The Pursuit Of Happiness Page 18

  I sat down at my desk. I put my head in my hands. I had missed the press agent's calls. We had lost the interview with Garfield. And now I was about to be fired.

  I knew this was going to happen. Now it had happened. I'd let irrationality triumph – and I was about to pay a huge price for it. Yet again, I heard my father's voice in my head: There's no use crying over a mistake, young lady. Simply accept the consequences with dignity and grace – and learn from your infraction.

  So I stood up, and smoothed out my hair, and took a deep breath, and walked slowly down the corridor, ready to face my punishment. I knocked twice on the door. Leland McGuire: Features Editor was stenciled on to the frosted glass.

  'Come in,' he said.

  As soon as I was halfway through the door, I was already talking.

  'Mr McGuire, I am so terribly sorry . . .'

  'Please shut the door behind you, Sara, and sit down.'

  His tone was cool, detached. I did as ordered, sitting in the hard wood chair facing his desk, my hands neatly folded in my lap – like a recalcitrant schoolgirl called into the headmistress's study. Only in this instance, the authority figure sitting in judgment of me could destroy my livelihood, my career.

  'Are you all right, Sara?' he asked.

  'I'm fine, Mr McGuire. Just fine. If I could simply explain . . .'

  'You are not fine, Sara. In fact, you haven't been fine for weeks, have you?'

  'I cannot tell you how sorry I am about missing Mr Glick's calls. But it's only three thirty. I can ring him right back, and get all the info on Garfield . . .'

  Leland cut me off.

  'I've reassigned the Garfield interview. Lois Rudkin will be handling it. Do you know Lois?'

  I nodded. Lois was a recent graduate of Mount Holyoke, who'd joined our department in September. She was also quite the ambitious young journalist. I knew she looked upon me as her direct inter-office competition . . . even though I refused to play those games (believing, perhaps foolishly, that good work would always win out). I realized what was coming next: Leland had decided that there was need for only one woman writer in Features, and Lois was that writer.

  'Yes,' I said quietly, 'I know Lois.'

  'Talented writer.'

  Had I wanted to be fired on the spot, I could have said, And I've seen the charm offensive she's launched on you. Instead, I just nodded.

  'Do you want to tell me what's going on, Sara?' he asked.

  'Have you not been happy with my work, Mr McGuire?'

  'I have no serious complaints. You write reasonably well. You are prompt. Barring today, you are basically reliable. But you also look exhausted all the time, and completely distracted – to the point where, work-wise, you appear to be just going through the motions. And I'm not the only one in the office who's noticed . . .'

  'I see,' I said, sounding non-committal.

  'Has something terrible happened?'

  'No – nothing terrible.'

  'Is it . . . a matter of the heart?'

  'It could be.'

  'You obviously don't want to talk about this . . .'

  'I'm sorry . . .

  'Apologies are not necessary. Your private life is your private life. Until it begins to affect your working life. And though the old newspaperman in me rebels against the idea of company boosterism, my superiors at Time and Life believe that everyone who works here should be a "team player", with a real commitment to the magazine. And in your case, I'm afraid that you are widely regarded as somewhat remote – to the point where certain people also consider you haughty and patrician.'

  This was news to me – and I was deeply distressed by it.

  'I certainly do not try to be haughty, sir.'

  'Perception is everything, Sara – especially within a company environment. And the perception among your colleagues at Life is that you'd rather be elsewhere.'

  'Are you going to fire me, Mr McGuire?'

  'I'm not that brutal, Sara. Nor have you done anything that merits the ax. At the same time, however, I would like you to consider working for us independently . . . from home, perhaps.'

  Later that night – drinking rough red wine with Eric in his apartment – I filled my brother in on the remainder of my conversation with Leland McGuire.

  'So after he dropped that bombshell about thinking I should work from home, he offered me his terms. He'd keep me on full salary for six months – for which I'd be required to write a story every two weeks. I would no longer be considered a Time and Life staffer – just a freelance, so I'd have no benefits.'

  'Believe me, there are huge benefits in not having to go to an office in the morning.'

  'That thought has crossed my mind. But I've also been wondering how I'd adjust to working on my own.'

  'You've said you wanted to write fiction for a long time. Surely, this would now give you the chance . . .'

