Getting Back

by Cindy Rizzo

  “Well, what’s done is done and we can move on to other topics.”

  “Okay. Is there something else?”

  Elizabeth shifted her brain into boss mode, a welcome relief from her impossibly messy personal life.

  “Yes. When we get back to the city, I want you to ask your assistant to coordinate with my office on the arrangements for my upcoming trip to Seattle to meet with the Amazon people. You’ll be coming with me.”

  Reese turned her head and looked at Elizabeth, her eyes wide.

  “Really? Don’t you usually bring marketing and legal?”

  Elizabeth ignored the question.

  “You will be given permission to access the electronic files with all of the relevant documents related to our agreement with Amazon. You are to review them and then, a week before the trip, submit a memo to me with your reflections and recommendations for this meeting. I’ll be interested to read your perspectives.”

  “All right. Thank you for this opportunity, Elizabeth.”

  “You can thank me by writing an excellent memo. You might want to get started right away.”

  Chapter 8

  July 2008

  Even a few days out of town put Elizabeth hopelessly behind with e-mails and phone calls, in spite of the efforts of her two assistants. There was also the trip to the West Coast to prepare for. She logged in to the password-protected drive that held all of the files related to the relationship with Amazon. Morrison Publishing’s agreement with Amazon was viewed as something akin to heresy by those in her industry. But Elizabeth didn’t feel the she had the luxury to hold back and tie the fortunes of the company to those of her competitors. The world was changing; e-books and online giants like Amazon were here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. Stubbornly clinging to the halcyon days when publishers set the terms for both their authors and their distributors was unproductive. Better to blaze a new path through tough but realistic negotiation.

  Elizabeth had recruited a team of young wizards from schools like Stanford and MIT to research online trends and recommend how Morrison Publishing could operate best in this new environment. The team, dubbed Twenty-First Century Markets, enabled the company to bridge the worlds of traditional publishing with the new frontier of twenty-somethings who spoke a language that she recognized as English but was nonetheless incomprehensible to her.

  Thus far, this strategy had proven advantageous. The recommendations of her Twenty-First Century Markets team had guided the company’s negotiation points for the initial agreement with Amazon. The team also developed improved direct sales methods for Morrison’s online store and had begun an exploration into the new world of mobile phone apps.

  But while the Amazon agreement had kept the company’s bottom line afloat, the tricky part was that it included periodic check-ins, where both sides had to return to the bargaining table to assess how they were each performing under these new terms and propose any modifications based on those numbers. That was the purpose of the upcoming trip to Seattle. It was akin to beginning all over again, but it was the best that Morrison could do. So far, the agreement appeared to be shoring up the company’s bottom line, putting a stop to the hemorrhaging that had characterized the last two years. Elizabeth’s goal for the check-in visit was to ensure that nothing substantial could change that.

  As she’d hoped, Reese’s contribution had been incisive. Her memo injected an editorial perspective by analyzing Morrison’s authors and books and assigning them to profit categories.

  I recommend a tiered strategy for our negotiations with Amazon that segments our catalogue using the methods outlined below. In this way, we will be able to reap the highest royalty shares on our most promising products and allow Amazon to continue its usual arrangement with products that have a much smaller impact on our profit margin.

  Elizabeth had immediately instructed her team to implement these recommendations in preparation for the next round of negotiations. Reese had used her editorial knowledge and applied it magnificently to the financial side of the business. Elizabeth couldn’t have been more proud of her.

  Reese had come up the ranks through editorial. As far as Elizabeth was concerned, that was the only acceptable path for her successor. She didn’t want a bean counter running this company after she retired. She wanted somebody who could balance the business necessities with the core purpose of the firm—to produce and market great books.

  On the trip back to New York from Seattle, Reese dozed next to her in the roomy first-class seats. This was the first quiet moment they’d had since the drive home from the reunion. The last few weeks had been filled with catch-up meetings and briefings, plus endless hours of preparing for this trip. Overall, it had gone well. While Morrison had to give in a bit on some of the pricing schemes, Reese’s tiered strategy helped the team negotiate around the danger points, where concessions would have led to a frightening financial avalanche. They’d managed to retain their advantage when it came to the biggest names in their catalogue.

  Following the reunion, Elizabeth maintained a friendly, but slightly chilly demeanor with Reese. The incident with Margaret, whose calls she’d been avoiding, still bothered her and she wasn’t sure what, if anything, she should do about it. She’d already accepted Reese’s apology. Well, not exactly. She’d simply said there wasn’t much to be done after the fact.

  She began to fidget with the headphones she’d brought along on the trip. Anticipating this six-hour flight, she’d had her assistant buy an iPod for her and gave her instructions about the exact Mozart and Bach symphonies and concertos she wanted loaded onto it. But now, instead of losing herself in the upbeat allegro of Mozart’s Concerto 21, she twisted black wire around her fingers wondering what she should do about Reese—and about Ruth.

