He landed a good job, became a
company man. Their first move took
her away from the mountains, into
the city where women wore artificial
nails and threw cocktail parties.
Some were catered. Men, of course,
carried briefcases. He bought a suit
and drove through car-choked suburbs
to an office everyday where his
paycheck swelled. She adjusted.
Then he got a promotion, second
move across the mountains and
into the business heartland. He
bought a nicer briefcase, rode the
train to the Tower daily, and sometimes
flew around the country. There were
parties and business dinners and golf
and perks like frequent flier points.
She adjusted, so did the kids. The
pay was even better, although there were
disconcerting tradeoffs. Third move, a
merger/acquisition. By then he owned
a closet full of suits and drove a leased
luxury car to his executive office–
laptop PC, beeper, voice mail, expense
reports, golf outings, conferences, vendor
gifts and $100K a year for his
undivided attention. This time
her adjustment was difficult. He
was busy, couldn’t understand her
attachment to previous homes, old friends.
So he bought her a house on
a hillside of trees. Which was good
since it reminded her of the
mountain home where their children
were born, where their days and nights
smelled of wood fires and apples, and
sweet peaceful conversations filled
the space between them. The corporate
wives with or without artificial nails
shook their heads in sympathetic
understanding when she mentioned
her unhappy teenagers. They invited
her to lunch and to play golf, and then
asked if she’d found a good decorator
or maybe a family counselor.
Which they needed since the interior
of their lives had shifted from one
landscape to another so often that
the decor had suffered. She wondered
what had happened to that husband–the
one who looked like Jesus and walked
the woods like Gandhi and spoke like
Redford. That man, that one.
“Whatever happened to…?” she pondered
while ordering fawn gray drapes and
Ethan Allen furniture, enough to fill
the space between them.
He’d landed a good job, bought
a suit and carried a briefcase.
He was a company man.