A Window Opens: A Novel (4 page)

My mom looked up from her ministrations at the sink. “How do you think he looks?”

“Who?” Of course, I knew we weren’t talking about Will anymore.

“Daddy. Do you think there’s something funny about his color?”

“No, Mom. I think he looks great.”

“Are you sure? Not sort of yellow?”

“I’m sure. He looks good.”

This was our usual call and response. My dad had rebounded from the initial devastation of his diagnosis, with its life-altering treatment. He’d been forced into an abrupt retirement—what good is a lawyer who can’t talk? Now he filled his days with gardening, exercise, newspapers, mysteries, crosswords, and grandchildren. My kids and their cousins found his Darth Vader voice both horrifying and fascinating. They begged him to come over and answer the door for trick-or-treaters on Halloween.

My mom was the one still in the watchtower, constantly scanning the horizon for the enemy. She organized my dad’s vitamins, medications, stoma tubes, and diabetes supplies with military precision. Every night, she charged Buzz Lightyear on her side of the bed and then placed it on his pillow first thing in the morning so he could grab his voice before he opened his eyes.

Usually, I was right there with her, scrutinizing my dad for any sign of a recurrence, but now I was too busy worrying about my own family. We had two months of Sutherland, Courtfield paychecks in our future. After that, we would rely on savings and my meager paycheck until Nicholas’s new business was up and running. Of course I couldn’t reveal this to my parents—I’d promised Nicholas. The pressure was on.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Dear Alice,

I hope you’ll forgive the intrusion; I know Mondays are busy for you with work and little ones. Out of the blue, I just heard from my old friend John Enzo who shared some surprising news: that Nicholas intends to leave Sutherland, Courtfield at the end of the month? To start a private practice here in New Jersey?

Alice, WTF! (Sorry, just learned this one.)

Seriously, I hope you know that I try not to meddle in the lives of my kids. And I hate to raise this subject via e-mail; but given my communication limitations, it’s what makes the most sense.

Why didn’t you tell me and Mom about this news? Remember, Alice, I’ve been a senior associate, too. I know it was a different time, but I recall how hard it was and how rarely I saw you and Will.

I’m concerned that the challenges of starting a law practice almost from scratch will be even more daunting. Forgive me for getting down to the nitty-gritty, but do you have enough savings to cover your mortgage until money starts coming in? Does Nicholas have clients lined up? Will they pay up front? Even in the best-case scenario, he may not make any money for three to six months.

I’m wondering if the two of you would consider a loan from me and Mom. We could help pay Jessie, for instance.

Once again, I’m sorry to pry into your personal affairs. I respect your decisions and, of course, Nicholas’s.

I would appreciate an update when you have time.

Love,

Dad

PS. Your mom thinks I should mind my own business.

“Different time”—
ha!
When my dad was an associate, Dictaphones and telex machines were cutting-edge. There were no smart phones; you never left work with your office in your pocket. I remembered my dad working in the living room, using his Hartmann briefcase as a makeshift lap desk, but he wasn’t expected to be reachable at three o’clock in the morning via e-mail, IM, text, or FaceTime. He never had to stand on the sidelines of my brother’s baseball games, whispering furiously into a little metal rectangle that was like another member of the family. At
some point, his workday came to an end—unlike Nicholas’s, which bled into the weekend and onto vacations, depending upon the whims of Win Makepeace, who could snap his fingers from his weekend home in Watch Hill and derail our plans three states away.

I highlighted the subject of my dad’s message—“News?”—and clicked the garbage pail icon in the upper left-hand corner of my screen. Technology could be so convenient.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Dear Alice,

Just confirming that you received my e-mail message from earlier today. You never know with these things. I noticed you liked one of Will’s pictures on Facebook, so I’m assuming you had a chance to log some computer time. Anyway, send up a flare, will you?

