Second Acts

by Teri Emory

  __________

  “Congratulations, Doc,” I said to Shortland on the phone. “I know you and your wife must be excited about this move.”

  “Edna’s already got our house on the market. Joey told you about my need to learn French in a hurry?”

  “Indeed he has. I understand you already speak German, right?”

  “I studied in Munich for a year, a thousand years ago when I was in college.”

  “We’ve got about a month, right? I probably can teach you enough so that you’ll be able to make simple conversation, and maybe you’ll get a feeling for the language. That’s if we meet for a few hours every day.”

  “I’ll leave my mornings free for you. Tell Joey to lease you a car so you can get out here from the city.”

  “I’m going to insist that you do homework, you know.”

  “I guess I’m in for it. I hope Joey’s giving you combat pay for this, Sarah. Tough duty.”

  “My pleasure, Doc. I’ll gather some books and tapes for you, and we’ll get started. Maybe even before the week is out.”

  “I have meetings all day tomorrow. Let’s shoot for Wednesday.”

  Twenty-four hours after my conversation with Doc, Joey’s brother-in-law, Alvin, who owns a Ford dealership in Queens, delivered a hideous, metallic purple Explorer to me at the garage in our office building. He parked the car next to Joey’s prized silver BMW. Joey leaned against his own car, watching with a paternal air as Alvin ran through all of the Ford’s features for me, emphasizing the vehicle’s macho virtues: ruggedness, power, off-road capabilities. As if I were likely to need four-wheel drive in my commute to Parsippany, New Jersey. Had I been consulted beforehand, I would have requested something other than an SUV, which is way too high off the ground and a royal pain to climb in and out of in high heels and a skirt.

  The next day I drove to Savant’s corporate headquarters to begin French 101 with Doc Shortland. I spent the morning with him, and by the end of our session, he had learned a few essentials: how to introduce himself, how to ask for directions to the men’s room, how to order—and send back, if necessary—a bottle of vin rouge.

  By the time I returned to Manhattan and parked the car, it was close to lunchtime. I picked up a sandwich from the coffee shop in the lobby of the building, planning to eat in my office while I caught up on messages. I knew a pile of Post-It notes would await me, strewn all over my chair like oversized confetti. Joey can’t figure out how to send email or be bothered organizing his thoughts into memos; he prefers to scrawl his ideas, one at a time, on sticky blue and yellow squares.

  My staff are more likely to send emails with their urgent grammar queries or pleas for help in persuading Joey that his prose needs editing. “Of Orientate, Parametize, and Securify” read the subject line of a recent email sent to me by Dana Greene, the senior copy editor I hired shortly after I arrived at Tri-Tech. Dana and I see eye-to-eye on Joey and Tri-Tech.

  The above words, as you know, do not exist, except in Joey’s mind. Will you PLEASE break the news to him? I’m still recovering from last week’s skirmish over his obsessive use of “quality,” especially as an adjective (as in “Tri-Tech is a quality company” and, my favorite, “Our best quality is our quality staff”).

  With thanks, from your quality copy editor,

  Dana.

  I ran into Lawrence in the lobby of the building. He greeted me as he always does, as if I were exactly the person he was hoping to meet.

  “Have you talked to Rebecca yet?” he said, as we waited for the elevator. I shook my head. “She had a go-around with Joey this morning. She’s helping you to recruit speakers for Savant’s epilepsy conference in Palm Springs, right? One of the neurologists on our list, named McBride, lives in Brooklyn. Turns out that he’s a neighbor of Joey’s. Apparently, Dr. McBride is an aging hippie type—ponytail, earring, never wears a tie. He also happens to be a renowned expert in the field. Rebecca finally nailed him this morning to chair the panel discussion at the meeting. Joey immediately vetoed the idea, insisting that Dr. McBride looks unprofessional, and we can’t have Savant thinking that we don’t know how to recruit the right sort of people for their conferences. Joey made Rebecca call Dr. McBride and rescind the invitation. I don’t know what story she made up, but she was fit to be tied. She came to me after she had already uninvited the doctor, or I would have intervened with Joey.”

