Icarus

THREE

The wedding was your basic nightmare. Caroline's parents wanted a fancy affair, several hundred people, held down in Virginia on the family grounds. Dom thought it should be upstairs at the Old Homestead Restaurant, the venerable steak joint on Fifteenth Street. It was near enough so the boys in the meat markets could easily get there, and they had good, icy-cold beer on tap.

They compromised. Jack and Caroline got married in the late morning in a judge's chamber down at City Hall. Her parents came up for the ceremony, as did her two sisters, Llewellyn and Susanna Rae. Llewellyn was the perfect Southern belle, gracious and friendly toward all. Susanna Rae was distant and seemed resentful of Caroline's happiness. She stayed separate from the group, barely acknowledged Jack's existence, and looked as if the short and simple vows were for no other purpose than to inflict upon her a painful and permanent wound.

Caroline's family did not attend the party that followed the wedding. It was their way of showing disapproval without having a confrontation. They waited back at their midtown hotel. Dom threw a bash at his market – it was Caroline's choice of locations. Jack stood in a tuxedo, the first one he'd ever worn, and Caroline was radiant in a white silk blouse and short, white silk skirt, The beer, scotch, and bourbon – and even a bit of champagne – flowed while a band played raucous rock and roll all afternoon. They danced among the hanging slabs of beef, kicking up sawdust, and everyone from Jack's and Dom's past lined up to kiss and hug the glowing bride. At six o'clock, Jack and Caroline hopped in a taxi, rode out to the airport, and met the Hale family. They all took the shuttle to Washington, D.C., then drove from there to the farm in Virginia, just outside Charlottesville. The next day was an all-day party. Tents were set up on the property, an orchestra played sonorous chamber music, hundreds of elegant friends pressed checks into Jack's or Caroline's hands and wished them well. Jack, for the most part, stayed silent, not wanting to say the wrong thing or reveal just how uncomfortable he truly felt stepping up in class. References were made to events he hadn't heard of. People laughed at jokes he didn't understand. There were toasts singing Caroline's praises from scores of people she'd never mentioned to him, including several obvious ex-suitors. Caroline's father spoke about what a fine young man Jack was, greatly exaggerating his background and accomplishments. Her mother kissed Jack on the cheek, the barest graze of a kiss, whispering to him that he had a real handful to take care of.

But he knew that wasn't true. Caroline was no handful. She was easy. And it would always be easy between them because they were in love.

They left the next morning for the honeymoon, a week in a small hotel on the Caribbean island of Virgin Gorda. They had their own one-bedroom cabin, with a thatched roof and an outdoor shower, which was all they needed since it never went below eighty degrees.

On the plane ride down, they were holding hands, sitting in a comfortable silence; he was thinking about the party in Virginia and he knew she was too. He squeezed her hand tighter and said to her, "Why did you marry me?"

"You mean seeing where I come from, seeing my friends, seeing the bucolic life I'm leaving behind to go live the pauper's life in the evil city with a nobody like you?"

He shrugged, then nodded and said, "Something like that, yeah."

She turned her head, just an inch, so her eyes could search his. When they were done searching, she smiled gently, then she, too, squeezed harder and said, "I don't want you to become like those people, you know."

"I won't," he told her. "I don't think I can."

"That's good," she said. "That's why I married you."

Their week in Virgin Gorda was a lot like being in heaven. They sat on the beach and read, took long walks, spent hours out on the water, motoring around in a little putt putt that came with the room. They snorkeled and ate grilled lobster and drank rich, foamy pina coladas that were dappled with nutmeg. They talked long into the night, confiding their fears about and their confidence in their future and revealing what little they hadn't yet revealed about their pasts.

