Free Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen

the
Times
and trying to drink coffee from a sip cup without getting stains on their suits when the driver hits a pothole. A car picks Evan up every morning, returns if lunch is in midtown, takes him to the restaurant or the hotel for dinner or (rarely) to the apartment for an evening in. Elsewhere in the country teenagers are taking photographs of the limo that picks them up for the prom, but in New York there are children who take one to school every morning. A lot of them. In fact, Meghan chose Leo’s school in part because it had the fewest black cars double-parked in front on the morning they went for their family interview.
    Before Leo went away to boarding school, a black car would take him to Randalls Island for soccer and softball games. From the Triborough Bridge during the early rush, you can see a strange sight in the spring and fall: fields full of the bright blues and greens and yellows of school sports uniforms, with a phalanx of black cars on the verge, the spectators in dark suits moving back and forth from field to car as they watch, cheer, cry encouragement, then hasten to the backseat when a cell phone chirps. Once I was at one of Leo’s games and a dad emerged from the back of a black car with a big grin and high-fived Evan. “I just made seventeen million dollars between innings,” he said.
    “Way to go,” Evan said.
    There had been no black car outside when I came in, slogging up the hill from the 149th Street subway station in a bitter wind that carried bits of greasy paper and some strange carbonized city dust with it. I would have noticed. I would have assumed it was Meghan, straight from the studio. She and Evan had once gotten into each other’s black cars by mistake when he had an early morning flight. They had talked about it at dinner parties for months after.
    “Luis drove me,” said Evan. “He’s a good guy. He’s the guy who drove us to and from the Waldorf the other night. He’s just never driven me to the Bronx.”
    “Yeah, but he knew the neighborhood, right? I’ll tell you where he is right now.” I was moving toward the door, which required only half a step since my office is the size of what they call the maid’s room in a big New York apartment, which is big enough for a twin bed, a cheesy dresser, and the maid. “He’s around the corner getting a Cubano sandwich and a good cup of coffee, the kind you can stand your spoon up in. It’s what I have for lunch at least once a week.” I closed the door and sat in my desk chair. “And that’s the end of the chitchat. What the hell is going on?”
    “What?”
    “You. Here.”
    “You know.”
    “I know the world of morning TV as we know it has blown sky-high, and that Meghan gave the most insincere apology I’ve seen since she told that guy who came to dinner at your house who kept calling her Maggie that she was sorry about the coffee spill. But I figured I’d talk to her about that, not you. No offense. If she ever calls me.”
    He searched my face, then slumped and looked at his hands. “So you haven’t talked to her?”
    “Not since Sunday. Saturday we ran. Saturday we all went to that deal at the Waldorf. Sunday she called me while she was prepping for Monday. Monday I had to go to court with one of our women who might lose her kids, so I missed the show. Monday night I find out all about it at a dinner at Kate and Sam’s, walk in cold and discover that my very own sister is the toast of New York, emphasis on
toast.
I couldn’t call her line because of the telephone switch-off at nine. I called your line and got no one. I called her office line and left a message. Several messages by now, I guess. And this morning I watched her give the finger to the network and the FCC. Tequila,” I hollered—we didn’t have an intercom because the place was so small we didn’t need one—“did my sister call yet?”
    “No, ma’am,” called Tequila, who didn’t like being hollered at.
    “So I figure she’s