Stepping by Nancy Thayer

Author:Nancy Thayer [Thayer, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-553-39099-5
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

Six

“No! No, I won’t be ‘reasonable’! You be reasonable! What you’re asking me to do is to give up everything in order to have nothing!”

It was April 1972, and I was yelling. I was yelling at Charlie. In February he had been offered a prestigious chair at a university in New Hampshire. Now the time had come to let them know his decision. He wanted to move, of course. I didn’t. I didn’t want to move at all.

“I didn’t know that you thought of your relationship with me as nothing,” Charlie said.

“Oh, Charlie, that’s not fair. I don’t think of our relationship as nothing. I love you. I love you. But I love my work, too. You can have me and your work. Why can’t I have you and my work?”

“You could finish your PhD at the university there. They’ve got a good English department.”

“I don’t want to finish my PhD. I want to teach.”

“You could probably teach there, somewhere. There are surely junior colleges and small colleges in the area.”

“Charlie, you know how it is these days. A thousand English majors are wandering the continent, looking for work. There are no jobs. You have to know people. I don’t know anyone in New Hampshire. And I want to stay here. I like it here. Wilbur likes my work; he’s going to give me tenure. Me. Tenure. I could stay here forever and teach and help develop the department, even influence the development of the college. I love it. It’s my work. How can you ask me to give it up?”

“How can you ask me to turn down the Wallace Chair? It’s one of the greatest honors a historian can have. And I’m tired of the department here. I’ve outgrown it—”

“Oh, Charlie, I know, I know. But—”

“And there’s the matter of money. The Wallace Chair would give us more income than both of our salaries here.”

“But I don’t care about the money. My life doesn’t revolve around money. Besides, I want to be making my own money. It may not be much, but it’s very important to me to make my own money.”

“Look, Zelda, be realistic. We’re just making it now, even with your money. In another year Caroline will start college. And then Cathy. The only way I can send them to college is to make more money.”

“You could write more books—”

“Oh, darling, you know how little my books bring in. And my work is growing more and more philosophical and difficult; only a few will be interested in it. I’ve got a reputation, and my writing will secure that. But it won’t send the girls to college.”

“So. We send your daughters to college and you get a prestigious position and I get nothing.”

“There are other things in the world besides teaching. You could work in some other field. You could—”

“Oh, Charlie, stop it. You’ve won. You’ve beaten me down. We’ll move. But Jesus Christ, I hate it.”

“Zelda, don’t cry. Zelda, don’t. Zelda, believe me. I don’t want you to be so unhappy.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.