Day and night they lay in their king-size bed under the ceiling fan, the slats in the windows letting in a faint sea breeze, holding each other. She would stretch out, naked, and let him stroke her. He would kiss the tops of her thighs, staring down the seemingly endless length of her magically bronzed legs toward her slender bare feet. She would guide him into her and moan with pleasure. He was always surprised that someone so elegant and in control could be so sensual and sexually uninhibited. Sometimes she screamed so loudly they would start laughing. She told him it was a good thing their room was so close to the water, that the roar of the waves better drown her out or hotel security would come and drag him away.

When they returned to New York – there was never any question that they would live there – they began the daunting task of becoming not just life partners but business partners. They found themselves strategizing long into the night. They would go out for a pizza or some Chinese food, planning on a movie afterward, but they would get so excited discussing the details of their planned restaurant that the movie never materialized. They would stay in the pizza place, jabbering at each other, throwing out questions, tossing back just-thought-of answers, until they'd be asked to leave because the table was needed, then they'd move on to a coffee shop or a bar and plan away until they'd realize it was two in the morning and time to go home.

They searched for the right location. There were all sorts of variables and rules, they knew, but "right" meant "affordable," so they wound up breaking the rules. They found the perfect setup: a small brownstone with the first floor licensed for a commercial business. It was easily convertible into a restaurant space; there was even a garden out back with a patio. The only problem was that it was on a side street in Chelsea. Hardly any foot traffic. Not a very desirable area, not back then. Too far west, too far downtown. Too downscale, too rough a neighborhood. But they could afford it. Their first investment, before they bought a can of paint or a single piece of silverware, was a small blue-and-white awning. On it, it said "Jack's T-Bone" in small, scripted letters. The awning stood at the front of the building for a full year before the restaurant opened. Every time he saw it, it gave Jack the confidence to succeed and made him understand that his dream was about to become a reality.

Caroline was the one who insisted they buy, not rent. It made him nervous – Jack had never owned anything more expensive than a leather jacket. But she said they had to look into the future. If they owned the property, they could do what they wanted with it. They would be the ones in control. And, besides, they could live above the restaurant. Not only would they have a beautiful home, they could serve the last customer, lock the door of their business, and be in bed two minutes later.

"That'll save us an hour in travel time a day," she said. And then with a deviously innocent look, "We're going to have kids, Jack. I figure four or five of them. That means an hour more we can stay in bed and work on that."

She put up her trust fund as collateral, which the bank instantly accepted, and the town house was theirs.

It seemed like the world was theirs, too.

The restaurant was an immediate success. It started out as an old-fashioned chophouse, serving the best cuts of carefully aged meat, the perfect Caesar salad, and their signature dish, Jack's Potatoes, a circular sculpture of thinly sliced potatoes fried in a cast-iron skillet with shallots and onions. Jack learned about other kinds of food, too. He absorbed the details that, for him, made what he did an art, not just a business. From the fish vendors at the South Street Seaport, he learned that line-caught was better than net-caught – water got in a fish's mouth when it was net-caught; that bloated it and made it less tasty. He learned about baking. Jean-Guy, the white-haired Parisian who was the master baker at the Van Dam Street Bakery, taught him that hard wheat is best for bread, soft wheat is most proper for pastries, and it didn't take Jack long before he could, by taste, pick out the breads that were naturally leavened from sourdough starters. From the farmers who sold him fruits and vegetables at the Union Square Farmers' market, he began to understand the subtle tastes of the best tomatoes and onions and herbs. Gradually, as Jack became more sophisticated, gently guided by Caroline, so, too, did the restaurant. They traveled to Italy, rented a small house in Tuscany, and stumbled into a wonderful trattoria outside of Lucca called Prago. They asked questions, observed every little detail, and, most of all, made friends with the owner, Piero, who finally sent them on their way with the secrets to three of his special pasta sauces, all of which were added to the New York menu. And, suddenly, aromatic truffles began appearing, for special customers, in Jack's Potatoes. When California cuisine came in, they resisted the extreme and faddish combination of tastes, but accepted that American cooking had changed and changed for the better. The restaurant reflected those changes. They were soon serving sliced onions and blood oranges on a bed of arugula, and their chicken and fish began to be influenced by everyone from Wolfgang Puck to Paul Prudhomme. The key to their success, though, was always simplicity; both Jack and Caroline recognized that and never strayed from it. Soon, even the name was simplified. Jack's T-Bone was shortened to Jack's. Within two years of opening, they were a New York institution. Reservations had to be made weeks in advance. But the menu stayed small, the atmosphere homely, the service impeccable. Jack knew, as good as his food was, people did not come to his restaurant for the food. They came because he and Caroline – and everyone who worked there – made each and every customer feel important. They made a point of only hiring nice people, smart people, people who cared. They paid well and treated the staff as if they were family and it paid off big-time because customers left the restaurant with a sense of intimacy and loyalty.

