6. Duncan
DUNCAN
The call comes on Tuesday morning while I'm reviewing reports from one of our portfolio companies in Berlin. Jeremiah doesn't bother with pleasantries.
"Millie's team wants you two spending time together off-camera. Says the chemistry at the gala was good but mechanical."
I set down my pen. "…Mechanical?"
"Their word, not mine. They're worried people will clock it as performance if you don't build some actual rapport." He pauses, and I can hear him typing in the background. "Her manager suggested weekly outings. Low-key, public enough to be seen but casual enough to look organic."
"And Millie agreed to this?"
"Reluctantly, from what I gather. But yes."
I lean back in my chair and stare at the ceiling.
The gala was three days ago and my phone hasn't stopped since.
Page Six ran a photo of us near the auction tables with a headline that read "Ellington's Mystery Woman," and by morning someone had connected the dots back to our high school.
The narrative is writing itself exactly the way we planned, which should feel like a win but mostly just feels exhausting.
"When does she want to start?"
"This Saturday. She'll text you the details."
"Great."
"Duncan." Jeremiah's voice shifts, drops into the register he uses when he's about to say something I won't like. "Be yourself. These outings are about building real comfort between you two, and people can smell bullshit from a mile away."
"Got it."
"I mean it. You're good at reading rooms, but you're terrible at being vulnerable. Work on that."
He hangs up before I can argue.
The text comes Friday night while I'm at dinner with Emilio and Angelo. My phone buzzes against the table and I glance down to see an unfamiliar number with a 917 area code.
"Tomorrow. 11 AM. Meet me at the 1 train station at 79th Street. Dress casual. — Millie."
I stare at the message for longer than necessary. Emilio notices, leans over, and reads it before I can stop him.
"The subway?" He looks delighted. "When's the last time you took the subway?"
"College, maybe."
"This is going to be hilarious."
Angelo snorts into his wine. "She's testing you."
"What?"
"She wants to see if you can handle her world, the one that doesn't involve private cars and expense accounts." He sets his glass down and grins. "Smart woman."
I pocket my phone and try to focus on the conversation, but my mind is already turning over the logistics. The subway. Public transit. I haven't swiped a MetroCard in seven years, and I'm not entirely sure I remember how.
Saturday morning I dress in jeans, a plain gray T-shirt, and sneakers that cost four hundred dollars but look unremarkable. I debate the baseball cap, decide against it, then change my mind and grab it on the way out. The doorman hails me a cab without asking and I redirect him.
"Actually, I'm walking."
He blinks. "Sir?"
"I'm good. Thanks."
The air outside is warm, a heat that hasn't turned brutal yet. I walk the twelve blocks to the 79th Street station, passing dog walkers and joggers and a guy selling pretzels from a cart that smells of salt and grease. By the time I reach the entrance, my shirt is sticking to my back.
Millie is waiting at the turnstiles, wearing cutoff denim shorts, a loose white tank top, and sunglasses pushed up into her hair. She has a canvas tote bag slung over one shoulder and she's scrolling through her phone with a bored face.
She looks up when I approach, and her mouth curves into something that's almost a smile.
"You came."
"You doubted?"
"Little bit." She nods toward the MetroCard machine. "You know how to use that?"
I hesitate for half a second too long and she laughs sharply.
"Unbelievable. Here." She pulls a card from her bag and taps it against the reader twice, motioning me through the second turnstile before swiping herself in. "Try not to look too much like a tourist."
The platform is crowded with weekend travelers, families hauling strollers and shopping bags, a busker playing guitar near the far end. The heat down here is thicker than it was above ground.
Millie leans against a pillar and crosses her arms. "So. Ground rules."
"There are rules?"
"Always." She ticks them off on her fingers. "One, no complaining. Two, no acting like this is some anthropological expedition into how the other half lives. Three, keep up. I'm not slowing down for you."
"I'm not a slow person."
"We'll see."
The train arrives with a screech of brakes and a rush of hot air. Millie steps on first and I follow, grabbing a pole near the door as the car lurches forward. She stays standing even though there are empty seats, so I do the same.
We ride in silence for three stops. I watch the stations blur past through the window and try to remember the last time I moved through the city like this, surrounded by strangers and noise and the anonymity that comes from being just another body in transit.
"Where are we going?" I ask finally.
"Washington Heights." She glances at me, gauging my reaction. "There's a place I want to show you."
"Okay."
"That's it? No questions?"
"You said keep up. I'm keeping up."
She studies me for another beat, then looks away, but I catch the flicker of something that might be approval.
We transfer at Columbus Circle, the platform even more packed than the first. Millie navigates through the crowd with the ease of someone who grew up doing this, slipping between people without breaking stride. I follow her lead, trying not to lose sight of her white tank top in the sea of bodies.
The A train is standing room only. We end up pressed near the center doors, close enough that I can smell her shampoo—something floral, maybe jasmine. She doesn't seem bothered by the proximity, just pulls out her phone and starts scrolling again.
"You do this every day?" I ask.
"Used to. Before I could afford cars." She doesn't look up. "My mom still does. She works at Mount Sinai, takes the train up from the Heights five days a week."
"What does she do?"
"Nurse. Thirty years." There's pride in her words. "She picked up double shifts to pay for my theater classes when I was a kid. Thought I was wasting her money for a while there."