  'I've given up on that idea. I'm not a writer . . .'

  'You're just twenty-four years old. Don't dismiss yourself as a lost literary cause. Especially when you haven't really tried.'

  'Well, there's a little problem with my fiction writing career: I can't get started.'

  'You could sing that.'

  'Very funny . . . But not only am I a failed writer; I am also – according to Leland McGuire – something of a failure as a team player.'

  'Who wants to be a "team player"?'

  'It's easier than being considered haughty or detached or patrician. I'm not really that patrician, am I?'

  Eric laughed.

  'Put it this way: you wouldn't be mistaken as a Brooklynite.'

  I gave him a sour smile. 'Thanks for that.'

  'I'm sorry. That was thoughtless.'

  'Yes. It was.'

  'Still no news from him?'

  'You know I would have said something . . .'

  'I know. And I haven't wanted to ask you . . .'

  'Because . . . let me guess . . . you think I'm a romantic fathead – who's lost her heart to a rogue after just one night of dumb passion.'

  'True – but I would actually thank your Brooklyn Irish rogue for forcing you out of Time and Life. Neither of us is a team player, S. Which means we'll always be outside of the mainstream. And, believe me, that's no bad thing . . . if you can handle that. So, consider this an opportunity to discover if you are your own best company. My hunch is: you'll really take to working by yourself. You have that remote temperament, after all.'

  I punched him lightly in the shoulder.

  'You are impossible,' I said.

  'But you give me such wonderful opportunities to be impossible.'

  I breathed a sad sigh.

  'I'm not going to hear from him again, am I?'

  'Reality finally dawns.'

  'I keep wondering if . . . I don't know . . . maybe he had an accident, or was transferred to somewhere so remote that he can't be contacted.'

  'Then again, he could be on a top-secret spying assignment with Mata Hari – even though the French took the liberty of shooting her in nineteen seventeen.'

  'All right, all right.'

  'Get over him, S. Please. For your own sake.'

  'God knows I want to. It's just . . . he won't go away. Something happened that night. Something so inexplicable, yet fundamental. And though I keep trying to convince myself that it's all folly, I simply know: he was it.'

  The next morning, I cleared out my desk at Life. I walked down the corridor and popped my head into Leland's office.

  'I just came to say goodbye,' I said.

  He didn't motion for me to come in or sit down, nor did he stand up. He seemed a bit nervous in my presence.

  'Well, it's not really a goodbye, Sara. We'll still be working together.'

  'Have you thought about my first freelance assignment?'

  He avoided my eyes. 'Not yet – but I will be in touch within a couple of days to discuss a few things with you.'

  'So I should expect a call from you?'

  'Of course, of course �
� as soon as we've put this week's issue to bed. Meanwhile, you might as well enjoy a couple of days off.'

  He reached for a pile of papers and went back to work. It was my cue to leave. So I collected the cardboard box on my desk which contained the meagre contents of my cubicle, then walked to the elevator. As the door opened, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Lorraine Tewksberry. She worked as a layout designer in the art department, and was the acknowledged office gossip. She was a tall, narrow woman in her thirties, with a beak-like face and bobbed black hair. She got on the elevator with me. As the door closed behind us, she leaned over and whispered into my ear (out of range of the uniformed elevator operator), 'Meet me at the Chock Full O'Nuts on Forty-sixth and Madison in five minutes.'

  I looked at her quizzically. She merely winked, put her index finger to her lips, then hurried out of the elevator as soon as we reached the lobby.

  I deposited my box with the concierge at the reception desk, and walked around the corner to Chock Full O'Nuts. Lorraine was seated at a booth in the back.

  'This will just take a minute, because a minute's all I've got. It's production day.'

  'Is something wrong?' I asked.

  'Only from where you're sitting. I just want you to know that there are a lot of us on the magazine who are sorry to see you go.'

  'That's surprising – considering that Mr McGuire told me everyone thought I was aloof and haughty.'

  'Of course he'd tell you that – because from the moment you refused to go out with him, he had it in for you.'

  'How did you know he asked me out?'

  Lorraine cast her eyes heavenwards. 'It's not that big an office,' she said.

  'But he only asked me out once . . . and I was rather polite about turning him down.'

  'The fact is, though – you did turn him down. And since then, he's been looking for a way of getting rid of you.'

  'All this happened almost two years ago.'

  'He's just been waiting for you to slip up. And, sorry to say this, but you have seemed a little off-beam for the last couple of months. If you don't mind me asking, is it guy trouble?'

  'I'm afraid so.'

  'Get over him, honey. All men are jerks.'

  'You may have a point.'

  'Believe me, I am a world-class expert on this subject. I also know this: Leland won't be giving you a single assignment from now on. He set up this freelance idea for you as a way of easing you out of the office, and giving all the plum soft assignments to Miss Lois Rudkin . . . who, as you may have heard, isn't merely Leland's favorite writer of the moment, but also his occasional bedfellow.'

  'I had wondered . . .'

  'You wondered right. Because unlike you, the smarmy little Miss Rudkin did take up the very married Mr McGuire's offer of a date. From what I heard, one thing led to another, and now . . . shazam, you're out of a job.'

  I swallowed hard. 'What should I do?'

  'If you want my honest opinion . . . you should say nothing and do nothing. Just take Mr Luce's money for the next six months, and go write the Great American Novel if you feel like it. Or move to Paris. Or take some classes. Or just sleep late until the paychecks stop. But know this: there's no way you're going to be writing anything for Life again. He's made sure of that. And in six months' time, he'll officially fire you.'

  Some years later, I heard that, in Chinese, the symbol for the word 'crisis' has two meanings: danger and opportunity. I wish I'd known that at the time – because my initial reaction to Lorraine's news was one of utter panic, utter crisis. I picked up my office box from the concierge, I took a taxi downtown to my apartment, I slammed the door behind me, I sat down on my bed, I put my head in my hands, thinking that my world was completely falling apart. Yet again, I found myself mourning the loss of Jack – as if he had died. Because for all I knew, he was, indeed, dead.

  The next morning, I made a trunk call to the Department of the Army in Washington, DC. The switchboard operator finally put me through to Stars and Stripes. I explained to a receptionist that I was trying to locate one of their journalists – a certain Sergeant John Joseph Malone, currently on assignment somewhere in Europe.

  'We can't give out such information on the phone,' the woman said. 'You'll have to put your request in writing to the Department of Enlisted Personnel.'

  'But surely, there aren't that many journalists named Jack Malone writing for you.'

  'Army rules are Army rules.'

  So I called the Department of Enlisted Personnel. A clerk gave me the address to write for a Search for Personnel form. Once they received the completed form back from me, I should expect a reply back from the Department within six to eight weeks.

  'Six to eight weeks! Isn't there anything I can do to speed up the process?'

  'Ma'am, there are still something like four hundred thousand men stationed overseas. These things take time.'

  I sent off for the form that afternoon. I also had a brainstorm, and paid a visit to my local news stand, right near the Sheridan Square subway station. After explaining my problem, the guy who ran it said, 'Sure, I can get you Stars and Stripes starting tomorrow. But back issues? This I'm gonna have to work on.'

  The next morning, I stopped by the news stand at nine in the morning.

  'You're in luck,' the newsie told me. 'My distributor can get me a month's back copies. That's thirty copies in all.'

  'I'll take them all.'

  They arrived two days later. I scoured each edition. There wasn't one byline under the name of Jack Malone. I continued to pick up the daily edition of Stars and Stripes. Still no sign of a Jack Malone story. Maybe he didn't write under his own name, I told myself. Maybe he was on a top-secret special assignment, and wasn't having anything published just now. Maybe he'd been lying to me all along – and wasn't a journalist at all.

  The search form from the Department of Enlisted Personnel arrived a week later. I mailed it back the next morning. As I returned to my apartment from the postbox, I stared at the small stack of mail on the mat outside my door. Surely, it would be romantic justice if a letter from Jack was in that pile.

  It wasn't.

  I tried to remain controlled. I tried to invent yet another rationalization for his lack of response. But all I could think was: why can't you answer me?

  The next morning – despite another night of splintered sleep – I jumped out of bed, feeling deeply decisive. The moment had come to reclaim my self-respect and put this entire moonstruck episode behind me. What's more, I would take Lorraine and Eric's advice, and use the time to make a serious attempt at writing fiction.