They talked about their families, and Gorham and Maggie learned that Peter and Judy had lost a son.
They discussed the millennium bug. Were all the world’s computers really going to crash when the date went to zero? “The bank has spent a fortune preparing for it,” Gorham said, “but Maggie reckons nothing will happen at all.” He was also curious to know what areas Peter was looking to invest in next. “America will continue to be our core business,” Peter said, “Europe, less and less. We think the Far East will be the growth area for the future. In a couple of years, Judy and I may move to Hawaii, to be nearer the action.”
It was a pleasant evening, and afterward Gorham and Maggie walked home down Fifth.
“I really enjoyed that,” said Maggie. “It was a nice surprise to meet Judy again.”
Gorham nodded, but said nothing. They walked on in silence for a block.
“What sort of money do you suppose Peter has?” he said at last.
“I’ve no idea.”
“He must have a hundred million, at least.”
A hundred million. Once upon a time, a million bucks was a lot of money. But the bar had been raised a long way since then, especially in the last two decades. For the truly successful, Gorham reckoned, for a man like Peter, in the new global economy, a hundred million was only entry-level rich. How many people in New York had a hundred million dollars these days? A lot, certainly. Rich with a capital R, these days, was a billion.
“What’s the matter?” asked Maggie, when they’d gone another block.
“My life has been a total failure.”
“Thank you so much. That’s really nice to hear. Your wife and children count for nothing, I suppose.”
“I don’t mean that.”
“Yes you do. We’re your life, you know.”
“Of course you are. But he and I did our MBAs together. Professionally he did it right, and I didn’t.”
“That’s garbage. You did something different, that’s all. Tell me something: when would you say you’re most happy?”
“When I’m with you and the children, I guess.”
“I’m really pleased to hear that. Did you notice that Peter told us he’d lost a son? And you really think he’s more fortunate than you?”
“No, just more successful professionally.”
“Be grateful for what you have, Gorham.” They went on in silence for another minute. He could tell Maggie was really angry.
“Juan Campos was at Columbia with you too,” she suddenly said. “Are you trying to tell me Juan is some kind of failure? Because I don’t happen to think he is.”
Juan Campos had had a bad time for a number of years, when El Barrio and every other poor area of the city had fallen into ever greater neglect. But he’d come through it and was making a big success as an administrator in the community college system now. Gorham had a feeling that Juan’s career might be developing into greater things.
“Okay,” Gorham said. “You’ve made your point.”
That weekend, they stayed in the city. Saturday was a bright, clear day. They went down to the South Street Seaport, and Gorham amazed his children by telling them that their ancestors had actually been merchants with counting houses down there. Then they all went to a movie together. On Sunday, Maggie made brunch, and they had friends round, and that evening he helped the kids with their homework. He felt better after that, and for several weeks he kept himself busy with his work and the children, and with Maggie of course, and he’d supposed that he was back to being his usual self, when he overheard Maggie having a telephone conversation with a friend.
“I just don’t know what to do with him,” she said. “It’s really difficult.” Then, when she saw him come into the room, she’d quickly ended the call.
“What was that about?” he asked.
“Just a client who’s giving me some problems,” she said. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
But he suspected that she might have been talking about him.
The new millennium began. The much-anticipated Y2K bug hardly materialized at all in the USA, or the UK, or the other countries that had prepared for it. But then it didn’t seem to appear in the countries that had almost ignored it. That spring, the dot.com boom had reached its high point, then the NASDAQ index had started a wholesale retreat.
Early in April, Juan Campos had called, sounding very cheerful, and they’d met for lunch. Things were going well for Juan. Janet had made a documentary on his community college. “You can’t make a dime with a documentary,” Juan said, “but it has given her enormous satisfaction. She wants to show it to you herself sometime.” Gorham was delighted to see his friend so upbeat, and promised to come up and visit them soon.
Only when Maggie asked him that evening how his lunch had gone, and suggested that they should all four of them go out to dinner together, did it cross Gorham’s mind that maybe Juan’s call to him might have been prompted by her. Did his wife really think that he was in such need of cheering up? He thought he seemed perfectly happy.
That summer they took the children to Europe. They went to Florence, Rome and Pompeii. The boys seemed quite interested, but little Emma was only eight, so maybe she was a little young, though she was very patient with the long lines, which they partly avoided by getting guides. Then they went to the beach for a few days, to make up for all the forced culture. It was one of the best holidays they’d had in years.
Back in New York, Gorham made a determined effort to keep his life on an even keel. He stood for the board of the building again, and was easily elected. He didn’t much like some of the other people on the board, but that wasn’t the point. He was determined to grasp everything about the life he had and hold onto it. He made a point of taking Maggie out to dinner, just the two of them, every other week at least. Time was compartmentalized in New York. At work, naturally, there was a schedule, but he tightened up his private life as well. Twice a week he played tennis at the Town Tennis Club near Sutton Place, or in the winter months on the covered courts under the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. All through the rest of that year, he felt himself to be in control of the situation. Maggie seemed happy. His home life was exemplary. As the end of the year approached, Gorham was feeling rather proud of himself. So when the next blow struck, it took him by surprise.