  “Is he just nuts?”

  “I think he’s worse than usual this week because of all the changes at Savant.

  “Should we be nervous about Savant? I mean, is Joey just over-reacting, the way he usually does?”

  “No way of knowing. I tend to be optimistic, but all that matters for us is how Joey reacts.”

  The elevator doors opened onto the fifteenth floor, home to Tri-Tech’s offices.

  “See if you can calm Rebecca down,” Lawrence said. “I’ve got to talk to Joey about another issue. Apparently, he stayed here late last night and did some unsolicited redecorating. Raymond Albano came in today to find his beloved Mets poster taken down and his office furniture totally rearranged.”

  “Why?”

  “You know, one of Joey’s screwy notions about corporate image. Raymond didn’t say a word. He doesn’t even object when Joey insists on dressing him—I’m sure you remember the time Joey took Raymond shopping for new socks and ties before he let him appear at the Savant conference in Tampa. Raymond’s certainly not going to put up a fuss about how his office looks. Good luck with Rebecca.”

  Understandably, it was hard for some people to figure out how Joey and Lawrence came to be business partners in the first place.

  “Timing,” was Lawrence’s explanation, which he had provided to me over lunch one afternoon shortly after I was hired. I had been witness to one of Joey’s temper tantrums that day—something to do with a junior staff member who had called in to say she wouldn’t be at work because her baby was sick—and Lawrence had asked me to lunch to persuade me not to quit.

  “I met Joey at a healthcare conference almost six years ago,” Lawrence told me. “It was just before Meridian Health Plans, where I had worked for ten years, announced that they were moving their corporate headquarters to Louisville, for goodness sake. I declined their offer to transfer me, which meant I got a paltry severance in spite of all the years I had put in. So, I thought, maybe the time is right for me to start my own consulting firm. I began to look into it, talked to people who might want to join me.

  “And then, the same week that Lucy and I were about to celebrate our silver anniversary—twenty-five years of marriage!—she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. We had two daughters in college. It wasn’t the right time for me to take financial risks. I needed a dependable income and good health benefits. I had to drop the idea of starting my own business. Joey happened to call around that time—he had heard about Meridian’s move to Louisville, and he guessed that I would be looking for a new job. Tri-Tech was getting ready for a leap—Savant had just become a client—and Joey’s accountant was saying that the company needed a more sophisticated business plan, and someone to administer it. Joey offered me a piece of the business and the salary and benefits I was looking for. So, here I am.”

  “And here I am, too,” I said ruefully. “I’m trying to put my daughter through Columbia, and I need a reliable income and health insurance benefits. Like you, I have had jobs disappear out from under me. Tri-Tech seems to be growing, but I’m not sure I can work with Joey. Does he often act up the way he did this morning?”

  Lawrence sighed. “Joey is moody and impatient, and he has the manners of a farm animal. But he’s canny and shrewd—and committed to being successful. A born salesman. He’s been smart enough to hire a few people with the background he lacks—you and me, for example—but mostly, he likes a young staff that he can control. One day he may decide he doesn’t need either one of us. You and I are
both smarter than Joey, but he has a killer instinct for business that you and I lack. You should stick around long enough to get that partnership and the big three-year bonus. I built that bonus into the business plan so we could attract talented people like you. I’d love to have you as a partner. And in the interim, working here will pay your bills.”

  It’s been almost three years since Lawrence gave me that advice. In that time, his daughters have finished school, and the ravages of MS have sentenced his wife Lucy to a wheelchair. Though I’ve been tempted numerous times to leave, I’ve remembered Lawrence’s words and have remained where I am, paying Ellie’s college tuition, and holding out for Joey to make good on his promise.

  __________

  I could hear Rebecca’s voice in the hallway as I approached her office. She was finishing a phone conversation with her boyfriend. “We need you at this rally, Craig,” she was saying. Rebecca and Craig fell in love last year at a PETA protest in front of the Waldorf Astoria, while hurling pellets of red paint at mink-clad guests leaving the hotel. Craig is a drummer in an alternative rock band called Hollow Men, but just in case a record deal doesn’t come through in the near future, he’s holding on to his current job at Starbuck’s.

