Juliet's School of Possibilities

by Laura Vanderkam

  “‘Resignation Suggested’ is the dumbest euphemism I have ever heard,” Juliet said.

  “You just fire people?”

  She stopped and thought. “I haven’t had to. I put a lot of effort into hiring people—and once people are in, I know they’re good. Even if they have slow patches, I know it’s usually something we can redirect. I spend a lot of time thinking about that: how I can choose to direct their precious time wisely.” Riley thought back to Jean’s critique of her unfocused and overworked teams. “And doing whatever I can to keep them.”

  “Like letting an employee’s baby come to the office?”

  “Did that surprise you?” Juliet looked off in the distance. “I mean, my kids are with me all the time, and she did come in on a Saturday to help with the retreat.” She paused. “But the truth is, it’s this: I keep my eye on what is most important to me. Keeping Kylie is right up there with keeping my own children. I know those twenty-four thousand unread emails in my inbox aren’t important because she’s told me they aren’t.”

  Riley pondered this. She had an assistant. But she had never thought about delegating that.

  “So you’re worried about your job? Is that all?”

  “All? I’ve always wanted to work for MB. They hire five hundred people out of thirty thousand who apply every year. All people who went to Princeton, Harvard . . . not Indiana like me. No one from where I grew up had any clue about places like MB . . .” She stopped. “But no, not all. My boyfriend called when I was on the way here and said it was over.”

  “Oh, Riley, I’m sorry. I’m sorry it happened by phone too.”

  Riley sighed. “That was my fault. My best friend chewed me out about that and I’ll own it. He’d been trying to meet in person for the past three weeks, and I kept having to travel and crash on these proposals and cancel our plans.”

  “I see.”

  “And Skip—that’s my best friend—is furious at me because I was supposed to help her brainstorm ideas for her nonprofit. She’s meeting with a potential donor tomorrow. Something original to do with middle school girls. Do you have ideas? Because I’m so overwhelmed by everything coming at me, everything people want me to do, that I’m just stuck.”

  “Maybe,” said Juliet. “Sometimes I have ideas. People think I specialize in the domestic arts. But really, I work in possibilities.”

  “What sort of possibilities?”

  “That,” she said, “is precisely what I want to show you.”

  Chapter 6

  They stood on the dock. Lightning flashed over the dark water, searing holes in the sky bright enough to be day. “Look closely,” Juliet said at the reddening horizon. She waved her arm—like a magician waving a wand. “Look at the clouds just over the water. I see you. Do you see you?”

  Riley could not describe what had happened. But something had changed with that wave. As she peered into those whirling clouds, she did see herself. She supposed she might have been dreaming. Her constant exhaustion meant she fell asleep randomly, but this vision felt more lucid than those nightly torments of missed planes.

  Somewhere off in this cloudscape, she was older, she could see that. At least twenty-five years older, perhaps in her mid-fifties. She looked even more tired than she felt now. She sat at the kitchen table of a nondescript if luxurious house, a builder model with nothing on the walls to distinguish it. A girl, about ten years old, sat across from her. “Is that my . . . daughter?” Riley asked.

  “No—a neighbor’s child,” Juliet said. “She has a question for you.”

  The little girl leaned in. “I’m supposed to interview a neighbor for a Girl Scout badge,” she said. “My mom said she thought you seemed lonely so I came over here.”

  The real Riley flinched. Juliet could see this all too. “Kids,” she said. “They say . . . insightful things.”

  “Maybe.” Riley in the vision sighed. “I’ve got a few minutes. What do you want to hear about?”

  “Tell me about your first job,” the girl said.

  “Well, I worked as a waitress in college, and in this casino for a summer, but my first real real job after business school was at a consulting firm, MB & Company. You’ve probably never heard of it but . . .” The vision swirled to Riley, alarmingly close to her current age, sitting in a beige conference room. She recognized a voice. Jean. She was reading from a typed page with a very legalistic voice. Words in these cases had to be chosen in advance, vetted by the proper departments. It could wind up in court, and MB strove to ensure that no court case had a chance of going anywhere because of procedural sloppiness. “Resignation Suggested.” Riley’s eyes grew wide. In the vision, she sat silent. Jean filled the silence. “I know I’m not supposed to say anything other than what’s on this paper, but let’s be real human beings, OK? You’re burned out, Riley. It’s going to be a blessing for you. I don’t think you’re happy here. It’s OK. Not everyone does well with the pressure. But you get three months of paid search time. Please take your time and figure out what you really want to do.”

  “I have a job offer already,” Riley in the vision snapped. She did. The vision swirled forward, to Riley on more planes, more quiet offices after everyone else had gone home, and then a few years later, another conference room. Another voice. “It’s not that you’re not hardworking . . .” Riley’s voice: “I never took a vacation the entire time I’ve been here. I’ve been all in for this . . .” The other voice: “Of course. But you know our industry is in trouble. We need someone with big ideas to lead this section. And honestly, the feedback we got is that when other employees talk to you, they just get stressed out.” The scene whirled out, then a third conference room appeared. Riley and another evaluator were having the exact same conversation. A fourth . . .

