Chapter 14 $
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In this family, you didn’t talk about money—not even with euphemisms the way you spoke of cancer (she is very sick) or a disastrous get-together (it was very nice) or unforgivable behavior (it’s not my business).
Dan and Steve were silent when they inherited equal shares of their mother Jeanne’s estate.
It was just the way they had been raised.
Talking about money was rude, and somehow dangerous.
Because of this, the brothers were surprised after Jeanne’s death to learn of her many bank accounts and detailed bequests.
She left generous sums to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Jewish Family and Children’s Services, and Mount Holyoke, her alma mater.
Smaller gifts went to the YMCA in Brighton where she used to swim, and to the Longy School of Music where she had once taught.
All good causes she had never mentioned.
In her will, Jeanne left her piano to the All Newton Music School, and with some difficulty, her sons arranged to donate it.
I want my instruments to be played, Jeanne stated, which was why she left her Vuillaume violin to Dan’s daughter, Phoebe.
To Steve’s sons, she left nothing. “Well,” Steve told his wife, Andrea, “she never liked boys.”
After these donations, there wasn’t much cash left—but Dan and Steve got the money from Jeanne’s house.
The big old Tudor in West Newton had sold for a fair amount, and after taxes and broker’s fees, Dan and Steve each got a lump sum.
A decent lump, but the brothers didn’t let it show.
In fact, they were just as stressed as they had been before, and the reasons were not hard to guess.
Dan was supporting his mother-in-law in memory care, and Steve was unemployed.
With a salary, Steve would have felt differently—but Andrea did not make nearly enough to support the family, so they were burning through his inheritance.
Of course, Steve was trying to find work, but after twenty-five years editing composition textbooks, he was highly specialized.
He had applied for jobs in publishing, libraries, research institutes, and nonprofits—but his skills were old-school, and his habitat had dwindled.
His interviews were informational at best.
He was working intermittently with a cheerful tattooed headhunter named Charlotte who specialized in creatives, as people like Steve were now called. The first time they’d met, Steve said, “I’m not sure I like being an adjective turned into a noun.”
“Ha!” said Charlotte. “Good one.”
She was a creative too, a photographer with an unflinching eye. Her portfolio was mostly insects—extreme close-ups of ants and iridescent flies and horrific praying mantises.
At their first meeting, they had talked about Steve’s goals, and he had told her he would do anything he was qualified for except teach high school.
“Any specific reason?” Charlotte asked.
Where do I begin? he thought, but he said, “I hate kids.”
Steve tried to come up with alternatives to education. He even considered bookselling. “Those jobs are hard to come by,” Charlotte said. “Would you consider tutoring, or, like, college counseling?”
“My wife does that,” Steve said. “Conflict of interest.”
Charlotte looked puzzled, but Steve explained. “It would cause conflict, because I’m not interested.”
After several months of this, Charlotte told Steve, “Honestly, you’re overqualified for most of this shit.”
“I wonder if it’s something else,” said Steve. He had been brooding about certain former colleagues who might blackball him. Sworn enemies now alighting on whatever slender opportunities remained in publishing.
“Nah,” said Charlotte. “You’re a bad demographic.”
“Too white,” said Steve, but he thought too male.
“Too old,” said Charlotte.
—
Old as he was, Steve tried networking the old-fashioned way.
“Are you still in touch with Jeff?” he asked his brother on the phone.
“Jeff who?”
“Rosencrantz.”
“Like once or twice a year. I think he’s in Teaneck.”
“And he’s still married to Shira, right?”
“Yeah. Why do you ask?”
“Because he’s in publishing.”
“Really?”
“He’s an indie publisher.” Steve was standing at the picture window in his living room.
Dan sounded puzzled. “I thought he was in advertising.”
“No, he’s got his own publishing house now.”
“Wow. What’s it called?”
Steve hesitated. Then he said, “Cloverleaf.”
“What’s that?” said Dan.
“Never mind.” Steve gazed at his snowy walk.
Andrea was working downstairs, and Nate was off with his girlfriend so it was up to him to shovel and die of a heart attack.
Not to be dramatic, but lately this had been his thinking.
He had been out of work so long and he had spent so much time in New Jersey.
He would perish in the most suburban way.
“I’ll send you his email,” Dan told him. “Is that what you want?”
“Maybe,” Steve said.
—
Playwright, actor, beer pong champion, Jeff had been Steve’s freshman roommate, and they had been close.