"But you weren't."
"No." She finally looks at me. "I wasn't."
The train slows as we approach 168th Street and Millie pockets her phone. "This is us."
We spill out onto the platform with everyone else, climbing the stairs into sunlight that feels brighter after the gloom underground.
The neighborhood is different up here, the buildings older and closer together, the sidewalks crowded with vendors selling fruit and cheap sunglasses.
Spanish blends with English in every direction, and the smell of fried food drifts from a corner shop with hand-painted signs in the window.
Millie walks half a block before stopping in front of a bodega with faded awnings and a cat sleeping in the window display.
"This place," she says, "had the best mangonadas in the city when I was growing up. Still does, probably."
She pushes through the door and I follow. Inside, the aisles are narrow and stocked floor to ceiling with products I don't recognize, labels in Spanish and Portuguese and what might be Tagalog. An older man behind the counter looks up, sees Millie, and his entire face transforms.
"?Mija!" He comes around the counter and pulls her into a hug that lifts her off her feet. "?Cuánto tiempo?"
"Too long, Ernesto. I'm sorry."
They talk rapid-fire in Spanish for a minute while I stand awkwardly near the chip rack. Ernesto finally notices me and switches to English.
"This your boyfriend?"
Millie hesitates for half a second. "Yeah. This is Duncan."
Ernesto looks me up and down with the face of a man who's seen plenty of boyfriends come and go and isn't impressed by any of them. Then he shakes my hand with a grip that's stronger than expected.
"You treat her good?"
"I'm trying."
"You better." He releases my hand and turns back to Millie. "Two mangonadas?"
"Please."
We take our drinks outside and sit on the curb because there are no tables. The mangonada is sweet and tangy and cold, mango blended with chamoy and chili powder in a combination that shouldn't work but does. I'm halfway through mine before I realize Millie is watching me.
"What?"
"You actually like it?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Most people from your world wouldn't even try it." She takes a long sip from her own cup. "They'd ask for the ingredients first, make sure it's organic or locally sourced or whatever the hell you rich people care about."
We finish our drinks in silence and toss the cups in a trash can that's overflowing with takeout containers. Millie stands, brushes off her shorts, and starts walking again. I follow.
She takes me to a Dominican restaurant four blocks over, one with plastic chairs and paper menus laminated so many times they're starting to peel.
We order at the counter, and when the food comes, it's piled high on styrofoam plates: rice and beans, fried plantains, something called chicharrón that's crispy and salty and immediately addictive.
"Good?" Millie asks around a mouthful of rice.
"Really good."
"My mom used to bring me here every Sunday after church. It was our thing." She pokes at her plantains with a fork. "She still comes sometimes. Says it reminds her of the restaurants back at home."
"Where's home?"
"Atlanta. She came here to New York when she was nineteen, pregnant with me.
My dad came along, but he didn't deserve either of us.
" Millie's voice is matter-of-fact, but there's an edge underneath.
"She worked three jobs for two years before she could afford to bring my grandma over. Built everything from nothing."
I don't know what to say to that, so I just nod and keep eating.
After lunch she takes me on a walking tour of the neighborhood, pointing out landmarks that mean something to her.
The corner where she used to wait for the school bus, and the park where she practiced monologues on the benches because her apartment was too loud to concentrate.
The building where her best friend from middle school used to live before her family moved to New Jersey.
It occurs to me, somewhere around block seven, that I don't know this city at all.
I know the parts that cater to people like me—the restaurants that require reservations, the bars with velvet ropes, the neighborhoods where doormen recognize your face.
But I don't know this version, the one that exists below Ninety-Sixth Street and above Fourteenth, where people actually live instead of just passing through.
By the time we head back to the subway, the sun is starting to dip and my feet hurt in a way they haven't since college. Millie walks beside me with her hands in her pockets, her sunglasses back over her eyes.
"You did okay today," she says as we swipe through the turnstile.
I laugh despite myself, and she glances over with something that might be surprise.
The train is less crowded on the way back. We find seats near the middle of the car, and Millie pulls out her phone again, scrolling through messages with her thumb. I lean my head back against the window and watch the stations slide past.
At some point I turn to look at her. She's focused on her screen, her profile sharp in the light, and there's a small crease between her eyebrows that suggests she's reading something she doesn't like. A strand of hair has come loose from behind her ear and she tucks it back absently.
She looks up and catches me staring.
"What?"
I shake my head. "Nothing."
"You're looking at me."
"Just thinking."
She raises a brow. "About?"
I consider lying, giving her some straightforward answer that won't complicate things. But Jeremiah's voice is still in my head, telling me to be vulnerable, to stop performing.
"About how much of the city I've missed," I say. "And how you see it completely differently than I do."
Her face changes, just slightly. The skepticism softens.
"Yeah," she says quietly. "I guess I do."
We don't talk for the rest of the ride. When we reach Seventy-Ninth Street, she stands and I follow her onto the platform, up the stairs, back into the warm evening air.
"Same time next week?" she asks.
"Sure."
"Okay." She starts to walk away, then stops and turns back. "Duncan?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for not being an asshole today."
She's gone before I can respond, disappearing into the crowd with her tote bag bouncing against her hip. I stand there for a minute, watching the place where she vanished, and realize I'm smiling.