The second biggest IOU was Wigwam's, which was a quarter of a million dollars. Alas, Wigwam was even broker than Elliot, and there was no chance there either. And then there was Dr. David Schlesinger, a Long Island ophthalmologist, who'd married the Duchess's childhood friend Donna. David was a pretty good guy, although Donna was, for the most part, a wench. Nevertheless, he couldpay me back, and I had no doubt that he would. After all, I had lent him $120,000 to start his own medical practice, and now he was raking it in.
Still, the greatest shame in all this was Elliot Lavigne. If he still had money he would definitelypay me back! We'd been like blood brothers, the two of us. I had even saved his life once, after he almost drowned in my pool. Ironically, OCD and the Bastard had never shown much interest in Elliot, despite the cash kickbacks. But that was fine with me; if they didn't press the issue, I wasn't about to bring it up.
I said, “I think one of them is; but it's only for a hundred twenty thousand dollars. The rest are worthless. Anyway, it doesn't really matter. At the rate I burn through money, I'll be broke in six months either way.”
“Well, you gotta cut back,” snapped Magnum. “And you gotta tell Nadine to cut back too! This is no joke, Jordan. It's time to hunker down.”
I shook my head no. “I'm not breathing a word of this to Nadine. As much as I hate her, I don't want to worry her. Anyway, I have more than a year to figure out where she and the kids are gonna live, and, believe me, by hook or by crook I'll make sure it's somewhere beautiful.”
Magnum pursed his lips and nodded, as if he were an oncologist about to give a patient a terminal diagnosis. “Well, unfortunately, you're gonna have to let her know a little bit sooner than you'd like. You see, Joel wants her to sign off on this.”
“Well, that sucks too!” I snapped. “In fact, everything about today sucks!” I shook my head in disgust. “When do I gotta tell her?”
With a hint of a smile: “Today.”
When I first called the Duchess and told her that I needed to stop by to talk to her about something, I was shocked that she didn't just tell me to go fuck myself. She was a Brooklyn girl, after all, and given the nature of our last conversation, to tell me to go fuck myself was the Brooklyn equivalent of saying, “I think it would be best if we communicated through our lawyers for a while.” And then, a few hours later, when I walked through the front door at a little before five and the kids came running into my arms, screaming, “Daddy's here! Daddy's here!” I was even more shocked at how genuinely happy the Duchess seemed over our children's love for me.
She was a complicated woman, and despite all my grudges and resentments, there was a part of me that would always be in awe of her. She had educated herself, improved herself, and, for better or worse, had aspired for perfection in all aspects of her life. In many ways, she was everything I could never be: perfectly gorgeous, utterly self-confident, and shrouded by an impenetrable cloak of emotional armor that protected her from hurt; in other ways, I was everything shecould never be: street-smart, financially self-sufficient, and emotionally vulnerable to a fault.
Perhaps in a different time and place we could have made beautiful music together, for, in the end, it wasn't a lack of love that had gotten the best of us but all that had preyed upon it—the money, the drugs, the jet-set lifestyle, the false friends. And, of course, there was Stratton, the poison tree from which only poison fruit could grow, including the fruit of our marriage. Only the children had made it out unscathed, a fact for which I would always thank God.
We were sitting at the kitchen table, and I had just finished giving her all the horrific details about the forefeitures—the dates, the amounts, and everything else.
Her response shocked me.
“I'm really sorry,” she said calmly. “I know how much that beach house meant to you. Where are you gonna live now?”
I stared at her, astonished. Could she really be serious? I mean, after everything I'd just told her, she was worried about where I was going to live? What about where shewas going to live? And what about the kids?
I was about to lace into her when suddenly it hit me: It wasn't irony; she had simply walked through life's raindrops for so long that she assumed she always would. Everything would end up okay for her, she knew, and, odd as it seemed, I knew she was right.
I forced a smile and said, “Don't worry about me, Nae, I'll be fine. And don't worry about yourself and the kids either.” I looked her dead in the eye. “You'll always be taken care of—no matter what.”
She nodded in understanding, although just what I'd meant by that I don't think either of us knew. With the utmost sincerity, she said, “I know you'll take care of us the best you can. Do you know how long you'll have to go away for?”
“I'm still not sure,” I said. “Joel is leaving the U.S. Attorney's Office, which is a good thing for me, but I'll still have to do a few years, I'm sure.” I shrugged my shoulders, trying to make light of it. “And this is the end of the line, Nae: You're gonna move on with your life and I'm going to fucking jail.” I smiled and winked. “Feel like changing places with me?”
“Nope!” she answered, with a few exaggerated headshakes. “But I promise you that the kids will always know that their father is a good man.” She reached over and grabbed my hand, the way a friend would. “Your kids will always love you, Jordan, and they'll be waiting for you the second you get out.”
I squeezed her hand gently, and then I rose from my chair and walked over to a floor-to-ceiling window at the back of the room. I leaned my shoulder against it and took a moment to relish the beauty of my property. It was gorgeous this time of year. The lawn was as green as any rain forest, and the pond and waterfall looked like a painting. How different things could have worked out. If only I would've done things right.
After a few seconds the Duchess joined me by the window and stared out. “It's beautiful,” she said. “Isn't it?”
“Yeah, it is. It's hard to believe another family's gonna live here one day, you know?”
She nodded but said nothing.
Suddenly a pleasant memory: “Hey—remember what we did the day we went to contract on this house?”
She started giggling. “Yeah! We snuck onto the property and had sex in the backyard!”
“Exactly!” I said, laughing. “Those were some funny days back then, right?”
“Yeah, but they weren't my favorite.”
I looked at her, surprised. “Oh, really? Which were?”
“The first days,” she answered casually. “In that tiny apartment in the city. I loved you somuch back then. If you only knew, Jordan. But you never let yourself trust me, because of how rich you were when we met.” She paused for a moment, as if searching for the right words. “I want you to know that I was always faithful to you when we were together. I never cheated on you even once! And, well, what happened this morning on the phone”—she stopped and shook her head quickly, as if she was disgusted with herself—”well, it was a bad showing on my part, and I'm sorry for it.”
“So am I,” I said quickly. “It was a bad showing on my part too.”
She nodded. “And I want you to know that I wasn't trying to manipulate you with the Hamptons.” Yeah, right!“I mean, yeah, maybe at the end I was, but not at the beginning. When I first came up with the idea, I thought there was a chance for us.” She paused for a moment. “But then over the last few weeks, well, I knew there wasn't. Too much had happened: too much hurt, too much pain, too many bad memories. I'm not gonna offer you any cheap clichés here, but I think we definitely broke the record for insane relationships, you know?”