I
13 years ago, December
She dreams of Alice on a swing. Younger, four maybe, her brilliant copper hair billowing out behind her as she soars through the air. "Look Mommy," she shouts. "I'm flying." Then she lets go, jumps from the seat of the swing and begins to free fall. Donna runs after her, but she's too far away. She'll never make it in time. When Alice hits the ground it cracks open, a frozen lake, she plummets through. Just before Donna can dive in after her someone grabs her by the waist. Jonathan. "Let her go," he says. But she can't. She can't let her go. And by the time she gets free of his grip it's too late. The fissure is sealed off, solid, and no matter how hard she slams her fits against the earth it doesn't break open.
Donna wakes, already in tears. It's dark out. Not night, but overcast. She's not sure what time it is. Jonathan might be home soon and she still hasn't gone to the grocery store. Hasn't gone anywhere. Hasn't done a thing. She took her pills, slept, drank a little too much of the bourbon she hides in the top drawer of her bureau — she's not even sure why she hides it, Jonathan knows it's there. Some nights, when she can't stop crying, he even hands it to her.
She stares at the ceiling and tries to find the will to get up, but the I-can't-do-this-anymore that's been knocking around in her head all day has gotten heavier. Like a sign post signaling toward something that is still fuzzy and undefined.
After a while Molly begins to bark. Again and again and again. It must go on for hours. Donna stands up, puts on her white silk bathrobe and walks into the hall.
The golden retriever is at Alice's door, whining to be let in.
"She's not there, Molly," Donna says softly. "Come on. Let's go downstairs."
The dog looks at Donna, wags her tail, and then turns back to the door. She starts sniffing and digging, paws scratching the hardwood at the gap above the floor.
"She's not there," Donna says more severely. But the scratching continues, the barking goes on, the whining doesn't cease. "Stop," she begs. "Please, just stop."
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
"Stop it!"
Bark. Bark. Bark.
"Damn it, you stupid dog. She's gone. Why can't you get that? She's gone. She's not coming back." Donna runs down the hallway and throws the door open to prove it to her.
Molly bolts in and Donna stands frozen at the threshold. She has avoided this bedroom since Alice passed away, afraid of exactly the sort of pain that grips her. It is almost more than she knows what to do with, but at the same time there is a yearning there, a desperate helplessness that pushes her forward.
She steps inside, amazed by how it's remained exactly how Alice left it – bed unmade, Junie B. book on the night stand, hockey jersey rumpled on the floor. Donna's fingertips brush the bedspread, a teddy bear, her pillowcase, as if checking for a pulse somewhere among her child's possessions.
Out of the corner of her eye, Donna notices Alice's pink notebook sticking up from the box they brought home from the hospital, asserting itself like a beacon. She slowly plucks it out, sits on the small four poster bed and begins to delicately leaf through. The pages are worn in such a way that it naturally falls open to Alice's Goal List. She and Harvey Specter started it together, and seeing that Alice was encouraged by it, Donna added to it and helped her fulfill what she could. Most of the items are crossed off, but the ones that remain make Donna ache: win Daddy at chess, drink a whole beer, go to Harvard, learn Chinese, have Mommy and Harvey meet.
The handwriting of her List is done in three distinct texts: Donna's refined private school cursive, Alice's large blocky scribbles, always escalating in size – Donna imagines her sentences starting at a whisper and ending in a shout— and then a masculine scrawl, small and almost illegible. Harvey's. The masculine scrawl and refined cursive clash: it is his Harvard Law Review to her Doctor Zhivago, Otis Redding to Chopin's Spring Waltz, a home run and then a flying pas de chat; being led by the two of them, Alice was either highly cultured or seriously confused.
Donna almost laughs.
She turns a page and a photo slips out. It's a four-frame, photo booth photo. The first image is of Alice turned profile, a slight scowl on her face, pulling on a tie belonging to a blurred head. The second image reveals the blurred head as Harvey Specter, wearing a wide handsome grin. Alice stands to match his sitting height, throwing bunny ears and a devious smile. In the third, Harvey has countered with a tickle to her gut. Alice is frozen mid-shriek, fear and elation alive in her blue eyes. Harvey's smile is 10-fold. Both are breathtaking. In the last image, Alice is not looking at the camera, but at Harvey. She sees love in her daughter's eyes and a surprisingly deep respect and admiration. She had found in him a role-model, a teacher, an inspiration, a confident and a friend.
