Page 91 - Too Much and Never Enough - Mary L. Trump

the height of the market.”
Freddy never would have dared develop his own projects outside of
Brooklyn. A few years earlier on a weekend trip to the Poconos, as he and Linda had driven past row after row of condemned buildings on either side of the Cross Bronx Expressway, she’d pointed out that he could start his own business and renovate buildings in the Bronx.
“No way I could go against Dad,” Freddy had said. “It’s all about Brooklyn for him. He’d never go for it.”
Now Donald looked out the window and said, “Dad’s going to need somebody in Brooklyn. You should go back.”
“And do what, exactly?” Dad scoffed.
“I don’t know. Whatever you used to do.”
“I had your job.”
In the uncomfortable silence, Donald looked at his watch. “My driver’s
waiting downstairs. Get this to Dad by four o’clock, okay?”
After Donald left, Dad sat on the couch next to me and lit a cigarette.
“So, kiddo,” he said, “want to take a ride to Brooklyn?”
When we visited the office, Dad made the rounds on his way to Amy
Luerssen, my grandfather’s secretary and gatekeeper (and also my godmother), whose desk stood right outside of her boss’s door. Aunt Amy clearly adored the man she called “my Freddy.”
My grandfather’s private office was a square room with low lighting, its walls covered with plaques and framed certificates, a lot of wooden busts of Indian chiefs in full headdress scattered about. I sat behind his desk and chose from what seemed an endless supply of blue Flair markers and the same thick pads of cheap scratch paper he had at the House, writing notes and drawing until it was time to go to lunch. When I was left alone, I spun wildly in his chair.
My grandfather always took us to eat at Gargiulo’s, a formal restaurant with crisp cloth napkins and tablecloths where he went almost every day. The deferential waiters knew him, always called him “Mr. Trump,” pulled out his chair, and generally fussed over him throughout the meal. It was better when Aunt Amy or somebody else from the office joined us because it took the pressure off Dad; he and my grandfather had little left to say to each other. It didn’t happen often that Donald was at the office at the same time we were, but it was much worse when we crossed paths. He acted as though he owned the place, which my grandfather seemed not only to