  Rebecca works in a small, windowless cubicle. She complains about it at every opportunity, even makes pointed comments about “how nice it must be to have a view of the Hudson River” whenever she comes down the hall to visit me. She’d love a change of venue, but Dana Greene is in a more senior position and has been at Tri-Tech longer than Rebecca, which makes Dana next up for a move out of the “slums,” as Rebecca calls the interior offices.

  Rebecca hung up as I eased into a chair next to her desk.

  “Trouble in paradise?” I said lightly.

  “Men!” she said. “The most important demonstrations of the year—the ones that coincide with the start of the holiday shopping season—are this weekend, and Craig’s backing out to play a gig in Hackensack. Which reminds me, you won’t mind if I leave early on Friday, will you? I’m one of the organizers, and I have to be in front of Macy’s in time for rush-hour shoppers.”

  “Not a problem,” I said. Animal rights activism is Rebecca’s religion; she’s as pious as any zealot. As long as she does her work at the office, I don’t mind giving her leeway now and then so she can observe the rites of her canon. Joey would be splenetic if he got wind of how I accommodate Rebecca. Still, with every request, Rebecca approaches me in an antagonistic way, as if I were likely to say no. I get the feeling sometimes that she’s just itching for an opportunity to argue with me, the way Ellie did during the worst days of her moody adolescence.

  “How’s the recruitment going?” I said. I listened for the next few minutes as she ranted, telling me what I already knew about her encounter with Joey. “I’m sorry he made you do that,” I said when she finished. “I know how difficult Joey can be. Just treat everything that Joey says as raw, unedited copy. Most people have a filtering system; they’re socialized enough to edit themselves. Joey doesn’t operate that way, so you have to be his editor. Force yourself to find the valuable idea—and there usually is one hidden in his murky prose—before you react to what he’s saying. I’ll let him know he’s out of line. He’s not used to working with women as peers. I’m still training him. Remember, you report to me. Let me run interference for you.”

  “You’re a vice president, Sarah. You have more say here, you have a great office, you get to go on trips to terrific places. I just have to put up with him and sit in my crummy office and edit his lousy stuff. For what?”

  Yes, I wanted to say, I have an expense account and a big office with a view. I’m almost twice your age, and I’ve paid dues I hope you won’t have to pay. “Tell you what, Rebecca. You’re putting in a lot of hours on this epilepsy meeting, so I think I can justify taking you to Palm Springs with us. The conference is part of a new-product launch for Savant. That means we’ll have a big budget to work with.”

  Rebecca’s eyes widened. “I could go to Palm Springs? I hear it’s beautiful.”

  “Not my kind of place, really. All those fake lawns and fake lakes. And streets named for dubious cultural heroes—Monty Hall Drive, Gene Autry Trail. But we’ll stay in a great resort for four days, and you’ll have some free time to enjoy the place.”

  “Thanks. Do you think I could bring Craig with me, if he buys his own plane ticket?”

  I sighed. For as smart as she is about some things, Rebecca is slow to catch on to the unwritten behavioral code at Tri-Tech. I could just about hear Joey’s response: She wants to bring her dopey boyfriend? The drummer from Starbucks, the one she’s not even married to? To a Savant product meeting?

  “No, Rebecca,” I said firmly. “If you’ll notice, Lorraine Selber is the only non-Tri-Tech person allowed to come to these meetings. Don’t even bring it up.”

  “Just thought I’d ask. Meanwhile, did you hear about Joey’s redecorating binge? Raymond is such a wimp; he didn’t even say he minded. Do you think the editorial department is next on Joey’s list?”

  “Not a chance,” I said, standing to leave. “He’d be starting up with the wrong woman.”

