I’ll never forget the clammy sensation of rainwater seeping into my collar—a June downpour in New York crashed down like Wall Street stocks, my Uber app flashing a 47-minute wait while the JPMorgan merger meeting loomed 18 minutes away. In the rearview mirror, my intern Amy shivered clutching a soaked PPT folder, her mascara bleeding into rainwater as my ninth call to the car service met a robotic reply: “32 customers ahead of you.”
“Try the one with the maple leaf logo.” The Starbucks barista slid my caramel macchiato across the counter, a crumpled flyer stuck to the cup’s base. “Last week, a hedge fund manager sprinted into the rain in slippers—they even keep dryers in their cars.”
The moment the car door opened, cedarwood scent and ginger tea warmth enveloped my frayed nerves. “Mr. Goodman? Ethan, your chauffeur.” The silver-haired man handed me a towel, his cufflinks glinting—an exact match to the eagle-head pair I wore at my Yale graduation. “Merger case C-2037? Let’s bypass the 80 Park Avenue garage construction via Roosevelt Expressway.”
As we glided into the Midtown Tunnel, the car tablet’s glow lit Amy’s astonished face: “How did they know I needed an HDMI adapter?” My fingers brushed the emergency tie clip in my inner pocket, recalling my wife’s midnight reproach: “You keep mixing up our daughter’s soccer finals with earnings reports.”
When Ethan tapped the partition as rain softened to a murmur, his words carried through the divider: “The blow dryer’s in the backseat—Mrs. Goodman mentioned you always forget yours.” Amidst the dryer’s hum, my reflection in the windshield transformed: no longer the disheveled VP sprinting through JFK terminals, but a man with groomed hair, cuff starch holding Ethan’s smuggled maple cookie crumbs.
At 7:09 PM, Park Avenue Tower’s revolving doors framed Amy hoisting her tablet—the PPT header’s maple leaf watermark mirroring the car roof’s embossed emblem. The client director raised his coffee cup: “Do you guys even predict thunderstorms?” Through rain-streaked glass, I glimpsed Ethan’s waiting silhouette and suddenly remembered last night’s crayon drawing taped to my fridge: golden leaves glowing through torrents, labeled “Daddy’s superhero” in wobbly letters.