The tears come in a rush, and suddenly Donna finds herself thinking she will never get passed this. That the pain and hollowness will always be there, becoming her. The grief will never let up. It is unrelenting waves a thousand feet tall, mercilessly beating her down, demanding surrender and submission. It's a nightmare, and she has to live in it and keep living in it, knowing that each day that passes takes her further away from her. And she doesn't want to keep moving away from her. She wants competition. She wants an ending. She wants a deep resting sleep she never has to wake up from.
And what was fuzzy and undefined becomes blatantly obvious.
II
Inside the firm, it is reverently quiet. Even the new associates, who hardly know Donna, fall into a solemn unity, shutting off the TVs and blacklisting news sites. Mike is stunned by the show of affection; he's seen PSL come together in camaraderie before, but never in such a wide scale.
The reverence doesn't stop at the firm either. The support for Donna expands, explodes.
Secretaries from the accounting firm on the thirty-second floor drop in to pay their respects, leaving on Donna's empty desk a bouquet of mauve roses and a bottle of Cabernet. The insurance sharks on fifteen follow with teas from Dimbula and a spa basket. The software engineers, floorless, leave tech trinkets and a Barboglio decanter.
The day burns down and still, others come, silent and ceremonious: clerks, court officers, a judge from the appeals, the lobby body guard. Coffee-Cart guy drops off what he tells Mike are "loosely" recreational brownies. Donna's desk becomes an altar; flowers, cards and sweets fill her cubicle and overspill.
"Macallan 18?" Harvey is saying, eyebrow raised suspiciously at Fat Billy — a tall, bearded, not-fat, homeless man who squats in the outer alley.
"I didn't steal it if that's what you're thinkin'" Billy says, shoving the bottle into a free nook beside Donna's desk. "I sold my uke."
"What?" Mike's mouth falls open. "You didn't."
"I owe it to her, Mr. Ross. Every day that woman brings me lunch. Rain or shine. No thank you needed. She remembers my birthday, thanks me for my service, makes a poor old mutt like me feel human and that—" He chokes up, sniffs, wipes a stray tear. "That's a good woman. And what they're saying about her on these TVs, it ain't right. A villainess, they say. No way. Not Donna, she's gold. If she ain't an angel, she's halfway there, right? And that baby of hers, dyin' like that. Cancer is one motherfucker."
Mike and Harvey nod, riding Billy's words like a sermon.
"As a mama, facing a loss that big. What do you do, man?"
"What it takes," Harvey answers.
"Yeah, son. What it takes. You burn the world down. Simple. They lock her up, I'll riot."
Harvey pulls out his wallet. "Here," he says, offering Fat Billy a handful of bills. "Get your guitar back."
Fat Billy slides back, offended. "So you can thieve my glory? No sir." He pushes Harvey's outstretched hand down and takes the managing partner by the shoulder. "I'll tell you what. You keep your change. Take that cash and buy Red a nice romantic dinner."
"Bill—"
"Hush now. No excuses. I know you the honeyman, but I love you's gotta be said in a thousand ways, every day, brother."
Honeyman. Mike fights a schoolboy urge to chuckle and tucks the nickname away for later. "Baby steps, Billy," he says. "Harvey has a hard enough time saying it one way."
Fat Billy's face falls serious. Eyes narrowed at Harvey, he scolds: "You need to swallow your pride, boy. Before someone else comes and snatches that girl up."
Harvey nods noncommittally.
"He's trying," Mike vouches. "It's just a lot to choke down when your pride is the size of a 747."
Billy laughs, a rattily, smoker's cackle. "Now you, Mr. Ross, are singing my song."
III
13 years ago, December
The snow continues to drift. Donna looks out at her rooftop garden and sees the decaying foliage covered by a blanket of white. The first snow has always felt like a new beginning to her. Gentle, perfect, clean. A blank canvas.
She slides open the glass door and steps out, barefoot. The shock of ice should send a shiver up her spine, but she is numb to the point that it could just as easily be a sandy beach at her feet. She moves to the roof's edge, her footprints vulgar imperfections that taint and harm. She looks down. Forty-four floors. But it is only one step to street level. The thought lifts her; she steps up onto the narrow stone ledge.
