The Jinx. Jennifer Sturman
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to, so he didn’t even try to tag along for dinner.
I stowed my bag and briefcase with the hotel concierge and then headed up Eliot Street toward the restaurant where I was meeting Sara. On the way, I pulled out my cell phone and called Jane.
“Hey, there! Are you in town?” Her greeting was warm.
“I just landed half an hour ago. I’m on my way to a dinner, but I wanted to say hello.”
“Great. Hilary’s already here, and I spoke to Emma and she’s at Matthew’s, as usual, and Luisa’s getting in tomorrow morning. It looks like everyone’s on schedule—wait, Hilary wants to talk.” I heard the fumbling noise of the phone changing hands.
“Rach! Is Peter here, too?”
“Not until later tonight. His flight gets in around ten, I think.”
“As if you don’t know the exact time it gets in and haven’t calculated to the second how long it will take him to get to the hotel,” she pointed out, no small trace of amusement in her tone.
I had, of course, but I knew better than to admit it. Hilary’s talent for mockery was finely honed, and I had no desire to supply her with ammunition. Instead, I changed the subject. “What’s the new project you’re working on? I can’t wait to hear about it.” Asking Hilary about Hilary was a guaranteed way to divert her attention.
“It’s a book,” she told me with enthusiasm.
“A book?” I asked. “What happened to journalism?”
“This is journalism. It’s just like a long-form article. I’ll tell you all about it on Friday, but it’s a true crime book. I figure I’ll write it, it will be a bestseller, I’ll sell the movie rights for a fortune, and then I can stop chasing all over the globe for random stories.”
Knowing Hilary, it probably would be a bestseller, so I didn’t bother to question her lofty expectations. “I thought you liked chasing all over the globe for random stories?” I asked.
“I’m getting a little sick of it, to tell the truth.”
“Don’t tell me. Your nesting instinct is finally kicking in.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. But it would be nice to have a fixed address. What are you—” I heard more fumbling, and then Jane came back on the line.
“Hilary’s decided to use us as her fixed address for the time being,” she said, her voice neutral. When Jane’s voice was neutral, you knew that she was actually freaking out.
“Has she given you any sense of how long she’s planning on using your guest room as her base of operations?”
“Nope,” she answered with false cheer.
“Well, you know Hilary. I’m sure she’ll move on quickly.”
“Uh-huh.” She didn’t sound convinced.
“How much luggage did she bring with her?”
“Enough.”
“Oh.”
“Oh is right. Anyhow, I know you’re busy with work and Peter, but we’ll see you on Friday for the kickoff dinner, right?”
“Absolutely. Is there anything I can bring? Anything I can do?”
“Don’t even start, Rach. We’re not going to let you cook.”
Two
Upstairs on the Square was new to Harvard Square since my student days. The space it occupied had been a bar and restaurant called Grendel’s when I was in college and business school. I’d spent a lot of time there, particularly as an undergrad, and mostly in the cellar bar, which had been a low-budget affair with scarred wood tables and rickety chairs. The restaurant above hadn’t been much better, so I was unprepared for the grandeur of its current state.
The walls of the foyer were now a deep lacquered red, and I checked my coat at a polished wood counter. I’d opted for the Monday Club Bar on the first floor for dinner, which was more casual than the Soiree Room upstairs and slightly funky, with zebra-striped carpet and red-cushioned gilt chairs. I was a few minutes early for our seven-thirty reservation, but I let the hostess lead me to a corner table, ordered a glass of Pinot Noir, and wondered again why Sara had been so anxious to see me tonight.
Sara’s company, Grenthaler Media, had become a Winslow, Brown client due to the efforts of Nancy Sloan, the firm’s first female partner. Nancy had been a mentor to me, a dynamo of a woman with tremendous confidence. I’d learned a lot from her about not letting myself get stepped on by the wingtips and tasseled loafers that roamed Winslow, Brown’s halls.
Two years ago, at the age of forty-one, Nancy met an artist, fell in love and quit the firm. She and her artist now lived in Vermont with their year-old baby boy, and Nancy divided her time between the baby, managing her stock portfolio and writing the business column in their local newspaper.
She’d bequeathed to me several of her clients, including Grenthaler Media. Sara’s father, Samuel Grenthaler, founded the company in 1958 with the launch of a groundbreaking journal on international affairs. He went on to introduce several other magazines, ranging from the obscure and erudite to more popular weeklies, and he became an American success story in the process—a Holocaust refugee who had worked his way up from nothing. In the late 1970s, he’d met Anna Porter, a graduate student studying physics at M.I.T. Anna was the blue-blooded, bluestocking daughter of Edward and Helene Porter, scions of Boston society. Their marriage had been an unlikely one, given their differences in background and age, but by all accounts it had also been a happy one.
Seven years ago, the couple died in a car accident on icy roads. They had been en route to their ski house in Vermont, where their eighteen-year-old daughter was to meet them for the Christmas holidays, when their car skidded off the road, tumbled into a ravine and burst into flames, leaving Sara a very wealthy orphan.
Tom Barnett, Samuel Grenthaler’s best friend and business partner, stepped into the role of CEO. While Tom proved to be a visionary leader and a superb manager, he viewed himself as a caretaker of his friend’s company, and he began grooming Sara to take over. During her vacations from college, she worked in a variety of roles at Grenthaler, and after college, she spent two years at a management consulting firm before enrolling at Harvard Business School. She’d spent the previous summer as an intern at Winslow, Brown, learning the essentials of corporate finance to supplement her formal business education before returning to HBS for her second and final year.
Sara had been assigned to one of my deal teams that summer, and the two of us had hit it off immediately. We had certain things in common—including a love of bad teen movies from the eighties. I loaned her my copy of Valley Girl, and she returned the favor by introducing me to Tuff Turf. But while we had forged a close friendship and our conversation frequently ventured beyond company affairs, I still was surprised that she would want to see me on the eve of Tom’s memorial service. I doubted that I would be among the first people she’d turn to at a time of personal grief.
Seconds after a waitress delivered my glass of wine, I saw Sara framed in the doorway across the room and raised my arm in greeting. A tall woman, she had the slight slouch of someone who was both self-conscious of her height and reluctant to attract notice. But she was striking, and not a few people turned to watch as she made her way through the maze of tables to where I was sitting. She had her mother’s fine-boned features and her father’s piercing dark eyes and luxuriant black hair, and the unusual combination worked.
I rose from the table and gave her a hug. As she settled into the chair across from me, I noticed with concern how thin she’d become and how tired she looked despite the warmth of her smile. She had dark circles under her eyes, and the charcoal-gray of her sweater emphasized her pallor.
I repeated the condolences I’d offered when we’d spoken by phone, and we made small talk about the details of the next day’s memorial service until after