A Window Opens: A Novel (12 page)

She held up the book for me to see. It was
The One Minute Manager
.

I laughed. “I can’t say I’ve read that one.”

“I know, I know, it’s very B-school of me, but I need all the help I can get in this role. Anyway, you should definitely check it out, especially as you rise through the ranks at Scroll. Be sure to add it to your TBR list.”

“Wow. Thanks.” I was disarmed by Genevieve’s candor. Warm as everyone was at
You
, the editor in chief functioned like the matriarch of a large, very stylish family: she never second-guessed herself and she certainly never touched the bread basket at lunch. Genevieve’s openness and hearty appetite were a pleasant change. “Wait—TBR . . . what’s that?”

“To Be Read! All the books you can’t wait to get your hands on.”

“Yes! I have one of those.” I pictured the towering stack of hardcovers on my side of the bed. With a lamp and my glasses on top, it doubled as a night table. I smiled at Genevieve; she flashed her infectious grin right back. The moment reminded me of the underwater “tea parties” I had with Margot in the summer: both of us beaming at each other through bubbles, pleased to find each other at the bottom of the pool even though we’d orchestrated the reunion ourselves only two seconds earlier.

Like blind daters trading relationship histories, we compared titles. We both loved
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
and
Zeitoun.
Genevieve had never read
Random Family
; I confessed I’d seen the movie
In Cold Blood
but never read the book. We promised to fill in these gaps and report back to each other.

Genevieve started building a little pile of poppy seeds on the
tablecloth with her index finger. “So, Alice. Scroll has a really interesting corporate culture, which you’ll figure out when you head to Cleveland.”

“Yes, I’m really looking forward to it! I don’t know if I mentioned but my husband is actually from Cleveland, so—”

“No! That’s awesome! Although I’m pretty certain you’ll find that MainStreet is a different environment than what you’re used to out there.” Now Genevieve leaned forward, glancing conspiratorially around the restaurant as if to check for stray Rockwells. “Before you go, you may want to invest in a few blazers. That seems to be the uniform for MainStreet women. The guys wear hoodies; the ladies wear power clothes.”

“Oh. Okay.” Would I need a floppy paisley tie, too?

“Also, you should definitely make sure you’re up-to-the-minute on community outreach. That’s a top priority for Greg.”

“I made a list of team members I’d like to introduce myself to—”

“You mean, who you
will
introduce yourself to, right?” Genevieve reached across the table and gave my shoulder a gentle shove. I hoped she couldn’t feel my bra strap, which was drooping halfway down my upper arm. “Alice, I’m going to encourage you to speak only in the most declarative terms. It’s an important part of how we message ourselves. Scroll is a very
certain
company, you’ll learn.”

I laughed and nodded vigorously. “Got it.”

Our plates arrived, drizzled with creative oils and accompanied by ancillary cutlery whose purpose eluded me. When our trio of waitstaff finished their ministrations, Genevieve raised her water glass and said “Bon app!”

“Yes! Mangia!” I hoped we wouldn’t go back and forth in this vein, since I couldn’t remember how to conjugate
comer.

With a forkful of fish on its way up to her mouth, Genevieve said, “You have three kids, right?”

I nodded my head around a mouthful of monkfish, which was scrumptious. I figured Genevieve had pieced together the highlights of my personal life through the same kind of detective work that led me to her generous donations on behalf of at-risk dogs.

“Wow. What’s that like?”
Genevieve lowered her fork to her plate and looked at me expectantly. I never know how to respond to this question, which is usually followed by “Did you always know you wanted a third?” (The answer is yes, although Nicholas required convincing.)

I thought of Margot and Oliver boogie boarding on Long Beach Island, their faces glowing as a wave deposited them on either side of Georgie, who squatted right at the water’s edge, dribbling sand on her ample thigh. Three giggling, salty little people with gigantic smiles and pruned fingers, fearless and fun—moments like this are the whole point of parenthood. Then there’s the flip side: the same three kids in a dark room on a beautiful day, wearing faded pajamas, bickering wildly over the final crumbs at the bottom of a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, with
Elf
blaring in the background. Welcome to the yin and yang of parenthood: the moments when you feel like you won the motherhood jackpot, and the ones when you feel like a zookeeper breaking up a brawl among primates.