The traffic below is loud and bustling. She thinks of Connecticut, and how this kind of snow would put it to sleep. Like witnessing something holy, the town would fall reverently quiet. But New York is indifferent. People shout, horns honk, lights change, and bodies wander purposefully while she stands over a ledge, struggling to summon the motivation to end her own life.
There's a phone in her hand. She's not sure how it got there, but she knows she should call someone. It's not right, how she's feeling. Cornered by her own thoughts. It's a bottom she'd never imagined she'd hit. And she doesn't want to die, not necessarily, she just doesn't want to be alive anymore. She wants to hit pause, catch her breath, figure out how to function in a world that keeps moving along without her. But that's not an option, and you can't be sad forever as Jonathan would say, and he'll be home soon, to an empty fridge and a wife that can't stop crying long enough to give him what he needs. Does he still love her now that the giving is gone? She doesn't think he does.
Donna finds herself dialing a number she knows by heart.
Her voice when she picks up is smooth and rich with the lively drawl of a Connecticut housewife. "Donna," she says. "Is it our yearly phone conversation already?"
Donna shuts her eyes, wishing this voice was there with her instead of a hundred miles away. "Hi, Mama," she says weakly.
She hears her mother's heels – their distinct, rhythmic click has always been one of Donna's favorite sounds – and then the background noise lightens and disappears. She says, "What is it, honey?"
I am tired, she wants to tell her. She wants to tell her everything. Every sad, hopeless thought she's feeling, like she used to when she was a teenager and Jonathan left her for the military. She wants to crawl into her big canopied bed, sob her eyes out, and hear her say everything will be okay. That she'll heal, hearts break and mend. It's life. But Donna isn't a teenager anymore and this is more than just heart break. "Nothing," she says. "I just missed you."
"I miss you too, sweetheart. But I don't think that's why you called."
Donna watches the fine snow drift from the gray sky; it falls easy and unafraid, straight down into the dark heart of New York. Will it hurt? She wonders. Does it matter?
"How's Alan doing?"
"Alan?" She sounds alarmed. Donna rarely asks on her mother's boyfriend.
"He's…alright, I guess. His back is giving him problems again. It always seems to act up in the winter." And then, as if it just occurred to her, "Hey—how about you come see me. Come up for the weekend. I'll get the room ready for you."
"I don't think so, Mom."
"Donna—"
"I'm sorry," she says, realizing she didn't call her mother to talk her down. "I'm sorry I was angry at you when you left dad. I was just too young to understand. I didn't realize how hard marriage can be. But you were right to leave him. You were right and you were brave, and I'm so grateful we got as close as we did in those years, because it was some of the best times of my life growing up."
"Donna, you're scaring me," she says slowly and delicately, as if her maternal instinct senses her daughter teetering on the edge and she's afraid her words might unbalance her further. "Where is this all coming from?"
"I love you."
"Quit this now. You—"
"Someone's at the door." Donna says, cutting her off. She hates herself for lying but she doesn't want to worry her more. "I should go."
"Don—"
She hangs up, feeling her mother's fear and disappointment looming over her.
The wind picks up. Donna's hair dances in the cool breeze. The snowflakes swirl and blow every which way, millions and millions of them, falling turbulent and without the easy peace of before. She closes her eyes.
Fragments of her life pour down on her. She is five years old, chasing chickens on her nans farm, barefoot and muddy, so much like Alice in the way she stained her dresses. Then she is eight, going shopping at the high-end outlets with her daddy. They brought home a six-foot tall blow up giraffe that her mother hated so much she popped it with a kitchen knife. Then fourteen comes around and she's in a new town – the rich bitch from Cortland – she is too goody-goody and private-school to fit in, but she tells her parents she's okay, because her well-being is one less thing for them to fight about. At fifteen she starts piano lessons again. Her instructor plays like Leif Ove Andsnes and he is only three years older than she is and every time he looks at her she blushes. She tells him she loves him that winter. He tells her it won't work; he's going into the military and besides, she's too young. They make love anyway, on top of his Steinway grand piano, and he is gone three months later. She waits, writes him novel length letters and he writes back, a Nabokov, expressing his adoration for her in wonderfully long prose. When he comes home, it's earlier than anyone expected, and he's not how he left. But she marries him anyway, because in her head there's no one else.
Alice comes; born in spring, the whole world blossoms at her arrival. She is the best of both of them. Soft and tough, clever and imaginative. Perfect. Holding her in her arms, Donna knows a mother is who she's meant to be.
