“It could set us up for the future. I’m never going to make that kind of money here.”
“We don’t need more than what we have,” she said firmly. “We have a great apartment and a good life.” She had never been greedy and was satisfied with what they both made.
“This isn’t just about money. It’s exciting to be part of something new. This could be groundbreaking. I’m sorry, Syb. I just want to check it out. Do you hate me for that?” He loved her and didn’t want to screw up their marriage, but he knew it would gnaw at him forever if he didn’t talk to the people in San Francisco now. He had promised to fly out before asking her.
“I couldn’t hate you…except if you move us out of New York,” she said and laughed. She wasn’t angry at him, but she was afraid. “Just promise me you won’t go crazy out there and accept the job before we talk.”
“Of course not.” He put an arm around her and they found Charlie asleep on their bed with the TV on when they walked into their bedroom. Blake carried him to his own room, Sybil changed him into his pajamas, and he never woke up.
They said good night to Caroline and Andy, and after they turned off the lights, Sybil lay in bed, thinking about what Blake had said. She hoped this was just one of those moments when an idea looks enticing for a few minutes and then reality sets in, and you know it’s not for you. She couldn’t see any of them living in San Francisco, and didn’t want to. And even if the job sounded exciting to him now, she was sure they’d all be miserable if they left New York for him. It was the last thing she wanted to do, even for the man she loved. They couldn’t do it to their kids. And she didn’t want a bicoastal marriage, where they flew to see each other on weekends. There was just no way it could work for them. Their life in New York was perfect the way it was. Blake agreed with her, but the opportunity he’d been offered in San Francisco was one of a kind.
—
Blake had left for the office before Sybil took Charlie to school, and by the time she got back to the apartment and sat down at her desk in her home office, she had decided not to worry about it. Blake had never been impulsive, he was a sensible person, and he loved New York too. He’d always been happy in his current job in venture capital, evaluating new deals. She was sure that once he got to San Francisco for the meeting, he’d figure out that the start-up wasn’t for him, no matter how glamorous it seemed. Just like her, he was a New Yorker to the core, and he wouldn’t want to disrupt their kids, or her. She decided it was better to let him go out to California and see for himself than to put her foot down and have a fit. He’d come to his senses on his own. She was sure of it.
They had a peaceful evening that night, and didn’t talk about it again. She didn’t want to argue with him and he didn’t bring the subject up. He went to the airport straight from the office on Wednesday. He called her before his flight to tell her he loved her and say goodbye, and he thanked her for being a good sport about him going to San Francisco to take a look.
“You might as well see it before you turn it down,” she said calmly, and Blake sounded relieved. Sybil knew that no matter how much they offered him, they wouldn’t be able to lure him away from New York. He was a creature of habit and liked his job.
“That’s what I think too. Tell the kids I love them. I’ll be back late Friday night.” He would be catching the last plane out of San Francisco, and he knew that with the time difference she’d be asleep when he got home. His plane was due to land at JFK at two A.M. Even if it was late, he preferred it to spending another night away from her. They were going to the Hamptons that weekend, to a house they rented for a month in the summer and on occasional weekends. The weather had been so good they wanted to take advantage of it one last time, and the kids wanted to go too. They were looking forward to it, and so was Blake.
—
With the time difference in his favor, Blake met the two men founding the start-up for a late dinner at his hotel on Wednesday night. They were on fire. Both were younger than he was by a dozen years, and had impressive track records and histories. He knew they were originally geeks and had become brilliant businessmen. Both were Harvard MBAs. They were idea men who liked starting companies, selling them, and moving on. They wanted him to run the company while they developed the concept to its fullest until they sold it or it went public, whichever was most lucrative. They had all the money they needed to make it a success, and listening to their plans was as thrilling as he’d feared it would be, once he knew who was involved.
He couldn’t sleep that night, and had a breakfast meeting the next day with the half dozen people who headed up various departments. They were all innovative men and women who’d had successful roles in other companies. The two founders wanted only stars involved, and considered that Blake could be one as CEO, and they liked that he had both feet on the ground. Their business plan was almost flawless, and the opportunity to make a vast amount of money was immense, especially for Blake, as CEO, with the stock options and participation they were offering him.
He sat in on meetings all day, and met with the two founders again before dinner to discuss his impressions, and they were pleased with what they heard. He added balance to the team, and he had a solid financial point of view. The meetings on Friday were even better. He liked the working environment as well. They were occupying a remodeled warehouse south of Market that had been made into offices, and they already had a fleet of young people working for them, full of dynamic ideas and energy. It was invigorating and exciting just being there, compared to what he did every day, although the concepts weren’t entirely unfamiliar to him. Undeniably there was risk, but everyone involved seemed sensible and experienced. They were a surprisingly cohesive group, and Blake fit right in. They renewed their offer to him before he left, more convinced than ever that he was the right man for the job, and he was too. They had managed to dissipate all his reservations about it in two days. He sat staring into space, lost in thought, and wide awake for most of the flight back to New York. It was the best forty-eight hours he had spent at work in years. He felt like a new man.
