Chapter 10
That same morning in the West Village, Harper was in the bathroom putting on mascara before work when she felt a drop of water on her head. She glanced up and didn’t see anything.
“That was weird.”
Another drop fell. And then another. She stepped to the side and looked up again.
“Oh no.”
The drips turned into a steady stream of water as the apartment bathroom above flooded into theirs. Her sleeve got soaked as she tried to rescue her phone before it got deluged.
“I can’t deal with this today!” she thought.
“Help!” she called out to her two roommates, praying one of them was home.
Libby was a graphic designer into marijuana and her tuxedo cat Eliot, and Megan was a production assistant who worked overnights at CNN.
Harper and Libby rarely laid on eyes on her.
Megan was like a ghost roommate—the best kind.
Harper ran to get their one big spaghetti pot to catch the water. “I need towels!” she shouted.
Finally, Libby emerged from her room, taking her AirPods out as she realized what was happening. She scrambled upstairs and banged on the neighbor’s door to get them to turn off the water. By the time she got back, Harper had gathered all the spare towels into the bathroom to soak up the mess.
Once Harper had mopped the floor, she replaced the pot with the large kitchen garbage pail to give her some time to think through this disaster.
“How is this my life?” she asked herself. She really needed to get it together and move to a decent apartment.
Libby looked at her. “Laugh or cry?”
“Cry.” To Harper, this was no laughing matter.
Since Libby worked from home for a composting rights initiative, she agreed to call the super and try to get things sorted out.
Harper thanked her, changed into dry clothes, threw her ruined hair into a bun on the top of her head, and headed to Van Buren.
Her class was reading Great Expectations. How ironic, she thought.
“Maybe I should write Least Expectations—life lessons from a disappointed young woman,” she thought. “Not a terrible idea.” She tapped the idea into her notes app. It had potential.
During her lunch hour in the faculty lounge, Harper got a text from Libby. The super said it could be several days before the ceiling was fixed, and they were turning off water to the building for a few days.
“Great. That’s just great.” She put her head in her hands and imagined how much dry shampoo she’d have to use to get through the week.
The biology teacher was gnashing and chomping potato chips like an animal. “That sucks.” Brad Tam chewed with his mouth open. Harper wondered if that alone would work with the jury as a reasonable defense during her trial for his murder.
The school’s longtime receptionist poked her head into the room.
“Harper, the headmaster would like to see you.”
“Uh-oh!” Brad Tam spit chip flecks out onto the table.
“I would say you eat like a pig, but pigs are more polite when they chew.”
He threw his empty chips bag at her.
“Lighten up, Miss Adler.”
She glared at him, pushed away from the table, gathered her things into her cloth tote from the Strand bookstore, and headed to her boss’s office.
The headmaster’s door was open, and he was staring across double computer screens. The bookshelves included lots of vacation photos with his wife and three young children. She knocked gently.
“Miss Adler! Please sit.” Phil Swift was in his fifties, losing his graying hair and going a little soft around the middle. He wore thick-framed, trendy eyeglasses and expensive suits befitting a headmaster.
“Please. Call me Harper.”
“All right, I will.” He folded his hands and rested them on his desk.
She put her phone in her bag, crossed her legs under her maxi skirt, and gave him her full attention.
“Harper, we have an issue. Anastasia Baldwin’s parents called today. They’ve filed an official complaint about you. They say you’ve been retaliating against their daughter with undeserved bad grades because you’re jealous of her.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Harper’s face burned red. “Why would I be jealous of a girl who cannot even write a complete sentence!”
“I know she can be a difficult student. But the Baldwins. Well, I don’t need to remind you.”
“Yes, I’m reminded by her every time I try to give constructive feedback. I know her family built this school, but she doesn’t even try.”
“I understand that, and I hope you understand that once there’s an official complaint, I have to investigate. We must do this by the book.” He double tapped a small stack of papers with his pen.
Harper’s eyes filled with tears, worry welling up inside of her. The Baldwins were best friends of . . . you guessed it . . . the Laschers. Word had spread. And they were coming after her.
“Oh no. Please don’t cry. I feel terrible.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that my apartment flooded today, and this is so upsetting.”
“Tell you what. You and I have never really gotten to know each other. How about I take you to dinner this evening to cheer you up, and we can talk about how best to approach working with the students and parents at this school? We can go early. Say, five o’clock at the Grand Central Oyster Bar?
Then I can catch a train home. What do you say? ”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” she said. “I’m sure you’re too busy for that.”
“No, I’d like to. It’s the least I can do for one of our most promising new teachers.”
It was the nicest anyone had been to her all day.
She hesitated a couple of moments, not wanting to be a bother but appreciating the gesture.
“Okay, sure. Yes, that would be nice.”
“Wonderful. I have a meeting off campus at four this afternoon, so I can meet you at the bar.”
“Great. I’ll be there.” Her mood lifted slightly.
