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Role Model (Topic 5)
Jan. 24th, 2006 05:41 pmSydney asked me about this, once, years ago, when she was dining with Emily and myself at my house. It was not that long after she had started to work for Credit Dauphine. She did not know us very well, but Emily had a gift for putting people at ease, and soon she and Sydney were talking about all kind of subjects, safe, of course, those of the… banking business.
“My mother,” Sydney said with the conviction that is hers. “She’s my role model.” And she elaborated on how she wanted to follow her mother’s footsteps and teach literature at the university. Emily, who had known Sydney’s mother but, following Jack’s wishes, did not mention this to Sydney, nodded understandingly and discussed favourite writers. I, who at this stage knew a bit more about Sydney’s mother than Sydney did, including the woman’s actual profession, found the declaration somewhat ironic and yet remarkably apropos. Perhaps something of this showed in my face, because Sydney, in the middle of debating Dickens with Emily, looked at me and asked whether I had had a role model at her age.
A few years later, and the question would have been hostile; she would have followed this up with some, shall we say, interesting suggestions. If she had asked at all. But at this point, she saw me as nothing but her new employer who had taken a paternal interest in her, and genuinenly wanted to know. Mentioning my father would have been both tactless, given Sydney’s relationship with Jack at that time, and untrue. My fond memories of either parent do not include the wish to be like them; as a boy, I found my father’s profession rather dull. Bringing up Rambaldi would have meant to, as the saying goes, jump the gun – it wasn’t a subject I planned to raise with Sydney until she was ready – and at any rate equally untrue. Role models are approachable; objects of faith loose their fascination if they become so.
“Well,” I replied, regarding her with a smile, “I must confess that as a boy reading Treasure Island, I always saw myself as Long John Silver.”
“You didn’t,” Emily said, laughing, though of course she believed me.
“We all have our heroes, my dear. He was a good planner who also managed to improvise his way out of every situation, and” – I took her hand and kissed it – “a loyal husband who returned to his wife at the end.”
Sydney looked first surprised, then smiled as well. Perhaps she thought of our shared line of work, and its need for both meticulous planning and spur of the moment improvisation.
“Right. He escapes at the end with some of the money. That’s unusual for a 19th century villain in a children’s book, but why didn’t you want to be the good guy, Mr. Sloane?”
“The attraction of the forbidden to a youthful mind,” I said. “You, my dear, of course would make a marvellous Jim Hawkins.”
Muse: Arvin Sloane
Fandom: Alias
“My mother,” Sydney said with the conviction that is hers. “She’s my role model.” And she elaborated on how she wanted to follow her mother’s footsteps and teach literature at the university. Emily, who had known Sydney’s mother but, following Jack’s wishes, did not mention this to Sydney, nodded understandingly and discussed favourite writers. I, who at this stage knew a bit more about Sydney’s mother than Sydney did, including the woman’s actual profession, found the declaration somewhat ironic and yet remarkably apropos. Perhaps something of this showed in my face, because Sydney, in the middle of debating Dickens with Emily, looked at me and asked whether I had had a role model at her age.
A few years later, and the question would have been hostile; she would have followed this up with some, shall we say, interesting suggestions. If she had asked at all. But at this point, she saw me as nothing but her new employer who had taken a paternal interest in her, and genuinenly wanted to know. Mentioning my father would have been both tactless, given Sydney’s relationship with Jack at that time, and untrue. My fond memories of either parent do not include the wish to be like them; as a boy, I found my father’s profession rather dull. Bringing up Rambaldi would have meant to, as the saying goes, jump the gun – it wasn’t a subject I planned to raise with Sydney until she was ready – and at any rate equally untrue. Role models are approachable; objects of faith loose their fascination if they become so.
“Well,” I replied, regarding her with a smile, “I must confess that as a boy reading Treasure Island, I always saw myself as Long John Silver.”
“You didn’t,” Emily said, laughing, though of course she believed me.
“We all have our heroes, my dear. He was a good planner who also managed to improvise his way out of every situation, and” – I took her hand and kissed it – “a loyal husband who returned to his wife at the end.”
Sydney looked first surprised, then smiled as well. Perhaps she thought of our shared line of work, and its need for both meticulous planning and spur of the moment improvisation.
“Right. He escapes at the end with some of the money. That’s unusual for a 19th century villain in a children’s book, but why didn’t you want to be the good guy, Mr. Sloane?”
“The attraction of the forbidden to a youthful mind,” I said. “You, my dear, of course would make a marvellous Jim Hawkins.”
Muse: Arvin Sloane
Fandom: Alias