  Back from the reunion, ensconced in their individual lives, what would it accomplish for her and Ruth to stir things up and start seeing one another? As she always had, Ruth was capable of throwing Elizabeth off balance, reducing her to an incoherent babbler. Would that continue to happen in New York? Would a relationship with Ruth, even just a friendship, throw her off her game? In her position, she could hardly afford that.

  She gazed over at the sleeping Reese, who was reclined in her seat and turned toward Elizabeth. Who were they to one another? Their professional relationship was pretty clear, although Elizabeth had never disclosed to Reese, or to anyone else for that matter, that she was effectively grooming her as a successor. But their personal relationship lacked a specific definition. Reese had no biological family she could rely upon—no one but Elizabeth and, of course, Jaret, her girlfriend—to be there for her birthday or to make sure she was remembered at Christmas. Elizabeth had made a point to mark those occasions. But still, it was highly presumptuous to think of herself as some kind of surrogate mother, a replacement for the woman Reese had lost decades ago.

  She sighed and wound the headphone cord tighter around her fingers. There was no one with whom she could discuss this. No one who could possibly understand this familial gray area. Not even Ruth, who had two real children to whom her relationship had never been murky. How well could a judge, whose job it was on a daily basis to cut through gray areas in order to rule in black and white, appreciate what it was like to live in this place of ambiguity? But maybe that’s exactly what she needed—a judge—someone to whom she could present the situation and who could make some sense out of it.

  It always came down to Ruth, didn’t it? Was the situation with Reese just a convenient reason to resume contact with her?

  Elizabeth closed her eyes and listened to the steady hum of the plane’s engine. A soft groan escaped her lips. She was so pitiful, not even capable of mustering the willpower to stick to her resolve of what—five minutes ago?—and stay away.

  In business she was Queen Elizabeth, the no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners guardian of Morrison
Publishing. Decisions were made quickly and there was little second-guessing, at least not in front of other people. But when it came to Ruth Abramson, she was still that girl sitting up against a tree in the Fowler grove, held in thrall by a dark-haired beauty with captivating eyes.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve begun our initial descent into New York City’s JFK Airport.” The flight attendant’s voice shook Elizabeth out of her reverie. She heard a soft moan and turned to see Reese twisting in the seat next to her, eyes open.

  “Almost home. It’s good that you slept through the flight. You must have needed the rest.”

  Reese ran a hand through her hair and reached down for her purse.

  “I guess so, more than I realized.”

  Letting out the deep breath she’d just taken, Elizabeth mustered her courage.

  “I want you to know how very proud I am of you, Reese. Your analysis made all the difference in how we were able to structure this new arrangement. My trust in you has been well placed.”

  Eyes wide, Reese stared back, a look of surprise on her face.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “You don’t know how much that means to me.”

  As they approached the baggage claim, she saw Max standing in the corridor alongside all the other drivers holding signs with the names of customers or companies. And next to him stood a smiling Jaret holding her own makeshift sign, a large, empty Reese’s Pieces candy bag taped to a cardboard square. Reese ran to her laughing and Elizabeth watched them hug and kiss hello.

  “Max, you take these two home. I’ll get a yellow cab.”

  “Ms. Morrison, I can comfortably fit all of you.”

  “Elizabeth, there’s no need to give up your car for us.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of negotiating an airport taxi line. You two enjoy your ride home. And Max, lower the privacy screen so these two can, um, get reacquainted.”

  Reese bent her head, but Elizabeth could see the blush of embarrassment on her cheeks. Jaret, on the other hand, was grinning at her.

  Elizabeth placed her hand on Jaret’s shoulder.

  “Take good care of our girl here. She’s done some very good work.”

  The inside of the yellow cab was blessedly clean and Elizabeth was able to mute the exasperating sound of the television facing her in the backseat. She’d seen an article in the Times that the city was installing these in all the yellow cabs. Whoever had that horrible idea should be summarily removed from their position. As if the city wasn’t already filled with enough insipid noise pollution.

  Elizabeth slid shut the small payment window between her and the driver and leaned back. She couldn’t help but think how much more the comfortable leather seat of her company car was than this worn vinyl. Oh well, she’d made the choice to give Reese and Jaret the better ride home, so there was nothing to be done about it.

  She looked at her Blackberry in the palm of her hand and scrolled through her calendar entries for the next few days. Ruth’s information was now in there along with the hundreds of other contacts contained within its circuitry. She pressed a button and there it was, the first name on the list: Abramson.

  “Hello, it’s Elizabeth.” She did her best to keep a measured tone, but she could detect a slight tremor in her voice.

  “How are you? It’s nice to hear from you.”

  She heard a tiny note of anticipation. Was Ruth also trying to keep the emotion out of her voice?

  “I was wondering. Are you a walker? I mean, do you like to take walks sometimes?”

  “Yes, I walk to work all the time. That’s why I moved down to Tribeca.”

  Elizabeth had seen the real estate listing when Ruth purchased the condo back in 2004.

