What Happened at East Houston Street

Chapter 22

Cal Newell had silently thanked the heavens that day when his daughter had told him about her new boyfriend, Brent Mistler. He immediately recognized the last name as being a powerhouse in the Boston real estate game. Having read about their large property portfolio in a Sunday write up in the Globe, he knew the Mistlers were eyeing the city of Cambridge for their expansion, where Cal had a huge empty lot ready for construction. He just needed the capital to get the project completed and make his money back threefold. No banks would touch him after the mishap with the first building, so he needed to find financing elsewhere. A deal with the Mistlers was just what he needed to solve his financial troubles.

When Lauren had come home from college one weekend to do her laundry and told her parents about Brent, Cal had already started composing his strategy. He knew his daughter was a beautiful girl. His colleagues would constantly try to set her up with their sons, but Lauren always refused, citing their lack of intelligence as a major turn off. "But you haven't even met the guy!" Cal would say to his daughter, incredulous at her stubbornness.

Despite not having a boyfriend, Lauren was never lonely. She always had a large group of friends, male and female, with whom she would go to concerts or play sports. There was always a party to attend, where she would brush off the advances of some men as she continued to play drinking games with her friends. She never brought anyone that she was dating home to meet her parents.

Cal was elated and surprised when his daughter finally had a boyfriend. Since their financial troubles had started, there had been a haze of sadness in their home. His wife, Kitty, had disconnected emotionally from her husband and children, which worried him to the point where he couldn't sleep and was always on edge. He knew that he had disappointed his father, but seeing how he let his family down had shattered him. He vowed to do everything in his power to fix things. He saw how his youngest child, Pete, had been having a hard time. It broke his heart to hear Pete's footsteps in the middle of the night, pacing the lower floors because he couldn't sleep either. Like father like son, Cal thought, wiping a tear from his eye. He wanted to reach out to his son and envelop him in a hug, telling him that it was all going to be alright, that he was going to start making money again, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. The Newell men had never shown such affection to each other, maintaining a shell of machismo and confidence. They would show their love in other ways, like always having private school tuition paid in full or bringing home the newest luxury cars. Instead of giving hugs, they'd give diamond earrings and designer handbags.

"Don't get so excited, Dad," his daughter would say while rolling her eyes at his enthusiasm about her new boyfriend. "We're only 18 years old. I'm not walking down the aisle tomorrow."

Cal would smile at her, giving her a nod of acceptance, but he knew the effect she had on the young men around her. She had a presence of beauty mixed with the perfect amount of aloofness, which made her a mystery. Men loved mysterious women who were slightly out of their reach. He knew that Lauren was his best asset in a business negotiation with the Mistlers and he was fully intending to use her to get them to agree to partner with him on the Binney Street project.

Brent had arrived late to The Capital Grille. His family was already waiting for him at the table, having been ready to order for 30 minutes. Dressed in a wrinkled dress shirt under a navy blazer and a stained pair of khakis, he jogged into the restaurant and was out of breath by the time he made it to the table.
"Sorry, the T was delayed," he lied, hoping to be forgiven for not being on time to his little brother, David's, 16th birthday dinner. The truth was that he had been so hungover from drinking too much at the Kappa party the night before that he fell asleep after lunch and forgot to set an alarm. When he woke up at 5:50pm, knowing that dinner was at 6:00pm, he rushed to get dressed and didn't even brush his hair before running to the train station.