“It’s not that I’m choosing, Nick, it’s that this is my job and there are certain things I have to do outside of normal business hours. You know how Katherine’s life is,” I say, rushing, watching the blinking hold light on Katherine’s line out of the corner of my eye.
“I do understand, Coop, you know I do. You’re just always so rushed, and I think it’s all too much. You’ve been so stressed lately. I wanted to celebrate with you tonight.”
“And I want to celebrate with you, too. And we will, just a little late. I appreciate your concern, Nick, it has all been too much lately. But can we talk about it later? The phones are ringing like crazy over here.”
“Okay, hurry through your dinner. See you later.”
“Keep my seat warm and my Kirin cold, and I’ll be there as fast as you can say yellowtail sashimi with jalapeños. Bye.”
Deep breath.
“Katherine Whitney’s office. Thank you for holding.”
The rest of the day speeds by in a torrent of productivity, and at 6:35 Katherine and I race out of the building to her waiting car. The chilly April air stings my cheeks, and I wrap my black coat more tightly around myself. Katherine slinks gracefully and I slump, well, ungracefully, into the backseat. Pancho hits the gas.
Katherine adjusts her earpiece and returns to a phone call that she had put on hold while we were in the elevator.
“I realize that, Peter,” Katherine says, most definitely annoyed. “And I’m not concerned. Everything is going to be fine.”
Peter’s turn.
“Yes, I realize London is asleep and we’re wasting valuable hours, but it can wait until tomorrow. Call Nigel first thing in the morning or, if it will make you feel better, set your alarm and call him at 3:00 a.m. our time. I’m really not worried at all.”
Peter’s turn.
“Yes. Thank you, Peter. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“Sorry,” Katherine sighs loudly, checks her phone, reads a few e-mails, responds to one, and starts another phone call.
“Sorry, Luce. I want to call the girls before they go to sleep.”
As Katherine talks to her daughters (Abby is five and Jordan just turned three), I draw a happy face with my fingers on the fogged-up window. I turn the smile upside down, erase the whole thing with a quick swipe of my palm, and stare out the window as Manhattan races by in silvers, greens, mirrors, yellow blurs, and rushing heads-down pedestrians. The Green Goddess offices are at Columbus Circle on the Upper West Side, far from dinner in Tribeca but close to Katherine’s apartment way up high in a fancy doorman building on Central Park West and not too far at all from my modest walk-up on Eighty-Third between Broadway and Amsterdam.
I am happy to have a moment to breathe. Between handling the incessant calls that came in for Katherine today and managing her social media accounts (tweet, retweet, favorite, post, share, like, comment, begin again), and every other little thing that I do to keep her life—personal, professional, and otherwise—in order, I realize I’m praying at the altar of busy and lighting incense to cover the stench.
I take my phone out of my tote, scroll through my Instagram feed, and read Ava’s latest post: If you want something you’ve never had, then you’ve got to do something you’ve never done. The Drina Reed quote is written in big white-block letters against a scene of a person jumping off a craggy cliff into a crisp, blue sea. I imagine what it would feel like to be that brave. To just jump.
I’ve been thinking about what I want a lot lately. Both as it relates to my future with Nick and my career. The Nick part seems simple. We’re happy being Nick and Lucy. Sure he’s frustrated that I’ve been so busy lately, but he’s building his career, too, so he understands why I have to do what I do. Lately, though, when I think about my career, I get a nervous stomach. This running around, putting out fires, existing only so that Katherine’s life runs smoothly is not what I picture when I envision a perfect day in the life of Lucy’s career. But I’m paying my dues. Head down, hard work, no complaints. Isn’t that what I have to do at this point in my career?
“Okay. So,” Katherine says, shifting her position so she can look me in the eye. “How is everything going?”
Well, my boyfriend is upset with me because not only am I missing the dinner celebrating the biggest thing that’s ever happened in his career, but I’ve also been terribly neglectful of our relationship. Taking proper care of your balanced life is preventing me from having any semblance of balance in my own. I haven’t gone for a run in months. I have been going to bed way too late and getting up way too early to keep up with everything at work. My face is a swarming mess of angry, stress-related zits. I haven’t had time to do laundry, so this is the fifth time in the last two weeks that I’ve worn this whitish blouse, if you haven’t noticed. I’ve been eating spicy Cheetos for dinner. And things are so busy at work that I never feel like I’ll ever catch up.
