Love in Budapest

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“It’s just that I have a lot invested here in this city right now.” Lillianna tried to keep her voice as calm and level-headed as possible.

The partner was unflinching. Her eyes remained cold, icy, and intently focused on the young associate. “We all have a lot invested in places and people in our lives, Lillianna. But sometimes, stock prices drop, and we have to pull out of an investment. Sometimes you have to invest in someone and somewhere else.”

The comment felt pregnant with dangerous meaning as Lillianna considered the twofold meaning of what the partner may have just said.

“Someone else?” Lillianna questioned with a hint of annoyance in her voice now.

The partner stood up, placed her hands on her hips, and looked out toward Battery Park and the water. She then strode to the open area to the right of the conference table.

“Lillianna, do you know how many hungry law students there are out there who would kill to be in your position?”

“Of course.”

It was obviously a rhetorical question and the partner, clearly not looking for a response, ignored her and continued.

“We get thousands of resumes. Thousands! Do you understand that Lillianna? Thousands of resumes from hungry, young, desperate, pathetic graduates who can’t find s**t when they finish law school, much less a six-figure job at a top private New York law firm. They’ll sell their souls just to make forty thousand a year at some crap position in a public defender’s office.” “Yes, I know that, but. . . .”

Lillianna didn’t have a chance to explain herself before the partner cut her right off at the pause.

“Let’s face it darling, you’re not getting any younger and neither am I. However, I can retire tomorrow if I want to. You, on the other hand, not to be vulgar, but you need the money.” She walked back to her chair at the front of the table and took a seat. She then picked up her pen and held it to her chin, as though pausing to think of some kind of final gesture, but then decided against it, put the pen back on the table, and looked directly at Lillianna. “You have until tomorrow morning Lillianna to let me know if you’ll accept the Budapest option, which I might add is very generous of us considering that there are a number of attorneys that are just going to get their pink slip tomorrow and will be gone without being given anything. Just remember, everyone—and I mean everyone, darling—is replaceable.”

“I understand,” Lillianna replied in a bitter tone, but the partner didn’t even hear her or care at this point.

“Moving on,” she declared. “Brett, what’s going on with the Tompkin’s Personal Injury Case?”

Richard had arranged a table at their favorite ristorante in Little Italy. It was already 7:15 and the reservation was for 7:30.

Walking through the city in the late spring, bordering on summer, was always nice at night. The lights of the buildings were coming on. The air was warm and pleasant. The hum of the traffic was steady but not overwhelming downtown and particularly in the financial district. Pedestrians and couples languidly passed the time walking here or there and it was a relatively short commute up to Little Italy. The whole journey was under two miles, which made for good exercise and not an otherwise unpleasant overall experience.

She had been dating Richard for a year now and she knew exactly where the restaurant was where they had first met.

He had then, as now, been a stockbroker and worked in the same area as her, near Battery Park. It had been a girl’s night out and she was with her girlfriends at the Feast of San Gennaro in Manhattan’s Little Italy. The vino had been pouring and there were revelers everywhere in the traffic-free zone on Mulberry Street with its overarching garlands with images of the patron saint emblazoned in their center above them. They had met by chance as he was with a group of his guy friends at the same time, also celebrating the festivities.

The feast would go on for eleven days and it seemed destined that they had both been there on that same, particular night. He was with his friends. She was with her friends. They ran into each other over and over throughout the evening, once while buying some of the special donuts that are sold and then again while playing one of the many street games that took place.

A short while later, numbers were exchanged on each other’s phones and the rest was history. She remembered back to those first interactions at the feast of San Gennaro. The energy had been so playful and so devoid of any concern with work, the future, or money. The first dates after that had been the same. It had been a whirlwind of romance and fun that took them all over the city. However, with the passing of time, the relationship had seemed to harden along with what had become the focus of their conversations together now. The fun, romance, and novelty of it all had changed.

Little Italy was today no longer as large as it had once been in Lower Manhattan. However, it still maintained a distinct presence. As she approached, she noticed the large lit sign over the street announcing that she had arrived.

Lillianna continued down Mulberry Street. The ristorante was just a little way down the block on the left-hand side and she knew it well now. It was where they would always meet when there was something important to discuss in their relationship.

