Read the book: «Are We There Yet?»

AS ELIJAH “HANGS OUT” FOR THE SUMMER, AS HE SMOKES AND DOPES and lazes and does who knows what else (according to his brother), Danny toils and roils away at Gladner, Gladner, Smith & Jones. The two senior Gladners (of no relation – they sat next to each other at Harvard Business School) have taken Danny under their wingtips. Their secretary saves him a seat in the boardroom and provides him with an ample supply of Mark Cross pens. He walks the halls with a boy-wonder halo, the recipient of enough gratitude to deflect all but the pettiest begrudgements. He is twenty-three years old.

People at work pay attention to Danny Silver because he single-thoughtedly saved the Miss Jane’s Homemade Petite Snack Cakes account (Gladner, Gladner’s largest). Danny specialises in crisis control, and the crisis faced by Miss Jane’s was a doozy: a bored and crusading Washington Post reporter discovered that the neon-pink frosting on Miss Jane’s most popular snack cake (“the Divine”) was made with the same ingredients as the nation’s bestselling lipstick (“Pink Nightshade”). Consumers were not pleased. Miss Jane’s stock plummeted; the company’s profits seemed poised to go the way of a dung-coated Twinkie.

Enter Danny Silver. (Imagine this to be a grand entrance – the boardroom door opens, Miss Jane’s directors all turn in unison to see their fair-haired saviour. In truth, Danny Silver first appeared to the cupcake conspirators via e-mail, and his hair isn’t fair. But the effect was the same.) While others advised refusal and rebuttal, Danny suggested humility and humour. A press conference was announced, during which the company president expressed shock and dismay, and pledged an overhaul of the Divine, wherein the frosting would be made from purely organic sources. He also made clear that the rest of the snack cakes in the Miss Jane’s family were “one hundred per cent cosmetic-free.” As soon as Danny heard the reporters laugh with this, he knew everything would be OK.

But OK wasn’t good enough. The company had to emerge triumphant.

In a mere thirty-nine hours, Danny had come up with his masterstroke. It came to him as he paced his Upper East Side apartment, throwing clothes into the hamper, figuring out which kind of pasta to boil for dinner. (He loves to tell this story; it’s one of his best stories.) As Danny paced, he thought of cakes, cream fillings, cafeterias and childhood. The idea appeared. It wove itself brilliantly within him. He did not hesitate. He called Jones, who called Smith, who paged Gladner, who woke up Gladner at his girlfriend’s apartment in the Village. Three hours later, the bigwigs gathered – a war room – as Danny bounced among them. A conference call was placed to “Miss Jane” (aka Arthur Swindland, 61, renowned throughout the world for his collection of celebrity polo sticks).

A scant two weeks later, America and Europe witnessed Miss Jane’s First Annual Bake Sale. (The rest of the world would continue to eat lipstick frosting.) Miss Jane’s employees and certain grandmothers-for-hire set up tables in supermarkets across the land, all selling snack cakes. The profits would go to the newly formed Miss Jane’s Homemade Petite Snack Cake Centre for World Peace. Katie Couric herself bought a snack cake on live television. Oprah invited Miss Jane to be her guest on a programme stressing “corporate responsibility in the kinder, gentler age.” (When Mrs Silver saw this show, she knew her son had arrived. Making corporate billions was one thing – but to be on Oprah! was true accomplishment. Elijah didn’t bother to watch.) Miss Jane (née Mr Swindland) was so impressed with Danny that he earmarked .01% of the MJHPSCCWP’s profits to the charity of Danny’s choice. (The rest would be distributed to Shriners organizations around the world.)

As his star rises, Danny finds himself working longer and longer hours. By the time he leaves the office, the wastebaskets have been emptied and the floors have been vacuumed. He has begun to forget what his apartment looks like. (His friends might say the same about him.) Gladner and Gladner (both devotees of Ted Newness, the management guru) tell Danny they will give him a raise – as long as he takes a vacation in the month of July.

Three days later, Mrs Silver calls with her offer.

Danny Silver doesn’t doubt for a second that he’s being tricked into taking a trip to Italy.

“It’s all prepaid,” his mother proclaims. “I know this is such short notice. But I just don’t think that your father can go. Italy isn’t a place for sitting. And his leg – well, you know your father’s leg. We had hoped it would be OK by now. But who can know such things?”

Danny’s father is fine. The day before, he played eighteen holes of golf.

“How are you feeling, Pop?” Danny asks once his mother has passed over the phone.

“Oh, I don’t know. The leg’s been acting up.”

“But you were playing golf yesterday.”

“Yes, yes, yes. I must have overextended myself. A damn shame. About Italy, I mean. But Mom tells me you and Elijah are going to go …”

Aha, Danny thinks. The hitch.

There is a whisper and a shuffling noise as Mrs Silver takes back the phone.

“I know, I know,” Danny’s mom says as her husband recedes to the couch. “I hadn’t mentioned that part. But it’s only fair. We have two tickets. Two sons. And it’s prepaid. Nonrefundable. Your father can’t go. So I can’t go.”

“Ask the Himmelfarbs,” Danny offers. “They’re your best friends, after all.”

“The Himmelfarbs? Do you know how much this trip costs?” Mrs Silver takes a deep breath. “No. You and Elijah should take the tickets. It’s a week. Nine days.”

Nine days with Elijah. Nine days with Quiet Boy, Mr Virtue, Boy Misunderstood. Elijah, who never seemed to change. Not since he was ten or so and started to grow quiet. His mind seems to be working on two levels at once – pass the salt and contemplate the pureness of the clouds. He is always dazed, and he is always kind. Faultlessly kind.

Danny can’t stand it.

“Have you asked Elijah how he feels about this?” Danny is hoping that Elijah might still say no. Since Elijah is still in high school and Danny is in the Working World, the two of them rarely have to see each other.

“Yes,” his mother replies. “He thinks it’s a great idea.”

Danny can hear his father chuckle in the background. He can imagine his father giving his mother a thumbs-up sign and his mother smiling. Prepaid. No refunds.

His mother continues. “It’s over the week of July Fourth. You’d only have to take six days off from work. And you haven’t been anywhere this year.”

“OK, OK, OK,” Danny relents. He wonders if it counts as being tricked if he knows what’s really going on.

“You’ll go?”

Danny smiles. “There is nothing in the world I would rather do.”

There is still a chance that Elijah will back out …