Chapter 1: Holiday Mode

The suit was cut by Hugo Boss and distributed under the label HUGO, stitched in red and affixed to creamy silk lining. On the outside, this particular cut of charcoal cloth with ivory wide-spaced pinstripes stretched all the way through the trim cut flat front trousers. Black shoes finished it. A lavender BOSS shirt with tiny vertical white grooves running the length of it matched a Ted Baker – London tie of brilliant lavender circles, revolving through thick woven silk. Tom had acquired the Hugo suit just before the remarriage of his uncle the previous summer. The fine tailoring and neat fit of the cloth rested in the closet throughout most of the fall and was near dust by the time Tom removed it for the holiday party.

It was December, and Tom shivered on the balcony of his condo, looking west across northern Chicago as he smoked an American Spirit cigarette. He could hear Lexi’s footsteps clopping on the hardwood as she finished her hair and makeup. They both knew the evening would be somber. Neither would be receiving a bonus; their mutual employer had completed the year in the red. As he took a drag of his smoke, Tom knew his time there would soon end. The spirit wasn’t in him anymore. He felt uneasy and restless when the job distracted him from the important charge before him: to become an icon.

A clear night chilled the wind as Tom stepped from the cab, the gusts whipping the tails of his royal blue cashmere scarf. Lexi began speaking with the host of the restaurant, who had prepared the evening’s open bars and hors d’oeuvres stations. The same label under which Tom’s suit rested also accepted credit for the overcoat he now removed and placed in the outstretched hand of a woman dressed in starch cotton white serving clothes. She handed him a green stub from a claim ticket with the numbers 024 printed in red Courier. Tom noticed nothing out of the ordinary about the exchange. If he had been company to the woman’s thoughts, he would have understood that the care with which she handled the overcoat was the same care with which she observed the suit Tom wore. She suspected that if they had a moment alone, he might tell her something about himself and invite her into his world — a world she imagined would be filled with the sort of excitement any woman of the city might crave. She did not know his situation or the high regard with which he held Lexi, a woman who had singlehandedly pulled him together. She also did not know that she would be far from the last person to hope for Tom’s gaze to fall on her. At the very least, she thought, turning her attention to the next patron in the coat check line, Tom would probably leave a good tip.

To be honest, Tom was self-conscious. At that time he did not know the power of the suit. In this way, many people would envy Tom’s position; he was on this very night on the brink of uncovering a powerful truth about the condition of humans. Some people never come to understand this kind of knowledge. Tom teetered on the edge of this knowledge like Adam about to bite the apple. Tom would soon uncover a gift so voluminous in its generosity to him that his life could not — in any sense — remain as it was before this evening. For the moment, Tom wove his way through the increasing gathering of bodies, chatting and observing the others around them. It was, after all, an evening to see and be seen. It was an aphrodisiac to be observed and taken note of by anyone. The tan girl in the tight white pants. Was she making a statement or violating a law? The real oddity of Tom Drake as he helped himself to a Makers and coke, was that he sat higher than most in the social scene of the world, but he had not yet even begun to fathom the power he was about to uncover. For if anyone in the world knew the feeling of bathing in the Tom Drake Experience, he would abandon all else in order to do so.

But enough of the foreplay.

Tom and Lexi stood before platters of raspberry and brie puffs, ceviche shrimp on crisped toast with cilantro and lime and miniature beef Wellington’s. As they stepped away, Lexi noticed a table and gestured for Tom to follow her across the room to a table surrounded by stools. They’d no sooner taken first bites and begun to chat of the night’s events when his boss and his boss’s wife approached the table. The boss wore a lime green button-down collar shirt with a flowery pink and green tie. And khakis. The green hues in the shirt and tie, to his credit, complemented one another. His wife, dressed in a black dress with golden sparkles, otherwise displayed a smile. The guy had a weird look on his face as he saw Tom, who at that instant had his mouth wrapped around a cracker and his teeth sunk deep into a melting slice of brie. Then, the boss spoke.

“Looking pretty sharp tonight, Tom.”

Tom thanked him briefly before he continued speaking. “She helped me out with this,” he nodded at his wife.

“I pick out all his outfits,” she giggled. And in that moment, it was clear where the power lay. Every conversation has two participants: the presenter and the observer. One is in the spotlight, the other admires from the audience. Everyone can be segmented by that basic principle. There are those who crave the attending eye and those who joy in giving it. Tom Drake belonged to the former. They betrayed in their faces and postures something beyond respect or admiration. The word for it was envy. They instinctively knew that Tom owned them in a way that would not end with the party. As he saw his boss with that grin and shrug, he knew he could not remain in the job any longer. He was far and above all of them. Simply by presenting himself, he felt far too superior to take them seriously. If Tom stayed, he would take advantage of them, berate them, humiliate them. Not because he wanted to do those things, but because his position had presented him with no alternative.

In this way, Tom Drake became more than a man.