Harper's Rules (5 page)

“Let's go home,” he said. “We'll work it out.”

We didn't last the night. When we walked in the house, Donald nearly let Starbucks out. This is one of my hot buttons and one of my few house rules. Starbucks has never gone outside. Neighbors warned us from day one that there were coyotes in the woods nearby. Donald closed the door just in time, and I tried to tell myself he was out of practice, but the thought occurred: nothing will change if we get back together. He will let Starbucks out one day and I will lose her, and it will be just punishment for not being strong enough to move on.

There were two voice mails on my machine when we got home. The first was Hannah inviting me to a farmer's market in New Milford on Saturday, and the second, to my surprise and Donald's shock, was Sasha.

“Hi, Casey, it's Sasha Kiernan. I'm sorry to bother you at home, but I've been trying to get in touch with Donald. I've talked to his mom, and she said you left together. This is weird for me to call you, but he hasn't called me back.”

You'll never trust him again. You will live your life looking over your shoulder. You will never be able to love this man without reservation again.

“What is your actual status with Sasha?” I said.

“Technically, we're engaged.”

“Technically?”

“She has a ring on her finger.”

“If we got back together a year from now, all the things that drove us apart would return. You know that, right?”

“Maybe,” he said. He looked away from me. It was time to wrap this up. I smiled at him, a big friendly smile.

“We don't love each other, Donny. We have a divorce decree that proves it. We love what we used to be for a short time, a long time ago. When we get scared, it's easier to go back to what we know.”

I didn't know when or if I would ever see him again, but I felt at peace with either outcome. I had always heard change brought growth, that it was necessary. I never knew it could bring peace.

The flashback ended when I woke up and realized I had not only fallen asleep on my bed covered with laundry, but had drooled all over a pair of clean khakis. I felt rejuvenated by the memory, and I knew what I had to do. I called Tynan.

“Hi. I'm going to respect your time and avoid all the small talk. I'm not coming to dinner tomorrow night.”

“Has something come up? We can reschedule.”

“No, I am tragically available. But you don't want to have dinner with me. If you did, it would have happened sometime in the eighteen months I've been working for you. You want to convince me to stay and make me a counteroffer, but I don't want to waste your energy or time.”

“I see. I'd appreciate you paying me the respect of hearing me out.”

Spoken like a man used to getting what he wanted. And the way he said it made me feel unreasonable and feckless. But I knew it was a tactic and that a tactic was all it was.

“I'm not going to stay. Not if you make me VP of sales, not if you double my salary or fully vest my equity. Still want to pick up the check for a fancy dinner? If you do, I'm game; I've got nothing in the fridge.”

He laughed, though I could tell he didn't want to. He got to where he was by knowing when to walk away. He said he admired my “spunk” and would try to find another guest for dinner.

When I hung up, I felt the same peace as when Donald drove off on the night of Big Gerry's funeral.

Later that night I walked by the dining room table, saw the envelope sent by Harper, and realized I hadn't read it.

HARPER'S RULES
Why You Should Never Accept a Counteroffer

1. Why did you have to resign in order to get the counteroffer? Why weren't you worth it before?
   
2. Where did the money come from? Is it your next raise early?
   
3. Your loyalty will always be in question.
   
4. Your company will exact revenge by promoting someone else.
   
5. The feelings that made you want to leave will return once the heat of the moment passes.
   
6. You will regret lacking the courage to make the change you knew was best for your career.
   
7. Once trust is broken, it cannot be repaired. Nothing will ever be the same.
   

Well, well, Harper my friend. Nothing personal, but I figured this all out by myself. Harper was right, though: counteroffers, be they from a self-involved CEO or a heartsick ex-husband, are the same dangerous proposition.

I suppose I should have called Harper to let him know my decision and to thank him for sending the manuscript, but I didn't want him taking credit for me coming to terms with things myself. So when he called the next night, I realized he probably thought I caved and went to dinner.

