“But my friend—”
“What friend of yours? You don’t have friends. You have people you pay to be nice to you, to try and keep you on this side of sane. I had no idea you were such a calculating bullshitter to say something so hurtful to me. Do I intimidate you? Is this some psycho head game of yours? Are you worried Manchester Bank will assign Cheetah to just me? Is that what this is about?” I say, while a part of my brain begins listing the clues; Bruce’s constant texting, his new love of social media, him being online during vacation, and his obsession with his body. He checked every cliché box, and I never even noticed.
Kathryn is silent and puts her hands to her sides. “People who enjoy tantric sex as part of their yoga practice don’t always consider it cheating. They justify it because of the revealing nature of the practice. To truly achieve enlightenment and extended sexual pleasure the mind has to be so centered and yet adrift. It’s like tripping on drugs except there are no drugs save for the limits of your own mind.”
I let this garbled woo woo language swirl around for a full ten seconds before I respond, “What the WHAT???”
Nothing I can say right now will make sense and I feel jittery and sick to my stomach, like one of those ticker symbols in front of me, blinking around in value, not knowing which direction to trade. I’m living in a world where everything and everybody in it is make-believe.
CHAPTER 39
Dead Cat Bounce
THE CHINESE consider the number 7 to be lucky. I’m staring at my illuminated screen, black background, everything else red, like spilt blood. My screen is full of 7s and none of them are lucky. The Dow has lost 777 points, or over 7 percent of its value in one day, one terrible day, this terrible day. Bruce and I have been married for nine years and my husband evidently has a seven-year itch.
I search the Internet for tantric yoga enlightenment and I learn that it’s wonderful for channeling the mind/body/spirit connection and leads to improved sexual health. With the sex Bruce and I haven’t been having he certainly isn’t getting much home-tutoring. My mind whirls and I read on. Tantric yoga is great for people who have lost their soul connection in the mundane world. What the hell? Belle McElroy is apparently the mundane world that my husband suffers within.
I imagine Bruce being stretched into fantastic positions by what I picture to be a lithe, tattooed young mom he met in my living room, the living room that I paid for, that came with the apartment that I bought.
I know that the first step of grief is denial. Why am I not denying this news? How do I know that Kathryn is right? Maybe the denial stage was the constant throb I’ve had in the back of my head for months. Maybe it started in that golf cart in Southampton where it was apparent that everything between us was wrong. Why have I always defended Bruce and his non-contributing life?
I think about how easy it’s been for Bruce to sit back and justify his low efforts while getting to point a finger at the wife who does everything for him, who enables each new idea that pops into his head, and who gives him the chance to navel-gaze and decide he isn’t being sexually fulfilled. How simplistic for him to get to pretend I’m a bad person because I work on what he considers the evil Wall Street.
People began packing to leave for the day, wiped out by the markets. I want to plead to any of them, these Dicks of the Dais, women of Glass Ceilings, to stay with me, to please, please stay and hold me close in this terrible time. Don’t leave me alone on this giant floor of this broken-down company.
I’ve been watching people file out one by one, to be with their own families, to be comforted by someone else, people willing to love them, flaws and all. I wonder how welcome they’ll all be now that they’re worth so much less money? I think of how Bruce enjoyed dropping $20 tips for $5 beers with the wink of “plenty more where that came from” to assorted waitresses. I thought he was just generous. Part of me had applauded Bruce and the way he acted, but really, he was mocking me. Maybe when he acted supportive of me on a big trade, he was also clapping himself on the back for his choice of mate and her ability to sow and reap while he performed sun salutations.
By 11 p.m. there are only three humans left on the trading floor, three men I hardly know who work in the risk arbitration department.