She decides she might have a stroke instead of a heart attack. She looks down at her phone, pretending to be busy, and also wondering: Can you have a strokeanda heart attack at the same time?
Out of the corner of her eye she sees Taylor get in line to order, and David turns to come over to her.
“Hey,” he says softly, and her heart flips three times, then does a back handspring, then settles enough so that she can say, “Hey,” right back.
“In a minute, I’m going to introduce you to Taylor,” he says. How is he playing it so cool? Juliana is actually dying. She’sdying.Shetakes a deep breath. Meeting Taylor is going to be like meeting the sun. She calls upon the reserves of calm and badassery she employs when meeting with investors, when going before the board. “Okay?”
“Okay,” she answers. What else is she supposed to say? She looks down at her hands, and by the time she looks up David is back at Taylor’s side. She watches as they get their drinks, and as he takes the route from counter to door that leads by her table. She rolls her eyes a little as he feigns a surprised double take (Robert De Niro he is not) and says, “Juliana?”
So she looks up and says, with equally fake surprise, “Hey! David!”
Taylor’s head whips around so fast it looks like it’s on a swizzle stick. She gives David a quizzical look, and he says, “Taylor, this is Juliana George.” To Juliana he says, “Nice to see you again,” but he says it so formally that Juliana cringes.
“You too,” chokes out Juliana.
“Wait,” Taylor says. “‘Again’? You two know each other? You’re the LookBook person, right? With all the parties?” she asks. Juliana nods, suddenly mute. She’sso warm.She’s never regretted a blazer quite this much. She thinks about taking it off, but what if she has sweat through her blue tank top? Better to keep it on, and to suffer in silence.
“I met Juliana in New York, when LookBook was starting to take off.” There’s such a heat coming off David, off both of them. Juliana simply cannot take it. She’s going to melt.
Taylor looks back and forth between them. “You never told me that.”
“I’m sure I did. You were in Europe with your dad. You were in a whole different time zone; you probably forgot.”
Taylor is confused. She shakes her head slowly. “I don’t think so. I think I would have remembered.”
Juliana says, “I’m here to meet a reporter. Then we’re going back to my house, for photos.” She feels like she has to explain the blazer.
Taylor turns from David to Juliana and says, “I know your house.It’s just on the other side of Great Salt, right?” Juliana nods, not trusting herself to talk any more than she has; she’s sure that if she opens her mouth again her voice will crack like a fault line.Get ahold of yourself,she wants to scream.You have been through so many things harder than this.Has she, though? “We own the cottage right next to it. David’s cousin is living there for the summer.”
“Nicola,” says Juliana. “Sure, we’ve become friends. She’s great.”
Taylor narrows her eyes at Juliana and says, “I’d love to see your place sometime. My company is investing a lot in island real estate, and I like to get a look at the comps whenever I can.”
“Of course. Anytime.” Juliana resists the urge to put her hand on her heart, to make sure it stays in her chest. Instead, she reaches into her bag and pulls out a card. “This has the number of my assistant, Allison. Just check in with her before you come, in case I’m in meetings.” Because you are a badass, she tells herself, you may very well be in meetings. Involuntarily her eyes flick over to David, but he has put on his sunglasses, so his expression is inscrutable.
“Will do,” says Taylor crisply. “Will definitely do.”
***
Three days after graduation Jade moved to New York City for a paid internship at McKinsey. She lived in a minuscule sublet that belonged to an actor who had gone on tour withKinky Boots.All of her itty-bitty paycheck went to paying rent and subway fare to get from West Forty-Fourth Street to Lower Manhattan.
It was the summer of the Ice Bucket Challenge, the World Cup in Brazil, and the death of Eric Garner. Ebola was ravaging Africa. Cronuts turned one that summer, and the Backstreet Boys toured with Avril Lavigne. Lauren Bacall and Robin Williams died, and Taylor Swift threw her second Fourth of July party. Blogs were in; the neon of 2013 was out.
Jadeworked her ass offat McKinsey. By rights, she should have nobackside left at all. She was the only intern who both came in the earliest and stayed the latest. She was definitely the only one who needed a second job to get by. She gathered from context clues that everyone else had parents paying their rent, their cell phone bills, their health insurance premiums, theirhealth club fees, the bills for the credit cards with which they purchased the clothes they wore to the job they didn’t have to work as hard at because if this didn’t lead to a full-time job, something else would.
If the working world was easier than college in some ways—no projects or papers, no round social structure where she, a square peg, struggled to fit—it was harder in others. No matter how carefully she observed the other interns or young working women on the subway, on the street, and tried to put together similar outfits by combing the racks at Marshalls or T.J. Maxx, she never felt quite right. Something was always a little bit off: the shoes or the belt, the earrings. She was haunted by her ghosts from that pivotal freshman year.
I thought you put that in the giveaway bin.
She’s likeobsessedwith my mom.
Her second job was as a receptionist for a therapist in Chelsea who had evening hours three days a week. Fourth floor. There was an elevator, but sometimes Jade took the stairs—this free workout was her own personal health club. Jade met George Halsey on a stair day. She was panting when she got to the fourth floor, gently sweating, searching her bag in vain for a tissue or a napkin. Outside the office, in one of the two swivel barrel chairs where patients who were early waited, was an older gentleman. Older than what? Older than the hills. He wore a bow tie and bowler hat, which you would think made him look like Charlie Chaplin but somehow didn’t.
“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” said the man. Just as the hat should have made him look like Chaplin but didn’t, this statement should have made him sound pervy but didn’t. Jade smiled and sweated some more. “My children are always telling me I needto stop saying things like this. I suppose I should just say good evening.”
“It’s okay,” said Jade. “Good evening.” She pulled open the door to the office and went inside. Amanda, a dancer who did nighttime insurance billing for the dentist in the adjoining office—they shared the common space—looked up from her computer and said, “Did he tell you you’re a sight for sore eyes?”
“He did,” said Jade, only slightly disappointed that the compliment wasn’t unique to her. “Who is he?”
