I nod. Smile. Everything is very much okay. Pariswasa good idea after all.
Chapter 6
Olivier
Three months before the honeymoon
Being laid off from Bhotel was only one of the wrong turns my life had taken. Growing up, I’d looked at the way my family dragged itself through life in total disbelief. My father was a handyman and my mother traveled one hour by train to man the phones at a used car dealership. Neither had any other ambitions or expressed interest in getting us out of our tiny, dark house in the deep recesses of suburbia. We were painstakingly average. Overcooked meat and canned veggies for dinner, no conversation. Mindless game shows on TV afterward. Rinse, lather, repeat. My older brother, Sébastien, had dropped out of school to become a plumber, the kind of manly job my father envisioned for both of us. I knew from a young age that a grander life awaited me. I just didn’t know how hard it would be to hang on to it once it materialized.
I started my first business at thirteen, taking bets about random things in the schoolyard: which football (European football I mean, a.k.a. soccer) team would win the national championship, what song would hit the top of the charts next week, etc. What started as a fun little game went on to become the event everyone was waiting for at recess. It didn’t happen overnight, of course. I hustled hard, gathered the troops, built up the hype evenwhen I didn’t believe in it myself. I was marketing my business without even knowing what marketing was. And it worked. I took a 15 percent cut of the gains and amassed hundreds of euros in a few months.
This got me noticed by the cool-slash-rich kids. The ones who hosted parties at their beautiful houses while their lawyer or doctor parents were away, who had the latest tech and only wore recognizable brands. They became my friends, sure. But mostly, they represented endless opportunities. I scoured the web for pirated movies or video games, the ones not yet released in France. I waited in virtual lines for hours to get them sought-after tickets to concerts. I got Sébastien to buy liquor for them. And I watched my commissions roll in with heart flutters.
By age sixteen, my dad started making noise about what I would do with my life. Little did he know that I’d quietly been stashing away what, to me and to him, amounted to unthinkable amounts of money. I was ready to think bigger, so I convinced Sébastien to open an investment account in his name, one that I would manage. I’d read all about shorting stocks, how the riskier moves often yielded the greater gains. I’d spend sleepless nights reading financial news and scrutinized stock exchanges worldwide around the clock, learning more English in that time than I ever did in all my school years. Sometimes, I’d earn thousands in a day. Thousands! It was such a thrill in and of itself that I didn’t think about spending it. My only splurges were a new phone and laptop, better tools to keep an eye on the market.
Things took a turn when high school came to an end. My friends moved to Paris for university, something I’d never considered for myself, and my parents put more pressure on me to go out and—ironically—earn some money. When I told them I’d made close to 20,000 euros in the last month, their reaction ping-ponged between disgust and utter distrust. Neither of them made much more than that in a year. I was lying, I had to be.I can do the same for you, I told them.I’ll make you rich.
Famous last words.
It would be years before I realized I was addicted to the chase, the possibility of always more money. Some would have called it gambling, but I didn’t see it that way. What I did required strategy, trusting my gut, riding the highs, learning to bounce back from the lows, which was the hardest part of it. It was better than school, better than a lame job. It was the air I breathed, my thoughts on a continuous loop. My whole life.
I stayed living with my parents and began investing their money. My brother’s money, too. We could have all been set, forever. Occasionally, they asked me if it was time to stop. They had enough for a new car now. Enough for a nice vacation now. Enough for a new home, even. I still remember the day I saw my bank account juiced up to the tune of seven figures. I considered stopping then, I swear I did. I called my friends and asked if they wanted to go on a trip, anywhere in the world, but they were at school. Sébastien had jobs booked. I called a couple of exes—girls I’d dated for a few months but had lost interest in as soon as I sensed they wanted something more serious—but they had new boyfriends. Everyone else had a life. I had money. I could do anything. And I would, right after I made one more bet. Just one more.
It’s obvious by now, isn’t it? I lost everything. My money. My parents’ life savings. My brother’s rainy-day cushion. Plus money I didn’t even have, which I’d somehow have to pay back to the bank. Worse, it turned out that ignoring letters from the tax office—the French equivalent of the IRS—didn’t make them go away. One day I received a visit from the finance brigade. They barged into our home and seized all my tech. They needed to understand how an unemployed, undereducated twenty-five-year-old was moving so much money on a weekly basis. They had to let me off the hook—I wasn’t doing anything illegal—but I’d have to pay taxes on my gains for the last few years.
My parents, broke and spooked, wanted me out. I was a good-for-nothing, a scam artist, a lazy ass who didn’t know the meaning of hard work.Real work.Why couldn’t I earn an honest living? My brother had closedon a house he could no longer afford. He and I got into a fistfight and, even as he punched me in the face, I thought: I can make it all back. Iwillmake it all back.