It did not take long before Jack's had made them successful and confident and, in an era where restaurateurs were often bigger stars than the celebrities they served, even somewhat famous. They were profiled in the New York Times Magazine and Caroline revealed her current reading list in Vanity Fair's "Night-Table Reading" page. Periodically, one of the tabloids or TV shows would dig into Jack's past. Sometimes a magazine would even reprint the infamous Post headline about his mother's death: HEIGHT OF INSANITY. But for the most part they were both able to focus on the present and the future. And, of course, the restaurant. They published Jack's Cookbook with Knopf, and in Zagat, almost every year, someone wrote a variation of: "And, yes, Jack himself came to our table to make sure everything was all right." But Jack's had never been about the money or the fame. From the very beginning, Jack's was always about doing what they loved more than anything in life.

Four years after the first restaurant opened, they expanded. First to Chicago, then to L.A. and Miami, finally overseas to Paris, where the idea of an American steakhouse became the rage. Jack and Caroline opened all of them, were involved in everything from the bottom up: they worked with architects and decorators on the design, consulted with chefs about the food, shared the risks with various financial partners, spent the time to make sure the quality and the ambience were up to their standards.

Seven years after the first Jack's had opened, business was booming and they began to plan a London opening. The restaurant in New York had become too small for their needs. They sold the town house – the yuppification of Manhattan was in full bloom and Caroline's prediction had proved correct: the property was sold for many times what they had paid for it – and moved the restaurant uptown to the heart of the theater district, on Forty-seventh Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue. They needed a new apartment now, too, and Jack found a perfect one. He wouldn't tell Caroline anything about it, just led her up to Madison and Seventy-seventh Street, nodded to the doormen, who were expecting them, and took her upstairs in the elevator to show her what he hoped would be their new home.

It was quite spectacular: three bedrooms and a formal dining room, a wonderful kitchen, and a living room that was dominated by an ornate, hand-carved mantel over a huge working fireplace. But what made it truly special was something that made Caroline stop dead in her tracks. Something that stunned her and caused her to stare at her husband in wonder.

The apartment had a spectacular wraparound terrace. From different vantage points, it overlooked most of Manhattan. It was, without doubt, one of the great views in New York.

It was also the penthouse of the building.

On the eighteenth floor.

Caroline let Jack lead her through the sliding glass door and onto the terrace. She watched him step gingerly outside and walk to the large round cast-iron table and chairs that the current owners had left behind, set up in the center of the space, the only furniture left in the entire apartment. She walked past him, to the protective waist-high brick wall that went all around the balcony. Unthinkingly, she touched the wall, put her palm flat against it, and suddenly realized what she'd done. She watched Jack, saw his face go pale and his knees start to buckle. She immediately took her hand off the cool brick wall but it was too late. She saw him sit heavily in one of the chairs around the table, his chest heaving as he struggled to breathe. Caroline shook her head, furious at herself for her inadvertent cruelty, but she wondered what the hell he was thinking to want this apartment, because if she knew anything about her husband, it was that he was absolutely, insanely, phobically afraid of heights.

He had been ever since the day his mother was killed.

