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He leans forward to stand up, then loses momentum halfway and sits with his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor.
“Jonah? Can you do that?”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t move for a long time, then pushes to his feet. “And I understand everything you said before. I’ll keep it professional from now on. Thanks for helping me out.”
After he leaves, I stare at my screen for a few minutes, then get up and walk to the end of the hall to eavesdrop on his phone conversation. “The interview went great,” he explains in a painfully cheerful voice. “It actually went so well that the school’s letting me do work-study for the rest of the semester. A lawyer, yeah. It’s like—” He hesitates, and when I glance around the corner he’s sitting with the phone on speaker on his knee and his head buried in his hand. “It’s like extra credit. It comes with housing and pay, too.”
I can’t understand the tinny speakerphone, but the woman on the other end sounds delighted.
When he’s finished, I walk into the kitchen to brew another cup of coffee. I can feel his eyes following my back. “That was an interesting version of the story.”
“Gray? I mean, Mr. Freeman?” This time it’s not a joke, and I hate it.
“Yes?” I focus on cleaning the grounds out of the filter.
“You told me once that you were nothing like me when you were my age. So maybe you should let me manage my own life.” This time there’s no edge to it, just a quiet observation. Somehow that makes it even more cutting. “Sorry,” he adds.
I shake my head, looking at the stretch of quartz counter where he came, shivering, in my hand just a few hours ago. “No, you’re right. It’s none of my business.”
“We’ll have the four suits delivered this evening, please, once you’ve altered them.”
My tailor, undoubtedly my favorite man in New York, just nods and takes his pad of measurements to the front counter. Jonah, face redder than I would have thought possible, hunches his shoulders uneasily in front of the three-sided mirror. “Bosses don’t buy their interns clothes,” he grumbles.
“You’re right.” I study the wrinkled button down he picked up from his dorm last night, the one that doesn’t quite have all the mud stains from the retreat washed out. In honor of his first day on the job, he has dutifully strangled himself in a blue tie that resembles a hotel carpet and which I suspect he found in his father’s hand-me-downs. “Most bosses give their interns stipends to buy professional clothing. If I let you choose your own clothes, you’d come back looking like a colorblind Mormon got lost in a thrift store.”
His eyebrows go up as he follows me to the front of the shop. “But the thrift store lets you get ten suits for the price of one.” He shoots my tailor an apologetic glance. “No offense.”
“Because the best way to deal with a pile of shit is to make it ten times as large.” I hand over my credit card.
“Snob,” he murmurs behind me, like I can’t hear him.
His mortification fades into excitement as we walk the six blocks to my office in the chilly morning air. Since his outerwear comprises one fraying denim jacket and one hoodie withLooking for Bigfooton the back, I’ve had to lend him one of my wool coats. He knotted the left sleeve short and tucked the collar up around his neck, swinging his hand around in the right pocket, and it looks less professional and more like a girl cozied up in her boyfriend’s too-big jacket. He stops to cock his head at a row of headless mannequins modeling avant-garde handbags in a shop window, then grins at me and runs to catch up. His bizarre attitude yesterday afternoon has disappeared, making me wonder if I imagined it.
“Were you comfortable last night?” I ask, watching the faintest vapor of my breath in the air. “Did you need anything?” He chose the room I knew he would, on the corner with two full walls of windows. I never have guests, so I kept forgetting important things like towels. An hour after he retired for the evening, I realized I didn’t give him a glass for water. I thought for a while about taking him one, but in the end, I left him alone.
“I like the windows. I had a staring contest with a pigeon while I was getting dressed. I won, even though I’m pretty sure birds don’t blink.”
“Then how do you know you won?”
He’s trying so hard to keep a straight face. “I could see the fear in his eyes.”
I shoot him a severe look. “If you’re ever late because you’re staring at pigeons, I’ll have you working all night.”
“Nah, I’m the lord of the pigeons now. They won’t fuck with me.” Then he’s off down the sidewalk, turning around to check that I’m still behind him and almost crashing into a parking meter.
I’m suddenly afraid to unpack those suits tomorrow, to wrap him up in perfectly tailored wool and stuff him behind a desk in an office. I’m afraid that I’ll be committing some kind of mortal sin, caging something that needs to be free.
