E l y s e November 28 y darling Elyse, Being alone might be the healthiest and most terrifying thing I’ve done in a long while—besides falling, heart and soul, for you, of course. I went swimming in the Sound this morning, and it was fucking freezing. You would have laughed at how long it took me to get my whole body into the water. I hated every second of it... but afterward, I felt almost alive. I’m definitely doing it again tomorrow. I might even lean into this whole Wim Hof thing I have going on and grow a beard. I ke ep wondering if you’d approve of it. Confession corner: My family has been covering up every crime and wrongdoing and scandal for generations. Anything that could cast the lightest smudge on our r eputation gets erased. And you know why we do it? Because we can. Because every time we get away with this shit, it makes us cockier. It’s the absolute opposite of courage. During the building of Fairwater in the 1890 s, one of the contractors died. He fell from the scaffolding while tiling the roof. My great-great- grandfather paid off his family to ke ep quiet and had him buried in a grave in the southeasterly corner of the estate. You wouldn’t find it unless you knew where to look, because the small cedar cross that marks it is overrun with ivy. The money that man’s wife received was nowhere near the equivalent of what a wrongful death suit would net her these days, and my great-great-grandfather knew it. The man’s name was John Donnelly, and he had three children. That’s the first documented case I know of where the Vosses threw money at a potential scandal and got away with it scot-free. When I say documented, the details are sealed in the family safe, right here on site. And when I say first, it’s the first that I know of. But it sure as hell isn’t the last. Today’s jobs have been hacking away at all the ivy and ordering a proper marble gravestone for John. God knows every last person in my family could use a more visible reminder that every cowardly choice that we make to erase our crimes and edit our image in real time has a price. That’s why I fell so hard for you, I think. You’re the purest, truest person I’ve ever known. Like I said, your face has nothing on the beauty of your heart. My courier tells me your cherry pie was delicious. More tomorrow, my darling. Yours always, Sinclair M Y EYES ARE WET , and my chin is trembling. I fold the letter back up and sit quietly on my bed for a while, taking a moment to give thanks for the too-short life of John Donnelly. His poor, poor wife. His poor kids. I think back to the gracious, symmetrical splendor that is Fairwater, and my stomach turns. What a price for all that beauty, all that excess. What an awful, terrible price.
I’m not religious in the slightest, but I make a quick sign of the cross. I hope he’s resting in peace. I’m glad Sinclair is choosing to finally honor him in the way he deserves, even if his actions are, ooh, one hundred and thirty years too late. He’s really going for it with this radical transparency thing... But I assume the statute of limitations on poor John Donnelly has long gone. If he’s gonna put his money where his mouth is, then the true test will be whether he’s willing to incriminate himself beyond how he already has. I’m still feeling shaken up about John when I head outside to see the messenger, whom I now know is r eporting back to Sinclair. It shouldn’t surprise me, and it doesn’t. What surprises me is that I don’t mind. It’s a strange feeling, but somehow having Sinclair know these tiny details is its own kind of r eply, and I don’t hate it. It’s the flimsiest string binding us both to what we once had. I hold up a cup of coffee and a brownie and tell him, “No r eply today, thanks.” December 3 G OD , therapy is brutal. Brutal, and endlessly fascinating. Elizabeth—that’s my therapist—is very stern. I think you’d like her. She chides me a lot, which you’d enjoy, though, oddly, she chides me hardest of all when I want to beat myself up for something she believes to be my parents’ fault. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t written you about the therapy stuff yet. I needed some time to process all these “epiphanies” before I could write about them in a remotely coherent way. Confession corner: I’ve used my fixer more than once to dig up dirt on an employee I wanted to get rid of, just so I could fire them for cause and save the firm their severance. Worse, it’s always felt like nothing more than smart thinking. And it’s never even about the money. It’s about getting one over on someone. It’s about never, ever letting someone else win against the Vosses. A few of the many names, if you want them: Carter George, Lena Kowalczyk, Antonio D’Angelo. (Elizabeth asked what I intend to do about Carter and the others besides feel terrible on paper. Fair point. Working on it.) December 5 T ODAY , Elizabeth and I talked about why I paid you for those first two Alchemy sessions (and why I tried to pay you for the ones at my apartment). I assumed it was because I had some fucked-up, entitled need to make my money talk where my charms couldn’t. To back you into a corner, maybe. And I think there was an element of that. But she had another theory. She said it was less about my seeing you as purchasable and more about my being unable to tolerate an unpriced encounter: that if money changed hands, I didn’t have to run the risk of finding out whether I’d be chosen for free. According to her, I probably never have been chosen for myself. More for my name and my money. But I don’t know. This all sounds awfully like “poor little rich boy” to me. What do you think? (Don’t answer that. You don’t owe me your insight.) December 7 C ONFESSION CORNER : Three years ago, I gave one of my best strategists a seriously lukewarm reference to stop him from getting a job he wanted. The job wasn’t even at a competitor—it was as a lecturer at NYU. He was burned out and wanted a change of pace.