  The little girl wrote some things down in her notebook. “Do you have children?”

  Riley in the vision laughed. “Oh no—I can’t even keep houseplants alive. I’m always so busy, traveling, you know . . . right?” The little girl looked mystified. “I was married for a while,” Riley volunteered. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

  “Why is she telling her this?” the real Riley said, plaintively.

  “Shh . . .” Juliet said. “She hasn’t talked with anyone in a while. She wants to talk. Just let her.”

  “But, you know, these things don’t always last.” Riley at the kitchen table shrugged. “I guess we just grew apart, and there wasn’t anything keeping us together.”

  “Oh.” The little girl frowned. Riley in the vision got up to get her a snack. She searched through her pantry, but saw nothing of interest.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’ve got some crackers, maybe? These chips seem stale. I guess I’ve been too busy to get to the grocery store lately. I used to like to cook but . . . I just eat a lot of takeout. Work takes all my time and I’m too busy to cook . . .”

  “I don’t think you told me about your job right now?” the girl asked.

  “Oh, I’m . . .” Riley paused. “It’s hard to describe what I’m doing. Strategy stuff. It’s not that exciting. I mean, it’s work. It pays the bills. It’s not supposed to be fun. That’s why they call it work!”

  “I cannot believe those words came out of my mouth,” current Riley groused. She would have hated anyone who said such a thing to her, and here she was, bellowing it out as the truth. What was this? What was this miserable woman doing to this girl?

  “I just have one more question. I know you’re busy,” the little girl said, leaning forward. This one was going in for the kill. “Of all the things you’ve done in your life, what are you most proud of?”

  Even in the whirling storm, there was silence. The silence lasted. Future Riley sat at that table with her coffee, staring into it. “To be honest, I just don’t know,” she said. “I mean, there must be something but . . . I don’t know.”

  With that, th
e vision whisked off, somewhere into the dark sky. Riley saw nothing but the waves.

  It took her a minute to realize she was still gripping Juliet’s hand. “What was that?” she said. Her voice was more angry than sad. “What the hell was that?”

  “A possibility.” Juliet smiled slightly. “Just one possibility. I take it you don’t like what you saw?”

  “It was bleak—it was . . .”

  “Not how you picture your future? It wasn’t terrible. You’re employed. It looks like an expensive house. You have at least one nice neighbor.”

  “Yes, I suppose . . .”

  “But Riley Jenkins has never fathomed a future where she was living on the street. It’s something else that’s bothering you.”

  “Yes,” Riley said, now more sure. “It’s the lack of impact. It’s that she’s working so hard, but slipping through life . . .”

  “She always has so much to do and yet nothing that matters gets done. Is that it?”

  “My days feel like that now,” Riley said, quiet. “There is so much I could do. There is so much that I want to do. I’m just always so busy and . . .”

  “Our actions determine our courses. How we live our hours is how we live our lives.” Juliet paused. “Could how you live your hours lead to a place where you can’t even say what you’re proud of? As I talk to you, I see someone who everyone knows has such potential.”

  “But there is a moment when potential must become what you’re actually doing, or else I’m sitting in that miserable kitchen having done nothing with my life. And so . . .”

  Juliet tapped her bracelet. “Would you like to see something else? Because, Riley, there is another possibility too.”

  Chapter 7

  They turned back toward the churning clouds. Riley took Juliet’s outstretched hand. She felt that now-familiar crackle. Another flash of lightning split the sky. An image slowly pulled itself together out of the pieces. Skip. Her long blond hair was short now. It was a middle-aged woman’s cut, and she wore a no-nonsense business suit instead of the jeans and sweaters Skip usually sported, but it was definitely Skip. She was earnest as always. She stood behind a podium on a stage with huge banners behind her. Riley could not make out what they said, but the atmosphere was festive. People laughed, clapped. Skip herself was beaming.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I am thrilled to be here tonight. Oh yes, I know I always say that. And I always love to celebrate the work we do, but tonight is special. I’m particularly thrilled to spend time with my great friend Riley . . .”

  The scene swirled over to future Riley, sitting in a chair toward the front of a huge ballroom. She looked relaxed. Happy. In every way she looked healthier than the woman in the kitchen in that first possibility.

  “You all know Riley as the inspirational CEO of MB & Company . . .”

  “The what?” Riley in real life was flabbergasted.

  “Shush . . .” Juliet said. “Just hear her out.”

  “Consultants don’t like to talk about the work they do for their clients, but we can talk about a few things. Right, Riley? Can I do that?” Skip in the vision smiled at her friend. “Riley announced when she took over five years ago that she would put real capacity into a few subversive little ventures. She said, look, we already hire the smartest people in the world. Why can’t we use them to change the world?” Skip paced the stage. “So she formed a small business advisory service and enrolled mostly female entrepreneurs from all over the globe in training similar to what MB consultants get. The goal was to help them grow their businesses to more than $1 million in revenue. A full three-quarters of the first cohort hit that mark.”

  The room burst into applause. “But of course, you shouldn’t think this is altruism at all. She wants these small businesses to become big enough to be MB clients. Right, Riley?”

  There in the front row, Riley laughed. “Some already are!” Riley heard her own voice. It was positively merry.