Blake walked into their apartment in Tribeca at three A.M., and Sybil was sound asleep. He kissed the top of her head on the pillow and she didn’t stir.
He looked tired and serious when he walked into the kitchen on Saturday morning. They were all packed for the weekend and ready to leave, and Sybil purposely didn’t ask him what had happened in San Francisco until they were settled into the rented house in the Hamptons, and the kids had gone outside to play on the beach. They were sitting on the deck, watching them, when Sybil turned to him, as he searched for the right words to tell her what he knew she didn’t want to hear.
“How did it go?” she asked him, seeming tense.
“I’d be insane to turn it down,” he said, in a raw, husky voice. “I’ve never had an opportunity like it before. And I probably won’t again.” He told her precisely what kind of money he could make if he signed on with them, before they got going and eventually went public, or sold out to someone like Google, who could conceivably want to buy them out in time.
“Life is about more than money,” she chided him. “Since when is that the big motivator for you? You can’t give up our whole life for that.” But she could see the longing in his eyes. He’d never looked like that about a job before. She knew it wasn’t about money, but about doing something exciting and new. It was thrilling. This could be very big for him, and ultimately for them if it was a huge success. That wasn’t negligible. Where the job was located didn’t matter to him, for the first time in his career.
“It’s different when you’re talking about these kinds of amounts, Syb,” he said softly. “Couldn’t you base yourself in San Francisco for a few years? You could write there, and work on your book, and send your articles in from anywhere. And you could fly back to work with the museums and curate shows, and meet your clients in New York.” He was trying to make suggestions that would work for her, but it was like trying to climb a
glass wall. He got no traction from her.
“And spend my life on planes, with three kids at home,” she commented and looked shocked by his question, and the fact that he would even consider it, for any of them. She could see he was evaluating the offer seriously. She could understand why, but it was going to disrupt their lives beyond belief. She couldn’t do that to the children or herself. It wouldn’t be fair.
The kids came back to the house then for something to eat, and they shelved the discussion until that night, and picked it up again when Andrew and Caroline went out to see friends, and Charlie was asleep in the room next to theirs.
“I know it’s a lot to ask of you, but the kids would adjust,” Blake insisted. “They’ll make new friends, and Andy is leaving after this year anyway. The offer won’t wait. If I don’t take it, they’ll make a proposal to someone else. They need someone now.” He sounded desperate, and she felt sorry for him, but more so for herself and their kids. She could see how badly Blake wanted to do it, but it was in direct conflict with everyone else’s needs.
“And they have earthquakes there,” she reminded him, clutching at straws to deter him, and feeling selfish when she did.
“They haven’t had a really big one in over a hundred years,” he said, laughing at her. But she was as stubborn as he was.
“Then they’re overdue. Besides, there was a fairly big one in 1989.”
“They’re not going to have an earthquake just because we move out there,” he said, pulled her into his arms, and forgot about the job in San Francisco for the rest of the night. And the next day they went back to the city, with nothing resolved between them. Neither of them was angry, but it was important to both of them.
They went back and forth arguing about it for several days, neither convincing the other, and she finally realized that he would never forgive her if he turned it down. It would remain a bitter pill stuck in his throat forever, more so than for her if she moved to San Francisco for him. She wasn’t happy about it, but she also knew that he was right that at his age a chance like this wouldn’t come again. And the money was a certain incentive for both of them in the end, if they and their children would truly be secure for life if it really took off. She could see the value of that too, after discussing it with Blake at length.
All he asked was that she give it two years, and he promised that if it was impacting them too severely, he’d quit and return to New York. Sybil loved him and didn’t want to hurt his career, or their marriage, and at the end of two weeks, she looked at him, exhausted, and put her arms around him.
“I give in. I love you too much to make you give this up for us. We’ll make it work somehow,” she said, and knew she had done the right thing when she saw how grateful and ecstatic he was. He called San Francisco in the morning and told them the good news and resigned his position at the venture capital firm. They told the children that night after dinner.
They were horrified by what their parents said, but their mother was firm with them, saying that it was a sacrifice they would all have to make for the common good. It was important for their father’s career and their own security in the long run. Caroline and Andrew were both old enough to understand it and Sybil gave them no choice, and she pointed out that it was a huge adjustment for her too. She had already called Andy’s school that afternoon, and they had agreed to let him come back and graduate with his class, if he wanted to. He could walk with the friends he had been with all through high school, as long as he successfully completed senior year at his San Francisco school.
