Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (38 page)

Hopkins smiled wryly. “That’s like me wanting to be an actor,” he said. “If you wanted to be a news commentator, I’m afraid you’d probably have to put in a long apprenticeship on a newspaper, and there might be a good deal of voice training involved. There aren’t many jobs for news commentators–there are at least a hundred applicants for every opening.”

“I know,” Tom said, “but you asked me what I’d really like, and that came into my mind. It’s not a thing I’ve thought about. To tell you the truth, I’ve always just gone along taking what I could get.”

“If you really wanted to broadcast news, and were willing to devote the time and effort to it, you probably could,” Hopkins said. “I’m afraid the job isn’t as good as you think it is. It pays comparatively little, and unless you’re something special, it’s pretty routine.”

“I know,” Tom said. “With me, it’s probably just a case of far fields looking greener.”

There was a pause, during which Tom regretted his frankness. I’ve made a fool of myself, he thought. I should have told him what I really want to be is a good administrator. That’s a field in which he could really help me. Hopkins’ eyes were still upon him. It was disturbing, that steady, unabashed gaze, the eyes tired, the whole face exhausted, yet so curiously intense and kind.

“How would you like to be my personal assistant?” Hopkins asked suddenly.

“What?”

“I mean, not just on this mental-health thing–someone to help me with everything I do. I don’t really have a personal assistant. Walker is in public relations, and Ogden is going to be a vice-president before long. I’ve never had a personal assistant–I’ve never wanted one. But I like the honesty of your approach, and it strikes me that you might be able to help out in many ways. The job would give you a chance to watch lots of operations in the company and
see what you’re best fitted for. Who knows? Maybe you could learn something.” These last words were said with an attempt at jocosity and self-disparagement which was utterly unlike Hopkins. Seeming ill at ease, he got up and poured himself another drink.

“I’m sure I could learn a lot,” Tom said. “It would be a great opportunity.”

Hopkins stood with his back toward him, putting ice in his glass. When he turned around, his briskness had returned, and he seemed his old self again. “I’ll talk to Bill Ogden about it in the morning,” he said. “We’ll see what we can work out. I’m afraid it’s getting late–your wife will be angry at me. Thanks for coming up. It’s
so
nice of you to give up your evening.”

When Tom got to Grand Central Station that night, he bought a paper to read on the train home. On the front page he saw a story about the marriage of Susan Hopkins to Byron Holgate, whose age was given as forty-eight, but who, in an accompanying photograph, looked much older. After reading the article, Tom folded the paper and sat thinking about Hopkins all the way home to South Bay. When he got to his house, he found Betsy waiting up for him. “Hopkins wants me to leave the mental-health committee and become his personal assistant,” he said.

“Why, that’s wonderful,” she replied. “What a marvelous opportunity! It must mean he likes you.”

“I guess it does.”

“You don’t sound very excited about it.”

“I don’t know,” Tom said. “I’m trying to figure it out. It
is
a marvelous opportunity–there’s no doubt about that. But I’m not sure I want to be given a job simply because a man likes me. I’m not sure it’s good business.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to have to depend on somebody’s friendship. I want to feel that any time I want to quit a job, or any time my boss dies or retires, I can walk two doors down the street and get something as good or better. It’s not smart business to depend on friendship–it’s too risky.”

“What makes you think he’s hiring you because of friendship? He liked that speech you wrote. He must think that you’re simply the best man for the job.”

“I don’t know,” Tom said. “He’s never had a personal assistant before. And the way he was tonight–it’s hard to explain. He was trying to do something for me.”

“Is there anything wrong with that?”

“No–I should be grateful. But I don’t know what he
can
do for me. For a child, yes–a man can make sure a child gets a good education, and all the rest of it. But for another man, no. After all, what could Hopkins do for me? Keep me on as a ghost writer? I’d hate that as a full-time career. There’s nothing dishonest about ghost writing, really, but the whole idea of it makes me uncomfortable. I don’t like being the shadow of another man. Should I ask him to give me a top administrative job? I wouldn’t know what to do with it if I had it. I must be getting old or something–I’m beginning to realize my limitations. I’m not a very good administrator–not compared to guys like Hopkins and Ogden. I never will be, and the main reason is, I don’t want to be. This sounds like a silly way to put it, but I don’t think you can get to be a top administrator without working every week end for half your life, and I’d just as soon spend my week ends with you and the kids.”

“Some good administrators don’t work all the time.”

“A few–damn few. It’s the fashion nowadays for them to pretend they don’t work as hard as they do. After all, running any big outfit is incredibly hard work. You know what a good administrator has to do? He has to keep a million details in his mind all at the same time, and he has to know how to juggle people. Why do you think Hopkins is great? Mainly, it’s because he never thinks about anything but his work, day and night, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. All geniuses are like that–there’s no mystery about it. The great painters, the great composers, the great scientists, and the great businessmen–they all have the same capacity for total absorption in their work. I like Hopkins–I admire him. But even if I could, I wouldn’t want to be like him. I don’t want to get so wrapped up in a broadcasting business that I don’t care about anything else. And I’m afraid that in asking me to be his personal assistant, he’s trying to make me be like him, and I know that’s foolish. I never could do it, and I don’t want to.”

“Aren’t you making this awfully complicated?” Betsy asked. “He’s offered you a better job. Maybe a raise will go with it.”

