Part Three Recap: Something More, Chptrs 11-14

Chapter 11: The Collector and the Queen

...in search of Helen...


Helen Roy grew up in a small town about two hundred miles north of Madison. Her father was a doctor and her mother a stay-at-home mom. She was the eldest child. She had a sister, three years her junior, and two brothers.

It had been a foregone conclusion that she’d leave town like other young people did. Jobs were in big cities like Chicago and Minneapolis. In another era, a woman would wait for husband or boyfriend to return or send for her. Helen, born to a new age, would be the one to leave.

The obvious roles ---daughter, sister, girlfriend, wife and mother--- felt too conventional, too safe. She ached for adventure.

The University of Wisconsin was the first step on the journey. There, thousands of individuals pursued dreams while they sought to define who they were. Helen was involved in the Theater Arts program and that added another dimension to the roles she could play.

In the old French play “Infidel” she was a Gallic Queen who must pass judgment on a captured Moor. Invested in her duty, she nonetheless finds the stranger exotic and seeks to learn about him and his beliefs. Throughout the play she struggles between duty and thirst for knowledge. Contributing to the conflict is the man himself, whose noble bearing overshadows the shackles on his wrists.

Helen dug deep into experience to source the duty-knowledge conflict. She found the contrast between her sister and herself.

Miranda stood a few inches shorter than Helen and had cornflower blue eyes, blonde hair and a peach complexion. When eleven years old, she established a reputation for selflessness and sacrifice. Their grandmother had complained about living alone. She volunteered, without being asked, to move into her large farmhouse. She did and stayed until she passed away, joyfully caring for her.

Helen noted that she’d gotten a large private bedroom in the bargain. But what struck her was how she seemed to belong to the farmhouse. That was characteristic of Miranda who always looked as if an artist had painted her into a scene. She inhabited space, assumed roles and carried forth with attendant duties. Helen thought about Miranda when considering the Queen’s duty in respect to realm and faith. She had no choice: the infidel must die.

By contrast, Helen was everywhere and nowhere, traveling at the speed of light on wings of knowledge. A photographer with high-speed film had only a chance of capturing her in frame. She’d alight onto the world and remain untarnished as her wisdom grew. And so would she leave Madison as she had her hometown. In the guise of the Moor, the world came to the Queen’s gate: idea incarnate that must be explored.

While prepping for the play, Helen paid a visit home and went looking for her sister. She found her at the billiard hall and wasn’t happy. She was with Derrick Bilbray. He had a reputation. She knew it personally.

When Helen and Derrick were seniors in high school, they went out a few times. She dubbed him The Collector. He had a penchant for displaying the girls he dated like trophies. She didn’t want Miranda sacrificing for the likes of him.

The billiard hall was busy that Saturday night. Players crowded the blue felt tables in the large room. Chairs, stools and booths lined the walls. Through the doors were a snack bar and pub.

When Helen entered Miranda was perched on a stool, seemingly alone despite the people around her. On the table nearby a rack of balls was ready for someone to break.

She looked as if sitting for a portrait. The skirts of her summer dress spread like a white fan over crossed legs. Her face was flushed pink from the heat and her hair pulled into a bun. Something struck Helen as being strangely familiar.

She spotted Derrick standing by a booth, talking loudly and waving his cue stick. His friends laughed raucously. He glanced over and saw Helen. A look of mild surprise lighted his eyes, followed by a devilish gleam as he continued to stare.

He was tall and lean in a white t-shirt and jeans. Naturally athletic, he excelled at everything physical, especially baseball. A ring of fuzzy blond hair surrounded a broad forehead. Beneath thick brows, his fleshy nose pointed to a tuft of hair on his chin. He crouched to whisper to his friends, looking back now and again.

“You’re not here with Derrick, are you?”

“Why not?”

“He brags about dating the prettiest girls and circling the bases as often as he can. You’re interested in a guy like that?”

Miranda goaded her sister.

“Don’t you think I’m pretty?”

“He’s a pig.”

“Pearls before swine, is that it?”

“I don’t want you being used.”

She smiled and spoke playfully.

“If memory serves---“

“That’s right, but learn from my mistakes.”

Helen, like the Queen, had a duty to protect. She felt her anger rise. Years ago she was in the very spot. But she wouldn’t sit still and headed for the door. He saw right away, caught her by the waist and set her back on the stool. He raised his finger as to a dog. She slapped him. Hard. That was her last experience of Derrick Bilbray.

He approached with drink in hand and, passing it to Miranda, pecked her cheek. His voice had an undercurrent of sarcasm.

“It’s been awhile. Heard you’re at Madison. Like it?”

Helen nodded.

He stroked his cue in preparation for the break and approached the table.

“Don’t go messing with my girl’s head.”

Alarms went off in Helen’s mind, triggering a question. Miranda laughed merrily.

“You’re really too much!”

Helen was ashamed. Believing herself strong, she assumed weakness in others. If Miranda wanted to explore, she should. She was still that willful eleven-year-old. But the Derricks of the world shouldn’t go harm-free.

She pulled over another stool and tied her brown hair, which had been hanging loose, into a bun. Facing Miranda, she fanned the skirts over her legs and imitated her pose. They were mirror-opposites, like patterns in the wings of a butterfly.

When Derrick saw them he stumbled. He thought he was seeing double or a vision of past side-by-side with present. He recovered and that gleam grew in his eyes. He waved his cue to make sure his friends saw, too.

Miranda smiled and Helen smiled. One sister leaned in to speak and the other sister leaned in to listen. She laughed and she laughed. The pantomime distracted Derrick so much that he lost a disastrous game. They giggled. He went over to them.

“What’s so funny?”

They regarded him coolly, their blank faces offering no clue. A drop of sweat laid a trail down his cheek.

“Helen needs a drink.”

She exposed the palms of her hands to underscore the point. He nodded and went to get it.

He returned to a crowd. Friends, friends of friends, neighbors, men and women both, came round to exchange a few words with the sisters. He had to fight his way though to deliver the drink. When he did Helen looked surprised. She took it anyway. He said something smart but everyone was talking. Then he saw Helen gesture to Miranda. She traced her forefinger across her neck. They laughed. He did a double take. He wanted to know what she meant but they paid him no mind. Surrendering to their disregard, he went back to the game. The rest of the night he was nagged with doubt.

Miranda and Derrick went out a few more times before breaking up. Helen was glad and thought she had something to do with it. When she made the cutthroat gesture she’d been thinking about the Queen ---and Derrick. She had a duty and did it.

Chapter 12: An Honest Light

...more about Helen...

The air was cool, the leaves were turning and the playful days of summer were a memory. In her sophomore year, Helen had lower level requirements to satisfy before declaring a major. She picked a philosophy course, thinking it’d help her understanding of the To-Be-Or-Not-To-Be kind of plays.

Class was in an amphitheatre-shaped lecture room. Seated amid the clamor of students on the first day, her attention was drawn to a man in the first row. His skin was so white it had a silver pallor. He wore a long-sleeved plaid shirt buttoned to the neck. Bending a head of tight curly black hair over a sheaf of papers, he seemed suspended in the pose. He didn’t talk or look around. Unable to see his eyes, she thought they’d be dark.

Then the professor came in, gray, tweedy and comical. His wrinkled face had an orange tint and was gathered and secured at the neck by a bowtie. Upward thrusting eyebrows seemed to ask a perpetual question. Under breath, someone said, “Take a picture.”

With a nod to the class, he strode briskly to a table and set down a scarred brown leather satchel that might have been passed through the ages. After undoing the straps, he extracted a single sheet of paper, which he looked at, rolled up and waved like a baton. He attempted a smile as he waited for attention. Then, in a high, fluty voice he introduced himself as Dr. I.M. Wright. He spoke of expectations, the language of philosophy and insight into the intellectual history of the world.

When he fell silent, the pale man rose to hand around the syllabus and reading list. The professor introduced him as Frank Graves, graduate student and teaching assistant.

Moving among the class, he hardly looked up except to count the handouts for each row before dropping them on the aisle desks. But when he came by Helen, he stopped short with a look of recognition. His dark brown eyes approached black. Two deep wrinkles, like inverted parentheses, cut into his brow.

His thumbs flicked at the staple-bound sheets, which he handed to her. Helen was sure she didn’t know him. But being on the college stage, she’d gotten used to the looks. She beamed a practiced smile.

Over the course of the semester, she noticed that the professor came alive when in the amphitheatre. Posing questions, he proceeded to answer them, as if no one were present. In those monologues he stared off into the distance, like Don Quixote looking for monsters to slay. Though he was comedic, his words had depth of meaning.

The TA, who spent more time teaching the class than did the professor, plodded heavily on the ground, carting ideas like dead bodies to the graveyard. He knew a great many, but none lived in his presence. He lacked the skills people employ without knowing: nods, gestures, the small affirmations and negations that work like traffic signals in social interaction.

His voice had an East Coast flavor and he consciously slowed his speech. Helen recognized the effort to hide an accent. The resulting robotic monotone, though, couldn’t have been an improvement. She wondered if one day he’d wear bow ties and orange make up.

He insisted on being called “Mr. Graves”. Being as old as an older brother might be, the request triggered muffled laughter, which he affected not to hear. Smart-aleck boys shouted his name. A girl pretended to swoon. Most of the class chose not to refer to him at all.

Helen scheduled a meeting with the TA when she needed help with an assignment. His office was a cubbyhole in the basement of the Philosophy Building. There he sat surrounded by books in shelves and in stacks rising from the floor. The overhead lights cast a greenish hue on his face and hands.

Wordlessly, he leaned back in his chair. She took it as an invitation to sit. His manner was unnerving but echoed his behavior in class. So, without prelude, she began talking about the paper she was writing.

She’d chosen to write about Diogenes, the ancient Greek Skeptic. He carried a lantern through the streets of Athens, it was said, searching for an honest man. Such theatrics ignited her imagination, but she was having trouble developing a central idea for the paper.

“Why do you think he did it?”

She struggled to respond. Easy answers seemed too simple. She fumbled for concepts she’d heard in class.

“When you can answer, you’ll have your theme.”

As she thought on his words, she brought up a lighter topic, the first day of class.

“I thought you recognized me.”

“From your play. I didn’t want to say anything.”

“Why not?”

“You’re a liar.”

The words sprang at her. She gasped, eyes startled wide.

“Mr. Graves, what do you mean?”

“You play a queen. You’re not a queen. Therefore, you lie.”

His voice was calmly logical. Regrouping, she explained.

“An actor embodies the playwright’s idea. On stage, Helen Roy ceases to exist. I can’t be lying.”

Arms crossed and smug, he dismissed her argument.

“Truth is truth. Masking is dishonest, inherently.”

“Theater?”

“Lies.”

“Shakespeare?”

“Excites the passions.”

“Love, hate, desire, Mr. Graves. Those are real.”

He shook his head. “Distractions.”

His eyes were black, like coals after the embers died. Having staked out a position, maybe even a life, he wouldn’t concede. She left the meeting with more doubts than before.

Believing she’d master the subject like everything else, she applied herself to her study. But as the semester progressed, she hadn’t gained ground, not according to Mr. Graves. Still, she didn’t grasp main concepts. He wouldn’t provide answers, just more questions. Trying the professor led to conversation about shadows in caves and life as illusion. She realized he wasn’t the one to impress.

Words swirled in her head: Good. Evil. Moral. Immoral. Thesis. Antithesis. Synthesis. Being. Becoming. Chasing meanings, she held them close but they slipped away. She spent more time with books than ever, but the results were insubstantial.

As cold weather settled in, she got paler, lost weight and neglected friends. Her doubts, internalized, cleaved her in two: the honest one and one who lied. Trying to scrutinize one, she saw the other lurking behind. The more she struggled, the larger her doubts grew and the more she believed herself The Liar. Her understanding was weak. She was The Liar. Graves’ criticism had taken root.

Her housemate tried to intercede.

“Why are you letting him do this? Look!”

Marilyn, a self-described tough broad from Brooklyn, was big and fleshy, with short copper hair and bulging thyroid eyes. Standing over Helen, she pointed into the bedroom mirror.

Helen looked. Wan face, hair threatening to turn gray, chapped lips. Marilyn wasn’t one to notice and not say anything. Her stentorian voice was a trumpet sounding the alarm.

“He’s a fossil collector with a bit of power. Makes his reputation being difficult. Mister Graves. Ha!”

Helen thought she might be right, but her incapacity preyed on her more than he did. She had to keep trying. She scheduled another meeting.

Boots crunching the snow underfoot, she made her way to the Philosophy Building wrapped in wool scarf and cap. Labored breath hung in the air then vanished. Much like her efforts, she thought.

He was seated at the desk as before, his pallor now in season.

“It’s not sinking in.”

He regarded her silently, then smiled.

“True understanding requires insight. I can see you’ve struggled. I’m honored. Keep it up.”

She left doubtful but encouraged. Though she couldn’t see anything positive, he seemed to.

Afterwards, Graves acknowledged her in class.

“I’d like to think you’ve all studied the material. I know Helen has.”

She lowered her head. Other students looked at her, wondering what was behind the comment. But she heard only the unspoken tagline, “And still doesn’t understand”. The proof was he never asked her questions ---and she was grateful.

One day they had to write an in-class essay. The task was written on the board: “Define ‘Truth’ using the construct of a philosopher of your choice”. Pencils in hand and heads bowed, the students scribbled in their blue books. Near the end of the session, Graves tapped his fingers on Helen’s desk.

“Collect the tests for me.”

To the class, he said, “Time. Put your pencils down. Pass your blue books to the center aisle.”

Starting from the bottom row, Helen worked her way up the aisle, scrambling to collect the essays while dodging departing students. She stacked them on the front table and gathered her things to go. Graves watched from on high in the back of the room.

She got a “C” for the midterm and the final grade depended on the paper she’d been writing. The class had the option of dropping them at the TA’s residence. Helen was anxious to use every available minute. She had one last day.

At home, Marilyn consoled her.

“Who cares what he thinks?”

“I don’t like failing.”

“But you’re passing.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.”