He didn’t get the job. He did, however, end up being signed off sick a couple months later with burnout and d epression. He never came back to Voss. December 9 C ONFESSION CORNER : My brother’s wife (the marriage Mom and Dad and her parents strongarmed him into) has been in love with another woman for years. My siblings and I all know. She doesn’t hide it from us. My brother is fine with it—he doesn’t love her either—but neither of them has any clue of how to extricate themselves from the marriage. They’re both that terrified of their parents. It’s so fucked up. (I have her blessing to share this with you, by the way.) December 10 I’ VE NEVER BROKEN up with a woman myself. I’ve always had my assistant do it with a brief phone call and a token couriered from Cartier. The longer you’ve lasted, the nicer the jewelry. It’s like a mini divorce settlement, every time. “Thank you for your time and I’m sorry for your trouble.” You’re actually the first woman who’s broken up with me. When you consider how badly I treat my fellow humans, that’s quite something, isn’t it? I think it’s a combination of factors: most of the women I’ve dated don’t know how rotten my soul is. Some of them don’t want to know. And others don’t care—or it’s a small price to pay for dating a Voss. Because, let’s be honest, it’s not my soul they’re attracted to, is it? I fucking love that you’re not like them. That you had the self-respect to kick me to the curb like the piece of dogshit that I am. December 11 T ODAY I HAD to go into the office for a quarterly board meeting. I was borderline panicky—I felt like the longer I stayed holed up with all my yesmen the quicker I would undo the work I’m doing back here. So I came right back and jumped in the Sound so I could wash Manhattan off my skin. (The beard did not go over well at work. I got more than one Unabomber reference.) December 15 M Y DARLING E LYSE , Did I mention therapy is brutal??? Here’s what I learned about myself today: I was never that fucked-up rich kid who crashed the BMW Daddy bought him or shoplifted for attention. I was a model teenager, a straight-A student. I knew, on some level, that my parents, and their parents, and their social circle, were full of shit, but here’s the thing: I went along with it anyway. My siblings and I laugh at my parents behind their back. We roll our eyes and revel in our superiority, but we take the jobs and the money and the status that our name gives us. And honestly, that feels worse to me than blindly going along with it all. And here’s more psychobabble: okay, bear with me, because I find this shit hard to get my head around, and even harder to admit to on paper. I can’t imagine what you must think of me. But here goes: My family’s currency is image. How things look is more important to my parents than how things are. Any of us could have told you that, and from a young age, and I’m sure you could have told me that, too. But get this. Elizabeth doesn’t think I believe that—but she thinks I weaponize it anyway. If how things look is so important, then the person who controls how things look controls what happens. They control everything, basically. Even writing that down blew my mind all over again, and not in a good way. I had to go for a very fucking cold, dark plunge in the Sound to absorb this. (Elizabeth says “embody” instead of absorb, and it makes me
snicker every time. If I turn into a person who uses the word “embody” unironically, then I hope someone has the decency to shoot me. But she can carry it off because she has three doctorates. So, yeah.) I’m procrastinating. Here’s what I just about absorbed: I became just as good at managing the image game as my parents and their parents, not because I worship appearances, but because appearances = levers levers = power. Okay. De ep breath. Confession corner: Falling for you was the first time, probably ever, that I’ve felt like I was at the mercy of someone else. It was the first time someone else had all the control. That’s how it felt, anyhow, because I was so powerless in the face of how you made me feel. So the first time you had a shot at gaining even more power, I pulled the biggest fucking lever I had and made sure I was the only one who’d get to see your face. And I lost you anyway. I lost your face, and your heart, and the whole damn lot. I say the following with no agenda. All I ask is that you please let these words sink in. I am so fucking sorry, my darling. I am So. Fucking. Sorry. The reason I want to say this now is that this might just be the first time I get to