“Hi. Before you freak out, I didn't go to dinner with Tynan. I cancelled.”

“First of all, I do not freak out. Ever. Second, I know you're not at dinner.”

“How?”

“Because I'm at dinner with Tynan.”

“Excuse me? Did he invite you to meet with me, and you never told me?”

“Chill, please. I would never not tell you something like that. What I would do, though, since you weren't good enough to tell me you cancelled, is show up so I could meet you in the parking lot and talk you out of it, or alternatively, walk you through your responses using sign language from across the room.”

“I don't read sign language.”

“Me either. I was pleased to see you weren't at his table. I'm proud of you.”

“I worked through it. Thanks for your help. But now I feel terrible. He was by himself?”

“No, he's got a couple of lackeys here too. I realized you weren't coming, so I walked over, claimed to be sitting in the bar, and knew that he'd invite me. The appetizers were phenomenal, by the way.”

“Is there any shame in your body?”

“Not a trace.”

“I need to ask you something, Harper. I get all the reasoning behind the dangers of counteroffers, personal or professional. But isn't there ever a time when they work out?”

“Sure. I call them ‘Preemptive Counteroffers.' Before leaving any job or person that you once really loved, you go to them preemptively, before quitting or separating, and you explain why you are unhappy, what you need changed. No threat, no blackmail. If they come back to you with an offer preemptively, then they have done so because they are sorry, and it's often right to stay. Make sense?”

“Yes. That's never happened to me in any sense, so I guess it's only right that I'm alone and unemployed.”

“It's right for now, baby, but not for long. It's a simple rule:

“Relationships are to be enjoyed, not endured.

“I have to let you go; here come the entrees. My steak looks fantastic.”

CHAPTER FOUR

I sat in a diner in Bridgeport that made Denny's look like a Ritz Carlton. It was 9
A.M.
, and I hurried into the place after making sure twice that my car was locked. I nursed three cups of coffee, but Harper never showed. I texted him, emailed him, and having had enough, I dialed his direct line.

“Where are you? Brunch this is not,” I hissed.

“Sorry, going to be a no-show. You never sent me a new résumé, and I don't think you're ready,” Harper said in a maddeningly calm voice.

“How am I not ready?”

“You still feel sorry for yourself.”

“Harper, you have my old résumé. You know my background. Get me a job like the one I had, with a better company for more money. Do I have to tell you how this works?”

“Any headhunter can take you from one rut and put you in another rut. This is your chance to decide what you want, and to not settle.”

For the seventh time in an hour, the waitress asked me if I was ready to order, and I succumbed to the pressure and asked for an egg white omelet with no cheese and no home fries. She gave me a look that said she had no respect for anyone who couldn't handle cheese.

“Hey, you know what, I'm not going to discuss this with you when you make me drive nearly an hour on the Merritt Parkway during rush hour to meet you at this sad excuse for a restaurant and then don't show.” I lowered my voice and looked around. “Do you know what types of characters are here?”

“The characters, as you call them, are mostly hourly workers from Sikorsky Aircraft, the painting division. Probably not a woman in the place other than Chaz, who just
took your order. All guys coming home from the midnight shift. The first shift started hours ago. They dip blades and vanes, after they've been milled and polished, into a vat of paint, and they hang them on hooks and roll them into ovens. When they open the doors to the ovens, a blast of heat hits them that makes them puke until they get used to it.”

“How do you know all that?”

“I worked at that diner for four summers while I went to Yale. Look into the kitchen, Casey. You can see it from the counter. Tell me what you see.”

