Sara returned to class, determined to graduate in June but spending every minute of spare time she had working with Brian Mulcahey at Grenthaler Media. She and Brian had already asked me to help them identify ways to finance Sara’s acquisition of another ten percent of the company. She’d learned the hard way that securing majority ownership was the only way she could be sure of never losing control of the company. And it looked like her white knight would be none other than Whitaker Jamieson. Sara expressed doubts, but I assured her that he could be quite useful when handled properly.
Jonathan Beasley, meanwhile, had been cleared of everything but writing very inappropriate letters to a student. Last I heard, he was on “sabbatical.” I could only hope that his time off included some intensive therapy and a remedial course in creative writing. And I’d introduced Gabrielle LeFavre to some contacts at a couple of boutique investment banking firms. With some coaching, I was confident she would secure a position that would be well suited to both her objectives and her borderline personality.
Peter and I made it to the final dinner of the reunion weekend, albeit a bit late. I’d suggested that he invite Abigail to come along. It was a stretch, given that Luisa was on the rebound and lived on a different continent, but it seemed worth a try. Luisa was too self-contained to display any visible interest in Peter’s colleague, but Emma told me that she saw them exchanging e-mail addresses at the end of the evening. Jane placed her hands protectively over her abdomen as Hilary and O’Connell flirted with each other. Hilary had already announced that she would need to be spending a lot of time in Boston to finish her book. “You have six months,” Jane warned, “before the guest room turns into a nursery.”
As for Emma, she announced over dessert that she was moving into Matthew’s apartment in Boston. I turned to her, saddened that my best friend would be living in a different city. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s just a shuttle flight away.”
I didn’t worry. I knew that we would talk just as often as we usually did. Besides, I would be busy as well in the upcoming months. Peter would be moving to New York, and I definitely didn’t have enough closet space for two. We would have to find a bigger apartment to share. And I had a wedding to plan, a date to set, a venue to find, a band and caterers and florists to hire, and…
“What are you thinking?” Peter asked me in a low voice, pulling me close.
“That I’m the luckiest person in the world.”
“Careful. You don’t want to jinx yourself, now.”
“You know what I say to the Jinxing Gods?”
“No. What?” His eyes met mine, their rich chocolate color deep and warm.
“Jinx away.”
Jennifer Sturman
Like the heroine of her first novel, The Pact, Jennifer Sturman grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, the birthplace of another fictional character, Ward Cleaver. She also attended the same school as actress Margaret Hamilton, the Cleveland native who played the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. Ms. Hamilton visited her alma mater when Ms. Sturman was in the fourth grade and told the students how she melted. While sworn to secrecy, Ms. Sturman does offer the following hint: trapdoor.
Ms. Sturman graduated from Harvard College with a degree in History and Literature, magna cum laude. She began her business career as a financial analyst in mergers and acquisitions at Goldman, Sachs. Unlike her heroine, Ms. Sturman did not thrive on the all-nighters and number crunching demanded by Wall Street, although she managed to sustain herself by consuming a steady stream of Diet Coke. After two years, she enrolled at Harvard Business School where, with the aid of yet more Diet Coke, she earned her MBA with distinction. She then joined McKinsey & Company as a management consultant, advising clients in media, consumer packaged goods and retail on a broad range of strategic issues. She now works in corporate strategy at Time Warner, but she does not get free cable.
Ms. Sturman resides in Manhattan. She has no free time, but if she did, she would probably spend it doing the New York Times crossword puzzle, watching bad teen movies from the '80s and sipping drinks that come with little umbrellas in them.
