Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Twenty-nine
Jonathan’s second-string assistant told Iris to be at the East Thirty-fourth Street heliport around four p.m. for takeoff to Shelter Island at four-thirty on Friday afternoon.
As she approached the windy tarmac jutting into the East River, Hannah’s advice against bringing Gabe lingered in her mind, not because she wanted to seduce Jonathan, but because juggling a new relationship with a new professional team felt imprudent.
Looking at Gabe now, right on time, carrying both of their luggage, with his hair pulled back in a cute headband, she had no regrets.
Marilyn was next to arrive with her son, Patrick. Well over six feet, he towered over his petite dynamo of a mother but shared her ice-blue eyes, chestnut hair, and freckled nose. He seemed to apologize for his height with stooped shoulders and an endearing shyness.
“Nice Vans, bro,” Gabe said, indicating Patrick’s shoes, slip-ons with a dingy black-and-white checkerboard print. “I had a pair just like ’em. Do you skate?”
Patrick’s eyebrows buoyed. “Yeah! Now just to get around, but in high school I lived at the skate park.”
“Oh, you should’ve seen his hair back then, down past his shoulders!” Marilyn said. “I used to tell him, that hair makes you look like you need a job . I’m glad those skater days are over.”
Gabe flicked his own shoulder-grazing hair and put on a sheepish voice. “I dunno, I hear long hair is making a comeback.”
They all laughed, and the ice was broken.
Iris loved how Gabe could connect with anyone and make them comfortable.
Patrick was like a flower that had been watered, he even stood taller as he talked animatedly about his summer travel plans.
He was leaving for a month-long European tour starting next week, and Gabe shared recommendations for Venice from his own time studying glassblowing in Murano.
Patrick thanked him. “There’s so much I want to see. Jonathan helped me with the itinerary. He’s been everywhere .”
“If you knew the time Jonathan spent on that! I had to force him to focus on his real work.” Marilyn chuckled, beaming with pride. “He’s so excited for you, honey. Jonathan treats Patrick like a son.”
Patrick’s ruddy cheeks got ruddier.
“Are you guys staying at Mr. Wolff’s house as well?” Gabe asked. Marilyn nodded.
Iris jumped in. “I hope we’re not crowding anyone. I told Jonathan we could get a room somewhere—”
“Honey, he can fit all of us and then some.”
“There’s one other couple on the helicopter, right?”
“Bill Hargrove, NYCHA executive vice president for real estate development, who I think you met at that dinner with Jonathan. A few friends will join us for the dinner party, but they have their own places in the Hamptons.”
“Of course.” Iris had briefly forgotten this was not a class of people who “crashed” at friends’ beach houses.
It wasn’t long before a black Lincoln town car pulled up next, and Bill emerged with a woman who appeared in her early twenties.
One might have thought that, like Marilyn, he had brought his adult child, but once the woman stepped fully out of the car wearing a whisper-thin minidress and stiletto sandals, Iris realized Bill was a different kind of daddy.
Marilyn handled the introductions. Bill’s date, Lindsay, was high-maintenance beautiful, with sleek platinum blond hair she kept having to unstick from her mirror-glazed lips and acrylic nails that clicked together when Iris shook her hand. She smelled like bubble-gummy tuberose and vanilla icing.
They waited for Jonathan and his daughter in the air-conditioned BLADE lounge on the landing deck, whose interior was a mix of Pan Am midcentury and Miami nightclub.
Lindsay tugged uselessly at her skirt, which draped over her lap like a napkin rather than an article of clothing, and Iris caught Patrick glancing at her as she recrossed her legs.
Bill might’ve noticed too were he not busy squinting at his phone screen.
They were given branded clear plastic sippy cups that contained an internal glass of champagne, so you could pretend you were drinking from stemware without spilling on yourself like a toddler.
“Have you ever been to the Hamptons?” Iris asked Gabe.
He shook his head. “I just go to the Rockaways.”
“The drive is the worst part. The traffic on Montauk Highway alone is—” Marilyn pantomimed a gun to her head.
“How much is the helicopter ride?” Bill asked.
“Jonathan wouldn’t want you to worry about that.” Marilyn smiled, then glanced toward the helipad. “There he is now.”
Iris recognized the gray Mercedes as it parked out front.