“Philosophy isn’t your thing. That’s about life. You are life. Don’t let it screw you up.”

She thought Marilyn was right. Still, she was depressed and didn’t want to be over the holidays. She scanned the paper again, then took a nap. She wanted to escape. When she woke, she had an idea.

She talked to Marilyn and called some friends, then rushed over to the theater. By the time Helen, Marilyn and three friends met at the house, it was dark and a winter peace had descended on the city. Then they set out.

Like something out of the Middle Ages, their brown hooded capes skirted the snow-crusted ground as they marched in a tight cluster, hands and faces hidden inside the folds.

Helen took the lead and carried the lantern. Hanging from a handle and a golden twist of rope, it glowed like a beacon. They made their way silently over the five blocks. A nosy crowd trailed them.

“Hey, where you going?”

“Where’s the party?”

“What’s under the robe?”

But they maintained their concentration.

On reaching the TA’s house, they assembled on the porch. Marilyn stepped forward and rapped three times on the door. When Graves appeared, he was attracted by the lamp but looked away from its intense light. Then he focused on the hooded figures and the crowd.

Someone shouted.

“Mr. Graves!”

The crowd took up the chant.

“Mr. Graves! Mr. Graves! Mr. Graves!”

He turned a sick shade of green.

Marilyn reached into her cape for the scroll, raised it so the crowd could see, then read in a voice worthy of calling forth Judgment Day: “The Final Paper.”

The crowd roared.

Helen slipped a manila envelope from her robe and passed it to Graves who quickly went inside and shut the door.

The troupe filed down the steps and held formation for a block. They walked faster until they were running. Unable to contain herself, Marilyn crowed. “Fear. I saw fear!”

They whooped, they shouted, Helen loudest of all, rushing into winter break.

Chapter 13: The Future

...Helen graduates...

Graduation approached and Helen would pack her Theater Arts degree and go forth. Where or doing what, she wasn’t sure. Anticipation was a low-boil worry accelerating into roiling anxiety. June neared and the future stubbornly refused to take shape. One day a student, the next a graduate nudged into the world.

Some had stayed in Madison ---as graduate students or working somewhere in the university. But that would delay the inevitable, she believed. The future lay elsewhere and she was eager to meet it. If only some portion could be revealed, the rest might come into focus.

One day, she was walking past the Student Union and a young man was coming from the other way. Then, they stood face to face. She blushed, feeling naked under his gaze. Without speaking a word he knew her completely, and she knew it.

If the future looked like Kelly Turner, she wouldn’t mind: straw blond hair longish but neat, eyebrows like comet trails and crystal blue eyes, a heavy jaw lending gravity but leavened by frequent toothy grins.

At first, she didn’t believe he was a student. His jeans were pressed, his shirt too neat and white. He had a cell phone holster on his belt. Turned out he was a business major.

She had dated, of course. Now and then someone made her take special notice, but nothing to re-shape her vision.

That day they strolled behind the Union to the Terrace Café fronting Lake Mendota, which months before had been frozen over. Now graceful sloops lay at anchor and a gentle breeze ruffled the water. Beneath the warm sun and brilliant yellow and orange umbrellas, they talked.

They experienced the surprise people do who share things in common yet had never met. He, too, came from small-town Wisconsin and family with farming roots. Madison, too, was his step into the larger world.

They compared differences. Helen strived for control over her thoughts and emotions. Acting reflected that practice and was also a result. Success was subject to interpretation.

Kelly manipulated the world and took stock in dollars and cents. As a kid, he did small jobs, banked his money and liked to watch it grow. Later, he invested. He admitted thinking college was a dubious investment, but his family urged him on. He dreamed of an Internet start-up selling something essential to everyone and making lots of money.

He wasn’t unlike some people back home, she thought, whose perspective was rooted in the practicality of things, the cost of seed or the lack of rain. Their concerns had seemed mundane. But now, contemplating her next move and what was possible, nothing was too small or too large. His discourse held her rapt.

The conversation continued over the weeks they dated and shared lunch at the café. They brought sandwiches and Kelly always had an apple he liked to toss in the air. He listened for the slap it made when landing into his palm, and each time he’d try for a louder effect. Then he inspected and polished it. He cut out any bruises with a pocketknife. Then, he bit into the red skin and juicy flesh, relishing the crunchy sound.

One day, an apple sailed into the air and Helen said.

“I’d never ask you to live in Birnamwood.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to go to Marinette.”

“A visit’s okay.”

“Of course.”

The apple slapped into his palm. They were agreed; a hometown was a fine place but lacked the bustle of new people and enterprise. Helen envisioned acting for a repertory company and adding roles to her resume until some day somehow she’d be famous. Meanwhile she needed a life-sustaining job. For Kelly, more people equaled more deals and profit. He sought a venue larger than Madison to start a career, maybe in banking or at a stock or commodities exchange. The Internet start-up he could do anyplace in his spare time.

“Minneapolis or Chicago,” she said. “No points between.”

“Chicago. I could support us both.”

She was uneasy. During their time together, they’d been two people side-by-side confronting the future. The idea of support created new distinctions suggesting old relationships.

“I’d work part-time, at least.”

“Whatever.”

She wondered at his flexibility. Trading possibilities was easy, like playing poker with fake money. The future threatened to make it real, graduation being two weeks away and she had no choice but to choose.

Kelly had no doubts. He already had offers from banks in Chicago and was talking to some brokers. His mind, behind flashing eyes and gleaming smiles, was full of scenarios that bred various contingencies. His optimism fed hers; anything could be dealt with. Still, he surprised her when he brought up something new.

“California ---what kind of name is that?”

“What makes you ask?”

“You can load a car up and go, the farthest.”

“I suppose.”

“It’s warm.”

“Yes.”

“Hollywood’s there.”

“So?”

“Movies, TV. You want to try, don’t you?”

She shrugged. Family, friends, and things familiar were close. He inspected the apple, poking at a suspect bruise.

“Better to start young. You’re beautiful. Your face could be everywhere.”

She blushed. She’d thought as much and knew the stories about being discovered, the success and the failure, the brilliant limelight and the dark off-stage shadows ---the national dream.

“Every time your face appears, you get a check. They have to pay you. It’s money in the bank!”

She laughed, hearing the voice of the boy who did small jobs and saved his money.

“I’ll be your agent. Everything’s better ---opportunity, sun, fun.”

He whispered her thoughts.

“No points between. You’re moving anyway. Fame to gain. Go all the way.”

He put the polish on the apple and bit, the juicy crunch in time with her assent.

The bargain sealed, the future assumed a direction even as details became less clear. Everything had to be rethought. Where to live would have to wait until they arrived. Quickly, she realized gaps in perception. Was every place there like Rodeo Drive? What was to have been a gentle easing into tomorrow had been transformed into a leap.

The immediate problem was what to say to family about moving two thousand miles away. She’d tell them it was something she had to do.

When she did, her words rendered them speechless. But, her mother fought through with hugs and best wishes. Tears followed and the others joined in, except her younger sister Miranda who stood off to the side, looking betrayed. Helen consoled her by promising she could visit.

Raw emotions forced her to reflect on relationships that reveal themselves under stress. And she thought of her faith in Kelly and things in general ---that highways lead to the coast ---that people everywhere are friendly ---that the future stretches as far as imagination.

Chapter 14: Unfaithful

...Helen and Peres meet again...

The second time a man re-shaped her vision was at the wedding. Helen’s attraction to Peres Aguilar was immediate, to his bright smile, olive skin and tall athletic build. An infectious vibrancy shook her when he introduced himself. She would have stayed, but Stephen Joyce led her away.

The day had been exhilarating ---the lavish mansion, the green rolling lawn and blue expanse of sea. Everything seemed possible and she, moving through the celebrants, was the center of attention: everyone deferred to the CEO and she shared the glory.

The gloss on the lips, the glimmer in the eye, appeal in the deal, was her role at the Thursday gatherings and so at the wedding. She followed his direction. Peres would have to wait.

She’d lost contact with other employees at Dedalus Insurance since working at the condo. Parking in the garage, she took the elevator straight up and had no reason to go to the offices. But, after the wedding, she made a point of showing herself.

First, she paid a visit to Ulysses Mann. Startled to see her, he stared as at someone raised from the dead. She stated outright that everything was fine. But he wouldn’t be convinced and confided he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Lola McIntyre popped her head inside the door, made eye contact and popped out again, ending their conversation. There wasn’t more to say; she couldn’t tell him what was on her mind. Saying goodbye, he took her hands in his and wished her luck, as if going on a long journey.

She found Lola at her station and suggested going for coffee. In a reprise of her first day, the two women walked through the company hallways, but now staff recognized Helen for being close to the CEO.

They chatted like friends at the 11th floor coffee stand. Lola peppered her with questions while affecting to be unimpressed with the answers. Then, her voice arched like a raised eyebrow.

“r-EAL-ly.”

The Thursday evening gatherings was her main work, Helen had said. She rushed to add that she also maintained a list of investors and kept track of money deposits at the bank.

“r-EAL-ly.”

Helen realized things might look different to someone chained to a desk. So, she refrained from saying more and went straight to the point.

This time Lola was silent. Then, she grinned and teased her before, finally, answering the question. Peres Aguilar usually worked in the field, but came in on Fridays. Then she added something unasked for, “He’s married”.

*

Looking back, the relationship was like the bubbles children blow from wands: the rainbow-tinted orbs ride on air and then, on landing, pop. Without drama, she and Kelly were no longer a couple: an uneventful evaporation, there one moment and gone the next.

Everything was different in L.A. The brown, arid landscape had far fewer trees than green Wisconsin but had spectacular vistas. They found an apartment. Kelly took a bank job and she the one at Dedalus. They clung together, two exiles from the Midwest making their way. Then their interests diverged.

She wanted to ground herself in routine, calm her emotions and stay the mind from pursuing false leads. He sampled everything and resisted slowing down. Lines of people fascinated him ---outside nightclubs, restaurants and even sandwich shops. He imagined gold at the end of every one, and the deal of a lifetime. He wanted in. She appreciated novelty, but tired of repetition.

About that time Stephen Joyce offered the job as his aide. Flattered, she took it on prospective while continuing on in Billing, until that became unworkable.
The flexible schedule was the immediate benefit, allowing her to chase auditions, go to the gym and build a life. Essentially on call 24/7, only Thursday nights were mandatory.

The parties were the climax of the week. Until then, she supervised cleaning, made sure of liquor and food and kept the list of investors and deposits. Usually, she had just to drop in to see things had been done since the concierge, too, had access to the condo.

When the men appeared ---the investors were always men--- they were happy and sometimes tipsy. Joyce focused on the money and discounted behavior, unless someone cornered her in private conversation. Then he lowered a heavy palm on a shoulder ---as he did to Peres at the wedding--- to warn against intimate exchanges.

After the chauffeur took them away, she and Joyce would be alone. She called the restaurant to send over a pre-ordered meal. Then, looking out at the city lights, they ate and talked.

It was quiet time, in which to share observations of the investors, or talk about the company and things on his mind. Or, she might share her private life. Sometimes he seemed interested, other times he brooded. Then they left. Though Joyce had given her to understand she could sleep there, she never did. The condo bore her mark, but it wasn’t home.

*

Getting ready Friday, she was conflicted. An intense emotion urged her to explore the attraction, but she didn’t want to be a home-wrecker. It pained her, fouling someone else’s life. She wouldn’t injure something whole. She’d stop, change directions and walk away.

Stepping off the elevator, she headed for the Sales Department. Before taking more than a few steps, she saw him at the end of the corridor, dressed casually in brown tailored slacks and blue polo shirt. His arms were muscled and sleek and his bright smile beckoned.

Her temples throbbed. Amid a haze, he was distinct. An impression of Lola flickered in the background. Then, his hands were on hers and his easy words seduced. Not here, she thought, then heard her voice.

“I know where.”

She led him to the condo. Seized by passion, they struggled for release. Later, as Peres dozed and she tried making sense of it, she felt vulnerable. There’d been no time for the careful consideration she promised. Was it her, what men saw, or both?

Suddenly aware, she shook Peres awake.

“We can’t stay.”

“I can’t leave.”

He proposed a hotel in Santa Monica. There, they spent the night, apart only when he went to make a call. That reminded her, she was stealing a dream; he was unfaithful. Next morning she walked away.


The next chapter will be posted October 30.

The persons and events in this story are fictitious and do not represent any living person or real event.

Part Two Recap: Something More, Chptrs 5-10

CHAPTER 5: NOW AND THEN

...Peres and Mary Aguilar and baby at the mall...


Sunday, Mary Aguilar pushed a stroller through the mall, dividing attention between dozing Phoebe, Peres walking ahead and window displays. Looking for a dress for the wedding, she despaired of finding anything ---three months and fifteen pounds to go.

The mall teemed with white-headed seniors and teenagers. Peres stood out, tall with a head of black hair, wearing hip-hugging designer jeans, black Italian loafers and tailored white shirt. A silver watch glimmered on his right wrist and he clasped his Blackberry in the opposite hand. When he sensed he’d gone too far, he turned to spot Mary and wait.

She was attached to the over-sized gray-green stroller that held their one-year old and baby bottle and water and extra clothes and diaper bag and rattle. Extending her arms and pushing ahead, she was conscious of the extra weight in her hips and stomach. She covered up in loose-fitting jeans and a red Trojans sweatshirt. Her black hair was gathered in a ponytail. She had sincere brown eyes and a timid smile.

Stopping to gaze in the dress shop window whose mannequin displayed a purple cashmere dress, she focused on its bony white knees and sighed. Farther inside, she spotted a blonde in denim shorts and pink tank top that highlighted her lean belly. She reminded her of Peres living in Manhattan Beach. She’d fit right in with beach volleyball, sunbathing and strolls along the pier. Mary didn’t fit though they lived there a while until conceiving and convincing him to find the house in Whittier, closer to family.

Peres was everything she wanted in a man ---handsome, funny, caring--- and she was sensitive to things pulling him away: career, recollections of the beach and, maybe, women he used to know. The Blackberry was symbolic of those distractions. Why, she wondered, did he need to have it all the time and who was he checking with?

