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won’t make it full-time again. We’ve been burned, you understand.”
    I give a noncommittal hum of understanding.
    “There were reservations about hiring another woman, but I told them you’ve already had kids so you’re not flighty.”
    I inhale, my mouth momentarily stuck wide. “I don’t actually—”
    “And they need someone ASAP. I suggested my college roommate, former head of Choate, has his own consulting outfit now, but they want to go with a business consultant again, someone who speaks our language. Anyway the cap’s three hundred.”
    “Three hundred?”
    “An hour. Tops.”
    I elatedly wave my injured hand in the air. “Well”—I hold my voice steady—“as it’s a school, I would be willing to consider it.”
    “Fantastic. Since she went on leave I’ve wasted God knows how many weekends on the phone with these people and their grievance committee. That faculty is a noisy, contentious crew. You know academics, like to hear themselves talk. The headmaster will be expecting to interview you this afternoon at the school.”
    I scramble through the tools for a pencil and step to a free stretch of Pepto wall to scribble. “Great, let me just open my agenda—”
    “I’ll have my secretary call you back with the details. Thanks so much.”
    “Of course.”
    “Our board has some very established members in the business world, not a bad set of contacts for you,” he tosses out as an afterthought that makes me jump in little hops, sending Grace’s head atilt.
    “I look forward to meeting them.” I steady my breath.
    “Very well. Good-bye.”
    “Good-bye.” Nan Hutchinson Consulting Client Number Two!
    An hour later finds me still digging pink paint from under my nails as my cab alternately races and brakes on the West Side Highway in a cluster-fuck of rush-hour rushers.
    “You want I take Fourteenth Street?”
    I pull my BlackBerry from my bag to double-check the address. “It’s at Sixteenth and Ninth.”
    “Meatpacking District. I take Fourteenth.”
    “Great.” I gather up my tote, containing a hastily compiled, if generic, plan for breaking through faculty “noise.” The cab pulls off the highway to inch along a Fourteenth Street I recognize from Sex and the City DVDs, but nonetheless blows my native mind. It looks like every major Madison Avenue flagship has unmoored and drifted south to settle on what I recall from my adolescence as a foul-smelling stretch of godforsaken blood-soaked cobblestone. Perhaps Intermix is now sharing storage with hanging cow carcasses. Perhaps fashion’s finally won and Manhattan’s abandoned eating altogether.
    “Is here.” The cabbie tilts his head and I fish for money as I scan out the window to the hulking white building with its grid of distinctive circular windows.
    “No, this is Safe Harbor House,” I say, referring to the shelter for runaway teens. I check my BlackBerry.
    “Is street,” he says with certainty as the passenger-side rear door flies open and a teenage student with a monogrammed Louis Vuitton backpack leans in.
    “Sorry,” she offers, but stays put.
    I scooch over to get out, peering up to where the ghostly silhouette of the words “Safe Harbor” can be seen in the cement of the building’s facade. I trade places with the girl and her friend in a whir of strong perfume and Marlboro Lights, dodging their tossed butts to arrive at brushed-steel double doors and, to my relief, a discreet glass sign quietly announcing THE JARNDYCE ACADEMY 1878 in the etched block font of a boutique hotel.
    Intrigued, I let myself into a white gallerylike space and am greeted by a well-dressed receptionist seated at a white desk. “May I help you?”
    “Yes, Nan Hutchinson. I’m here to see the headmaster.”
    “Just a moment, please. I’ll let Gene know you’re here.” She picks up her phone.
    Running a straightening hand through my hair, I take in the gleaming lacquered floor and circle of white resin tree stumps beneath what I