Джон Макдональд - A Key to the Suite

“It was like that, dear, exactly like that, and when it was like that we were both happier than we are now. We have a lot more money now. But things are not right, the way they used to be right. The last time I tried to tell you how I feel, it turned into the kind of argument we couldn’t have had before our lives changed. You accused me of being discontented because you have to take so many trips. I do not like having you away at any time, but that is a secondary thing. Floyd, you made what you are doing sound very plausible, so plausible that I wonder if you believe it yourself. You made it a lot more intricate than this, but you told me, in effect, that if a man has a talent for administration, then he is not pulling his share of the load if he turns his back on it and restricts himself to technical things. You said that there are thousands of technicians and very few administrators, and without the ability of the administrators, the technicians would never get constructive things done. You said I was trying to hold you back, which was really a nasty and unfair thing for you to say.

“Darling, I don’t want to try to argue about the validity of how a man should spend his life. You can argue that nothing can be proved valid, or argue that everything has its own validity. I am talking about you , about Floyd Hubbard. I cannot help it, darling, but this business of exalting the administrative stuff seems to me to be awfully tricky.

“Remember when you and Tony were running that long experiment on the conductivity of special alloys at absolute zero? I said to you, joking, ‘When you do come up with something special, they’ll use it to make better pots and pans.’ Can you remember how legitimately angry you got with me? Can you remember the arguments you used? You were a man doing a man’s work, and you were not afraid of idealism.

“Forgive me, but this administration thing you are in and have been in for at least two years seems to me to be the manipulation of human beings. Granted that you rearrange groups of people so they are more effective, and possibly happier, but it is nothing you can be particularly idealistic about.

“You have a thirst for knowledge, darling, and you seem to satisfy it best with tangible things. Now that you are dealing with these intangibles, you are changing. I do not know how to say it without hurting you or angering you, so all I can say is that you are losing a kind of innocence which was always dear to me. I think you take the wrong kind of pride in what you are doing. You are learning how to push the little buttons which make people jump, and you are becoming cynical and skeptical about people. It is a kind of ‘watchfulness’ which I see in you. Your smile is the same and you seem to talk in the same way, and people like you as readily as ever, but you are on guard, even with me. I think you are becoming a political man, and once again I must sound childish to you as I say that I do not like the by-products — the compromise, subterfuge and, so help me, the ‘use’ of human beings. Darling, I am not accusing you of some enormous wickedness. But I think the kind of work you are doing now will change the essential texture of you, will harden you in ways I cannot clearly understand.

“I can understand though how tempting it all is to you. You have a power you never had before, and you can tell yourself that you are using that power on the side of the angels. You can also tell yourself that you are finding a wonderful security for your family.

“Though I am writing all this, I am still not such a fool as to ask you to give it up, to demand of you that you go back to the kind of work I thought you would always do. All I am asking, humbly, is that you think about all these things, and examine yourself to see how happy you are. If we are not happy, all the rest is not worth it. I am not a very complicated woman. I love you, and I want you to love me, and I think love is easier all around when life has good meanings, when work is good, and there are tangible ways to measure what you accomplish.

“I am asking you to think about it and when you come back to me, be ready to talk about it to me in such a way that we will not start trying to wound each other with words, just because both of us, perhaps, feel a little bit guilty. I can promise you that if you are convinced this is what you want to do with your life, I can certainly go along with it and do the best I know how. We have had a good thing working for us for a long time, darling, and I would crawl through glass, fire and cactus to keep it, and I think you would too. This good marriage is the product of luck, skill and labor. I just want to be terribly sure that we do not needlessly handicap ourselves. Do you understand? It sounds very spoiled and surly for me to say this is not the cruise I signed up for. Maybe nobody gets — or is entitled to get — exactly what they bargained for. But I can make a try, can’t I?

“Please don’t phone me about this, dear. It will be better to talk it all out face to face. So, while you are conventioneering about and doing this dirty little job for John Camplin, keep me in mind from time to time and try to get outside yourself and look back in and see if there’s been any changes made, any that you don’t especially like. I do love you. Jan.”

As he put the letter back in his pocket he looked up and saw the panel members were in place. About twenty-five men occupied chairs in the area that would have seated five times that number.

The moderator said, “I hoped that more members of this joint convention would have recognized the importance of the area we are discussing this morning. I can only tell the men sitting up here with me that I hope others will join us during the course of the morning, and I am ashamed at predicting such an optimistic turnout.”

As the moderator began the introductions of the members of his panel, a lean balding man on Hubbard’s right turned and said in a low voice, “Lou should know better by now, for God’s sake. Most of them are hung over and sacked out. Some are out by the pool getting their health back. The golf tournament is this afternoon. I know a couple marathon poker games going on. Some groups went out deep sea fishing. Lou is lucky there’s this many.” He glanced at Hubbard’s badge. “AGM, hey? Jesse Mulaney’s boys. Where you located?”

“Houston.”

“Jud Ewing, Federated — outa Chicago.” They shook hands. “I’ve known Jesse a lot of years. Be seeing you at the AGM cabana this afternoon, I suppose.”

“Yes. Yes, of course,” Hubbard said.

He tried to keep his mind on the discussion. He kept losing the thread of the arguments. He stuck it out for a little over an hour, until the moderator decreed a five minute break, and then he quietly walked away. As he started to walk past the AGM exhibit, he saw Fred Frick inside the enclosure talking to one of the twins. The other twin sat on an aluminum chair, working on her fingernails. Fred was grinning, grimacing, bobbing his head as he talked to the girl. Hubbard noticed that the girl’s expression was placid, slightly surly, unimpressed and uninvolved.

“Floyd! Hey, Floyd!” Fred called. Hubbard turned and went over to the exhibit. Fred and the twin moved closer to the velvet rope. “Floyd, I want you should meet Honey. Honey, this is Mister Floyd Hubbard, one of the brilliant young executives of AGM out of the home office in Houston, Texas.”

“Please to meetchew,” she said with colossal indifference.

“The girls have dresses on today. I guess you prolly noticed,” Frick said and jabbed Hubbard in the ribs with his thumb. “Mulaney figured it would be a little more dignified.”

“Honey, now you talk it over with your sister,” Frick said, turning back toward the girl. “You’ll get the same pay for just lying around in the sun and getting a good tan. Two o’clock. Cabana Fifty.” He slid under the rope and took Floyd by the arm and headed slowly toward the lobby.