She considered herself blessed to have found him and took pleasure in having confounded the expectations of some people, especially her sister Carmen. They met in college and a friendship developed over time. After graduation they went their separate ways: she working at a pre-school and living with parents; he getting the job at Dedalus Insurance and staying in Manhattan B. A few years later they met again. Something clicked. He asked her out and within the year proposed. She accepted, having discerned a serious side to him, one not present before and something she could work on.

She stared at a spot between his shoulder blades. After a minute he turned. She frowned and he walked back. He looked into the stroller where Phoebe slept soundly. Mary smiled bravely and he put his hand on her shoulder. They walked side by side until reaching the next window.

While she stopped he continued ahead, lifting one foot and letting it linger before setting it down and lifting the other, moving but not too fast, aware that after a few more paces he’d wait again.

He appreciated the aesthetics of the mall with its marble-like floors and thick columns and the jewel box quality of the window displays ---in each something desirable, one after the other.

But instead of being one in a crowd, he wanted to be one alone and imagined a cool silence and footsteps echoing in space and adventures of discovery leading to places unknown. He’d meet and surpass all challengers ---Stephen Joyce, for one. Each victory was validation of self-worth and his abilities ---and in each a prize: wealth, glory, beautiful women. He turned to look for Mary. She was gone, maybe into a shop.

Breathing rarefied air in his imagination, he believed he would do so in reality. The upcoming wedding was an example. He’d been asked to be a bridegroom for Dave Forester, another salesman. Stephen Joyce was sponsoring a big wedding at the Palisades mansion of a friend. It was the talk of the company. Being thrust into the limelight and rubbing shoulders with the rich ---and soon-to-be rich--- he took as his due and was where he wanted to be.

The suburbs were distant from the exercise of wealth and power, if not their influence, and the pace was slower. Moving was the right thing to do for Mary and the baby. But he was anxious about being lulled into complacency. Alive, fit and ready NOW, he thirsted for the hunt.

Poor Mary. Sometimes her worries were laughable. While he was making big-dollar deals, she fretted over the household budget. She didn’t have to, he told her, but she insisted they save for the future, which the baby served to underscore. He retraced his steps to find them.

Mary struggled to maneuver the stroller back through the door, past an arguing couple that wouldn’t make way. Dissatisfied with everything she saw, tears welled in her eyes. Peres approached. His smiling face was always an inspiration and she wanted to explain---

“I liked the fabric and then I realized the cut wasn’t what I wore and then I looked for something else but nothing and Phoebe poor thing woke screaming out her lungs and I squeezed and kissed her and felt she was wet and took her away from stares to change ---you weren’t around--- and when I came back the crowd had grown so large…”

But she kept it to herself. He consoled her and they began to walk until again he went on ahead, leaving Mary to think---

“How much I love him and Phoebe and our life and then she’ll have a brother and then another and we’ll find the house to settle in and be a clan and love and live and live and love forever…”

Looking at Peres, she saw him jerk his head, half-turn and linger in the pose. She stopped, alert to a trim young woman with dark hair and wearing a brown plaid skirt and sparkling hose. Her beige heels sounded a rhythmic clack-clack-clickedy-clack on the walkway. Absorbed in conversation on her cell phone, she was oblivious to anyone around.

Peres caught Mary’s glare, which unfroze him. He smiled, laughed, and waved her forward. But she didn’t budge. He came back and before he said a word, she pointed to the stroller.

“Your turn.”

CHAPTER 6: QUORUM (Part A)

...the company grapevine at work...


Lola McIntyre held court in the company lunchroom. Seated behind a table in the corner, she watched her cohorts gather, as certainly as they punched in on arriving to work each day.

The lunchroom was spare and contained two end-to-end rectangular tables, surrounded by smaller round ones. A counter held a sink and two microwave ovens. Against a wall stood three vending machines offering coffee, sandwiches and juice, and candies and chips.

Joe from the mailroom checked in first. He had thick unruly brown hair and nesting ear buds whose face-framing wire led to the ipod tucked in his jeans back pocket. His lids were three-quarters shut behind glasses, but as he sat naïve brown eyes blinked open before settling into their typical state.

Then Bob from the stockroom entered with an air of bustling activity. On his head his blond hair was brushed left to right in a thick sheaf, in tight curls on his arms. In a blue smock over shirt and jeans, he enforced meticulous order in the stockroom, each item ---whether paper, toner or pen--- having allocated space and with suitable spacing between. He was five years older than Joe and five younger than Lola. Taking the chair to her left, he sat then edged away a few inches. He swatted at an errant crumb on the tabletop, his dry hand scraping the surface like sandpaper.

Lola greeted them but wasn’t ready to begin. They sat silently as she looked to the door until, at last, a tall man with shaved head and hulking shoulders pushed through. Bill the CEO’s chauffeur wore a black suit, narrow black tie and white shirt that pinched at the neck. Though nine a.m., the stubble on his face registered five-o’clock p.m. He sent a charge through her with his dark see-no-evil eyes that flashed angry when stepping into action, especially at his other job as club bouncer.

A quorum being present, Lola looked around the table, like a child planning to say something clever. Her blue eyes rolled and her lips curved into a smile. She brushed an imaginary strand of hair from her face, setting the little gold bells on her bracelet to jingle. No one else being in the room, she spoke openly and suggestively.

“So Bill---, what happened last night?”

She squirmed eagerly, Joe blinked and Bob brushed the table, but Bill was slow to respond. He wasn’t given to gossip.

“I drove them home.”

“Together?”

He nodded.

“Did he stay with her?”

He shook his head.

“Then what?”

“I took Mr. Joyce home.”

“When?”

“About three.”

She pleaded. “What else? Tell me.”

He shrugged. “She won’t be in today.”

Lola’s eyes lit up. The other two shared a conspiratorial glance.

*

Helen’s absence on Fridays had become routine since starting work on the condo. She seized on Joyce’s idea and aspired to create a salon where the wealthy and connected meet. Spare no money or object, he had said.

First to go was the L-shaped sofa interrupting the circulation in the front room, which should be malleable to prevailing moods. Joyce sought investors. She strived to exemplify the creative flow of capital joined to idea.

The color scheme was black and white on spare leather components. Two armchairs, one black, one white, served as focal points. Each large enough for two snug people, she positioned them in opposition. Beside each was a small elevated sectional with backrest and wide enough for a lady to perch. Beside that, hangers-on could attend, precariously, on stylish high stools that were easily added to or subtracted from the party.

The color of the stormy gray carpet echoed a large oil painting, a seascape depicting a gathering wave looming over a peaceful beach. Against the opposing wall an aquarium, backlit in green, was home to a pair of angelfish. Striped black and white, with tails fluttering gracefully, they epitomized the delicacy of being.

When she was done, Helen called Joyce in the early evening of a Friday. When he entered she suppressed a smile and, standing in the middle of the room, willed herself invisible. The room should speak.

He stopped mid-stride, his expectations swept away. He took a seat in the black armchair, his eye following the track lighting above, then flitting to the muted glow of the floor lamp in the corner, the crystal decanters at the bar, the aquarium, the painting.

The seascape, from the perspective of someone on the beach facing the impending wave, disturbed and antagonized him. Accustomed to the idea of man harnessing nature, he rebelled at the thought of being its victim.

His gaze returned to the aquarium where the angelfish appeared to watch, mouths puffing O’s in his direction. He smirked and then saw, as if for the first time, Helen.

She hadn’t moved. Having spent the day prepping the condo in anticipation of that moment, she wore khaki slacks and an overlarge green knit sweater. Her brown hair was knotted behind her head. Her eyes conveyed excitement.

He began to speak, but before he could, she moved ---exposing the white chair that, like an enemy chess piece, posed a silent challenge. He chiseled a small smile on his face. Then he heard the tinkling of ice in glass and she reappeared with drinks.

“Vodka rocks.” She handed him the drink and, before he could ask, said, “Betsy.”

He considered the room and the woman who had transformed it. It would serve. He had been right.

“Good. Real good. Thursday, I’ll bring people over. After eight.”

Raising their glasses, they brought them together to close the deal.

*

That next Thursday, Mimosa Liang rushed into his cubicle.

“She’s late.”

Ulysses looked up in time to catch the exaggerated pout, before she stormed out. He smiled. She was expressing displeasure and that was better than being fearful and their discussions about that. But since Joyce stopped coming to Helen’s desk it hadn’t been an issue.

He already knew Helen wouldn’t be in until after lunch. She’d sent an e-mail, with a copy to Joyce, to remind him. Ulysses had gotten used to adjustments in her schedule. What else could he do? CEO request. During the last month, any work she couldn’t finish was taken care of, though she was pretty efficient and there wasn’t much. But part of her job was dealing with customers over the phone. When she wasn’t available, someone else had to do it, hence Mimosa’s displeasure and other grumbling among the staff.

It couldn’t last. Either she’d leave and be replaced or he’d request another position. But the company wasn’t inclined to spend on support staff and that wouldn’t go far. For the present, he waited and watched.

After lunch, like a sentry, Mimosa reappeared.

“Finally ---she’s here.”

She stayed long enough to flash her intense black eyes that demanded, “What are you going to do about it?”

He acknowledged her with a wave of the hand. She did an about face and left. He rose to make his rounds and, in the course of doing so, see what Helen was wearing. Curious about the “PR event” that no one seemed to know about, he was surprised and somewhat disappointed to see her wearing slacks.

The afternoon passed quickly and without any further advisories from Mimosa. At five, Ulysses shut off the computer, collected some papers in his briefcase and put on his coat. He headed for the door and, as he did, found Helen beside him.

“Have a good evening, Yul.”

“You, too ---though you still have work to do.”

She nodded.

“Going to eat?”

“To the car for clothes.”

Approaching the elevator, Ulysses lurched to part the closing doors and hold them for her. Once inside, he pushed “L” for lobby. When she reached to press “G”, he was surprised.

“Did you park in the garage?”

“I have a space.”

They rode in silence and he exited at the lobby. As the doors closed behind him, he stopped to recollect her words. She didn’t park there because she was working late; she had “a space”.

At his salary he couldn’t justify the expense of underground parking; at hers it was out of the question and made sense only if Joyce assigned it. He felt slighted. He was management and paying out of pocket. She was ---he wasn’t sure. Having wished her luck, he didn’t think she needed it. He sucked it up and headed into the street and to the Early Bird parking lot.

*

In the condo, Helen changed into a one-strap silk dress the color of evening when a pinkish sky turns purple, pink above progressing to deepest purple at the knees. Later, when the hors d’oeuvres arrived, she nibbled seated by the window, watching the city lights.

Around nine, she heard murmurs down the hall. She opened the door to Joyce, an older man and two younger ones. Joyce had his arm around the man’s shoulders and spoke intently into his ear. The man was looking down, listening, but when he saw Helen he did a double take and his eyes grew wide.

Along with silver gray hair ---trim in the front, balding at the brow and thick in back--- he had a light gray beard and dark brown eyes.

He clawed at his throat, as if mute and thirsty, and, finding his tie, adjusted it, then brushed at his dark suit. He straightened his posture. Joyce introduced Pietro Mancusi to Helen.

He took her hand and, bowing, kissed it.

“Call me Pietro, please, Miss Helen.”

She led him to the white armchair where they engaged in pleasant disagreement. He insisted she should sit. “I’ll get your drink,” she said. “Sit first, drink later,” he countered. Laughing, they agreed to sit together. Crowded knee-to-knee, he was clearly pleased.

Joyce improvised by serving the drinks, then hovered over them. The young men fixed their own and stood discretely within earshot.

“Do you stay here?” Mancusi asked.

“At times.”

“A beautiful place for a beautiful woman.”

She accepted the compliment without blush or blink of the eye. He was intrigued.

“Stephen said we’re stopping for drinks. He didn’t say anything about you. How could that be?”

“Ask him.”

“He’s too much about business, I think.”

“Not you?”

“When there’s beauty---”

Joyce interjected.

“Beauty is doubling your money.”

Her eyes twinkled. Mancusi smiled.

“Money can’t buy everything, no?”

“Yes. Shares of Dedaelus. When we go public---“

“Double the money, I know.”

Helen took his glass, still nearly full and rose to play hostess. The young men pierced her sullenly with their eyes. One was tall and thin with red hair gelled to look windswept. The other was stout with black hair.

Everyone but Joyce watched her go behind the bar. He pressed the deal, repeating key words like a mantra: investment blocks – going public – doubling your money. He broke into Mancusi’s concentration. Finally, as if swatting at an irritating fly, he said, “Yes, yes, I will invest. We’ll talk later.”

Shortly thereafter, someone knocked at the door. It was Bill, the chauffeur.

“Time, gentlemen.” Joyce announced.

Mancusi looked to Helen.

“You’re going to the club, too?”

“No,” said Joyce. “She stays here.”

Mancusi looked to Joyce, back to Helen and then to him again, attempting to understand the relationship.

“But you want to come, don’t you?”

Without any suggestion that she would have it otherwise, she said, “I stay here.”

He took up her hand. “Maybe, we’ll see each other again.”

Her eyes twinkled.

As Joyce ushered them out, Mancusi looked unhappily over his shoulder, certain she was the highlight of the evening.

She gave them time enough to get away before gathering her things for the drive home.

The Thursday night soirees became routine as Joyce attracted investors to the company. The evening started with drinks and dinner, either at the Agency Hotel or a nearby restaurant, where he made the pitch. No one committed over dinner. But then he brought them to the condo, and Helen.

Whereas he attempted to persuade, she inspired. She boosted their already considerable egos to do something more than they might have done. Whether inspired or, of lesser men, merely distracted, Joyce took advantage to secure their pledges.

A pledge wasn’t money, but he recognized that the promise of seeing Helen again served as incentive for following through. He laughed inwardly when leading away men who’d rather stay. It became a signature move that seemed to say, “Buy in and you’ll have more.”

The more Joyce saw her effect the more possessive he became. He saw her place as being in the condo. He pressured her to be, exclusively, his assistant, but she declined, preferring “a variety of activity”. He grew suspicious.