The memories continue, in a rush: Alice's confident first steps, her baby teeth falling out, Jonathan and her asleep together in pop's old rocking chair, her first hockey goal. Thanksgivings pass and Christmases fly by, followed by New Years and Birthdays… It goes bad. There are hospitals and mediflights, solemn doctors with bad news, Alice screaming and screaming, Jonathan and Donna fighting as if the cancer metastasized into their marriage. Her head becomes full of the vulgar beeping of the machines in the ICU.
Then she's gone. Donna looks out of the hospital window expecting Manhattan to crumble at the loss, but it is a beautiful summer day and the world keeps going. She sees Jonathan cry for the first time, locked in the bathroom, they hide from the guests at the wake, clinging to each other like a couple of lost kids. Then grief turns those lost kids into strangers. They live inside their empty house, thinking they'll find their cure in silence and anger.
Donna wills herself to think of something peaceful. Something good to go on, and is brought back to the last time she saw Alice smile. She sees her wide, excited eyes, deep and blue as the ocean, and her beautiful freckled face lifted in elation.
A voice breaks the frame, soft and nonexistent. A whisper in the breeze: We don't give up.
Donna opens her eyes and steps off the ledge.
She can't. Not yet. She has something to cross off Alice's list.
IV
"Twenty-four," Mike mutters, pacing back and forth in Harvey's office. "You wanna push your shady agenda. What do you do? Hire a desperate twenty-four year old as an executive officer, obviously."
"It's exploitation," Louis says from the doorway. "The SEC should have been on this like flies on shit."
Mike nods his agreement, thankful that Louis is no longer in the dark. He'd expected nothing less of tyrannical onslaught out of him after the news hit, but Louis surprised everyone by keeping a cool head — well, mostly, he did tell the associates he'd disembowel anyone who even breathes Duke-Sanger, but on the broad spectrum of things, he hasn't caused any additional chaos. In fact, Mike would say Louis has it together better than the rest of them. They've been dragging this weight for days and their fatigue shows…especially Harvey's.
Mike glances at the managing partner then. Harvey sits at his desk, lost in a thought so deep his eyes seem to sink in after it. He isn't himself, and it isn't just his facial hair, which Mike finds oddly off-putting, but his whole persona. His voice when he speaks is too quiet and his composure lacks its usual insufferable arrogance.
"Why would the SEC overlook this?" Rachel asks.
"Bribery, blackmail, extortion." Louis shrugs. "You can bet your ass it wasn't anything legal."
"Maybe we should get in touch with Cahill," Mike offers. "See if he knows anything."
They all look to Harvey for confirmation. His stare remains vacant, still gripped by his internal demon.
"Harvey?" Mike prompts.
"The SEC is a dead-end," Harvey says absently. "We need to look at the investors. Stock drops an average of six percent when a new female CEO is announced. A young female who also happens to be the chairman's wife —"
"Duke-Sanger should have crashed and burned," Louis finishes.
Harvey nods. "We need to find out who the biggest shareholders were at the time Donna was promoted."
Mike thinks of their two clients caught up in this mess. Two big clients. "That might create a conflict of interest for us," he puts in, a half-hearted protest.
"We'll drop clients if we have to," Harvey says, and looks at Mike for what feels like the first time since he walked in half an hour ago. "Donna comes first."
Mike's heart skips a beat. He thinks everyone's does. Rachel and Louis both turn to him, and their eyes say exactly what Mike is thinking, we can't afford to "drop" even one client, but no one says a word, because it doesn't matter. At the end of the day Pearson Specter Litt is just a name across the wall of a downtown high rise, but Donna is family. And family comes first.
V
It's nearly midnight. Harvey sits at his desk, staring at a blank document. Two hours it's been and he hasn't typed a single word on the Motion to Dismiss he's meant to send out in the morning.
For her, he's taken all his armor off and now suddenly everything is getting to him. He is tormented. A thousand thoughts wreak havoc on his mind; the DoJ cases, this exposé, the dying cactus on his coffee table, Donna…
Mostly Donna. The warm wet of her lips, the almost-green of her eyes, her in his arms, how her smell still clings to him — coconuts and lilacs and dry salty tears. And then it is Donna and Jonathan, locked in a tight embrace — there is still love there, deep and endless. And himself, always afraid of letting go and falling in, how can he compete?
