New York - The Novel

something larger than that. When she spoke of Baroso, she didn’t just mean a man of respect, but one who had done something big and important to help his people. And he loved her for this greater, nobler ambition all the more.
    After she died, Juan, who had grown into a slim and decidedly good-looking young man, returned to college. He graduated with honors, andwished that his mother could have been there to see it. And from that day, he had set out on the long and arduous path that destiny, it seemed, had chosen for him.

    Gorham Master found the tiny restaurant Juan had chosen without difficulty. He arrived there first, and sat down at a little table for four, taking a seat with his back to the wall. A good-looking redhead arrived just moments after him, and was put at the next table. She also sat against the wall, as she waited for her date.
    Apart from the fact that Gorham always enjoyed seeing Juan, he was curious to see the new girlfriend his friend was bringing. Five minutes later, they arrived.
    Juan was looking well. He’d grown a pencil-thin mustache since they’d last met. It gave his clever, handsome face a somewhat military look. He greeted Gorham with a big grin, and introduced his girlfriend.
    Janet Lorayn, Gorham noted with admiration, was drop-dead gorgeous. She looked, and moved, like a younger version of Tina Turner. Giving Gorham a warm smile, she sat down opposite him, with Juan on her left. The tables were so small and close together that Juan was almost looking into the face of the redhead at the next table.
    They exchanged a few words of greeting. Gorham complimented Juan on his mustache, and Juan said that Janet thought it made him look like a pirate. “She says she likes pirates,” he added.
    The waitress came and they ordered a bottle of white wine. Gorham glanced outside; the sky was darkening as it began to fill with clouds. After they had poured their wine and the waitress had told them the two choices, Janet turned her attention on Gorham.
    “So you’re a banker?” she said.
    “That’s right. And you?”
    “I work in a literary agency at the moment. It’s interesting.”
    “She just sold the serial rights of a new novel today,” Juan informed him proudly.
    “Congratulations—we’ll drink to that. My father wrote a novel once.”
    “I heard,” said Janet.
“Verrazano Narrows
. That was a big deal.”
    Juan had observed the redhead at the next table. She couldn’t fail to hear their conversation, but was politely ignoring them, and glancingtoward the door from time to time. At the mention of the famous book, however, she did steal a quick glance toward Gorham, out of curiosity.
    “Janet’s wondering whether to try to get into the television business, however,” said Juan. “She has a friend who works in production in NBC.”
    It was one of the things Gorham loved about the city that, just as in his father’s young days when the great men of letters sat at the Algonquin Round Table, the big publishing houses were still here, and the mighty
New York Times
, and leading magazines, from
Time
to the
New Yorker
. The great television networks had joined them too—all gathered within walking distance of each other in Manhattan’s Midtown. But it seemed Janet didn’t want to talk about her future in television just now.
    “What I want to know,” she said, “is how you two met.”
    “At Columbia Business School,” Gorham told her. “That was the great thing about the MBA course. You had all kinds of people, from conventional banking types like me to really unusual guys like Juan. Plenty of the people I knew in the MBA program went into not-for-profit organizations, careers in charity, hospital administration, you name it.”
    Gorham had been very impressed with Juan and so had the admissions office at Columbia. By that time, Juan had already worked for Father Gigante, the priest and community leader who was helping the poor up in the South Bronx, and he’d spent another year in the South Bronx with the Multi-Service Center in Hunts Point. Before trying to use his experience in El Barrio, he’d been told he ought to try for an MBA program, to which he’d not only been accepted, but got grants to pay for everything.
    “I’m sure Columbia reckoned that, with his background, Juan could become a leader in New York,” Gorham said. Then he grinned. “Of course, I have even higher ambitions for him.”
    “Tell me,” said Janet.
    “First he’ll revitalize El