He offered more money and she agreed. But then he added that she couldn’t stay in Billing, because it’d cause dissension. So she told him to hold it for her. She wasn’t ready yet. It didn’t make sense. His anger rose, but he checked it. Like the others, he was snared and reluctant to see her go.

But his plan was working. Soon he’d have raised capital enough to buy his father out. The elder Joyce was trouble, advocating for his friends the managers and deploring how they were being treated. Lately he’d been trying to put teeth into the Board of Directors. He was impatient to make his retirement complete and end his interference.

So Helen stayed, on her terms. They became a team that could share a laugh at the expense of others. Initially, the strategy had been for Joyce to escort them to a club afterwards. But over time, he had Bill bring women up. They enticed the investors away, leaving him alone with Helen. They ordered dinner. They talked. Later, Bill might drive her home. Sometimes they went together.

*

Bill concluded:

“I watched them in the mirror. Whispering and laughing, they'd had lots to drink.”

Lola was leaning forward, her forearms resting on the table. Joe’s eyes had blinked open in seeming perpetual wakefulness. Bob brushed at the table.

When Bill stopped, Lola frowned. She wanted more but he crossed his arms, a signal she recognized: he was done.

Just then the door squeaked open and Betsy Murray, the executive receptionist, passed through. The small blonde gave a quick glance at the group before averting her eyes. Lola sensed there was something she wanted to hide. She stopped at the coffee machine and as her coins landed in the mechanical treasury ---spid, spid, spid, spid--- Lola schemed. She made her selection, pressing with the pad of her finger so as not to break a nail. When the paper cup dropped into position and as the liquid drained, Lola’s honey-coated voice reached out: “Betsy, what’s wrong?”



CHAPTER 7: QUORUM (Part B)

..Betsy encounters Lola, Bill, Joe and Bob in the break room...

Coffee in hand, Betsy Murray approached the table where Lola McIntyre and the others waited. She declined the offer to sit. Standing seemed effortless for the thin, light-framed woman who nonetheless wrapped her hands around the paper cup as if holding a support. Her nose was red and her eyes glistened. Ignoring the men, she focused on the other woman.

“Did something happen?”

She sniffed and cast her blue eyes to the ceiling. A tear dripped down her cheek.
“What hasn’t happened this week? First, the thing with Mr. Joyce’s father. Now, Ulysses.”

The group collectively shifted in its seat.

“What about Ulysses?”

“Well,” she began, looking over Lola’s head to reflect. “Mr. Joyce came in a little while ago. Looking mad and not even saying ‘hi’, you know? He’s like that. So he goes up then he calls down. ‘Get Ulysses Mann. Tell him to see me now!’ He’s shouting. The first time he speaks, he’s shouting. I don’t like that.”

She sniffed again. Lola nodded sympathetically and as a prod to continue.

“So I call Ulysses and tell him. He’s surprised and asks me what it’s about. I don’t know. He’s confused and worried. I am, too. Mr. Joyce never asks people to his office. That really bothered me.

“So, Ulysses comes and I can see he’s nervous, but I can’t help. I feel bad. He goes up. I’m sitting looking at the phone, afraid it would buzz and Mr. Joyce yelling; then at the elevator, afraid it would open and him looking mad. Like I did something, you know? It seemed forever, but it was just a minute. Then he comes back down, Ulysses that is. His face is red and sweaty --- like really embarrassed. He doesn’t look at me. I can tell he’s holding something bad inside.”

“When? I didn’t see anything.”

Betsy sniffed. “Just now.”

*

He had to walk it off. On leaving Joyce’s office and enduring the claustrophobic elevator, Ulysses burst out. He wanted free of the building that seemed like a tomb for his ambition. But he had to take a second elevator. Mercifully, no one was inside and he went express down the nine floors to the street.

He turned south, away from the high-rise buildings and into hoped-for anonymity. Hot and flush, he was combustible within his suit coat. He took it off and was cooled by the morning air. But Joyce’s words continued to drum in his head and his body clenched.

After talking to Betsy, he had been anxious. He’d never been called to the CEO’s office and the tremor in her voice didn’t help. But, being generally optimistic, he saw an opportunity to shine. That, too, made him nervous, but in a positive, forward-leaning way.

Possibly an important project needed doing. Though unusual not to come through his manager, different situations sometimes required different responses. Challenges didn’t come with operating instructions. Perhaps Mr. Joyce was thinking outside the box.

As he passed Helen’s cubicle, her absence tickled a thought. Might it be about her? Something bad? It could explain Betsy’s supposed lack of knowledge. Not likely though. Helen had confirmed her absence through e-mail with a copy to Joyce.

If concerning Helen, it was probably what he already anticipated: she was leaving Billing. He’d be graceful about his loss and say how much he’ll miss her. He might even compliment Joyce on getting a good worker. He’d demonstrate he could get along to move along in the company.

For a moment he felt guilty trading on Helen to advance his prospects. But he dismissed the feeling. She was progressing of her own volition and doing better for herself. He, too, wanted to advance. Everyone did.

Passing Betsy at the receptionist’s station, he stepped into the elevator and thought of things larger than himself: company, wife and family, country, world, the universe. He straightened his spine and imagined the earth balanced on the top of his head.

When the doors opened into the suite, he saw the top of Joyce’s head bent in his direction, the bristles of his crew cut like a spiky crown. He stepped out and approached the desk.

Joyce didn’t look up. Instead he rose until towering over the shorter man. His face was grim, his eyes tight beady points. He punched the air with his finger.

“Don’t ever, ever send e-mail with my name on it. You nothing! You don’t care what I do. If you even think you can affect anything, I’ll fire you before you can blink. That goes for Helen, too. Get the hell out!”

Ulysses reeled, the blunt impact of his anger like slamming into a concrete wall. He backed into the elevator, away from the glowering threat, and fumbled for the button to close the doors…

As he continued walking, he found himself in the shadow of a decrepit building, possibly an old textile plant with windows the kind that used to open. They were papered over black.

Though only a few blocks apart, the mood was different from the bustle around the Agency Hotel and its sister buildings. There, activity grew and crested like waves, fresh, eye-catching and exciting. Here, the scattered debris, once part of something whole, were remainders waiting to be collected and hauled away. People, too, the homeless and other castaways, compelled by misfortune, property managers and police, were adrift in the shadowy recesses. He saw a scruffy man with a shopping cart sorting through the refuse, searching for something of value to take and be reformed. Likewise, Ulysses tried to pick through the pieces.

He shook his head. His body began to unwind and the fog to clear. His first thought was what to tell Penny, his second, to get the car and go home. But, he hadn’t been fired. Ferociously warned off, but not fired.

Honor told him to resign and not be part of an enterprise that thought so little of his labor. But he dreaded putting life on hold while trying for another job: dust off and revise the resume, research the job market ---not good due to the recession--- and calculate how long they could last without a paycheck. He already knew the answer: not long. Mortgage, car, insurance and life weighed on the decision.

Given Joyce’s attitude, he was one more irrational demand from being gone. He was the boss and armored against appeal. Without a schedule of when, Ulysses had to time dropping one job and jumping to the next, without falling, stalling or moving too fast.

Joyce had referred to e-mail with his name. Only Helen’s messages, about being absent or late, met that definition, but all he ever did was reply “OK”.

“That goes for Helen, too.” He thought it finally happened: she got too close, stepped over a line somehow and he was set to destroy her. But as he replayed the scene, the rationale failed to convince. More likely, Joyce and Helen stood together. Pinched between boss and subordinate he was, if his words were true, powerless.

Suddenly, a man crossed his path. His hair stuck out in odd directions. Long ago, unshaven ceased to describe his face and the cold seemed to adhere to thin, grimy clothes. With a slack hand, he held onto a flat cardboard box slung over his back. The man stooped as under a heavy load. In a society of expectations, Ulysses thought, it was a burden indeed.

He turned around to head to the office. He needed to know what happened between Joyce and Helen. A chill went down his spine: he was up against the CEO.

*

The door squeaked shut after Betsy, leaving them to stare at each other. Lola was about to jump out of her chair, eager to observe Ulysses and see if he was upset as Betsy said. But halfway standing, with Joe and Bob following her lead, she stopped to settle back in. Something had come to mind and words burbled from her mouth.

“Oh, oh, oh, Bill. I almost forgot.”

The chauffeur sat motionless, his dark eyes shifting.

“The wedding, can you get us in?”

Like a flash, his heavy hand slapped the table.

“Bring your invite.”

The men snickered.

Lola rocked the table and whined.

“You know I don’t have one. I have to go. I want to see!”

Joe recalled the fancy envelopes passing through the mailroom for the affair being hosted by the CEO. Bob followed the motion of the table, thinking how in the stockroom the heaviest boxes went on the lowest shelves.

Bill, used to facing people demanding entry into clubs, had decided a crowded line of people was a good description of life. He learned to trade access for something of value. He waited.

Lola shook the table and bounced in her chair, pleading.

“I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“Will you work?”

“Yes!”

He paused, exciting her suspense.

“I’ll tell the caterer.”

“Yea!” She held arms up. The home team had scored.

Silently, Bill turned to the others. Joe blinked his assent. Bob tapped the table emphatically.

“Okay, then.”

The group broke apart, content at the prospect of seeing another side of the company, even if to do so they had to serve.


Chapter 8: THE CHAIRMAN

...between corporate father and son...


The sun poured through the eastward window as the Chairman consulted the list and started making calls. He’d been at his desk since early morning, checking the markets. Dressed in dark slacks and a white shirt, his sole concession to working from home was the absence of a tie.

To a man, the members expressed surprise he was back so soon, then concern. He was more than ready to be back, he replied, and assured them the meeting was routine. As defined in Dedalus’ charter of incorporation, the board of directors met once a quarter to oversee operations.

Composed of CEOs and stakeholders in the industry, there was in practice little oversight. Meeting minutes documented review of income statement and balance sheet. Unmentioned were the drinks, updates on family and the restaurants they went to for dinner. When he ceded CEO to his son, Steve Joyce retained the chairmanship. They hadn’t met in over a year.

Gathered in a conference room at company headquarters, the Chairman surveyed the board: Simmons, Schwartz, Parker and Morgan, all silver-haired men. The first headed a law firm handling many of the company’s cases, the next a brokerage it used for investments, the subsequent a life insurance company and the last a string of small banks.

As a group, they seemed to embody the boom-and-bust cycle of economic life. Schwartz, Morgan and Parker had expanded and were snug within their suit coats, a result of calendars full of dinners and receptions. Simmons and the Chairman were ascetically lean, having been rehabilitated and made ready for the next cycle. All displayed in their eyes a shrewd intelligence. The Chairman called them to order. His remarks lit up those eyes.

“I have grave concerns about company expenses.”

He paused and waited. Parker ---designated recorder for having lost a coin flip--- scrambled to take up his pen. Accustomed to sunny reports, the hint of stormy weather thrilled and unnerved them. Having captured their attention, the Chairman recounted what he had discovered.

*

The same morning he had called them he placed one to his son. As he did, his wife entered bearing a silver tray with coffee and scones and the garden’s contribution, a peach rose in a thin pewter vessel. Rhea set the tray on the table by the window and looked to her husband. He held a hand up as he spoke. The receptionist took a message about needing a room.

The next morning the Chairman wore a tie. His blue eyes were intense within a lean, deeply lined face. His call hadn’t been returned, so he was going to the office to arrange things directly. Rhea was at his side, wearing a lavender suit dress and an orchid on her lapel. Together they looked like a couple burnished by the years to reveal the rare metal underneath.

Security in the lobby recognized him immediately and called ahead to the receptionist. Betsy Murray met them at the elevator and escorted them to the executive suites. As they passed through the staff treated them like celebrities. Familiar people shook their hands, while newcomers looked on. Especially cordial were the greetings between the Chairman and the managers from Claims and Sales.

Inside a private reception room, Betsy offered coffee, which they declined. The Chairman wanted to see the CEO. She stepped over to a phone on the wall, punched in the number and waited, until her face glowed with embarrassment.

The Chairman questioned her. She replied that he’d come in and she hadn’t seen him leave. To his conclusion that he must be there, she offered that he might have gone through the eleventh floor corridor. Sometimes he went that way to the condo, she explained.

Rhea arched her brows.

They followed the receptionist to her station where she demonstrated the button controlling the elevator. It was locked from upstairs. The elevator and the isolated office were new. The Chairman considered them unnecessary. Rhea voiced a different concern.

“What if he’s hurt?”

Betsy tilted her head thoughtfully then answered.

“He never is.”

At the Chairman’s request, she escorted them to see the sales manager. Jeremy Port had been a protégé who became a long-time friend. He was a jovial man with a wide grin in a plump face etched with wrinkles. He enjoyed flying small planes.

He bounded from his desk to greet them. The Chairman asked Rhea and Betsy to wait outside. As the door closed, the manager’s eyes blinked rapidly. But his old mentor consciously relaxed his stern face. The manager mimicked him as they sat at his desk.

“Things all right?”

“Sales are up, so everything’s right.”

“We tried to see Stephen, but he’s disappeared into his office.”

He paused to let the observation sink in and to gauge his response. Port didn’t offer one.

“Does this happen a lot?”

Port’s eyes expressed puzzlement in talking to his old boss about his new one. Issues of loyalty and confidences played on his mind.

“I don’t notice. He’s here every day.”

“What’s this about a condo?”

“I’ve never been up. Used to entertain investors, I hear.” Then, after a conflicted pause, he added, “The gal from Billing is up there all the time.” He was sorry as soon as he said it.

“Who?”

“Helen Roy.”

“What is she?”

“Account Consultant.”

The Chairman weighed the information: disappearances routine but not noticed; an elevator locked from above; investors; a condo frequented by an unknown woman. His face was grim.

Port tried to lighten the mood.

“See you at the wedding?”

He said he hadn’t heard about it.

Embarrassed again ---another misstep in the treacherous territory between corporate father and son--- he told him about the CEO hosting a wedding at a Palisades estate for Dave Forester, a star salesman. Sheepishly, he promised to look for his invitation.