Love,

Dad

If I didn’t respond to my dad’s second e-mail, I could expect to receive a letter by certified mail. Like all lawyers of his generation, my dad took correspondence very seriously.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Dad,

I did get your message(s). I appreciate your concerns and assure you Nicholas and I have discussed each one. Thankfully, he isn’t the sole breadwinner—we’ll still have my salary, so we won’t need to borrow from you. (I
implore
you not
to bring this up with Nicholas, who would be mortified.) Of course, we’re realistic and know that we’ll have to cut corners here and there, but I’m committed to helping Nicholas build a professional life where he’s happy, fulfilled, and home more. People our age don’t stay in the same job for decades—it’s a quirk and a perk of Gen X. Thanks for checking in.

I love you.

Alice

I put out all kinds of feelers, the way you do when you look for a new job. I made a list of all the people I know who I thought might be able to help; however, I stopped short of calling them “contacts,” since many are friends I have lunch with a few times a year, whom I trade tips with about books and husbands and stores that sell non-low-rise jeans that don’t scream
mom
.

The tone of my e-mail was breezy: “I’m starting to think about exploring other options, so I’d love to set up a time to chat with you about any fun positions at [INSERT NAME OF MAGAZINE/NEWSPAPER/PUBLISHING COMPANY/WEBSITE HERE].” My first response came from an old friend who had recently been named editorial director at Mama.com: “Total shot in the dark: are you pregnant or considering adoption? We’re looking for an expectant mommy blogger. The pay is crap but we could throw in some free products and board books . . . ?”

A guy I knew from the train invited me to meet him in the third car that night to talk about a position at his copywriting firm. I was half asleep by the time we arrived in Filament.

Nicholas’s distant cousin wondered if I had any experience in newsletters. She said Nabisco was looking for someone to educate consumers about a new line of energy-boosting crackers. No thanks.

The most interesting lead came from a former colleague who put me in touch with her cousin, the director of guidance at a well-known private school, who was looking for college essay coaches.
In a brief phone conversation, I learned that I could earn up to $3,000 per client. The work sounded easy enough, but the conversation hit a wall after I described the most recent personal essay I’d edited for
You
. It had been a moving piece by a woman who suffered from trichotillomania, a disease that caused her to pull out her eyebrows and eat them. The guidance director cleared his throat: “Well, then. I’m afraid that’s not the kind of material colleges like to read about.”

Another door, closed.

•  •  •

One morning, I was sitting at my desk at
You
, parceling books into stacks like a dealer at a blackjack table: serious novels, fun novels, tragic memoirs, witty memoirs, thrillers to send to my dad, cookbooks to hoard under my desk until Christmas or school auction time, when they would be bundled into raffle baskets with a set of cutting boards. I was killing time before a features meeting, anticipating the inevitable slightly tardy e-mail from the assistant to our editor in chief, with the subject line: “She’s ready. Please gather in her office.”

Suddenly, an unfamiliar name popped up in my in-box. This wasn’t unusual, since at least half of my e-mail came from publicists I didn’t know, pitching books or stories on subjects
You
would never cover: geriatric beauty tips, government spy programs, “Top 10 Tips for Re-Caulking Your Tub.” Usually I didn’t even open these messages, but the one from Genevieve Andrews had me at the subject line:
do you want to be part of the future of bookstores?

No caps.

Uh,
yes
.

I clicked. The message said,

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Dear Alice: I hope you won’t mind that I’m tracking you down out of the blue like this. I believe we follow each other on Twitter, where I always
look forward to your opinions on what to read next. I’m writing now because I’ve just started a new job as the lead for the New York division of Scroll and I’m looking to hire forward-thinking booklovers to help create an unforgettable reading experience for our customers. If you’re interested in learning more, might we meet for coffee at Shakespeare’s Sister (SoHo branch) next Friday at 4 p.m.?

Yours,

Genevieve Andrews

Imagine being discovered on Twitter, of all places! I couldn’t wait to tell Nicholas, who thought social media was a huge waste of time.

I floated into the features meeting on a cloud of optimism and goodwill. While other editors reclined on cheetah-print sofas, cheerfully debating the merits of gargling with coconut oil for twenty minutes a day, I sat on the floor and daydreamed about becoming a forward-thinking booklover.