  I spent the rest of the day with the door to my office closed, a signal to my staff that I was writing and didn’t want to be disturbed. Joey has put me on a project that’s a departure from what Tri-Tech normally does for its clients. I’m designing, and will be leading, several focus group sessions for Pushpa Rao, one of Doc Shortland’s product managers. A rising star in the company, Pushpa recognizes that few women—especially young women—get to lead the launch of a new product, and she’s grateful for the opportunity that Doc has given her. Joey has turned the project completely over to me. I know why: He is uncomfortable and out of his league with Pushpa, who’s from India and has a doctorate in chemistry. If you count the fact that Pushpa is a woman, that makes three strikes against her in Joey’s book. He doesn’t mind so much that women have advanced to executive positions, but he doesn’t think it’s fair that he has to adapt his behavior to a new social order.

  “It’s just not the same anymore, traveling for business, now that you have to take women into account,” he says wistfully. “I mean, with men, no matter what city you’re in, you can always find a sports bar or a strip club, something fun to do when the conference is over. In the old days, when I was on the road all the time, I knew the best places in every town in upstate New York. The whole picture has changed, with women running the show more and more. Not that I’m sexist—you know I’m not sexist, Sarah, just look at the salary I pay you, haha—I just think it all used to be easier. And anyway, now that Lawrence is my partner, with his religious morals and all, I’d never get away with putting a big night on the town on the company Amex.”

  The drug that Pushpa is trying to launch is a sleep medication called Repoze. Savant plans to spend a bundle on it, targeting much of its marketing to elderly patients and the people who care for them. For over a month, I’ve been doing preliminary research for a questionnaire that will help us recruit doctors and nurses for the Repoze focus groups. I’ve also spent considerable time studying the drug itself—dosages, side effects, interactions with other drugs—in preparation for leading the focus groups. Joey has told Pushpa that I’m an “experienced facilitator,” which is probably how his Finding Your Inner CEO tape has advised him to describe ex-teachers like me.

  I spent several hours organizing more than fifteen pages of the handwritten notes I had made over the last month and entering them into my computer. I refined my ideas for both the recruitment questionnaire and the focus group sessions. My years of teaching and writing lesson plans were serving me well for this project. I named the file “Repoze-Focus Group” and saved it in the “New Projects” folder on my hard drive.

  “You still here, Sarah?” The whiny voice of Fawn (née Frances) Mardiss, Tri-Tech’s travel director, was coming through the speak
erphone on my desk.

  This was one of Fawn’s rare days in town. Joey keeps her flying all over the country to survey hotels and conference centers for client meetings, and to be on site when the meetings take place. Off the top of her head, Fawn knows which Four Seasons Hotel has the best caterer, which Hyatt the most challenging golf course, which Ritz Carlton the most agreeable concierge. She can recite how many minutes and dollars are required for a limo to every luxury hotel within fifty miles of every airport in the country. A day or two in advance of each conference, Fawn checks into the hotel she’s contracted with and terrorizes its staff into submission. Menus are scrutinized: are there the right number of low-salt, vegan, and kosher alternatives? Room assignments are checked: Have Joey and our client (usually Doc Shortland) been assigned equally splendid suites? Do all the invited speakers have the appropriate “amenities” (fruit baskets, wine, souvenirs) awaiting them in their rooms? Recreation options are reviewed: Have enough horses been reserved at the stables for afternoon rides along the beach at Amelia Island? Enough seats for Barry Manilow’s show at the Mirage in Las Vegas? Private-tour tickets to the Matisse exhibit at the Chicago Art Institute?

  Back home at Tri-Tech, Fawn focuses most of her energy—with laser-like intensity—on Joey. If Sally is Joey’s lieutenant, Fawn is his handmaiden. Office gossip has it that Joey and Fawn have been fooling around for years, a logical assumption based on Fawn’s apparent obsession with pleasing him. I try not to think about what they might be up to. I don’t particularly want the image of Joey and Fawn naked to enter my consciousness.

  “Yes, Fawn,” I said into the speaker.

  “I need to talk to you about your travel for the next few meetings. Can I see you for a minute? I want to wrap this up as quickly as possible.” Making travel arrangements for all of us is part of Fawn’s job, but she considers it an annoyance to work on behalf of anyone except Joey.