Overseas

by Beatriz Williams

  “No, seriously. Plus you have a major advantage over the rest of us.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your looks, Kate.” He tossed the ball up in the air and caught it with a deft flick of his hand. “You’re the first thing these guys notice when we walk into the room. You should work it.”

  “Charlie, for God’s sake.” I said it too sharply. I sensed Charlie’s body locking into place, fingers clenched around the ball.

  “Oh, dude”—his voice thinned with dawning apprehension—“you’re not gonna, like, report me or something?”

  “No, no. Jeez, Charlie. It’s okay. All fun and games.”

  His hand slackened; the ball went back in the air. “You seriously don’t think you’re good-looking, though?” he pressed, relieved, apparently, that he wasn’t about to be hauled up in front of a sexual harassment tribunal. One torturous day of our new analyst orientation three years ago had been devoted to gender sensitivity training, as if we hadn’t had enough of that in college already. Not that most of my colleagues cared much. Anyone who was going to hyperventilate about the crassness of the investment-banking atmosphere did not, ipso facto, have the necessary cojones to kill your career.

  “Well, I’m okay, I guess,” I said cautiously, catching my reflection in the sterile blue glow of the computer screen.

  “Dude, give yourself some credit. You rock the whole sexy librarian thing.” He leaned back in his chair, propped his oily black shoes on the gleaming mahogany. “I mean, no offense.”

  “Sexy librarian?”

  He shrugged. “Some guys love that shit.”

  “You’re so full of it.”

  “Full of what?” He leaned forward, grinning. “Come on. Full of what, Kate?”

  The first thing you learn on Wall Street: just play along. “Full of crap, Charlie.”

  “Kate! Did you just swear?”

  “Crap doesn’t count.”

  “Sure it does. It’s like shit for wusses.”

  “Deep, Charlie. So Harvard.”

  “Kidding, Kate. We all love how you elevate the fucking tone around here.”

  “Any time.”

  “That prim Wyoming shit…”

  “Wisconsin.” I lifted the cup to my lips.

  “Whatever. Just remember what I said, when Laurence… Oh, fuck.” Charlie heaved his feet off the edge of the table, nearly toppling in his chair. “Here they are.”

  I jerked to attention, with a splash of scalding coffee against the back of my throat. My hand stole up to rip the elastic from the twist at the back of my head, leaving only a skinny tortoiseshell headband to keep my hair in place; not exactly the polished professional, but at least not—thanks, Charlie—librarian manqué. Had I remembered the lip gloss? I rolled my lips together. Slightly gooey. Check.

  Alicia entered first, mouth twitching irrepressibly, jacket unbuttoned to reveal an aggressive bronzed cleavage. Her voice cascaded with false regret. “Kate, there you are. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  The strangest feeling: vertigo, as if the entire broad carpeted floor had fallen away beneath my feet. “Leave?” I demanded, in undertone. “What do you mean, leave?”

  “I’m so sorry. We had an extra ChemoDerma guy show up.”

  “What about Charlie?”

  “He stays. He’s just, you know, a little more professional.” She mouthed the last word with relish, hardly bothering to disguise her smile.

  I’d had many revenge fantasies about Alicia. My favorite had her going rogue and blowing up the bank in a spectacular career implosion, like Nick Leeson with an industrial-strength push-up bra. Except she didn’t work on the trading floor—no math genius, Alicia—and my joy in her demise would be obscured by the fact that most of my 401(k) was held in Sterling Bates stock. Oh, and I would also be out of a job. Still, her public disgrace had been enjoyable to contemplate in the comfort of my cubicle at three o’clock in the morning: a guilty pleasure for which I usually repented in the light of day.

  Not anymore.

  I stared at her, only dimly aware of the dark-suited figures streaming through the door, filling the room with affable chuckles. “Okay,” I said. I turned to Charlie. “It’s all here, ready to go. Watch out for the new revenue numbers.”

  “Dude,” he moaned.