“Maybe. But this
is
complicated! What it all comes down to is,
what do we want? He asked me that tonight: what do I want? I tried to answer him straight, but I was too confused to think. He asked me whether money is important to me, and I said yes, but I forgot to say why. I want money to help us enjoy life, but that’s not what a guy like Hopkins wants. He doesn’t care any more about money than a good violinist does. He’s totally absorbed in his work–nothing else matters to him. You could pay him in medals or in beans, you could put him in the middle of the Sahara Desert, and he’d still find some way to go on working day and night. Something about the way he acted tonight scared me. It sounds crazy, but I think he wants to try to create me in his own image and I don’t want any part of it.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Figure it out for yourself. Hopkins doesn’t need a personal assistant–he has three secretaries and Ogden and Walker helping him already, and he’s always been careful to keep his relationship with all those people anything but personal. The whole time I’ve known him, he’s never had the slightest personal interest in me. And now all of a sudden he wants me to be his personal assistant. Why?”

“Because he likes that speech you did for him,” Betsy said.

“Partly. But you know something? His daughter got married today–I read it in the paper on the way home. And his son got killed in the war–I’d heard that, and he told me about it tonight. I think the poor guy’s just lonely, and he’s trying to hire a son.”

“If that’s the way he feels, it could still be pretty good for you,” Betsy said.

“I don’t think so. When he found I couldn’t get to be like him, he might get sick of me–he might get sick of me pretty soon, anyway. You can’t tell. Playing with a guy like that is like petting a tiger–any time he wants to turn on you, he can. I don’t want to be in a position like that.”

“What are you going to do, turn him down?”

“No–that might hurt his feelings. As I say, this is like petting a tiger–you have to be awfully careful. And the funny part of it is, I’d like to be his personal assistant for three reasons: I might learn something, it would be a good recommendation for anything else I wanted to do later, and I like the guy. I think I better take the job, but I’m going to have to keep my fingers crossed–nobody can tell how it’s going to turn out. When he finds I have no idea in the world
of trying to be like him, he may get mad–and then he may fire me altogether.”

A
T QUARTER TO SEVEN
the next morning Betsy came into the bathroom while Tom was shaving and said, “I don’t know what to do. Janey says she won’t go to school.”

“She give any reason?”

“No. She just woke up and announced that she wasn’t going. I told her that she had to, and she said she simply wouldn’t.”

“Why don’t you let her stay home a day or two,” Tom said. “At her age it wouldn’t matter.”

“If I let her stay home, Barbara will want to stay too–she’s not very happy about going herself. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she wanted to go even less than Janey does, but she’s different. She does what she thinks she has to do.”

“I’ll talk to Janey,” Tom said.

“The trouble is, I really don’t blame the child,” Betsy said. “It’s such an awful-looking school!”

Tom wiped the soap off his face and walked to the bedroom his daughters shared. Janey was sitting on her bed, still dressed in her pajamas. Her face was set in a determined expression, and her hands were folded stubbornly in her lap. On the other side of the room Barbara was slowly getting dressed. Her face looked strained.

“What’s the matter, kids?” Tom asked. “Janey, if you don’t hurry up and get dressed, you’re going to be late.”

“I’m not going to school,” Janey said.

“Why not?”

“I’m just not going.”

“You have to go,” Tom said. “There’s a law. Anyway, you wouldn’t want to grow up without knowing anything.”

“I’m not going,” Janey said. From her face he saw she was about to cry.

“Did something happen at school yesterday?”

“No.”

“Was someone cross to you?”

“No.” She paused before adding, “I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“The hall.”

“The hall? What do you mean?”

Janey said nothing.

“What’s the matter with the hall?”

“Nothing,” Janey said.

“I’ll take you to school today and you can show me the hall. Will that help?”

Janey looked down at the floor, her face hopeless. She said nothing.

“School is fun when you get used to it,” Tom said hesitantly. Still Janey said nothing.

“If you’re a good girl and go nicely, I’ll bring you home a present tonight. I’ll bring you a surprise.”

“All right,” Janey said woefully. “If you’ll go with me.”

“I’ll take you down,” Tom said, and began to help her get dressed.

At breakfast Betsy said, “I can take her–you’ll miss your train if you go.”

“I’ll take a later train,” Tom said. “There’s something about a hall that bothers Janey. I want to see this school.”

Leaving Betsy at home with Pete, Tom put both his daughters in the car and started down the road toward the school. He remembered being driven down the same road by a chauffeur during his own boyhood, only they had not stopped at the public school; they had gone beyond it to the South Bay Country Day School, where both Tom and his father had gone. The tuition had been six hundred dollars a year, even in the nineteen twenties. Tom wondered what it was now. It was ridiculous to feel that he had to send his children to a private school, he thought. In Westport, the public schools had been just as good as the private schools.

The traffic got heavy as they neared the public school. It was a weather-beaten brick building of Victorian design set in the middle of a black asphalt-covered play yard, part of which had been marked off to form a parking area. The school and its yard was surrounded by a high iron fence, as though it were a zoo. Tom drove through a gate and found a parking place adjoining the play yard, where
children of widely varying age were running, jumping, and shouting together. He and his daughters walked up the front steps of the school and entered a narrow, high-ceilinged hall, the walls of which were painted a dull chocolate brown. The indefinable smell of an old school building was strong–sweat, chalk dust, and an incongruous trace of cheap perfume.

Suddenly an electric bell rang, reverberating harshly against the bare walls. Immediately a horde of children rushed through the door which Tom had just entered and dashed down the hall. They continued to funnel in from the playground, jostling and pushing each other. The hall quickly became overcrowded, and someone said, “Don’t push!” in a high shrill voice. The children continued to jam in, and Tom felt a flash of claustrophobia. Janey clung tightly to his hand. She looked scared. “This is the hall,” she said.

“Yesterday she got knocked down here,” Barbara volunteered.

“It won’t happen again,” Tom said, his voice sounding false to himself.