On each side of Mulberry Street were towering brick buildings with fire escapes protruding out from their front facades. Along the street were a variety of Italian restaurants with awnings covering outside seating area tables, some lined with white linen, others with the traditional red and white checkered tablecloths. In front of some of the fine restaurants were plants in raised baskets, lending a little bit of nature and greenery to the concrete mass of the city, with wait staff who called out for you to eat at their restaurant, attempting to drum up business for their particular ristorante, in pressed white shirts and maroon-red aprons.

All of a sudden Lillianna saw Richard sitting at an outdoor table under the awning. Above the awning was a red, green, and white Italian flag that hung purposefully out of the window of a small tenement apartment above the restaurant. There had been a strolling accordion player wandering from restaurant to restaurant playing Italian love songs here when they had first met.

Today, there wasn’t anyone in sight.

Back then, the tablecloth had been a red and white checkered one. Today, at the table that Richard selected, there was a plain white linen covering.

He got up when he saw Lillianna, hugged her, and they both sat down. Lillianna’s eyes drifted off with the warm breeze to take in the crowds of locals and tourists wandering down Mulberry Street before focusing her attention on Richard.

He looked nice, but he seemed distracted, as he always did lately. He had a white blazer on over a crisp blue shirt with the arms cuffed up just slightly. His brown hair was a bit tousled and appeared wet, although it was probably just hair product. He wore tight-fitting blue jeans with a gold-plated buckle and prided himself on working out at his health club at least five days a week, even after long hours at the brokerage there in the city.

One of the wait staff came rapidly over to the table where they were both seated and handed them a menu. Richard ordered some wine for the table and a shrimp puttanesca entrée with penne. Lillianna went with the steamed mussels and baked rigatoni. The pair settled back into their chairs and into the kind of easy conversation that people who have known each other for some time can engage in.

“How is everything at the office?” asked Richard.

“It’s okay, but there was some news . . .,” Lillianna began.

“Hold on a second Lill, I just have to take this.”

Richard got up from the table and walked out to the street for a minute to answer his phone. There was always another important call from the office it seemed.

The wine arrived and Lillianna poured a full glass for herself from the carafe now placed in the center of the small table.

Richard returned a few minutes later. “Sorry about that. There’s just a lot going on right now. You know Lil, we really have some exciting IPOs—Initial Public Offerings—coming up. You might want to get in on the ground floor and make some real money.”

“I’ll think about it,” she responded, uninterested. She had much more on her mind than IPOs right now.

“I mean, it’s not just about diversifying your financial products anymore, that’s the whole thing,” continued Richard pouring some wine for himself.

“I know that, Richard.”

She looked at the young man across from her. He had once been filled with such passion and talked about so many different things. Now it was always about money, finances, and new financial vehicles for that money. Working in the city had changed him. She hoped it hadn’t changed her, but deep down she knew that it had.

Lillianna’s parents liked him. They said he was “a catch” and a “good provider” and all of the usual terminology relating to the idea that someone is financially stable. However, as time had passed, Lillianna realized more and more that something was missing in her relationship with him.

Richard’s green eyes too had once always looked as though they were searching the distant horizon for something more, for new horizons of possibility. Now, there was an almost glazed-over look and he had become distant at times, calculating and focused on just money and how to always make more of it. The conversations had also changed from when they first met. They used to talk about art, culture, places that they wanted to visit, and a litany of other topics that seemingly had no limit.

The food arrived and was placed carefully in front of each of them.

“Is there anything else you need?” asked the member of the wait staff.

“No, thank you, that will be all for now,” Richard replied for both of them, picking up his fork and looking eagerly at the meal. “So, what were you saying again, Lil?” he asked between full bites.

Lillianna spooned some of the mussels onto her plate, followed by the pasta as she went down into her thoughts. She placed the napkin on her lap. “I’ve just been thinking about a lot of things today. You know I was at the MET uptown last weekend. I don’t know why, but I just found myself staring for such a long time at this one particular painting.”

Richard had clearly forgotten that she was an amateur art connoisseur and spent many free weekends happily wandering alone through the many art museums that dotted the city.