“Fine,” I say cheerfully. This is my job after all and I can’t afford to lose it. Rent. Cable. Spicy Cheetos.
“I’m checking in because I know things have been really busy with the book and everything else. I know today, particularly, was beyond insane, and I have a feeling things are going to remain in that galaxy for quite some time.”
Ugh.
Katherine’s phone pings. She looks at it. She looks at me.
“Yes, today was most definitely a 9.0 on the insane scale,” I say, attempting a weak smile.
“I know I ask a lot of you, Lucy, and I hope you know that I appreciate you more than I can even say.”
“I know. It’s all good, Katherine. Don’t worry about me.”
“Okay, but if things start really getting out of hand and you need me to bring in reinforcements, I can do that. My life might be out of control, but your life doesn’t have to be.”
“Got it. Work-life balance and all. Thanks, I’ll make sure to let you know if I start taking up the bottle due to my high stress levels and lack of time to eat.” I smirk. She knows my act by now.
Katherine’s phone rings. “This is Katherine,” she says, putting her Bluetooth back in her ear.
Dinner drags. I watch the clock, pick at my dessert, and plan my escape.
“What’s the hurry, slugger?” Theo, who’s sitting to my left, asks me, sensing my plot. He calls me slugger. I have no idea why. But I like it just fine.
Theo Laurent is Katherine’s husband. He’s a professor of economics at Columbia and completely adored by his students. Especially the ones of the female persuasion. And, he’s one of my favorite people in the world. True, true, I don’t know that many people, but even if I did, I’m sure Theo would still make the cut. For one thing, he likes to drink beer and I like to drink beer, and in this city of cosmos and cabernets, any friend of the lager is a friend of mine.
When Katherine said earlier that I have to “help” with Theo, she didn’t mean to imply that Theo needed help. She just knows that at events like this, Theo could use a pal. Theo is brilliant and kind and presidentially handsome—he’s always reminded me of Olivia Pope’s Fitz on Scandal—but he’s not entirely enamored by the small talk and empty mingling that goes on, on occasion, on lots of occasions, in Katherine’s world. Theo’s world is academic and thorough and decisive and intellectual. Sure, Katherine’s world can be, too, given the right event. But Katherine’s world can also be bedazzled and one-dimensional and “you look fabulous,” and that’s where we are tonight. So I’ll help with Theo. But, to be fair, Theo also helps with me.
“Just somewhere else I’m supposed to be.” I look at my phone: 8:43.
“Nick?”
“Yep.”
“All good in that department?” Theo asks, taking a sip of his beer.
“Well, if you must know,” I smile, chin in palm, elbow on table, “Nick’s frustrated because I’ve been very busy lately with the daunting task of handling your lovely wife’s bustling life. Handling her phones. Handling her schedule. Handling her handlers. Handling her Twitter and Fa
cebook. I curse that Mark Zuckerberg.”
Theo laughs.
“I’m trying to keep up while maintaining a rosy complexion, a sense of sanity, and a clean wardrobe. And I’m trying to watch her to see how she does it. But, between you and me, Theo, it’s profoundly overwhelming. I’m not so good at overwhelming. I don’t know how, to coin a phrase, she does it all.”
“Well, she doesn’t do it all. You do some. I do some. The nanny and Pancho and all the other villagers do some. But, yes, she is pretty remarkable at, as you say, doing it all. That’s understandable considering she’s, how did Matt Lauer put that, America’s Sweetheart of Balance?”
“Darling. Darling of Balance,” I say.
We laugh. That Matt Lauer.
“Well, regardless, she makes it look very easy. You are one lucky guy, Theo Laurent. You seem to have scored yourself one capable, competent, and well-loved lady.”
“Why don’t you tell her you’re drowning, Lucy? I’m sure she could hire you some help.”
“An assistant for the assistant?” I ask mockingly.
“Wouldn’t be the first,” Theo says.