  “Don’t worry. Alicia’s doing all the talking. I’ll be in my cube if you need me.” I picked up my laptop bag and walked to the door—past Banner, with his craggy overtanned face and emollient smile; past the ChemoDerma CEO, frowning quizzically; past two or three men who must have been from Southfield. The last one turned his face as I walked by, flashing me a lightning impression of startled eyes and bright extraordinary beauty, but I didn’t even pause. I could just hear Banner introducing us: And these are our hardworking analysts, Charlie Newcombe and Kate Wilson, who put the presentation together for you folks. Um, Katie?

  The door closed behind me, cutting him off.

  I WENT DIRECTLY TO MY CUBICLE, as I’d promised Charlie, and kept my phone poised next to me on the desk. I had nothing to do; my laptop was in the conference room two floors above me, delivering the presentation.

  I should have been grateful. I had never grown used to meetings like this one, always hovering on the brink of some disaster: six-inch-high spelling errors projecting on the screen, mislabeled graphics, pie charts whose numbers clearly didn’t total to 100 percent. Revenue projections pulled out of thin air, neat and pretty and so completely freaking bogus. Ideal target practice for sharp-witted hedgies.

  But this wasn’t much better, this unnerving idleness, this queasy suspicion that I was missing a deadline or failing in some critical responsibility. I reached out restlessly with one hand and traced the edge of the framed photo on my desktop. Nothing too revealing, just Michelle and Samantha, standing in front of Neuschwanstein at some point during our post-college Eurail trip. Samantha’s arm looped around Michelle’s shoulders, pulling her off balance; Michelle’s fingers stuck up above Samantha’s head with the obligatory bunny ears. They were probably hungover. I was pretty sure we’d spent the previous evening at one of the Munich biergartens. Or three. A lifetime ago, it seemed; I narrowed my eyes and tried to recall the laughing Kate who had taken that photograph, compare her to the suit-swathed creature I inhabited now. Manhattan Kate, impermeable investment-banker Kate.

  Eventually I rose to use the bathroom; not because I needed it, but because it was something to do, however brief. I lingered as long as I could at the black marble sink. I washed my hands with scrupulous care, chased away each tiny droplet under the hurricane draft of the hand dryer, twisted my hair back into its elastic. My face gazed back at me from the mirror, heavy and troubled, unrecognizable.

  I picked up my silent BlackBerry from the counter and made my way back through the maze of identical heather-gray cubicles to my own, where I stopped short.

  A tall lean man stood there in perfect stillness, resting one hand on the back of my chair. His curling hair gleamed dark gold in the remorseless office lighting; his back, broad and immaculate, bent forward a degree or two toward my desktop.

  “I’m sorry,” I snapped. “Can I help you with something?”

  He straightened and turned to me. “Kate,” he whispered.

  I flinched in shock. The man was beautiful, unutterably beautiful. His face bore the implausible symmetry of a classical sculpture, almost exotic, with wide vivid eyes that absorbed me greedily. A yellow Sterling Bates visitor’s badge hung from the right lapel of his suit jacket, or I might have thought I was hallucinating.

  “That is to say, Miss Wilson,” he said, in polished cut-glass tones, a plummy voice straight from the Friday night marathon on the classic movie channel. Gielgud, maybe, or Barrymore. He held out his hand. “Julian Laurence.”

  “Oh,” I said, shaking it. “You’re British.” Of all the asinine things to say.

  He smiled. “Guilty as charged.”

  “Shouldn’t you be in t
he meeting?”

  “I’m sorry for disturbing you. I only wanted to convey my apologies, for having… for the way you were…” His voice trailed off, but his gaze, if possible, grew more intense: a strange vibrating stare, as if he were trying to scour the backs of my eyeballs.

  “Oh, that’s not necessary. Not your fault, I mean. I’m used to getting bumped. It’s part of the job description.” Was it my imagination, or had the restive murmur of the Capital Markets floor faded to silence? I could sense the heads popping up above the cubicle walls, like prairie dogs. My pulse twitched eagerly in my neck.

  “In any case,” he said, not taking his eyes from mine, “I’m sorry to have so nearly missed you.”

  “That boring in there, is it? I guess we should have slipped in a few pictures of celebrities, to keep you guys entertained.” I nearly jumped at the spikiness in my own voice. I’d meant it as a joke.

  His eyes widened, and a tiny crease formed between them. “Have I offended you? I beg your pardon. I only wanted… you see, you took me quite by surprise…” He shook his head. “I’m making a muddle of things, aren’t I? I do beg your pardon.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive.” I swallowed, because my mouth was apparently watering, for God’s sake.

