Page 3 of Pretending I'm Yours

“As you can see from the projections, our Q4 earnings will exceed expectations by seventeen percent.” I click to the next slide, my voice steady and calm despite the strange sense of being in the wrong place at the wrong time that’s haunted me for the past week.

The holidays are always hard.

I lost my grandmother on Christmas Day when I was seven. And though my uncle Chris and aunt Tina took me in and loved me like one of their own, Christmas was never the same. Erica left me in December, too, though her exit was far less expected than Gran’s. My brilliant, kind, hard-loving grandmother had been sick for as long as I’d known her. Even as a young child, a part of me had known that my time with her was limited.

But Erica…

My ex gave no sign that she was unhappy in our marriage, not until the evening I arrived home early on Christmas Eve with surprise tickets to Tahiti to find her in bed with the doorman.

She calmly asked me for a divorce. I just as calmly gave her that divorce—and the penthouse we once called home—and moved on with my signature logic, speed, and efficiency. Still, come the holiday season, my nerves get raw and my feet start to itch.

I begin to dream of exotic places and wild escapes…

Two years ago, I took that trip to Tahiti alone. Last year, I spent December working remotely from a ski chalet in Switzerland.

This year, I thought I was far enough removed from the divorce to stomach the city in all its manic merriment, but for the past three days I’ve felt two steps ahead of disaster.

What kind of disaster?

I’m not sure.

I’m not the kind of man who has breakdowns, but I’m not the kind of man who trails off in the middle of a presentation, either.

And yet…here we are.

“Anthony?” Gerald, a nearly seventy-five-year-old former banker, who can’t seem to quit the finance biz, no matter how many times he’s tried, peers at me over wire-rimmed glasses. “Everything all right, son?”

I blink and take a breath to assure him I’m fine—and so are the emerging market returns—but my mouth refuses to obey.

I shake my head slowly back and forth as I study the dozen faces around the mahogany conference table. The board members—all men and women I’ve known for over a decade, many of whom I consider friends—are waiting for me to continue. Some are smiling, some look worried. Some are taking notes. Others are already mentally spending their bonuses.

I’ll be getting a large bonus this year, too, but I’m already a billionaire. Even after Erica took her share in the divorce, I want for nothing. I will never have to worry about money again. Neither will my aunt or uncle or any of my cousins. If this job were just about a paycheck, I would have quit years ago.

But for me, this business has always been about the puzzle of it all, the thrill of studying the moving pieces and putting the competition in check before they realize the game is underway. I never thought I’d get tired of the hunt, the chase, the kill. I’m not a violent man in any sense of the word, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy crushing my competition.

Or, at least I did…

But lately, I haven’t enjoyed much of anything outside of long runs in the park before work, during which I binge history podcasts and do my best not to think about work.

And suddenly, with the clarity of a man waking from a long dream, I realize this isn’t just my usual holiday blues.

This is it, the moment I make a massive, possibly mad, but much-needed change.

With a soft exhalation, I close my laptop. “Actually, no, Gerald. Everything isn’t all right. I need to go.”

Miranda from Acquisitions tilts her head sharply to the right. “Go where? We still have the comparative analysis to review and only two hours before the holiday weekend.”

“You can go over the analysis without me. It’s all there in the email. You don’t need me.” I laugh, surprised by the hope in the sound . “You really don’t. The company’s going to be fine. There are half a dozen people who can fill my shoes, with ease.”

“Of course there aren’t, don’t be ridiculous.” Gerald says, concern in his tone. “I think we should take a break and?—”

“I don’t need a break. I need to leave.” I glance around the table at the now uniformly stunned-looking faces of the board. “I’ll send you a list of candidates I think will do an outstanding job in this position by the end of the year.” I stand, straightening my tie, as if a crooked tie matters at this juncture.

But it’s habit.

So much of my life is habit, routines based on choices I made decades ago, and suddenly it seems insane that I haven’t stopped to question them long before now. Maybe even more insane than quitting my job in the middle of the end-of-year board meeting.

“I’m stepping down, effective immediately,” I continue. “My shares will be placed in a blind trust until the board approves a successor.”

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