But Paul’s reeling in of Homer’s long-desired quarry wrought unexpected changes in their relationship. Paul found that the balance of power between them had shifted almost invisibly, and he began to chafe under Homer’s paternalistic, not to say patronizing, ways, which had begun to feel as outdated as some of his old mentor’s business practices. Paul became more vocal about his own convictions and stood his ground when he felt Homer was in the wrong, which was increasingly often. The publishing landscape was changing, faster and more fiercely now than ever in the digital age. If things were going to stay the same around P & S, they would have to change.
Homer put up a good fight, but, being the pragmatist he was, and with a little pressure from his twin sons, Plato and Aristotle, with whom Paul had developed a rapport over the years, he ended up agreeing to make Paul president and become the firm’s chairman. Homer hated letting go, and there were some difficult days when Paul felt his mettle was being tested to the utmost. Then suddenly the storm was over, and Homer seemed to settle into a quieter routine, while Paul took over the day-to-day running of P & S.
It wasn’t second nature to him. Where Homer had been able to charm the pants — literally — off the switchboard operator and the sub rights assistant, occasionally at the same time, Paul found that his more inward temperament made it hard for him to project the hail-fellow-well-met cheer that, along with his absolute power, had allowed Homer to reign unchallenged. Paul knew his hegemony would need to be shared with his long-standing colleagues, Maureen and Seth and Daisy, whom he had recently made editor in chief, and Tony De Grand, his wisecracking CFO. After all, he didn’t own P & S; the Sterns and their stockholders did. Besides, he adored Homer, adored his bluster and exuberance and lust for life, and could overlook the volcanic temper that went along with them, as long as he wasn’t its object too often.
Homer’s days in the office were different now. Sally still took his dictation, he still told his old stories to anyone who’d listen, but he managed by walking around less, and took longer lunches, often just with Sally, at the Crab. In October, Paul traveled with them to Frankfurt and enjoyed watching Homer come alive where he was still the king who helped set the fair’s brash, mendacious tone. He still pressed the flesh at their booth and at some at least of the endless round of receptions. But Frankfurt was a special kind of mirror. In it, you watched everyone around you age, fair after fair after fair; and they saw you do the same. Homer and Sally had reached the “You look marvelous!” years, which meant that, unbelievably, they were old.
In the spring of 2014, Homer was diagnosed with lung cancer, which turned out to be inoperable. He left the office early one April afternoon, never to return. Paul would call now and then to ask his advice about a negotiation or a personnel issue. Homer would sound off mildly, advising him to let the issue “supturate” until it resolved itself and hang up without saying good-bye as he always had, but Paul could tell his heart wasn’t in it. Sally visited Homer in the hospital and at home, when Iphigene let her, and reported on his condition to Paul and the team at the office, but before long, Homer cut himself off from everyone else, including Paul, as if his work, which had been his life, was already behind him.
And then one morning he was literally gone. Exit Homer. Paul got a call from a reporter at The Daily Blade, asking for a comment. He phoned Sally at home. She hadn’t heard, and she was devastated. “They didn’t call me,” she kept saying, to whoever would listen. Paul empathized with her disorientation and bereavement because they were his, too.
He had lost both his professional fathers now, and in each case he felt obscurely responsible. Was it what he’d secretly wanted? It wasn’t too long after Paul had nudged Homer aside that he’d gotten sick, just as Sterling had keeled over when Paul had given him the news about Ida. And Ida was gone, too. The polestars of his world no longer shone in the sky. Even Pepita Erskine, their signature writer for so long, had been run over by a bus a few short months before Homer’s passing.
Homer was interred in the Egyptian-style Stern family mausoleum in Queens, after a cold and correct funeral at Temple Emanu-El, the Gothic-style cathedral of New York’s old German Jewish elite. At the burial, Paul watched Sally and Iphigene circle like tigers, avoiding each other. The two women had always been icily civil; Paul remembered nearly freezing to death in the crosscurrents when he’d been seated between them at a dinner after St. John Vezey’s historic reading at the 92nd Street Y. Iphigene had been married to Homer for well over sixty years. She had understood the essence of Homer’s business, the care and feeding of literary talent. She had been an unacknowledged, unappreciated partner in the firm, frequently recommending new writers; indeed, it had been she who’d advised Homer to take on Pepita after reading one of her early filletings of white male novelists in The Protagonist, and she’d entertained Homer’s authors and their hangers-on in high old bluestocking style on East Eighty-third Street. But it was Sally, Paul felt, who’d understood Homer; the care and feeding of him had been Job One for her.
Paul had always especially liked Aristotle, the younger of the six-foot-four-inch Stern twins, whom he called “the Philosophers.” His brother, Plato, who was thin-skinned and combative, unfortunately lacked his father’s style or charisma, and after a frustrating few years running up against Homer’s egotism at P & S, had gone on to a successful career as an agent for classical musicians. Ari, by contrast, was wry and, well, philosophical, and his pickerel smile and laid-back personality had protected him from taking the family mythology too seriously. He’d ignored his father’s crocodile invitations to join the company and gone into the real family business, lumber, where he had made a literal fortune, so much so that the family wasn’t going to have to sell P & S to pay the estate taxes after Iphigene’s death. Neither son, in fact, showed signs of wanting to make big changes at the company. Both seemed to be counting on Paul to run it for them, at least for the time being.
Paul was no Homer — nor was he a Stern, though the boys treated him almost like one of the family. All he could do was try it his own way. He had a lot of time for his pal Jas Boatwright, scion of an Alabama toothpick fortune, who’d built a scrappy house of his own, much as Homer had done a generation ago. But Jas was the only one in their age group who’d gone it alone, and word had it he was struggling. How was P & S, even if it was five times the size of Boatwright Books and much longer established, going to hold its own in an ever more consolidated, competitive publishing environment? What were they going to do when Angus called to say that Merle Ferrari or Ted Jonas wanted big bucks for their next book, more indeed than they could plausibly earn, and that he knew he could get it elsewhere?
Paul leaned back with his feet up on Homer’s desk, which was now his own, twirling a Boatwright toothpick in his mouth, and feeling somewhat less of an impostor than usual. He had convinced Ida B and Charlie to co-publish the Complete Ida P with P & S next year — yes, Impetus had most of her work, but they had Mnemosyne! — which was sure to be a bonanza for both houses. Not only that, but Nita Desser and Rick Nielsen would likely be delivering big new books in the next few months. Something always seemed to come along to save their asses; who would have thought it would be poetry? Poets on the best-seller list! That was the magic of Ida — and P & S. But what about next year, and the year after?