Mrs. Whitney looked exactly the same as I remembered her, impressively tall and erect even sitting down in her office chair. Her hair was short and white, and her dimples showed even as she sat with her lips pressed together. She seemed if anything younger than she had when I worked here more than twenty years ago. She was even wearing the same clothes—possibly the exact same clothes—as she’d worn when I last attended a meeting in this office: black patent leather Ferragamos, pearls, and a burgundy wool dress that might have dated from any time in the past forty years.
The fact that she was so unchanged made me feel exposed, as if I too must look utterly as I’d always looked, must be completely recognizable. She kept staring at me, and finally I could no longer stop myself from smiling at her, suddenly wanting only to be myself, hoping for a nod of recognition in return. I idolized Florence Whitney, and I had been one of her favorites, an editorial assistant she’d believed would rise to the top. I’d always dreamed of one day getting the chance to restore her early faith in me, to show her I hadn’t failed but had just taken an extended time-out.
But Mrs. Whitney only looked confused and looked away. Unsure of whether I felt disappointed or relieved, I turned toward the door just in time to see Lindsay, the young editor I’d met in the ladies’ room the day I got the job. She looked even paler than I remembered, again dressed all in black, and she flashed me a big smile as she took the last chair in the room.
“By now you’ve all seen the new sales figures,” Mrs. Whitney began abruptly. “They’re abysmal.”
People shifted in their seats.
“Who can help me with this?” she said, impatience tingeing her voice.
One of the only men in the room ventured, “The economy—”
“Yes, yes, the economy,” said Mrs. Whitney dismissively, waving a hand as if to shoo a fly. “Of course that’s the problem. What are we going to do about it?”
Bring her solutions, not problems: I remembered that as the mantra from the last time I worked at Mrs. Whitney’s publishing house, founded with the proceeds from her own best-selling feminist tract, Why Men Must Die. Instead of dwelling on setbacks or mistakes, the entire staff was trained to think in terms of solutions, an approach I’d found as useful when dealing with a tantruming toddler or an incompetent roofer as with a manuscript that was two years late.
Emboldened by both our eye contact and Mrs. Whitney’s failure to recognize me, I raised my hand. “We might do some special marketing to book clubs,” I said.
Everyone in the room turned to stare. Teri was glaring.
“What Alice means,” Teri interrupted, “is that book clubs are very price-conscious these days. They want new books, but they don’t want to pay full price, even for trade paper.”
Mrs. Whitney was nodding. I felt the color creep into my face as I heard Teri parroting my words, but giving me no credit.
“My idea,” said Teri, “is that we offer book groups a discount for volume—say two or three dollars off if they buy eight copies or more. We could start a special Web site for book groups, outlining the discounted titles each month.”
At least that part was her own idea.
“That’s very interesting,” Mrs. Whitney says. “But I don’t know if it really addresses the problem with our classics, which as you know still make up the bulk of our business.”
Again, I raised my hand, but this time Teri simply started talking.
“We have to work harder than ever to get young women’s attention these days,” Teri said. “Plus the popular images of women have become so sexy and idealized—think Paris Hilton. I think we have to revisit our cover look—”
That’s when the song started. The loud digital rendition of “Here Comes the Bride.”
All talk ceased as everyone looked around the room for the perpetrator. There was confusion at first over where the sound was coming from—Was there a radio somewhere? Was someone playing a joke?—until the man who had blamed the economy for Gentility’s woes said, “That’s somebody’s cell phone.”
Everyone looked around the room. Who would bring a cell phone into a meeting? A cell phone that was turned on? A few women rummaged through bags and men reached into their jacket pockets, only to find their phones silent. I knew it couldn’t be mine because mine rang like a normal phone. And stopped ringing, going over to voice mail, if I didn’t pick it up after four rings.
But when the song kept playing, louder and louder, and all the people who’d already checked their phones had come up with nothing, I took my phone out of my bag, simply to declare my innocence.
My phone was flashing. It was vibrating. And, now that it was literally out of the bag, it was playing “Here Comes the Bride” loudly enough to waltz to.
“Oh, God,” I said, feeling as if I could drive the phone, like a stake, through my own heart. “I’m so sorry.”
I pressed the button on the back of the phone to turn it off. Nothing. Again. It kept playing.
Finally, in desperation, I flipped it open and tried to press the Off button, not caring if I hung up on the caller before we even spoke.
The song played on.
As the whole room watched, I brought the phone to my ear.
“Hello?” I said tentatively, expecting to hear Diana’s faraway voice, or maybe Maggie’s.
But there was no one there. The phone was now blasting the wedding march.
“Hello?” I said, jamming my finger down on the Talk button. “Hello?”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Teri cried. “Get out of here! Get out of here right now.”
Did she mean leave the room, or leave the company? Was I about to set the world record for marketing assistant fired in the shortest time ever?
My face flaming, I stood up and began to push my way across the entire length of the room, like a bride making her way down the aisle. When I reached the door, Lindsay leaped to her feet and followed me out into the hallway.
“Oh, God,” I said. “I’m so embarrassed.”
She reached for the phone. “I know what it is,” she said. “I have this same phone.”
Expertly, her fingers played across the keys until the music finally, thankfully stopped.
“It was your alarm. Apparently you’re supposed to have drinks tonight with someone named”—she peered at the phone—“Josh?”
Josh. It all came flooding back to me. New Year’s Eve. The guy I kissed. Him programming my phone for our date on the twenty-fifth at Gilberto’s. Which was right downstairs.
“So who’s Josh?” Lindsay asked. “Your boyfriend?”
“Oh, no,” I said. “No, not at all.”
“Just some guy you have a date with.”
“Not really,” I said. “I didn’t even remember about tonight. Obviously.”
“Oh,” Lindsay said. “Well, good. I mean, because I was going to ask you to come out for a drink with me and my boyfriend tonight, to celebrate the first day of your new job.”
“I’d love to,” I said. “But after that episode with the phone, I’m worried today may also be my last. Especially when I break it to Teri that I have to take off tomorrow morning for this medical thing that was scheduled before I knew I was going to be working here.”
“Don’t worry,” said Lindsay. “I’ll tell my boyfriend, who I really want you to meet, to fix everything with Teri.”
“What’s he going to do?” I joked. “Threaten to beat her up?”
“No, silly,” said Lindsay. “He’s her boss. Thad is the publisher of our division. But don’t tell anybody we’re going out. Our relationship’s supposed to be this big secret.”
“Oh, okay,” I said.
“So you’ll come out for a drink with us?”
“Sure.” How could I refuse, in the face of Lindsay’s connections as well as her kindness? Though I couldn’t help but wonder exactly why she was being so sweet and welcoming to me.
“Great. Don’t give Teri another thought. Thad and I will make sure she doesn’t give y
ou a hard time, about today or tomorrow morning or anything else.”
Nearly two hours later, when Teri finally went home—without firing or indeed even speaking to me—I felt free at last to leave my desk. It was time to go meet Lindsay and the mysterious and all-powerful Thad at a bar a few blocks away.
I had genuinely forgotten about my theoretical date with Josh; I’d nearly forgotten about Josh completely in the life-capsizing events of the past weeks. Even if I had remembered I was supposed to meet him, even if I felt vaguely prepared to embark on a relationship with a guy twenty years younger than me, I was far too late.
Still, I couldn’t resist stopping and peering in the window of Gilberto’s, where I was stunned to see Josh sitting at the bar, his hand cupped around a glass that seemed to hold only ice. I hadn’t really expected to see him there, had guessed I might not recognize him in any case, but he looked more familiar and more appealing than I thought he would, like an old friend that I was dying to see, and I nearly went through the door, if only to apologize and talk to him for a moment. Without the hubbub of New Year’s all around, he looked older somehow, and more serious.
But he’s not older, I told myself. At least, he’s not old enough for you. A spontaneous kiss with a stranger on New Year’s Eve was one thing; a deliberate meeting held a different level of intent, one I was afraid wasn’t fair to either of us. Before Josh could see me, I reeled around and hurried away, darting around the corner to the bar where I was meeting Lindsay and Thad.
I had noticed Thad in the meeting in Mrs. Whitney’s office—it was impossible not to notice any man in that sea of women—but I never would have picked him out as someone Lindsay would go out with. I had imagined, I realized, that he would look something like Josh—maybe like Josh if he were putting his MBA to use.
But this guy looked more like my ex-husband, more like all the boring husbands, the tedious men, I’d known in Homewood, the men who talked only to each other and then only about themselves. It wasn’t that he was middle-aged, just that he aspired to be, with his clipped hair and his tightly knotted tie and his eyes full of judgment, as he looked me over and deemed me, I could tell, not worthy of his serious consideration. But this guy was my boss, I reminded myself; he was even Teri’s boss. And he was the boyfriend of the only friend I had at Gentility.
“So, Alice,” he said. “Lindsay tells me this is your first publishing job.”
“I’ve never worked anywhere but Gentility,” I said.
“Really?” said Thad, assessing me. “Where did you go to school?”
He was the kind of guy, I knew, who if you asked him the same question, would say “Cambridge” or “New Haven,” wanting you to think he was modest because he hadn’t said Harvard or Yale.
Try to like him, I told myself. At least, try to handle him. God knew after twenty years of practice at the swim club and on the suburban fund-raising circuit, I should know how to do that.
“I went to Mount Holyoke,” I said, reminding myself that Thad’s favorite subject would almost certainly be Thad. “And what about you?”
“Cambridge,” he said.
“Oh.” I couldn’t resist a dig. “MIT?”
He narrowed his eyes at me, obviously deciding, I was gratified to see, that maybe he’d underestimated me after all.
“No,” he said shortly. “I once dated a girl from Mount Holyoke, Hilary Davis. Maybe you knew her?”
“No,” I said, suddenly enormously thirsty. “What are you drinking, Lindsay?”
“Bombay Sapphire martini, extra dry, straight up with olives,” she said. “I used to drink mojitos, but Thad’s converting me. Isn’t that right, sweetie?”
“So what years were you at Mount Holyoke?” he persisted, ignoring Lindsay. “You must have crossed paths with Hilary at least part of the time.”
Maybe I’d underestimated Thad, too. He seemed to have a greater capability to focus outside himself than I’d given him credit for. I was obviously going to have to try harder.
“That’s ancient history,” I said. “I’d love to hear about you, your thoughts about the line. Lindsay tells me you’re the hottest publisher in the business.”
Lindsay, of course, had said no such thing, but she was pleased that he thought she had, and I’d finally diverted his attention away from me and when I had or hadn’t gone to college.
“Suppose I am,” he said. “Rooster in the henhouse, and all that.”
Oh, yuck. Still, if I was going to be smart about my career, I should keep feeding Thad the flattery he so obviously relished, rather than treating him like the jerk he was.
“I hear you’re the kind of publisher who’s open to new ideas,” I told him, “who can recognize a real innovation when it comes along.”
“Well,” he said, swallowing the bait, “I definitely believe Gentility could use some changes.”
“You’ll see,” said Lindsay, leaning in close to him, “Alice is just the person you need on your team. She has all these fabulous new ideas that are really going to shake up that marketing department.”
The memory of Teri Jordan’s stony face across Mrs. Whitney’s office when I’d dared to open my mouth was enough to make me want to divert Lindsay from that path.
“I’d love to do a good job for you,” I told Thad, “but I’m really just a beginner.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll break you in,” said Thad. “What was your major?”
“English,” I said.
“I knew it!” Lindsay cried. “You’re really a writer!”
I had tried writing a novel when Diana was little, laboring under some vision of myself spinning out great prose while my child gamboled at my feet. The reality was that I had to stop so often to tend to my little girl’s needs that I got very little written—or very little that was decent, anyway. When I’d finally, after months, finished a handful of pages, I’d given them to Gary to read. He was sorry to tell me, he said, that they weren’t really very good. I’d put them away, mostly relieved not to have to push myself anymore.
“I used to want to write, but I gave it up,” I told Lindsay.
“What kind of stuff?” Thad asked. “Children’s books?”
Apparently he considered me incapable of stringing together more than five words at a time.
“No, women’s fiction.”
“Oh,” he said dismissively. “Romance.”
“If you ever want to show me anything you’ve written,” said Lindsay, “I’ll be delighted to look at it.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Right now, I think I’m more interested in the kind of career that makes money.”
“That’s cool,” said Lindsay, turning to Thad. “Didn’t I tell you she was great, Thad? We should introduce her to Porter Fitch, don’t you think? He likes to make money.”
“My college roommate,” explained Thad. “Big Wall Street job now. Never had a lick of an urge to give back, the way I did.”
So working in publishing was “giving back”? Maybe because it was women’s publishing. I wanted to tell Thad that we women would probably be able to muddle along without his charity.
“We could have a real dinner party,” Lindsay said, growing more excited, “just like you’ve been wanting to, sweetie! I could even cook!”
I smiled weakly. Lindsay was so sweet, she reminded me so much of my own daughter, I found her utterly irresistible. Thad was another story, but he had a lot of power over me—and he was the first person I’d encountered who seemed not to automatically accept my age story.
“What do you think, Alice?” Lindsay said, eyes shining. “How’s Saturday night?”
“Uh…,” I said. “Uh…”
The only thing I could do was nod, and figure I had five days to find a way out of it.
Chapter 7
I stood at the head of the examination table, gripping Maggie’s hand. The doctor had just completed the procedure and left the room, and Maggie lay there with her bottom half draped in a sheet, her knees up, following in
structions to lie as still as possible. The doctor had used a spotlight when he was working, but he’d turned it off and left us in the twilight of the candles Maggie had brought along.
“Very romantic,” I said.
“Try to play along.”
“Okay,” I said. “Darling, I’m so thrilled that you’re having our baby.”
“My baby,” Maggie said. “I’m having my baby, I hope.” She made a face. “I don’t know how you straight girls stand it, lying around with all this goop between your legs.”
I suddenly remembered something from the recesses of our childhood. “Remember when we used to kiss our arms?”
The summer we were ten or eleven, Maggie and I had spent days mashing our lips against our own forearms, trying to simulate the experience of making out with a guy. Or maybe, in Maggie’s case, a girl. I remember, when she first came out to me, questioning for about a minute and a half whether I might be gay, too, since I’d been the one lying beside her while we dreamed about and practiced for love. But then I thought about Jimmy Schloerb, my crush du jour, and how he was only the latest in a long line of boys who’d set my heart aflutter since kindergarten, and realized I was straight as a needle.
“Oh, God,” Maggie said. “I’m not supposed to laugh.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Maybe if we visualize the sperm and the egg meeting and dividing, we’ll help make it happen.”
Maggie looked at me as if I were insane. “Who told you that? Madame Aurora?”
I was stung. “It can’t hurt to be optimistic.”
“Except when it blinds you to the reality of your situation,” said Maggie. “The doc told me that if this one doesn’t take, he’s only going to give me one more chance.”
Younger Page 7