  “Then there’s the international education work. She formed a squad of consultants to go into the dozen countries with the lowest rates of school enrollment for girls, and they worked to implement as many best practices as possible. In five years, the attendance rate has risen 5 percent in those dozen countries. This is literally thousands of young women’s lives. That sounds more altruistic to me, but maybe not. If I know Riley, she’s probably scheming to have some of those women wind up as MB clients or consultants too.” The audience laughed.

  “And of course there’s the work she’s done for us. You all—all our donors—know that we are managed as well as any for-profit company. We get gold stars on all our audits. We do a lot with our dollars. You know that 92 percent of the girls who’ve gone through our programs go to college. Some of you have been with us for a while, and twenty years ago when our first girls were going to college we were shouting our 92 percent figure from the rooftops. But it was Riley who challenged us to do more. She said, ‘Listen, Skip. There are a lot of colleges. Anyone can get people enrolled. The challenge is whether you can get them through.’ Thanks to Riley’s tracking systems, and the interventions she helped us build, we know that 83 percent of our girls who start college finish in six years. This is a lot of amazing young women. And . . .” The audience waited for it. “Riley would know because she keeps recruiting them!”

  Skip threw up her hands. “It all helps MB somehow but it does a lot of good in the meantime so I won’t begrudge her that. And so I am excited to honor my great friend Riley with this lifetime achievement award for all the impact she’s had.”

  Riley watched this vision of herself standing up to get her award. “Is that really possible?” she asked Juliet. “I’m the CEO of MB?”

  “Well, why not?” Juliet asked. “Someone has to be. More likely someone who works there than someone who doesn’t. I see possibilities. Isn’t that a possibility?”

  “I suppose, it’s just . . . well . . . there haven’t been any women at the top of MB before. We had to go pretty far down the ranks—like to me—to get enough women to fill your rooms. I think everyone assumes you can’t raise a family and do this and . . .” She paused. “I know one of these visions is of my professional success, and the other is not, but I sort of assumed the ‘not’ would be because I needed to scale back when I had kids . . .”

  “A false choice,” said Juliet. “Absolutely a false choice. The same mind-set that creates space for world-changing ideas creates space for real relationships. The mind-set that chokes off such ideas and their execution chokes off the choice to go all in on all forms of meaning.” Juliet waited while Riley pondered this. Then she smiled. “Look closer.”

  Riley squinted into the clouds above the water. She tried to see what details she was missing.

  Juliet decided to help her imagination along. “I see a man sitting at your table.” Her voice took on a slightly conspiratorial tone as she narrated this. “A tall man. Very blond hair. Must be Scandinavian. I’d guess Danish. Nice-looking fellow, Riley. Looks like he’s very athletic! Maybe a cyclist?”

  Riley searched for the image Juliet described, but it was too dark to see this very specific man. “I guess I’ll have to trust you on that one.”

  “Quite the catch. And who are these fine young men at your table, watching their mother with such pride? Three teenage boys whom you’ve managed to get into suits and who are behaving themselves at a fundraising dinner. Good for you. You’ve raised them well. Definitely a wise choice of how to spend your time.”

  Riley on the beach watched Riley in that banquet hall walk onstage to accept her award. Riley twenty-five years hence embraced Skip, and the two women beamed at each other with affection born of a three-decade friendship that nurtured not only them, but everyone who came into their orbit.

  “OK,” said Riley. “I find this image improbable—not only that someone rated ‘below average’ could ascend to glory but that the men
who run MB magically lost all bias in the CEO selection process . . .”

  “Not magic.” Juliet turned toward the shore. “My guess is that someone with great ideas got involved in the hiring process to make sure that new hires had new mind-sets, and got involved in the promotion process to make sure it was done fairly. By the time MB’s partners elected their CEO twenty years from now, people had different ideas of what leaders looked like. And they knew a leader who had already shown concern for making the most of all of their talents . . .”

  Riley shook her head. “OK, I believe you that it is a possibility. Just like the other depressing possibility.” She scanned the sky once more. “So what is the difference between these futures? Something I need to do? Ebenezer Scrooge wakes up and realizes it’s not too late to choose his future.”

  Juliet laughed. “For that, I need to tell you a different story.”

  “A third possibility? A Christmas Past?”

  “In a way,” she said. “It’s a story about me.”

  Chapter 8

  The two women walked back down the pier, and onto the boardwalk. The night grew more blustery. Juliet turned south toward the lighthouse. Riley struggled to keep up. “You’re not the only one to wonder about improbable-seeming possibilities,” Juliet said as they passed her school. The shrubbery surrounding the front yard bent in the wind, the undersides of leaves glimmering pale in the lamplight. A few leaves fluttered out into the sky. The guard peeked out of his hut to check on them. Juliet waved, but they kept walking. “Eight years ago I was living in western Pennsylvania—a small town you have never heard of—with the girls and my ex-husband.”

  “I think Wikipedia said something about that . . .” Riley stopped. Admitting her internet research was perhaps amateurish, as Elsa might have put it.

  But Juliet didn’t seem to care. “We were young. A mistake, perhaps. It gave me my girls.”