“Family arsonist,” Brandon said. “You know how to make money, I know how to make things burn.” Brandon pushed the remaining split birchwood apart and blew gently on the smoldering mass of newspaper and kindling beneath. They burst into flame. “Gotta breathe to burn,” Brandon commented. He took more newspaper from a pile and started to roll it into a tight twist. “Lasts longer this way.” He nodded at the sooty pine log. “We’ll dump her on when she’s going good.”
“Cigarettes?” Wendy said to Eric.
Eric rushed to get them, even though he felt Wendy’s tone was arrogant, an order to a waiter. She didn’t thank him. “You want something to drink?” Eric offered.
“I know where it is,” Brandon said. “You want any?”
“No,” Eric said. He felt reproved, convinced Brandon had meant to remind Eric that he, not Brandon, was the guest. The slight hadn’t been in his brother-in-law’s tone, however. Eric sat down on the couch beside Nina and Luke. He told himself to relax. He felt like a big awkward Jew with Nina’s family — ungainly, at war with himself, his emotions either hostilely squelched or naïvely blared, never expressed with their even, self-confident voices. For them, life was an easy chair; for Eric, a hard bench.
Brandon poured two big glasses of Rémy Martin, giving one to Wendy. Although she hadn’t asked for it, she took it greedily. “You breast-feeding?” Wendy asked, and swigged the Rémy like soda.
“Of course,” Nina said. “I think they passed a law that you have to.”
Brandon laughed. “Everything in nature is good.”
Luke squirmed in Nina’s arms, hiding his face in her bosom, his hands reaching blindly into the air. “Maybe he’s hungry,” Nina said.
“He’s sleepy,” Eric snapped.
Nina seemed to miss the point. “I’ll feed him. That’ll put him to sleep.”
“It’s not the schedule!” Eric protested.
“Give my nephew a break,” Brandon said casually. “He’s not an airline.”
“Eric’s right,” Nina said quickly. She must have guessed how provoked Eric would be by Brandon’s comment. “Just to relax him.” She excused herself to Eric. “He won’t really eat.” She unbuttoned her nightshirt.
Brandon and Wendy both stared at her blimp of a breast, the spreading purple of her areola, the chubby projection of her nipple. Nina revealed it unselfconsciously; they watched without shame. Eric was appalled by both attitudes.
Luke latched on eagerly. “What a deal, kid,” Brandon said.
There was a silence while they intently watched Luke’s absorption and satisfaction. The little hand reached up to Nina, yearning for something to hold. She lowered her chin and the fingers caressed it.
Brandon took another long drink from his glass and belched. “Sorry, Mom,” he said to the beams.
Nina laughed with girlish pleasure. It annoyed Eric that he hadn’t gotten that good a laugh out of her since Luke’s birth.
“Did you hear about Earner’s windfall?” Brandon asked.
Nina shook her head no. Eric was alert. The family money had never been discussed in his presence.
“Grandpa’s land in California. Someone bought the whole six hundred acres to develop. Father made a killing.”
“Grandpa’s land?” Nina wondered. “I thought he sold that years ago.”
“You mean the Virginia stuff. That was peanuts. This is six hundred acres. Sold for ten thousand an acre.”
“You’re kidding!” Eric said in an explosive challenge, sitting forward, apparently ready to pounce on Brandon if he confessed it was a joke.
“Thought that’d get your attention.”
“How much is that?” Nina asked, very calmly, just curious.
“Six million,” Eric spat out, staccato. “Six million dollars.”
Brandon let his head back and laughed to the ceiling. “You love money, Eric. ‘Six million, six million dollars,’ ” Brandon imitated Eric, exaggerating the rapid delivery into a breathless, lustful pant.
Eric cringed. Brandon had a knack for seeing through people’s little social hypocrisies and enjoyed rudely announcing his insights. The more Eric tried to camouflage his true nature, the more naked he was to Brandon’s eyes. Eric understood this, but the instinct to attempt concealment was too powerful to fight.
