Chapter 11 June 1995 Quentin Hayes Iii—Director
Quentin Hayes III—director
The Wall Street Journal was all my father ever read; the Dow was his Tao.
Though he insisted fiction is a waste of time, Herzog remains my favorite book.
With one long breath, caught and held in his chest, he fought his sadness over his solitary life.
Don’t cry, you idiot! Live or die, but don’t poison everything…
If only I had Saul Bellow’s gravitas, his way with words.
He once lived in Paris; I used to walk by his building as my Sunday pilgrimage.
I used to devour a book a week, too, but to my great regret, since I started at the ALP, over a year ago now, there’s simply no time for necessities like novels or sleep.
I don’t get more than four hours of rest per night.
With the exception of a short fundraising trip to Washington, I haven’t had a weekend away, let alone off.
If it’s not the ancient boiler threatening to blow, it’s the burst pipes that flooded the children’s room.
If it’s not the cataloger calling in sick for ten weeks in a row, it’s lazy French artisans—a repair that should have taken a fortnight has taken six months…
so far. Then the sculptor squatting in the neighboring building got drunk and fell from a third-floor window onto the plexiglass roof of our mezzanine.
He’s fine—it was a four-foot drop. Unfortunately, journalists continue to call for quotes about the semifamous artiste who tried to end his days at the ALP.
“Not at the library on the library!” I end up shouting.
His fans, none of whom are members, now sneak in to admire the crack he caused as if it were another of his deranged oeuvres.
On their way out, I’ve seen more than one stuff a book down his trousers.
The title “library director” had a regal ring to it.
Of course, acquisitions editor, financial planner, and diplomatic outreach coordinator hadn’t sounded bad, either.
But those jobs didn’t last. I excel at first impressions; follow-through is where I fail.
I got through school by identifying the smart kids and looking over their shoulders during tests. That’s harder to do in work situations.
My interview for the position of director took place over a three-course lunch at Le Bristol with the ALP chairman of the board of trustees, Moe Mandelbaum, and board member Jennifer de Narp.
I don’t know what her problem was—she barely acknowledged me.
When I excused myself, ostensibly to use the men’s room, but really to let them come to the conclusion that they should hire me, I overheard Moe say, “He’s the right sort. ”
“You forced my candidate to come up with a yearly budget on the spot, yet the only question you ask Hayes is ‘You understand money, right?’ ”
Moe waved away her objection like it was a pesky wasp. “His prep school contacts will come in handy. We’re seeking spheres of influence, something what’s-her-name didn’t have.”
“Joan Graham. Yale graduate. Master’s in library science,” she said between clenched teeth.
“Do you know who Hayes’s father is?” he riposted.
“Was.”
Touché.
I returned to the table confident as ever.
“I won’t lie,” Moe warned me. “In this role, you’ll have to do a hell of a lot with very little.”
“I was a financial planner.” I didn’t mention that I’d lost my clients (that is to say, my father’s friends) and their money. If Moe didn’t check my references, he deserved what he got.
“We need someone who can bring the library into the twenty-first century.” Jennifer de Narp didn’t glance up from her Filofax.
Clearly, in her mind, this meeting was already over. I turned to Moe, since he was the one who mattered. “Yes, I’m familiar with message boards.” I repeated the peculiar phrase I’d heard my son use. “Computers are the future.”
The truth is that these days, I’m more concerned with the past. Since he died, I think of my father more and more.
His contacts got me into Choate, the prep school that was to pave my way to the Ivy League.
But with my mediocre grades in math and science, even his alma mater passed.
Only Notre Dame accepted me—certainly hoping to cultivate a connection of their own to my father.
In four years, he never visited or even wrote.
We spoke only when I returned home on break.
Well, he spoke, always complaining that I was reading instead of playing polo.
I responded “Yes, sir,” or “No, sir.” I enrolled in the classes he ordered me to take and got my bachelor’s in business.
Don’t ask me to tell you the difference between macro- and microeconomics. I don’t know and I don’t care.
After graduation, I went on to fail the LSAT as well as the foreign service exam.
I never mentioned the tests to him, so they couldn’t be counted in his tally against me.
Father found me a job at Merrill Lynch, and I married one of the secretaries.
Stuck in the office with such long hours, where else was I supposed to meet someone?
The marriage ended on the day I was ousted from the firm.
