by Marie Astor
Paul Bostoff rose from his chair and adjusted his tie. The prospect of a lunch meeting with his brother made him nervous. Jon and Paul were not the kind of siblings who shared boyhood memories: the nine-year age difference between them was partly to blame for that, but mainly it was the difference in their characters and temperaments. His whole life, Paul remembered Jon treating him with veiled disregard: Paul was always too slow, too weak, too young to warrant Jon’s interest. And even now, as adults, they were anything but close: a situation that proved to be all the more problematic since they were working for a family business. Paul could understand Jon’s reasons for not taking him seriously. After all, Paul had not exactly been a paragon of business astuteness; he had majored in acting at Vassar, selecting marketing as a second major to appease his father. After graduating, Paul ran with the actor crowd for a while, landing small parts in off Broadway theaters – the kind of theaters that had folding chairs for the audience to sit on and nothing but the bare floor as stage decorations. But Paul did not mind; in fact, he thought of those years as the happiest in his life. Unlike Jon, he had never hungered for money or prestige. Granted, both brothers had grown up in a well-to-do household, but Jon seemed to have been born with insatiable ambition. Even in his boyhood years, Paul had noticed a look of vague dissatisfaction on his elder brother’s face. No amount of money would ever be enough for him and no social position sufficiently high enough. Paul, however, was the complete opposite of his brother. As much as he would have liked to please his father by showing some of Jon’s business rigor, he came up flat. Business did not interest him, which was a difficulty that could be easily overcome by perseverance, but Paul’s predicament ran much deeper than lack of effort. He had no acumen for the world of finance. Numbers held no allure for him, leaving his head heavy with headache and confusion. He was an artist, not a number cruncher like his father or brother.
But while Paul longed to see his name heralded in film and stage credits, he learned that the entertainment business was anything but easy to break into. There, again, ambition prevailed, and he lacked the killer instinct that had propelled his more tenacious friends into stardom. When Paul’s acting aspirations failed to blossom, he had been content to channel himself into marketing. At least, there was some aspect of creativity to it. He had wanted to strike out on his own. He had an offer to join the marketing department of a reputable magazine, but his father had insisted that Paul join Bostoff Securities as Chief Marketing Officer. Embarrassed by the pompous, nepotism-procured title, Paul worked hard. He wanted to prove to everyone, and most of all to himself, that he was more than just his father’s son. He had succeeded: his advertising campaigns for Bostoff Securities were original and innovative. His father was pleased, and so were his colleagues, with the exception of his brother who considered marketing to be a sham of a profession. No matter; Paul was too old to need his brother’s approval. He had been perfectly happy with his newly-found niche in marketing when his father insisted on transferring him into the business side of things and making him chief operating officer or COO at Bostoff Securities.
What did a COO do, anyway? Paul had no idea, and his father was not that keen on educating him, leaving the task to Jon, who was anything but helpful. So Paul fumbled along, doing his best to appear competent and constantly terrified of his pretense being exposed. Not that his father would notice. Ever since Paul’s mother had passed away, Hank just was not himself: he was distracted and aloof, his presence in the office being a mere formality while Jon took over the reins. And Jon certainly did not have any interest in Paul becoming a competent COO, as he had no regard for his younger brother’s input when it came to business or any other subject, for that matter. Things might have continued this way had it not been for Lisa. At the thought of his tantalizing fiancée, Paul felt his spirits lift. Lisa was one of the most exciting women he had ever met. She was so driven, so determined: a refreshing change from his own attitude; a spirit he could look up to. For as ashamed as he was to admit it, Paul knew that while he worked hard, his work was generated by the sense of duty and expectation of the others rather than his own ambition. Lisa, on the other hand, was different: she had real hunger for things, an urge for success that Paul had never managed to arouse in himself. From the very start, Lisa had become interested in Paul’s position in the company and advised him to persevere in growing into a fully-fledged partner in the business: to become Jon’s equal.
Paul sighed. He had worked hard to live up to Lisa’s expectations. Staying up late at night, he pored over Bostoff’s revenues and expenses, trying to come up with ways to cut costs and increase profits, but when he tried to contribute by expanding the internal Legal department instead of outsourcing all the legal work to that Tom Wyman slickster who charged the company an arm and a leg, Jon blew a lid. Just what was it that upset his brother so, Paul could not understand.
Well, this meeting was bound to clear things up. There were several questions that Paul had for Jon as well. Over the past months, he had noticed increased revenues coming in from several hedge funds, Emperial being the highest. Interested in the identity of the high revenue-generating client, Paul did some digging and found that Emperial’s reputation was notorious to say the least. Paul remembered Hank Bostoff’s long-standing reluctance to go after hedge fund business, but Jon, on the other hand, was eager to open the doors to just about any client that paid good commissions: a notion that did not sit well with Paul at all.
Paul checked his watch; he would have to hurry. With all his brooding, he had lost track of time, and he knew only too well how much Jon despised tardiness.