A Place at the Table
1
Facing My Adulthood
Liam Cyning
I GOT BACK FROM LONDON with Mother and Father Friday night and was looking forward to a quiet weekend before my eighteenth birthday on Monday. We flew in a jet airplane! Father says it’s the way of the future and the seven-and-a-half-hour flight meant he could go to London for a business meeting and return the next day. Sitting in an airplane in my suit wasn’t comfortable. I seem to have had a growth spurt and as soon as I sat down my trousers were up around my ankles.
I can see the attraction for crossing the ocean by jet. There isn’t much to see when you spend three days on an ocean liner. But it seems you would miss a lot flying over America from New York to Los Angeles. The train seems much better.
Of course, Grandmother wanted to have dinner with me and I would never slight her. Having an extra-long day with the time change won’t hurt me; I’ll sleep in tomorrow. In my life, Grandmother has always been my defender and friend. My parents have plans for me that I’m not quite resigned to. Father wants me to enter the business directly after my schooling at Elenchus Scholé is complete. Grandmother insists that I should go on to college so I’ll have a better grasp of the world. I prefer that plan.
So, I showered and shaved and put on the clothes Erich had laid out for me. He always had the right wardrobe for me. I’d missed him in London but he’d packed my bag carefully so that I’d be able to tell what was appropriate when. I’m sure if he’d left it up to me, I’d have dressed each day in Levi’s and a T-shirt. No. Not really. I just didn’t always know what difference which tie I wore made.
Nonetheless, I presented myself at Grandmother’s door at precisely seven o’clock.
“Liam! I’m so glad you could join me for dinner. I’ve been lonesome without you.”
“Grandmother, I am always at your service. I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to have dinner with you,” I said as I kissed her on the cheek. I’m not that tall, but somehow leaning down to kiss my grandmother made me aware of her age. “How have you been while I was traveling with Mother and Father?”
“Well now, have a seat and I’ll tell you all about it.” We sat and Ricardo placed salads with slices of apple and crumbled gorgonzola cheese over spring greens in front of us. I noted I had a glass of wine that matched my grandmother’s and was pleased that she was acknowledging my majority. “I’ve been very busy, as usual,” she said. “Most tasks were simple. Thorne Larson wanted to buy old Mr. Jacobson’s farm and the two could not agree on anything. When it came down to it, both wanted the deal to go through, but Mr. Larson wanted to think he’d gotten a good deal and Mr. Jacobson wanted to believe he’d made a profit on his years of toil. In the end, both were satisfied.” She finished the salad and then continued. “I discussed an interesting piece of legislation coming before the state house this fall with the sponsoring representatives. They were quite concerned that it actually accomplished what they’d set out to do. Unfortunately, they hadn’t really agreed on what they wanted to accomplish and decided they were not as far along in drafting the legislation as they thought. Oh, yes,” she said as an afterthought. “And I hired a personal assistant.”
“Is Isobel retiring?” I asked. My grandmother’s personal assistant had been with her as long as I could remember.
“Oh, no. I hired a personal assistant for you.”
“For me? Whatever for? What do I have to assist with?” And shouldn’t I have some say in hiring my own staff when the time comes?
“Don’t worry. Part of the reason is to get you used to working with an assistant. Another part is because life will be changing for you soon enough and you’ll need advice on what course of action to take. And lest you think you have been permanently saddled with baggage, I have hired her for a six-month probationary period. If you want to ditch her at that point, you can make your own hiring decision. But I assure you, I have carefully considered what you will need in the next six months from a position of knowing things to which you are not yet privy.”
I continued to eat in silence as Ricardo set a lovely chicken cordon bleu before us, complete with mushroom risotto and roasted asparagus and lemon butter sauce on the side. I learned my lesson about this dish some years ago. If you simply stick a fork and knife in it to cut, you are likely to spray ham, cheese, and chicken juices all over yourself—and possibly your companion as well. It requires you to gently stroke your knife across the meat rather than pressing down. The result, however, is heavenly. Cook’s rendition of the dish is superb.
Well, things could be worse. I would have a lovely young assistant to run errands and keep me company. Grandmother had said ‘she.’ Please let her be young and lovely!
“When will I be able to meet my new assistant?” I asked.
“She will attend your birthday celebration dinner Monday evening. It is always best, I think, to meet in a social setting rather than try to jump right into business without knowing each other.”
“Oh. Of course. Mother and Father…?”
“Have approved my choice. They would rather it had been a lawyer, I’m sure, but the interview process has been going on while you were still at school and they agreed I had found the best alternative for you. She is of the Advisor class.”