It was at a cocktail party the week before Christmas, and Gorham found himself talking to a pleasant fellow who told him he was a historian at Columbia. They discussed the university a little, and then Gorham asked the man what work he’d been engaged in recently.
“I’m actually on a sabbatical,” the fellow announced, “so that I can complete a book I’ve been working on for a few years. It’s about Ben Franklin in London. Sets his life there in the context of everything that was going on in science, philosophy, politics.”
“That sounds incredibly interesting.”
“I think it is.”
“Tell me more.”
“Just stop me when you’ve had enough.” The guy was about his own age, Gorham supposed. Medium height, round-faced and balding, he wore metal-rimmed glasses and a bow tie. He was friendly and unassuming, but as he talked about the world Ben Franklin had known, and the lively intellectual tradition Franklin represented, one could feel his intensity and enthusiasm. It was infectious. “Am I boring you?” he genially inquired after a few minutes.
“Absolutely not,” said Gorham. And when the historian stopped and said he reckoned that was pretty much what his book was about and, with a twinkle in his eye, that maybe when it came out, Gorham would like to buy a copy, Gorham assured him: “I shall buy several and give them to friends. You have no idea,” he added, “how much I envy you.”
The man looked quite surprised. “You make far more money, and enjoy a lot more respect in the world than most authors do,” he said mildly.
“But what about the mind?”
“Many of the bankers I know, besides being highly intelligent, have jobs that require a full use o
f their intellect. The challenges of running a business are quite as great as those of mastering a piece of history.”
“I’m not sure that’s true,” said Gorham, “but even if it were, you’ll have one thing I never will.”
“Which is?”
“You will produce something that you can call your own. Your book will remain there, forever.”
“Forever is a long time,” the man responded with a laugh.
“Everything I do is ephemeral,” said Gorham. “When the banks get together to make a big loan, they announce the fact in the newspaper with an ad describing the loan and listing all the main participating banks. We call it a tombstone. So I guess you could say that my life has been preparing a bunch of tombstones.”
“They represent enterprises that wouldn’t be there otherwise. I see birth in what you do, not death.” The writer smiled. “An appropriate thought, as Christmas is approaching.”
Gorham smiled too, and they parted. But alone that night, he asked himself: What have I done that I can put my hands on? What can I look back on in my career and say, “This is mine. This is what I created and left behind”? And he could find nothing, nor could he feel anything but a terrible, spiritual emptiness.
In January 2001, Gorham Master signed on with a headhunter. He told no one, not even Maggie. Perhaps the headhunter could find something for him that would make sense of his life, before it was too late.
The Board Game
September 8, 2001
GORHAM GLANCED AT his watch just as the telephone rang. It was time to go. If he and Maggie had privately quarreled the night before, no one seeing them now would have guessed it.
The boys were all excited: Gorham, Jr., Richard, and Gorham, Jr.’s, best friend Lee. Gorham was looking forward to it, too. They were going to a Yankee game, for God’s sake.
“It’s John Vorpal,” said Maggie. Why the hell did Vorpal have to bother him now?
“Tell him I have to go to the game,” said Gorham.
“Honey, he says he has to talk to you.”
“He’s coming to dinner this evening, damn it.”
“He says it’s private. Board business.” Maggie gave him the phone.
Gorham muttered a curse. The truth was he didn’t really like John Vorpal; however, they both served on the co-op board, so he had to make efforts to get along. But since Vorpal became chairman of the board, he and Jim Bandersnatch were doing a bunch of things that Gorham didn’t approve of.
“John, I can’t talk now.”
“We need to discuss 7B. They want an answer. Are you around on Sunday?”
“No, I have to be up in Westchester.”
“That’s too bad, Gorham.”
“After dinner tonight?”
Maggie gave him a dirty look. But what could he do? At least this might keep it brief.
“After dinner then.” Vorpal wasn’t pleased either.
But if John Vorpal insisted on having a private talk about 7B, which was already on the schedule for the meeting next Wednesday, well, to hell with him. He could stay after dinner.
There was only one problem. If John Vorpal was going to say what Gorham thought he was going to say, then he, Gorham Vandyck Master, was going to have a very serious disagreement with him. It could be a blazing row. And one really didn’t want to have a blazing row with the chairman of the board of a Park Avenue building.
The game was due to start a little after 1 p.m. They really needed to get going.
“Come on,” he said. “We’re taking the subway.”
“We are?” his son said, in astonishment.
Didn’t anyone in this family use public transport? When the nanny took young Gorham, Jr., or his siblings to any of their appointments, she took a taxi. When Bella ran errands for Maggie, she probably took a taxi too. At least, he thought, it cost less than having your own car and driver, which several of the people in the building did.
The Masters kept just two cars. The Mercedes sedan in the garage round the corner, and a nice blue SUV for Maggie, which lived in the garage of the country house.
