“You can always go back to Boston if you hate it. Check it out,” Rose encouraged her. Alex was still young and needed guidance, although she had grown up a lot in London and L.A.
They finished postproduction on her movie in mid-March, and everything had gone smoothly. No one had ever suspected that she was anything more than the reclusive author’s assistant. She had played her part well, and she went back to Boston and talked her plans over with Mother MaryMeg, who stunned Alex by agreeing with Bert and Rose.
“You’re not a nun, Alex, and you shouldn’t be. That’s not your life. You can’t live here forever like one of us, you need to get out in the world and have some fun, meet new people, and do more than just work.”
“Are you throwing me out?” she said wistfully.
“Of course not. You can have a room here forever. We love you. But go play with kids your own age,” she said, smiling, and Alex laughed.
“Do I have to? What if I don’t want to?” She had in London, but she was scared now. Her life with them in Boston was so safe, and it was nice being home. She was very torn about where to live.
“Yes, you do have to.” Mother MaryMeg looked at her firmly. “Why don’t you try New York for a while? You can always change your mind. But at least give it a chance for six months.” It was almost exactly what Rose had said. Alex had lived in New York for her summer job, but that was different. She’d been a kid, she’d had roommates, and it was for a short, finite time. Moving to New York, alone in her own apartment, seemed even more daunting than being in London, although she wasn’t sure why.
Alex thought about it for another two weeks after she got back from L.A., and in April, she went to see her agent, and looked at some apartments in the West Village and found one she liked. It was a big loft with a beautiful view of the Hudson River, sparingly furnished but with fine things and expensive furniture. The rent was high, but she could afford it, and there was a doorman, so it was safe. It was available for six months, so she took it and flew back to Boston to get her things. A week later, she moved in. The nuns were sad to see her go, but Mother MaryMeg pushed her to continue moving forward. And Bert encouraged her too.
She started a new book as soon as she moved into the apartment, but Rose sent her invitations to gallery openings and other events she thought Alex would like, where she might meet people. Alex was painfully shy at first and left several art openings half an hour after she got there. She had no friends in the city and no one to go with, other than Rose, who usually sent her the invitations and didn’t go herself.
She was standing alone at a gallery opening in SoHo one night, feeling foolish, when a young man in his early thirties walked over and started talking to her. They chatted for almost an hour. He had just moved to New York too, from San Francisco, and said he was raising funds for a high-tech start-up. His name was Tim Richards, and she told him she was a freelance writer, which was her latest explanation for what she did as work. And he asked to see her again as they left. She gave him her number, and didn’t know if he’d call her, but she’d had a nice time with him at the art show. They both liked contemporary art. He called her the next day and invited her to lunch at the Museum of Modern Art on Saturday to see a new Jackson Pollock exhibit. It sounded appealing, and she decided to take a few hours off from her latest book and agreed to go. She didn’t expect anything to come of it, but thought it might be interesting to get to know him as a friend, and she had hit a dead spot in her new book. She had talked to Bert about it, and he suggested she take a break.
It was a warm spring day on Saturday, and Alex decided to walk uptown from the West Village for the exercise, and enjoyed it. She looked relaxed and casual when she saw Tim waiting for her in the lobby of the museum. He was happy to see her, they had lunch in the cafeteria before visiting the exhibit, which had been beautifully curated, and showed an impressive amount of the artist’s work, from private collections as well.
“It always amazes me how people can spend that kind of money on art and keep it in their homes,” he commented on the work that had been lent to the museum by private collectors. She couldn’t help thinking it was an odd thing to focus on. She had just enjoyed seeing the paintings, and hadn’t thought about how much they cost. They walked to Central Park after they left the museum.
“Where did you grow up?” Tim asked her.
“In Boston.” She didn’t mention the convent or her parents dying when she was young, which seemed like too much information for a first date. He said he’d worked on Wall Street for two years, had gone to San Francisco for a year to join the start-up, and they’d sent him back to New York. He said the job was challenging, but he liked it.
“Raising funds has been hard to get off the ground,” he admitted, but the idea seemed like a good one, when he described it, although a little technical for her. And somehow they got onto the subject of books and he mentioned Alexander Green. “He’s my favorite author,” he explained. “He’s written some incredible books. You probably haven’t read any. They are really shockingly brutal, but always surprising,” he volunteered, and she couldn’t resist the temptation, and surprised him by saying she had read one or two.
“They’re pretty good.”
“You read crime thrillers?” She nodded, as they reached the park.
“My father got me started on them when I was a kid.”
“Green writes some very complicated, edgy stuff. What I love about them is that I can never figure them out. He gets me every time.” She wanted to thank him when he said it, but she didn’t. “They’re very tight.”
“He surprised me too,” she said, and changed the subject, not wanting to give anything away, but it was beginning to bother her that she was never honest. She could never tell anyone “I wrote that!” She had taken on a false identity six years before, and it was a heavy burden at times. She couldn’t even say truthfully what she did for a living. But at least Tim wasn’t a writer in any form, so he wouldn’t be jealous of that, or want to compete with her. But she felt like such a fraud at times and a liar. She told him about London then and how much she’d liked living there for almost two years.
“What did you do there?”