“I don’t know if my husband would approve of me doing this with you,” she said, before cracking an enormous grin and adding, “He really hated the Cubs.”
The memorial itself was serene and moving, especially the reflecting pools in the footprint of the fallen towers with the names of the victims etched in bronze panels around them. I ran my hands over her husband’s name, wishing that I didn’t have to do it in front of a press pack. They made me feel like I was giving a performance, even though what I felt was sincere.
“You must miss him,” I said to the widow as they snapped away.
“Every day,” she said. “I wish we’d had more time together. But when you love someone, it’s always too soon to lose them.”
“I admire your courage so much,” I said as we headed inside to the museum.
“I don’t know if it’s courage. I’m just a doer,” she said. “‘You’ll always feel better once you get off your butt’ is my motto. If you can’t change your own circumstances, then change someone else’s.”
The rest of the day was a whirlwind of meetings with philanthropic organizations, a facility I had found myself that was like New Mentality—I’d been proud of that discovery—and a museum Bea dug up that wanted to start its own version of Paint Britain, the charity I’d started before Nick and I got engaged. She’d told them I could discuss my experience as a cofounder, which made me look knowledgeable and further gave me a chance to do some watercolors with kids, something that Bea knew played to my strengths. It was 6:00 p.m. by the time I made it to my final appearance of the day, at the Empire State Building. I smiled to myself, remembering the time Lacey and I had overdrawn our account and she’d tried to sweet-talk the operator into letting us up to the top for free by telling him that she was supposed to meet someone up there who might be the love of her life.
“I’ve seen those movies, kid,” he said. “All of ’em. Isn’t a day someone doesn’t try that line on me.”
Lacey had begun to protest, then gave up. “You caught me,” she said. “That was lame. We’re just two idiots who screwed up our budget.”
“One idiot who screwed up our budget,” I corrected her, “and one idiot who assumed the other idiot was not, in fact, an idiot.”
He’d unhooked the rope for us. “Lucky for you, I’m retiring tomorrow,” he said. “Say hi to Tom Hanks for me.”
This time, after posing for a few photos and making engaged faces at the building’s new exhibit about its construction, I walked onto a waiting elevator, which dumped me out on the viewing deck, empty and secured for me. My protection officers were downstairs (watching me on CCTV in case something crazy happened, like a sudden hurricane or a visit from Spider-Man). There was no docent to talk me through the sights, no members of the public for me to meet, nobody’s hand to shake and no one to smile for—and, hopefully, no long lens trained on my face, or any other parts of my body. I was totally alone, for the first time in two weeks. I relished the feeling of smallness that came from beholding a seemingly boundless city spread out beneath me. In the scheme of things, who even cared if my boobs were in the paper? The people we’d visited on this trip did important work every day of their lives—not because the Daily Mail would approve, or because it would bring good PR to their extended family, but because it was their calling to help. It was about time I treated my job like that, too.
“Cracking view,” said a voice, and then Nick’s hands were wrapped around my waist. “Definitely beats the White House Rose Garden.”
I turned sideways and gave him a peck. “I wish I’d seen that,” I said. “I’ve never been to DC.”
“I didn’t get this kind of view of it, sadly,” Nick said, dropping a coin into one of the viewfinders. “But it’s dwarfed by New York. Why isn’t this your capital?”
“I’d tell you, but I don’t want to spoil Hamilton,” I told him. We had box seats as our final hurrah in New York before heading for Heathrow.
“It does seem to be, as they say, a hell of a town,” Nick said. “I wish we could stay longer.”
“I wish we could, too.” I sighed. “It was a rude awakening, realizing I couldn’t show you my New York. No one is going to let us sneak into some grungy dive bar and monopolize the jukebox until we get kicked out for playing too much Wham!”
Nick turned away from the viewfinder to peer at me. “That cannot be a true story,” Nick said. “There is no such thing as too much Wham!”
“Tell that to the darts league that complained,” I said.
“You two clearly had fun here,” he said, abandoning his viewfinder completely and coming to stand hip to hip with me. “You sound like you miss those days.”
“In some ways,” I said. “Doesn’t everyone miss a time in their life when things were simpler?”
“I’m not sure there was that time in my life,” he said. “I don’t mean to sound self-pitying. It’s just interesting, to hear you talk about a feeling that I won’t ever experience. It’s like people who don’t eat bacon, but want to know why we’re all mad for it. How do you describe what bacon tastes like?” He twined his fingers in mine. “I suppose I want to make sure you’re not having any regrets about our
