“We go way back! It wouldn’t be like that with me. It would be fine.”
Jess thought of the guys who worked for Hugh in varying capacities that no one ever discussed. Men twenty years older than Malcolm, or maybe the same age, it was impossible to tell. They were the type of men who barely spoke but cried at ballads on St. Patrick’s Day. When they came into the bar, Malcolm served them, never charged them, never asked any questions. They ran errands for Hugh, collected rent on apartment buildings he owned in the Bronx that he never referenced but André knew about somehow, said the places were complete holes. The guys came in for extra security on big nights, and Jess had a memory of the one called the Grog hitting on her even though she was newly married to Malcolm, who was twenty feet away. Pleasantly buzzed, she was waiting for the bathroom, leaning against the wall. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, he was standing in front of her. He put one hand on her hip as if to ask her a question, and she put her hand over his and gave it back to him like she was apologizing, like it was awfully tempting but she was a good girl.
It was as if Malcolm didn’t even hear her. “That second floor would pay for itself pretty quickly. I was thinking I could get an architect to see about getting the roof reinforced to bear weight. I could put up some sort of wood panel, something to block out that ugly section of the parking lot. There’s a nice view up there if you don’t look north. It would have a different vibe than downstairs.”
She put her fork down. “You want to hire an architect? With what? It’s a stretch to buy the business alone and keep it exactly the way it is. And if you so much as change one tiny thing, that crew of old-timers you’re counting on to buy twenty drinks a week will take it personally. Remember when the Brew Pub got new menus? People lost their minds. It was the exact same food, just printed in a different font. And even if everything stays exactly as is, Hugh’s profit won’t be your profit because you’ll be mortgaged to the hilt.”
“No shit, Jess.” Malcolm pushed back from the table. Why isn’t there any money, the expression on his face asked. In the world of bad investments, wouldn’t nearly seven years of fertility treatments be right at the top? At first they could keep up with whatever insurance didn’t cover by going to his safe deposit box, handing over a brick of cash. But it didn’t take that long for the box to empty. All that money—just gone. He stopped himself from saying it aloud, but they knew each other so well that the air between them became legible, and she could read it anyway. He sat there with his arms crossed, his wide shoulders tensed, pretending he’d forgotten what it was he was going to say, but her gimlet eye took it in, every last word.
They didn’t talk about it all weekend. Instead they talked around it, a half-moon-shaped sinkhole they were both careful to avoid. On the Sunday after Hugh raised all of this with Malcolm, and after Malcolm raised it at home, she went for a long run and left on the kitchen counter printouts of other bars being offered for sale, scattered around the county. They were all asking less than what Hugh was asking for the Half Moon, but when he looked closely at the thumbnail photos, he could tell they were either smaller or in bad locations or total dives that would need to be gutted. There was no energy in these places, he said. No magic. Plus it meant something that it was the Half Moon, the place he knew best. It meant something that Hugh had handpicked him. There’d be a story to tell.
“Well?” she asked on Sunday night. Something had to be decided.
“I want to do this,” he said. He turned toward the window but it was dark out, so it was like standing at a mirror. “I just feel like you had your shot and I’m sorry it didn’t work but now it’s my turn.”
“What in the world does that mean?”
“I mean—”
But she knew what he meant, and she knew he wouldn’t say it.
“Malcolm,” she said, approaching him from behind and laying her cheek against the center of his back. “You deserve everything. Of course you do. But we just do not have the money right now. I know you think that’s my fault—”
He sighed. “Of course I don’t think it’s your fault.”
“Well, in any case, it’s not there. We’ve already drained everything we can drain. But we can swing the business. You deserve it and you’ve earned it.”
“For now, yeah, okay,” he said, turning to face her. “Maybe we can strike a deal to buy the building down the road. Maybe he’ll even write that in. The right of first refusal.”
She raised an eyebrow to say she was impressed, relieved that this particular argument was over for the moment.
“I’ve been researching,” he said.
* * *
He hadn’t planned on doing anything behind her back, but on the other hand he was certain she’d eventually understand that in business there were moments when opportunities had to be seized. She complained of meetings all day, meetings about meetings, but his line of work was different. Information was packaged inside euphemisms, everything made pleasant and polite until it suddenly wasn’t. Deals were made on handshakes. Oaths sworn over drinks. Shortly after he and Jess came to a grudging agreement, and Malcolm called Hugh to tell him that after giving it much thought he wanted to buy only the business, Hugh stopped by to clear out his personal items from the storeroom. It was ten days before the closing. They ended up talking about the building once again, all the potential it held. Hugh told Malcolm that he’d hold on to it for a while, but then he’d have to sell. And then what? Where would that leave Malcolm? Malcolm thought about his mother saying the rent on Gephardt’s shot sky high after the lease was up. It was a point he’d made to Jess but Jess wouldn’t budge.
“Why didn’t you ever do anything with upstairs?” Malcolm asked, and Hugh reminded Malcolm that the place was a broken-down diner when he bought it in 1973. He already brought it a long way. He thought about turning upstairs into an apartment, but his interest faded when they ran up against permit issues and, really, he didn’t want to deal with anyone calling him in the middle of the night to say the music was too loud. The bar was packed four nights a week plus pretty much all day on Sundays. What more could he ask for? But a young man like Malcolm? There were a dozen ways a person with vision could make something fresh of the place. And then, running his massive thumb along one of his unruly eyebrows, he offered a private loan so that Malcolm could buy the building, too, without putting any additional money down. The underwriters at the bank would need to know the provenance of a sudden, large deposit, so they’d call it a gift, but between Malcolm and Hugh, just the two of them, they’d work it out. Large gifts were taxed pretty steeply, but Hugh said they’d bundle all that in the repayment, not a big deal. Malcolm immediately understood that making the offer had been the whole point of dropping by. It was simple, really.
“I mean, can you think of it as yours if you don’t own the building, Malcolm? That’s what I’d ask myself if I were you.”
“Jess isn’t so keen on the idea. She—”
“Jess? I thought you two might have… I don’t know. Haven’t seen her in a while. I didn’t want to ask.”
“We’re good,” Malcolm laughed, but felt a little shaken at the bottom of it. Him and Jess? “She’s working a lot. Like everyone.”
“I really think you should consider it.”
“I will.”
* * *