I stood between my open office door and the wall, where hung a three-quarter-length mirror. I had come in a few days before to find Melvin Marvin, the frumpy facilities guy, supervising some other frumpy facilities guys as they transported my belongings from my cramped space on fifty-nine to a new office only two doors down from Octavia’s on the sixty-second floor. Sixty-two was unofficially the senior shareholders’ floor. Octavia had pulled a string, inviting a mere mortal to frolic among the masters of the mountaintop.
Sixty-two was the main floor of the firm. The firm library, which still contained honest-to-goodness physical books, was here, as was the demonstrative trial exhibits room. A sky lobby looked out over the river and a winding staircase, whose elegance suggested a river flowing backward up a hill. Even the pile of the carpet was more luxurious on sixty-two. I didn’t belong here. But I could.
Leaning toward my office mirror, I tried to tame my tie, but it refused to cooperate. The tie’s divot was crooked, and the whole thing kept bunching up under my neck like a sharp-knuckled fist. My office door swung into me from behind, pushing my face into the mirror.
“Mfft,” I said.
“Showtime, sweetheart,” Octavia said. I wiped the mirror made greasy by my face, but that only made it harder to see. Octavia pushed her sunglasses to her forehead. Her silver streak darkened behind the lenses. She gave me elevator eyes and chuckled. “Oh ho ho. Somebody’s ready for the prom. And maybe a little action behind the bleachers. Are those spats?”
“Fortune favors the well-dressed.”
I adjusted one of my yin-yang cuff links. I felt ready. Every strip of fabric, every accessory, every button and aglet projected an image and reflection. The suit as armor, talisman, lure.
My links were from Penny. Mama had given me the tie for graduation. Crammed into the inside coat pocket was a folded sheet of paper Nigel had made when he was only five. The outer leaves said “World’s” and “Best.” It could unfold to the size of a large placemat. Although I had expected the inside to say “Dad,” the interior featured a giant stick-figure head with charcoal-shaded skin, clawlike hands, and furrowed eyebrows that lent it a pensive look. I patted my heart. The paper crinkled.
“The executive committee is happy, sugar, so you know what that means.”
“You’re happy?” I said.
“You damn skippy I am. My office.” Octavia’s corner office was a crowded one, full of objects from her exploits. A dusty trophy from the year she was the fastest teenager in the state sat on a low table by the window. Exotic hand-woven rugs covered the hardwood, hardwood she installed when she became a capital shareholder. There was a painting of a woman who could have been an ancestor tilling a field in World War II England. Photos of Octavia and two different presidents, one Republican, one New Whig, hung behind her desk, near a small picture of her adopted daughter, whom I’d never met because she was a relief worker in Finland and refused to reenter America on moral grounds. Then a pic of Octavia, in fatigues and brandishing a spear, next to a wild boar she had brought low.
Octavia unclipped the portfolio—prepared by Jo Jo and Polaire—that I’d given to her the day before. She removed a stack of glossy eight-by-tens and flipped through them, showing me each as she went. A shot of me posing with two button-nosed children. Me laughing with an elderly woman with cornrows. Me and Uncle Ty, that thigh bone in his mouth. I thought Jo Jo had destroyed that one. The copy read: “Together for a Better Tomorrow.”
“I’m glad you like it,” I said.
“Like?” Octavia asked. “This is better than I imagined. The firm will fund a full campaign around these. So I don’t have to pay out of my own pocketbook.” Octavia’s candy dish was a Punu mask turned on its face. I felt a pang of envy at the fact that she had been to the African continent a half-dozen times whereas I had never. Would never. But it was a mild pang. Even though some African Americans bought into the Garveyan notion of going back to the Motherland and others thought of it as a war-, famine-, and disease-infested land, I knew the truth: It didn’t matter whether Africa was great or awful, nor did it matter how much dark blood coursed through my veins. Africa wasn’t home. For better or worse, this vicious hamlet—where I dreamed perchance of a bright future for my son—was home.
Octavia tossed a hard caramel from the bowl and chewed. “Pop-up ads. Billboards. Inserts for firm client brochures.” The single silver streak in her hair reminded me of our polluted river. When sunlight hit the diluted particulates just right, it was quite beautiful.
“When?”
