Anne tried not to roll her eyes as she turned back to Mr. Vernon. “You said we had two options. What’s the second?”
Mr. Vernon’s expression turned grim. “Sell the apartment.”
The words landed like a lead weight in Anne’s brain.
“Sell?” her father said, frantically gesturing around the apartment with his free hand. “This is where I live!”
Wherewelive, Anne wanted to correct him.
But she kept her mouth shut. To her father, the only thing more embarrassing than having his daughter swooping in to save him from financial ruin was having that same daughter still living at home at almost thirty years old because he couldn’t afford to pay her enough to move out.
“Do you have another idea?” Mr. Vernon asked.
Her father took a half second to consider. “I could sell my Max Betrug painting.”
Anne had to close her eyes to school her frustration. “That’s a print, Dad. Not an original painting.”
“What about the Bentley?”
“You sold that two years ago.”
Walt’s head fell back as he wailed again.
“This is the best option, Walt,” Mr. Vernon replied. “You can use your half of the sale to pay off some debt and rent someplace nearby. Maybe in Brooklyn.”
“You want me to move toBrooklyn?” Walt exclaimed. “But my masseuse is here! I built these bookcases specifically to feature my Emmy!”
Her father continued his monologue, but Anne blocked it out. She was good at that. Instead, she turned and stared out the nearby window as she tried to curb the panic that was already clouding her analysis of the situation. The apartment was on the eighth floor, and she could see the treetops that canopied Tompkins Square Park just below. The leaves were starting to change from green toautumnal reds and yellows. In a few months they would be adorned in Christmas lights and covered with snow.
You can do this, she thought, forcing her heart rate under control. She just needed a plan, time to sit down and go over the situation rationally, work through the numbers systematically, and—
“Alexa!” her father called out without removing his arm, which was currently thrown over his face. A device lit up on the kitchen’s marble countertop on the other side of the room. “Set a reminder to call Dr. Zgonc for a sound healing treatment today.”
“Reminder set,” Alexa replied happily.
“Now, considering this neighborhood and those… renovations, I’m sure we can sell this place quickly,” Mr. Vernon said. “But we’ll need to work fast to move things along. The president of the co-op board is a Realtor, correct? I’m sure he can—”
“Where’s my ashwagandha?” Walt yelled without looking up. “My herbalist was supposed to deliver it this morning! I can’t have this conversation without my ashwagandha!”
Anne was about to remind her father that perhaps his five-hundred-dollar-an-hour herbalist was one of the reasons he was in this mess, but at the same time, it felt futile. The full weight of eight years’ worth of relentless work and sacrifice being washed away in one afternoon landed squarely on her chest and all she could do was stand up and walk back out the front door.
Her father was still berating Mr. Vernon as Anne turned down the hall and up the nearby stairs to the building’s roof deck. The steel door slammed shut behind her as she stepped out into the almost blinding midday sunlight, and the laments from apartment 8A were replaced by the sounds of the city below.
She had grown up in this building. Her father called their apartment the penthouse, but really it was just the top floor ofthe Uppercross, one of the few taller apartment buildings along Avenue A in Manhattan’s East Village. Her parents had bought their apartment when her mother found out she was pregnant. Walt’s way of dealing with impending parenthood was to grasp at any thread of youth and relevance he could, so a newly remodeled, two-bedroom apartment in one of New York’s most iconic—and edgy—neighborhoods was perfect. He had hoped to absorb some of the neighborhood’s hip pedigree by osmosis, but he soon learned that he would much rather brag about his address than spend any time getting to know the neighborhood.
Not Anne, though. Some of her earliest memories were of wandering the hallways of this building, watching new people move in and familiar faces move out, of all the doormen that played cards with her during their shifts, and the anticipation of the changing seasonal décor—Halloween pumpkins, Christmas lights, summer potted roses and lilies out front. She remembered the new-paint smell from every time they remodeled the hallway columns, and all the hours she’d spent sitting on the same forest-green leather couches in the lobby before school started. The winding paths through Tompkins Square Park became her backyard playground, and the shops lining the road were filled with owners who knew her by name, let her do her homework next to them as they rang up customers, and watched her grow up.
Now she had to think about movers and showings. Packing up her life and going… where?
She closed her eyes, letting the wind pull wisps of her blond hair from her neat ponytail.
Even at her most dejected moments, she tried not to let herself look back, to regret decisions that there was no possibility of changing. But she gave in for a moment there on the roof, allowing herself to linger on all the choices and decisions that brought her tothis point. Suddenly, the crystalline image of Freddie Wentworth landed in the center of her mind. His kind eyes staring down at her, crinkling at the corners, thanks to his lopsided smile.
Something deep in her chest ached. Thank God he wasn’t here to see her now.
CHAPTER 2
Freddie walked out of his terminal at JFK Airport on Friday morning to find his driver there, waiting. The driver himself was different than the one who had been there last weekend, but the placard he held up was the same:
