“I should have seen this earlier. I did, of course. I just never did anything about it,” Kim says, more to herself than Cece. “This isn’t some new thing, you know. Other than with the swimming. His swimming, your swimming. He’s never been a very serious person. Sure, when business was good, when the money came easy, he was happy to dash off to the office, but he got complacent. I told him! The internet was coming. But he wouldn’t listen. He stuck his head in the sand, and now look where we are.”
The refrain is a familiar one. Wynonna and Cece could practically recite her mother’s complaints when it came to Barry’s Luddite tendencies, but this feels different. Kim’s voice is strained, her words steeped in anger and resentment. “These were supposed to be our golden years. Instead, I’m working for two.”
Cece doesn’t think this is the best time to point out that Kim is only still working because her definition of retirement includes two homes and at least one international trip a year. If Kim wanted, she could retire today, but that would require cutting back on certain luxuries and imagined futures. “Maybe he’ll get more clients,” Cece offers, even though she knows it’s an impossibility.
“Maybe,” Kim says distractedly. “Don’t tell your sister about any of this.”
“About what?”
“This conversation.”
“Whatarewe talking about?”
“I have to run, Cece; otherwise, I’ll be late for my spin class. You’re a shoo-in for this job. A shoo-in!”
The line goes dead. A man dressed in an ill-fitting suit sitting across the aisle glares at Cece, seemingly for talking on her phone.She ignores him and looks out the window at the backs of row homes and apartment buildings, backyards cluttered with discarded playsets and rusted bicycles.
Vividly, down to every detail, Cece can still recall the day Barry announced they’d landed the Condé Nast account; or more accurately, she remembers what that deal brought the family: a monthslong vacation in Montauk. They rented a stately home overlooking Fort Pond. Wynonna and Cece spent their days biking into town, sailing Sunfishes, and marveling at the tanned lifeguards at the ocean beach. It was a summer like no other, a summer when Barry never said no—mini golf, dinner at Gosman’s, even surfing lessons—to anything the girls wanted to do.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to do this every summer?” Kim was saying. It was their last night in the house. Barry had picked up lobsters for dinner. The sun clinging to the horizon outside, an orange orb purpling the sky, dunes wavering in the dusky air.
Barry stuck his head out from the kitchen. “Certainly would.”
“What’s stopping us from getting a place like this for ourselves?”
“I can think of a few hundred thousand reasons.”
“Other families manage it. Why shouldn’t we?”
“Dinner’s served!” Barry shouted. “Grab your lobsters. Corn and bread rolls are on the table.”
Much later, after the plates had been cleared and the girls had left and returned with Carvel ice cream, Barry and Kim sat on the porch, summer cocktails in hand, looking out at the darkness, the wind salty and wet. Wynonna had already gone to bed,exhausted from the sea and sun. Wanting to make the most of her final hours, Cece had settled on the couch to watchThe Andy Griffith Showon the only TV channel that worked. The screen door rattled in its frame. Stubborn sand clung to Cece’s ankles, and she rubbed them together absentmindedly while the black-and-white screen flickered in the darkening room.
“You shouldn’t say things like that in front of the girls,” Barry was saying, his voice nearly one with the wind. “You’ll just get their hopes up.”
“What’s wrong with dreaming big?”
“There’s big and then there’s delusional, Kim. You know we can’t afford a second place, especially out here.”
“The business will keep growing. The Condé Nast deal is huge. You’ve finally got some momentum. Now you can build on it.”
Eyes heavy like lead, blanket pulled up to her neck, Cece was half listening, sleep beckoning like a lighthouse. She was mildly aware of her father’s growing silence. Her mother’s advice…or was it hope, strung out, left to dangle.
“I don’t want us to get overextended,” Barry said, his voice soft and easy like freshly laundered sheets. “We’ve got to pace ourselves.”
“Not everything is like swimming, Barry…What happened to all our big plans?”
Cece can never remember her father’s reply. Maybe she’d finally dozed off; maybe he’d reassured Kim with a promise and a kiss on the forehead; maybe he’d only nodded and hadn’t said a word, looking out to where he knew the ocean churned.
The lower levelof Grand Central Station is abuzz. Commuters disembark from train cars, a gyre of backpacks, creased newspapers, and noise-canceling headphones. The solid mass trudges across the platform. A few intrepid youngsters break off and duck around steel columns, looking to gain a few precious seconds. Even in these dingy catacombs, the air thick with grime and axle grease, there’s an infectious energy. Cece remembers it well, the collective sense of purpose gaining strength with each step. And then the churning river splits into a hundred tributaries, each winding their own separate way: the M42 across town, the 4 local heading uptown, the 7 to Queens.
Cece takes the shuttle to Times Square and hops on the 2 downtown. She hasn’t been to the financial district in a year, maybe more. The only time she ever ventured to this side of the city was when Jonathan had to work late, and she wanted to surprise him with an impromptu dinner date. When the weather was nice and the days were long, she’d sit in Zuccotti Park with a good paperback and wait. Things seemed simpler back then, when her biggest concern was trying to decide between Italian or Indian for dinner.
The offices for Global Risk Management occupy a mammoth skyscraper Cece doesn’t recall. Half of the city is unrecognizable, the skyline a patchwork of freshly erected glass and steel. She takes a seat in a chair that looks more comfortable than it is after she checks in. While she waits, Cece tries to remember some of the literature on the company’s website about catastrophe and disaster modeling. It’s always important to show you’ve done yourresearch. Now that she’s here, questions assail Cece’s relative sense of calm. Is she really so confident in her mother’s connections? Are her qualifications that impressive? Or is this surrender? Cece wonders. Is this what it feels like to have nothing to lose? Her argument with Santiago and impending dismissal from Rayburn Oyster should be making her nervous, desperate even, but Cece is surprised to find the opposite seems to have happened. She’s already been fired from one job, soon to be two, what’s another failed interview? Hire me, don’t hire me, Cece thinks, rising to meet a woman her age wearing a neatly cut gray suit and shaking her hand. I’ll be just fine.
The first woman she speaks with is unnervingly kind, and Cece gets the distinct sense that someone’s greased the skids before her arrival. She can hear her mother extolling the virtues of connections and networking. For once, she agrees. There are questions about her previous work experience at Ernst and Young and why she thinks she’s a good fit for the company. Shuttled from room to room, shaking hands, firm but not too firm, confident but not cocky, Cece does her best to take it all in: gray-walled cubicles, clacking keyboards, and glowing monitors. More than once, she’s shown tables and charts of data and asked how she’d interpret them. What problems does she anticipate? How would she solve or minimize them? There are a few women throughout the day, but most of the people she meets are men in their late thirties with soft hands and clean haircuts. They are the types of men who cycle maniacally long distances on the weekend, Cece imagines, to places like Nyack and Beacon. They are the types of men who enjoy the morning jockeying for a seat on the commuter trains. Her second-to-last meeting is with Maddox Hickock, thehead of the climate disaster department, the man who would be her supervisor if she gets the job. Maddox occupies a corner office, and Cece’s reminded of just how high up they are. He beckons for Cece to sit and offers her kiwi-infused water from a pitcher. She declines, wondering if this is something he always has in his office, or if it’s merely for special occasions like this—interviewing semi disgruntled actuaries who’ve fallen on hard times.
“This is mostly ceremonial. Your credentials are impeccable. Plus, Tina and I go way back,” Maddox says, moving out from behind his standing desk. He’s wearing a pair of white laceless sneakers. “She was singing your praises.”
