if they’d seen the athletic-looking blonde he’d checked in with. The first thing he’d do was call my phone, and wait for the connection, which would take a little extra time on the island, and then he would hear “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas somewhere in the room, and since he knows that’s my ringtone he’d know I left my iPhone behind, and that’s when he’d become concerned. Because that would be completely unlike me. He’d go through my things next, and find I’d also left behind my bag and my backpack, with my wallet and passport and driver’s license, and I think what he’d think then is that I’d been kidnapped; taken, literally, from the hotel room, because I would never venture even outside the door without any of those. That thought brought another smile to my face. Fuck him. Let him be worried. Let him contact local authorities to report a missing person. Let him call my family and ask if they’d heard from me. In fact, let me have talked to my father first; let my father be the one to tell him the marriage is over. No one would enjoy that more than Dad would and he’d do a great job of it, he’d put all the “motherfuckers” and “cocksuckers” in the right places. He’s very good with those.
“Miss, here is a telephone, property of the hotel. Any charges you incur can be added to your bill at the end of your stay.”
It was Eduardo Marquez; he’d snuck up on me. And there was something different about him now, something softer—or at least less suspicious. His smile seemed less forced, less rehearsed. There was something very pleasant and charming about him.
“Thank you,” I said, and took the mobile from him. “I’m very much looking forward to staying here.”
Then I took several deep breaths, filling my lungs until they ached in a way they hadn’t while I was running those eighteen miles. The salt in the air was invigorating, and made my mind feel crisp and sharp. I dialed without looking at the digits, and then I took one more deep breath before I hit send.
“Hi, Dad, it’s me,” I said when he answered. “I’m having sort of an unusual day.”
KATHERINE
“HELLO, MOM, THANKS FOR calling. Yes, it’s sort of a big day.”
There is nothing more challenging for me than being chipper with my mother. She has the amazing ability to take any topic—even a birthday greeting—and give it a funereal tone. I think it’s something in the way she lowers her voice when it comes to certain words, and not the usual ones, like “cancer” or “tax evasion.” Like in this conversation, for instance, I could easily see if she whispered either the “birthday” or the “fortieth,” but she did not, she spoke both of those in a normal tone. But she lowered to where I could barely hear when she said: “I hope you know how proud of you I am.” The whole sentence was muffled, as though she covered the receiver with a sweat sock, and the word “proud” was practically indiscernible. She speaks as though she is constantly apologizing for the interruption, and has all my life, or at least since Dad went away.
In her defense, I suppose there is something vaguely funereal about a fortieth birthday. It certainly signifies the end of something. Not of life, but of something. It signifies the end of my youth, for one thing. I am not, and never will be again, a young woman. No one will ever again call me a “girl,” not that many ever did anyway, but it was comforting to at least know it was a realistic possibility. If I were picking words to whisper, I would say “getting older” and “starting to feel it in my back” so softly you’d need to read my lips.
Those were the thoughts rattling about in my head as I walked into my office. Leave it to my mother to have me thinking about the end of my youth and the increasing stiffness in my lower back first thing in the morning on my birthday.
I am the chief administrative officer of a large investment bank in Manhattan. The title was created for me. To my knowledge, there are very few—if any—other CAOs in major American companies. I began in the legal department, putting to use my dual Harvard degrees in law and business, and ultimately rose to the position of general counsel. Then they