“George Halsey. He owns the building. He stops by sometimes to check on things. Drives Dr. Pratt crazy.”
“Why’s it drive Dr. Pratt crazy? He seems harmless enough.”
Amanda snorted. “That’s just it. Harmless people drive Dr. Pratt crazy.”
“Got it,” said Jade.
“He’s filthy rich,” Amanda offered. “He owns buildings all around here, apparently. I think he’s bored. Once he told me that his wife is dead and his kids barely talk to him.” Amanda made a fake gun with her thumb and forefinger and pointed it at her temple. “Shoot me if my life ever gets that sad, okay?”
“Will do,” said Jade.
The second time George Halsey was sitting in one of the barrel chairs, Jade decided to sit down in the other one—she was fifteen minutes early, so why not?—and talk to him. She told him about her internship, and he told her about how he’d gone to Harvard, graduating in 1956, and how he’d made his fortune buying distressed properties around the city, fixing them up, and reselling them. Amanda, she realized, was wrong: George wasn’t a sad, doddering old man. He was a whip-smart success story. He was a big deal. “I’ll tell you something, Jade,” he said. “Never underestimate the value of something nobody wants. That’s where the gold is.”
At McKinsey Jade worked on supply chain operations with a few different fashion brands: Ralph Lauren, J.Crew, Banana Republic. Looking at these companies from the inside out, she realized how little of their merchandise they sold for full price. The rest got discounted and relegated to the nether regions of the websites, or sold to discount resellers. There, a bargain shopper like Jade might find the clothing, but might just as likely never find it. Or someone like Jade might find a top, but no bottoms to pair it with; a dress, but no jacket or shoes. Because, while full-price apparel was always merchandised together in a look book to see how outfits coordinate, discounted items were often grouped only by category and by price.
“What I wouldn’t do,” she muttered to herself one day, perusing the companies’ websites for a report she was working on, “for someone to put together all of this sales stuff from all these different places and make me an outfit, like they do with their full-price products.” Somehow Expedia had done this for travel; Expedia didn’t buy and sell plane tickets and hotel rooms, they simply scraped the web for them, put them all in one place, and collected a fee from their sale. Why couldn’t this be done for fashion? And why couldn’t she develop the technology to merchandise outfits by occasion or price? Why couldn’t Jade create a fully customizable online look book?
I’ll tell you something, Jade. Never underestimate the value of something nobody wants.
She hurried to Chelsea that night, hoping George was there, hoping he had time to listen. He was; he did. He listened, and she talked, and the more she talked the more she realized she was onto something real. If she could create a company that pulled together, say, a top from one brand, a bottom from another, shoes from yet another, she could collect a fee from the companies because she’d be getting volume on pieces they were hardly selling. Customers, in turn, could purchase a complete outfit at the same discount they’d get cobbling together individual pieces—without the work, and the uncertainty.
“This is brilliant, Jade. This is really brilliant.”
She took maybe the deepest breath she’d taken in her life, thenlet it out. “Thanks for letting me talk it out,” she said. “It’s good practice. I’m thinking of taking it to my bosses.”
“Don’t take it to them.” He shook his head. “No. Definitely not.”
“Don’t?” Her face felt warm: stupid idea, Jade.
“Youneed to build this business,” he said. “All on your own, you need to do this. Do you have a name?”
“LookBook,” she said. It slid out of her mouth like it had always been there, waiting.
“LookBook,” he repeated. “Yes. Yes, Jade. LookBook.” And it seemed almost possible.
“What was that all about?” asked Amanda when Jade entered the office.
“He’s just lonely.” Let Amanda think George was a has-been in a bowler hat. Jade saw him now as a secret weapon.
Amanda snorted. “Yeah. Lonely for your tits.” She turned back to her computer.
The next time Jade saw George Halsey he wasn’t wearing a bowler hat, and she was lying on the sidewalk on West Nineteenth Street, right outside the building. George was bending over her, holding out a hand.
“My dear. You just took quite a spill. I saw the whole thing. Your feet went right out from under you. I’m afraid you hit your head.”
“I’m okay,” said Jade immediately, even though she wasn’t, because she was used to telling people she was okay when she wasn’t. She didn’t remember falling. In fact, she didn’t know if she was coming from the office or going to it—she’d lost time. She was probably hungry: without the college dining hall, she was often hungry. When she sat up, she heard a ringing in her ears. She allowed George Halsey to help her. He pointed to an uneven part of the sidewalk, a lip she’d caught her foot on.
“Do you have someone to call?” George said. “You really whacked your head.”
“Yes,” said Jade.
He looked at her closely and called her bluff: “Do you really have someone to call?”
Softly, truthfully: “No.”
“Well, then. You’re coming home with me. My driver is just around the corner.”
Later, days later, when her head was clear enough to wonder this, she wondered, Was it weird that she went with him so willingly? Was it another symptom of the disease of growing up without anyone caring for her the way children should be cared for that she accepted any kindness without question, slurped it up greedily in case it disappeared?