“What painting?” Richard asked, not really paying much attention and continuing to look at a graph of how the market was performing on the screen of his phone, which had now migrated its way to a prominent spot where it sat seemingly permanently on the white linen tablecloth along with their dinner.

“It was this painting of The Princesse de Broglie. She was this young woman. I believe she was twenty-eight at the time, and she was wearing this beautiful blue dress. She looked very wealthy and very aristocratic. Her black hair was so neatly parted, the powder blue dress was just so powerful in its impact visually, and she had her arms laden with jewelry crossed against an elegant gold chair.”

“And so . . .,” Richard remarked, rushed, and clearly wanting to move on to some other topic.

“Well, you know, she didn’t seem happy. There was this sadness in her face.”

“It’s just a painting.” Richard took some bruschetta from the table and dipped it in the imported olive oil that had been placed in a small dish.

“No, it was more than that,” continued Lillianna. “The thing is, I found out that she died at thirty-five after being painted at twenty-eight. She had a great mind and so much to offer the world, but you know . . . she was also sad too, despite everything.”

“You’re probably reading too much into it,” said Richard, chewing and reaching for a bit more of the bruschetta.

“No, the guide told me that she suffered from melancholia.”

“Really, is that so?”

Lillianna reached for a few of the steamed mussels. “It’s just, none of us know how long we have. I’m sure she didn’t know how little time she had when she was painted in that beautiful dress.”

“That’s true, Lill, but that’s why you want to make as much money as you can while you’re here.”

“I know, but it’s just that, you also want to be happy to some degree. Sometimes you have a lot and not enough, all at the same time.”

“You’re not really making a lot of sense.” Richard ran his non-fork holding hand through his hair.

“No, I mean it,” Lillianna continued. “I want to be happy because that’s just the thing, I don’t know how long I will be here. She didn’t know, and I don’t either. She was so young, but still so sad in that painting. She’s all dressed up for maybe a party that never arrived. I don’t want that to happen to me. I just don’t want to miss out on my life.”

“Well, that’s good, babe. Of course, what is it that they say ‘carpe diem,’ right?”

“Yes, that’s right,” remarked Lillianna, dismissing the subject and going back to her mussels, feeling completely ignored by the man across from her who now felt more and more like a distant stranger as he continued tapping away on his phone.

“So, I have to tell you something, Richard.”

“Yeah, of course, anything.”

“Well, the firm is sending me to Budapest.”

“That sounds great. What’s the problem?”

“It’s for an indefinite duration.”

Richard looked up from his phone. “They can’t do that, can they?”

Lillianna took a sip of her second glass of wine. “If I want to still have a job, they can.”

“What is there to do in Budapest? Seriously, you’re just going to leave all of this behind?”

Richard’s phone lit up yet again. He took a bite of his food and typed out another message, not waiting for Lillianna’s response.

“I don’t know, but I don’t really have a choice it seems,” she answered while absentmindedly taking a bite of the rigatoni, only to realize that it had already turned cool.

“Any idea how long you’ll be there?” asked Richard, keeping his face down at his phone, still answering message after message.

“I really don’t know. I guess until whatever mystery project they have me working on is finally finished.”

“But seriously, there’s no idea of how long the project is?”

“None.”

“It could be fun, I guess.” Richard looked at her for a second, about to put down his phone before more messages began to light up again.

“Lill, I have to get back to the office.”

“This late?” She asked in protest, baffled that it was the conclusion to their conversation about her having to move indefinitely to the other side of the world.

“Money is always working Lill. It doesn’t go to bed. You know that.”

He got up and kissed her, carelessly missing her lips. “Will you be alright getting back home? I’d say we could split a cab but I’m going in the opposite direction for the office.”

“I’ll be fine,” Lillianna responded, in a barely audible voice.

Richard slapped money on the table and waved goodbye to Lillianna as if he had just left a business meeting.

Lillianna sat at the table alone with the empty white plates and the remaining bits of sauce and pasta from their dinner. Finishing the little bit of wine in the carafe, Lillianna looked down at her watch to see that it was already after ten.

She made the quick decision to walk the short distance and enjoy the New York City night before arriving at the nearest cross road, Broome Street, where she would hail a cab.

Apparently, Richard wouldn’t be affected much whether I left for Budapest or stayed in New York, she thought to herself. He has his stocks after all.