A House Is Not a Home Read Online Free PDF Page B

silver and placed it in the space he reserved for it: in the very center of the island. He sat on one of the dark mahogany stools, gazing at it, beaming.
    But the longer he looked at it, the less triumphant he felt. He couldn’t pinpoint why, but the moment was more bitter than sweet. He sighed, shrugged, and retrieved the groceries, occasionally glancing at it as he put them away.
    When he was done, the phone rang.
    â€œHello?”
    â€œHello, I’d like to speak with Mitchell Crawford, please.”
    â€œThis is he.”
    â€œMr. Crawford, this is Emmet Paisley at Palmer Publishing Group. How are you?”
    Palmer Publishing Group. That’s the company that purchased Your World magazine, Mitchell’s former employer, several years ago. What do they want with me? “I’m . . . fine. And you?”
    â€œI’m quite good, now that I have you on the phone. It took me some time, but I finally tracked you down. I have your e-mail address, but felt that introducing myself and presenting a proposal to you through that channel would be impersonal.”
    Hmm . . . “A proposal?”
    â€œYes. I’m the vice president of development in the magazine division and would like to offer you a position with our company.”
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œWe wish to create a new lifestyle magazine for young African-American adults, and considering your education and experience, you’re our first—and only—choice to be the editor-in-chief.”
    Did he just hear him right? “I’m sorry?”
    â€œWe’d like you to come on board as the editor-in-chief.”
    Yeah, he heard him right. But this had to be a joke. Why would they want to hire him? Although they didn’t have a hand in the racist treatment he received at Your World , they were aware of the million-dollar settlement he received in 1996 (it enabled him to purchase and furnish the brownstone) and the various mandated affirmative-action programs implemented because of his lawsuit.
    Mr. Paisley must’ve known that that’s where he’d immediately go. “I take it by your silence that you think this is a joke, but it’s not. We know you had an unfortunate experience with one of the titles we currently publish.”
    Unfortunate? Try fucked up .
    â€œBut we hope you won’t hold that history against us. And it is history—those individuals are no longer employed with the magazine.”
    Those individuals—Elias Whitley, the plagiarist and Yale dropout promoted over him, and Steven Goldberg, the editor who kept Elias on staff after his fraud was exposed—had received their walking papers less than a month after Paisley acquired Your World . Steven paid a high price for their charade: after being unemployed for three years, he settled for an assistant copy-editor position at a small daily newspaper in Phoenix. But Elias’s questionable credentials and character didn’t prevent him from landing a plum job as a shock jock at a conservative radio station in Austin, Texas.
    â€œPalmer is very serious about working to ensure that what we create and who we employ reflect the true diversity of the world in which we live.”
    Mitchell couldn’t argue with him there: For the past eight years, they’d been selected by Black Enterprise as one of the top one hundred firms (each year they’d placed in the top thirty) for Blacks to work for and prosper at (too many companies will hire people of color but track them into the lowest-level, lowest-paying positions with no room for advancement or growth).
    But, still, why me?
    Mr. Paisley was ready for that silent query as well. “We’ve been following your career over the last several years—your influential stint as a creative-writing teacher at Knowledge Hall, your brilliant work in the Times, Esquire, Essence , and Newsweek . You possess the kind of journalistic integrity, critical cultural