is a treat.”
“Isn’t it,” I said.
I didn’t say another word after that.
In the Uber, I do everything as nice as I did when I was driving for myself—the suit, the mints, all of it. Watching in the rearview mirror while Victor chugged two bottles of Poland Spring, I had to hold tight to the steering wheel to keep from punching him.
At the end of every Uber ride, I’m supposed to give the passenger a star rating between one and five and, if I want, a brief explanation of that rating. The passenger does the same for me. If a passenger gets a low rating, it’s harder to get picked up.
Here’s what I wrote for my pal Victor Winslow. One Star—AVOID. Passenger was intoxicated and belligerent.
At this, Sam laughed out loud.
The baby stirred, but a moment later, he was still.
As she turned back to the legal pad, she heard a soft knock at the door.
Sam closed the folder and returned to the bed. She was sitting there, staring at the wall, when George opened the door a crack and whispered, “You want some lunch?”
She looked at him.
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll set up the baby monitor and be right out.”
“Meet me in the kitchen. Turkey and Swiss okay?”
“Sounds great,” she said.
Sam found him at the kitchen counter, spreading yellow mustard and mayonnaise onto slices of wheat bread. News radio played in the background.
“Gil sure does love you,” he said.
“He’s such a good baby,” she said.
“He is. But you’ve got a way with him. I can tell. I’ll bet you come from a big family.”
“I’m the oldest of four,” she said.
“Faye had four in her family too,” he said.
“Where is Faye?”
“She’s off with the realtor, talking about ways to spruce this place up for cheap. Did Andrew and Elisabeth tell you we’re selling?”
“No,” she said.
She wondered if it had to do with him losing his job. She remembered now how Elisabeth had said once that George and Faye were penniless. What exactly did that mean?
“Just after Turkey Day, this old place will be on the market,” he said. “It hasn’t hit me yet, but Faye says it’s happening. Nothing’s selling around here, though, so we’ll have to wait and see.”
He brought their sandwiches to the table.
“You want a soda?” he said.
“I’m fine without,” Sam said. “Thanks.”
George opened a large bag of potato chips and set it down between them. He sat across from her.
He asked where she grew up and what she was studying and what her dad did for a living.
“Samantha O’Connell,” he said. “A good Irish Catholic, I’m assuming.”
She hadn’t been to Mass for three years, other than on Christmas. But Sam said yes.
“We raised Andrew in the Church. He made his communion and confirmation and all that. Are you religious?”
“Not really,” she said.
“No, neither is he.”
“But my parents are. I have a lot of respect for religion.”
There were people, lots of them, most of them maybe, whose personalities were fixed, who seemed as though they’d act the same in front of their own brother or the president. Sam envied them. She had always been a chameleon, programmed to change as needed in order to be liked. Had George presented himself as lapsed, she would have listed all the reasons why she never went to church anymore.
“That’s good,” George said. Then he shook his head and said, “Sorry for the third degree. I used to run a car service. I talked to my passengers all day long. I asked people everything about themselves. I could tell right away if someone didn’t feel like talking, and I respected that. But most wanted to chat, at least. Spill their guts to me sometimes too.”
“I’d love that job,” she said, before wondering if it sounded silly or condescending.
“I still drive people around, but not as much as I used to.”
She nodded. She thought he sounded wistful, but it was possible she was making it up.
“What’s it like, going to an all girls’ school?” he said. “How do you meet a decent guy when you go to a school like that? I can just feel Faye telling me to mind my business.”
Isabella would have corrected him: It’s not a girls’ school, it’s a women’s college.
Sam said, “I have a boyfriend, but he lives in London.”
“London, England?”
“Yup.”
“How do you make that work?”
He really seemed to want to know. Something about this endeared him to her.
“It’s hard,” she said. “I miss him a lot. But we talk on the phone. We write letters.”
“Letters!” George said.