Hotel Living (25 page)

M
Y COMMAND E-MAILS HAVE GONE
down by 80 percent. Firmwide invitations, Command CARES, and sale promotions make up page one of my in-box. “Accepted” work meetings are all of a sudden postponed or canceled. Although I have nothing to do, I still go to the office religiously, hoping to bring about the termination call from human resources. That, and to prepare myself to face Gawel.

So far, my preparation has amounted to aimlessly digging around in my desk. I examine unsubmitted receipts, key cards from hotels that I never threw out, old PowerPoint decks, and photographs that Paul sent to me at Command from Trikeri—one of him playing backgammon with my father, another of him showing off an octopus.

Then I think of Gawel again and hope that he manages rejection better than I do, that his anger and pain have diminished by now, and that after our talk, eventually, somehow, he'll forget how badly I treated him. I stand up, take a few breaths, and start the fifty-foot walk to his office. By the time I get there, I want to throw up.

Gawel is in a light-blue sweater, typing on his keyboard. He faces the window, so I knock at his open door.

He turns and stares at me. It's been a year. “Can I help you?” Gawel finally says, hesitantly.

“Hi. Yes. I wanted to talk to you for a moment. If that's okay.”

The expression on his face is blank. “I'm listening,” he says.

I motion toward the door.

“Leave it open,” Gawel orders. “I don't have much time.”

He is wearing reading glasses—he didn't use to—and his Tintin hair is a bit longer. I notice a framed photo on his desk, but I don't dare give it a good look while he is keeping me hanging there.

“Right,” I say.

Gawel stands up. “I'm listening,” he repeats.

“Right, right.” I breathe. “I won't insult you by saying that I suddenly care about how you're doing, although I do. But I want you to know that
I know
that I was a bad manager. A shitty one. And all the things that went down, they had nothing to do with you.”

“I know,” Gawel says.

“You are a good guy and a solid analyst.”

“Is that all? Because I don't care for an apology.”

“Ignore it, ignore me. But if you ever want to know why things happened the way they did, I will tell you. That's all.”

He nods. I nod back, and we stand there. Then I head to the door to leave.

“Why?” Gawel's voice stops me. “Why were you such an asshole?”

I have to turn and say this to his face; I owe him that much. “You were collateral damage.”

I see a tiny pleasure in Gawel's eyes, the first sign of emotion since I walked into his office.

“I hope the rumor that you're about to get fired is true,” he says. “Now fuck off.”

I HAVE NO FRIENDS IN
New York. I have no friends, period, and I don't mind it that way. I've stopped going to restaurants, even Sant Ambroeus. I'm happy to stay home and party by myself, staring at the crap that Tati put on my walls—a framed wad of bubblegum she spat out, a half-finished martini with Teresa's lipstick on the glass. I experience an adolescent excitement about my upcoming trip. I count the days until Paris, where I'll spend Thanksgiving with my sister and her children, even if I may be on drugs.

I have become obsessed with checking my cell phone. I need to make sure I haven't missed a call from human resources, or my sister, in case she needs something, but all I get is incoherent voice mails from Ray, and Paul's mass texts about “AccostingTV, a Game Changer.”

With nothing better to do, I text Paul at his personal number: “Is hacking your next thing? 'Cause I have a bio billionaire for you.”

“funny ur text. bio-hacking may be our next stop. really. rewind the mind through the body,” Paul texts back.

I know he is not kidding, and the fact that what I now see as absurd is my friend's daily reality—even if he is Paul—makes me feel a touch left out. I have a moment of what-have-I-done doubt about my piss-off strategy. I think of replying some nonsense, but a second text from Paul comes in: “need to talk to alkis. he's not picking up. what's going on?”

Perfect. I type: “Bubble blues, Paul? Keep stalking and pimping, you'll make it through.”

“Who is this?” Paul responds.

