I’m pretty sure Iris and Bray work on margins that wouldn’t make it onto the balance sheet in my family’s business.
I scroll to an email from someone I haven’t heard from for a long time. A corporate finance guy who used to be at Goldmans but looks like he’s moved. I open it out of curiosity. I half expected him to invite me out to lunch or ask me if I knew someone he wanted an introduction to, but that’s not what his email says. He wants to talk about The Alden. He knows someone who wants a Midtown hotel.
Most hotels lease their buildings, but I own the building The Alden Hotel occupies. I wonder if he knows that? He’s suggesting a lunch to discuss. But I’m not in New York. I can’t just arrange a lunch.
It’s like someone’s pressed a button and a thousand thoughts are released at once. New York. Iris. The hotel. My friendships. My job. My life.
I don’t have a date for when I’m going back to New York. Yes, I’ll go back for the trustees meeting. But should I have a longstop date? Am I just waiting for Iris and me to fall apart? Am I expecting to get bored? And if I’m just holding out for a miracle, am I being selfish. By still having hope, am I making us both miserable in the long run?
I’m usually more focused on solutions. More optimistic. But that’s because I’ve had a lifetime of getting what I want. Things have come easily to me. Money solves a lot of problems. But now? Now I want something I can’t have. Now I want a life inColorado with Iris. But my entire life has been spent preparing to hold the Alden family torch in New York.
I suppose I could tell my family I was moving to Colorado. They couldn’t technically stop me. I could attend meetings by Zoom or fly back and forth for gala dinners and charity luncheons.
But Iris couldn’t come with me. She has a life here. If I thought they’d accept it, I would invest in the farm so she would be able to accompany me.
But the Wilde family is far too proud to accept money from me.
So we’d spend half our lives apart. How could we have a life like that? Raise a family? Half our history wouldn’t be together.
Time and distance would eventually take its toll.
However hard I try, I can’t see a solution.
But there must be one. There has to be. And I won’t give up hope. I can’t. Not yet.
Because Iris is… everything to me. I was meant to spot her at the ballet. I was meant to run into her in the diner.
Before meeting Iris, talk of destiny would have sounded ridiculous coming from someone else. But the way I feel about Iris isn’t ridiculous.
Destiny is how Iris feels.
Manhattan is where the Alden family resides, does business, and gives generously. It’s the only place I ever saw myself.
Until Iris.
It’s too much to think about. I should focus on my emails. On The Alden Hotel. I bought The Alden when my five closest friends bought their hotels. Our ownership of the hotels was meant to bind us together.
Except does it?
We thought we needed the hotels. But things change. Maybe it’s different now. They’ve all found the women they’re meant tobe with and the bond between the six of us is still as strong as ever. If I sold the hotel, it wouldn’t make any difference to our friendship. I know that as clearly as I know anything.
I don’t have anything to do with the day-to-day operations of the business. There’s a hotel manager and an overall CEO of my personal businesses who also deals with the hotel. I enjoyed getting it off the ground, but it doesn’t really have any value to me anymore.
Things change.
I’ve changed.
All I can think about is Iris. Has she changed?
My phone starts to ring as I’m holding it. My mother. I ignore it again.
And then her assistant, Greg, calls. I groan, and even though I know he’s calling on behalf of my mother, I answer it this time. At least he can’t chastise me. He can’t judge Iris or, if he does, he has to at least pretend he doesn’t.
“Greg. How can I help?” I answer.
“Mr. Alden, there’s been an incident. Your father’s on the way to the hospital.”
I go cold, like all the blood has left my body. I jump to my feet and push my hand through my hair.
