And right now, the decorator was still waiting.
“It’s splendid,” Amanda ventured finally.
The decorator beamed, admiring her own handiwork. “Oh, Amanda, what a way to put it. I swear, you are my most delightful client.”
“Splendid?” Sarah had appeared in Amanda’s office door, arms crossed, looking beautiful as always with her smooth olive skin, sharp dark brown bob, and huge blue eyes. “Easy, Jane Austen. It’s a couch.”
Sarah came in and flopped down on it for emphasis, patting the spot next to her. “Come on, Amanda. Come sit. It’s your couch, not hers. You should at least test it out.”
Amanda smiled and went to sit next to Sarah. Despite her very petite frame, Sarah was an imposing figure. Amanda always felt much stronger next to her.
“Thank you for all your help,” Amanda said to the decorator.
“Yes, bye now.” Sarah waved dismissively.
The decorator’s mouth pinched at Sarah, but when she stepped toward Amanda, she smiled brightly and kissed her on both cheeks. “Amanda, you feel free to call me if you need anything else.”
“Buh-bye,” Sarah said again.
The decorator snorted before turning on a tall, thin heel and striding for the door.
“Nothing more galling than an asshole like that insisting you must spend fourteen thousand on a stupid couch she could never afford herself,” Sarah said once she was gone. She was looking down at her phone to finish a text, probably to her husband, Kerry. The two texted nonstop, like teenagers. “And that lockjaw? People who are actually fancy never try that hard. You know that, right?”
Sarah had been raised in a struggling, single-parent home outside Tulsa, but Kerry’s family was heir to a button fortune. Like, actual buttons, apparently. It had been dramatically misspent by recent generations, so that Kerry didn’t end up inheriting much of anything, but Sarah had spent plenty of time around his very moneyed older relatives.
“Zach hired her. She’s apparently very well known,” Amanda said, looking around. “I do like the things she picked out.”
“Oh, Amanda. Forever the diplomat.” Sarah patted Amanda’s knee. “You never will say anything negative about anyone, will you?”
“I say negative things,” Amanda protested weakly.
“Just very, very quietly,” Sarah whispered. Then she shrugged. “Hey, I could probably learn to hold my tongue more. You should have heard me ripping into Kerry this morning.” Sarah looked off, considering for a moment. “Though, in my defense, he is too old and paunchy for bright-red Air Jordans. He looks ridiculous. And I’ve seen some of the guys he plays with in that pickup game of his. They are young and in shape and attractive and very not ridiculous. Come to think of it, you want to come watch with me? There was this one with these blue eyes and a little bit of a beard …”
Amanda laughed. “No, thank you.”
Sarah loved to joke openly about attractive men who were not Kerry. She could because her marriage was so rock solid. Sarah and Kerry had three beautiful boys and had been married for ages. They’d met in high school—Kerry the football star, Sarah the cheerleader. They’d even been prom king and queen, something Sarah seemed slightly embarrassed by, but also very proud of.
Sarah sighed. “Anyway, I think Kerry was actually hurt when I wouldn’t let up about the shoes. There is a line, even when it’s all in good fun. Sometimes I forget where it is.”
Sarah was forceful, it was true. She demanded Kerry do this, that, and the other thing—fetch their sons, clean the leaves clogging the storm drain on the corner, help Amanda change that light bulb above their front door. Kerry grumbled sometimes, sure—the leaves, especially, he thought were the city’s problem—but it was always with affection. Like he enjoyed their back-and-forth. Amanda found the entire thing baffling and enviable.
“I think Kerry likes you exactly the way you are,” Amanda said. “Besides, I’m sure Zach would love for me to be as assertive as you. I’d be able to handle everything here at the foundation so much better.”
“Yes, but then Zach would be stuck coming home to my harpy ass. Let’s face it, neither your husband nor I would survive a single night together.”
They both burst out laughing at the thought, leaving Amanda feeling breathless and flushed.
She did love Sarah. Only four months into her time in Park Slope, and Amanda was already so much closer to her than she’d been to any of the women in Palo Alto, who’d ruthlessly guarded their perfection like starving dogs. Sarah was no Carolyn, of course; it was impossible to compete with that kind of history. But Sarah didn’t have to compete with Carolyn. There was plenty of room for both friends in Amanda’s life.
Sarah was an invaluable help with the foundation, too. A former educator, fellow Brooklyn Country Day mom, and president of its PTA, Sarah knew the ins and outs of the tangled New York City education system. Sarah hadn’t worked since before her own children were born, but she’d agreed to take the job at the foundation as assistant director because she wanted to lend a hand. Over Sarah’s objections, Amanda had insisted she be paid generously.
It would have been worth any amount of money not to have to deal with the foundation alone. Having grown up disadvantaged herself, Amanda believed deeply in the foundation’s mission—providing scholarships that allowed needy middle-school students to attend some of New York City’s best private schools. But running the Hope First Initiative was very stressful. And Amanda needed to get it right. After all, it had been Zach’s brainchild.
Zach’s parents—a pair of Poughkeepsie crack addicts—had abandoned him when he was nine. After that, he’d bounced from foster home to foster home. Zach had told Amanda all about it shortly after they met, how growing up in the shadow of swanky Vassar College he’d always known there was more to life. And he’d wanted it. All of it.
And so, Zach had gone out and grabbed it. At the age of fourteen, he began working an illegal overnight shift stocking supermarket shelves to earn enough for the requisite testing and applications to boarding schools. He was admitted to three, including Deerfield Academy, which he attended on full scholarship. From there, he’d gone on to Dartmouth, then a dual JD/MBA from Penn. Amanda had found it all so very impressive. She still did.
Once he and Amanda were together, Zach had shot up the corporate ladder, too, at start-up after start-up in California—Davis, Sunnydale, Sacramento, Pasadena, Palo Alto. Amanda gave birth to Case in Davis, and he was four when Zach decided that if he wanted to really get somewhere, he’d have to create something himself. It was then that ZAG, Inc. was born. (ZAG as in zigzag and also Zach’s initials, plus the A; he didn’t have a middle name.) Within five years, ZAG, Inc. was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. But Amanda was not surprised when Zach resigned and stepped away, saying he was ready for something new. He’d always been a big proponent of challenging himself. Whatever the finer details of the new company Zach had started in New York—they never talked about the minutiae of his work—Amanda was sure it would be a big success, too.
“Why must my husband text to ask what we’re having for dinner in the middle of the day?” Sarah huffed, punching out another text. “It’s not even lunchtime. He should have better things to do.”