In a New York Minute(12)

I was off.

Perrine eyed me curiously as I tried to stretch the thought of that woman out of my brain.

“Look,” I said, “I saw a problem, and I tried to help solve it.” I pressed my lips into a smile, tilted my head to the side. “It’s what I do best.”

I dusted pretend dirt off my shoulder, and Perrine rolled her eyes in response. “You are such a dork.” She laughed.

“I know. I really am,” I said.

“What’d they say at work when you walked in without your jacket?” she asked, poking at a pepper with her fork.

“Nothing,” I said, wiping my mouth with the paper napkin that I’d tucked into the collar of my shirt. “We don’t have a formal dress code, you know. So even without my jacket, I’m still the most dressed-up person there. Plus, Eleanor’s the only one who dares to give me crap about what I wear, and she’s out today.”

I’d said a silent prayer of thanks about it too, because a story about me swooping in to help a pretty woman on the subway would be like catnip to her. She’d never let it go.

Perrine laughed at this. “Eleanor’s right.”

“What?” I asked. “I can’t help that I got used to wearing suits to work every day. Besides, it’s just easier. It’s my uniform. Steve Jobs had one. Obama. Hillary Clinton—”

“Okay, okay, I get it.” Her voice was rife with sarcasm. “You’re in the same category as Barack Obama.”

“Thank you,” I replied, crossing my arms in smug satisfaction. “Besides, wouldn’t you have stepped in and tried to help? Helping people is your thing.”

“True.” She nodded in hesitant agreement. “But—and please don’t take this the wrong way—you don’t normally notice someone else’s emotional state.”

“What way am I supposed to take that?” I asked, giving her an offended look.

“I’m not saying you’re not a nice person!” She raised her voice to make her point, and I gave her a smile to let her know my feelings weren’t actually hurt. “I’m just surprised you even looked up from checking your email. Or that you weren’t running a cost analysis of the situation first.”

This got a chuckle out of me, because she wasn’t wrong. I tended to veer into human-calculator territory, overlooking emotions for data, and reason, and logic. And I couldn’t fully explain why I’d done it, why this one time my heart and gut instinct had overruled my brain without my permission.

“So what else?” she asked, and I shrugged, trying to act like there was nothing more to say.

“That’s the story,” I said as I gathered up my trash.

I didn’t tell Perrine about the feeling of the woman’s skin against my fingertips: hot like a sidewalk in the summertime. Or about the way her mouth shifting into a small O shape as she exhaled had needled my gut. I also didn’t mention the story about her peeing herself. I definitely left that out.

I was normally clear on what needed to be done. It wasn’t often that I got things wrong. But in that instant on the subway, I just might have, and my miscalculation was nagging at me. Maybe I’d overstepped, assumed she needed help when she was fine on her own. But she’d been so upset. And she’d shouted “Thank you” after me. I’d replayed it all a billion times in my head already, wondering if I’d done the right thing.

Whatever. I needed to let it go. I didn’t need the jacket back, and it was long gone now, along with her perfect curls and her torn dress and that cardboard box she’d been balancing in her hands. The beauty of living in a city of eight million people is that I’d never see her again.

*



Seeing who could get to work the earliest was a friendly, unspoken competition between Eleanor and me. We’d started Arbor Financial Partners three years ago, both of us eager and idealistic after burning out on Wall Street. We’d aim to arrive at six thirty, always with giant coffee cups in hand, bright-eyed and determined. Sure, the competition was fun, but I loved the ritual more. Routine settled me. It gave me the endorphin rush that kick-started my day.

This morning, though, I’d decided to extend my run by a couple of miles, and so I was running late, arriving at 7:34. As I passed Eleanor’s office, she glanced at her watch and gave me a self-satisfied smirk through the glass that separated her from the open floor plan. This morning, she was back in full effect: tortoiseshell glasses on, hands waving. She was doing what she did best, juggling fifty things at once, which is why she was simultaneously pounding away at her computer and grilling someone over the phone, her wireless earbuds poised precariously above gold hoops. I offered a casual wave, and she beckoned me inside.

“Uh-huh,” she was saying as I walked in, arms crossed. “Yup, yup, I hear you.”

I meandered over to where she’d hung framed pictures of all the press we’d gotten, and tweaked the frames that were slightly off-center: the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times. Forbes had even put us on their 30 Under 30 list two years ago, heralding us for being “a fund that invests with compassion, and donates 1% of its earnings to environmental groups around the world. They’re pushing the financial bro aside for something better: the financial do-gooder.” Eleanor had the cover and article framed for my birthday; I turned thirty exactly seventeen days after that piece came out.