“Almost. I have a question for you. You and Sean bump elbows with a lot of the Manhattan upper echelon… Mount Sinai just hired a big-deal neurosurgeon—Dr. Yassa. Ever heard of him?”
“It’s not ringing a bell.”
“He’s working on an experimental treatment but I’m not sure if Mum’s a candidate, or if we can afford it…”
“All right, Saylor. I see where this is going. You go with Celeste. I’ll make some calls or ask Sean too. He knows everybody in this city with a seven-figure salary.”
“Fine. Good. Also, I’ll need a suit.”
“Celeste owns one of the most prominent fashion brands in the world. I’m sure they can rummage up something. I’ll have her send a car for you. Can you be ready in two hours?”
I agree to the logistics and Rina swiftly ends the call, moving on to put plans in motion.
Celeste, huh?Not exactly the circumstances in which I was hoping to see her again, but I do remember wanting to see her again.
I walk in through the front door to see Mum’s smiling face.
“Who was that?”
“My boss.” I tuck my phone back into my pocket as if it’s culpable. “I have to work this weekend.”
“Aw, love. You’re running yourself into the ground.”
“It’s okay. There’s a bonus that’ll make it all well worth it. Are you going to be okay for a couple days if Callie stops by a few times?”
“Of course, silly. No need to fuss over me.” That would be far more convincing if her eyes weren’t watering and she wasn’t bent over like she’s trying to attempt human origami.
I head back to the kitchen, returning to the bowl of unscrambled eggs.
For one moment, I let myself really go there.
What would it be like if Mum could walk pain-free again? If she could run a farm like she used to. If her smiles weren’t forced, masking the excruciating torment. What if I were just a normal guy getting ready to go on a date with a woman he liked and knew it had potential to go somewhere?
What if…
I was anyone else. Anywhere else. In any other circumstance besides the one I created.
What if just for a moment…I really let myself havehope?
chapter 3
Celeste
I am going to die on this street.
Not metaphorically. Not in the existential, can’t sleep, lying-in-the-dark-staring-at-my-ceiling-in-silence way I’ve been dying since I found out about Whitney’s passing. I mean literally, physically, vehicularly. A woman in a sixty-thousand-dollar car is about to be taken out by a one-way street near Lower Manhattan, and the obituary will be humiliating.
Celeste Brinley, 38, fashion icon and peanut-butter-jelly sandwich enthusiast, met her untimely demise Thursday morning while attempting to wedge her Range Rover into a spot the size of Rhode Island. Her last words were reportedly “I think I can fit.” She is survived by her dogeared Brené Brown books, seventeen half-empty La Croix cans scattered throughout her apartment, and her ex-husband, who is thrilled to take her hard-earned company public.
I yank the wheel left to avoid a delivery truck that materializes out of nowhere—I swear they justspawnin this borough—and the SUV lurches onto a street so narrow I can practically read the ingredient labels on the bodega productsthrough the passenger window. My GPS has recalculated four times in the last six minutes.Four.I’ve been given the calm, robotic equivalent ofare you even listening to meby a machine, and honestly, no. I’m not. I haven’t been listening to anyone or anything for two days, wildly distracted by my sullen thoughts.
A cyclist flies past my window and screams something I can’t make out but can infer from context.
“I’mtrying,” I mutter at no one.
Driving is an act of faith I’ve never possessed. You have to trust the other cars, trust the lanes, trust that everyone is operating under some shared agreement about physics and turn signals. I trust none of it. We’re city people. If it’s too far to walk, we don’t go. I was forced to drive here and there when I was thirty-two because Maddox, my former driver, had a knee replacement and Greg told me I needed to “be less dependent.” This from a man who once called me from our kitchen to ask where we kept the coffee mugs.
I got the license. I have used it exactly nineteen times, and each time has taken a year off my life.
