The Gift of a Charm Read online

  Steeling himself, he ran his fingers through his closely cropped dark brown hair.

  It was a Monday morning. The markets were long open, and trading was in full swing. He glanced at his co-worker Mark, who sat in the cube across from him. His face was flushed and his eyes bulged as he studied figures on three computer monitors and yelled into the phone, placing an order to the trading floor of the stock exchange.

  Mark suddenly became aware of Greg’s presence and turned to face him in a full-blown panic.

  ‘Matthews, what are you doing? Don’t you see what’s happening? There’s another goddamn issue with the euro and oil prices are going nuts because some new shit-storm is brewing in the Middle East! You’d better get on the phone with Carmichael. He’s going to be pissed if you aren’t on this right now!’ Mark picked up a bottle of Tums and flicked it open with one hand before putting it to his mouth and pouring several tablets down his throat.

  Greg stared at Mark, feeling a sense of disconnect. Sure, he should probably get on the phone with his biggest client, Leonard Carmichael, and tell him what they needed to do to protect his investments, but he found he didn’t want to, that it didn’t matter. There was always some new crisis, something that caused fortunes to collapse or developments that created windfalls and landed vast amounts of wealth into the laps of people who did nothing but push buttons and issue orders.

  He shook his head; he was tired of the constant state of panic that everyone here operated in, including himself. He was sick of the stress and the stale air of the office. There was more to life than this.

  He left his cubicle as Mark shouted behind him, ‘It’s your ass, Matthews! It’s your ass Carmichael will have for breakfast if you don’t tell him about this shit NOW!’

  Greg ignored Mark’s message of impending doom and walked straight forward, with conviction, towards Dave Foster’s office. He saw the man sitting calmly at his desk, seemingly oblivious to the meltdown that was occurring just outside his door.

  It was the way it always was, though. The rest of them suffered heart attacks, panic disorders and acid reflux, while Foster sat at his desk thinking about the next yacht he was going to buy.

  As he closed the distance between him and the door to his boss’s office, he caught the eye of Foster’s bulldog executive assistant, Claudia. Fiercely protective of guarding the inner sanctum, she could melt the skin off your face just by looking at you. Usually Greg worked to stay off her radar – there was no denying she was a cow; he had the attitude that if he didn’t get in her way, she wouldn’t get in his.

  Today, though, was a different story.

  Greg continued to march forward, even after Claudia stood up and took her usual vicious canine pose.

  ‘I have to see Dave,’ Greg stated in a voice that meant business.

  Claudia placed her hand up. ‘Mr Foster is busy. You can’t go in there.’ Greg kept walking. ‘Hey, stop,’ she ordered.

  He pushed past her, reached for the doorknob to his boss’s office and turned it. It was open.

  ‘You do not have an appointment. You cannot see him!’

  He ignored Claudia completely and went into Dave’s office uninvited. Sure enough, he could see what Dave was looking at on the Internet. OK, so he wasn’t shopping for a yacht, but a villa in Tuscany. Same difference.

  ‘Ah-hem,’ Greg cleared his throat and the noise startled his boss. The man quickly turned round and met his employee’s eyes.

  ‘Matthews. What are you doing? I’m up to my eyes here.’ He quickly minimised his screen.

  ‘Mr Foster,’ Claudia huffed as she pushed past Greg, ‘I’m sorry, I told him he couldn’t come in, that you were busy. I apologise. Do you want me to call security?’

  Greg rolled his eyes and put up his hand. ‘No need for that. This will only take a minute.’

  Dave puffed up his chest in an attempt to gain control of the situation. ‘I don’t have a minute. And what the hell are you doing in here anyway? Look at that out there, it’s chaos! Get to work!’ He pointed to the office as if he had been monitoring the situation this entire time, instead of only just noticing it.

  Greg shook his head. ‘No, Dave.’

  His boss’s eyes bugged out. ‘No? No? I’m going to tell you what you are going to do right now and that’s—’

  ‘No,’ said Greg calmly. ‘I’m going to tell you what I’m going to do right now. I quit.’ He smiled pleasantly at Claudia’s shocked expression.