“It’s just a busy spell. We’ll get out of it. It’s a lot but I can handle it.” I start to analyze why it is that I’m trying to be a martyr. Why I won’t ask for help. Delegating some of the administrative work might actually be a good idea because it would free me up to do more of the special projects that I really love. But I worry that having to oversee a new assistant will be even more time-consuming. If you want something done right, do it yourself and all. I make a mental note to think about that more but for now, it’s getting late and I want to go.
I check my watch again.
“Go,” Theo says, observing my not-so-stealthy move. “I’ll cover for you. We’ve eaten filet. We’ve raised a toast. We’ve enjoyed laughter and gaiety. Your duties, in my opinion, have been fulfilled for the night. And if America’s Darling has any issue with that, well, I’ll handle it.”
“Thanks, Theo,” I say, standing up and kissing his cheek.
It’s eight forty-five, and I only have four blocks to cover to get from where I am to where my darling boy, who is hopefully not too pissed at me, is holding court at arguably the best Japanese restaurant in Manhattan. Good thing I’m not a stiletto girl or those four blocks would be ugly.
“Sorry. So sorry I’m late!” I exhale when I finally arrive at the table at Nobu, giving Nick a big smooch. Ty stands up, swallows me in a hug, and then introduces me to his girlfriend, Lauren. Latest in a long line. She won’t last. We hug.
“That’s all right, Coop, no worries,” Nick says almost convincingly, passing me a small bottle of Kirin and gesturing to my waiting yellowtail sashimi with jalapeños. Whataguy.
I take a bite of the glistening fish and savor the deliciousness of my favorite dish. Then I attempt a toast. “I don’t know if my unexcused tardiness precludes my prerogative to give a toast, but if it does, I really don’t give a shit. So a toast—”
“A toast!” Nick, Ty, and Lauren announce joyfully, their considerable delight belying the indisputable truth that they’re clearly at least two, if not three, toasts ahead of me.
“A toast,” I continue, “to the start, rather, a continuation of a beautiful relationship. Tonight has been a long time coming. We had to get Nick through law school and those awful ball-busting years working for Grant at Actors and Athletes International, and we had to get Ty through a couple years playing at Duke and eight years of stellar athletic achievement with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and now here we are. Nick has the client of his dreams. Ty has the agent of his dreams. And it’s all just so fucking awesome. Cheers!”
“Cheers!”
I’ve known Ty since college, and Nick met Ty several years before that. Nick and Ty played together at AAU basketball camps all through high school. They were both recruited to play basketball at Duke, and they decided to room together when they both committed—neither decision, rooming together or committing to Duke, requiring more than a second’s contemplation. Unfortunately, a shocking and devastating diagnosis of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a heart condition, during Nick’s precollege physical destroyed his dream to play Division 1 for Duke and Coach K.
Even though Nick couldn’t be on the team, his grades were good enough that he was still able to matriculate. And Coach K gave him one of the highly regarded positions of team manager, which Nick took very seriously his freshman and sophomore years. Ty, who became the star of Duke’s legendary team, left after his sophomore year and was the first pick in the NBA draft that year. He has played with the Cavs ever since and is regarded as the second-best player in the league, after LeBron James. Ty and LeBron are the Sheryl Sandberg and Katherine Whitney of the NBA.
“So what happens now?” I ask.
“Well,” Nick says. “The official announcement of the signing will happen tomorrow morning. I’ll get a nasty call from Grant, which will be amusing and intensely satisfying. I’ll spend the rest of my day dealing with Ty’s lawyers as well as Nike and Gatorade and the other companies he endorses. And then we’ll cap off the day watching our beloved New York Knickerbockers play our now even-more-beloved Cleveland Cavaliers.”
Grant Jerome is Nick’s old boss at AAI, only the most-prominent sports and talent agency in the world. Nick started at AAI right out of law school but left when he thought it was a possibility that the Ty Collins deal might come through. Grant is going to have a little-girl temper tantrum (that I wish I could observe in person) because Ty signed with Nick and his one-man band. Ty had been with an agent in Los Angeles throughout his career, but Grant’s been courting him aggressively since he left Duke. Luckily, my boyfriend is a brilliant attorney so he did everything by the book to avoid any accusations of “stealing a potential client” from Grant. Still, Grant’s going to have a fit.