A couple of lines later, I am surprisingly calm. I think I see an end to all the crap I was supposed to want in life, and that gives me hope for some new freedom. I can't see myself getting off a plane in Athens and handing in my passport (that idea still gives me the creeps), but I can see myself on a fishing boat in Bequia, hanging out with Jeevan, probably the only person in my memory who seems authentic and real. I used to look down on him with pity, the way I did my father. Now I envy them both. What have I done better, anyway? Lived a decadelong fiesta that started with a scholarship and ended with me in Prada, chasing white powder. I gave it my all in conference rooms, when all I cared about was bagging some phony rebel. I didn't succeed at either. Now, calling it quits is all that's left to do.

“You stole my line,” I text back to Paul's “Who is this?,” and then I ring Tatiana to leave her a message—she never
picks up—and tell her she's a cunt for disappearing, but she does pick up, and I'm stunned.

I am missed, I am in her thoughts all the time, I am handsome. She laughs. She is happy in France. Over there it's all about the everyday things, which are the
really
important things. Have I ever had a moment when everything made sense?

“How long will you stay there?” I ask her.

“Indefinitely,” she replies, and I can see her playing with her hair, seducing whoever sits opposite her while she's talking to me on the phone.

“Get to France,” Tatiana orders, and it hits me that between schools and jobs and running after Erik, I missed my chance to make real friends, or really care for the ones I had. When all is said and done, friendship is the love that we are most accountable to.

“I'm on my way,” I tell Tatiana. “I am meeting my family in Paris this Thanksgiving. Finally.”

She's ecstatic. “I want to meet them! We
have
to get together.”

“I miss you too,” I say, and sniff a bump, which makes Tatiana go silent. “Allergies,” I say, but she doesn't react. “Tati? You there?”

“Baby, I worry about you,” she says. “Justin told me that you don't go out, that you don't go to work . . . Are you partying by yourself? That's dangerous.”

“No way.”

“I'll tell Kate to put your name down for God's after-party tonight. I want you to go. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“I can't wait to see you.”

JUAN AT THE DOOR OF
the Soho Grand hugs me.

“Juanito!” I say as Juan lifts me off my feet slightly. “Are you trying to flip me, bitch?” I laugh.

“You bet,” says Juan.

“Not happening.”

“Are you here for the screening party on the roof?” Juan asks.

“Free drinks . . .”

He elbows me into the outside lobby. “We've lost you since you moved to New York. You got to swing by more often, Stathis.”

“Deal!” I say, and head to the elevators.

I exit into the penthouse's party roar.

“Stathis Rakis,” I tell the tall girl with the list in her hand.

She takes her time. I spell my name.

“You were a party of two . . .” she says.

“I'm by myself.”

“Your friend has already checked in,” she says briskly, and lets me in.

Neither Kate nor God is in sight, so I walk to the sponsor's bar to pick up an already-mixed vodka something. Then I head toward the balcony, but someone grabs my shoulder.

“You're my plus-one, boss!” Justin laughs.

“We're both Kate's plus-one, I guess,” I say.

“Oh, Kate's gone,” Justin says.

“Be real . . .”

“She jumped the bones of that short dude from
X-Men
,” Justin says. “I was like, guys, get a suite . . .”

“Er, are you still doing Kate?” I ask.

Justin shrugs. “Never turned anyone down.”

“Been there,” I murmur.

“How're you doing, boss?” Justin looks at me with bloodshot eyes. “I don't see you at work. You don't text back.” He seems concerned. Then he smiles. “Are you coming to the Beatrice later?”

I scan the smokers through the glass door. “Maybe. We'll see.”

“Shit, boss! You'd be so proud of me. I was in Princeton and someone was telling Andrea how much he loved
Blink
, you know, Gladwell's book of anecdotes. So tonight at the Spotted Pig, I was explaining to my analyst how we'll turn our DCF into a decision analysis model, when guess who walks in?”

“Yes, that's interesting,” I say, spotting God giving an interview at the other side of the penthouse.

“Who walks in?”

“Who walks in?” I repeat impatiently. What does he want from me?

“
Malcolm Gladwell!
” Justin shouts
.

“Really?” I say, uninterested, but Justin does not read me.

“You can't miss him, the dude's Halloween.” His jaw shakes, he talks and spits on me. “So I go:
fuck
decision analysis. We'll call our project
blicision
analysis!” Justin laughs, spilling vodka over his pink shirt. “I love you, boss!”