  ‘Can’t take it no more, huh?’ Dave said calmly, in one of his infamous mood changes. He nodded briefly at Claudia, who got the message and left.

  Greg shook his head. ‘Nope.’

  His boss calmly took out a cigar, lit it and blew the smoke up at the ceiling. Greg knew he had dismantled the smoke alarm ages ago. Dave wasn’t much of a rules guy, which is probably why he had got so far. ‘Must admit, I envy you.’

  ‘Why?’ Greg asked, surprised. ‘You want out too?’

  Dave slapped his hands down on his desk. ‘Nah, I love the job. It’s dangerous, always unpredictable … addictive. I’d just like to know that if I did walk away, I wouldn’t be ruining so many lives.’

  Greg nodded. ‘Right, wife, kids…’

  Dave chewed madly on the end of his cigar and waved his hand. ‘Mistress, and her kids, and my sister who can’t hold down a damn job, and my mother-in-law who always needs surgery on something or other, and…’ He stopped short and grinned at Greg’s surprised face. ‘What got you? Mistress, or the fact that I’m keeping my mother-in-law maintained?’

  Greg stumbled. ‘Both?’

  Dave nodded satisfactorily. ‘You’re too nice for this job anyway. Go and be a shutterbug, or an artist, or whatever you want to call it these days.’ He stood up and slapped Greg hard on the back. ‘But whatever you do, don’t get married – take it from me, they’re all leeches.’

  ‘Erm, thank you,’ Greg said, his head spinning a little at the unexpected ease of it all. ‘I really appreciate that. Of course, goes without saying that I’ll work out any notice if you—’

  ‘Nah, doesn’t work like that in this business, you know that.’

  Greg did but he wanted to make the offer anyway. ‘I’ll clear out my desk right away.’

  ‘No worries, kid. Have a great life.’

  Exactly, Greg thought, turning on his heels, his heart soaring. He would have a great life, and it was about time he got on with it. After all, like his mother always said, life was too short to spend in a cube.

  Half an hour later, he stood in the elevator, holding a brown box that contained the few meagre personal possessions from his cubicle. Still feeling slightly dizzy after what he’d just done, Greg thought about the first time he’d ever used a camera. He was ten at the time, and his parents had bought him a Kodak for his birthday. He had turned it over and over in his hands, wondering what on earth he was supposed to take pictures of.

  ‘Just take it with you when we go out,’ his mother had said. She loved to walk around her old neighbourhood, the East Side, spotting all the changes that had taken place since she was a girl. She would excitedly point out different buildings to Greg. ‘There, that’s where I went to grammar school. Do you know who else went there? James Cagney, can you believe it?’ and she would sound so amazed that Greg would pull out the camera and take a picture of the building.

  Later he was glad he did, because many of the buildings from back then had since been torn down and replaced by cheap high-rises. His mother too adored looking at the old photographs, her face lighting up as she recognised various familiar landmarks that no longer existed.

  His mother had been raised by Italian immigrants in Alphabet City – just near the East Village in Manhattan; they had worked in an Italian deli ‘every day of every hour of my life, until they both dropped dead’, she would tell Greg. She had only two photos of her childhood. One was a black-and-white shot of her in a bassinet on top of a freezer in the deli, her face a pink smudge, her mother in the photo to
o, her arm resting on the meat slicer. The other photo was of her in high school, taken by a professional photographer. She was striking a Grace Kelly-like pose, her head titled slightly, looking past the camera wistfully.

  His grandparents’ deli had changed hands many times since and had finally closed in 1990, a victim of poor management by the then owners. The modest three-storey building had been torn down and a twenty-three-floor high-rise built in its place.

  Driving around in Queens last week had energised Greg, given him purpose, made him realise he had made the right decision. He hadn’t truly noticed until after 9/11 how much and how fast the city changed. The bulk of his photography work so far had been on the buildings protected by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, those that were deemed historical and would never be torn down.