On leaving the offices, Rhea said she’d called Delfina, who hadn’t seen her husband since the chauffeur picked him up that morning. The Chairman’s eyebrows lifted at the mention of a chauffeur.

*

The board discussed the Chairman’s concerns. Simmons acknowledged he’d been specific. The implications, Parker pointed out, were unclear. Morgan wanted more information about the cost of the new office, the elevator and the chauffeur. Schwartz wanted to know the purpose of the condo and whether the company owned or leased it. They all expressed a keen interest in hearing from the CEO. His assurances would go a long way to settling their unease. Schwartz moved to request his presence at the next meeting. Simmons seconded the motion and it passed. The Chairman then adjourned the meeting.


CHAPTER 9: BENEATH THE MASK

...Ulysses and Helen meet...


Ulysses sat waiting on Helen in a restaurant bar just before six on a Friday afternoon. He wouldn’t have imagined it after the confrontation with the CEO that morning. But, considering his position, he had to see her and took her number from the staff emergency list. When she didn’t answer, he left a message. Around lunch, he called again. Finally, just before quitting time, she responded.

Her free and easy manner was a torment, being so at odds with what he felt. But he masked his anguish and persuaded her to meet. At first, she said no, not understanding what couldn’t wait or be explained over the phone. Eventually, she agreed.

He had to see her in person and away from work. Not merely a supervisor, not merely a subordinate, they had to be, in the larger sense, friend or foe. People at work hid true feelings for the sake of a paycheck or getting the job done. He needed to see beneath the mask.

Waiting, he was vulnerable. He didn’t know if she’d consulted Joyce who might come instead. He wouldn’t hold back, not away from workplace rules. Now he was on equal footing. After a fight the police could take them both away.

The Albatross Bar & Grill was her choice and not too far from where she lived. He sat at the bar just inside the entrance. The restaurant was in the next room. Two painters, still in their white coveralls, were at the far end downing tequila shots. The red-vested bartender dourly wiped off wine glasses with a towel. Otherwise, the place was empty.

Ulysses looked into a bar-length mirror. Though the bar was dark as a cave, the sun was shining outside and transformed the door and window behind him into golden rods of light; passersby were flickering shadows. The display, along with a beer, could seduce drowsiness, but he was on edge. Every shadow made him jump.

A figure glided by the window and passed through the entrance. Helen stepped forward, her full lips, clear brown eyes and fresh face, vivid as a revelation. The sunlight, still tangled in the strands, adorned her hair. She wore black jeans and a striped blouse. A maroon sweater was tossed over her shoulders. She gazed serenely into the mirror, waiting to be acknowledged. The boisterous men at the end of the bar grew silent. The bartender approached. Ulysses turned to greet her.

They took their drinks to a corner booth, the darkest spot in the room. Helen set down her wine and slid to one side of the table. Ulysses sat opposite. A candle in a tinted globe fluttered beneath their breaths.

As they settled in, he weighed his options. He could confront her, unite with her or reveal his weakness. But he didn’t believe her his enemy, or think that Joyce was hers and, being human ---and looking forward to another day--- rebelled against admitting the abject truth.

Helen waited, silently demanding an explanation but not insisting on the time. She looked beyond him toward the bar, where the others seemed to wait as well to hear the tenor if not the content of their conversation. The candle flame licked at her cheeks. Her eyes were dark. He began tentatively.

“Stephen Joyce was strange today.”

He recounted the CEO’s anger and how he seemed to think Ulysses was trying to impact what he did. He added that he mentioned her. “That goes for Helen, too”, he had said.

As he spoke, he watched for a reaction. She seemed unimpressed, as if hearing something she already knew. He tried eliciting a response and spoke so emphatically that the candle flame careened wildly.

“He threatened my job.”

A wrinkle fretted her brow. He took it as a sign, though still he didn’t know whose side she was on. In the ensuing silence, he fidgeted and heard new voices behind him and saw the candle flame settle in the globe.

Then, she began speaking about the condo and what was happening. She was passionless and her account had an ethereal quality ---indefinite pauses, followed by observations in wandering sentences woven like a dream. Her voice was soft and low and left the candle flame unruffled, burning like a golden eye.

Ulysses was fascinated by Joyce’s quest to amass wealth and how Helen and the luxury condo were integral parts. He saw the disparity in her roles, one at a desk handling complaints and the other enticing investors. He’d be surprised if she didn’t. She did acknowledge that Joyce wanted her exclusively.

“He’s driven, and won’t stop until he gets what he wants. Then he’ll want more.”

“What will you do?”

“Be exclusive.”

He wanted to sympathize, but she wasn’t asking for sympathy. He had an uneasy feeling he was witness to an unholy transaction that might benefit him but sacrifice her. Though she didn’t speak to the intimacy of the situation, rumors had been rampant about her and Joyce. Just as he had feared, she had gotten close. But now his interests lay in her going further.

“Will you be okay?”

She twitched her lips as if annoyed. The flame began to sputter.

“What’s he really after?”

“Control.”

“Who’s against him?”

“The father.”

“Will he succeed?”

She shrugged. Thinking deeper into the question, he reached his own conclusion: succeed or fail, he wouldn’t fall very hard. If pushed out, a golden parachute would glide him onto the next opportunity.

“Is that all?”

“I don’t think I’m long for the company.”

She smiled. “You’ll persevere.”

The wick guttered in the wax, hissing, and sent up a thin trail of smoke. Her face receded into the dark.

They left the bar, now full with people celebrating the weekend. Outside, the sun was low in the sky. Ulysses was as before but armed with insight. The idea of the Joyces at war was new and offered hope of change, though no assurance who’d win. His emotion had fixed on Helen who didn’t display a thirst for wealth but, being central to its pursuit, was also chased. They parted. He watched her walk away.


CHAPTER 10: THE WEDDING


Peres Aguilar heard a shuffle on the front porch, a metallic slap, and then a sharp-edged thud. Saturday mail had arrived, accompanied by a lawnmower’s sputter, shouts of kids on bikes and cars whooshing down the street. Usually he’d be on the golf links playing a few rounds, but he was getting ready for a wedding.

He inspected himself in the mirror. The granite gray suit and eggshell vest covered him like sleek armor; the royal blue tie added dash and elegance and softened the impact of black eyes and an aquiline nose. Extending arms to his sides, he looked ready for take-off. Thin black hair, quivering whenever he moved, added to the impression of something ready to take wing. His smile lighted up an olive-dark face.

He’d match up well with the other groomsmen, fellow members of the sales staff escorting their brother and his bride to the altar. He envied Dave Forester for being the center of attention. He deserved to be; he was challenging for top seller. Equal to that challenge, Peres leveraged the pressure to sell even more.

But the blessing Stephen Joyce conferred on the union trumped him. Had he not already been married, maybe he’d be hosting his wedding. He worried over future assignments and whether Forester was the favorite, though he didn’t like dwelling on it. He went to find Mary.

Though it didn’t start till three, he watched the time, wanting to allow two hours for travel across town to the ocean-side mansion. First, they had to drop off Phoebe with Mary’s folks. Though traffic might be a killer, riding in his champagne-colored Mercedes coupe wouldn’t be. The car was a nod to the lifestyle he wanted, unlike the house.

Built in the 60’s, their home had three bedrooms ---one converted to an office, the other a nursery. The small yard in back was surrounded by neighboring fences and shrubbery. In front, a cement walk divided the short lawn into green squares and reflected the square aspect of the house.

Peres admired flair but they bought to be close to her parents, understanding they’d find something more appropriate when Phoebe got older. But Mary seemed too comfortable in his opinion.

He found her in the nursery bent over the crib, wearing the blue dress she settled on after months of trouble. Straightening up, she draped a pink towel across her shoulder then lifted the baby.

She turned to find Peres watching, smiled and pinched the soft fabric of his jacket. They went to the car, silver-armored Peres in the lead, followed by Mary, vivid in blue and with a wide-eyed gaze exaggerated by weight loss, and Phoebe, the pink fragile bundle on her shoulder.

*

Traffic oozed through the city and, as they drove, Peres and Mary could look into backyards from the freeway. Older smaller houses had grassy lots with narrow passages between neighbors. Newer tracts, built closer to the freeway and shielded by sound walls lacked substantial yards. Sometimes the walls blocked the entire view and they sped along as if seeking to regain perspective.

They exited on the far side of town and stopped at an intersection with a jumble of gas stations, stores, title companies and fast food. Beyond the business district, they turned down the road leading to the mansion and saw a replay of residences small and large.

Closing on their destination, homes lay farther from the road, obscure behind trees and hedges and the iron fences containing them. Finally, they spotted a line of cars and joined it. Soon they reached the head and turned into the drive whose ornate iron gates, ten feet tall with gilt crests, were swung open but ready to close behind the last guest.

A man in a dark suit inspected their invitation, then directed them to take the road to the left at the fork. All they could see was a green hillock, but once beyond it saw the mansion and the sea.

In a landscape still green from winter rain, the road descended gradually. At the fork, one road rose to the mansion while the other spiraled down to a lot behind a copse of Monterey Pine. Limousines and shuttles coursed along one, smaller vehicles the road to parking, their colors ---red, white, silver, blue--- resplendent under the shining sun. Peres parked and they waited on a shuttle.

The mansion sat atop the rise like the crest of a wave, one-story wings converging on the two-story main structure, peach-colored against the blue backdrop of sky and sea. The shuttle took them to a circular drive and they stepped through the main entrance, bracketed between thick Corinthian columns.

Mary felt queasy. Everything seemed without boundary. Leaning on Peres, she wanted to be inside and gripped him tightly. He patted her hand. As they passed through the portico, her grip grew fierce.

Marble steps descended to a lobby with a golden chandelier above a milling crowd. On the far side, a panoramic window framed the ocean, allowing the larger world to pass through.

“There should be walls,” muttered Mary, feeling dizzy and turning her head into her husband’s chest. She wanted to hug her baby and be in rooms that had four walls and doors that locked.

The vivid blue display, the crescendo of conversation and the people energized Peres. He looked for the wedding party, dragging Mary along.

*

The crowd buzzed with the excitement of having arrived and made a beeline to a long table draped in white cloth holding sparkling flutes of champagne. With glass in hand, people gravitated to the window and, when newer arrivals pressed them, went out the door and down the lawn where the ceremony would take place.

Interspersed with the stylishly made up guests were the help in black pants, white shirts and sensible shoes. They maintained the flow of drinks, finger food and empty glasses.

Lola McIntyre, a self-satisfied grin on her face, rocked on her feet with hands behind her back. Wanting champagne, too, she waited for a quiet moment. For now, she was content to savor the spirit of the event.

Her job was setting clean glasses on the table then stepping aside as the servers poured. More than once, Geoff, who seemed an unhappy little man, had bumped into her, sending the message that he was the professional and she should get out of the way.

Despite that, she was enjoying it, especially the view. She imagined a big red ball rolling down the lawn and into the sea, on its way passing the gathered assembly.

A semicircle of portable chairs faced a wooden platform flush to the grass. Behind that stood a metal arbor, intertwined with pliable branches of willow and garlands of white and purple hyacinth.

Two white tents stood behind the semicircle and were linked to each other and the platform by a red carpet. A larger tent, off to the side, sheltered an orchestra whose emotive strings might be heard at the mansion when the breeze blew right. More to Lola’s taste was the rock band setting up in the ballroom that’d play after the ceremony.

She was somewhat surprised she didn’t see more people she knew, but glad her buddies were present, even though unseen by her. Mailroom Joe and Stockroom Bob, having no catering experience and deemed unsuitable to serve, had been assigned as movers. They staged chairs, tables and boxes and stood ready whenever brawn was needed.

Lola picked some glasses out of a box, wiped them off and placed them carefully on the table. Geoff was moving in her direction. She pressed against the wall. Then, she looked up and was startled. Someone she knew. Funny, he hadn’t said. Geoff passed back before her. When she looked again, Ulysses was gone.

*

When he saw Lola he quickly backed into the crowd. More than anyone he knew, she’d press for an explanation and pose uncomfortable questions. He’d face her later, but not there.

Alert now that some servers might know him, he sought a spot from which to observe but not be seen, a place where his back was covered but his view unimpeded. To most, he might pass as a guest. They wouldn’t suspect he’d entered through the docking bay, or ridden one of the buses chartered by the caterer to ferry in the help.

They could question his style. His dark suit lacked sparkle and his tie, which had been stuffed in his pocket, was somber. But his fancy dress shoes were highly polished and had even attracted the attention of someone on the bus. His expression had seemed to say, “Amateur. Feet’ll be hurting tonight!” To those who couldn’t believe he was a guest, he was a server.

He edged into a corner affording a view of the platform and the seats. He hadn’t seen Helen since their meeting almost a month ago. The following Monday, her desk had been cleaned out, without notice or comment, as if she had never been. He took the logical step of requesting a replacement. No one said a thing. He had thought he might run into her now and then. But even the grapevine had been silent. Work had settled into a steady peaceful routine, but he disbelieved steady and peaceful and wanted to see the conflict rising to explode his world. She was the touchstone.

*

Upstairs in a room with a view of the grounds, Steve Joyce set up headquarters without permission or having to flatter a host. He had charged an aide to seek out a suitable room, like a general sending a scout to reconnoiter for the high ground. He came back with his report and Chairman Joyce and wife Rhea commandeered the space.

Anyone with a glimpse inside would’ve sensed important business going on, serious men in immaculate suits shuffling in and out and speaking in low voices. Rhea, her high voice, definitive and impassioned, was the exception.

Mark Pointer and Jeremy Port were among those who came by to pay their respects, delighted to see their old boss. Separately, they asked the same questions and accepted the same explanation for his not going down to the ceremony on the lawn: wanting to relax and watch from inside. But the Chairman, they could tell, wasn’t in a celebratory mood. He had on his business face.

When the CEO stopped by, he accepted a hug from his mother, but nonetheless bristled at the physical contact. He had to admit, in answer to her question, that Delfina and the boys weren’t there. “Why not?” she demanded. Instead of answering, he turned his attention to his father.

The two men stood apart a respectful distance, like adversaries on a dirt road, twitchy fingers at the sides. Rhea’s presence restrained them from unloading lethal words.