Since then, he had not, if it could possibly be avoided, gone above the sixteenth floor of any building. He didn't like to fly. He wouldn't sit in the upper tier of a sports stadium or a theater. She knew there were specific things that triggered the most painful of his memories and certain moments when the fear would overcome and even paralyze him. She had been with him long enough to know he could never go as close as she had to the wall. She also understood that he did not like seeing other people standing so close to a precipice. Especially women. And especially his wife.

She watched as Jack sank deeper into the chair, then took the six steps she needed to stand next to him and hold his hand. He looked up at her, the color beginning to come back in his face now, his breathing slowing, becoming easier.

"Do you like it?" he gasped and she had to burst out laughing.

"Yes," she said. "I love it. It's my dream apartment. But it might be a little tough living here if you're going to pass out once or twice a day."

"No," he said, his voice still low and hoarse and his breathing still heavy. "I want it."

"Jack, it's crazy. Let's just find our beautiful dream apartment that's on the third floor of some other building."

But he insisted. It was time to get over his fear, he said. Time to get rid of the ghosts that had been haunting him. She argued, told him there were other ways, but she stopped arguing when he said, "It's a good apartment for kids."

She didn't respond to that at first, let a long silence linger in the air. She spent those silent moments staring at him, squinting her eyes, and then nodding, finally, when she decided she'd come up with the answer. "Do you think," Caroline said, "that when we have kids, they'll grow up and not be frightened by things because they grew up here, above the seventeenth floor?"

"Yes," he said, not at all surprised that she had understood. "That's exactly what I think."

She nodded. Then said, "That's an ugly carpet in the living room, isn't it?"

"Hideous," he agreed.

"On the other hand, it looks kind of comfortable."

"Extremely."

"Comfortable enough to try to make a baby on?" she asked.

"There's only one way to find out," he answered.

And he let her lead him out of his chair and into the living room, where they began to make love on the hideous living room carpet of their new apartment.

– "-"-"RIGHT AFTER THEY moved in, Caroline got pregnant for the first time. Three weeks before the due date, they finished converting one bedroom into the baby's room – a room for a baby boy, as the tests had revealed – and filled it with toys and clothes and even painted stars on the ceiling above the crib. A week before she was due, Caroline doubled over with pain and Jack rushed her to the hospital. The baby was delivered by Cesarean and was stillborn. They grieved for months but they dealt with their loss by loving each other all the more and then Caroline was pregnant again. This time, two months into the pregnancy she began hemorrhaging and the baby had to be aborted.

A few days before their ninth anniversary, she announced to Jack that she was pregnant yet again. They took every possible precaution. She stayed away from the restaurant, didn't exercise the way she usually did at the gym, drank not a drop of alcohol, and went on a vegetarian diet. They had put off the opening of the Jack's in London because of the first two pregnancies, but they decided they couldn't delay any longer. The doctor suggested that flying was not in her or the baby's best interest, so for the first time she let Jack do most of the work and all of the traveling. He spent at least a week a month in England for several months, making sure it all went right while she rested and ate well and didn't drink in New York, making certain that all went right there. Since their very first date, they had spent nearly every minute together and Jack, to his surprise, found himself guiltily enjoying the separation. They spoke constantly and he filled her in on every business detail, but for the first time he understood that they now had secrets from each other. He could not possibly tell her everything he did and thought and he realized it was the same for her. Women flirted with him and came on to him and he enjoyed it. He went out with his male friends, too, at pubs and private gambling casinos in Mayfair, and he enjoyed that, too. He began to horde his little secrets and he wondered how that would affect his life with Caroline when he returned home. They were harmless, he decided, and would not affect it at all.

But Caroline's secrets were not as trivial. Right after the London opening, Jack came home and she told him that, once again, there would be no baby. She had gone into the hospital and now it was all over. She hadn't called him over there, hadn't wanted to tell him on the phone, not while he was overseeing everything. But this time was different. There were new complications: the doctor told her she could no longer have children.