“Money’s his business,” Nina said, not ashamed. “Eric hears six million dollars and he starts thinking of investments.” Somehow she made it sound natural and harmless.
“That’s why I brought it up,” Brandon said. “I told Father to get Eric’s advice.”
“Isn’t he handled by someone at First Boston?” Eric said, in a rapid, almost hostile tone, as if he were conducting a verbal ambush.
Brandon answered, but he spoke to Nina. “Old Puffer died last year—”
“He did?” Nina sounded puzzled.
“Cancer. Father doesn’t like the man they turned him over to. Anyway, Puffer was awful. Obvious stuff. ‘Good solid returns,’ ” Brandon imitated, his chin thrust forward, his teeth clenched. “In fact, old conservative Puffer lost tons of Father’s dough. This six million is the lion’s share of what’s left of our inheritance. I’d like to make sure Father doesn’t blow it. That’s why I told him to talk to Eric. If he doesn’t, you should bring it up.” Brandon finished this by leaning forward and tapping Eric’s knee, the first time he had looked at Eric during the speech.
“He can’t,” Nina answered, pushing Luke off her breast. His little face was slack, the mouth open, his limbs collapsed. “Daddy has to bring it up.”
“I’ll remind him,” Brandon said.
Luke startled awake and immediately wailed. He was angry, inconsolable, his stomach tight, his legs pulled up to his belly, his mouth screeching with complaint.
“I’ll take him.” Eric was furious. Everything had been messed up. “You should go to sleep,” he said to Nina while gathering Luke.
“All right!” she snapped.
Eric carried his unhappy son back to the small dark nursery, chilled by the damp Maine night. The treads of the rocker squealed at Eric’s weight and the floor groaned when he began the motion. Luke sighed and nestled into Eric’s chest. He sucked on the pacifier with desperate insistence.
Eric watched him. This nervous, fragile baby — could Luke stand the fight to make money? With that six million, Eric knew he could make a fortune for his son. He felt the stock market growling, ready to awaken. It had been monotonously ticking up and down, a timid metronome, without a decisive move either way for almost a decade, but interest rates were falling, foreign money was pouring in, average volume on the exchange had doubled in the last two years. Even with fairly conservative buys, if the trend kept on (and he knew it would, knew it as if he were in spiritual contact with the gods of money), Eric could double the six million. Then play with the winnings, play looser, and maybe triple that.
He rocked his baby in the night and watched his numbers, incandescent, glow about his head. Bright, bright numbers — fireflies enchanting the gloom with magic. He kissed Luke’s sweet, soft forehead.
The staring eyes closed.
He kissed their lids.
Eric Gold, the Wizard of Wall Street, rich beyond fear, held his heir with hope, eager for his in-laws’ arrival.
TWO THINGS belonged to Nina: Eric and Luke. They were all she possessed of her own making. All her other attempts, her painting, her photography, all her aborted careers, had ended in her boredom or worldly failure. She felt this keenly on her parents’ arrival. Her pride pushed her forward, holding Luke in her arms, serving a spectacular platter, and heard in her head, thumping in rhythm, See what I’ve made, Mom and Dad. She looked at her husband’s tall, powerful body, striding ahead of Brandon, shrinking him by contrast, and felt her accomplishment. See my husband, see my baby, see what I’ve made. She knew her mom had never expected this success. At their wedding, Nina had felt her mother’s unexpressed skepticism of her marriage, her mother’s doubt that it would last and produce. Nina’s older sister had disappointed thoroughly, living with a series of radicals, never marrying, and had aborted three “accidents,” not only without guilt but with political pride. Her younger sister had satisfied, for a time, wedding a Harvard classmate, moving to Ohio, joining the country club, but that had ended in divorce, and hints of drink and beatings. Quiet Nina, never first at anything, married to a Jew (not even a particularly successful Jew at that), had managed to find happiness and provide the first heir.