misogynist leanings. Still, Conrad was not one to believe in coincidences.
He flicked his left wrist up, and the sleeve of his Burberry raincoat slipped back. The starched cuffs of his monogrammed dress shirt stuck out the requisite half-inch from the sleeve of his pinstripe suit. He always wore French cuffs, and his gold cufflinks with the crest of Grantham University gleamed. Conrad enjoyed putting them on each morning. He found them reassuring, a symbol that certain traditions would never cease to exist despite the ever-changing world.
He checked his Rolex. The train was now three minutes late. He had a meeting at ten o’clock, but it wasn’t as if he was worried about being late. After all, given his position in life people waited for him.
Frankly, if he still had a driver take him into the City as he’d done every morning during the years he was married to Press’s mother, he wouldn’t have been forced to wait around on a concrete platform, buffeted by flying grit every time the Acela train whisked through without stopping on its way to Washington, D.C.
Alas, the chauffeured car service had come to an end when he married Noreen. She had convinced him that it was every good citizen’s duty to take public transportation whenever possible—good for the environment, she said. He hadn’t needed much convincing. He would have even taken the bus for her. No…maybe not the bus.
So as he waited on the platform, Conrad eyed the young man standing next to him—tight jeans, black leather jacket, a tattoo crawling up the back of his neck. Conrad looked down. The man’s black boots needed polishing. That may have offended him the most.
“The 8:05 Amtrak train will be arriving on the northbound track in one minute,” a crackly voice announced over the loud speakers.
Conrad moved along the platform next to the third billboard down from the stairway. When the train stopped, he would be directly in front of a door.
The train approached the station from Trenton and ground to a noisy halt. The metal doors slipped open. The leather jacket young man tried to nudge his way in first, but Conrad placed his polished brogue just so, blocking his path. In getting on the train, like all things, he liked to come in first.
Shifting today’s copy of the Wall Street Journal to the same hand as his briefcase, he stepped inside and opened the inner door to the carriage on the right. Conrad always went to the right.
Then he found his favorite row—fifth on the left—and took the seat next to the window. Before sitting down, he unbuckled and unbuttoned his tan raincoat and the top button of his suit jacket, then slipped his BlackBerry out of his pocket. He placed his leather briefcase on his lap, the newspaper on top so as not to get ink on his clothes, and settled in for the hour ride.
He nodded curtly at another similarly dressed middle-aged man who sat next to him. Like Conrad, he immediately pulled out his phone, and the two sat in silence as the train pulled away from the station, speeding along until its next stop in New Brunswick. From there, it would travel express to Newark before terminating at Penn Station in Manhattan. On days when the weather was pleasant—like today—Conrad liked to walk across town to the office. He might be sixty-two, but he was a fit sixty-two, with his twice-weekly squash games at the Grantham Club of New York.
As the train jostled slightly on the tracks, Conrad scrolled through his messages. He liked to get an early start on things since the Asian markets had already opened, and he frequently had communications from Shanghai and Tokyo.
Otherwise, it was a good time to delete the flood of unsolicited résumés from job seekers or answer more personal items—updates from fellow members of the Reunions committee or invitations for lunch with friends and colleagues. His assistant Jeremy would follow up on the details of these meetings. Like all good assistants, Jeremy had an unerring ability to fob off
He flicked his left wrist up, and the sleeve of his Burberry raincoat slipped back. The starched cuffs of his monogrammed dress shirt stuck out the requisite half-inch from the sleeve of his pinstripe suit. He always wore French cuffs, and his gold cufflinks with the crest of Grantham University gleamed. Conrad enjoyed putting them on each morning. He found them reassuring, a symbol that certain traditions would never cease to exist despite the ever-changing world.
He checked his Rolex. The train was now three minutes late. He had a meeting at ten o’clock, but it wasn’t as if he was worried about being late. After all, given his position in life people waited for him.
Frankly, if he still had a driver take him into the City as he’d done every morning during the years he was married to Press’s mother, he wouldn’t have been forced to wait around on a concrete platform, buffeted by flying grit every time the Acela train whisked through without stopping on its way to Washington, D.C.
Alas, the chauffeured car service had come to an end when he married Noreen. She had convinced him that it was every good citizen’s duty to take public transportation whenever possible—good for the environment, she said. He hadn’t needed much convincing. He would have even taken the bus for her. No…maybe not the bus.
So as he waited on the platform, Conrad eyed the young man standing next to him—tight jeans, black leather jacket, a tattoo crawling up the back of his neck. Conrad looked down. The man’s black boots needed polishing. That may have offended him the most.
“The 8:05 Amtrak train will be arriving on the northbound track in one minute,” a crackly voice announced over the loud speakers.
Conrad moved along the platform next to the third billboard down from the stairway. When the train stopped, he would be directly in front of a door.
The train approached the station from Trenton and ground to a noisy halt. The metal doors slipped open. The leather jacket young man tried to nudge his way in first, but Conrad placed his polished brogue just so, blocking his path. In getting on the train, like all things, he liked to come in first.
Shifting today’s copy of the Wall Street Journal to the same hand as his briefcase, he stepped inside and opened the inner door to the carriage on the right. Conrad always went to the right.
Then he found his favorite row—fifth on the left—and took the seat next to the window. Before sitting down, he unbuckled and unbuttoned his tan raincoat and the top button of his suit jacket, then slipped his BlackBerry out of his pocket. He placed his leather briefcase on his lap, the newspaper on top so as not to get ink on his clothes, and settled in for the hour ride.
He nodded curtly at another similarly dressed middle-aged man who sat next to him. Like Conrad, he immediately pulled out his phone, and the two sat in silence as the train pulled away from the station, speeding along until its next stop in New Brunswick. From there, it would travel express to Newark before terminating at Penn Station in Manhattan. On days when the weather was pleasant—like today—Conrad liked to walk across town to the office. He might be sixty-two, but he was a fit sixty-two, with his twice-weekly squash games at the Grantham Club of New York.
As the train jostled slightly on the tracks, Conrad scrolled through his messages. He liked to get an early start on things since the Asian markets had already opened, and he frequently had communications from Shanghai and Tokyo.
Otherwise, it was a good time to delete the flood of unsolicited résumés from job seekers or answer more personal items—updates from fellow members of the Reunions committee or invitations for lunch with friends and colleagues. His assistant Jeremy would follow up on the details of these meetings. Like all good assistants, Jeremy had an unerring ability to fob off
Similar Books
