A Window Opens: A Novel (6 page)

Meanwhile, Susanna and I became students of each other’s lives: college boyfriends, childhood pets, parenting styles of our parents. I knew
that she had spent her senior year of high school recuperating from scoliosis surgery and that her parents had announced their divorce to their kids on the drive home from Rye Playland. Our husbands go camping together every fall; our kids are honorary cousins. When Susanna’s husband, Paul, was diagnosed with soft-tissue sarcoma, I organized dinner deliveries and made sure the kids were busy every day after school. One day, their four-year-old son, Judd, said, “Alice, please can’t you take us home today? Cancer isn’t contagious.”

A month after Paul’s final treatment, Susanna threw a party at the Blue Owl to celebrate the all-clear they’d just gotten from their oncologist. The two of them circulated among relieved friends and neighbors, laughing and smiling, while all our kids banged out a raucous soundtrack on a xylophone in the children’s section at the back of the store. As Nicholas and I distributed slices of Star Tavern pizza and plastic cups of champagne, I caught snippets of conversation:
He looks good, Susanna is so strong, This family has been to hell and back, God bless.
I almost cried when Paul’s dad paused, mid-conversation, to grab his son’s face and plant one powerful kiss on each cheek: “
My boy
.”

When the crowd dispersed, Nicholas and I collected our kids. With their dark hair and pale skin, the three of them reminded me of characters from a fairy tale: a little bit ethereal, with just enough earthliness to outwit the witch (me).

Nicholas and I carried the younger two all the way home while Margot trailed drowsily behind us. “Mommy, do you think Olivia Kidney and Junie B. Jones are, like, BFF?”

I grinned at Nicholas in the dark. “I’m pretty sure they are.”

•  •  •

Now Susanna and I were in Ray’s Luncheonette, the cozy coffee shop all the local moms landed in post spinning, post Bar Method, post hot yoga, or post hip-hop. Eighty percent of the women in the restaurant were dressed in full-body Lululemon. If I sifted through the white noise
underneath the sound of clinking diner mugs and cutlery, I could hear snippets of familiar conversation about plumbers, beach house rentals, ideas for coaxing a reluctant reader to hit the books, and directions for whipping up a homeopathic remedy for warts.

We were planning the next meeting of the No Guilt Book Club. This was a seasonal event we’d hatched together: a night where we invited our friends to the Blue Owl, and for a small fee they got unlimited wine, a discount on all purchases, and our recommendations for what to read next. This was my kind of book club: the one where you trade suggestions but skip the part where you have to exclaim over your host’s Santa Claus cheese spreader.

Susanna opened her meticulously handwritten Moleskin calendar and clicked the bottom of a ballpoint pen. “So. I wanted to brainstorm about incentives. What do you think about raffling off a beach bag full of summer books? We can throw in sunglasses, SPF, stuff like that?”

“I love it. One for kids’ books, one for adults’? And I’d love to do something with Father’s Day . . . Maybe you fill out a quiz about the man in your life and it guides you to just the right thriller or Dave Eggers book?”

“Great, great.” Susanna was furiously jotting notes. “And will you give the welcome this time? You’re so much better at that than I am.”

I smiled. Susanna is an expert businesswoman and knows how to play matchmaker with a clueless customer and table of books, but put her in front of a roomful of people and she reverts to her roots as a wonky academic. Perhaps because I’m more on her customers’ wavelength, I never lose sight of the fact that most No Guilt ladies are in it for the wine—not for an in-depth analysis of how mentors shaped Sonia Sotomayor’s career.

“Hey, have I mentioned that I’m interviewing for a new job?” I tried to keep my tone light; of course, I knew I had told Susanna no such thing.

She looked up, a line forming at the center of her forehead. “
What?
Wait,
why
?”

Even though we often mined the most intimate topics, from sex to occasional ambivalence about motherhood, we rarely talked about my work life. The Blue Owl was our shared interest—her vocation, my avocation—and somehow
You
seemed petty in comparison. Maybe I sensed Susanna’s disdain for women’s magazines, or maybe I’d been a little too pleased with my part-time schedule and the semi-glamour of the magazine world. As a small-business owner, she never gets a break. I winced, remembering the time I collected my kids from Susanna’s house after taking a whirlwind day trip to Washington, DC, to interview Jill Biden for the back page of
You
. When Susanna opened the door, looking exhausted in reading glasses and a ripped Oberlin sweatshirt, I bellowed, “White House Frisbees for all!” Unfortunately, the one I launched across the living room knocked a menorah off her mantel.

