Sloan Wilson - Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

“I think we’ve both always assumed that Grandmother would be waiting to catch us if we tripped,” he said. “Maybe it’s time we grew up. She’s not there any more.”

“All right, get some more insurance,” Betsy said, “but when we sell Grandmother’s place, we can still afford a better home.”

“Can we? Let’s say that after we take care of old Edward, we net twenty thousand dollars out of Grandmother’s house. Let’s say I hang onto my job, and over the years get a few small raises — I’m beginning to doubt like hell I’m going to get rich quick on a mental-health project. Let’s say, though, that in ten years I’m making fifteen thousand. How are we going to send the kids to college?”

“On fifteen thousand it would be easy!”

“Maybe — but we’ve never lived on a budget yet. For a while, all three kids will be in college at the same time. We ought to figure at least three thousand dollars a year for each child at college. That’s nine thousand a year, after taxes. That means we’ll need thirty-six thousand dollars to send three kids through college. Do you think you could take that out of my salary?”

“We’d manage it somehow. Anyway, they wouldn’t need three thousand a year.”

“I needed it, and that was fifteen years ago, almost. We’ve never talked about this, Betsy, but I figure we owe our kids the same kind of education we got, and that’s what Grandmother’s money really should be used for.”

“You plan to live the rest of our lives here? ”

“We could do worse.”

“I don’t give a damn,” she said. “I won’t be noble. Not unless you make me.”

“Think it over,” he said.

“I have thought it over. It’s not fair to the children to bring them up in a neighborhood like this!”

“What’s wrong with this neighborhood?”

“it’s dull. ”

“You mean “The Senator’ wouldn’t like it?”

“That’s cruel,” she said. “Anyway, “The Senator’ is your ancestor, not mine. I mean that I don’t like it, and I’m not ashamed to admit it!”

“It’s time we forgot the Rath family’s dreams of glory, and your family’s dreams of glory too,” he said. “It’s time we started being sensible.”

“My family never had any dreams of glory!”

“Didn’t your father borrow ten thousand dollars to throw that coming-out party where I met you?”

Betsy flushed. “Where did you hear that?”

“He told me himself. He was very honest about explaining to me that I wasn’t marrying any money.”

“Dad borrowed it to keep a promise,” she said. “Ever since I was a little girl, he promised me a big coming-out party, and when the time came, he couldn’t afford it. So he borrowed the money. That’s the kind of a man he was. And he paid every cent back.”

“It was nice of him,” Tom said, “but don’t you think that was a crazy promise to make to a little girl? Hell, when you were a little girl, you didn’t care! He was making a promise to himself.”

“It was a lovely party,” Betsy said. “I’ll never forget it. And if I hadn’t had it, I might never have met you.”

“Most expensive damn introduction in the world!” Tom said. “We’ve got to get that kind of stuff out of our minds.”

“I haven’t even mentioned a coming-out party for Barbara and Janey,” Betsy said. “All I want is a decent house, without a damn-fool crack in the wall like a question mark, and without everything coming apart.”

“We can have the wall replastered,” Tom said. “I’m going to bed.”

He took a half tumblerful of Martinis up with him and lay for a long while sipping it in the dark. When it was finished, he went to sleep. He had no idea how much later it was when Betsy awoke him by shaking his shoulders hard. “Go away,” he said. “I’m asleep.”

“Wake up!” she said. “I’ve got a wonderful idea!”

She almost rolled him out of bed. The light was bright in his eyes. “Tell me in the morning!” he said.

“No!” she said. “Now!”

He struggled to a sitting position and rubbed his eyes. “What time is it?”

“It’s only about one o’clock. Ever since you’ve been asleep, I’ve been sitting downstairs thinking, and suddenly I got it!”

“Got what?”

“This idea!”

“Go to sleep.”

“No! You’ve got to listen to me!”

“I will if you get me a drink,” he said.

She rushed downstairs and came back with a glass half full of gin and ice. “There’s no more vermouth,” she said, “but this ought to fix you.”

He sipped it and made a face.

“Now!” she said. “Will you listen?”

“Is there a choice?”

“What I want to do,” she said, “is to sell this house and move into Grandmother’s house. Not for good, you understand — just until we can figure out what to do with it.”

“That’s wonderful,” he said. “Grandmother wanted us to add another wing. Do you plan to do that too?”

“Be quiet. Now you stop and figure, Tommy. We’ve got twenty-three acres in South Bay, the only twenty-three acres with a view anything like that. Even around here, good one-acre lots sell for as much as five thousand dollars apiece. If we divided that land up, we might get as high as a hundred thousand dollars!”

“Sure,” he said. “But there are a few other things to consider. Things like zoning restrictions. Things like building roads, so people could get to their lots. Things like wells and sewers.”

“Exactly,” she said. “And we couldn’t figure all that out while we were living in Westport and you were working in New York. But if I were living in Grandmother’s house, I could see the zoning board, and show contractors the place, and all the rest of it.”

“And what if it didn’t work?”

“We’d still be there to sell Grandmother’s place. And we’d have the money from selling this house. And we could let Edward stay with us.”

“Let’s talk about it in the morning,” Tom said.

“We can’t give Edward a pension — we never could afford it. And I bet he’d rather stay right in the old house.”

“Talk about it in the morning,” Tom repeated.

“And there are even more possibilities! Let’s say we took all our available money, from selling this place and from Grandmother’s estate and everything. Let’s say we took it all and converted Grandmother’s carriage house into a dwelling. It could be a charming place. Let’s say we did that and sold it with one acre of land for forty thousand dollars. Places like that go for at least that, and I bet we could fix the old carriage house up for twenty thousand. That would give us a profit of twenty thousand. We could use that to build another house and sell that for profit. We could put up a whole housing development, one house at a time. Maybe we could make more than a hundred thousand!”

“I’m dizzy,” Tom said. “To do that, you’d need capital. You’d have to know the real-estate business and the building business. And you should be able to devote full time to it.”

“I can learn, and I will devote full time to it.”

“And in the end we’d lose our shirts,” Tom said. “I know it.”

“In the end we might have a hundred thousand dollars and the pick of the new houses for ourselves.”

“Dreams of glory,” he said. “I’ve spent my whole life getting over them.”

“Look, Tommy,” she said. “You said I should think, and I did. You know what you are? You’re spoiled. You’ve spent most of your life feeling sorry for yourself because you knew Grandmother wasn’t going to leave you a lot of money. You’re spoiled and you’re licked before you start. In spite of all you did in the war, you’re not really willing to go out and fight for what you want. You came back from the war, and you took an easy job, and we both bellyached all the time because you didn’t get more money. And what’s more, you’re a coward. You’re afraid to risk a god-damn thing!”