Blake had agreed to let them finish the fall semester in New York, and Sybil and the kids would all move to San Francisco in January. He would be leaving in the next two weeks, and this way he would have time to find them an apartment. Neither Blake nor Sybil wanted to buy, since they weren’t sure yet if it would be a permanent move. Sybil had been clear that she wanted a bright, sunny, modern apartment, not a house. She had researched San Francisco schools and already contacted them. And they were leaving the apartment in Tribeca as is, in case they came back to New York in two years, and so she’d have a place to stay when she went to New York to work. She had two and a half months to get everything organized to leave. And Blake had that time to find a home for them, and settle in at work. Sybil was planning to stage the San Francisco apartment he found with rented furniture at first, and they could buy what they needed if they stayed. For now, they were considering it a temporary move for a couple of years, to see how it worked out. Knowing that they might return to New York took the sting out of it for Sybil and the kids, and she hoped that San Francisco would be short-term. But she threw herself into the move for Blake’s sake, and tried to convince their children and herself that it wasn’t the end of the world.
Andy was upset about it but tried to be reasonable, once he understood the financial potential for them. He was proud of his father, and relieved that he’d be graduating with his friends in June. Caroline was dramatic, and threatened not to come, but there was nowhere for her to stay in New York. She didn’t have grandparents or uncles or aunts, and didn’t want to go to boarding school, which her parents offered as an alternative because she was so adamantly against the move. So she had no choice but to accept the plan to go to San Francisco. And, predictably, Charlie was the easiest of all, and said he thought it would be fun. He wanted to know all about his new school.
Two weeks after Blake left, Sybil had them enrolled in excellent San Francisco schools, based on their transcripts. Blake had visited the schools and said he was pleased, and the apartment search had already begun. But when he came home for Thanksgiving, he still hadn’t found them a place to live. It had been harder than he thought to find an apartment to rent within reasonable distance of the schools, with all of Sybil’s requirements: light, sunny, airy, modern, with high ceilings and excellent views. And the rents in San Francisco seemed ridiculously high to him, even compared to New York.
Blake was loving his new job, and looked ten years younger when he came home. Sybil knew it had been the right thing for him to do. But she was anxious for him to find an apartment for them and he promised to search even more vigorously when he went back after Thanksgiving.
“Can we live in a hotel?” Charlie asked after his father had gone back to San Francisco.
“I hope not,” Sybil said with a stern expression. She didn’t want to live in a hotel with three children, no matter how much Charlie liked the idea. “Daddy will find something before we get there,” she promised. The realtor was negotiating for an apartment in the Millennium Tower on Mission Street on the fifty-eighth floor, with fabulous views, but it was in a somewhat dicey neighborhood, not ideal for children. It was in the financial district amid office buildings in an area that had been gentrified, but there was no park or playground for Charlie. The apartment was in a very fancy high-rise and had been up for sale for the past year, since the owner had moved to Hong Kong, and there had been construction problems in the building, which made the apartments harder to sell, but possibly easier to rent, and maybe at a more reasonable price. The realtor was hoping to get them a lease for a year or two. It was still a great building despite the construction issues. Blake was waiting to see the apartment, and several others, as soon as the realtor could organize it and get him in, while Sybil pressed him about it daily.
In the meantime, the children were enjoying their last month in New York before the holidays. Andy was seeing all his friends while he could, and going to basketball and hockey games. And Caroline still thought her parents were cruel, but managed to have fun with her friends anyway. They were going to spend Christmas in New York, and then fly to San Francisco on New Year’s Day. Sybil just hoped they had a place to live by then, and so did Blake. Not finding one so far was beginning to unnerve them both. He had a day set aside to see apartments with the realtor on the first of December, and hoped he would have better luck than he’d had in November. He didn’t see how it could be that hard to find a four-bedroom apar
tment, in a modern building with light and views, per his wife’s instructions. They had five apartments to see that day. The one at the Millennium Tower hadn’t come through yet, but Blake and Sybil were hopeful. Blake had been living at the Regency since he got there, which was a combination of co-op apartments and hotel suites, but he wanted to find a home for Sybil and the children, not a temporary solution.
The realtor picked him up on a foggy San Francisco morning and assured him that she felt in her bones that they would find what he was looking for that day. He hoped she was right. He was grateful to Sybil and his children for being willing to move there, and now he was determined to find a home they’d love.
The first apartment they looked at was in a 1930s building in Pacific Heights, the city’s prime residential district, but the apartment was dark and depressing, although it was a floor-through with spectacular views. It didn’t have the modern feeling Sybil wanted, and it faced north. As they drove on to the next location, Blake was beginning to wonder if he’d ever find the right apartment. He didn’t have the heart to text Sybil and tell her he’d seen another bad one. There had to be a home for them in San Francisco somewhere. All he had to do now was find it, whatever it took.
Sybil had allowed him to pursue his dream. Now he owed it to her to find them a decent home in the city that his family had graciously agreed to come to. He had his eyes closed for a minute, thinking about her and missing her, when they stopped at an intersection, and he opened his eyes and found himself staring at a building that looked very much like the Frick museum in New York. He didn’t recognize it and had never noticed it before, although they had driven through Pacific Heights several times.
“What’s that?” he asked, intrigued. It had more the appearance of a small museum than a home. There was a wall of trees around it, with the house peering over them, an elaborate gate, and a courtyard just inside. The garden seemed overgrown.
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