She wanted to tell him more. Spill more. Something about Russo. He pushed it out, said he forgave her, but it's there, thickening and festering in the furthest corner of his mind. He wants to believe she is the same, unchanged by these secrets, and so he has formed himself into a man who is oblivious and unaware. He hasn't even looked at her case file, not once.
Still, there are some things you can't escape.
Harvey heaves a shuddering exhale and drags himself up. He has to get a grip on himself. Get a grip and get serious.
He pours himself a scotch. Downs it. Hesitates to pour another, afraid his thoughts will get loose and call action. He'll show up at her door, ready to fight or fuck or fall to pieces, he can't be sure which. Maybe all three. So instead, he paces. Grabs one of the basketballs lining his wall — Patrick Ewing — and twirls it between his fingertips. It spins out of his grip, hits the corner of his desk and smashes the phone off the receiver.
He watches the ball bounce across the room, dumbstruck. God, even his dexterity has gone to shit.
Harvey leaves the ball where it lies, walks out, wanders down the hallway and into the bullpen. The memory of being a junior associate tugs at him, back when his responsibility was drudge work — checking for typos, making sure the decimals were in the right place — and the worst that would happen if he failed was Hardman would lay into him. Make his life hell…or at least what he thought was hell.
Now if he fails, jobs are lost and with them goes livelihoods and legacy. The fear of what's to come — the choices he'll have to make and the people he'll have to let down — falls down on him like a trap he can't get out of.
Eventually Harvey finds himself standing at the window of his old office. It's only been a week, but this space, which he once had such an intimate attachment to — more home than his own home — already feels like it's no longer his. He fought wars within these walls, found glory; he was born and raised here. And now he's sadly out of place. A foreigner in his homeland.
And it is this, of all things, that shatters him.
He folds, slides down the wall, pulls his knees up to his chest and weeps without restraint. He hasn't felt this broken since he was seventeen, when his shoulder went and with it, his dream of pitching for the major leagues. It consumes him, shakes him; he can't stop.
"Harvey?"
Her voice. It seems to come from a void, distorted. It reaches out, gentle and intimate, as tangible as a caress. Harvey lifts his head slowly to meet it.
And it is Donna, but it isn't.
She has Donna's red hair, fair skin and dazzling demeanor; even her cocked head and soft, questioning gaze is Donna's. But she's older, blue eyed and more severe. Not a New Yorker. Despite the edge and salt in her manner, there is a wholesomeness about her. He thinks, Connecticut. Yes, that's it. Donna's mother.
Sandra comes forward and kneels before Harvey. "What are we doing down here, sweetheart?" She asks. Her voice is refined, low and smooth, almost elegant if not for the languid slant of her vowels. She is high-class, but the lively, sultry kind.
Harvey stares at her, entranced. "I…I don't know."
"Well, I'd say that's enough then." She stands and offers him a delicate hand. "Come on. Let's pick ourselves up."
He obeys, too stunned by this woman's presence to put up an argument. "I'm sorry," he starts, rising. "Mrs.—"
"Donovan."
"But what are you doing here?"
Mrs. Donovan doesn't respond straight away, but takes a moment to straighten out her teal dress. "I saw Donna on the news," she tells him. "I was out having lunch with my girlfriends, and I look up and there she is. All over Channel 3. Not a nice way for a mother to hear her daughter's become a national criminal, is it?"
Harvey nods. The understanding of what it's like to be blindsided is still too raw for him to comment on. "You haven't been able to get a hold of her?"
"Not a word. Infuriating, really, how often that girl avoids me. I tried her at home first. Here seemed the next obvious place." She fixes Harvey with a sharp look. "Seems she's always here."
"I gave her the day off," Harvey says, sensing her accusation. Figuring he has a lot of explaining to do, he walks across the room to Mike's bar cart and pours them both a drink. "I'm surprised security let you up."
"Honey, I can sway an ocean to make its waves turn 'round. A security guard is hardly an obstacle." She accepts his offered scotch, but looks a little offended. With a raised brow, she says, "You call this a shot? I thought a nice, Boston grown boy like you would know the definition of hospitality."
Harvey smiles fondly. "I think you forgot I was at that dinner party. Any more than that and I'm entirely certain you'll burn this place down."