apologize to you while understanding precisely what I did and precisely why and precisely how wrong it was. Which leads me to... Confession Corner #2: Honestly, right after you broke up with me, I was mainly sorry you’d found out. I was sorry you’d reacted that way (which is to say I believed you’d overreacted) and I was sorry that I’d upset you... but, at that point, I was categorically not sorry I’d pulled the campaign. I was still far too wedded to my own victimhood and my fucked-up MO that the ends always justify the means. I was honestly just pissed that I hadn’t gotten away with it. If nothing else, you might draw some satisfaction from knowing that I finally get it. I finally understand what I did to you, what I took from you, and coming face to face with it feels like being forced to stare into the jaws of hell. Forget the fact that you were the best person for the job (you were, by a mile, and if the launch is a gigantic flop, there is only one person to blame). Forget the financial side of it, the opportunity I stole from you and your family to claw your way out of that mountain of debt. I’ll never forgive myself for that, but I’m even more sorry for the principle of the matter. I met the most beautiful woman with the purest soul. You took the time and trouble to see me. You trusted me with your body and your warm heart and your wellbeing. And I went behind your back and played God with your career, with your fate. I harmed you, I sabotaged you, I treated you like a toy—just as you said in my office. I wanted to be the one person who could be a safe haven for you, and in a single, despicable act, I ensured I never could be. That you ever, for a single second, thought you lost that campaign through your own unworthiness was the nail in the coffin for me. I will never, ever stop being sorry. I will never, ever stop regretting what I’ve done. But one tiny, bright kernel is emerging from this work I’m doing with Elizabeth, and do you know what that is? I’m no longer sorry you found out. I can’t regret that part anymore, because I’d rather have no claim on
you and no part of your life than know that I’d lied and cheated my way to having you trust me. I’ll never be worthy of you, but at least now I understand why. And that’s something, I guess. It’s so dark here. I hate this time of year. But I’m glad I’m alone instead of surrounded by all the bullshit trappings I’ve acquired the wrong way. I love you, Elyse. I couldn’t say it until I said sorry properly, and I couldn’t apologize until I truly understood my sins. Being allowed to love you, however briefly, has been the greatest privilege of my life. Yours always, Sinclair P. S. I released Vanessa from her exit NDA last week. She’ll probably think I’m insane, but I don’t care. It felt good. I’m not telling you to earn brownie points; I’m telling you because I know you, and I know you’ll hate that she was the worse off for having defended you. So hopefully that’s one less thing for you to worry about, my love. P. P. S. I’ll write you one final letter on Friday, and then I’ll let you be. It’s a big one. A bad one. It makes everything else I’ve done—including hurting you—look innocent by comparison. I’m terrified to tell you. But I’m even more terrified of it eating me alive if I don’t. You’re my confessor: with one key difference. You don’t owe me your confidentiality. You don’t owe me anything. T HE STREET outside my bedroom is dark, too. I sit on the bed and press my fist to my mouth. It’s too much, and I can feel he means it, every word. I can feel the emotion, the sincerity, pouring out of him as if he’s purging his soul through these letters. Frantically, I wipe my eyes, but the tears ke ep coming. I made tarte tatin this afternoon—Maman’s favorite. This year, winter feels even bleaker and more brutal and endless, and God knows I need baked goods to get through it, especially French-style ones with sticky, caramelized apples and buttery pastry. In a couple hours, I’ll head into the city for my Alchemy shift. I’ve noticed that Sinclair has been timing his letters so that they reach me early evening, before I head out, and it makes me glad. His poor messenger, whose name I now know is A. J., doesn’t need to stand around all night waiting for me to come home and tell him there’s no r eply. I cut a slice of pie for A. J. and wrap it up. Then I cut another. I wrap it in foil and put it in a snug Tupperware to ke ep it secure. I go outside, Jambon trailing faithfully behind me, and hand A. J. his pie. Then I hold out the Tupperware. “I have a r eply.”