The Manny

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise

Copyright

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE Wheels Up! (#u1fd351cf-23a5-5afa-9c80-1f12c4bf974b)

If you want to see rich people act really rich, go to St Henry’s School for Boys at 3 p.m. on any weekday. Nothing makes rich people crazier than being around other rich people who might be richer than they are. Private school drop-off and pick-up really gets them going. It’s an opportunity to stake their claim, show their wares and let the other parents know where they rank in the top .001 per cent of the top .0001 per cent.

A cavalcade of black SUVs, minivans and chauffeured cars snaked its way up the block beside me as I raced to my son’s after-school game. I’d skipped another meeting at work, but nothing was going to keep me that day. Gingko trees and limestone mansions lined the street where a crowd gathered in front of the school. I steeled myself and waded into a sea of parents: the dads in banker suits barking into their phones and moms with their glamorous sunglasses and toned upper arms – many with dressed-up little darlings by their sides. These children played an important role in their parents’ never-ending game of one-upmanship as they were trotted out in smocked dresses, shuttled from French tutor to Cello class and discussed like prize livestock at a 4-H Fair.

Idling in front of the school, with his tinted rear window half open, a cosmetics giant read about himself in the gossip columns. His four-year-old little girl watched a Barbie Fairytopia DVD on the small screen that dropped down from the ceiling of the vehicle while he finished the article. The nanny, in a starched white uniform, waited patiently in the front seat for him to inform her it was time to go inside.

A few yards down the block, a three-and-a-half-inch green lizard heel was reaching for the sidewalk from the back of a fat, silver Mercedes S600. The chauffeur flashed its yellow headlights at me. Next I saw a brown tweed skirt jacked up on a shapely thigh, ultimately revealing a thirty-something woman shaking out her honey-coloured hair while her driver sprinted like a madman to get her arm.

‘Jamie! Jamie!’ called Ingrid Harris, waving her manicured hand. Dozens of chunky gold bangles jangled as they slid down her arm.

I tried to shield my eyes from the glare. ‘Ingrid. Please. I love you but no. I’ve got to get to Dylan’s game!’

‘I’ve been trying to reach you!’

I ducked into the crowd, knowing she would come after me.

‘Jamie! Please! Wait!’ Ingrid caught up to me, leaving her driver behind to contend with her two boys wailing from their car seats. She let out a huge breath as if the fifteen-foot walk from the Mercedes to the kerb had taxed her. ‘Hooo!’ Remember this is a crowd that touches down on actual pavement as seldom as possible. ‘Thank God you were home last night!’

‘No problem. Any time.’

‘Henry is so in debt to you,’ said Ingrid.

The burly chauffeur carried each of her younger boys in one graceful arc from their car seats to the kerb, as if he were placing eggs in a basket.

‘The four Ambien. Henry was going hunting with some clients for five days, it was wheels up at 10 p.m. to Argentina and he was crazed!’

‘Jamie.’ Next, voice I loved. My friend Kathryn Fitzgerald. She commuted from Tribeca and she was wearing jeans and French sneakers. Like me, she wasn’t one of those people who grew up on the Upper East Side and never touched a doorknob in their entire life. ‘Hurry. Let’s plough up front.’

As we started up the marble stairs, a white Cadillac Escalade pulled up to the kerb. You could tell a hundred feet away that there were children of a major CEO inside. It came to a stop and the aristocratic driver, wearing a bowler hat like Oddjob, walked around to open the door and the four McAllister kids piled out with four Filipina nannies – each holding a child’s hand.

All four of the nannies were wearing white pants, white rubber-soled shoes and matching Dora the Explorer nurse’s shirts with little Band-Aids all over them. There were so many little children and nurses in their tight little pack that they looked like a centipede making its way up the marble steps.