“Already in motion. I’ll show you.” She explained that we couldn’t play around. Armbruster’s group was making a play for that international media conglomerate, the Darkblum Group, which recently placed a major office in the City. Octavia went to the window and pointed at the McNamara Building. It was only a third as tall as the Sky Tower, so it was perfect for a rooftop billboard. An advertisement for Blanco’s Chocolate Milk with a screen capture of that actor in elderly woman drag struggling with a cute black-skinned kid over a comically large jug. Tagline: “You bet not steal my good milks!” The ad shimmered like falling stars and shifted, winkingly, to reveal the next ad in stages: the firm logo, a forehead, the edge of Uncle Ty’s bone. I turned away.
“What?” Octavia asked. “You don’t like it.”
“Um. No. Yes. It’s great.”
“Good,” Octavia said. “You’re really on your way, you know that?”
“Really?”
She gestured to the abacus on her credenza. The executive committee kept track of our efficiency with the Racing Form. Although any shareholder could pull the Racing Form up on their computers, it was hidden from the view of peons like me, but I knew what categories it contained: billable hours worked, billable hours written off, billable hours paid by the client, and bonus points for special work that added value to the firm. Octavia’s abacus was a physical manifestation of the Racing Form.
Instead of beads, her abacus had rows of colored semitransparent stones, a different-colored row for each person in her group. I didn’t know who each row stood for, but Dinah was clearly the top rung, where half of the amethyst stones had already been shoved to the complete side weeks ago. As Dinah worked harder than anyone I knew, she racked up stones faster than anyone I knew. My sardonyx stones were second from the bottom. A quarter were on the complete side.
“I’m not even close,” I said.
“We close this PHH deal, you’re all set. Even if I have to kick in some of my goodwill on loan. Let’s go.”
We left her office. We passed various staff people in the halls. We must have looked impressive or, at least, determined, because they nodded or smiled at us with a peculiar intensity, as if they all knew we were going hunting. I tripped on the rug in the lobby, but didn’t fall.
By the time we exited the Sky Tower garage in Octavia’s sports car, which sat so close to the ground I could feel the pebbles in the macadam and hear the pleas of ants, storm clouds hovered above. As we reached the Personal Hill complex, the heavens let loose.
Personal Hill Hospital occupied fifty-five acres of prime City real estate just north of the business district. It was once two hospitals. Adelaide Hill Medical Center dated back to the Civil War, when a wealthy Northern heiress moved to the City and established a hospital for injured Confederates. The Personal Clinic Corporation bought out the old AHMC. The new buildings surrounded the old AHMC building, which was punctuated by turret-like projections. The new buildings were outsize and prone to taking off at odd angles. The old building looked like a Gothic castle surrounded by a Rem Koolhaas–designed castle.
Driving up the private boulevard that bisected the campus, we saw steel barricades that held the protesters back on either side—get back, you dogs—their placards melting in the rain. I searched for Supercargo but didn’t see him.
The general counsel’s secretary set Octavia and me up in a waiting room, where we sat until a group of people, three men and two women, came in.
Octavia had met with some of them in preliminary meetings before. The group was mostly white. All I knew was that the CEO was a man named Eckstein. A square-jawed, graying-at-the-temples man in nautical blazer approached with hand extended.
“Mr. Eckstein,” I said.
Octavia shook her head and gestured at the only black person in the group. An elderly black man in an ascot with big active eyes and conked hair not unlike my own. “He’s Mr. Eckstein.” I apologized, but Eckstein shot me a fearful look. We took our seats around the conference table.
We exchanged social lubricants. Eckstein’s son went to the same school in London as Octavia’s daughter. A red-nosed man quipped about the protesters drowning outside. We passed our materials around the table. One of the underlings gave Eckstein a brass-handled magnifying glass that he used to examine Jo Jo and Polaire’s photos. He didn’t look pleased. Then he scanned some of the text I’d ginned up to give the portfolio the semblance of substance. One section boasted statistics about cases and projects Seasons had done for the City’s poor; another explained Seasons’s efforts to recruit local minorities from a shrinking pool of applicants.
Eckstein pushed the documents over to his assistant, who carefully rearranged them.
Eckstein crossed his hands. “Have you ever done prison time?” He was staring at me.
I pointed at my chest. “Me?”
Octavia squirmed in her seat. I had never seen her uncomfortable before.
“I’m a direct person. I don’t mind telling you the truth. I know you’ve noticed me staring at you. You remind me of a young man who mugged me after a parade on the avenue years ago. Took a family heirloom. A stopwatch that belonged to my mother.”
My mouth swung open at the accusation. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or yell.
“This one?” Octavia said. “He’s safe as they come.”