  “Would you come uptown to Riverside Park? There’s a nice walk that begins at 72nd Street.”

  “Yes, of course. When?”

  There it was again. Elizabeth hadn’t imagined it. Eagerness.

  A walk was friendly and not too intimate. It didn’t involve sitting in a darkened theater. It didn’t necessitate an awkward conversation about paying the bill or dredging up the memories of favorite foods. And Riverside Park was uncharted territory for them.

  They met at six o’clock as the sun dipped lower in the sky on the Jersey side of the Hudson. Elizabeth had a conference call with a distributor in Beijing at eight, something she’d purposely scheduled in order to give herself what she would have referred to in the office as a “hard stop.” This way, she’d be able to fit her time with Ruth into a clearly defined container—ninety minutes and not a second more.

  Again Ruth arrived first, just as she had at the hotel bar. She stood on the corner of 72nd Street and Riverside Drive, their agreed-upon meeting place, with her back to Elizabeth, holding on to the metal railing surrounding the statue of Eleanor Roosevelt. Eleanor was also standing, as she always did in that location, deep in thought with one hand under her chin, the other wrapped around her waist.

  “She died in 1962,” Elizabeth said as she took her place next to Ruth at the railing. “If she’d lived another dozen years, maybe she could have come to speak to us at Fowler. Wouldn’t that have been something?”

  Ruth continued to look at the statue. “She’d have been ninety. Do you think she would have been able to make the trip?”

  “Eleanor could do anything.”

  “In my family, her Universal Declaration of Human Rights was more sacred than the Bible. I had to memorize all of it.” She closed her eyes briefly and looked up at the clear sky. “‘Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.’ That’s the first clause of the preamble.”

  She smiled and finally turned to face Elizabeth. “My father admired her greatly, even to the point where he was certain she was secretly Jewish—his highest compliment.”

  “And my greatest weakness, I suppose. Well, that and being female.”

  She instantly regretted her words. There it was again, her inability to hold back in Ruth’s presence, especially when the conversation touched on the subject of that man, Leon Abramov.

  Ruth stared at the metal railing. “I still remember that day you met him. Ugh, he could be so arrogant and headstrong. I guess that’s where I got it from.”

  “You are not arrogant by nature, Ruth. Headstrong, yes.”

  Ruth chuckled. “Well, if it’s any consolation, raising children wears away at one’s obstinacy, at least it did for me. I found myself giving in to them more often than I probably should have. But luckily they seem to be turning out all right.”

  A flash of their final conversation in 1977 when Ruth broke things off reminded Elizabeth that there was indeed one time when Ruth had been arrogant. In the bar at the reunion, Ruth had referred back to that day, describing herself as “an automaton.” Elizabeth pushed the thought away and decided it was time for them to move on.

  “Shall we leave dear Eleanor to her thoughts and head up the path?”

  “Some scholars say she loved women,” said Ruth. “Do you think there’s any truth to that?”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “There’s some evidence, but who knows. I’m quite content, though, to think of her as a member of the club.”

  “Yes, me too.”

  They walked in silence for a few minutes, amidst the runners, dog walkers, and bicycle riders, all taking advantage of the cooling temperatures in the early evening.

  “Elizabeth.”

  A few seconds went by, but Ruth didn’t continue. Elizabeth turned to her and nodded slightly.

  “Oh I don’t know,” she said at last. “All I seem to say to you is that I’m sorry. For what I did, for what my father did.”

  “Ruth.”

  “I know,
it’s pointless after all this time. And a bit awkward, I guess. That’s why I stopped myself.”

  Elizabeth needed to move on to another topic. She wouldn’t be able to get through this outing if all they were going to do was rehash the ending of their relationship. Plus she wanted a way in to discuss her confusion about Reese, but not yet. She had to work up to it.

  “Was it difficult raising the children on your own, I mean after the divorce?”

  Ruth looked surprised at the question. She opened her mouth and shook her head. “Oh. No. It wasn’t like that at all. I raised them with Bennett and his wife Helena. I guess you didn’t know that.”

  “I think I knew Bennett remarried.” She definitely knew that. She had seen a photo of Bennett and Helena at some gala in the society column of the Sunday Times. “But I didn’t know how involved he’d remained with your children.”

  “Elizabeth, Bennett is a wonderful father and a very kind man. I was so happy, not to mention relieved, when he met Helena. I just couldn’t deal with ruining yet another person’s life.”

  Again, a reference to their ending.

  “So your divorce was amicable?”

  “Relatively so. I didn’t ask for anything for myself. He moved out and got his own apartment. Actually, Helena turned out to be a housewarming gift from his sister.”

  At Elizabeth’s questioning look, Ruth smiled.

  “She’s an interior decorator and Bennett’s sister gifted him her services for his new place. But each of them came away with much more.”

  “That’s a creative way to meet one’s new spouse—hire her.”

  She was close to adding, “maybe I should try that.” But she stopped herself.