Donna's mother laughs. She has a pleasant laugh: delicate, rich and convincing. Sandra Donovan could laugh as she murders you, and you'd want to join in on her amusement. "And you'll be the one holding the matches. You were just as bad as I was that night. Worse I'd wager."
Harvey doesn't deny it.
Mrs. Donovan sips her scotch and walks the perimeter of Mike's office, eyeing his obscure art collection. Without looking at Harvey, she says, "I hear you're managing partner now."
"By title."
"By title," she repeats, turning to give him a flat stare. "And what does that mean?"
It seems easier to just admit it. "The firm is a shit show. The hot dog stand on the corner has better management, and even then I feel like I'm doing the hot dog stand an injustice using the comparison." He breathes out, feeling like a burden has lifted off his shoulders with the admission. Normally he'd unload on Donna, and he finds it strangely appropriate that it should be her mother that he finds the same kind of solace in. "I have no idea what I'm doing."
"Do any of us?" She lets the question hang, turning to inspect a wooden four-square statue at the edge of Mike's Desk. Unimpressed, her attention falls back to Harvey. "Power is an illusion. Life is too chaotic to have any real control. All you have to be is the man who holds his composure and makes the hard decisions. Right. Wrong. It doesn't matter. These people just need someone to believe in."
Harvey stares down at his drink, feeling a twisted, sinking feeling in his gut. His composure is crumbling, and every decision he faces squeezes and paralyzes him. He doesn't even believe in himself anymore, how can he hold the belief of others?
He protests. "What if I can't be the man everyone thinks I am?"
"From what I've heard, everyone thinks you're a jerk with an over-sized ego." She shrugs and offers him a good-natured smile. "Would being something else be such a bad thing?"
"Jerks with egos win."
"Win what? Their name on some damn wall? It'll probably be replaced next week by some other jerk. Seems the way things go around here. Pearson something-or-other. I can't ever keep it straight." The words fall too distinct. He senses reprimand in them. Blame. She continues, on a roll, "Sure, you've got your million dollar pay checks. But what do you buy? A condo in Florida you never get to visit? Another fancy sports car you don't drive because you're working a hundred hours a week? Sounds to me like you're winning everything and nothing. And I think that's what you're most afraid of. You've made it to the top and the view isn't what you sold your soul for."
Harvey folds his arms across his chest, defensive but not insulted. She is speaking to him in a way Donna never has, in a way he hasn't known since his father died. He translates her harsh politeness to his dad's age-old "grow up and get your head out of your ass."
"I'm sorry," she says, softening. "I'm out of line. You should have poured more. I'm more palatable when I'm drunk."
"No. You're…" Harvey sighs. "You're right. I thought I'd be happier. Managing partner has been my focus for years and now that I have it I…" Harvey swallows and meets Donna's mother's eyes. "I'm not sure it's what I want." And hearing it aloud, he realizes it's true. Maybe he's not cut out for it. Maybe he chose the wrong path.
Mrs. Donovan understands and is motherly honest. "That's okay. It's a profession. You can walk away from this and the world will keep turning." She sets her empty glass on Mike's desk and moves to smooth Harvey's lapel and straighten his tie. "But in the meantime, you need to shave your face, hide your insecurities and start acting like a managing partner. This firm needs you, and so does that delinquent daughter of mine. And who knows, maybe you'll change your mind. It might be that you want this, there's just something special that's missing."
Donna. That lock-box version of her that Harvey keeps tucked away invades his mind. Naked in his arms, she is saying in that husky after-sex voice, "You're going to need something more substantial than your name on some door." The idea seemed crazy to him then. He craved nothing but high rises, city lights, and luxury. He wanted his women coming and going, revolving, so he never had to deal with the deep connection. He should feel like the world is his, but all he feels is hollow, and within that hollow chimes a growing echo of deep regret.
Harvey's phone buzzes in his pocket and pulls him out of the past. Seeing a local area code, he excuses himself and picks up.
"Hey, Harvey. It's Jay, over at The Local Whiskey on Baxter. I have Donna here…she's, uh, not in a good way."
"I'll be right over."
Mrs. Donovan looks at Harvey expectantly. He thinks about lying to her in an effort to spare Donna, but he knows better than to try to pull one over on this woman.
"She's at a bar in Lower Manhattan."
She smiles humorously. "Wonderful. Shall we?"