  But who was to say that his grandparents’ deli, owned and operated from 1936 to 1990, wasn’t a historical building as well? And since those types of buildings weren’t protected, maybe those were the landmarks he should be concentrating on.

  Greg felt a jolt of energy like an electric shock shoot through his body and right out of the top of his head. That could be his next project, photographing local, architecturally nondescript buildings that were in fact the lifeblood of the city, but were disappearing all too quickly.

  Greg smiled.

  If this was what loving what you did for a living felt like, then bring it on.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, Greg pushed open the door of his Upper Seventies East Side brownstone feeling like a brand-new man. After leaving the office, he had picked up a coffee and walked almost the entire way from the Financial District back home, stopping to hail a cab only when the wind and the snow started whipping his face violently. He wasn’t usually adverse to winter weather, but there was only so much a cab-loving New Yorker could take.

  But now, as he got home, he was eager to get out of his suit, shed his corporate work uniform and get on with the next part of his life. He figured there was no time like the present. So, first things first, he was going to organise all of his camera equipment and start documenting the work that was already on film. If he was going to start a new career, then he was going to have to make sure he stayed on task.

  He smiled to himself, feeling giddy with excitement. And just a little bit nervous. He hadn’t told Karen yet about his decision to quit and he felt slightly guilty that he had left her out of the loop. But, then again, she had always stood behind him. He couldn’t imagine it would be any different now. He loved her and she loved him. After all, they had been committed to each other for almost three years and it was time to start thinking about what came next. He was sure she would be fine with his decision.

  He also had the rest of the day to think about how he was going to tell her – it was just past lunchtime and she wouldn’t be home for hours yet. Karen worked at Macy’s, in the marketing department, and Christmas was one of their busiest times.

  Greg still couldn’t believe that he’d bitten the bullet and that for him there would be no more working late hours in a cramped office, no more slaving away on Christmas Eve or skipping parties because his boss wanted him at his desk for no good reason. Nope, no more of that. From now on, he was the boss.

  Greg walked inside the foyer of the townhouse and suddenly had a funny feeling in the bottom of his stomach. He slipped off his shoes, trying to be extra-vigilant about not tracking snow across the wooden floors. Karen hated when puddles accumulated on the polished oak; she was convinced that if the wood became warped, it would affect the resale value of the house, which, for all intents and purposes, was prime real estate.

  No arguing with her there, thought Greg, realising where the sudden feeling of worry came from. Admittedly, the place was almost paid off. He had written a cheque for a considerable chunk of the mortgage with his last bonus. But it had been his job that had funded the creation of this beautiful home, from its initial purchase to the remodelling that Karen had helped him with, right down to the littlest details provided by the (very expensive) interior designer. Greg also knew that he was sitting on a nice savings account. And, of course, he had always made sure he funded his retirement account, so he felt perfectly stable. But …

  Just might have to be a little more conscious of what we are spending, at least until business takes off, he thought. He put his briefcase down and slid it under a side table in the entryway. It was only then that he noticed that Karen’s handbag was there. Was she home?

  ‘Karen? Honey?’ he called out.

  He heard the click-clack of her stilettos from deep inside the townhouse making their way to the front. When Karen emerged into view, he found her resplendent in an Armani suit of deep red that showed off her trim figure. Her light blonde hair was pulled back in an expertly coiffed knot at the nape of her neck that showed off her Swedish cheekbones and flawless complexion. As usual there wasn’t a hair out of place. Her makeup was always perfect and Greg suspected that she had help from the counter girls in the actual store, although Karen never admitted to it. ‘I barely wear any: that’s all you need to know,’ she would playfully chide him.

  Greg’s heart sped up as he looked at her. Brains as well as beauty, and she was all his – the whole package. However, the only thing that was missing from that whole package at the moment was a smile.

  ‘Hey, babe, what are you doing home? I didn’t expect you until later,’ he said, smiling. He moved forward to kiss her on the cheek.