“Those I have met in that class have always impressed me as very level-headed and even-tempered. I’m sure I will learn a great deal from her,” I said. I wondered what subjects she could give me advice on. It seemed my first date of my life this spring had gone poorly. I’m pretty easy going and happy to interact with people except when I’m facing a single female one-on-one. Lonnie laughed at me and said I just needed to pick myself up and get out there again, as if I’d fallen off a bicycle.
“And what class have you evolved into?” Grandmother asked. Classes are very important in our society. In fact, much of our elementary and secondary education is focused on discovering our class and preparing for participation in it.
“It seems the boundaries between the classes shift back and forth a lot,” I sighed. “I think I could be a Leader, but sometimes I behave like a Commander. I find myself attracted to Inquirers, but not so much so that I can’t think of anything else. What do you think, Grandmother? Have my instructors made a suggestion?”
“Let’s start with the Dexters.” She reached for my hand and turned it palm up, showing it to be clean and soft. “I don’t believe you are physically bent toward working with your hands. Or really with any other part of your body, even though you do play sports. We’ll eliminate that. A Cognoscente? Yes, there is potential. I don’t think you would be satisfied with a mental task performed repeatedly, even if there were problems to be solved. You’d want more variety than that.”
“I know I’m not an Aspirant. I’m sometimes drawn to one vocation or another, but mostly to find out what it is all about. I don’t feel called to any form of service or any profession. And the same is true of Creators. I like to dabble with my drawings and paintings or play a bit on the piano, but I have no passion for it or any other field of interest.”
“We can leave discussion of vocation for another time. I’m sure you will find work that appeals to you. I don’t think you have as compulsive a drive toward order and regulation as a Defender would have,” Grandmother continued. “And much to your parents’ disappointment, you show only scant traces of being a Promoter. I’m sure your father has already been at you about joining the business and learning it from the ground up. Which wouldn’t be a bad thing, but is probably not where your heart is. I’m sure you have some of the necessary entrepreneurial skills, but not the mindset to become a Promoter.”
“That brings me back to Leader or Commander,” I sighed.
“Or Advisor.”
Grandmother’s suggestion was disturbing. Advisors were always in the background, nudging people toward where they should go. Whether leading or directing people, I tended to like the spotlight. I found that aspect of my ego mildly disturbing.
“No,” Grandmother continued. “I didn’t think so. Leader or Commander. What do you think?”
“I probably have enough ego to be a Commander. But when it comes down to actually telling people what to do, I’m not that great. I can rally people to an idea, get everyone behind us, but it’s always Lonnie who starts assigning jobs and telling people what to do,” I said. Lonnie was my best friend, my roommate for the past eight years, but if I compared myself to him as a Commander, I was unlikely to come out favorably.
“So, a Leader. I believe your teachers agree. Now, it remains to find out what kind of a Leader you will be.”
“That is a problem. I’m not even sure what a Leader does. It seems I need to have a vision before I can get people to follow it.” I found our class structure to be confusing at times. Some of my schoolmates, who had truly settled into their class already, were incredibly proud of it, no matter what class they had discovered. It made sense. I’d heard in my schooling that there were various kinds of personality tests that would show your ‘true class.’ They were often used in the public schools. Elenchus Scholé spent much more time on discovering our class with educators trained in spotting identifying traits and encouraging their growth. But discovering one’s class when it was an integral part of one’s personality and character, was often a long and sometimes painful process. Still there was something satisfying about knowing where you fit in society as a whole. It gave you tools for facing life.
“So, that will be your task for the next six months, and hence your need for an assistant,” Grandmother continued. “She will want things to run smoothly and to keep obstacles out of your way so that you can lead on a clear path. In order to do that, however, she will need to see what your path is. She will advise you when you have choices to make. She will discuss with you your philosophy of life. She will probe for your inner character and help you bring it out.”
“She must be very wise and mature.”
“In some things. In others, you will find her as naïve as yourself and you will use each other as a sounding board to find your way.”
“I will learn all I can from her and do my best to become a Leader you can be proud of, Grandmother.”
“I am already proud of you, Liam. Become a man you can be proud of.”
On Saturday morning, I rose at my usual time of five-thirty, despite the long day previous, to find Erich had already been into my dressing room to lay out my running things. I couldn’t believe how well my valet understood me. Better than any of the other adults in our household, including my parents. He’d been a constant for me since my tenth birthday. He didn’t follow me around, but seemed to always be where I needed him.
