Read Online Carousel Court by Joe McGinniss - Free Book Online Page B

in the dark, Nick still asking the question not for the answer but to make the point, quietly, in the darkness: She is failing her son.

9
    D rop-off takes longer than it should. Jackson is a mess. As usual, he is the first child here, along with one employee, a heavy hippie chick from Altadena who wears thick red glasses and a scoop-neck T-shirt that is too small. Jackson is bawling, red-faced. The girl sits down, tries to soothe him, rocks him, sings into his ear a song Phoebe doesn’t know. But he wriggles free and falls to the carpeted floor, runs to the door, and slaps it over and over, his silent screaming the last image Phoebe has as she leaves the building.
    She fires off a text to Nick:
    Yes the nanny would be nice, right? You’d think by this point, right? I know, right, I’m sounding like a raving bitch.
    His reply is instantaneous and catches her off guard, though it shouldn’t.
    Brilliant Phoebe. Spot-on framing of the situation. OUR situation.
    Whatever
    Remember, babe: every page of the mortgage has TWO signatures on it. But facts and shared responsibility aside: just what IN THE FUCK do you think I’m doing ?
    â€¢ •
    Nick was impressed that Phoebe had achieved a starting salary twice her age at twenty-four with full benefits straight out of BU. She assisted a humorless woman with short blond hair and halitosis, but that wasn’t the point. The associate analyst position she secured with a leading financial services firm would look solid when she applied to business school, especially if she’d found a mentor. When she started at the firm, she was no different from the other new hires without MBAs: always borrowed, assigned short- and long-term projects, pulled off, put back on, a pawn in a larger chess match between managers, directors, and partners. There were unspoken endurance contests among the new hires: who arrived first, who left last, who came in on the weekend, who spent the most time with the senior analysts, whose phone vibrated the most, who was never found at a desk after being pulled into a meeting, who made any impression at all on a partner. And the crown jewel of achievement: who got a turn with the lead partner, JW.
    Laughter was rare in the firm, was rare for JW. But Phoebe made him laugh. When he wasn’t on calls or in meetings, he was walking around his cool, bright office with his shoes off. Somehow Phoebe found herself on his soft leather couch, taking notes on her laptop, next to a pair of blades, gloves, two white helmets, pads, and three hockey sticks. He had games on Thursday nights.
    â€œYou look better with makeup,” she said. He’d been on CNBC that week and she’d watched. He’d invited her to come. She’d laughed and lied and told him she had Bruins tickets.
    He asked her how she slipped through the cracks and ended up down in the pits with Jane. He said he was going to look into doing something about that. Maybe he’d bring her on staff, his staff, make her an analyst. “Instead of floating around unclaimed,” he said.
    â€œSo do it,” Phoebe shot back, which made him smile.
    â€œCome watch me play.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€¢ •
    The next week, Thursday, before his hockey game, he summoned her to his office. It was the third consecutive afternoon he’d called her in. She brought her laptop, was taking a seat on the couch, when he motioned her over to him in the center of the room.
    She held the open laptop awkwardly between them. She could smell his aftershave: lighter, almost floral.
    â€œWant to come watch tonight?”
    She cleared her throat. “Why do you want me to watch you?”
    â€œOnly if you want to. Do you want to?”
    Nick is home, she thought. He’s home by now and on the couch watching SportsCenter , eating leftover Thai or the rest of his burrito from lunch.
    â€œWatch you play hockey with your friends?”
    She studied the flecks of white and