An Invisible Thread / by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski
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Thank you for purchasing this Howard Books eBook. Sign up for our newsletter and receive special offers, ac- cess to bonus content, and info on the latest new re- leases and other great eBooks from Howard Books and Simon & Schuster. or visit us online to sign up at eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com Howard Books A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 www.SimonandSchuster.com Copyright © 2011 by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information ad- dress Howard Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. First Howard Books hardcover edition November 2011 HOWARD and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com. Designed by Ruth Lee-Mui Edited by Jessica Wong Manufactured in the United States of America 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 8/260 Schroff, Laura. An invisible thread / by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski. p. cm. 1. Schroff, Laura. 2. Mazyck, Maurice. 3. New York (N.Y.)—Bio- graphy. 4. Children and adults—Case studies. 5. Friendship—Case studies. 6. African American boys—New York (State)—New York—Biography. 7. Poor children—New York (State)—New York—Biography. 8. Women, White—New York (State)—New York—Biography. 9. Sales executives—New York (State)—New York—Biography. 10. Schroff, Laura—Childhood and youth. I. Tresniowski, Alex. II. Title. F128.56.S37 2011 974.7′1—dc22 2011009636 ISBN 978-1-4516-4251-3 ISBN 978-1-4516-4292-6 (ebook) All Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible, public domain. To all the children like Maurice whose lives are harder than we can imagine. Never lose hope that you can break the cycle and change your life. And never stop dreaming, because the power of dreams can lift you. Foreword by Valerie Salembier Introduction 1. Spare Change 2. The First Day 3. One Good Break 4. The Birthday Present 5. The Baseball Glove 6. Is That It? 7. A Mother’s Song 11/260 8. A Father’s Legacy 9. The Brown Paper Bag 10. The Big Table 11. The Missed Appointment 12. Outside Looking In 13. Bittersweet Miracle 14. A Simple Recipe 15. The New Bicycle 16. The Winter Coat 17. The Dark Forest 18. One Last Test 19. The Greatest Gift Epilogue: Love, Maurice Acknowledgments “An invisible thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, and circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle. But it will never break.” —Ancient Chinese Proverb When Laura Schroff walked into my Manhattan office for a job interview in 1978, I was impressed by her confidence and charmed by her personality but, frankly, not overwhelmed. At least not enough to hire her on the spot. I liked her a lot and had a good feeling about her, but I needed to know more—not just about her skills but also about her values. I needed to find out what kind of person she was. Back then I was associate publisher of Ms., a groundbreaking monthly magazine that debuted in 1972. The idea behind Ms. was simple yet profound: we strived to be a catalyst for change in our society. Ms. championed gender equality and gave women the courage and inspiration to reach their full potential, make their own choices, and compete in the male-dominated arena of cor- porate America. Back in the ’70s, we weren’t living in a world where nearly 40 percent of Harvard Business School graduates 14/260 are women, as they are today. Nor was Oprah Winfrey on TV five times a week encouraging women to live bolder, fuller lives. Oprah’s own inspirational magazine, O, wasn’t even the germ of an idea in 1978. In many ways Ms. was out there on its own, paving the way for women like Oprah and seeking to empower a generation of future leaders. And this mandate gave those of us who worked at Ms. an overwhelming sense of responsibility. We felt we weren’t just do- ing a job—we were helping change the world! As associate pub- lisher, one of my jobs was to hire women to sell advertising pages in the magazine, an essential and challenging job at any magazine but much more so at Ms. The flipside to being new and different is having people not quite understand what you stand for, and for a long time the national ad community looked at Ms. like a skunk at a picnic. So our salespeople had to work hard to sell not only ad pages but also the message, values, and point of view of the magazine. I needed women who understood this challenge, who shared my devotion to the magazine’s vision, who could march into hostile surroundings and change the way people thought. I needed someone with deeply felt values and the courage to fight for them. And so, when I met Laura, I asked myself this question—does she really care about what we’re doing here, or does she just want a job? I arranged for Laura to come back for a second interview, and that’s when I asked her to tell me what mattered to her in life. She didn’t hesitate. She talked about her family and her friends, about loyalty and community, about making a difference in people’s lives. It became clear to me that Laura was a woman who cared. And, as her enthusiasm for what we were doing at Ms. clearly showed, she understood the importance of empowering people to dream bigger dreams and lead better lives. Not long after that second interview we offered Laura the job. Not surprisingly, she 15/260 swept through the ad community with passion and conviction and helped generate tremendous ad growth for the magazine. And yet, it wasn’t until years later that I truly learned how re- markable Laura is. It was after I left Ms. magazine and went to work at USA Today, another revolutionary start-up that had to battle for every advertising dollar. As a sales executive there, I had to persuade national brands to take a leap of faith by advertising their products and services in a colorful, broadsheet daily national newspaper, something the country just wasn’t used to. The task was daunting, and I realized I needed to hire smart people I trus- ted. Laura was first on my list. She jumped on board and once again did a phenomenal job, selling millions of dollars worth of advertising in USA Today. But that’s not what made me realize how remarkable she is. Over the years Laura and I became more than business col- leagues; we became friends. We ate meals together, discussed boyfriends, went shopping, and did everything friends do. We de- veloped a genuine interest in each other’s lives. So it was not sur- prising that, the Tuesday after Labor Day in 1986, Laura came in- to my office and told me about something that had happened to her the day before. I had no way of knowing that the story she told me would one day find its way into this book. I could not have known that the incident she relayed to me would, in my mind, come to define Laura and the kind of person she is. At the time it was just a story, one of many we shared. I doubt either of us believed it would be something we’d still be talking about today, twenty-five years later. What Laura told me was that, while she was out walking not far from her midtown Manhattan apartment, a little boy, eleven years old, stopped her in the street and asked for spare change. She said the boy had such sad eyes and told her he was really 16/260 hungry. She said that at first she just walked away, but then, for some reason, she came back. And instead of just giving the boy a quarter, she took him to lunch. My first reaction was surprise. Personally, I had become so im- mune to seeing panhandlers on the streets of Manhattan I was reasonably sure I would have kept on walking past the boy and not come back. I admired Laura for what she did. That night we went to dinner together and talked more about this boy—Maurice. I don’t think I had ever seen her so animated and excited about anything. Though she had just met this child, she was obviously already invested in his well-being. Something about him, it seemed, had touched her heart. Over the days and weeks and months that followed we had many more conversations about Maurice, and the more she told me about him the more I realized why Laura was doing what she was doing. But still, to be honest, I wasn’t always sure that Laura’s involvement with this boy and his horribly dysfunctional family was the right decision for her. I worried that she might come to harm or that what she was doing might be misconstrued. At times I was really angry with her, because I felt she was put- ting herself at great risk.