The elder Joyce scrutinized his son with wizened regret that the family line of CEO’s relied on him. The younger man returned the look, intent on making the visit short. No one else being present, he speculated who might have been before and who would visit after. He’d send word to Bill the chauffeur to have someone watch. Abruptly, he announced he had to go and left for his own staging room.

As three o’clock approached, the couple edged their chairs to the window, like in box seats at the theater, poured some wine and watched the action unfold.

*

The seats in the semicircle were nearly filled. The crowd, anxious for the ceremony to start, checked watches against the time as the high hot sun threatened to wilt suits and dresses. It looked to the platform and up the lawn at the mansion for that last essential piece to get things going.

In an air-conditioned tent, the groomsmen jostled each other, joked and took turns peeking through the transparent flap, a nervous excitement elevating their mood. Peres was awed ---by the mansion that was the apotheosis of high living and by the grounds and the proximate sea that made him aware of standing on the edge of the continent; the angling green lawn curled underneath to fall into the ocean which then ran to the horizon to join the sky. His mind stretched to admit it all.

The willow arbor fused every element. Under sky and rooted in ground, it framed and magnified the sea. The ocean’s vast unperturbed expanse filled the frame, and he sensed unfathomed depths and unseen possibilities.

“Line up!” someone hollered. The music stopped and the crowd grew silent. The last essential piece was strolling down the lawn: Stephen Joyce and, beside him, a young woman.

They stopped at the first row where Joyce proceeded to center aisle to greet the parents of the bridal couple then shake hands with everyone else in the row. He returned to the woman who stood waiting by their seats. His actions established his importance to those who didn’t know him and reinforced it to those who did. The woman enhanced his significance, attractive in a dress the color of night when the first star appears.

Peres was third in line. Getting the cue, he stepped onto the carpet and, halfway to the other tent, found a maid to escort. She wore a peach strapless dress ending just above the knees with silvery white hose that shimmered in the sun. Braided black hair was wrapped about her head and her red ripe lips opened in a smile. Linking arms, they marched to the platform. There they separated, she going to the left and Peres taking his spot on the right side. He turned to face the assembly.

Joyce was close by and next to him the woman. His left knee came unstrung. He dipped slightly then caught himself. He’d heard of her beauty; she had to be Helen Roy.

As the ceremony progressed, his eye kept wandering to Helen. When it would have been too obvious, he held her in his mind. And, though the moment belonged to Dave Forester, he had a glowing awareness something was happening to him, too.

Many eyes watched Stephen Joyce and Helen. Joyce was the power that set the stage for the wedding at such a grand scale. People wondered what he thought of his accomplishment. He didn’t betray impressions. His mouth was rigid, without smile or sign of disapproval. He accepted and deflected attention. Helen, though, absorbed looks and the scene around her, eyes growing large to dominate her face and send bolts of electric intensity to whatever and whomever she saw.

The taking of vows redirected attention to the altar and an Episcopal priest in black and purple vestments. The groom, tall and ramrod straight, beamed. The bride, squeezed into a full-length hourglass gown, was regal. They exchanged rings and kissed. Then, he grabbed her hand and led her through the arbor and into the future. Returning to the platform, they walked back up the aisle to applause from a crowd breaking free from its seats.

Still entranced by the imagery, Peres sidled to Helen who in the excitement was watching the couple leave. She was, he believed, the most vibrant and real thing there. When she noticed him and cast her brown eyes at him, his skin tingled. He extended his hand.

“Peres Aguilar.”

“Helen Roy.”

A large hand clamped onto his shoulder.

“Our top salesman,” Joyce said.

He chafed at being overshadowed by the taller man, even as he welcomed the acknowledgement. Joyce gestured to the mansion and Helen, without hesitation, started walking but not before piercing Peres with a smile. He followed with his eyes, feeling a bit of himself leaving with her.

*

Rhea watched the pair climb the slope through the field glasses they had procured. She passed them to her husband.

“It’s just not right.”

He couldn’t disagree a wife’s place was beside her husband, but he saw something more. An executive needed aides to carry out his dictates. His own had been filtering through the guests and discovered a number of investors among them, confirming the business aspect of the wedding.

He admired the effort, but worried about his son’s feverish pursuit of capital. Many of those investors were speculators, in it for a quick hit, who would have no remorse abandoning a shipwrecked company.

To him, that wasn’t running a business. It was the long haul, circumnavigating the globe again and again and again. Business was family and family business, wife, children and allies, in it together and connected by loyalty.

Through the glasses, Rhea saw a displaced wife. The Chairman saw an aide and a question: How loyal was she?

*

The rock band began playing and, Pied Piper-like, attracted the celebrants to the mansion. Peres and Mary partook of the revelry. He charmed everyone he met and played the vital role amongst his peers. But part of him was disengaged and searching.

Day became twilight then turned into night. Whenever he could get away ---to the restroom, for drinks, to share laughs with the guys, to allow Mary time with the gals--- he looked for Helen. The size of the mansion worked against him, the party being confined to the ballroom, an adjoining dining room, the lobby and a few small rooms on the first level. He was convinced he’d find her if only he tried hard enough.

Each time he rejoined Mary, more of his good humor slipped away until an inexplicable sulkiness remained. When they got back to the car for the drive home, he’d been completely overtaken. His mood troubled Mary but she didn’t pursue it, exhausted by the day and settling in for the long ride home.

*

In the dark of night the remaining help staff was in the final stages of cleaning, but at foot of the willow arbor whispers and laughter could be heard. Lola, Bob and Bill were in a cluster, watching Joe.

“Did you get over there?”

Lola pointed to a spot. Joe pumped the canister and directed a jet of kerosene through the nozzle.

“More near the top.”

“I can’t reach.”

“Try.”

He held the nozzle as high as his arm would extend, but in the dark couldn’t tell if any landed.

Lola giggled.

“Bill, you’re taller.”

Bill took the canister and squirted. They heard the sound of liquid impacting a surface.

“Damn ---got some on me!”

“Okay, okay.”

“Stand back.”

“Wait.”

Bob twisted discarded programs into a long torch. Then, looking to his friends, struck a match and held it to the wad until it caught. Carefully with his left hand, he brought the yellow flame near the arbor, his right foot turned in the direction he would run.

He tossed it at the base, igniting a soft explosion and a crackle. Flames raced up and around the horseshoe form. The arbor was ablaze.

The quartet escaped up the slope to the limousine for the ride home, the CEO having released the chauffeur for the night.

The garlands quickly evaporated. The willow branches clung longest to the metal frame, like snakes in yellow twisted agony.

* * *


Chapter 11 will be posted July 17 31

The persons and events in this story are fictitious and do not represent any living person or real event.

Part One Recap: Something More, Chptrs 1-4

CHAPTER 1: SOMETHING MORE

Ulysses Mann merged into traffic to begin his daily commute to downtown L.A. Still dark, the lights from oncoming cars stung his eyes. He re-focused on the taillights that strung before him like a twisting red dragon.

He shivered. The air charging through the vents created a white noise and was as yet ineffectual against the early morning chill. He adjusted the heat on the dashboard then struggled to pull open the strip on the plastic cap of the container of coffee. He brought the cup to his lips and sipped.

“Damn.”

He tapped his scalded tongue against the roof of his mouth. The night before, he’d forgotten to set the coffee maker and resorted to the MacDonald’s drive-through instead of taking time to make his own.

Getting to the freeway on time was the first step to a successful day. He didn’t worry about being late to the office. He was a supervisor after all and had some leeway. His concern was taking his place in the line of cars oozing through the city before their numbers overloaded the system and deteriorated into a frustrating sequence of stops and starts.

As long as the commute flowed, no matter how slowly, he imagined the network of freeways, connectors and on-ramps as being like the veins and arteries of one sprawling body with white and red blood cells coursing to sustain its vital organs.

But when cars multiplied, squeezing into a framework unable to expand, accidents happened and tempers flared--- the body under attack. Whenever he found himself in the mother of all lines, he considered his standing in the world.

Ulysses Mann hadn’t been alive then but was now familiar with the image of hapless refugees lined up for the last helicopter out of Saigon, epitomizing the U.S. retreat from Vietnam. Four years later, he was one year old but would not remember the OPEC oil embargo, forcing Americans into long gas lines. But he did recall, at eleven years, watching on TV as people danced atop the Berlin Wall and tore away chunks of concrete. He struggled to understand, but did appreciate that people were lining up, waiting to get out. On 9/11, he was twenty-three and marveled at a sky empty of aircraft for the first time in his life.

About that time he decided to head back to college to finish his accounting degree. Ready money from working full-time at a restaurant had lured him away but after awhile friends, girls and parties seemed echoes from the past.

Married now and with a mortgage on a small house, he felt engaged in the present and strove for a prosperous future. Though his hopes of working for one of the big accounting firms hadn’t come to pass, he had risen after five years to Billing Supervisor at Dedalus Insurance and was confident he would go higher. Meanwhile, with two incomes he and his wife Penny could save to start a family. Everything flowed and had seemed right. If there were something more he’d ask it’d be for a shorter commute--- and designated parking.

A lot offered an Early Bird special as long as he arrived before nine and left before seven. After parking, he walked a few blocks past homeless, looking cold and dazed and dragging flattened cardboard boxes. Then he entered his building where he could relax, believing, as he did then, that his sensibilities wouldn’t be challenged inside.

Upper management and select others were afforded paid parking beneath the building. People, such as CEO Stephen Joyce II, Sales Manager Jeremy Port, and the Salesman of the Quarter, Peres Aguilar, parked without concern for weather and took elevators to their offices, never having to set foot on the street if they didn’t care to. A network of elevated walkways linked a cluster of buildings with venues to work, meet and eat. Ulysses considered the perk a measure of acceptance within the company and something, much more than convenience, he had longed for.

Founded in 1971 by Stephen Joyce the elder, Dedalus was a medium-sized company offering property and casualty insurance to business and wealthy individuals. Its operations consisted of sales, claims and information technology. Sales was the glamour department, bringing in cash in the form of premiums and establishing the high water mark for profits. Claims was the ill-favored sibling, whose payouts reduced profit. Information technology was the neglected stepchild, providing the infrastructure to get things done but receiving little credit. Billing was in IT.

Ulysses hoped to transfer to Sales but struggled against being typecast as “support”. No matter his efforts ---knowing the business of the company and his job, networking with the right people and dressing the part--- he always fell short. Creases in the slacks of the top salesmen were sharper, their humor wittier and their significance greater than anything he could muster.

Peres Aguilar was the exemplar. Wherever he entered a room, all eyes shined on him, whether from adoration or envy, lending a glow, and adding to his aura. He was a star, and Ulysses felt the pressure of his presence when he lobbied Jeremy Port. “I’ll keep you in mind,” he’d say, unwilling to commit and likely measuring him up against Aguilar.

It fared no better with Stephen Joyce who, two years before, had replaced his namesake father and began a campaign to bring new blood into the company. He valued loyalty, which meant forgetting the foibles of the intemperate young executive. New blood had the advantage of not knowing. Ulysses could not forget and considered him vengeful and rapacious. He was fated, it seemed, to be considered old while still young and to desire advancement in a company atop which stood a man ready to lop off his head.

He kept a look out for other opportunities, but for the while things flowed and when things flowed…. He worked hard and strived for the credit he deserved; and with credit would come riches. So he had thought.

That day promised to be routine: monitor reports detailing dollars billed and received, field phone calls from angry clients who believed their bills too high ---never too low--- and confer with attorneys over delinquent accounts. The only thing out of the ordinary was a new hire starting that morning. Helen Roy interviewed some weeks before and he made the offer after getting the okay from Personnel.

Billing had a staff of twenty, nearly two-thirds women, who stared into computer monitors, tracking accounts and handling problems. Their ages ranged from young to middle age. Most saw their position as a starting point before the next step, especially the single ones who knew they couldn’t survive on the salary. Those who stayed longest usually had a spouse working another job.

Some thought they could advance in the company. He’d seen it twice ---curiosity about the business, eagerness to meet people in other departments and a general catch-me-while-you-can attitude. Both women ended up leaving the company, having failed to break into male-dominated Sales. Stacy, a pert petite blonde, didn’t feel she’d get the respect she deserved; while Felicia, dark and sensuous, got too close to the man who would be CEO. When she broke it off, she realized she’d ruined her chance.

He felt bad about Felicia, believing he could have shielded her. But would she have responded to his chivalry, and was he as high-minded as all that? It bothered him that an ulterior motive might have lurked somewhere. He was sure, though, that his job wasn’t any easier when the higher ups interfered with his staff.

Stacy and Felicia were the exceptions. Most settled into the position, finding refuge in a functional role unlikely to have dramatic impact, the grayness of support staff, the anchor weighing Ulysses down.

He hadn’t put Helen Roy in a category yet. He estimated she was in her mid-twenties and unmarried. She’d gone to a good university. Overqualified, he expected she’d be gone before two years, the average length of service in his group. In the interview, she’d been exact in her responses, without expanding, and projected an air of not really caring about the position, which, oddly, made him want to give it to her. He remembered feeling there was something more he wasn’t seeing. Reserved, he concluded, but easy to train.

Pulling into the parking lot, he found a space near the cashier’s kiosk and shut off the engine. Stepping out the door in shirtsleeves and tie, he raised clenched fits to the sky, stretching his five foot nine inch frame. He shook a head of dark brown hair, ridding himself of the monotony of the drive. After adjusting his glasses, he reached into the car for his jacket, which completed his dark gray suit. With briefcase and coffee in hand, he started for the office.

The cup was three-quarters full and the coffee lukewarm. He extended his arm in an underhand motion to toss it into a trash bin. But, catching the eye of a homeless man, he handed it to him instead and smiled sheepishly. Then he walked away, tapping his tongue against the roof of his mouth to check if the hurt was still there. It was.

*

“Good morning, Mr. Mann.”

Ulysses looked up from his desk to scrutinize the young woman standing before him. A halo of light brown hair surrounded a prominent brow, sensuous lips on a mouth that might be considered large and almond-shaped brown eyes glowing with intellectual light. He couldn’t place her.