She cried and they hugged and, as before, their wounds gradually healed. And, as before, as Caroline had said, the scars left them different people. Not better, not worse, just different.

– "-"-"ONE OF THE biggest differences was that they let Kid Demeter come into their lives.

It began the night of their tenth anniversary. They were home, just the two of them. Jack was going to cook and they were going to have a romantic evening, going to make love and try, as they often did now, not to think about the fact that they would never have a child. They were listening to Chet Baker in Paris. Jack would always remember that "My Funny Valentine" was playing because it was Caroline's favorite song, and they were touching their champagne glasses in a toast when the phone rang. It was Dom, and as soon as Jack heard his voice he said, "We're drinking champagne and whispering sweet nothings. When can you be here?" But when Dom was silent, Jack knew something was wrong, so then he just said, "What is it?"

"It's Sal," Dom said.

Jack put his champagne glass down and said, "Shit."

Sal Demeter worked for Dom, and had worked alongside Jack for years at the plant. When Jack was a teenager, Sal had always treated him like a man instead of a boy; he was the first one ever to take Jack out drinking and once let Jack, when he was fourteen, drive Sal's station wagon down an empty West Side Highway in the middle of the night. Sal was a hell of a guy. Huge, three hundred pounds, easy. An enormous belly that jutted way out in front of him. Hands that looked like ham hocks and arms that looked as if they could lift anything. That could lift anything. Not the brightest guy who ever lived, but kind and surprisingly gentle for such a giant of a man.

Dom told Jack that Sal had just finished work. He was walking across the floor, fiddling with the string on his apron, getting ready to yank it off, when he began staggering. The big man took three or four quick steps and fell to his knees. Remained there for another second or two, just long enough for people to start running over to him, then he toppled forward, twisting slightly to his side, and was dead. Sal wasn't quite forty-five and he'd left a wife and fourteen-year-old son and, Jack was certain, not much insurance money. The fourteen-year-old was George, but no one had called him that since, well, probably since he was three months old. Right from the start it was Kid. Kid Demeter.

It began with Dom and Jack helping him out. Jack, especially, and later Caroline, talked to the boy, eased him through the crisis of losing a father, and the bond formed easily and naturally. At first it was based on need – Jack's and Caroline's as well as Kid's – but it lasted because of genuine affection and, ultimately, love. They gave the boy money when he needed it. Gave him advice when he needed it, too, and he usually needed that more often than the money. Kid was a wise guy, a tough kid. Stubborn as hell, always in and out of trouble. But there was something about him that was more than just an iron-willed street kid. Kid wanted to make something of himself. Jack saw it in his eyes, recognized it because he knew he'd had that same look when he was young. Kid wanted out and up. Out of the life that had molded him and up to a new and different level. Jack and Caroline's level.

Jack took him to Knicks games, as Dom had taken Jack years before. Kid grew into a talented athlete, so Caroline went to Staten Island and talked to Kid's mother, explaining that they were willing to send him to a suburban prep school so he could play football. LuAnn Demeter agreed, saying she wanted whatever was best for her son, so off Kid went to Bay Shore, Long Island, and to Webster's Academy. Jack also arranged for Kid's best friend, Bryan Bishop, to get a scholarship there. Bryan was enormous; he didn't just look like an offensive lineman, he looked like an entire offensive line. He was also devoted to Kid; they seemed joined at the hip and had been since they were little boys. It had been Caroline's suggestion to try to keep them together. She thought it would make Kid's transition a little easier as he began his new life.