For example, the year I began attending Elenchus Scholé, a boarding school in Covington—I think it was a relief to my parents to have me out of the house, even though the school was scarcely twenty-five miles from home—Erich could not lodge and be near me at school, but my clothes were always laundered, my bed made up, and my room tidied when I came back from classes. At first, I thought Lonnie had been industrious, though it didn’t seem to be in his character. And his side of our room was just as tidy as mine. If there was a snack waiting for me, there was one waiting for him as well. It took both of us putting our heads together to realize Erich was coming in each day while we were in class.
Which was both a comfort and a pain. It was nice to have everything picked up and tidied and laundered, but it also meant that someone saw exactly how we lived. Lonnie didn’t seem to care. He felt he deserved to be waited on. Grandmother had cautioned me when I was living at home to never misuse my staff and to always try to make their jobs as easy as possible. By the end of my first year at Elenchus, I was making my own bed before I left the room for class in the morning. I made sure my laundry was picked up and in the bag provided for it. Lonnie discovered that after I started making my own bed, his remained unmade. We got a few demerits for leaving the room a mess before he got the message that he needed to take care of himself.
This morning, I needed to run. I needed to clear my head to think about what it meant to be a Leader. And how on earth was I going to relate to having a personal assistant? One thing I knew was that I didn’t dare misuse or abuse her any more than I would Erich.
As I pounded down the path with Leonard at my heels, I tried to figure out what having a personal assistant would mean to my relationship with Erich.
Oh. Leonard. What a perfectly stupid name for a dog. Especially a dog that was assigned as my bodyguard. He was a lean Afghan/Setter mix, reddish gold in color. Not what you’d expect as a guard dog. But Leonard had been at my side for as long as Erich. I’d received a horse and appropriate riding gear as a gift from my parents on my tenth birthday. When I went to the stables for my first riding lesson on Sim—Persimmon, but never called by his full name—Leonard had been in the same stall. We’ve been together ever since. When I was twelve, I decided I hated my family—my parents, really—and decided to run away. I ran to the farthest edge of the estate and started to climb the high fence. Leonard prevented it. Guard dog or babysitter? Well, he was still a good running companion.
Yes. Back to Erich and my assistant. I should have asked Grandmother for her name, but I was sure I wouldn’t know it anyway. That was one thing that would be different. Since she was a woman, she certainly would not be laying out my clothes or coming into my room to straighten things. I chuckled a bit as I passed the two-mile post on my running trail. Perhaps if she was extremely pretty, I might get her to… That wasn’t a good line of thinking. One did not become involved with a member of the staff. Better if she was much older and not so pretty.
What are the things I must do to discover what my role as a Leader is? There were obvious things like organizing a volunteer effort or, as Grandmother did, negotiating a real estate sale or a studying and guiding legislation. I knew Grandmother was a Leader. People simply came to her for help. She settled disputes and often spoke at motivational rallies. More than anything, a Leader brought people together with one mind.
That made me wonder what the difference was between an Advisor and a Leader. Perhaps they were not so far apart. An Advisor might suggest to a Leader where he should go and then fall in line behind him to follow. An Advisor more or less led from behind the Leader, then. In a strange way, that made sense. It still did not leave me any nearer to understanding what my personal assistant would do for me. I ended up in the shower, still unsatisfied with my progress.
“Ah. Erich?” It was Sunday afternoon and we were sitting with the newspaper on the patio having coffee.
“Yes, sir?” Erich was always respectful, even though we had been on a first name basis all my life, it seemed. I was certain he was at least seventy years old—almost a surrogate grandfather. We could sit comfortably with a soft drink on the patio to talk, or he could act as my chauffeur, even driving me on my dates. Date. I’d only successfully asked one young woman out and she politely told me afterward not to ask again. I think Lonnie had convinced her to accept a date with me in the first place. I never had difficulty going out with a mixed group, but facing a single girl gave me butterflies I couldn’t control.
“Do you know a great deal about classes and how they interact? I’m having difficulty understanding the role of my new personal assistant. All I know is that she is Advisor class and I’ve no idea how to interact with one,” I said. Erich laughed.
“What makes you think you don’t know how to interact? Are our encounters so stressful?” he asked.
“Our encounters?” I paused looking at the laughter in his eyes. I suddenly realized that I had no perception of class difference with Erich. I had always assumed that the staff were all Dexters—cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring. But there were also staff who kept the family accounts. There were staff who managed other staff members, planned parties or events, and even consulted with my parents and grandmother. “Erich! Are you an Advisor?”
“Well, now that you mention it, it’s the class I’ve belonged to for over fifty years.”
“But you do so many menial tasks. You collect my laundry and drive me to school. Why are you not advising me and, since I have you, why do I need another personal assistant?” I was completely confused. I knew in my head that occupation and class were two very different things. I’d even studied Leaders who were soldiers, presidents, and outback outfitters and guides. Why did it suddenly surprise me that my valet would be an Advisor?