Genevieve waited expectantly.

“It’s . . . a wild ride. A grand adventure. Honestly, it really depends on the day.” Resisting the urge to elaborate or inquire about Genevieve’s plans to have kids, I steered the conversation gently back to Scroll. “Tell me more about what I can expect these next few weeks.”

“Well, people in Cleveland are firing on all cylinders. You’ll see that soon enough. If Greg pings you at breakfast, he expects an answer by lunch.” She tucked an invisible strand of hair behind her ear and smiled conspiratorially. “Scroll has its roots in retail; they play by retail rules. You’ll do great, I have no doubt.”

“I’m just excited to get my feet wet”—get my feet wet?—“and pick some great books for the stores.”

“Lounges.” Her face hardened a bit, taking me by surprise.

“Sorry?”

“Greg wants to cement the idea of Scroll as a literary salon, not just a center of commerce. So we’re drilling down on the idea of a lounge, as opposed to any old bookstore. With better coffee, too.”

“Well, in that case, maybe they should think about serving wine!”

“We.”

“Yes. We.”

Genevieve laughed. “I’m with you on that, one hundred percent.”

There was an awkward silence. A truck thundered down the street, rattling the bottles behind the bar.

“So. Will Greg be there when I’m in Cleveland?”

“I imagine he will be, yes.”

“Will he be in orientation, too?”

Genevieve gave me a long stare.

“Alice, Greg is the president of Scroll. Greg Rockwell? He’s the third brother. He’s been with the company since the beginning; he’s a member of the L Squad. Greg dabbled in some writing of his own—westerns, I think— then got his start at MainStreet in appliances. He has some revolutionary ideas about selling books. You’ll see.”

“Oh yes! Great. Well. I look forward to getting to know him.”

Appliances? L Squad? I felt the red crawl of mortification on the back of my neck.

This was starting to remind me of the sushi business lunch where I was too embarrassed to tell my dignified, cultured magazine editor boss that I’d never eaten edamame before. She looked on, aghast, as I popped a whole pod in my mouth without divesting the beans of their prickly shell. She was the same boss who broke me of my native New Jersey habit of saying, “draw” instead of “drawer” and “mira” instead of “mirror,” then softened the blow by giving me my inaugural sweater set in pink cashmere. (“They’re meant to be worn together,” said the card.)

Moments after dessert arrived, Genevieve had to rush back to our office for her phone call—but not before giving me a list of goals to add to MainStreet’s employee portal, GatheringPlace. “Okay, so
great
chitchatting, but here’s the scoop: I need you to set up meetings with at least thirty agents and editors. I need you to establish yourself as an arbiter of impeccable taste by assembling a collection of four hundred twenty-five top titles to sell in our lounges. Are you with me, Alice?”

I was momentarily distracted by a delivery of white petit fours to the girls at the next table; they squealed with delight, exactly as mine would have at the sight of mini cakes topped with marzipan bunnies. “Absolutely. I’m right with you.”

“Great. I’ll also need you to educate yourself about the ScrollOriginals program and brainstorm about a subscription model for elite readers. You should be prepared to present these thoughts to key influencers when the time comes. Make sense?”

Genevieve delivered these instructions without pausing—
ratatatattat
. I couldn’t remember ever being so
definite
about anything, except maybe cutting crusts off sandwiches. (I have a firm policy against that.)

Before I could respond, she said, “Great. You’re awesome, and I’m so psyched to have you aboard. I think we’ll have a lot of fun together.” Then she hustled out of the restaurant, weaving her way among tables and grabbing a thickly shoulder-padded trench from the coat check before disappearing through the heavy door.

I quietly ate my plum upside-down cake, with a sinking sensation that I’d already forgotten my password for GatheringPlace. When I rooted around in my bag, looking for Chapstick, I found a note from Margot: “Good luck today, Mommy! UR a star.” I folded it up quickly and held up my hand for the check.

•  •  •

On my way back to the office, I called Nicholas. “What does it mean to ‘drop’ a meeting on someone’s calendar?”

“I’ll show you when you get home.” I could hear the amusement in his voice.