“And, Harper, we can get this taken care of. Try not to worry. If we get this straightened out, you could be here a long time.”
She thanked him and walked back to her classroom, glad to have a vote of confidence from her boss.
She returned to her juniors, who were presenting their essays on their favorite family vacations.
She could hardly stomach listening to all these trips to the Louvre, zip-lining in the Alps, glamping safaris in Kenya, and sailing in St. Tropez.
She scrolled her contacts to text “Climate Denier,” her conservative brother, Ernest, who lived in a new building in Hudson Yards. She found the neighborhood soulless, but he said liked the new construction and walk-in closets.
“Hey. Can I stay over a couple of nights? Bathroom flooded at my place. And don’t say I told you so. I know it’s a dump!”
They argued bitterly about politics, but they were good to each other. He said yes, of course she could stay.
“But only if you text me Mary’s number.” Their running joke about how he was in love with her friend.
“Fat chance!”
AT 4:30, HARPER finished going through the last of her emails and jotted some notes about her experience with the Baldwins for the conversation she had to have the next day.
She freshened up in the teachers’ all-gender bathroom, putting her hair in a tidier bun and adding some under-eye concealer and lip gloss.
She wore a long tan dress, ankle boots, and her signature brown leather jacket that she’d had for years.
It was perfectly broken in and had just the right number of pockets.
She thought her outfit said youthful and creative, part of the New York crowd who did not work in finance or media.
Harper had enough time to walk to the Oyster Bar to get there by five.
She enjoyed the city at this time of day, before the evening rush.
The restaurants were starting to fill up as tourists grabbed an early dinner before the theater.
She loved Broadway and made a mental note to enter a lottery to see if she could win tickets for a show—she knew all the tricks to getting decent seats at a good price.
Mr. Swift had beat her to the restaurant inside Grand Central. He was at the bar, a martini in front of him, and an empty seat to his right.
“Harper. You made it. You look beautiful.”
She was flattered but thought that was a little weird coming from her headmaster. She shook it off and ordered a glass of Sancerre, which she thought made her seem sophisticated. He asked the bartender for the special oysters of the day for them to share.
“Right away, sir.” The bartender was efficient. Harper realized he probably made way more money than she did. Should she consider a part-time job after school?
They made small talk for a while. She’d been hired quickly when the previous English teacher had moved on to Dalton.
He asked about her upbringing and told her about growing up on the Main Line in Philadelphia.
They ended up talking about their favorite books, which was a topic she loved.
She felt warm and happy. She ordered another glass of wine.
“So, Harper. Edith Thistlewood told me all about the . . . uh, other situation today—this thing with the Laschers.”
“Yes. I’m sorry that I’ve caused you a hassle.”
“It’s okay. It’s okay. I know how these parents can be. I understand from Edith that you handled it as best you could in the moment, but she’s not sure they’re completely satisfied.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. What else can I do?”
“Oh, no need to apologize,” he said, reaching into his pocket, pulling out a card, and setting it on the bar. The logo was recognizable: Hilton. The hotel next door to Grand Central.
She stared at it, not sure if he’d meant to get out his credit card to pay the bill before he caught his train.
“You know,” he continued, “I could talk to the Laschers privately. And we can make all this go away.” He looked at her over his martini. “If you want it to.”
For the second time in front of him that day, heat rushed up her neck to her face. She was ashamed, embarrassed, and furious. And confused. Was he asking her to sleep with him to keep teaching at Van Buren?
Harper’s brain set off in several directions at once.
She needed this job, but this man was way out of line.
Her instincts were firing. Her parents had drilled this advice into her head at an early age: “You’re the only one who can protect your integrity.
” She’d made some bad decisions in her life so far, and she knew that sleeping with her boss would be the worst one yet.
She had to think quickly—the second glass of wine had been a terrible idea.
“That’s a very interesting proposition, Mr. Swift.” She tilted her head and didn’t meet his eye.
“Phil, please.” He put his hand on her knee. She flinched.
“Tell you what,” she said. “Let me use the restroom and I’ll meet you at the front entrance on Forty-Second?” She smiled and met his gaze. He looked relieved, his eyebrows raised in salacious expectation, believing he’d made the right call in exploiting Harper.
He dug in his pocket for cash to leave on the counter as she grabbed her jacket, threw her bag over her shoulder, and walked toward the ladies’ room. Her heart was beating fast.
She ducked behind the busboys’ station and peered around the wall.
Once she saw Mr. Swift leave the Oyster Bar, she slipped out a west exit onto Vanderbilt Place and headed toward the Hudson, keeping her eyes forward and her pace steady.
She forced herself to look straight ahead, afraid to look back in case he came looking for her.
On the street the only luck she’d had all day came through as a taxi pulled over as soon as she hailed for one.
“Where to?”
“The Oskar—Hudson Yards.”
The driver nodded.
Harper forced herself to take a deep breath. She leaned her head against the back of the seat and felt embarrassed and angry at herself.
How did she keep getting into one mess after another?