•  •  •

Of course, I remembered Scroll from a recent article on the front page of the
New York Times
. It had been a big story, including a jump to the business section, about the Cleveland retail giant MainStreet expanding into virtual bookstores. I’d skimmed the piece while eating Fage yogurt; now I reread it on my phone while I waited for the train home.

MainStreet is a family business, owned by the Rockwell brothers, Sam and Dan, who are beloved by Wall Street for their runaway success with a chain of high-end suburban shopping malls. My in-laws, Judy and Elliott, live outside Cleveland near Heritage Towne, the first in a fleet of dozens of MainStreet’s “lifestyle centers,” which mimic the hometown vibe of the very mom-and-pop stores they put out of business. Cobblestone, gaslit lanes connect Johnny Rockets with Hollister; phone-charging stations are coyly housed inside old-fashioned phone booths; easy-listening renditions of folk favorites are piped to the furthest reaches of the parking lot, for the brave souls who forgo valet service. Heritage Towne has a gym, a
movie theater, a band shell, a medical center, and its own Whole Foods. The Residences at Heritage Towne are currently under construction.

According to the
New York Times
, a third Rockwell brother was joining the empire. Under his aegis, MainStreet would open a nationwide chain of reading lounges, known as Scroll, which would “reinvent the bookstore experience,” according to an unnamed MainStreet spokeswoman. Customers would be able to browse e-books on docked tablets and then download files directly to all their devices at once. Plans for the lounges included fair-trade-certified coffee bars and eco-friendly furniture sourced from reclaimed local materials.

Scroll would be based in New York—“the epicenter of the literary universe.” The industry’s most discerning, community-minded tastemakers would be hired to curate the e-book collection for Scroll, whose site would be tethered to the MainStreet homepage so patrons could buy, say, a wheelbarrow along with their gardening book.

“As Cervantes put it, ‘No limits but the sky,’ ” said the unnamed spokesperson.

Interesting, I thought, as I scanned the big board in Penn Station for my track number. Being a tastemaker sounded like fun. And I was certainly community-minded—after all, I’d been the co-planner of the Flower Street block party for six years running.

On the train, I reread Genevieve’s e-mail. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but the future was starting to look a little bit brighter. The timing was almost too good to be true.

•  •  •

My original post-college plan had been to live in Vermont for the summer, then to move to New York and find a job in book publishing. After graduation, I shared a house with seven other women (not girls; we were clear on this point). We were all waitresses with editorial assistant dreams; we loved Mary Cantwell, Sylvia Plath, Joan Didion. While we counted out our tips at the kitchen table at two o’clock in the morning, we’d plan our lives in New York, in
our minds a strange outdated jumble of beatnik Greenwich Village and slices of cheesecake at the Automat.

Meanwhile, my brother had just started the analyst training program at Lehman Brothers. What little free time he had, he spent Rollerblading around the Loop in Central Park and trying to pick up “Betties” at sunset happy hours in South Street Seaport. At my graduation, he took me aside and said, “Alice, I know you think you want to be a poet, but you need to find a job where you make
bank
. That’s the only way to have any fun in the Big Apple.” Will’s version of New York was one I wanted to avoid at all costs.

One night, I came home with a business card belonging to a friendly customer who turned out to be an editor whose colleague was looking for a new assistant. The card was a little damp, having traveled atop my cocktail tray among countless rounds of Otter Creek Copper Ale, but my roommates passed it around the table and admired it: “Alice, you are
set
. If you get this job, you’ll be hobnobbing with the literati while we’re stuck restocking croutons and rolling cutlery.”

Nicholas showed up, smelling like popcorn from the theater where he worked as a projectionist, and someone shoved the card at him: “Look, your girlfriend already has an in.”

“Really? That’s great!” He smiled, squinting at the card. Even then, he was a reader of fine print. “An in . . . in textbook publishing?”

Okay, so maybe I wouldn’t be working with Anne Tyler or Isabel Allende. The point was to get my foot in the door.