Connie Gray didn’t want to ‘get out there and start earning.’ She didn’t want to dust herself off and try again. She didn’t want to pack up her troubles in her old kit bag and smile, smile, smile, and if Michael spouted one more inane fucking platitude, so help her she would strangle him with his one remaining silk Hermès necktie.
Connie had no interest in becoming one of the credit crunch’s stoic, plucky survivors. The American Dream wasn’t about surviving. It was about winning. Connie Gray wanted to be a winner. She had married a winner, and he had let her down. Now she must find a new protector, someone who could provide a decent life for her and her children.
The affair with Lenny Brookstein had not been planned.
Affair! Who am I kidding? It was a two-night stand. Lenny made that very clear last night.
Connie had always gotten along well with Grace’s illustrious husband. In happier times, she and Mike would have dinner with the Brooksteins regularly. Inevitably, it was Connie and Lenny who ended up screaming with laughter at some private joke. Grace used to tell Connie all the time, ‘You know, it’s funny. You and Lenny are so similar. You’re like two peas in a pod. Whenever he talks to me about Quorum and business, I have no idea what he’s going on about. But you? You know everything! It’s like you’re really interested.’
And Connie would always wonder, How on earth did those two get married?
Lenny Brookstein was brilliant and engaging, tough and ambitious and alive, the most alive person Connie had ever met. Grace was…sweet. It made no sense to Connie. But she didn’t dwell on it too much. Back then she and Michael were happy and rich, albeit in a modest way.
Back then…
The first time it happened was in Lenny’s office, late at night. Connie had gone to see her brother-in-law privately, to talk to him about a bridge loan, and the possibility of his helping Michael find another position. The Lehman MDs had become Wall Street’s lepers, tainted by failure, untouchable. Michael was a good banker, but no one was prepared to give him a second chance.
Connie had started to cry. Lenny put his arm around her. Before they knew it, they were on the floor, tangled in each other’s arms, and Lenny was making passionate love to her.
Afterward, Connie whispered, ‘We’re so alike, you and I. We both have the hunger. Michael and Grace aren’t like that.’
‘I know,’ said Lenny. ‘That’s why we have to protect them. You and I can protect ourselves.’
It was not the response Connie had hoped for. But she did not leave Quorum’s offices that night disheartened. On the contrary, a new and interesting door had just been opened. Slipping into bed beside Michael an hour later, she wondered excitedly where it might lead.
It led nowhere.
Two weeks later, Connie slept with Lenny again, this time at a cheap hotel in New Jersey. Lenny was crippled with guilt.
‘I can’t believe we’ve done this. I’ve done this,’ he corrected himself. ‘It’s not your fault, Connie. You and Michael are under terrible stress. But I have no excuse.’
Connie whispered huskily, ‘You don’t need an excuse, Lenny. You’re not happy with Grace. I understand that. She was never right for you.’
Lenny’s eyes widened. He looked at Connie with genuine incredulity.
‘Not right for me? Grace? My God. She’s everything to me. I love her so much, I…’ The sentence tailed off. He was too choked to finish it. Eventually he said, ‘She must never know about this. Never. And it must never happen again. Let’s put it down to a moment of madness and move on, okay?’
‘Sure,’ said Connie. ‘If that’s what you want.’
Driving home to Michael, she could barely contain her rage. Move on? MOVE ON? To what? What have I got to move on to? A life of middle-aged penury with my formerly successful husband, living off scraps from my little sister’s table? Fuck you, Lenny Brookstein. You owe me. And now you can pay me. You think I’m going to let you walk back into Grace’s arms scot-free?
‘Mommy, watch me!’
Cade was on the swing. He rocked his skinny legs back and forth to gain momentum, then leaped into the air, landing with a satisfied thud on the sand.
‘Did you see how high I went? Did you see?’
‘I saw, honey. That was awesome.’ Connie drew her finely woven summer shawl more tightly around her shoulders. Cashmere, from Scotland, it had been a birthday present from Grace. Soon everything we own will be a present from Grace. The food on our table, the shirts on our backs.
The thought of spending next week with Lenny and Grace at their magnificent beachfront estate was enough to make Connie feel nauseous. Especially after her little tête-à-tête with Lenny on the dance floor at the Quorum Ball last night. The bastard had actually had the temerity to get angry with her. With her! As if she were the one who’d pursued him. Lenny had led her on, then dropped her like a piece of trash, scuttling back to her baby sister and their oh-so-perfect life together. And now Connie was supposed to be grateful to have her airfare paid so she could sit in their $60-million home and watch the two of them canoodling?
It was Michael who forced the issue.
‘I’d like to go. It was generous of Lenny to invite us, and I could use a break from New York. Some sailing, some sea air.’
Michael had always liked Lenny. But that was Michael. He liked everyone. When Lenny extended the invitation last night, Mike practically bit his hand off.
If he knew where Lenny Brookstein’s hands have been – on my breasts, my ass, between my thighs – he might not be so quick to bite.
But Michael Gray did not know.
As long as Lenny Brookstein did the decent thing and gave Connie what was coming to her, he would never have to.
Lenny and Grace Brookstein’s Nantucket estate was an idyllic, sprawling, gray-shingled mansion set just off Cliff Road on the north side of the island. The main house boasted ten bedroom suites, an indoor swimming pool and spa, a state-of-the-art movie theater, a chef’s kitchen and an enormous, gabled roof terrace (known on Nantucket as a ‘widow’s walk,’ because in the olden days, sailors’ wives used to climb up to their rooftops and gaze out to sea, hoping to spot their husbands’ long-lost ships returning). Formal gardens, planted with lavender, roses, and box hedges in the European style, cascaded down the hillside to Steps Beach, one of the quietest and most prestigious beaches on the island. At the bottom of the garden were four guest cottages, charming, wisteria-clad dollhouses in white wood, each with its own miniature front yard and white picket fence. Anywhere else the cottages would have looked impossibly twee. But here, on this magical island frozen for all time in some simpler, bygone era, they worked.
At least Grace Brookstein thought so. It was she who had built and designed them, down to the very last Ralph Lauren pillowcase and antique Victorian claw-foot tub.
Grace adored Nantucket. It was where she and Lenny got married, without question the happiest day of Grace’s life. But it was more than that. There was a simplicity to the island that did not exist anywhere else. Of course, there was money on Nantucket. Serious money. Tiny, three-room fishermen’s cottages in Siasconset changed hand for upward of $2 million. During the summer, Michelin-starred restaurants like 21 Federal and the Summerhouse charged more for their lobster thermidor than Georges V in Paris. Upscale boutiques on Union and Orange streets in town showcased thousand-dollar cardigans in their windows. Galleries representing local artists regularly sold pieces