  He parted his lips hesitantly. His right hand curled and flexed at his side, on the outermost edge of my peripheral vision. I wanted to speak, to amaze him with some immortal display of wit, but my brain had frozen into stupidity, not quite able to process that the legendary Julian Laurence stood in full luminescent flesh before me, stammering and begging my pardon, like the shy kid at school who finally works up the courage to confess to his long-standing crush. Not that such a thing had ever happened to me; not that I’d ever met this man in my life.

  “It’s just this,” he said, and a large hand appeared on his shoulder, startling us both.

  “There you are,” came a gruff voice, belonging presumably to the hand’s owner. I tore my eyes away from the noble architecture of Julian Laurence’s cheekbones to find a pale dark-featured man, a color-negative of Julian himself, watching me with cool impassivity, dragging his hand back down to cross his arms against his chest.

  Julian let out an exasperated breath and cast his eyes upward. “My head of trading, Geoff Warwick,” he said. “Geoff, it’s Kate Wilson.” He spoke with command, putting the slightest emphasis on my last name.

  I lifted my well-trained hand, but Geoff Warwick only nodded. “Miss Wilson,” he said.

  Julian turned back to face me. He looked inquisitive, or else possibly amused, one eyebrow arched, but when my eyes met his, a smile lifted one side of his mouth. A conspiratorial smile, between the two of us: a kind of wink.

  “Hadn’t we better be getting back to the meeting?” asked Geoff.

  “Yes, of course,” Julian said, and his smile brightened to iridescence, dazzling the anodyne office air in a current of pure blithe energy. “Kate—Miss Wilson—a very great pleasure.” He took my hand again, more a clasp than a shake, and then turned to stride down the aisle with the fluid ease of a natural athlete, drawing the light along with him, Geoff Warwick trotting doglike at his heel.

  I stared after them, hardly noticing as the heads swiveled back in my direction and then, one by one, slipped back behind the cubicle walls. I could hear Charlie, of all people, observing in my brain: Dude, that was fucking weird.

  Amiens

  I don’t think I remained unconscious long. I became aware of voices, hands; someone was touching my cheek, my forehead; loosening my collar, removing my hat. I seemed to be lying on someone’s knee, with a single iron arm supporting my back and the cold rain still dripping miserably on my cheek.

  “Who the devil is she, Ashford?” someone demanded, jarringly close.

  And then Julian, in a voice so familiar it brought the sting of tears to my eyeballs: “We can sort that out later, Warwick. She’s clearly ill.”

  Warwick. Geoff Warwick. I hadn’t recognized the accent.

  “Her eyelids are moving.”

  “Yes, I see. Are you all right, madam? Can you hear me?”

  I nodded. “Yes,” I scratched out. “Sorry.” I dragged open my heavy eyelids, wanting to see his face: there it was, a little blurred, compressed with concern.

  “Warwick,” he said, glancing upward, “do you think you can disperse this crowd a bit? And see if there’s a doctor among them.”

  “Not likely,” said Geoff Warwick, but he moved away and began making commanding noises. I turned my head in his direction, and saw that at least a dozen people stood in a silent awed circle nearby. I struggled upward, but a renewed surge of dizziness and nausea closed my eyes.

  “Sorry,” I whispered again.

  Anxiety clipped his words. “Madam, can I help you? Are you in pain?”

  “No. Just tired. Long journey.” I tried to smile, but my mouth wouldn’t obey.

  “Can I help you to your lodgings? Assist you in some way? Warwick!” he said urgently. “Have you found a doctor?”

  “Someone’s off to fetch one,” Warwick said, returning. “How is she?”

  “Conscious. Speaking. She seems a bit confused.”

  “No! I’m all right, really.” I struggled to sit up again, with more success.

  “Ashford, she’s American!” said another voice, behind me. Julian’s other companion; I couldn’t see his face.

  “Yes, I realize that,” Julian said. He squinted at me thoughtfully.

  “How do you know her?” demanded Warwick.

  “I don’t know her.”

  “She knew your name.”