At five minutes after three, the school opened and the parents politely, but forcefully, pushed each other to get in. Up four flights of stairs to the gym, I could hear echoes of young male voices and the screech of sneakers. St Henry’s fourth-grade team was already out practising in their royal-blue-and-white uniforms. I quickly scanned the court for my Dylan, but didn’t see him. I looked up at the crowd to my right. The moms and dads from Dylan’s school were beginning to gather on one side of the bleachers. Scattered among them were the team’s siblings with their nannies representing every country in the United Nations. No Dylan. I finally spotted him huddled on a bench near the locker-room door. He was still dressed in his khakis and white button-down shirt with the collar undone. His blue blazer was draped on the bench beside him. When he saw me, he squinted and looked away. My husband Phillip summoned the exact same expression when he was angry and feeling put upon.

‘Dylan! I’m here!’

‘You’re late, Mom.’

‘Sweetheart, I’m not late.’

‘Well, some of the moms got here before you.’

‘You know what? There’s a line outside, four moms deep, and I can’t cut the line. There’s a lot of moms still coming up behind me.’

‘Whatever.’ He looked away.

‘Honey. Where’s your uniform?’

‘In my backpack.’ I could feel the waves of stubborn tension emanating from my son.

I sat down next to him. ‘It’s time to put it on.’

‘I don’t want to wear my uniform.’

Coach Robertson came over. ‘You know what?’ He put his arms in the air, signalling his exasperation. ‘I’m not gonna force him into it every time. I told him he would miss the game, but I can’t make him put the uniform on. If you wanna know the reality of the situation here, he’s being ridiculous …’

‘You know what I say, Coach? It’s really not being ridiculous. OK?’ This guy was never in tune with Dylan. I brought the coach to the side. ‘We’ve all discussed this – Dylan’s unease before a game. He’s nine years old. It’s his first year on a team.’ The coach didn’t seem to be moved, and he took off. Then I put my arm around Dylan. ‘Honey. Coach Robertson isn’t my favourite person, but he’s right. It’s time to put on the uniform.’

‘He’s doesn’t even like me.’

‘He likes all the boys the same, and even if he’s tough, he just wants you to play.’

‘Well, I’m not gonna.’

‘Even for me?

Dylan looked at me and shook his head. He had big brown eyes and strong features with thick dark hair that never fell just right. Dylan’s mouth smiled more than his eyes ever did.

‘Dylan!!! Hurry!!!’ Douglas Wood, an obnoxious little kid with freckles, a crew cut and a pudgy bottom waddled over. ‘What’s wrong with you, Dylan?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Well, how come you don’t have your uniform on?’

‘Because my mom had to talk to me. It’s her fault.’

Coach Robertson, angry with Douglas for leaving the warm-up and with my son for his refusal to play at all, marched towards us pumping his elbows. ‘Come on, kid. Time’s up. Let’s go.’ He picked up Dylan’s backpack and pulled him by his hand towards the locker room. Dylan rolled his eyes back at me and lumbered along, dragging his uniform behind him on the floor. I walked up towards the bleachers with an ache in my heart.

Kathryn, who’d gone ahead to save me a seat in the bleachers, was now waving to me from the fifth row on the St Henry’s Boys’ School side. She had twin boys in Dylan’s grade, as well as a daughter at our nursery school. Her twins, Louis and Nicky, were fighting over a ball and Coach Robertson leaned down to whistle loudly into their ears to break it up. I watched Kathryn stand up to get a better look at their arguing, her long blonde ponytail cascading down the back of her worn suede jacket. As I edged by twenty people to slip in next to her, she sat down and squeezed my knee.

Kathryn smiled. ‘We made it just in time.’

‘Tell me about it.’ I placed my tired head in the palms of my hands.

A few beats later, the Wilmington Boys’ School team burst through the gym doors like an invading army. I watched my tentative son hang back beside the other players. His sweaty teammates ran back and forth, all in their last fleeting years of boyhood before the gawky ravages of adolescence took hold. They rarely threw the ball to Dylan, mostly because he never made eye contact and always jogged along the periphery of the team, safe outside any commotion. His lanky build and knobby knees made his movements less than graceful, like a giraffe making short stops.

‘Dylan’s not playing well.’