Ten days later as we waited to board our plane back to New York, it was Bruce who told me that Bear had sold to JPMorgan Chase for $10 per share and that Feagin was rumored to be taking a similarly low bid. Instead of my stock being worth $145/share, Manchester Bancorp offered us $7 and Gruss, who had apparently been difficult to locate in the days of this disaster, would be forced to accept.
I felt dizzy walking down the jetway, overwhelmed by the fortune change and yet slightly excited to be getting home. I was carrying Owen, who smelled like the sunshine he’d been playing in. Kevin was proudly wheeling a bag of books, blankets, and sippy cups and leading us in a way I hadn’t witnessed before. Brigid had one loving hand in the back pocket of my jeans and I was starting to think about all the things I could do, the possibilities that come along with change. We had everything good ahead of us if only Bruce could see that.
CHAPTER 37
Trade This
IT’S BEEN three months since our trip to France and everything has changed. I’m married to a guy in search of six-pack abdominals and social media recognition. Bruce occupies himself with many hours at a gym, followed by checking in with his new Central Park mommy friends, who now seem to include him in everything. While his buff factor continues to grow, any moves he was making toward getting a job seem to be shelved while he trolls online to reconnect to people he remembers from high school. Countless times he mentions to me that people he thought were less than him—less smart, less connected, less athletic—now inexplicably run some part of a company. I refrain from telling him that’s what happens. People take the low-rung job, they stay with it, they sometimes find success as they get older. That’s what can happen when people get a job. But to him, seeing his happy, successful former peer group now on Facebook has made him wave some white flag of surrender on the career front. Fitness and good looks are the field where he can eat their proverbial lunch. According to him, everyone’s looking old and fat. His saggy sweats of six months ago have been traded for slim-cut straight pants, tailored blazers, and Chuck Taylors on his feet. He showed up once for breakfast wearing black Lycra and I told him I’m drawing the line for soon-to-be-middle-aged men everywhere: no Lycra. But overall he seems almost euphoric. Maybe he’s happier that rich people finally had it handed to them.
While his 9 p.m. yoga sessions continue to ensure we’ve embraced the celibate life, neither of us addresses this. Instead, I suggested he become a trainer or find a way to link his fitness enthusiasm to gainful employment, but he smirked. He was fine hiring a trainer but becoming one was not for him, and oh, can I please use his phone to take a photo of him flexing?
He’s also using his ample free time trying to make our kids smarter. He’s been subjecting them to bizarre and trendy education methods that one of the moms told him about. In the last months, he has purchased crates of stuff that promise to create superhumans. He sets up intricate living room obstacle courses to elevate the McElroy gross motor skills to Olympic levels, and has some flash card system that promises to get Owen to miraculously read. All I’ve witnessed from this endeavor is Owen folding up the cards or drawing on them. I’m no expert but I’d bet that reading before a kid knows his letters is unlikely and that my husband has purchased snake oil, but I dare not whisper this to anyone. Bruce has so little going on that a patronizing comment from me won’t help. I keep my thoughts to myself and soothe myself with the knowledge that my husband is at least spending time with his kids.
I find myself relaying this state of affairs on a warm July day to what’s left of the former GCC. The few management strategy meetings I was included in have stopped, so we’re all directionless. Still, we work as we wait for more shoes to fall and for more of us to get fired. There are only a few people from my row left: Amy, Amanda, Marcus, and myself, while Violette, Alice, Stone, and most others have been let go. There’s so little banking business that Manchester Bank has cut about 60 percent of our employees since April. Violette is looking for a job, and Alice is trying to start a family. I’d been thinking about our GCC conversations about fairness, but they now seem beside the point and I mention this to the people I’m sitting with.
“Boy, were we strategizing about the wrong stuff,” Amanda says.
“Not really,” I say. I still believe a few women on the risk committee and we never would have had so many worthless bonds in our portfolio. Gruss just wouldn’t listen.”
“He was just responding to shareholders,” says Ballsbridge. “If our growth rate is less than other banks our stock gets hammered.”
“Yeah, it’s not like that happened.” I laugh, thinking of the $7/share price. “After that meeting with Gruss you ladies left me twisting in the wind,” I mention.
“It was like we all gave up at once,” Amy says.
“I didn’t give up. I was just starting,” I say. “And you tossed me under the bus after my meeting with Gruss.”