“Yes, so proud of you,” I say, and try to walk away from him toward the balcony, but Justin grips my hand.

“
What?
” I yell. “Blicison analysis. I got it, Justin. I
invented
that shit. Let go.”

Justin winks. “Come with me, boss.”

My phone rings. It's a number I don't recognize, but I have my own stuff in my pocket, so I pick up to get rid of Justin. I raise my eyebrows while motioning to my phone and walk out to the balcony.

“Captain Stathis,” Kevin says over the phone. The static is terrible.

“Where are you calling from?” I ask.

“Car phone,” he says.

Didn't car phones die in the nineties? “What's up, Kevin?”

“Where are you?” he asks.

“At a party.”

“Nice. Where's that?”

“Downtown . . . at the Soho Grand,” I say. “What's up?” I try to sound busy.

“Nothing. I'm heading back to the city, from Greenwich, and I could use a drink.”

I stay silent.

“Actually, I have a meeting down on Wall Street first thing tomorrow,” Kevin says.

“Really?” I say, and think of the years when I used to cook up meetings so I could fly across the country to fuck his brother.

“Yeah, it's at seven thirty,” Kevin says casually.

“The early bird . . .” Now
beg
, motherfucker.

“Come to think of it, I could check in at the Grand and skip the morning rush.”

“I made up a business trip to Montreal once just to spend the night with someone. But we can't always get what we want, Kevin.”

“Really? What is that like?” he says, and laughs.

Like snorting speed instead of coke by accident—appalling. “Let me make it simple for you,” I say.

“Oh yeah?” he says with a
bring-it-on
tone.

“A friend of mine told me that when we fall for someone, we fall for everything about them, the whole package. So you were my fuck-you-Erik fuck; you were part of my closure. And by the way, thank you for that.”

“Dude, who cares if—”

“
Wait
, there's more. I used to live at the Soho Grand. The people at the door know me. You wouldn't want them to take note of your pathetic little life, now, would you?”

He is silent.

“I'd stay away if I were you,” I say, and hang up.

A bittersweet feeling comes over me.

This was the last link to Erik, now cut loose, and the sadness that was always part of not being able to possess him mixes with relief, an exciting freedom that has arrived with closure. For the first time in a while, anything seems possible. I want to stroll downtown, get lost on the Lower East Side, and watch passersby, or just bump into someone on the street. I rush inside and look for the elevators, but Justin comes out of the bathroom. “Boss!” he calls. His jaw tweaks, bad. “Kate put our names down at the VIP room. Let's go see what's shaking.”

“I don't give a fuck,” I say.

“Huh?”

“Justin! I'm checking out!” I say, and his face becomes as serious as it gets.

“So the scoop is true,” Justin says. “I thought it was a rumor, but you are leaving Command.”

“Yes, the scoop is true. I'm leaving.”

“Fuck, boss. I'll miss you.” Justin hugs me. He presses something into my hand.

“What is this?”

“A parting gift. Good stuff. Parting with a
y
! Got that?” Justin smirks.

“Yes, yes.”

“With a
y
. . . That was good!” He laughs.

“I
got
it, Justin.”

“What's next, boss? Got something bigger going down?”

“I don't know,” I say. “I'll go see my family. Maybe I'll get a stove.” I feel a chill. I am suddenly worried. I think of all the things I'll need to get by. Not now, but soon. “I'll get a job,” I say. “Hopefully a real one. One where I get to ask real questions.”

Justin puts his hand on my shoulder—I can't tell if he's reaching out or losing his balance.

“Boss, Alkis told me that after he left consulting he never felt that free again,” Justin says. “You may never be this free again.”

I feel like I'm running out of time, now that I'm a tired, middle-aged, practically unemployed man who has no country. It might be tricky to start over. Loneliness takes hold of me, and once again, I see Ray's whitetip patrolling the oceans. Well, it's too late to start feeling sorry for myself. There must be something out there that I'll want to call my own. I don't know what that is yet, but hopefully I will.