Now I felt deeply uncomfortable not being able to share my real reason for leaving
You
. But I’d promised Nicholas, and I knew he would respect such a request from me if the tables were turned. I could not betray his confidence.

“I’m just ready, you know? And this cool thing came up. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Scroll?”

Susanna slowly brought her fork back to her plate, where a bite of spinach and feta omelet cooled before my eyes. “You have
got
to be kidding me.”

“No, actually, I’m serious. They got in touch with me; I’m meeting with them next week.”

“Alice, you would
not
lower yourself.”

“Susanna, stop! I’m just meeting with them—not joining a cult!”

She sat up straighter in her chair. For an instant, I pictured us as twelve-year-olds in a middle school cafeteria: Susanna in her scoliosis brace, me in my Coke bottle glasses. You never really leave those people behind, do you?

“Alice, are you fucking kidding me?” She spoke with such emphasis, her red curls bounced under her Athleta handband. “What is going
on
with you?”

The waitress came over to top up our coffees and then made a show of backing away, as if she’d encountered an invisible force field. Odd move, I thought; in my waitressing days, I couldn’t get enough of customers who scrapped it out at my tables.

“So,
seriously
. You would really work for an operation that will be the final nail in the coffin of the Blue Owl? You can kiss
real
bookstores goodbye.” Susanna picked up a knife and started aggressively smearing jelly across the face of her multigrain toast. I had to admire the way she cleared the flat plastic Smuckers packet of every lick of purple.

“Susanna, you’re being a little bit dramatic. Honestly, I thought you’d be excited about Scroll. The more people who read, the more books are sold. A rising tide lifts all boats, right?”

Actually, I had been petrified about telling Susanna. But given my impending financial situation, I also felt a twinge of annoyance; after all, she had opened her store with the help of a generous nest egg from her grandfather. The sum total of my grandparental inheritance consisted of a claddagh ring and a locket with tooth marks on the back.

“Not exactly. I’m sick of people using my store as a showroom and then buying books freaking
online
for half the price. Scroll will just make it easier for them to get the same crazy deals in person. It’s maddening.”

Susanna is an avowed Luddite; she only has a smart phone because it came as a free upgrade when her flip phone died. And a visit to the Blue Owl website will get you the address of the store—that’s it.

“Can we take this down a notch? I could use more coffee and the waitress won’t come back here until we change the subject to the swim team carpool.” I smiled hopefully and breathed deeply. “Susanna. I’m sorry. Someone from Scroll e-mailed me, and it seems shortsighted not to meet with her.”

We paused to nod in deference to a just-arrived mom of six who placed third in her age group in the Ironman and has a successful catering business, No Small Affair. Everyone suspects she’s on meth but still, the woman commands respect.

“Seriously,
Scroll just wrote to you out of the blue? How did they even know who you
are
?”

I ignored the subtext of her question. “The woman who e-mailed me follows me on Twitter.”

Susanna’s laugh warbled up from the back of her throat. Normally that sound was one of my favorite things about her, but now it rankled. “They
found you on Twitter
? Oh yeah, that sounds like a legit way to recruit future employees. Maybe I should start looking for salespeople on Pinterest. Shit. Just think of all the money I’ve wasted on classifieds in the
Filament Illuminator 
!”

Once again, I employed all my powers of restraint and ignored the outburst, which struck me as a little bit rude. I felt the tickle of a sob at the back of my throat. “Gee, Susanna, I hoped you’d be more enthusiastic—or at least
civil
—but fine, I had a feeling you wouldn’t be. I get that. So I’ll tell you the real reason I’m looking for a new job . . .”

And then I told her everything. How could I not? Susanna is full of bluster and unsolicited opinions, but she was also the president of my sounding board and I couldn’t keep a secret from her—especially when I knew Nicholas would eventually go public about why he was opening his own office. Susanna’s husband, Paul, would most likely be among the first to know. And I needed my own support network, right?

