“Don’t put yourself out,” I respond.
He stops and turns back to me. “What is it you want from me?”
“Well, now that you’re asking, I want you to find me a ten-bedroom, ten-bathroom house on the Cape for three weeks from now that will take a party our size. It has to be right on the beach and luxurious as all hell.”
“Got it,” he says and turns back to the party.
“Hunter,” I snap. “Get back here.” I chase after him. “Hunter.”
“What?” he says as he strides back to the table. “You told me what you want. I’ll let you know what I find. Now I need my coffee, and I need you to leave me alone.”
I stop and let him go. There’s no point in chasing after him. There’s no way he’s going to help me. I’m on my own.
Chapter Four
Hunter
I often blow through lunch. I’m either on calls or in meetings. My assistant will leave a salad on my desk, and I won’t even get the chance to look at it, let alone eat it, before most people leave for the day. I don’t notice the hunger. I’m too busy. Too caught up in making Portis Investments a success. I’ve always been focused, but seeing a business fail and being at the helm while it sank focuses the mind. If I can add value, I’d rather do that than stand in line for a pastrami on rye.
But today my meeting finished early, everyone in the office keeps going on about what a nice day it is, and my assistant ordered me outside to get my own lunch. She insisted it was her way of supporting my mental health.
She may have been right. Even though I feel slightly guilty about not returning the ten calls I have on my call sheet, it feels good to be out in the daylight. People are everywhere, rushing in every direction. Others are sitting on the bits of walls or steps that have escaped the shadows. They clearly don’t have time to make it the five blocks to the park but want to be outside. Cabs are honking. Traffic is at a standstill. It feels so ... normal. But I don’t usually see any of it. I get to the office when it’s still dark, and I haven’t left before midnight more than twice in the last six weeks. It’s ironic that both those times were because ofEd and Katherine. First, I met the happy couple for dinner when they came down to New York a month ago. Then I had to catch a flight up to Boston for the engagement party on Friday. Their engagement and wedding planning is pulling away my focus as well as Ed’s. It’s only Portis Investments that’s going to suffer. We can’t both be mentally checked out at the same time. Someone’s got to keep us afloat.
I head to my favorite sandwich shop, Stranger than Fiction. Each sandwich is named after something book related. It’s designed for tourists, but move over Holden Caulfield, I love a Swiss cheese sandwich and a malted milk. It isn’t much, but you get quite a lot of vitamins in the malted milk.
I take my place in the line, which stretches out the door, and check my phone to see what I’m missing on my email.
The first one is from Ed. The subject is “Sorry bud”—never a good sign. I scan the email and do my best not to swear or put a fist through the nearest wall. He’s not coming to the dinner with FMCH tomorrow. He knows how important it is. Landing a client like FMCH could add thirty percent to our revenues next year. What is he thinking? I look more closely at the email. He has an appointment to taste food for the wedding. I reread it to make sure I’m not hallucinating. He can’t seriously be skipping an opportunity to sit down with the decision-makers at FMCH to eat fucking chicken.
So far, I haven’t said anything to Ed about the way I think his focus has been pulled away. But now? It’s gone too far. I can’t call him right away. I’m too wound up. I take a steadying breath and glance at the front of the line. Something or someone is taking a long time.
I pull up an email from an old college buddy, Jack. He’s from old New York money and has a really nice place on Martha’s Vineyard where I stayed one summer back in college. He knows the area, so I emailed him to see whether he knew of a good place for the party. I had my assistant scour all the usual websites, but everything is fully booked or just not big enough.
I’m just opening the email when I hear a shrill voice say, “Shouldn’t you be looking for a beach house and not hanging out in the sunshine on a random Tuesday?”
I look up and come face-to-face with Lucy.
I groan inwardly. I thought I’d left her behind in Boston. “What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I work in that building.” She points at the mirrored building next to the one Portis Investments is in.
Of course she does.
“I’m getting a sandwich, so shoot me,” I say.
“Happily, but I don’t own a gun.” She shrugs. “And plus, orange isn’t my color.”
“I suppose that’s my fault too?”
She looks at me like she’s weighing how difficult it would be to strangle me.
“So have you found anywhere?” she asks, her tone softening a little. “This joint bachelor/ bachelorette party is in three weeks. We need somewhere to stay, and Katherine has her heart set on a beach house on the Cape. We can’t let her down.”
“We can’t keep calling it ‘the joint bachelor/bachelorette party.’ It’s too much of a mouthful.”
“Call it whatever the hell you want when you find a house for us.”
This woman hates me. I don’t understand her problem. Okay, so I was a little drunk the first time we met and a little hungover the second. But it’s not like I got drunk to piss her off. Why is she taking it personally?
