“Okay,” Sabrina said. “I’ll think about it.”
Sabrina couldn’t deny that she was curious about Andrew’s apartment, mostly because she was obsessed with seeing other people’s apartments in the way that every New Yorker was always obsessed with seeing other people’s apartments. Sometimes it was reassuring to see places smaller than hers. In those cases she was always intrigued by the concessions New Yorkers made: garment racks instead of closets, a desk under a lofted bed, a fireplace that had been retrofitted as a bookcase. But she really lived for moments when she somehow ended up inside apartments that offered a vision of a New York that seemed like it would forever be completely out of her reach. Like the time in grad school when Natalie had taken her to a book party in a huge Park Avenue apartment for an author in his sixties she’d never even heard of. The elevator opened into the apartment, the ceilings were eighteen feet high, and the bathrooms felt bigger than her entire place. Or the time she went out to lunch with one of her coworkers from the eco-crafting magazine and the woman said she just needed to pick something up at her parents’ apartment, which turned out to be a huge Tribeca loft with Christopher Wool paintings on the walls.
She used to be perplexed by the nice apartments of people her age, but as she got older, she’d gotten more cynical about their sources of income. For every Natalie, there was a Hannah, another woman she’d gone to grad school with. A year or so after they’d graduated, Hannah was working as a freelance writer and dog walker and yet was living alone in a one-bedroom in a doorman building on Irving Place; Hannah’s father, Sabrina later learned via Natalie, was the head of a huge pharmaceutical company. Certainly, Sabrina had taken money from her parents—they’d paid her rent all through grad school, but right after it they had cut her off. Well, except for helping Sabrina and Dan out with the down payment on the apartment in Park Slope. But comparatively, she told herself, what they gave her was nothing.
“Great,” Isabel said. “When was the last time you went to a dinner party, anyway?” Sabrina laughed, hoping Isabel wouldn’t wait for an answer. “And Andrew’s friends are cool. They’re tech guys, but they’re not like…” She dropped her voice. “Douchey tech guys.”
“Wait. What does that mean?” Sabrina thought of something else. “Also…you’ve already met his friends?”
Isabel ignored the second question. “You know. Just…those guys who think that, because they started a company, they’ve figured everything out.”
“Ah,” Sabrina said. She kind of knew what Isabel was talking about—from what she had observed working at TakeOff, these men had a confidence that translated into the arrogant belief that they knew what was right not just for themselves but for everyone else. Like the way that Mack had gotten the whole company into meditation—even if she had to admit, reluctantly, that she kind of liked it. At least the finance guys and corporate lawyers she knew had a certain degree of cynicism about what they did; they acknowledged that they were pretty much entirely focused on one thing, and that was making money, and in fact it was better if the average person stayed completely ignorant of what they did because then they could do the borderline shady stuff that would get them more money. Tech guys also loved making money but framed it in a way that suggested they were doing all this for the good of mankind, and sure, of course that was going to make them fabulously rich, but the money was just a by-product of disrupting things and improving the world, so it was okay.
Sabrina saw Mack coming toward their desks with what appeared to be purpose. “Got a sec?” he asked Isabel, and she stood up as he started walking back to his office. He had been showing up in their area more and more with what seemed to be invented reasons to talk to Isabel. Could something have happened between them? She quickly dismissed the thought. Still, as Isabel wordlessly followed Mack back to his office, Sabrina realized she was starting to notice something that she had never before seen in Mack, and that was the barely perceptible, yet distinct, scent of desperation.
A few hours later, the day showed no signs of winding down. Amelia and Owen were supposed to be in bed at seven, but now it was almost eight and they were still parked in front of the TV watching a Christmas episode of Doc McStuffins, the one where Doc has to help Santa fix toys at the North Pole. Every few minutes one of them asked for the iPad and Sabrina had to tell them that no, they had both exceeded their allotment for the day, and when Daddy got home he was going to be really mad if he saw them on the iPad. This quieted them momentarily, but Owen, in particular, seemed to realize this was an idle threat and said insistently, “But you never tell Daddy he’s spent too much time on his phone.” This was, of course, true.
Dan had texted to say he was working late, which was happening a lot more lately, and which she usually didn’t mind, but it would be nice if occasionally he could help put the kids to bed. “Where’s Daddy?” Owen said suddenly, climbing up onto the couch and nestling himself in her lap. She smoothed his hair and thought: Excellent question. She glanced at her phone: 8:07.
“He’ll be home soon, sweetheart,” she said and wondered if Owen could sense the lack of conviction in her voice. “But I think we should start getting ready for bed.”