CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Portia rejected the navy suit because she said it looked like I was going to fire a superintendent. Asha rejected the cream one because the jacket pulled when I crossed my arms. I rejected the green one because it cost more than my first car.
“It also looks better than your first car,” Portia said.
“My first car had character.”
“Your first car had a towel over the passenger seat because the window leaked.”
“That towel was coordinated.”
We stood in the fitting room of a Center City department store on Wednesday evening, surrounded by clothes I had not planned to buy and opinions I had not requested.
Asha sat on the bench with her laptop open across her knees.
She had spent the first hour pretending to work, then looked up every time I came out and gave a verdict nobody could appeal.
The charcoal suit won. It fit my shoulders, respected my hips, and did not ask me to become smaller before it closed.
“Get the silk blouse too,” Asha said.
“I have blouses.”
“Not that color.”
“It is white.”
“It is bone.”
Portia put a hand to her chest. “My work here is done.” At the register, Asha closed her laptop too quickly. I noticed.
“What are you hiding?”
“Nothing.”
“You have been my child for twenty-one years. Try again.”
She looked toward Portia. Portia lifted both hands. “I am not getting between a mother and the lie she already detected.” Asha waited until we were outside with the shopping bag between us.
“I got the fellowship,” she said.
I stopped walking.
“What fellowship?”
“The museum education fellowship.”
“In Chicago?”
“Yes.”
The street moved around us. A bus exhaled at the curb. Somebody behind me said excuse me with the tone of a person who did not mean it.
“When did you apply?”
“February.”
“And you did not tell me?”
“I told you I was looking at programs.”
“You said local programs.”
“I said programs.”
Portia stepped closer to the building and became fascinated by a window display. I looked at my daughter. “When were you going to tell me?”
“When I knew.”
“You knew enough to interview.”
“That sounds familiar.”
The sentence hit exactly where she aimed it. I lowered my voice. “Do not use my job against me.”
“I am not. I am saying sometimes you want to hold a possibility before everybody starts reacting to it.”
I hated that she was right while still being my child.
“When does it start?”
“August. Eleven months.”
“Where will you live?”
“They provide housing the first three months. After that, I find a place.”
“By yourself?”
“Probably with another fellow.”
“Do you know them?”
“Not yet.”
The questions came faster than sense. Asha let me ask four more before saying, “Mom.” I closed my mouth.
She was excited. I could see it beneath the caution in her face. My first response had taught her to hide the excitement until I stopped making a list of danger. I put the shopping bag down and hugged her. She held still for half a second, then wrapped her arms around me.
“I am proud of you,” I said into her hair. “I am also about to worry like it is a salaried position.”
“I expected both.”
“You could have told me sooner.”
“You could tell Warren everything the day it happens too.”
“Do not get brave.”
She laughed against my shoulder. Portia turned back around. “Can I celebrate now, or are we still pretending Chicago is a kidnapping?”
“We are celebrating,” I said.
“Good. I know a place with champagne flights.”
Asha lifted her head. “I have class tomorrow.”
“One flight. You are educated enough to pace yourself.”
Friday morning, I took the 7:02 train to Washington in the charcoal suit.
Warren drove me to Thirtieth Street Station.
He did not park and walk me inside because I had not asked him to.
He did not circle the block pretending he happened to be nearby either.
At the curb, he took my garment bag from the back seat.
“You have your notes?”
“Yes.”
“Phone charger?”
“Yes.”
“Train confirmation?”
“Warren.”
He handed me the bag. “I am being useful.”
“You are being somebody’s father.”
“I am somebody’s father.”
“Not mine.”
His mouth changed slightly.
“Call me after,” he said.
“I will.”
“Not because I need a report.”
“I know.”
He looked at me. I smiled. “Because you want to hear me.”
“Yes.”
The interview took place in a glass conference room overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue.
The council’s board search committee had five people, three water bottles, and a folder thick enough to contain every mistake I had ever made if they had printed small.
The chief executive joined for the first hour.
She had announced her retirement but planned to stay through the transition.
That mattered. I had no interest in inheriting a job from somebody pushed out through a side door.
They asked about budgets, staff, city politics, youth safety, donors who confused gifts with ownership, and programs that looked beautiful in annual reports while failing the neighborhoods printed on the cover.
I answered without turning every response into a speech.
Then a committee member asked why I wanted to leave Philadelphia so soon after a public review involving my current employer.
“I am not trying to leave Philadelphia,” I said. “My home is there. My work has been there for seventeen years. I am interviewing because the council’s reach would let me do the work at a larger scale.”
“Does the review influence your timing?”
“Yes.”
The room became still.
“It reminded me that institutions will investigate risk faster than they investigate whether their best people are growing,” I continued.
“My foundation handled the complaint appropriately. I handled part of the disclosure poorly. Both are true. I returned to my position, completed the corrective plan, and kept leading. I am not leaving in shame. I am also not required to stay forever to prove I survived.”
The retiring executive nodded once. Another member asked how I would manage five cities while living in one.
“With strong local directors, clear authority, travel that has a purpose, and fewer meetings designed to prove the person in charge is present.”
“What would you need from us?”
“Honesty about which decisions are mine. If every difficult choice returns to the board, you do not need a chief program officer. You need a coordinator with a larger title.”
Nobody smiled. Then the board chair did.
By the time I left, I wanted the job. That was inconvenient.
I walked three blocks before calling Warren because I needed air between the conference room and his voice.
He answered from a construction site. I heard backup alarms and somebody shouting a measurement.
“How did it go?” he asked.
“I did not embarrass Philadelphia.”
“That was not the standard.”
“It went well.”
A pause.
“Did you want it before you went in?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you want it now?”
I stopped near a planter full of flowers somebody had paid a government amount of money to arrange.
“Yes.”
Warren did not congratulate me immediately. He said, “Okay.” The word carried weight without becoming a wall.
“I hate your okay sometimes,” I said.
“I am on a site with six men listening.”
“Put me on speaker so I can give them something better.”
A low laugh came through the phone.
“When is your train?” he asked.
“Six twelve.”
“I will pick you up.”
“You do not have to.”
“I want to.”
The train lost power outside Wilmington and arrived fifty-three minutes late. Warren waited in short-term parking with a container of chicken wings, cut fruit, and the kind of sparkling water I liked but refused to buy because eight dollars for bubbles felt criminal. He did not bring flowers.
He did not ask me to make a decision in the car. He took the garment bag, kissed me once, and said, “Eat before you turn the offer into a crisis they have not made yet.”
“I do not have an offer.”
“You are hungry anyway.”
We sat in the parked truck while taxis moved around us and I ate wings with a napkin spread over my lap.
“I want it,” I said again.
Warren looked through the windshield.
“I heard you.”
“What do you want?”
He turned toward me.
“To talk about what yes would require before either of us starts promising it will be easy.”
That was not romance the way Portia would have written it. It was better. I handed him a wing.
“Tomorrow,” I said.
“Tomorrow.”