Mike found some cold chicken in the fridge and made a salad to go with it. He ate at the kitchen table, and answered some emails and texts afterwards, and then looked at his watch. It was still early in California, and he decided to call Jenny, his daughter. He hadn’t spoken to her in three days. She loved her college life at Stanford, the classes she was taking, and the friends she had made there.
Jenny answered as soon as she saw Mike’s name come up.
“Hi, Dad. I was just thinking about you. I was going to call you later. I figured you might still be at work.” It was nine o’clock in New York, which said a lot about his habits.
“I’m home. How’s life in the Wild West?” She smiled. She loved talking to her father. He had been busy a lot of the time when she was growing up, but she admired his work ethic and his success, despite what her mother said about him, that he didn’t care about anyone but himself, and that his family meant nothing to him. She hated it when her mother said things like that about him. It had put a wedge in her relationship with her mother, much more than with her father. She was his staunchest defender, which made her mother even angrier at Jennifer and her father. She wanted the kids to be as angry as she was and support her position.
“It’s not so wild,” she answered him. “I’ve been in the library all week.”
“Trying to meet guys, or studying?” he teased her. She was a diligent student and had graduated from high school at the top of her class with honors. She took after him, and he knew she’d be a fine lawyer one day. He might even hire her to work for him.
“Very funny, Dad. Studying, obviously.” She’d had a boyfriend the year before, but the romance had been brief. She was a pretty girl, and looked like Mike, with shiny dark hair and cornflower blue eyes. His were more of a sapphire blue and his hair was thick and almost jet black, with only a few stray gray hairs peppered through it. He looked younger than he was.
“I’m sorry to hear it,” he said, and laughed, then thought of something. “Have you ever heard of a store in the city called Brooke’s? It’s downtown in a seedy neighborhood, and I guess it’s been there for ages. Your grandmother was telling me tonight that her grandmother took her there as a young girl.”
“Oh my God, Dad. It’s the coolest ever. It looks like nothing from the outside. Inside, they have the best stuff I’ve ever seen. I went there with Mom once. It’s super expensive, but everything is really beautiful. They have special one-of-a-kind stuff and the fancy luxury brands. Are you buying it?” she asked, and he laughed.
“I don’t just go around buying stores. Maybe I wanted to shop there.”
“They have cool men’s things too. If you buy it, I want a big discount. I can’t afford it on my allowance.”
“We’ll go together sometime. Someone mentioned it today at work, and I was curious if you’d heard of it. I don’t know how I managed never to hear about it,” although he wasn’t a big shopper, he never had time.
“It’s kind of like a fabulous secret.” Jenny endorsed her grandmother’s description of it, from a younger generation, which intrigued him. Whatever the Brooke’s style, the store seemed to leave a lasting impression on anyone who went there, even once. It made him curious to see it for himself, not even as an investment, but just intrigued by what his mother, daughter, and researcher had said.
Mike and Jenny talked for a while longer about her classes, her roommate, and the summer internship she had landed, although it was only March. He was going to miss her during the summer, but she was coming home for a month before going back to Stanford for her junior year.
“Have you heard from Zack?” he asked, worried about his son, the great adventurer, wandering around Europe.
“I had a text from him a few days ago. He was back in Munich. He said the sausages and the beer gardens are great.”
“Sounds like a very cultural tour he’s on,” Mike said with the usual tone of concern when he spoke of his son.
“He’s fine, Dad. It’s good for him to figure things out on his own.”
“That’s what your mother says. I just hope he figures out that going to college is in his plans for next year. He should have applied by now.”
“Maybe he applied from Europe,” she said to calm her father. She knew he worried about Zack, and she did too. But maybe he’d grow up during the time he was away. Zack was different, and never wanted to do what everyone else did. He had to find his own path. Their father was a tough example to follow. He had been so successful at a young age. Jenny was sure her brother would figure things out eventually. And he was loving Europe.
Mike was smiling when he hung up. He loved talking to his daughter. She was so levelheaded and sensible and mature for her age. He didn’t worry about her the way he did about Zack, who was always a little lost and out of step.
Mike was in bed falling asleep when he heard Maureen come in. But he was too tired to get up to say hello to her, and he guessed that she didn’t want him to anyway. He would see her in the morning before he left for work if she was up early enough. If she wasn’t, they’d catch up sooner or later. As he thought that, Mike fell asleep, alone in the guest room bed, where he was happy to sleep on his own and have the room to himself.
Chapter 3
Mike was in a cab on his way uptown from his apartment on lower Fifth Avenue, just a block from Washington Square. He liked living at the edge of the Village. He always thought it was too bad none of his kids had wanted to go to NYU, since it was only a few blocks away. Maybe Zack would apply there.
He had left the apartment later than usual, after taking a conference call from London. Maureen was still asleep when he left, and he guessed she had read late the night before. She had no reason to get up early, or at any set hour. The cab had gone ten blocks north when he remembered his conversation with Jenny the night before, and with his mother. He Googled the location of Brooke’s on his phone and gave the driver the address. They had gone only half a dozen blocks by then. The address was west and a few blocks north of where he was right now, on the southern edge of Chelsea, which was a mix of fashionable renovated houses, and seedy old buildings, some of which had been rebuilt to rent. There were lots of young people in the area, and a few of the old tenements remained. It was a very mixed neighborhood, most of it trendy and fashionable, and some of it not gentrified yet. He noticed a number of homeless people roaming around pushing shopping carts, and a few camped in doorways.
He was surprised by the store when he saw it. It was a rambling old building with turrets that looked like a small fortress. It was weather-beaten, and ugly. From the outside, it looked like an architectural mistake. There were fashionable clothes in the windows, which were well done to catch a passerby’s eye. There was a doorman in a neat uniform standing outside the main door, with revolving doors on either side.
He paid the driver and got out of the cab, and the doorman smiled as Mike approached.