Ty hears his name called from across the restaurant, looks up, smiles, and stands up. LeBron James, Ty’s Cavaliers teammate, approaches our table and gives a fist pump to Ty and Nick. AAI, specifically Grant Jerome, is LeBron’s agent so LeBron knows Nick.
After Ty introduces Lauren and me, LeBron says, “This looks like some kind of celebration.”
“Sure is,” Ty says. “I just signed with Nick’s new company.”
“Damn!” LeBron says enthusiastically, flashing his infectious smile. “I thought you were with AAI, Nick.”
“Was. Was with AAI. I quit a couple months ago and went out on my own.”
“That’s fantastic. Well congrats, guys. Gotta head back to my table. See you tomorrow, Ty. Get some sleep. Nice meeting you, ladies.”
Okay, that was pretty cool. I’ve been a basketball fan all my life. My brothers all played college ball. I was a Cameron Crazy at Duke all four years. My boyfriend is a sports agent. I’ve met a lot of athletes. But LeBron is my favorite player of all time (after Magic, of course), and that was pretty cool.
“Who was that?” Lauren asks.
Really?
Delicious sushi. Another Kirin. Memories by the dozen of good times at Duke. Laughter.
“I gotta get some sleep. Big game tomorrow night,” Ty says standing up and wiping his hands on his napkin. He grabs Lauren’s sweater off the back of her chair and helps her put it on. Parting gesture. She’ll be on the first flight back to Cleveland tomorrow morning.
“Yes, I’ll see you tomorrow night at The Garden,” Nick says.
“Will you be there, Lucy?” Ty asks.
“No, sorry, Ty,” I say apologetically. “My boss has a book-signing event, and I have to go and help.”
“She’s keeping you busy, huh?”
“Yeah, but it’s all good.” I sneak a peek at Nick. He’s looking toward the window, away from me.
“I thought you were interviewing for another job? A computer job, wasn’t it?” Ty asks.
“Yeah, good memory,” I say. “That’s the direction I want to be heading in. A friend had told me about an opportunity a few months back, but it never p
anned out. In due time, I guess.”
“Yeah. But you’ve got to make your own dreams happen, Lucy,” Ty says. “Sounds a lot like you’re helping to make someone else’s dreams happen.”
“Wasn’t that the line from your last Nike commercial?” Nick asks sarcastically.
“Yeah, maybe,” Ty says, laughing. “But you know I want the best for Lucy.”
“We know, and that’s why we love you. Thank you for looking out for me,” I say to Ty.
Kisses. Hugs. Back-slapping man hugs.
“Let’s go back to my place, Coop,” Nick whispers in a serious voice into my ear. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
Chapter Four
As I mentioned earlier, Nick and I met my freshman, his sophomore year at Duke. Doing the math, that brings us to almost eight years of dating. Some people, namely my mother and my best friend, Ava, have encouraged, even pressured, us to do the unmentionable number two or get off the pot. But we’re doing just fine. We’re young. We’re enjoying our twenties. We’re building our careers. And we’re both good with that situation. At least I am. Nick makes side comments and little jokes all the time about getting married, but if he were serious about it, he would have proposed by now.
We have separate apartments because we’re both old-fashioned when it comes to living together when you’re not married. But it’s pretty much a farce since we spend a lot of nights together and have all the necessaries at each other’s place: toothbrush, extra clothes, iPhone charger.
After more good-byes to Ty and Lauren on the sidewalk outside of Nobu, we take an UberX to Nick’s apartment near Union Square. Nick has to return a call from Ty’s lawyer, so I take advantage of the short ride and close my eyes. Sleep is the only thing on my mind. There seems to be something else on Nick’s.
But my mind starts racing, quashing any hopes for a quick nap, however brief and ultimately unfulfilling. I capitalize on my wakefulness and try to figure out why Nick is mad at me. There are the usual reasons: I’m too busy and I’m putting my job before our relationship. But we discussed those recurring themes today, and I thought he understood why things are a bit crazier than usual right now.
The Balance Project Page 4