There were two Hispanic men with bandanas on their foreheads. One of them had a ponytail. They were moving rapidly from the grill, jammed with small pools of eggs and link sausages and crackling bacon, to the toaster and to the fryer. One man sprinkled mushrooms into the pool of eggs. Their bodies and the frenetic tempo of their movements made them look young, but when one turned toward me to bring a plate to the counter, his brow was dripping with sweat, his eyes darkly circled. He might have been much older. For a second he paused and wiped his face with his apron, and I wondered if he would take off the white apron and walk out the door. But he didn't. He punched his friend playfully on the shoulder, grabbed a couple of eggs from the glass bowl near the grill, and started over.

Harper never said a word. I wanted to yell at him that if I can't ever feel sorry for myself because someone else in the world is suffering more than I am, I will never be able to feel sorry for myself, and who can live like that? But it was suddenly very clear: I have been so blessed and have become so spoiled.

“Okay, Harper, I get it.”

My meal arrived, and suddenly I realized I was famished. I smiled broadly at Chaz and waved my fork in gratitude at one of my cooks. He put one hand on his stomach, one hand on his lower back, and bowed formally, grinning all the while.

“You never intended to meet me here this morning, did you, Harper?”

“No.”

“You know, Harper, I always assumed you were a rich kid. I guess because of Yale.”

“Look above the cash register, third picture down. The baseball player is Carl Yastrzemski of the Red Sox. The guy with his arm around him mugging in the picture is my dad. The kid between them is me.”

I could see no trace of my Harper in the grainy, wide smile of the little boy. But I could see a lot of him in his father.

“Is he still alive?”

“Yastrzemski? Far as I know.”

“I meant your dad.”

“I know.”

I waited. But there was no more.

“Well,” I rallied, “it's a great picture. I'm glad to report that it's still here. And I guess I'm glad I'm here. Do you ever come back?”

“Breakfast yesterday, kiddo. The only way to safeguard where you're going is by not forgetting where you come from. You and I don't have real jobs, Casey. Look around you. Those people have real jobs.”

He hung up, and I thought for a moment of all the motivational seminars I'd been to over the years. Robbins, Covey, Dr. Phil . . . I knew Harper would never go to a self-help seminar. He didn't need to; he had his diner.

But he also has his job and an income. I could run out of money, and I can't seem to face it. My money issues are exposing, well . . . my issues with money.

Salespeople know a lot about
making
money. But what I couldn't admit to Harper, what I have never admitted to anyone, is that I am terrible
with
money. I can muster no interest in my own finances, I understand almost nothing about taxes and investment strategies, and I willingly delegated all of these concerns to Donald. We had a silent pact: I never told anyone how little he earned in relation to me, and he never told anyone that I didn't balance the checkbook, had no concept of a budget, and had no idea exactly where our money was kept.

The divorce exposed me. When my lawyer handed me the financial disclosure form where Donald had listed various mutual funds, bonds, and 401(k) statements, I had no way of knowing if the totals were correct. Was this the right amount in the checking account? Was this CD for 15K that is only in his name a clandestine account or did I know about it? Did I want Donald to buy me out of the house and at what price? No clue. But I knew Donald would be fair.

I stood in the doorway of my den and looked at the mountain of papers on the desk. Before Donald became extinct, the office desk was Finance Central, and all our personal papers and records were in their various drawers. The day he moved out he walked me through the system like a tour guide at the Met, eager to see my gasps of awe. And now, nearly two years later, the papers and bills have revolted.

Please understand: my walk-in closet is organized by color, season, and designer. I could find you a presentation folder I used for a product I no longer sell for a company I no longer work for, and I could recite the notes by heart. I always thought this meant chaos had no place in my world for the things that matter, but it turns out just the opposite is true. I tolerate chaos in the things that matter most because then I can blame the chaos and ignore the fear that created it. Taking care of our money was
something I didn't want to do and Donald did. But I would, often cruelly, make it clear to Donald that what I did was the heavy lifting—making the money—and he was an underachieving bean counter. Our friends all wonder how I cannot hate Donald when he left me for another woman in such a humiliating fashion. But they weren't there for the daily humiliations he endured. If someone were keeping score, it would still not even be close.