“Who advises you regarding what you should wear?” Erich asked. “Who taught you table manners, provided dancing lessons, and suggested the venue for your first date?” The failure of that date had nothing to do with the perfectly sensible suggestion of taking her to a well-chaperoned school dance. Or my dancing ability.
“I must be the densest brat alive! I never thought of you in those terms. In truth, I most often think of you as my friend and don’t consider your job at all.”
“Then I have been successful and will be able to retire with pride.”
“Retire? Erich, are you leaving me?” Well, that sounded like a dramatic break-up of a marriage. I felt foolish. “I mean, I don’t want to lose you and I’m concerned that you are provided for in retirement. You’re not that old, after all.”
Erich laughed. He was a spry fellow, trim, a bit bald, always dapper.
“Liam, my young friend, I am seventy years old. I have had a life of helping young people become ladies and gentlemen. I have had, literally, generations of being an Advisor.” He sipped his coffee and tossed the newspaper aside. “Employment in the Cyning household is an honor. And I assure you, my retirement is well-provided for. I won’t abandon you. I’ll phase slowly out of my job as your personal assistant phases into hers. And I will always be your friend. You can always call upon me.”
I didn’t feel any different on the morning I woke up as an eighteen-year-old. In fact, it was a fairly normal day. I ran. I rode my horse for a while. I had a swim. I had luncheon with my parents. That wasn’t unusual, but we didn’t take all of our meals together. Sometimes I joined Grandmother and sometimes I simply ate at the kitchen nook where I wasn’t much bother to people. But this was my birthday, so my parents wanted me with them.
My parents, Lydia and Thomas Cyning, were not neglectful, though much of my life had been spent at boarding school or in the care of Erich—or before him, with a nanny. I’m much closer to Grandmother. But I’ve traveled the world with my parents.
“Your clothes no longer fit you.” Father observed, pointing at my trouser legs. He held a bit of pungent cheese to his lips and paused for another sip of wine. I drank coffee. My parents’ coffee was untouched as they settled in with their second bottle of Grand Cru Saint Émelion from Chateau Cantenac.
“Even the trousers you are wearing no longer have cuffs. Erich had them let out to lengthen the inseam.” Mother plucked a grape from the cluster and popped it into her mouth. “We’ve a card for you. Present this at Monsieur LeFevre’s shop in Covington and he will help you pick a new wardrobe. You’re old enough to shop for your own clothes now. I know your casual wear at Elenchus is Levi's, but do not go overboard on buying them. You only need a couple of pairs for weekends. The card will let you charge common items at Browning’s as well.”
“Thank you, Mother. With luck the growth is over. I don’t think I’ll get much taller than my current height of five-eight.” They simply nodded.
“Nonetheless, be conservative in your initial choices and save some of the budget for next season, even if you don’t grow more. You never can tell how your needs might change.” Father was no taller than I. Even Grandmother was nearly five-seven when she was younger. I wondered if it was a family trait. There was a ‘big book of ancestors’ that sat in the library at Buxton House. I resolved to have a look at it.
“I will do as you say, Father. And thank you, Mother. I am becoming a bit self-conscious about my clothing. This will help immensely.” I learned long ago to appreciate any gift my parents gave me. Monsieur LeFevre might have been instructed to give me cruise wear for all I knew.
I dressed for dinner and looked critically at my pants legs. They barely touched the top of my shoes when I stood, and were around my ankles when I sat down. I would keep my feet under the table and absolutely never cross my legs. Erich was in the outer room and I presented myself for inspection.
“I know you are uncomfortable with your trousers,” he said. “You put on height rapidly, even while you were in England. We’ll get you shopping as soon as possible. Perhaps it is something you can get your personal assistant to help with.”
“That would be interesting. I’ll just have to stand straight and ignore it,” I laughed. “I think my feet grew, too. My shoes feel tight.”
“It is nearly time for guests to arrive,” Erich said. “Endure this night and as an independent eighteen-year-old, you can shop for new shoes later this week. What an opportunity.”
I left my room and turned right along the hall. There are a lot of halls and rooms, some divided into suites and others just rooms for guests. Buxton House is a monstrosity that was repeatedly built onto as generations of the family married and stayed. I was the only resident on the third floor now so I was surprised when I saw a tall, slender redheaded woman leaving the room just a few doors down from mine.
“Who are you and what are you doing up here?” I asked.
“This is my room,” she said, turning toward me. “I am the new…” We both froze in place.
“Oh, my God. Look who has come to make my life miserable,” I whispered.
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