Esdras got out first, opening the back door, and two skinny legs popped out with high-top sneakers.
A preteen girl got out of the car, hauling a tall, funny-shaped backpack that Iris recognized instantly.
Jonathan emerged from the other side holding two suitcases and a duffel bag, waving off Esdras’s offer to carry them.
He looked handsome in a crisp, billowing white shirt cuffed at the forearms, but Iris pushed that thought out of her head.
Jonathan never seemed ill at ease, but with his daughter he was lighter and more jovial.
He greeted everyone with enthusiasm, clapping a hand on Gabe’s shoulder, and proudly introduced his daughter Allegra to the group.
She was at that age when a girl is a patchwork of childish and womanly features.
She was still narrow-hipped and lanky, a sprite with knobby twigs for arms and legs, but wearing denim shorts short enough that Iris’s grandmother wouldn’t have let her out of the house.
Allegra’s dark blond hair was yanked tight in a messy bun, save for the two front tendrils she had pulled out and tucked behind her double-pierced ears.
She had a sweet baby face with shiny skin and a matching pair of her dad’s big aqua eyes.
Iris gestured to the bag slung over Allegra’s shoulder. “Are those your tall boots?”
Allegra’s eyes lit up. “Yes, my first pair!”
“Have they broken in yet? Or are they still digging into the back of your knees?”
Allegra kicked one leg out to display the telltale red rub.
Iris sucked air in a show of respect. “That’s a good one. But that mark is in the right spot. I promise they’ll sink soon.”
The girl beamed before self-consciously closing her lips over her braces.
A BLADE employee told them they were welcome to board, and they followed him onto the helipad where a shiny black helicopter awaited.
“Now this is how to head to the Hamptons in style!” Bill said as they approached. “What do you think, baby?”
“It’s like The Bachelor, ” Lindsay said, posing herself in her front-facing camera with the helicopter behind her.
The cabin was a tight squeeze, with two bench seats facing each other only a few feet apart.
Iris had to thread her knees between Lindsay’s to fit.
The pilot passed them all bulky headphones to wear, and when Iris turned her head, her earpiece clicked with Jonathan’s like football helmets in a huddle.
The propeller’s whirring rose to a high-pitched whine as it spun faster in preparation for takeoff.
The top half of the cabin windows were open, so the air began to swirl, blowing the women’s hair around and making Allegra laugh.
Iris hadn’t expected the experience to be so visceral.
Even with the headphones, the propeller thudding was loud, and Iris could feel the vibrations through her chest. When the helicopter lurched off the ground, she reflexively braced against what was on either side of her, in this case, Gabe and Jonathan.
Iris released Jonathan’s arm as if it were a hot stove and grabbed Gabe with both hands, prompting him to turn.
“You all right?” Gabe shouted over the noise and wind, and she nodded.
Jonathan glanced at her with a smile before returning his attention to his daughter.
Takeoff was nothing like the straight, gradual ascent of a commercial jet.
The helicopter levitated, then felt like it was falling backward, making Iris’s stomach drop, but the pilot was taking a sharp turn toward the water.
The chopper pivoted 180 degrees and shot outward over the East River, hovering low over the shimmering water like a dragonfly, before soaring to eye level with the tallest skyscrapers.
The views were breathtaking and felt thrillingly close with the windows down and air rushing in, and after a few squeezes of Gabe’s hand, Iris relaxed enough to appreciate them.
Manhattan’s skyline was on one side, a bulwark of cool, steely blues silhouetted against a late afternoon sun that flashed between the buildings like fence posts, and on the other side, the Brooklyn skyline awash in gold, Williamsburg by way of Tuscany.
Iris leaned close to Gabe to peer out his window, then noticed he was looking at her.
The sunlight glinted in his eye, and his smile creased his face in the most adorable way.
He made her heart flutter, even more at elevation.
But when Gabe took her hand and kissed it, her response was to break from his grasp and replace her hand on her lap.
In a different context, this experience would be utterly romantic, but she didn’t feel comfortable being physically affectionate around colleagues, much less with her thigh pressed against her boss.
No matter how fun or luxurious the itinerary, this was essentially a work trip.
She hoped Gabe would understand. She vowed to explain it to him once they were at Wolff’s beach house—and make it up to him once they were finally alone.