“That’s right.” I patted my chest. “I’m firm catastrophe warden for the fifty-ninth floor.”
“Three years running,” Octavia said.
Eckstein raised his hand. “That’s not the reason I’m not going with Seasons. It’s your firm profile. I’m sure you know by now how important a strong respect for diversity and community involvement is to us here at PHH. That comes from the board, not me.”
“What did you think of our materials?” Octavia asked.
“The numbers don’t convince me that Seasons has been dedicated to it for long enough. Offer your services again next year, and we can reevaluate.”
Eckstein got up. His upper lip curled. “For what it’s worth, the marketing campaign disgusts me, but it’s also exquisite—it’s just the kind of thing people in this town respond to.” I thought he might spit on us, but instead, he left.
Octavia and I walked down the hall. I moped. Octavia fumed.
I was the first to speak. “What do you think we should—”
Octavia shot a look of disgust. “Those bastards. Armbruster and his frat boys are going to have a field day when they hear about this. You think the firm wants me to succeed? They would just as soon have me sit quietly in the corner during shareholder meetings, batting my eyelashes and laughing at all their jokes. I’m the one who made them bring in you and Dinah and the rest of them. They would love if the firm were lily-white forever. Now this Eckstein thinks I’m some kind of poser, and you’re asking me what to do. How about you bring some ideas for a change?”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“No. It’s not your fault.” Octavia stopped and placed her palms against the wall. She wasn’t breathing. I was about to ask if she was okay when she kicked the metal panel that covered a fire extinguisher. She kicked the panel repeatedly until her shoe flew off. The panel was dented.
I grabbed her arm. “Stop. You’ll hurt yourself.”
She kicked the panel with her other foot and swiped hair out of her eyes. “I’m not going down quietly. It’s always men standing in my way. Well, not this time. I’ve only just started.” She told me to meet her in the garage and entered a restroom.
In the lobby atrium, a woman in a skimpy purple getup and matching fur coat stood on a temporary stage. She was thin, pale, and being questioned by a swarm of reporters.
In the garage, I was almost to Octavia’s Aston Martin when someone called to me. “Excuse me, but Ms. Breedlove would like to speak with you.” A man walked toward me from the stairwell. He wore a plastic purple kilt and a helmet with built-in sunglasses.
“Who?” I asked.
An entourage stepped out of the garage stairwell. There was something Picasso-esque about the group of young people with their architectural hairstyles and violet-color-schemed clothing. They arranged themselves on either side of the door. A musical cue, like digitally altered flutes, played from one of their devices. A musical herald.
Crooked Crown, her platform heels clicking on the cement, entered. Beneath her purple coat, which I now realized was more of a shawl, she wore a form-fitting outfit composed entirely of sizable purple patches, some of which seemed made of taffeta, others wool, and still others lace. Yet the patches exposed portions of skin in her R- and X-rated areas. This was to say nothing at all of the monitoring collar she wore around her neck.
Last year she had attacked a police officer while taping a locally shot live TV special for NBCBS. Most people would have gotten years in prison or been put down in the case of repeat offenders. But her record label lawyers had worked a deal that required she (1) dump a few hundred thousand dollars into the City coffers, and (2) not leave the City until the judge decided she’d suffered enough.
“Who are you?” she asked, her hips swinging like church bells as she approached. There was something otherworldly about her. “I saw your face on a billboard whilst being driven.” That was another thing I joshed Penny about: her phony British accent. But she had the involuntary effect that all celebrities had on me. Each time my cheeks flushed, and my IQ seemed to drop by a third. She must have seen the firm billboard that Octavia had put up.
I said I was a lawyer. I gave her my card.
“How do you live in this place?” she gestured as if to suggest my bed was stashed behind a pickup. “This town is like a vulture burning the flesh from my soul.”
“I get by,” I said.
“Do you know who she is?” the one in the kilt asked.
I told them I did.
“Only Crown, dahling,” another of the entourage, a girl wrapped in a purple cylinder, said. “She dropped the Crooked part when she went solo.”
“I fancy your style,” Crown said. “It’s rare that a body captures my attention. I wager you’re wondering why I’m here. Can I sign anything for you?”
“Sign?”
“My autograph. People seem to like when I do that.”
“Well, I don’t have—”
Crown raised a hand to her shoulder. One of her people placed a marker in her hand. She uncapped the marker, grabbed my shoulder with her free hand, then drew on my jacket what appeared to be a backward C.