However he parsed it, his future in New York could only be a diluted reflection of his before, a whiter shade of pale. Evenness defined his present, the by-product, he often thought, of small minds and safe living. In his new after, there would be no ups and downs, no private jets or unexpected fucking in a tiny bathroom of a bar, or walking home from a riotous evening under a pinkening sky. It wasn’t luxury he missed, it was surprise. The things money could buy weren’t the reward; the reward was to feel lifted above everyone else, to get a look at the other side of the fence where the grass was rarely greener but always different and what he loved was the contrast—and the choice. The ability to take it in was what mattered; the ability to choose was what mattered.
He’d always leaned into the unknown. Stephanie, too. So why, he wondered, when it came to each other, did they always find themselves spinning their wheels in the same old rut, in the same exact way? He turned his broad back away from the wind coming off the water, enjoyed the familiar feeling of hunching his shoulders and cupping his hand around a lit match until the end of the cigarette glowed a steady amber. He took a deep drag and exhaled energetically. He felt better almost immediately.
Two women walking by with rolled yoga mats under their arms frowned, both furiously waving the air in front of them, as if his nearly imperceptible trickle of smoke was a swarm of stinging wasps. When had New York become so wimpy and pathetic? The city had completely lost its edge. He needed to get out, head somewhere untamed and more deserving of his talents and energy. He turned back to the water, took another satisfying drag off the cigarette, closed his eyes and thought again about his newly concocted plan, ran over the details and tested it for leaks, looked for any scraps of regret or hesitation about his decision. Nope. He felt good. He felt sad about Stephanie, that was a given, but feeling sad about Stephanie was so familiar it was becoming boring or a dangerous habit, or both. He’d casually thought about asking her to take off with him, even for a few weeks, but she never would. That kind of daring wasn’t part of her fiber.
He was still annoyed with Bea. Not as angry as he’d been the day he read the story, but still irritated. (There it was again, how had his life suddenly reduced to irritation?) And although he tried not to dwell on it, he was stung by Stephanie’s careless comment while knowing she might be right. He’d been out of the public eye so long he might not even be a story. Or he’d just be another in a long line of Internet millionaires who’d been at the right place at the right time doing the new thing and had made a ridiculous sum of money and then lost the money and done something dumb while wasted and maybe screwed the wrong person and wrecked his marriage and who, really, at this point would give a fuckity fuck. In some ways, that was almost harder for Leo to contemplate: the information about his implosion being made public and landing with an echoless whimper.
And then there was Stephanie’s inexplicable insistence that he should at least talk to Matilda Rodriguez, find out what she wanted. He knew what she wanted, and even if he did decide to distribute some of his money, it wasn’t going to be to the waitress, who’d already profited a nice tidy sum. Stephanie didn’t seem to understand that he was prohibited—legally—from talking to Matilda. (Technically, he wasn’t completely sure this was true but practically he knew it was the right thing to do. Nothing good could come of establishing contact with her.)
Something odd was going on with Jack, too, who was asking a lot of questions, a lot of questions, about trying to set something up that sounded like money laundering. He was asking what Leo knew about offshore accounts and although he didn’t precisely word it this way, how to conceal ill-gotten gains. Leo couldn’t imagine Jack pulling off something that would require such sophisticated financial maneuvers; he didn’t have the balls or the brains. Leo suspected Jack was trying to trick or trap him.
And something else was tugging at Leo. The other day, when he and Stephanie were sitting at her bay window, trading sections of the newspaper, a wary silence between them, one of the neighbors had walked by with a baby in one of those sling contraptions. He’d watched Stephanie watch the mother with the bundle strapped to her chest. She watched them from the minute they came into view until the minute they could no longer be seen. He’d gone clammy. Surely she wouldn’t—couldn’t, she had to be too old—change her mind about wanting a kid now? She’d sensed Leo assessing her and had ducked behind her hair, but not before he saw something resolute in her face, something private and determined and deeply terrifying.
But maybe worst of all was how she looked at Leo these days, like he was a sad sack, like she was just waiting for him to bail. Well, why wait?
The divorce decree had finally come down; Leo was free. He could leave New York whenever he wanted. He could go straight to the airport with nothing but a small duffel and provision himself more fully when he landed. He didn’t mind leaving everything behind, starting from scratch. In fact, he reassured himself, he was looking forward to it. Another thing he’d learned that the other Plumbs hadn’t: the beauty of rediscovering the starting line.