She’s likeobsessedwith my mom.
Was there something particular about George that allowed her to trust him, or would she have gone with anyone who showed her kindness, the way a baby duck imprints on a human if no duck is available?
It might have just been because of the concussion—because as it turned out, she had a concussion.
The first day, she sent a message to one of the other interns, Olivia, to ask her to pass the message on to the appropriate channels.
OMG, Olivia texted back.THAT’S INSANE. FEEL BETTER, OK?
I’LL TRY.
In some ways, Jade reflected, she had never felt this good in her life. For four days and four nights she lay in the bed in George Halsey’s guest room. In this room she felt cocooned, cared for, safe. Outside, Manhattan was in the middle of a heat wave—the sidewalks were burning, the subways were hell on Earth, the garbage began to smell the instant it was placed outside. But Jade was in George Halsey’s guest room, air-conditioned to a perfect sixty-seven degrees, under the weight of an unbelievable comforter, and the sheets were so thick and at the same time so soft, and who wouldhave thought that such thickness and such softness could coexist? But they did. And Jade, who sometimes felt like she had never rested a day in her life, rested. She wore a pair of cotton pajamas that had been laid out for her in the attached marble bathroom on the first day, along with a new toothbrush and a basket of toiletries, all brand-new, all quietly luxurious.
She drifted in and out of sleep; with the heavy blinds closed against the sun, day was nearly indistinguishable from night. Three times a day George Halsey’s housekeeper, Mrs. Sanchez, came into the room with a tray of food for Jade—homemade breads or muffins, sometimes, or chicken noodle soup from Zabar’s, or soft pillows of ravioli with a homemade marinara sauce. Mrs. Sanchez was mostly hurried, seemingly consumed with many other tasks (What tasks? wondered Jade), but every so often she lingered by the side of the bed and asked Jade how she felt.
“Better than yesterday,” Jade said, even on the first full day there, when it wasn’t really true, because she didn’t want to be a bother, and once her head cleared she began to realize what a very odd situation she was in. “A little better every day,” she said, hopefully, optimistically. By the third day this was the case.
“Do you need me to call someone for you?” Mrs. Sanchez asked. “Let someone know where you are?”
“No,” said Jade, and that vicious, sneaking shame returned. “Thank you. You don’t need to call anyone.”
Mrs. Sanchez laid the back of her hand against Jade’s forehead. Jade knew from books and movies that this was a gesture indicative of care, even, in some circumstances, though obviously not this one, of love. Don’t read too much into this, she told herself. This housekeeper doesn’t love you; she doesn’t even know you. She’s probably wondering why you’re in her house, making extra work for her. When Jade got up to take a shower in the attached bathroom she hung her towel carefully back up, just as she’d found it, to indicate she could use it again and again and again, but each day Mrs. Sanchez swept in with a clean one and whisked the used one away.
Sometimes, in her haze, she imagined Mrs. Sanchez to be like a nurse from old photos of World War II, with a loving bedside manner and a jaunty striped cap.
She’s likeobsessedwith my mom. Snorts of laughter.
Twice a day, once in the midmorning and once in the midafternoon, George Halsey himself would knock softly at the door, and after Jade called out,yes?he’d enter and inquire whether he might sit with her, always leaving the door open “to avoid the appearance of impropriety,” as he put it. Of course she always said that he could. For one thing, how strange it would have been to deny him this permission, in his very own guest room, but for another, she was really beginning to enjoy his company.
At last, on the morning of the fifth day, the blinds were raised, and Jade got up, still wobbly, but much less wobbly. She saw that she was not, as she guessed,nearthe park, but actuallyonthe park, high up on Fifth Avenue, where, out the window, she could see the Egypt-inspired play structures at the Ancient Playground, Manhattan’s finest coming and going and going, parents and children and nannies.
Now, she knew, it was time to return to her own life. She dressed in the clothes she’d been wearing on the day she fell (these had been professionally dry-cleaned, an embarrassment, considering the tags that made it clear they had come from Zara).
“I’m not sure how to pay you back for all of this,” she told George. “For this kindness and generosity.”
The courteous little nod again. “I didn’t do it so you’d pay me back,” he said. “I did it because I’ve been fortunate in my life and I want to help where I can help.”
“But there must be something—?”
He cleared his throat and said, “There’s one thing.”
She waited.
“I wonder if you’d consider having lunch with me once a week for the remainder of the summer. My treat. I’d like to act as a sort of mentor to you, as you develop your business idea. I’ve been thinking more about LookBook. I think this idea has real potential. I’d like you to talk out your plans with me, as they develop. I’d like to be of assistance.”
It didn’t matter if the idea had potential. She had no way to get from here to there. She couldn’t afford the loans to get an MBA; she couldn’t stop working long enough to pitch her idea to VCs, never mind develop the technology. She’d gotten a great education for free and had already come further than she’d ever thought she would. When she was done with her internship she could apply for a permanent job, at a regular company.
But she said that she would like that, she would like to have lunch with George.
He said, “I’ll leave you to your packing. Give Mrs. Sanchez a fifteen-minute warning, and the driver will be ready.”
What packing? She had nothing to pack. Could she take all of the partially used toiletries?
“He asked me to have lunch with him once a week,” she told Mrs. Sanchez, who was folding towels in the laundry room. (This was Jade’s first look at the laundry room, in which she would have happily lived for the rest of the summer. It was so big, and so bright, and so airy and well organized.) “That’s not weird, right?” She watched Mrs. Sanchez’s long, capable fingers at work, mesmerized by the perfect rectangles she was creating from the towels.
“His wife is gone. His children are assholes,” she said. She looked up briefly, locked eyes with Jade for a second. “Pardon my French. If a dying man wants to have lunch with you and you can spare the time, I say do it.”
Jade thought, How does such a nice man have assholes for children?
