Eric answered, and lowered his head, ashamed.
DIANE HELD her mother’s hand as they walked into the hospital. The smell, a mixture of baked institutional food and cleansers, overwhelmed her mouth. She took a deep breath to suck in the despair and sickness all at once and be fast acclimated.
Lily squeezed Diane’s fingers at each sight of illness, gasping at each bit of news. Go in there. Undress. The doctor will do such and such. This is a tranquilizer. No, we can’t put you out. You get to watch your heart on a monitor.
Squeeze. Gasp.
“I don’t need to see that!” Lily said, and managed a laugh, although its sound was brief and pained.
“May I stay with her?” Diane asked Dr. Klein, the cardiologist, when he came in.
He looked astonished at the suggestion. “No. Hospital procedure wouldn’t allow that.”
“Can I read a book or something?” Lily said in an aggrieved tone. “Just lying there — I’ll be bored!”
Lily had come up with these inappropriate statements every few minutes since Diane had arrived in Philadelphia. She was obviously terrified, but she kept up a pretense, not a convincing one, that she was only bothered by the inconvenience and fuss.
Lily maintained this fiction, except for the night Diane arrived.
“They told me everything would be fine with your daddy,” Lily had said that night, her hands nervously rubbing the knot in her robe’s belt. The translucent skin, stretched across her bony knuckles, looked tired, as if it might peel off. When did that happen to her hands? “They said your daddy would recover from the heart attack if he watched his diet — and then the next morning he’s dead. So I don’t believe them. Not that they’re lying. They don’t know what they’re doing. And the worst thing is they think they know.”