I was still in touch with my school friends, who frequently visited from Paris on weekends. They had jobs now, in banking or consulting. Not only did they make money, but a couple of them were in serious relationships. One was getting married, even. They knew the gist of my occupation—I’d bragged about my biggest gains more than once—but had no idea I’d lost it all. I told them I was ready to move to the capital and needed a place to crash for a little while. Fabien and Alexandre shared an apartment near Canal Saint-Martin and let me sleep on their couch. Soon, I convinced them to lend me a little money. I was on to something big; they’d make it back tenfold in a few weeks. They knew I had the potential.
I got by like that for a couple of years. Alexandre got his own place and I took over his room in the apartment. I started dating a friend of theirs, Melissa. A few good stock moves got me back in the game, and I borrowed more money from anyone who would lend it to me. My next few moves were not so good ones. I’d sworn I’d never let myself get carried away again, but there I was, owing money to almost everyone I knew. On Melissa’s birthday, I was in the weeds of a new deal and couldn’t be away from my laptop. I never showed up to her party, and she wasted no time in breaking up with me. My friends turned their backs on me. I was a mooch, a loser. My antics had been impressive when we were teenagers but, come on, I needed to grow up. To man up.
So, nearing thirty, penniless, homeless, friendless, I looked for a job for the first time in my life, which is how I ended up waiting tables at Bhotel’s restaurant. I rented a chambre de bonne, a shoebox of a room, a fifth-floor walk-up. I ate ramen noodle at most meals, only bought groceries on sale, agonizing over the price of a carton of milk, most often deciding I didn’t need it in the end. I closed my investment accounts, vowing to never get swallowed into that vortex again. I ignored angry calls and emails frommy family and everyone else I owed money to. I “failed” to give my new address to the tax office to buy myself some time. I woke up in the middle of the night, remembering what had happened—how high I had flown, how low I had fallen—and wished I simply ceased to exist.
At the restaurant, I noticed that the American tourists often slipped me generous tips as they thanked me in their loud, brash voices, and I found myself gravitating toward them. For the money, of course, but I also liked their larger-than-life attitude, how they spent seemingly without counting. Whatever I suggested—the best wines and how about some dessert—they said yes to. My sales acumen got me noticed, and within months, I was moved to the concierge desk. There, I’d recommend ordering breakfast in, booking massages at the overpriced spa, or using our car service, when calling a taxi would have cost a fraction of the price. The Americans ate it up. If I offered them ways to throw more cash at their trip, they jumped at the chance.
When I heard about the branch opening in New York, I saw it as a sign. This was where I needed to be: the land of opportunities. One day, I’d pay back my parents, my brother, my friends, my taxes. One day, I’d be this incredible success story and they’d all curse that time they’d turned on me. One day, I would show them how wrong they all were. One day, one day, one day.
***
It was clear Cassie hadn’t planned on turning her father’s funeral into a minivacation, and yet she had all but moved in with me after that first night. I had no idea what her stepmother believed—that Cassie had gone back home, maybe?—but every time we went out, Cassie checked to make sure Ms. Crowes wasn’t around and then slipped outside like an eel.
I’d also overheard her speak on the phone to, I assumed, her mother. There were mentions of the funeral being fine and of “home” but nothing about going back yet. Cassie was in no rush to leave. I had to use that to my advantage.
At her request, I took her to the famous pizza place, the hot club, the vibey cocktail bar, mentally calculating all the money this was costing me and whether the investment would ever pay off. She kept taking pictures of everything, including us, and immediately posting them on social media. Cassie wanted a good time and I was prepared to show it to her, at least until I could find a way to bring up my wacky idea. The clock was ticking; I was booked on a flight back to Paris less than a week away.
“Do you still have to deal with some of your dad’s stuff?” I said, my tone light as we sat in the back of an Uber on the way home from our third night out. Cassie insisted she wouldn’t take the subway but never reached for her phone or her wallet to pay for anything.
A frown formed between her eyebrows. “Why do you ask?”
I sensed I’d said something wrong. “I mean, um, are you staying longer? You don’t need to be back at work?”
She fired off a text on her phone. I leaned over and tried to read the screen but only caught a glimpse of the recipient’s first name: it began with D.
“Are you trying to get rid of me?” she said sweetly.
Every time she acted all flirty, I was reminded of how little affinity there was between us, let alone chemistry. Could she feel it too? But then I remembered she was my best shot. I couldn’t let her go.
I chuckled. “Not at all! The thing is…I’m going to Paris soon.” I’d already told her I was “taking a break” from my job at Bhotel, but I didn’t think she’d been paying attention.