Jack and Dom would drive up to watch their football games – Kid used his toughness to quickly become a star quarterback; Bryan rapidly became one of the best blocking fullbacks in the state – and afterward they'd take both boys out for pizza or, if it was a weekend, into the city to Jack's for a steak. In his free time, Kid was always hanging out at their apartment or at the restaurant. Caroline brought out his soft side and to her he would confide his fears and his problems. These were the only times Kid let down his guard. It was as if he sensed that his presence seemed to salve the wounds that still pained her over her failed pregnancies. With Jack, he was always cocky and confident because that's the way he wanted Jack to see him. He worshiped them both. When Kid reached college age, he went to St. John's in Queens, Jack happily paying the tuition. It's not a loan, he told Kid, it's an investment. He meant an investment in Kid's future but he also meant more than that. When Kid was going on twenty-one and a junior – still a quarterback, still friends with Bryan, who was still blocking for him – Jack took Kid out to dinner after a game, just the two of them, and said that he and Caroline had begun talking about it and if Kid was interested, they'd like him to think about coming into the business with them. Kid was overwhelmed by the offer but only said, cockily, yeah, he just might be interested at that. Jack had wanted more of a response but he knew the boy well, knew how pleased he was. A couple of weeks later, after another game, it was dinner as usual with Dom and Kid and Bryan, and Bryan got Jack off to the side, told him that Kid had mentioned what Jack had said. Kid's friend said that he'd never seen Kid so excited or happy about anything in his whole life.

But Kid didn't come into the restaurant business.

And he didn't grow into the son that Jack and Caroline had not been able to conceive.

Instead, he disappeared.

He had been devastated by something that had happened near the end of his junior year. A teammate, Harvey Wiggins, someone Kid had been close to, had been seriously injured on the football field during a team practice. Harvey had come in hard on defense, trying for a sack on Kid, and he got blocked at the wrong angle. Kid heard the snap when Harvey's neck broke and he saw him flop to the ground, a quadriplegic now and forever. Caroline had spent many hours talking to Kid about the accident; for some reason Kid had assumed a strong sense of guilt and shame and she assured him that he was not to blame. "People take risks," she told him, over and over again. "You can't protect everyone from what's nothing more than normal life."

But Kid changed after that incident. He became more withdrawn, spoke mostly in monotones and seemed to have little energy. Jack sat him down, asked him if he'd started taking drugs, but Kid denied that. There was no denying that a wall had come up between them, though, and then he came to Jack and Caroline at the end of his junior year, told them he was dropping out of school. Kid was very evasive, almost seemed angry, and reverted to his younger, sullen ways.

"Kid," Jack said, "I don't think this is something you can just decide on your own. Why don't you stay here a few days and we can discuss-"

"No!" It was the first time Kid had ever raised his voice to them. But he didn't back down. His words were forceful and full of fire. "There's nothing to discuss," he said. "I'm outta here."

"Is it anything we did?" Caroline asked. Her voice was soft and tentative, as if she were soothing a wounded puppy. "Because if it is, maybe we can fix it."

Kid responded to the softness. He looked, for a moment, as if he might collapse or burst into tears. But then his face turned grim. He wouldn't meet her eyes, just shook his head and clammed up again.

"I think you owe us more of an explanation," Jack said, and again Kid's anger seemed to surge through him.

"I don't owe you anything," he said, "except to get the hell away from you."

He refused to take any money, wouldn't give any further explanation. He said he'd get in touch as soon as he knew where he was going, but he never did. No call, no e-mail, no postcard with a phone number or address.

Not a thing.

One day he was there. The next day he was not.

Jack and Caroline were devastated. They discussed it endlessly. What had they done wrong? What had happened? Were drugs involved? Was he in trouble? They tried several times to find him through various friends and connections at St. John's. Bryan couldn't help them; he was devastated because Kid had cut all ties with him, too. Even Kid's mother had to admit that while she got postcards and letters from her son, she did not know how to get in touch with him. For many months, Kid's disappearance dominated their lives until Caroline said, "No more. We have to let it go," and when Jack said, "I don't know if I can," she shook her head firmly and insisted, "We have to. It's just as if we've lost another child."

Jack knew she was right. They had lost another child.

Gone is gone, Dora had said.

And Kid Demeter was gone.