“Gideon can’t represent you.” Luz didn’t present this as open to question. “It’s time to concentrate on the problems in front of you.”
“Why can’t I just give everything back?”
“It isn’t even appropriate for me to talk to you about this. We promised Jake we’d put you with the best lawyer.”
“Jake is not in charge of this decision.”
“I’m sorry. You didn’t earn that money.”
“Neither did he.” She slammed down the phone and ripped open the envelope with Jake’s letter.
Dear Pheebs,
And now I’m gone. Good riddance? I suppose you’re feeling serious relief, having me gone. Holding back from killing me has been hard, eh?
You kept asking me why. Why? Why? Why? As though there were some bible of reasons I followed, but it is sadly simple. My work with the Club became a rolling stone gathering no moss. Makes no sense, right? This is what happened: I did it to make some money to make up for losses. I needed cash so I got some “extra” clients. Their deposits came in, and I made payouts for others. And I always thought “tomorrow” I’d make it up.
I guess I became Scarlett O’Hara. (Now you understand my weird addiction to that movie you hated.) I identified with her. Tomorrow is another day.
Don’t laugh!
Like Scarlett, I longed to be good like Melanie.
Like Scarlett, I would do anything to hold my Tara: JPE & the Club.
And, as Scarlett wrapped herself in curtains and convinced people she wore haute couture, I waved statements in front of people and convinced them I did what no other could: give them an ever-upward financial journey.
Pheebs, am I alone to blame? Sure, people like your sister, or Eva, of course I understand how they believed in me. But those big shots like Louis Klein who invested with me? The fund managers who sent people? Aren’t they liable also? How did they convince themselves that miracles were possible? Constant ups? No downs?
Listen: The kids will come back to you and me. I know they will. Eventually they will understand I always meant to make this right. I’d find a way to score big, cover the entire nut, and shut down the Club (after paying everyone). Or JPE would make enough that I could shave off enough to make things right.
I thought I might sell everything and we’d fly off to paradise.
I’d get an insurance policy that covered suicide.
I’d invest in something different—movies—and make a new fortune.
I never thought it would end this way. I thought I had more time.
Nobody thought I’d make it so big, including me.
Now, it’s almost a relief to have it over. Trust me, Pheebs. The burden has been heavy. You have no idea how much I wanted it to be over.
Now it is.
I am so sorry I’ve hurt you and the kids. I need you. Now more than ever. You are all I have in this entire world.
I love you. Forever and beyond.
Jake
The sun mocked her. Phoebe stumbled over to close the drapes and then took Jake’s letter to the shoebox in her closet where she’d hidden their suicide letters to the children. She tucked them together and resealed the box with scotch tape.
In the kitchen she poured a tumbler full of scotch and grabbed a sleeve of saltines from the box. For months, she had pulled her Gristedes food orders from childhood lists. Oreos. Campbell’s tomato soup. Ingredients for tuna noodle casserole. Phoebe had turned from the Silver Palate Cookbook to Betty Crocker.
She stuffed saltines in her mouth to absorb the scotch, alternating alcohol and crackers until she emptied the glass.
Drunk, but steady—proud of her crafty move with the saltines—she lurched into the bedroom. First she stripped the linens and threw them into the laundry room. Then she took Jake’s pillows, redolent of his scent, and stuffed them in a trash bag.
Luz had warned her against “divesting” of anything, reminding her of the papers she signed promising not to sell or remove “goods, tangible or otherwise.” She tried to imagine someone wanting pillows reeking of Jacob Pierce.
After rolling a suitcase to the bedroom, she threw Jake’s clothes on the bare mattress. She swept everything off the top of his dresser. Ties—she grabbed his millions of fucking ties—ripped them off the mechanized rack. Shirts, handmade, stitched with stolen money; armfuls went on the pile. Suits. Pants. Thick, absorbent robes. Silk pajamas. Cashmere socks. Pair after pair; a fortune used just to cover his feet.
She threw them in one suitcase and then another and then two more, and then shoved them into his study with the trash bag of pillows. His Lee Child, James Patterson, and Brad Thor books piled on the nightstand, she tossed to the floor, lusting for a huge torch with which to light them.
In the kitchen, she pitched boxes of Sugar Wafers, bags of M&M’s. The rye bread Jake liked, the Ritz crackers he crumbled into soup, the Philadelphia cream cheese he smeared on bagels, the orange juice he drank: she threw all his favorites into the trash bag and lugged the overloaded plastic to the garbage chute.
She looked around the family room for evidence. A crystal bowl of nuts Phoebe first emptied and then, holding it between her fingers as though it were toxic, flung into a study, grateful for the sound of shattering.
Phoebe needed breakage, to throw and heave and pound, and the goddamned FBI wouldn’t let her touch a thing. They hated her. They all hated her, Jake’s handmaiden.
She circled the den, prowling Jake’s cage until she came to his earphones dangling by a chair—his favorite, overstuffed and built for comfort with a matching ottoman—plugged in to music as he read. Drawn and unable to stop, she sat in Jake’s indentation and jammed his headphones on her ears, adjusting the band before they slipped off.
She went back three songs in the playlist Kate helped him set up—his last Father’s Day present. She threw back her head, Jake’s soft charcoal sweater against her hair. Waves of the past washed in, beginning with Harry Connick Jr. singing “It Had to Be You.” Each time Connick’s version of the song, their songs, played, he’d croon along, his awful voice leaving her breathless with laughter.
Phoebe’s heart caught, and tears poured down at the first sounds of “Let’s Stay Together.” Jake holding her tight at Solomon’s wedding, dancing to the Al Green song, her hand on his broad shoulder, the feel of the wool suit, the scent of his starched white shirt, his smooth cheek when she reached up to stroke him.
Fuck you, Jake.
Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou.
CHAPTER 33
Phoebe
August 2009