It was only after the implosion of Steve’s entire industry that reaching out began to feel humiliating.
Steve had not contacted Jeff in years and now he thought, I cannot do this—but he forced himself to write anyway.
He sat down with a yellow legal pad and drafted a preamble in which he asked after Jeff and Shira and the whole family. Then fondly he recalled days at Emerson, and nights at the radio station, WERS. After which he meditated on the passage of time, and the growing up of children.
Once he got all that out of the way, Steve spilled his guts, explaining the cataclysm he had witnessed at his company.
Andrea padded up the stairs with her travel mug of coffee because she still behaved like a commuter, even though she had been working in the basement for the past five years. “I think we should probably shovel.”
“I’ll get to it,” said Steve.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He handed Andrea the yellow pad.
“You’re writing to Jeff?”
“He’s actually doing well.”
“Huh,” said Andrea, as she leafed through Steve’s letter.
“Are you reading?”
“At the time I left Hillier-Nelson,” Andrea read aloud, “I felt we were chasing new platforms instead of developing ideas, sacrificing the good for the expedient. We were selling our birthright—giving up on books and readers. It was terrible to watch. In fact, it was a tragedy. Even so, despite everything, I still believe that—” Andrea looked up. “You sound like Anne Frank.”
“Keep going.”
“Books are not units. Content is not product. Good prose is vital, albeit increasingly rare, and we must resist the constant debasement and cheapening of words and the thoughts they represent. This is a sacred trust.” She flipped the page. “When are you going to say you’re looking for a job?”
“I don’t know if there is a job,” said Steve. “I’m reaching out.”
“Oh, okay.”
“You think it’s too much.”
She didn’t answer.
“You think it’s grandiloquent.”
“I didn’t say that!”
“You don’t have to!”
She turned pages scribed heavily in ballpoint. “This must be three thousand words!”
“That’s your response?”
“I thought you wanted me to look this over.”
“I didn’t ask for a word count.”
“I wasn’t counting!”
“Then tell me what you think.”
She kept leafing. “It’s heartfelt.”
“Heartfelt?” He snatched back his legal pad.
“I didn’t mean it pejoratively.”
“Oh, you meant it in a heartfelt way?”
“Steve!”
“I’m just asking what you think.”
“It’s too long.”
“Fine! I’ll cut it.”
He said this, but cut nothing. He typed just what he had written—not because it was good, but because it was true.
I still believe in art. I still believe in poetry.
Cogent prose is the one resource we lack, and yet, clear writing is as important as fresh water and clean energy.
He reread these words and sent the email. Then he went out to brave the drifts.
—
After shoveling the walk and driveway (he did not die) Steve checked his inbox. Nothing. No reply for several hours. He did not hear back from Jeff all day.
The next morning it snowed again, but just a little. Steve dug out the car for Andrea and touched up the driveway. He didn’t have to shovel perfectly, but it felt good once he started. He scraped off every bit of ice.
Then he stamped inside, kicked off his boots, and reread his credo.
It was indeed grandiloquent, and he saw a typo—outage where he meant to say outrage.
His message did seem bloated, and he had not, in fact, asked Jeff directly about employment; he’d only suggested meeting sometime for coffee.
It was all too long, too weird, and at the same time way too subtle. Jeff wasn’t gonna answer this.
But no! That evening, Jeff Rosencrantz wrote back. Hi Steve! Great to hear from you. Your email came at such a great time. Our little outfit is expanding!
And lo, Steve woke early Monday morning, and drove to Panera Bread, where Jeff was waiting with his laptop and a stack of books and coffee.
“Hey!” Jeff stood and shook Steve’s hand, and clapped him on the shoulder, and he was just as friendly as if no time had passed, although he had no hair left, and he was fifty pounds heavier than he had been in college. “How are you, man?”
“I can’t complain,” said Steve, although this wasn’t true.
“Still writing poetry?”
“A little,” Steve said, although this wasn’t true either.
“I loved your stuff,” Jeff told him.
“Really?”
“I still remember the one about the orange. The one that got all those awards.”
Steve nodded, although the poem had been about an apricot. “Just one award.”
“Oh, only one!” Jeff said good-naturedly.
Steve went up to the counter, where he resisted a vanilla cinnamon roll. “Are you still writing plays?” he asked when he returned with coffee.
“No!” Jeff told him. “Work has been insane. Your message could not have come at a better time. I need good people. Desperately. We have so many books scheduled we cannot keep up.”
Steve said, “Well, that’s good to hear.”