I’d never used Outlook before, so I was baffled by the patois of Scroll calendaring: OOTO (out of the office); WFH (work from home); DA (doctor’s appointment); BL (business lunch); VIM (very important meeting); EOD (end of day); SHHY (should have happened yesterday); WTFAIDH (What the fuck am I doing here? Okay, fine, I made that one up). Aside from my Outlook calendar, where meetings, appointments,
reminders, and admonitions appeared and disappeared, seemingly willy-nilly, I continued to maintain my Google Calendar—color-coded by family member and rife with orthodontist appointments, basketball clinics, and pottery classes (not my own).

Overwhelmed as I was by the newness of everything, I also felt like I was floating on air, seeing everything in the crispest detail. The sensation was like getting a prescription for new glasses when I hadn’t realized I was overdue. My stomach churned with excitement every time I passed the Scroll logo on my way to the watercooler. Pretty soon, that logo would be above storefronts all over the country and I would be partially responsible for the unique and stylish wares inside.

Right before I left to catch the 5:45 train, we had our first all-hands meeting. Genevieve explained that this would normally be a forum for us to update the team on “big wins” in each of our categories, but for now, with so many new people, she just wanted us to introduce ourselves. There was Keith, whom I remembered from my Chain, and Matthew, of course; and Rashida, who was in the process of “pivoting” out of her role as Analytics Expert and into one as Environmental Lead, where she would create Scroll’s hip intellectual vibe; Jess (Associate Content Manager); Mariana, our resident Book Hunter, who traveled the globe collecting first editions to sell in the lounges; and David (Support).

I didn’t need anyone to tell me that David would not run out and get decaf skinny lattes for us at four p.m., as his contemporaries did at
You
. Nor would he handwrite 250 sweet sixteen invitations as I had at his age for a former editor in chief, whose daughter’s party had been at the Pierre. (“No gifts; your presence is present enough.”)

While Genevieve stepped into the hallway to take a call from Greg, Mariana said, “So you’re a Virginia Woolf fan?”

“I am! My husband gave me
Mrs. Dalloway
in college and I’ve been hooked ever since. I have to tell you, Mariana, I’m happy with my job, but yours sounds pretty unbelievable, too. Searching for beloved old books? Come on. How did you get into this line of work?”

She laughed; clearly I wasn’t the first person to point out what a nice deal she had. “Well, I got my start in rare books at Sotheby’s—”

Genevieve pushed open the frosted-glass door of the conference room and Mariana whispered, “We should go out for a drink sometime!”

I was flattered by her assumption that I would ever be free to go out for a drink after work.

Rashida and Genevieve welcomed everyone aboard and told us newbies how lucky we were to be in these shiny new offices. Six months earlier, they’d started out in a windowless room in a different MainStreet building. They didn’t even have a watercooler! Or air conditioning on weekends! Their delivery reminded me of the subtle power grab of veteran moms getting acquainted with first-timers: “You think
you
have it bad?
I
lived in a one-bedroom in Park Slope when
my
first baby was born. Can you imagine lugging your Bugaboo up the front steps of a brownstone? So I carried him everywhere in a Bjorn—
hell-o
, sciatica!”

Everyone else at the square blond conference table had a laptop in tow; I had the same blue spiral notebook I’d used at
You
—right side of the page for work, left side of the page for personal. “That is
such
an interesting system,” said David, eyeing the notebook with suspicion. I felt like I’d shown up at SoulCycle wearing Jane Fonda’s aerobics outfit.

When it was my turn to talk, I felt surprisingly calm. I told the group how excited I was to take a flying leap into a new world, while hanging on to the best part of the old one: reading. I said, “If you’d asked my ten-year-old self to describe my dream job, this is the one I would have described. I read so much, my mom had to lock me out of the house to get me to play outside.”

When I looked around the table, my youthful colleagues were smiling and nodding as if they, too, were once kids who got socked in the stomach with the red ball at recess. So what if several of them hadn’t learned how to read yet when I graduated from high school? I was among bookworms and we would venture forth together, united by three-letter
Scrabble words and casual references to Kafka’s
Metamorphosis
. I felt like the human version of one of those little plastic capsules my kids get in goody bags at birthday parties: pour water on them and they expand into a little towel or a T-shirt, or even a foam dinosaur.