“Getting in and out of Yankee Stadium can be a hassle,” he said firmly. “The subway will be quicker.”
As they rode in the subway, Gorham looked at the three boys with affection.
Gorham Vandyck Master, Jr., a thirteen-year-old, fair-haired son of privilege; Richard, eleven years old, a thinner, wirier version of his brother; and young Gorham’s best friend, Lee.
Gorham could never figure out Lee’s Chinese name exactly, but it didn’t matter, because everyone called him Lee. He had met Lee’s parents one time when they had come to collect him from the apartment. They lived up in Harlem, hardly spoke a word of English; the father was a plumber or something. But their son was a genius.
It always seemed to Gorham Master that Lee was totally round. His friendly face, under a mop of black hair, was round. His body wasn’t fat, just round. His temper was so easy that Master reckoned his psyche must somehow be round, so that everything bounced off it. Lee took the subway from Harlem each morning and, Master was convinced, just turned himself into a ball and rolled along the sidewalk from the station to the school.
But Lee wrote the best essays in his grade. He’d surely finish up at Harvard or Yale or some Ivy League place. And what did he want to be? Once, when they were all sitting in the kitchen, the boy had confessed that he’d like to be a senator. He also wanted to be a big collector of Chinese art. “And you know what,” Master had told his son afterward, “he’ll probably make it.” And the thought filled Master with pride for his country and his city.
And how did this kid come to be at his son’s fancy private school? With a scholarship, of course. Maybe twenty percent of the kids there were on scholarships.
If there was one thing New York private schools were good at, it was raising money. He’d no sooner paid the hefty tuition fees for Gorham, Jr.’s, first trimester in kindergarten when the parents’ committee had hit him for a donation as well. They didn’t waste any time. And before they even graduated, the kids in twelfth grade organized themselves to start donating as alumni. Just to get everybody into the habit. And the scale of giving was astounding. The parents’ committees raised several million in donations every year; the accounts were so impressive they were scary.
But if the system was scary, it meant that those scholarship kids from poor homes got the best education available in America, and the rich parents were happy to pay for them. That was the American way. Of course, it didn’t do any harm to the school’s academic results, either.
Gorham, Jr., had plenty of friends, but Lee was the closest to him. Both kids were nice, both ambitious, both striving for excellence. He was proud of the friend his son had chosen.
They got to the game with time to spare.
Yankee Stadium, the Bronx. The House that Ruth Built, scene of Babe Ruth’s greatest triumphs. The huge stadium was packed, the crowd expectant. The Yankees, the biggest sports franchise in America, were going for their fourth consecutive World Series in a row. That would also be a fifth in six years.
He had great seats—field level, on the third-base side. The boys were thrilled. And today, the Yankees were playing the Red Sox.
The Boston Red Sox. The ancient rivalry, so full of passion—and heartbreak, if you were a Red Sox fan.
At 1:15 the game began. And for the next three and a quarter hours, Gorham Vandyck Master enjoyed one of the happiest afternoons of his life. The game was wonderful. The crowd roared. He said to hell with dinner and his cholesterol, and ate three hot dogs. The boys assuredly ate more, but he didn’t count.
What a game! The Yankees made seven runs in the sixth inning, and Tino Martinez hit two home runs, to defeat the Red Sox 9 to 2.
“Well, boys,” he said, “that was a game to remember for the rest of our lives.”
When they got back to the apartment, they found a scene of activity. The caterers had already arrived.
“You boys,” said Ma
ggie firmly, “get cleaned up and out of the way.” And it was clear to Gorham that this referred to him as well.
Lee was sleeping over, because he and Gorham, Jr., were going to Greg Cohen’s bar mitzvah. This would be the bar mitzvah year, and it was normal for the Jewish boys and girls having a bar or bat mitzvah to invite most of their class. Sometimes one went to the religious service as well, especially if it was a close friend, but Gorham, Jr., usually just went to the party later. And that was what the two boys were doing that evening.
Gorham went straight to the master bedroom, showered and changed into a suit for dinner. He was going to take the boys to the bar mitzvah, spend a few minutes there to say congratulations to the Cohens, and get back to the apartment before the guests arrived. It was a little tight, but he reckoned he could do it.
By 6:15, he was ready, and Maggie came into the bedroom to get ready herself. But he still had one important duty to perform before taking the boys. He went into the kitchen.
“Hi, Katie.” He smiled with pleasure, and went to give the caterer a kiss.
Katie Keller Katerers. She’d asked them what they thought of the name when she started up two years ago. He and Maggie had both told her to go with it.
Gorham hadn’t really known the Kellers until after his father’s death. Charlie had still had the Theodore Keller photograph collection and, following his instructions, Gorham had gone to see the family to find out what they’d like him to do with it. It hadn’t taken long for them to agree to find a dealer, who had quietly promoted and sold the collection down the years. He and the Kellers split the modest proceeds. They’d kept in touch, so Gorham had actually known Katie Keller her entire life, and he was delighted to do what he could to help someone whose family had such a long connection to his.
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