"Mr. Mann, it’s Helen Roy.”

He stood and extended his hand, though inwardly he recoiled, his mind racing to complete an image he should know. She laughed and he realized he’d been squinting.

“I'll show you your workstation.”

Rotating an assortment of papers before her, he convinced himself that she was indeed the woman he had interviewed. Small details took hold; that she’d been slightly taller than he and that her calm assurance compelled him to present for her rather than the other way around. She was the same person, but he marveled at the differences: eyeliner, lipstick, hairstyle and dress. Instead of the gray business suit, her dress was of a light shimmering fabric that, draped over her crossed leg, appeared like a fragment of blue sky. Her hair, before being pulled back and restrained, flowed, catching and playing with the light.

He felt someone at his elbow.

“Yul, want me to show her around?”

He nodded his assent and arranged to meet Helen again to discuss performance goals and objectives. He watched them walk away and thought, “One year, if that”.

Lola McIntyre, the longest serving member in the Billing Unit, liked to escort new people through the company. It gave her a chance to size them up, determine whether to like them then share her opinion with her friends.

“Oh, they’re going to love you,” she said, beaming at Helen like a child with a new toy. “The men will,” she added when she didn’t take the bait.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Lola gave a hearty laugh, coarse from years of smoking. “Oh, I think you do.”

Lola quickened her pace, her expansive hips shifting under her dress. Helen lengthened her stride, easily keeping up with the shorter woman. She was amused by the looks of the people they passed. They would be her co-workers, she assumed, but were, as yet, strangers. Instead of introducing her, Lola seemed intent on something in particular.

Through the room she led, around the corner and into another, before pushing off in a different direction. “That was Claims,” she called over her shoulder. They took the elevator to the floor above, then entered another large room. After looking around, she announced, “This is Sales”.

Whereas Claims had been crowded with desks and people and IT had been the same but with the buzzing and clicking of plastic CPUs and printers, Sales gave the impression of space. The desks were fewer and the aisles broader.

Heads popped up as if someone had turned on a light. Helen felt their eyes, while Lola smiled broadly, pleased with the effect. Soon, a straggling line of salesmen began to form and Lola made the introductions. But when Stephen Joyce, who’d been conferring on the far side of the floor, approached the line dissipated like a mist.

Joyce was proud of knowing and controlling everything in his company. After assuming the CEO mantle, he attempted a paternal air but the aggression that made him top seller and a bare-knuckled manager still predominated. He was tall and robust and his hair was shaped into a spiky crew cut.

He extended his hand before he arrived, his eyes fixed on Helen’s. Lola introduced them, then stepped back to watch. He took her hand and held it while they spoke.

“Welcome to Dedalus. I hope you’re happy with us.”

Helen smiled. “I’m sure I will be.”

After a few more words, a silence ensued and she tilted a head at her captive hand, which he released. As Lola led her out, he lingered looking, his mind deep within itself. The strong features of his face, so often expressing swagger and certainty, betrayed something more.

“I need a smoke,” Lola said, walking leisurely and steering Helen to a small concrete balcony. The door slammed shut with a dreadful finality, sealing them outside the air-pressured interior and facing two other buildings clustered in a close triangle.

“That’s the Northeast Office Building,” said Lola. “We’re in the Southwest. That’s the Agency Hotel.” She pointed to a building whose tower rose above the two thirty-story office buildings. “The top floors are condos.”

They watched people pass through the glass-enclosed walkways linking the buildings at the 11th floor above them.

“You can get coffee, snacks and sandwiches in the shops near the walkways. And the hotel has good restaurants. Expensive, though.”

“Are the walkways the only way to get to the other buildings?”

“Street-level, of course. The underground garage connects them, too.”

When Lola finished her cigarette, she showed Helen the way back to her workstation, then sought out her friends, eager to tell what she had seen. Helen was content to remain at her desk till lunchtime, study the materials she’d been given and to meet the others in her unit who came by to say hello.

*

Peres Aguilar smiled at his Blackberry and at his buddy’s enthusiasm. He composed an e-mail reply ---Why not in field closing sales?--- then pressed send. He stifled a laugh and shot a smile through the café, capturing the attention of the waitress.

“More coffee?”

He nodded and she brought over the glass pot. As she poured, Peres admired the curling strand of black hair sweat-pasted onto her long neck. She stood upright, pausing to appreciate the nature and quality of the smiling man.

He had thin black hair, shiny slick, that was combed straight back and quivered whenever he moved. His skin, a shade darker than olive, contrasted with the white of his smile and added to its brilliance. His hawk-like nose suggested purpose and the intense black dots that were his eyes unwavering concentration.

Had she asked what he was smiling about, he would have answered in one word: success. He’d come from a client’s offices where he closed a large deal. Now, while waiting on a sandwich, he filled in some paperwork and strategized his next appointment later in the day.

His e-mail was a dig, part jest but largely serious ---he didn’t make Salesman of the Quarter by sitting in the office. He worked his prospect list religiously and found there an element of joy. One deal led to another and his joy intensified, along with his smile. Even if he couldn’t close on an account, his smile told them he’d look forward to seeing them next year. The field was the theater where his successes took place.

Once a week, he went into the office to drop off the data sheets on his sales. Though it took him away from the field, he relished the envy in the eyes of his peers when handing over a stack of paperwork for input. He welcomed praise and liked seeing his name on top of the company sales chart.

He’d been First Place in everything he did and didn’t know any other way. Being first brought honor and wealth to his parents and his wife and to his kid. And always there seemed something more to strive for.

Though he didn’t chase fool’s gold, preferring substance to style, he understood that the trappings of success were as important to the world as accomplishment itself. So they had the big house, the expensive car and enjoyed their vacation trips.

He sometimes pondered what his next move would be. Going higher in the company, taking Jeremy Port’s position, or more? But that had the feeling of following in others’ footsteps. He wanted to be first, maybe starting his own company. For now, he thought he had at least one more step in Dedalaus before striking in a new direction.

That was why he smiled. As for his buddy, he was happy the new girl was “heaven”. But, he thought --- as the waitress buzzed by again --- there are pretty girls everywhere.

*

Ulysses looked at his watch --- a few minutes yet before leaving to get his car. Already dark outside, he’d spent the day without seeing the sun, focused on the work at hand. Everyone from his unit had gone and he was alone with his thoughts.

He thought about Helen whom he’d watched making neat stacks of the paper on her desk in preparation to leave. Then she held a compact mirror to her face, shifting it to capture every inch as if making herself whole, magically, after having been torn apart by the scrutiny of the day.

The chicken or the egg, he thought. Did the interest she excited result from the effort she put into making herself up, or would it be there anyway and was making herself perfect a defense?

His eyes assumed a faraway look, as if seeing beyond the horizon ---to a sandy beach beside a turquoise sea. She danced under the sun, lithe, brown, beautiful, her body shaping communication, as in words he couldn’t understand. Wanting to stay, he needed to leave; but she touched him deeper, drawing him near and he couldn’t pull away...


Helen had turned and caught him watching, a smile on her lips. Ulysses snapped out of his vision, acknowledged her look and sank behind the cubicle wall. Her beauty was both sword and shield.

Already she’d made an impact. Heads popped inside the department door, people who didn’t usually come by taking a look. The grapevine said that she’d met the CEO. He wasn’t pleased. Felicia all over again.

Before a pretense would suffice: co-workers going for dinner and a drink, even as his position in the line of succession was understood. Now he had complete control. No one was comfortable with the idea that the CEO could like or dislike someone and act on the emotion.

Even as he scorned it, Ulysses admired the power Joyce possessed and his willingness to use it. And what about himself? If he, Ulysses, had the power, would he act or was he checked by self-conscious knowledge of the consequences? Those thoughts chased him driving in pursuit of the red taillights headed home.

***

CHAPTER 2: EMPIRE

...The CEO surveys his realm ...


Stephen Joyce left the Sales Department and passed through the halls of the company. Employees smiled and nodded and made way for the CEO who obviously had something weighty on his mind. His gaze, elevated to start by virtue of his height, looked beyond ---possibly to higher profits, expansion and taking the company public. Happy in such prospects for the company and for themselves, they forgave his failure to acknowledge them. Making it easier was his reputation for making those he did acknowledge squirm.

Going by executive suites in the southwest corner, he noted activity through open doors, but didn’t pause, and continued toward the receptionist. Hair swirling like blond ice cream and wearing a pale blue suit with matching bow, she smiled and batted her eyes. But when he didn’t stop, she reached quickly beneath the desk to open the elevator. The doors parted to admit him without his having to break stride. Betsy Murray watched as the elevator swallowed him and wondered, with pressed lips, whether he was mad.

Joyce stood motionless as the elevator made its way up one floor. When the doors opened inside his suite he walked across the silver carpet, highly piled and woven with green laurel wreaths, to his desk. Then, after easing into a high-back leather chair, he gazed through the floor-to-ceiling window over the city towards the west.

He was alone atop the company. Though favoring hands-on management, which to him meant hounding managers in their offices, he invited only a select few into his own. He established the office when he became CEO. The elevator, which he badgered the landlord to allow, served as drawbridge that severed or effected physical ties, and he controlled the switch.

Prominent in the expansive and uncluttered office was a broad oak wood desk. It held perfunctory in- and out- boxes and a set of matching pens, perpetually ready at 45-degrees. Instead of a computer, he employed a mobile Blackberry so as to forestall attendant and inevitable streams of technicians going in and out.

Adjacent to one wall stood a small conference table with four chairs and behind him hung a signed photo of President George W. Bush who smiled and, it seemed, approved, the four-foot wood-carved statue across the room: a cowboy riding a bucking horse and waving his hat to the sky.

Shelves opposite the desk contained hardcover volumes of philosophy and literature, spines unbroken, and two framed photos. In one, his wife, Delfina, smiling and squinting into the sun, hugged their two boys. In the other Stephen Joyce Senior, silver-haired and patrician, faced straight ahead and stood beside Rhea who, looking to him, rested a hand on his chest. He exuded selfless confidence.

Joyce had gotten used to mocking that confidence. He joined Dedalus after graduating with a business degree and since then the chorus playing in his head was “Too complacent, too slow”. He was especially angry that the company was still privately held and advocated reaping a windfall by selling public shares. Instead his father had settled into a country club lifestyle and the camaraderie of fellow executives.

“Patience,” shrewd Rhea advised. She too had grown weary of the routine and hoped to convince Steve, as she called her husband, to take an extended worldwide trip. She pointed out that he didn’t have it so bad in the meantime.

Indeed, throughout his life the name “Stephen Joyce” opened doors and charmed important people, and he didn’t want for the material things like clothes, cars, boats or trips. But as his life advanced ---taking a position in the company, marrying Delfina and having kids--- his father overshadowed his existence and he grew restless and moody.

He developed a reputation for being smart ---and ruthless. With his calculator and business school methods he spotted inefficiencies throughout the company and preached return-on-investment and cost-benefit analysis. That alone would have been useful, but he used the data to scold the old school managers who served as proxies for his father. Yet, the company benefited and his father indulged him.

The managers, compelled to sit at the table with one lesser in rank and heed his advice, didn’t like it or him, but knew they were glimpsing the future. One day he’d be CEO and topple them like a timber company ravishing an old-growth forest.

And in time, with him pushing and Rhea pulling, they convinced the older man. Though still owning a majority and chairing the Board of Directors, he ceded managing control to Stephen The Younger.

Joyce immediately under cut the managers and the pace of the company seemed to quicken as their replacements, young, sharp, mercurial men who shared his emphasis on the short-term, came on board.

Jeremy Port was an exception. Old Blinker as he called him ---after his habit of blinking when nervous--- managed to meet demands for higher sales. Having been Joyce’s mentor, now he was fortunate to manage a record breaking sales staff. As he blinked, the ground beneath him swelled into a golden mountain, and he held on for dear life.

The light flashed soundlessly. He picked up the desk phone and listened. “No, nothing,” he said then stood to put on the jacket to his silver gray suit.

Turning to face the wall, he grasped the edge of a wood panel and swung it open to reveal a door. He passed through into a narrow corridor. That led to wider one connecting to the walkway to the Agency Hotel. He was anonymous to those he encountered as few Dedalus employees had reason to be there at that hour.

Past coffee stand and gift shop, through the small lobby of vacant armchairs, he made his way to the hotel elevators and took the one leading to the upper floor condo.

He used a card key to gain entry. The air was stale, as if nothing that breathed had lived there. He pressed a button and a small engine hummed as it retracted the drapes, admitting light and a vista that imagined the contour of continents. Nothing had been done since Dedalus acquired the lease and the furniture that came with it still suggested the manufacturers’ showroom rather than a human touch. Justified as a venue to entertain VIPs in style, he alone controlled access and its use. He didn't mention it to his father, nor to Delfina.

Duty nagged him. Duty to extend the line of corporate chiefs: his father’s father and his father before him had been heads of companies, and his sons would be groomed to preserve the tradition. After they met in college, his mother pushed for the match. Delfina came from good family, her father being CEO of a Detroit auto parts manufacturer.

“She’ll bear you fine sons,” Rhea had counseled.

And so she had. She played out the role for which she’d been selected. Part of the armament, the executive acquired a wife to help settle his wealth and make of it something real. She tended the home and the boys, happily.

He approached the tinted window. He saw his own reflection and through that the view beyond. In the distance human figures were indistinct, cars were dots that followed predestined paths and jets inched through the sky like pedestrian flies on a glass pane. Absent was the violent intensity of engines and passion for any journey traversing a beginning and an end.

To be CEO was expected and his due, just as the car and that jet were expected to move forward. But lost for having never been sought was any knowledge of what propelled Stephen Joyce the person.

As if in search of meaning, he snatched at the glittery trappings of wealth. Whatever displeased he shunted aside and destroyed when possible. Whatever pleased he held close to compare and contrast with his own nature and, when the fascination faded, to add to his collection and be forgotten until, what counted as reflection, he took the time to inspect his inventory.