  “Before God, Warwick, I’ve never seen her in my life,” he insisted. “Madam, where do you stay? You can’t return without help.”

  “I’m not anywhere yet,” I said. “I just arrived in town.”

  A pause. “You must get her out of this rain,” said the other voice.

  “Yes, of course,” Julian said. “Is the Chat open yet, do you think?”

  “Not yet.” Warwick sounded almost gloating. The chip on his shoulder evidently wasn’t a modern development.

  Another pause. “Madam, are you able to walk?”

  “I… yes, of course.” I slid off his knee and tested my legs: a bit wobbly, but still capable. Julian’s arm remained across my back, supporting me.

  “Warwick, you and Hamilton wait here for the doctor,” Julian said, over his shoulder. “Tell him to find us in rue des Augustins.”

  Arthur Hamilton. Florence’s brother. I strained to look at him, but his face was hidden under the low dripping peak of his officer’s cap.

  “Christ, Ashford, you’re not taking her to your billet!”

  “I beg your pardon, madam,” Julian said and then turned to Warwick, speaking next to his ear in a stern whisper he evidently thought me too far gone to overhear. “Where the bloody hell else can I take her? It’s pouring rain; the cafés aren’t open yet. She’s no streetwalker, that’s clear.”

  Warwick snorted.

  “For God’s sake, look at her. You’ve never seen a prostitute”—Julian spoke the word in such an undertone I could only guess it—“with a face like that.”

  “You’re mad, Ashford. She might be a damned spy, for all we know.”

  “Rot. Where’s your humanity, man?” He turned back to me. “You’re quite sure you can walk?”

  “Yes,” I said, taking a step. Strength was beginning to return, now that the immediate shock of meeting him had receded, but the nausea still lingered.

  “I’ll help you. Come along; it’s not far. The landlady has a parlor, quite private and suitable until you’re well enough to continue.”

  “I…” I nearly refused him, but then I remembered this was why I was here: to win his sympathy, to gain his trust. “I’m so sorry to trouble you,” I said instead, and the words sounded alien, unlike me.

  “Here we are, then,” he said, guiding me forward with his arm. “Be decent for once, Warwick,” he added, “and see about that d
octor. Hamilton, you’ll help him, won’t you?”

  He assisted me across the square and down a side street, not saying anything except for the odd short warning about loose cobbles and sidewalk edges. I stumbled along as if in a dream; or maybe it was a dream. It certainly seemed like one, walking down this street, in this bleak unfamiliar war-ridden French town, with the rain crackling icily down my coat and Julian’s right arm encircling me from behind.

  “Just around this corner,” he said, so close I could smell the faint musk of his shaving soap. I had to dig my fingernails into my hand to keep myself from responding, from leaning into him, from slipping my own arm around his waist.

  A door appeared in front of me; Julian opened it and led me into a cramped hallway. “Madame!” he called out. “Madame, s’il vous plaît! Come along with me,” he said, drawing me through a doorway to the left.

  A private parlor, he’d called it. Dignified words for such a room; private it might be, but the bare floorboards and sparse furniture and meager coal fire felt inhospitable to the point of grimness. A single electric lamp cast a dim circle of light into the gloom; outside, the storm rattled angrily against a pair of darkly curtained windows.

  “Let me have your coat; it’s quite soaked through,” Julian said, leading me to a squat provincial sofa with decades of morning visits worn into its burgundy upholstery. I unbuttoned obediently and felt his hands on my arms, behind me, drawing the sleeves away. He folded it once, lengthwise, and laid it on the back of the sofa. “Now, do sit down. You must. I’ll just find the landlady and have her bring a tray.” He disappeared through the doorway.

  I dropped into the sagging cushion and tried to gather my wits. A week had passed since I’d arrived in this century, a week of confusion and alienation and hard physical slogging, making my way from the middle of England to war-torn France. I’d had to learn everything from pounds, shillings, and pence to the proper technique for securing a hat with a single long pin; I’d borne all of it under the bruising weight of an impossibly profound grief. And my brain was at last getting used to it all—to the foreignness, of course, but also the unexpected fact that it was so… ordinary. Strange, without all the modern machines and clothes and conveniences, and yet familiar. Bread tasted like bread. Rain fell as wetly as ever.