Jeanine and I met in the Hyatt Hotel there, the place where parents of Harvard students stay. It had an open lobby with circular floors, and in the bar, we looked up and down at them and felt we were in the middle of a well-heeled honeycomb. I did, anyway. Jeanine had other thoughts. “I keep thinking of falling off,” she said. “Hopping up and leaning on the railing, very casually. Then one false move, and—whoops!” “That’ll do,” I said. “I thought I would spring for a little luxury—courtesy of Rosie, of course—and now all I can think of is your splattered body a dozen floors down.” “How about your own?” she said. “It could happen to you, just as easily.” It sounded like a threat. Jeanine may have still been steamed at me about Barcelona or just in a morbid mood. She seemed almost vindictively badly dressed—her French Seven Year-Itch T-shirt over sweatpants—and her appearance caused stares in a hotel favored by rich Moms and Dads. This made me feel protective of her, as well as annoyed.