He turned around. The suite did not yet please. It should be the gold standard of suites and elicit green-eyed envy in his rivals and the admiration of his allies. He nixed the idea of ordering someone up from the company. Nor did he pursue the thought of an interior decorator, which curled his lip. But he had an idea. He looked at his watch then left to return to Dedalus.

*

At the end of the walkway the elderly white-haired lady paused. With thick shaded glasses and black shawl over a floral print dress, she rested her weight on the cane in her right hand and caught her breath. Out of place amid sleek corporate offices and associates, she might have been visiting a granddaughter or keeping her company on a trip. Now, as her favorite attended to business, she was taking her exercise.

She worried at the approaching stranger. Walking down the center, the looming figure in the silver gray suit crowded the walkway and seemed to scrape the ceiling. Not wanting to challenge his courtesy, she angled the cane to the right, willing her body to follow.

As he passed without seeming to take notice, she studied the strong nose with the minute bump at the ridge, the narrow-set eyes and the small humorless lips. She hurried along, jowls aquiver and her cane goose-stepping ahead, thinking she had strayed too far, but grateful when scary things, like nightmares, passed.

***

CHAPTER 3: COMMAND

…Rhea and Steve discuss past and present…


The Mediterranean sun, reflecting off the villa’s whitewashed walls, promised burning heat later but in the morning warmed the couple on the balcony. Seated at a table having breakfast, their movements, though limited to the task, displayed a kind of grace.

Rhea sipped coffee then spoke.

“You’re restless.”

Steve Joyce rose and glided to the railing and, over the hilly Cretan landscape, gazed at the sea and the string of small white clouds streaming across the sky. His lean body was clad in white cotton slacks and shirt that reflected light. He had silver hair and active blue eyes in a face lined with deep creases. His sunken cheeks gave the impression of having exhaled a mighty gust of wind. He returned to the table.

Rhea’s lavender sundress added color, like a flower in bloom, against the white. She had pewter-colored hair cut below the ears and brown eyebrows over hazel eyes.

“You’ve enjoyed the trip.” Her eyebrows arched, expressing the question absent in her voice. He swung his head and dropped a kiss on her lips.

“You’re right, of course---” she continued, speaking for them both as, after more forty years, she often did. “---We’ll finish the month. It’s too peaceful. We’ll go back, relaxed.”

Halfway through a yearlong trip, they’d walked through the Lake District, strolled Parisian streets amid spring showers and toured Venice, Florence and Rome.

In a whisper she added, “I don’t want you causing mischief.”

“He treats my friends like dogs.”

“They’re recouping their investment.”

“Forced. Honorable men wouldn’t put up with it. Daily reporting! Looking at the numbers more often doesn’t do a thing. Schedule your calls, close deals and service the customer. Basic stuff.”

“That’s the trend.”

“Looking in the mirror, touching up flaws, falling in love with yourself. Many do. But sometimes numbers lie. By intent or for looking at the particular at the expense of the bigger picture.”

“The new people are good.”

“Easily brought to heel.”

“I don’t see a difference.”

“I tell you, schedule calls, close deals and service the client. Wealth grows and everyone benefits. These guys worry how fast. They capture growth in a stat and show it off. A hiccup is cause for celebration. But if it can’t be sustained ---it’s gone. Vanished.”

Rhea rose, walked to the railing and turned. Her straw sunhat cast a shadow over her eyes.

“Stephen’s your son. Take his side.”

He remained silent and she continued.

“You wanted Richard, I know. But he chose the ministry. Stephen followed you. That should mean something.”

“Emphasis on ’Follow’.”

Unsaid but present was awareness that had Stephen not gone into the business, the succession of presidents in the family might have ended. Maintaining continuity was synonymous to preserving prosperity. Born near the start of the second war, they met and married in the early sixties, the flower of the American Century. In quick order, they had Diane, Stephen and Richard.

She returned to the table. “There was Diane…”

His face twitched.

“I’m sorry.”

“She went her own way. I admire that.”

“You couldn’t see her as more than a girl. She got at you, being bad.”

“Not that bad, looking back.”

“She got your attention, but you’d never accept her in the business. Not for lack of love ---you couldn’t imagine it. In rejecting you, she established herself.”

“Times were different---”

“And they pass. Now she’s an artist, a good one.”

“Happy?”

“Yes. You regret not giving her a chance.” Her eyebrows arched for the question and his eyes focused on the distant past.

“I regret she had to fight out of the box I put her in. Not fair but it happens all the time ---labeling people and things according to a point of view. It helps to concentrate on what you think's important---“

“But hides the people underneath. You didn’t put me in a box.”

“You wouldn’t fit.”

“You still carry boxes around?” Her voice was playful.

“I suppose.” They laughed thinking about the time they met, browsing the Museum of Natural History. He was attending Yale and she was newly arrived in New York City. A shadow tickling the far side of recollection signaled the role that chance played in putting them together that day.

“Your folks had me labeled.”

“Not dad ---though Mom thought of you as that poor girl from Kansas.”

“After your money. ‘Girl’, by the way, is polite.”

“After she got used to you, she liked you. I did from the start.”

“Funny. I come around the corner and you standing there, jaw dropped, eyes wide, as in a trance.”

“I didn’t quite know what to make of you. I liked it ---whatever you were. You set to though, right away…”

Her eyebrows arched.

“’Close your mouth’,” you said, “’you look silly’.”

They laughed and she covered his hand with hers.

“I can’t think how it would have been, if I hadn’t seen you ---had been distracted somehow--- and you walked by. I would have continued on my way---“

“---And met someone else.”

“I can’t see it. Life would have been different.”

“You know, I willed it to happen.”

She leaned over to receive another kiss.

They discussed plans to return to L.A. and then decided what to do later in the day. When they finished, Steve stood again at the railing, like a captain of a ship looking out to sea. The sky was clear, the clouds gone like a troop of soldiers departed from the field of battle.

As if speaking, not to Rhea or himself, but to the sea, he said, “I’m Chair of the Board of Directors. I’m still Chair, god damn it!” He inhaled deeply, air inflating his cheeks, and then released it in a gust.

Watching, Rhea spoke. “You weren’t ready to retire.”

***

CHAPTER 4: BALANCE

...various interactions and implications...


Stephen Joyce drummed his fingers on the desk, as if pacing a prisoner to his execution. The Claims Manager appreciated the irony as he delivered the bad news. Claims were up and included a warehouse fire.

Mark Pointer’s tired eyes spoke to decades of pouring over accident reports, shadowy photos and contractual fine print. He was a short compact man with a wrinkled face, fading brown hair and a tight moustache.

He paused for breath. Joyce, who was looking past him at the wall, didn’t interject, so he continued with his report. Used to telling people what they didn’t want to hear, he dispassionately recited numbers and, of what they pertained to, the descriptions. When he finished, he would remain silent. The numbers are what they are and he wouldn’t embellish them with unnecessary final words.

He was well aware that Joyce had him targeted for replacement. He was a holdover. But Claims Manager wasn’t a glamour position that elicited back slaps and high-fives. The slick young men coming into the company had steered clear so far.

Pointer set down the paper, removed his glasses and folded his hands on the desk. The drumming stopped and Joyce lowered his eyes as if taking aim. Rushing blood made his face glow.

“Cause of fire?”

“Still smoldering. We’re waiting on access.”

His face got redder. He was upset, Pointer recognized, because the loss had already appeared on the system. The warehouse owner had contacted the claims adjuster right away and she was obligated to calculate and post an estimate. Over time the actual payout would be higher or lower. But for the present it was a large undigested lump threatening profits.

“Who’s the adjuster?”

“Margie.”

He could have found that out by himself.

“Did you double check her figures?”

Pointer shook his head. They both knew they were standard in-the-ballpark estimates. He pushed his face at him, eyes bulging.

“Do it!”

Pointer was silent, looking straight ahead, not avoiding Joyce’s eyes but not challenging them either. He had his finger on the pulse and had confidence in the people who worked for him. Joyce rose, glaring and domineering, then left. After he cleared the door, a line began to form, of supervisors and adjusters who needed a consult. He put on his glasses, ready to get to work.

Joyce made his way to Billing and stood at the entrance. He scanned the room, then stepped forward to Helen’s desk. He waited a second for her to acknowledge him and, when she didn’t, knocked on the frame of the cubicle wall. Still, she took a measure plus one to turn.

“Are you ready?”

She nodded. He motioned her to come.

*

Ulysses looked up at the knock and Mimosa Liang slid onto the chair beside his desk. She spoke as if in mid-conversation.

“I’m telling you. It doesn’t feel right.”

His mind was focused on the report before him.

“What?”

“The CEO.”

“So?”

“Helen.”

He squinted.

“Mo, what are you talking about?”

“The CEO. Helen. Again!”

Mimosa, with jet-black hair down to her shoulders and black eyes in an open face, had been with the company about a year. Worry lines fretted her forehead. She spoke in a whispered rush of words.

“Every time he comes, I want to hide. I don’t know what he’s thinking!”

He sat patiently to listen to the story again. Over the past weeks, Joyce had been stopping by to speak to Helen. His presence and the power of his position made Mimosa self-conscious. Though he tried to reassure her that she was doing a good job and nobody was spying on her, she worried nonetheless.

But everyone was talking, and reaching different conclusions. Some thought he was spotting new talent to advance in the company. Others, like Mo, that he was learning about their jobs in order to criticize. A third interpretation was that he was looking for a mistress or even a new wife.

The tension excited some, unnerved others. The calmest was Helen herself, who smiled when addressing “Mr. Joyce”. She swiveled her chair towards him, moving either forward or back dependent on how close he stood. Always, she held her head erect with her face slightly tilted up. And though his voice was alternately loud and low, hers was always moderate and clear, a voice that kept secrets even in the open.

When loud, Joyce spoke to generalities ---like how did she find the work or on which account was she working. His low voice suggested something personal and exclusive, causing some, like Lola McIntyre, to emerge from her desk to get closer. But Helen’s answer, in her clear voice, countermanded his low talk and suggested to most there wasn’t anything to hear.

More extraordinary was the way she dismissed him, with a glance at her watch or gesture to her desk. His consternation was obvious, but always she smiled and he departed with something like a forced grin.

She handled Joyce without complaining or a mention otherwise. That suggested confidence, but Felicia had been, too. If seeking advancement, she couldn’t have attracted anyone higher. She appeared to be playing a good hand: he kept coming back. Ulysses hadn’t reached any conclusions. He hoped for the best, but feared the worst.

“What if he comes for me?” Mo protested. “I don’t want to say no to a CEO but…”

He agreed a woman shouldn’t be put in that position. He advised her to tell him if anything in particular happened to her, a familiar recital from the other times they spoke. But, she pounded the desk.

“She went!”

“What?”

“They went ---together!”

He rose from his chair and peered over the wall. Helen’s seat was empty, angled toward the door. He felt hollow in the pit of his stomach.

*

As they left, heads sprung up and eyes followed: Joyce striding across the floor and Helen trailing, as at her leisure, tan legs shapely beneath a frilly hem. Through the hallways, a manufactured silence greeted them, followed in their wake by murmurs and, when out of earshot, a twitter or a laugh. Betsy Murray pressed the button to the elevator and shredded Helen with her eyes.

On entering his suite, Joyce sat behind the desk, but Helen inspected the room. She looked through the window down to the street, like a girl searching for dandelions. At the statue she patted the horse’s hindquarters and then, gazing at the shelves, tapped fingers before the picture of Delfina and the boys. All the while Joyce tracked her movements and checked his impatience. When finally she settled in the chair before him, she gestured around the room and met his eyes straight on.

“It appears I am your captive.”

“Helen,” Joyce began…

*

Ulysses bolted from his cubicle. Workers stood in clusters of twos and threes, some in animated conversation. They watched him, having seen Mimosa rush in. Outside the door, Lola approached and settled in his path, a mischievous look in her eyes. Before he could speak, she said, “She’s with Stephen. His office.”

He maneuvered past her down the hall. He met people agitated for having seen something. But as he progressed, the hallways cleared. His heart pounded. He was running and felt absurd. By the time he reached the reception desk he had slowed to a walk. Betsy looked up. He waved and grinned and touched her desk like a runner’s turnaround point, leaving her to wonder about his odd manner.

Already up, he decided to go for coffee. He took the elevator to the street. Along the way, he thought about what to say to Helen.

*

A brooding cloud settled over him. Time passed. Slowly. He waited, couldn’t concentrate and jumped at every sound. But when she appeared, everything happened too quickly.

He beckoned her to sit. Seated on the edge of the chair, her face was flushed, as from exercise, and her eyes excited. Her hair, combed high and back at the brow, fell into stylish tangles at the sides surrounding the serene lines of her face.

“Yul, I’m sorry for going away without letting you know. Mr. Joyce talked to me and I want to give you a heads-up. He wants me for a project. PR work. Not all the time. I’m still working here.”

He nodded dumbly, gathering his thoughts. He admired the enthusiasm attending any adventure, but feared what lay ahead.

“Helen---”

Signaled by the tone in his voice, she slid back into the chair, crossed her legs and appraised him. Her eyes settled and deepened. She waited.

“Don’t get too close.”

And waited.

“He can turn on you.”

Still waited, and he rushed to fill the silence.

“People will look at you differently.”

She canted her head. “Will you?”

His face reddened. He shook his head.

“Just ---friend to friend--- be careful.”

When she stood, he jerked his head back and was gratified by her smile.

“See you tomorrow.”

He was alone again with his thoughts. He tried to do right and be right, in the moral sense ---like right attitude towards people, and in the social sense ---right school, job or girl leading to all things good.

But right in one sphere might damage rightness in another: being fired for taking a principled stand might injure the good life he sought. Still, he craved a higher purpose.

Helen, and all she represented, was that purpose. He couldn’t bear the thought of divided time with Joyce. He suspected his motives and was ashamed to associate them with her. He would protect her, even though her eyes told him it wasn’t necessary and he’d have a devil of a time explaining to Penny if he lost his job. He had to admit, he might be a bit in love. That complicated matters, but didn’t trump them, so he vowed.



* End of Part One *


Part Two begins March 6.

The persons and events in this story are fictitious and do not represent any living person or real event.