  ‘I was uptown for a meeting this morning, so I decided to just come home for lunch. And I could say the same for you,’ she replied, arching an eyebrow. ‘What’s going on? Why are you home? Let me guess, did the office lose power because of this weather? I swear to God, I don’t know why more backup generators aren’t used. The threat of data loss alone—’

  Greg smiled and cut her off. ‘No, babe, nothing like that. Actually—’

  ‘Then why…? What happened?’ Karen’s face changed suddenly. ‘Oh my God, did you get fired? Did they fire you? Jesus Christ on a cracker. Is this about that one account of yours? Carmichael, that son-of-a-bitch…’

  Greg had to admit, he loved her intensity and the way her mind worked, but sometimes she could be really dramatic. With event marketing he guessed it came with the territory. ‘Karen, honey, no. I didn’t get fired. Everything is OK.’

  ‘Oh thank goodness. Don’t do that to me ever again.’

  She took a deep breath and raised a hand to the back of her hair, as if making sure she was still well put together in light of her recent scare.

  ‘It’s not that. Like I said, I didn’t get fired,’ he continued, unable to resist a smile. ‘Actually, I quit!’ He laughed as if the admission out loud had allowed his soul to take flight right there in the middle of their hall.

  The smile dropped from Karen’s face. ‘You what?’

  Greg grinned even more brightly. ‘I quit. I told them all to shove it this morning. I’m not going to go through another holiday season working eighteen-hour days and missing out on life. I have bigger and better things to do, we both do. Like my folks always say, we should work to live, not live to work. And now you and I have the opportunity to spend more time together, and I can help Dad out more too, try and make things easier for everyone. So what do you think?’

  He reached forward and pulled Karen towards him, encircling her with his arms, but she didn’t melt into his embrace like she usually did. Greg looked at her, suddenly nervous.

  ‘Well, I … don’t know what to think.’

  He frowned. ‘But I thought you’d be happy. You’re always talking about how we can never go anywhere as a couple because I’m forever stuck at the office. That’s all changed now.’

  ‘Greg, I’m happy for you, but not happy for us,’ she said shortly. ‘You didn’t tell me you were going to do any of this; I thought we’d be making decisions together by now. This … you quitting your job is a big deal, one that really affects our future. A one-income household�
��’ She shook her head.

  Money … was that all she was worried about? Greg felt relieved.

  ‘Oh, honey –’ he grabbed her hands and held them – ‘things will change a little, that’s all, just for a short while. Maybe not so much eating out, or as many cab rides … no big deal.’

  ‘Not as many cab rides … you are planning on working somehow?’

  Greg barked a laugh. ‘Of course I am. I was just getting round to that bit.’ He smiled. ‘I can’t believe you thought I was just going to turn into some unemployed bum…’

  Karen exhaled. ‘Phew. So have you been interviewing? Why didn’t you tell me? Is this about that executive position at Wells Fargo? I remember you mentioning it to your dad ages ago, but then didn’t hear anything about it. It is, isn’t it?’ She smiled broadly. ‘Oh my God, Greg, this is fantastic – we should go to St Barts for Christmas to celebrate!’

  Not meeting her gaze, Greg grimaced.

  Indeed, he had spoken briefly to his dad and Karen about an open position at Wells Fargo a while back. He had even interviewed for it, and had been offered the job, but ended up passing on it. In essence, while the move would have been vertical, it would have meant even longer hours, the last thing he wanted. He didn’t think that taking it would have improved anything other than his bank account. Because of this, he had never mentioned his decision on the offer to Karen. He knew he should have, and realised now it was a sort of sin of omission – but really, what was the point in bringing it up in the first place? Especially if he had already decided it wasn’t for him.

  And as for going to St Barts for Christmas this year with everything else that was happening? Not a chance.

  He pulled away gingerly and looked down at her glowing face, now realising that maybe he should have told her about the Wells Fargo decision, or even in advance of the choice he had made today. Did he mess this up?

  ‘Actually, this isn’t about the Wells Fargo position,’ he replied. ‘Come on, let’s go into the living room. I’ll tell you all about it.’