I finished up, “Of course it goes without saying, I might not even be interested in what Scroll is offering, or they might not be interested in me. This whole conversation could end up being completely moot, except for the part about me looking for a new job.”

Susanna sliced an end off her omelet and shoveled it onto my plate. “Fine, I get it. Now eat this. You’re going to need sustenance. And for what it’s worth, it’s your turn to pick up the big girls from swimming.”

•  •  •

As hopeful as I was about my meeting with Genevieve, it seemed prudent to investigate other options. On MediaBistro, I noticed a posting for a
job editing political nonfiction for Plum Books, a small press in SoHo. I clicked the link and submitted my resume directly to the company, even though my political experience was limited to one year as president of my seventh grade class.

It was so easy to apply for jobs online! The last time I’d sent out my resume, you still had to buy a box of special paper, and you had to make sure you printed your credentials with the watermark facing the right way.

Surprisingly, I heard from the publisher immediately, and we scheduled a meeting for the next day. Visions of lunches at Dean & Deluca danced in my head. I imagined regular visits to the Scholastic store. I saw myself skipping down cobblestone streets, lugging a manuscript in the crook of each arm.

The minute I arrived at Plum Books, I knew my fantasy was not to be. Their suite of offices on Prince Street happened to be right next door to my old ob-gyn’s office, which was weird enough. Then the door opened a crack and a man who looked like a very young Fidel Castro peered out at me. He had a patchy beard and a thin cigar tucked behind his ear. He wore a tight-fitting black T-shirt with the silhouette of a dog on it and the message Mutts Against Mitt.

“Hi, you must be Gus. I’m Alice.” I stuck out my hand.

“Heeeey, Alice. Wow. Well. Come on in.” Gus held the door open to reveal a loft space painted glossy orange with industrial-looking metal pipes snaking all over the pressed-tin ceiling. There were bumper stickers on every surface: Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote Republican, More Trees Less Bush, Vulture Capitalist. I was painfully aware of my faux-tweed skirt from Ann Taylor Loft and my oversized pearl earrings. Why hadn’t I worn something a little edgier? I felt like Nancy Reagan.

Gus introduced me to his comrades, who were sprawled on beanbag chairs drinking coffee from mugs emblazoned with still more slogans (No More Nukes; Think Globally, Act Locally). I lowered myself down beside them and spent the next half hour hollering over the widest generation gap
I’d ever encountered. When I mentioned my adolescent admiration for Geraldine Ferraro, Gus wrinkled his forehead.

His deputy editor smirked beneath an ironic mustache. “Do you mean Gennifer Flowers?”

“Actually, no. I mean Geraldine Ferraro. Walter Mondale’s running mate in 1984 . . . ?”

Crickets.

Of course. These boys had been
born
in 1984. Geraldine Ferraro was as irrelevant to them as Spiro T. Agnew is to me—maybe even more so, since she never actually made it to office.

When we parted ways, Gus said kindly, “You seem like a really cool woman. Best of luck finding your thing.”

W
e had tickets to see Blue Man Group on the day of my coffee date with Genevieve, so Nicholas and I drove into the city with the kids and, by some stroke of luck, happened to find a parking spot right in front of Shakespeare’s Sister. The plan was for the rest of the family to have an early dinner at the Time Café and then meet me at the theater after my interview. Of course, Nicholas would learn that the Time Café is no more: like many restaurants we were fond of in the late nineties, it has been replaced by a French bistro specializing in moules-frites.

Genevieve hadn’t asked to see my resume, but just to be on the safe side, I brought a copy with me in a brass-cornered leather folder. Aside from this throwback successory—the job seeker’s equivalent of a picture of a whale’s tale with PERSEVERE printed underneath—the only other thing in my bag was a Ziploc of Veggie Booty.

The restaurant was nearly empty when I walked in, so it was easy to spot Genevieve.

I’d scrutinized her Tumblr and Pinterest, read two years’ worth of her tweets, and performed multiple Google searches, image and
otherwise, using various combinations of her name, with quotation marks and without. I knew that Genevieve volunteered for Badass Brooklyn Animal Rescue, was a graduate of Carleton College, and was married to a man named Lance who blogged about hydroponic gardening. She appeared to be fond of quotes, especially one from John F. Kennedy, which she’d pinned two times: “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”