Read A Window Opens: A Novel for Free Online

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    “As Cervantes put it, ‘No limits but the sky,’ ” said the unnamed spokesperson.
    Interesting, I thought, as I scanned the big board in Penn Station for my track number. Being a tastemaker sounded like fun. And I was certainly community-minded—after all, I’d been the co-planner of the Flower Street block party for six years running.
    On the train, I reread Genevieve’s e-mail. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but the future was starting to look a little bit brighter. The timing was almost too good to be true.
    •  •  •
    My original post-college plan had been to live in Vermont for the summer, then to move to New York and find a job in book publishing. After graduation, I shared a house with seven other women (not girls; we were clear on this point). We were all waitresses with editorial assistant dreams; we loved Mary Cantwell, Sylvia Plath, Joan Didion. While we counted out our tips at the kitchen table at two o’clock in the morning, we’d plan our lives in New York, inour minds a strange outdated jumble of beatnik Greenwich Village and slices of cheesecake at the Automat.
    Meanwhile, my brother had just started the analyst training program at Lehman Brothers. What little free time he had, he spent Rollerblading around the Loop in Central Park and trying to pick up “Betties” at sunset happy hours in South Street Seaport. At my graduation, he took me aside and said, “Alice, I know you think you want to be a poet, but you need to find a job where you make bank . That’s the only way to have any fun in the Big Apple.” Will’s version of New York was one I wanted to avoid at all costs.
    One night, I came home with a business card belonging to a friendly customer who turned out to be an editor whose colleague was looking for a new assistant. The card was a little damp, having traveled atop my cocktail tray among countless rounds of Otter Creek Copper Ale, but my roommates passed it around the table and admired it: “Alice, you are set . If you get this job, you’ll be hobnobbing with the literati while we’re stuck restocking croutons and rolling cutlery.”
    Nicholas showed up, smelling like popcorn from the theater where he worked as a projectionist, and someone shoved the card at him: “Look, your girlfriend already has an in.”
    “Really? That’s great!” He smiled, squinting at the card. Even then, he was a reader of fine print. “An in . . . in textbook publishing?”
    Okay, so maybe I wouldn’t be working with Anne Tyler or Isabel Allende. The point was to get my foot in the door.
    •  •  •
    The card led to an interview, the interview led to a job offer from a textbook publisher, and the job offer came with health insurance and twice-monthly paychecks for $649—just enough to afford me two suits from Labels for Less, a pleather bag from Strawberry, a year’s supply of generic macaroni, and a windowless, closetless bedroom above Let’s Pet Dog Grooming in Cobble Hill. My life in New York had officially begun.
    From college engineering textbooks, I moved on to Page-A-Daycalendars: cats, dogs, horoscopes, Bible verses, cars, Magnetic Poetry. In this job, I learned the hard way how to be detail-oriented—but for the keen eye of a copy editor, Valentine’s Day would have fallen on February 15th in the 1996 Sagittarius calendar—and I collected a lifetime supply of crossword clues and useless trivia. A cat with extra toes? Polydactyl. Planet ruled by Pisces? Neptune. First automobile with a compass on the dashboard? Templar Touring Roadster.
    From calendars, I moved to magazines, where I was happy. Trust me, there is no better place to work than a women’s magazine when you’re newly engaged: the squeals ! The endless admiration of your emerald-cut diamond! The shower with an exquisite buttercream cake and Veuve Clicquot champagne and a gift certificate for a couples massage at Bliss!
    But still, I remained on the fringes of the professional world I’d