Bitter Business

redecorating it. Nothing stays the way it is long enough to get attached to it. But this place hasn’t changed at all. I know I lived in the house in Lake Forest for more years, but when I close my eyes and think of home, this is the place I always remember.”
    “That’s good,” said Stephen, “because I just bought it this afternoon.”
    I took another step back and felt my face stretch into a cartoon of surprise.
    “Remember the other night at dinner when I told you that my banker tipped me off about an apartment that was coming on the market? When your parents bought their house in Lake Forest, they sold this apartment to Lucille West and her husband. He died four years later, but she stayed here, living alone until she had a stroke six months ago. I made her son an offer this afternoon and he accepted it.”
    I just stood there, gaping at him like an idiot.
    “I was hoping you’d come and live here with me,” Stephen continued quietly.
    “So it’s done?” I finally managed to stammer. “You made him an offer and he took it? The deal is done?”
    “Subject to inspection and the approval of the co-op board, naturally.”
    I think I opened and closed my mouth, but I knew that no words would come out. Stephen took a step closer and laid his hand against my cheek.
    “Tell me that you love it,” he said.
    “I love it,” I replied, still hollow with surprise.
    “Tell me you can’t wait to move in.”
    I turned to look him in the face, but my eye caught the watch at his wrist.
    “Christ!” I exclaimed, the time hitting me like cold water. “You told me ten minutes! I have to be back at the office by six. I have to go!”
    “You can’t!” he exclaimed, taken aback. “Not until you tell me.”
    “Stephen,” I replied, suddenly in motion, “I’ve got three lawyers, five investment bankers, and two secretaries who are being paid overtime waiting for me back at the office. We can talk about this later.”
    Then I stood up on tiptoe, kissed the end of his chin, and was out the door.
     
    I began the meeting with the bankers from Goodman Peabody in a preoccupied state of mind. A part of me was still intoxicated by the apartment. Besides being a true architectural gem, it was like being offered the best piece of my childhood back as a present. But try as I might to beat them back, there were other voices in my head, voices that wondered about a man who tells you that he wants to live with you but can’t scrape up the words to tell you why. Voices that questioned what a man who felt easy making a unilateral decision about buying a multi-million-dollar co-op knew about equality in a relationship between a man and a woman. And a terrible little voice, an echo of Mother at her worst, who whispered that he only wanted my name on the mailbox to grease the way with the co-op board, who might not hesitate to blackball the son of an Italian businessman whose father was rumored to have ties to organized crime.
    Fortunately, before too long, the investment bankers launched a fusillade of technical issues with regard to a sale of all or part of Superior Plating that forced me to turn my mind to the matter at hand. By the time we had sorted them out and had developed a plan of action to carry us over the next few days, it was after nine o’clock.
    When I got back to my office I found a note from the switchboard. Stephen had called to say that he was taking a night flight to Geneva and did not expect to return until late Friday night. That explained his insistence that I see the apartment before he left. Relief flooded through me. More than anything else, I needed time and space to think.
    I was wired from the meeting with the bankers and still reeling from Stephen’s little surprise. I knew that if I went home, sleep would be next to impossible. I called home hoping that Claudia wasn’t working and I would find her there. I wanted to hear what she had to say about Stephen and the apartment, but it was the answering machine, not my roommate, that picked up after four rings.
    Rather than going home to the empty apartment, I took my shoes off, clipped my Walkman to my belt, slipped an old U2 CD into the machine, and set to work on the small monument of Superior Plating files. The oldest ones were the most interesting, just for their glimpse back into time: typewritten pages blotched with Wite-Out reminding me that there had been a time without computers or even self-correcting typewriters; carbon copies