“I’m not done,” Winnie protested.
“Oh, you are,” Dante said.
“Okay, then!” Robbie said.
“It was everyone except Tom Hanks,” Rosie called. “Tom Hanks didn’t sleep with the nanny.”
Well, thank God for that. At least something was pure in this shitty world.
“Turning now to, uh, sports,” Robbie said, microphone back where it belonged, “which of the following players won a Heisman Trophy? Was it A) our own St. Brady of Boston? B) Golden Joe Montana, C) Walter ‘Sweetness’ Peyton, or D) Devonta Smith, who my mother finds very attractive?”
Winnie was not sober, she recognized as her brother-in-law dragged her out of the bar and through the main dining room. Grandpop led the rest of them, saying things like, “Our dear Winnie is not at her best. Being accused of adultery has hit her quite hard,” which was not helping.
“By the way, it was Devonta Smith,” Dante said. “But everyone will say Tom Brady.”
“What’s wrong with you people?” Winnie said as he set her down on the sidewalk. “My heart is broken, and you’re still answering trivia questions!”
Crying. She was crying. Harlow wrapped her in her arms and hugged her tight.
“I feel so stupid,” she hiccupped.
“I know, honey, I know. We’ve all made huge mistakes when it comes to other people. It will get better.”
Lark patted her shoulder, sympathy tears streaming down her face, and Rosie joined the hug as Winnie sobbed.
God. She hated crying. She hated this.
The air was damp and salty, the half-moon rising. No one spoke again. Winnie took a breath, then another. She wiped her eyes with the palms of her hands.
If her career hadn’t already been over, it sure was now.
TWO
LORENZO
Lorenzo Michelangelo Santini—M.D., Ph.D., Chief of Special Surgeries at Mass General Brigham, Distinguished Professor at Harvard University Medical School, Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, winner of the Jacobson Innovation Award in Surgical Techniques, Member of the National Academy of Medicine, all-around God with a scalpel, known to terrified residents at four hospitals as Dr. Satan—was irked.
He’d just received an email informing him that the hotel where he was supposed to stay after delivering a lecture at the Mayo Clinic had water damage, and he would have to find other accommodations. His interview with The New England Journal of Medicine had to be rescheduled (or canceled, since the reporter clearly had no respect for his time). A book he had ordered should have arrived and had not.
He did not have time for these menial tasks. He was a world-renowned surgeon, for the love of God, and there were people for doing these kinds of lesser, time-sucking tasks. He just hadn’t been able to find one.
In April, his sister, Sofia, had suggested he hire a personal assistant to help him manage his two homes (Chatham and Boston), someone who could schedule necessary workers like mechanics and landscapers, make his travel arrangements (that idiot from the Chicago conference had booked him in economy plus, not first class). This personal assistant would also pick up his dry cleaning, stock his fridge…all those tedious tasks people like Lorenzo shouldn’t have to do. He wasn’t being condescending. He was being honest. Was he really supposed to go to Whole Foods to buy kale when he could be, oh, saving a life? Teaching future doctors? Writing a paper that would change the way a procedure would be done, therefore raising patient survival rates?
An assistant made sense. He’d always had people to do things for him, of course—a travel agent, a cleaning service, the landscaper. But competence was hard to come by, and Lorenzo hated incompetence. Was it really so hard to tell the difference between fresh and dried basil? Skim milk and two percent? Did the travel agent really have to send seven confirmation emails, all of which Lorenzo had to read to be sure there was nothing relevant in them? He didn’t want to wait on hold to get an appointment for his car to be serviced. Didn’t want to have to call the florist himself to order flowers for his mother’s birthday. It was enough that he even remembered his mother’s birthday. Most years, he even called. He loved his mother, but you didn’t get that time back, and it added up.
Sofia had recommended her friend Tillie. Foolishly, Lorenzo had hired her based on his sister’s word alone. Tillie had lasted four hours. She had been “organizing” his kitchen (which was already perfectly organized) when he asked her to bring him an espresso. She had to be shown how to use the espresso maker. Then, twenty minutes after he’d demonstrated, she brought him a cappuccino instead. Lorenzo calmly told her that he did not drink cappuccino and she would have to try harder, listen better and be more intelligent than, say, a houseplant. Inexplicably, this made her burst into tears and quit.
He then called an employment agency on Cape Cod, where he tried to spend weekends and where his home needed more attention than his condo on Beacon Street. He was told he’d be placed on a waiting list, since demand for that kind of service was high. Lorenzo refused to be on any waiting list. A colleague at Mass General had recommended someone, and Lorenzo had contacted her and asked to set up an interview. She texted:
Are you the one they call Dr. Satan?
When he answered in the affirmative, he never heard from her again.
After that, he contacted a high-end domestic employment agency—again, time that could’ve been spent on far more important things. They sent over three candidates. He didn’t like any of them but hired one, then fired him a week later when he found the man sitting in his living room, reading.
“He was reading? My God, the nerve,” Isabella, his younger sister, said when he reported this.
“Exactly. And sitting on the couch,” Lorenzo said. Dante choked on a laugh, though Lorenzo wasn’t sure why.
