[b]PIN DROP[/b]
Sounds of traffic through downtown London.
They look like ants from here.
“Mr. Julien?”
Why does she have to come to me in person?
Bitch. Deliver a memo or something.
“Mr. Julien . . .”
“Tracy . . . New business I assume?”
“It’s . . . well . . . I don’t know how to say this, Director.”
She doesn’t call me a formal title unless it’s an informal issue. This must be big.
Learn how to write a god damn memo.
"I’m sorry, Mr. Julien, I know you don’t like unannounced visits, but I couldn’t imagine any better way to bring this to you.
“It’s your wife, Julien. Please let me explain.”
She’s on the virge of getting fired now. Tracy’s not that stupid. She either won the lottery or she has leverage on me and she’s showing off.
Stay calm.
"Tracy . . .
"You realize that Emma’s been dead for over a year now.
“I know that, Edgar.”
First-name basis. She wants to get fired, and she wants to sleep with me?
“Tracy . . . if this is a jo-”
"Emma is dead, I know Edgar . . .
"I . . . I can . . . call you Edgar?
“For now?”
I honestly don’t think she ever opened a single pack of those memo stacks I bought her. Does she even know email?
I could tell her I’m too busy. But now she can’t leave until I let her. I’m going to take my time with this.
I don’t stop looking out the window. She hasn’t seen my face yet.
She gets scared when she sees my eyes.
People are particularly scared around here when I acknowledge their presence.
I get scared when I treat them like they’re worth it.
I glance at my desk. Step toward it, three slow steps.
Stare down at my unsigned contracts and my quarter-full glass of bourbon.
I stare at the point of my wall I like to stare at when I want to think long and hard. About 11 o-clock from Tracy at the entrance, I zero in on that point, casually taking step after step, toward the point.
It’s only a short reach to my left, to close the blinds to my office. Just under the platinum bordered painting of an island rendition. A little shack property I own off the coast of Columbia.
There are any of three results in my office when I close the blinds.
They exit my office packing, they have a piece of their clothes on backwards, Or . . . they walk out calmly, and never ever return.
Tracy is a fine-looking woman for her age. But I don’t think her clothes are going to be backwards.
I turn around and stare into Tracy’s eyes.
“You know. I suspect that Emma knew everything that went on here. I suspect . . . a lot of people know a lot of things.”
She tries to pretend that I never looked her in the eye. Her black sweater hides her shaking well. She wants to move to the window, I can see her steps pointing there.
“But no one ever shows it. It’s not about what you know, Tracy . . . It’s always about what you look like you know.”
She seems desparate for that window. But she knows she can’t put herself in my place. No one goes to those windows, to imagine the freedom when they’re in my office. To look down and think, just once, they saw the cars and people . . . as little ants, just as I do.
“She left something, Edgar. And I’d have no excuse, if I didn’t show it to you right away.”
Reaching into her front shirt pocket, Tracy pulls out a small safety pin.
"I heard her voice, Edgar. She told me to give this to you.
"I was just walking through the park and . . . I heard her. I don’t know how. I swear, I heard her. I don’t know how.
“Do you know what it means?”
I stare at it a moment. I reach out, and bury it in my hands. I look down at it.
It’s as if I’m not the one moving anymore. Someone else is doing the moving for me.
Someone else takes control of my arms, and takes the desk. A cherry oak corner desk. Amazing how light it feels now.
It’s no different than the stack of papers on it, now blowing out on the floor. Now drifted back, as the desk hurls out through the glass . . . falling through the air, probably to hit that Camero driving under.
I hope it hits the Camero. I’m not very far behind. The safety pin still in my hands, no matter how hard the wind rushes up at me.
A few short scenes of the past seem to rush up at me, with the wind.
“Mr. and Mrs. Julien” he says, folding the stethascope and tucking it into his white pocket, as he settles in front of us on his desk. “I’m afraid it’s not going to work. There are . . . other fertility options.”
“I don’t care what they think, Edgar! We can have one our own way!”
“You don’t get it, Emma. THEY choose how it works! THEY say! THEY know everything! No treatments, no divorce, no tweaking things here and there. I live THEIR way! Or I don’t do anything!”
“It’s the company, is it? . . . that’s what this is really about! Isn’t it!”
“ANSWER me, Edgar! A barren woman would be too low for you! Is that it!?”
“As your attorney, I am obliged to inform you of the loss you sustain without prenuptuals, Mr. Julien.” His briefcase clicks open under the bar lamp.
“I want you to take a second, Mr.J” the man by the park bench pulls a pen out of inside his trenchcoat and stares me in the eye. “There’s no undoing this contract.”
His arm extends, with the pen matching perfectly his silver cufflink. “This will remain discreet. Her accident is very common.”
There are times when you can feel it. When you are sure that you are messing with a force that’s bigger than what you know.
That this is going to come back on you. Even though you can’t explain it.
A safety pin. Nothing could have been a better token.
It clamours on the road, by the camero.
