Stewardship, as my position is called, is three-fourths of a whole job, with the remaining quarter understood to be beating the bushes for the annual fund. All of that makes my presence required at alumni cocktail parties and reunions, which I admit played a role in my accepting the job due to a social dry spell. In fact, Stuart and I met at an Everton function, not the most felicitous first encounter. I stopped him at the door because he was not on the guest list and was wearing a T-shirt depicting a silk-screened tuxedo, whereupon he defended it as a perfectly reasonable interpretation of “black tie optional.” When I realized he was the plus-one of a Silver Circle benefactor, the category designating gifts between $5,000 and $9,999, I apologized profusely.
Since joining the team, I’ve shared an office with Nicholas Franconi, whose bailiwick is Major Gifts. He was more senior on the job than I by six months; he himself was something of what we in Development call a “get” because he used to raise money for Phillips Exeter Academy. When anyone asked why the change, he’d say, “I did it for love,” then add, with a smile, “for Everton Country Day.”
In what Nick liked to call “Stuartship,” I taped a map of the U.S. on our office wall, like the ones in old movies, on which families followed their sons on the front. My pins, of course, represented Stuart’s progress. Soon I was sorry I ever started it because a sliver of an inch equaled hundreds of miles, and with Stuart on foot, nothing changed very fast.
Nick made a joke every time I stuck another pushpin into the map. “Voodoo?” he asked. Or “One small step for a man, a giant leap for . . . remind me?” I didn’t mean to laugh, shouldn’t have found it endlessly amusing, might even have taken offense on Stuart’s behalf, but I’d been having more and more trouble defining the what and why of the alleged mission. Because of Nick’s job, arm-twisting for major gifts, I once asked him if he thought Stuart could find a corporate sponsor.
“Nothing’s impossible,” he answered. Then, after several minutes, all innocence: “Bill and Melinda Gates would surely be interested in such a meaningful pilgrimage.”
It struck me as something my mother would say, except that Nick’s quip was accompanied by a wry smile. Abandoning that line of inquiry, I asked how his live-in girlfriend’s work was going, perhaps a little ungenerous of me since I knew Brooke was underemployed. Between full-time jobs, after having been a manager for two defunct boutiques, she sells high-end handbags on eBay, none of which I’d bought. They’re all oversize, decorated with hardware; many are fringed in a cowgirl manner or are “unconstructed,” according to the listing.
Nick admitted the goods didn’t reflect her taste, either, but retailing was all about knowing what sells, what goes in the window, and proper signage. At that point, after three months in Development, I hadn’t met Brooke. He didn’t bring her to what he considered work functions, just the way I couldn’t bring the absent Stuart. Nick’s screen saver was a family photo of the two of them with a dog who’s since run away, all three wearing sunglasses. Both Brooke and the dog had layered honey-colored hair. She looked pretty—fit and flexible, arms bare and tanned. The humans are grinning, and quite adorably Tramp is baring his gums in what looks like a matching smile.
One of the reasons Nick was drawn to Brooke was her pragmatism, he once mentioned. I asked for a definition.
“She’s a bottom-line kind of gal. She likes her creature comforts and is willing to work for them.”
Was that a good thing? I knew what he was implying: that employment was an important attribute in a partner or future spouse. Was he sending me a message that there was something he’d missed about Stuart that recommended him for the Gold, Silver, or Bronze Circle of my affection?
It would be the very thing I was missing: the original Stuart, the formerly attentive, employed, unphilosophical, sexually solicitous fiancé I used to know.
4
Inspection
WAS I SUPPOSED TO have noticed the curled roof shingles, the severed ropes in half of the window pulleys, the pilot lights requiring personal igniting, the bird’s nest in the chimney, the asbestos insulating the pipes? It took an inspector, a friend of my brother’s—as was everyone in Everton to some degree—who shook his head sadly with each new prod from his inventory of inspection tools.
“Deal breaker?” I asked, watching him click a light switch on and off to no avail.
“Not my call,” he said. “I just write a report. People buy all kinds of places. But you might want to check what your P and S says about the inspection.”
“What would I want it to say?”
“That you have an out.”
Had my original visit been too hasty? Too starry-eyed? I called my lawyer from the front porch and got her paralegal, who said she’d look up the purchase and sale agreement. “Good news,” I heard after a musical interlude. “You have our default inspection clause.”
“Which means what?”
“That you don’t have to go through with it.”
“What if I want to?”
“Everything’s negotiable.”
“Don’t do anything yet,” I instructed.
I went back inside, called to Joel’s friend—a softball teammate, it turned out—“Wally? How’s it going?”
His answer, not more than a grunt, sounded farther away than just one floor. Mystery solved: the ladder that led to the crawl space was now dominating the hallway between the bedrooms. “You’re brave,” I yelled up to him from the bottom rung.
“Not in the least,” he answered.
“Is there a light?”
“Flashlight. Mine.”
“Can you stand up?”
“Almost.”
“They told me it was dry and empty. Is it?”
“Dry enough. Clean. Pretty empty. Some stuff.”
A snapshot at that moment would have captured me with a dreamy smile, antiques floating in my mind’s eye. A steamer trunk? A dressmaker’s form? A trove of love letters? A Flexible Flyer? “Anything good?” I called.
“A whatchamacallit—a cradle.”
“Is it a nice one? I mean, an antique?”
“People expect me to know stuff like that. I don’t.”
I figured, at best, hand carved and charming. At worst, I’d put it out on the curb with a sign that said FREE.