“No money, no wife,” my father liked to say.
But I told him that wasn’t fair; the divorce was my fault.
Of course, he assumed I cheated. In fact, I pursued her until we wed, then stopped making an effort.
I disappointed her—once again, a case of first impressions not lasting.
I met my second wife on the rebound. After she’d borne two sons, my father shifted from severe misgivings about her to lukewarm approval via gifts—a Cartier watch on Mother’s Day, a Kelly bag at Christmas—all of which delivered the subtext I’d never be able to match such presents myself.
She and I spend more time apart than together, which keeps us from divorcing but makes the marriage feel like a failure anyway.
We both failed at parenting. Our sons, one in China, the other in Italy, only contact us when they want something.
Perhaps I shouldn’t complain. I’m as good at keeping in touch as my father was.
In my career, I advanced from job to job, resigning just before they’d have fired me. Each press release made it appear that parting ways was my choice. “Deciding to spend more time with family” or “In order to pursue other goals.” Job eulogies.
This role as director was the last lead my father gave me before he died.
Of course, he knew the chairman personally.
I’d considered my father a safety net, always there when I landed with a thump.
It was only recently that I viewed him as a trampoline—an impetus to rebound that propelled me into another career, another romantic relationship, another life.
I was never grateful. At the time, I couldn’t see that he risked his reputation and friendships to recommend me.
I didn’t care. I brushed off the angry clients and my boss, telling myself that they had time to make more money.
My father surely lost his friends when I lost their savings.
I’d been careless, callous. I didn’t want to live like that anymore.
This job was to be a fresh start. Recalling my interview, I see that I was na?ve.
I thought I was pulling a fast one on Chairman Moe.
Now, I understand that he duped me—the bastard never mentioned the pain-in-the-ass trustees who’d fired the previous director (lawsuit pending).
At the time, I figured, I like to read. I can certainly referee shouting matches between testy patrons.
Really, how hard can running a library be?
Very hard, as it turns out. I don’t have a lot to work with.
Since I’ve been here, the only thing the assistant director has done is the writer in residence.
The head librarian is a kleptomaniac who pockets the fines.
Old-timers like Marius and Nutmeg latch on to me and yammer about how the library used to be run.
Jennifer de Narp is out to get me, and I have no idea why.
At monthly board meetings, the trustees demand to know why I haven’t reached the fundraising goal.
Unlike the program manager, I can’t fudge the statistics.
And don’t get me started about the pretentious “cultural curator” of Piccadilly Books—that battle-ax loves to rub her event calendar of Booker winners in my face.
In the role of director, my mistakes have lost the ALP hundreds of patrons—and membership fees.
When I opened the library on Sundays, Tamara Jones, a wealthy Catholic donor, ripped up her library card and convinced dozens in her parish to do the same.
Marcus Midboe, president of Neo-Cons Abroad, complained about The Joy of Gay Sex.
I abhor censorship and refused to remove the book from circulation.
He retaliated by canceling the corporate membership of his five hundred employees, which cost the ALP $50,000 in annual fees.
Now, every time the phone rings, I fear Moe Mandelbaum is calling to fire me.
The library has an illustrious past. In 1914, Alan Seeger, a bohemian Harvard grad, enlisted in the French Foreign Legion just days after war was declared.
He wrote sonnets in mud-soaked trenches.
His poem “I Have a Rendezvous with Death” was a favorite of John F.
Kennedy’s. During the Battle of the Somme, Seeger was killed, a bayonet in his hands, on the Fourth of July.
His father, Charles Seeger, helped found the library, a living monument to his son.
Fifty thousand francs, royalties from the war poet’s books, published posthumously, was the seed money.
Sometimes I ask myself if my father would have loved me if I’d died young.
At the outset of World War II, Ambassador William Bullitt advised Americans to leave France.
The ALP librarians remained. Directress Dorothy Reeder and her staff defied the Nazis in order to hand-deliver books to Jewish readers.
At the height of the Red Scare, director Ian Forbes Fraser stared down Joseph McCarthy’s government-sanctioned goons and barred them from entering.
Today, the ALP has members from sixty countries.
Nearly 25 percent of our members are French. It is a United Nations of readers.
In my life, I’ve failed at everything—school, career, marriage, parenthood—but was able to keep up appearances. If I fail this time, and the library closes for good, everyone will know I’m a failure.