Frolicking in alpine beauty in spring or summer is for amateurs. We’re going in March because it’s spring break, which feels more like a winter break and promises to have the most delays. It’s snowing here at JFK Airport and that’s why we’re sitting and sitting on a runway in Queens. We’ve been sitting here for four hours.
Kevin’s Nintendo DS has run out of power. I’ve changed Owen’s diaper twice. He’s three now and still in diapers because nobody is showing him the path to the toilet. Brigid has tired of drawing in her coloring book and has decided her forearms are a good canvas, coloring both of them solidly green. She tells me she looks like Little Pea. She says this over and over to my blank face until Bruce disgustedly tells me that Little Pea is the small vegetable boy on the Green Giant box, where all of our children’s frozen vegetables come from. He shakes his head with disgust; his wife and Brigid’s own mother does not know this rather crucial bit of information. It takes every ounce of self-control for me to not turn on him and say, “Dickface, the little green kid’s name is Little Green Sprout, not frickin’ Little Pea.”
When Brigid’s self-mutilation is complete she moves to my arms, and since I have no dignity anymore I let her. She gives me stripes of deep navy, angry vein lines all over my arms and somehow the graffiti suits me. I’m craving a hit of my office, just a simple phone call while the stock market is open and we’re sitting on this runway, solidly within U.S. cell phone range. The markets have been trading wildly, a few hedge funds have failed, and here I am going on vacation. One of the vows Bruce insisted I make for this trip is that I live unconnected during the week of European frolic. I sit in my seat trying to rationalize that this moment cannot possibly be considered the start of my technology cutoff, can it? I’m afraid to ask him, afraid of his wrath, so instead I just sit, feeling the heat of the clear airplane Wi-Fi signal burn an imaginary hole through my ski jacket.
I glance across the aisle to look at Bruce, Owen, and the elderly woman now wearing radio headphones, circa 1989. Bruce is playing the good daddy by reading GQ magazine to himself. I watch him chuckle, blissfully unaware that Owen is standing and bouncing on his seat, and I pretend I’m not with those people.
I think about running to the toilet with my BlackBerry, to get a quick read on the currently open financial markets. Even though I could pull this off without Bruce knowing, the very act seems to symbolize so much more, something to further fray the wisps of dental floss holding my marriage together. When someone is looking for reasons to fight, reasons to justify their own lousy behavior, I’m not the one to give them any. Instead I force myself to sit in my seat, taking big gulps of stagnant air, and try to concentrate on my oration of Stuart Little 2 for my other two children.
I had a terribly confusing day yesterday, the day before this journey began. I called over to Cheetah Global, to tell them I’d be out of town and that my assistant, Stone, was going to be their coverage for the next week. When this message got relayed to Henry, he called me right back.
“Where’re you going?”
“To visit my sister, you remember, Carron?”
“Of course I know Carron but she lives overseas.”
“You sound very genteel with that ‘overseas’ thing, Henry.”
“You don’t have to be snippy. You do have to meet me before you leave. There’s something I have to show you.”
Something about another man demanding things of me seemed way out of line. After my showdown with Bruce, my limited tolerance for drama was kaput. The only reason I’d have liked to see him was to ask how much money he made shorting Feagin Dixon stock.
“Henry, I can’t be your Feagin Dixon blankie anymore.” Henry was silent for a moment, so I continued.
“All this time, I’m listening to your so-called concern about my firm and I bet you’re shorting our stock.”
“That’s not true.”
“I bet it is true.”
“Belle, I do some unusual things, but I don’t lie to you.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re not going out of business.”
“That I don’t believe. I am short Bear Stearns. I am short Lehman. And I would short Feagin Dixon if you didn’t work there. If I were you, I’d cash out now. I’d run.”
“Look, Henry, it’s not just that. I mean, this whole account relationship has come to be something more than just business for me. I don’t completely understand this dance we still have going on after all these years, but it’s one of the things coming between Bruce and me. I need to go away with my family and fix stuff and you need to talk to Stone.”
“Who the hell names their kid Stone and what the hell is his job at that place?”
“You don’t say the word hell enough.”
“Seriously.”
“Stone is that very expensive backup person you sometimes speak with.”
“I don’t want to talk to him.”
“Stop whining.”
“Come meet me.”
“No.”
“You have to.”