Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney - The Nest

“That’s one way to put it. The one who gets it done. Sound familiar?”

Leo’s heart sank. Ari Rothstein had been one of the last SpeakEasy stories of his tenure. A community college kid — kind of portly, dull looking — who sent in a video résumé for a tech-support job. Leo had come to the office one morning to find everyone standing around a monitor, hooting and laughing. The tape started with Ari Rothstein in an ill-fitting suit reeling off his technical experience and then absurdly and awkwardly interrupting himself by removing his jacket, putting on a baseball cap, and singing a nonsensical rap parody about tech support. The chorus was the inelegant and forgettable “I’m the one to get it done.” (I’m the ONE. I’m the ONE. I’m the ONE to get it DONE!) It was awful, and hilarious.

“We’re putting it on the site,” Leo had said, before he’d even watched the entire four minutes and thirty-two seconds. Everyone thought he was kidding at first, but he knew click-through gold when he saw it. It was SpeakEasyMedia’s first huge viral video, and Ari Rothstein had been vilified and mocked for weeks, everywhere — online, in print, on television. His clip ended up on a Today Show segment called, “How NOT to Get That Job You Really Want.”

“You hired that guy?”

“Noooo.” Nathan drew out the word as if he were talking to someone incredibly dim. “ That guy is dead. He overdosed a few years ago. His brother was with the company before they acquired us, and he didn’t speak to me for more than a year. It took a long time to gain his trust, convince him that I didn’t have anything to do with the incident, and that I regretted it, which I do. What we did back then? It was okay. It was fun. But it wasn’t exactly honorable, Leo. It’s not what I want to be remembered for.”

“I don’t either. That’s my point.”

“I can’t, Leo. I can’t. I’m not saying the Ari thing is your fault — our fault — or anything like that. I’m saying things are different. The business world is different. I’m different. I hope you’re different. And I can’t hire you.”

Leo sat for the first time since entering the bar. He was trying to think of the right thing to say, the sensitive and appropriate thing, but what came out instead was a joke, one the old Nathan might have found amusing. “I guess Ari Rothstein really was the one to get it done.”

After a long silence, Nathan said, “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. Good luck, Leo. Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Don’t be. I have other irons in the fire.”

“Good.”

“Not that you asked, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that in my opinion you should have some concerns about throwing your financial efforts behind Paul Underwood.”

“Is that right?”

“I like Paper Fibres, too, but things are completely chaotic over there. I don’t think Paul has the kind of leadership you’re going to need to bring this forward. I don’t think he’s your guy.”

Nathan stared at the floor and then slowly looked back up at Leo, pityingly. “I was hoping you wouldn’t show up here and still be a prick, Leo. I was really hoping.”

“Don’t misunderstand. I like Paul—”

Nathan put out his hand and Leo reluctantly stood and shook it. “Best of luck, Leo. I hope you get your shit together. For Stephanie’s sake.”

“I’m going to have to take my ideas elsewhere.”

“Be my guest. Just don’t ever drop my name again.”

“Fuck you, Nathan.”

“Right back at you, mate.”

Leo watched Nathan make his way out the bar. He sat back down and took a deep breath, trying to process what had just happened. His phone on the bar started vibrating. He looked at the incoming call display and at seeing the name, his heart nearly stopped. Matilda Rodriguez.

Before he’d stupidly let Jack Plumb inside his house, Tommy had had only one scare concerning The Kiss . An FBI unit had knocked on his door one morning when he still lived out in the Rockaways, wanting to talk to him about a missing object from the World Trade site. He’d almost passed out until they explained that they were investigating reported thefts at Fresh Kills and just wanted to know if Tommy remembered seeing the Rodin and, if so, where he’d seen it last. Tommy assured the investigator that he’d delivered it to the Port Authority trailer just like he had with countless other artifacts and left it with someone there whose name he didn’t remember but who had said she’d take care of it.

“That’s the last time I saw it. Sorry, guys,” he told them. “Wish I could be more of a help. It looked like a banged-up piece of crap, to be honest.” The investigators shook his hand, told him how sorry they were for his loss, and that was the last he heard from anyone.

At first, Tommy kept the statue hidden in his bedroom closet in the house in Queens, covered with a pillowcase. He didn’t want his daughters to see it when they visited, approximately a thousand times a week. “Just checking in!” they always said in chirpy voices he’d never heard them employ until he was a widower. But having his wife’s gift in a closet like a shameful secret bothered him. He started to think about moving. The house he’d shared with Ronnie, where they’d raised their children, where they’d had family movie night with popcorn every Friday and had managed to make love every Sunday even when the girls were little, sometimes having to fit it in between commercial breaks on Nickelodeon — but they did, they always did — was too empty, too lonely.

His old friend Will from the fire department told him about Stephanie needing a new tenant. He’d always liked Stephanie. She was a good egg — funny and smart, a hard worker and completely down-to-earth. “What they used to call a real dame,” Ronnie had said, approvingly, when Will brought her to one of their legendary holiday parties and Stephanie had charmed the entire room by singing “(Christmas) Baby Please Come Home,” Darlene Love style, into the karaoke machine they’d hooked up to their TV.

The garden apartment was a little run-down, but he didn’t need much. He just wanted his own place where he could keep the statue and see it every day, somewhere far enough from the Rockaways so his kids wouldn’t drop by without calling first, where he wouldn’t have to answer a lot of questions. The statue had been his well-kept secret. Until Jack Plumb walked into his dining room.

Having Jack Plumb inside his house, walking in circles around the statue like he was evaluating a used car, had caused an unpleasant shift in Tommy. Maybe it wasn’t only Jack, maybe it was the passing of time, the nature of grief, but when he took the statue out of its hiding place now, all he could hear was Jack Plumb saying, Where did you get this? For years, Tommy had worried about somebody seeing the statue, his daughters mostly. And now that someone had, he started to think more clearly about what might happen if he was caught. He hadn’t looked at the statue in more than a week.

Today, two of his three daughters were visiting. He almost always went to them, but a few times a year they planned a trip into “the city” and would detour to Tommy’s place first, delivering bags of groceries they imagined he needed.

His family never managed to hide their dismay at his living conditions and as Maggie and Val barged through the front door, five grandchildren between them now, he braced himself for their familiar complaints and pinched mouths.

“This place could be nice, Dad,” Val said for the hundredth time, “if you’d put in a little effort.” She was unloading groceries onto the kitchen shelves, opening up a package of bright green sponges and using one to wipe down the cabinetry.