I skip meals most days so as to not abuse the per diem, though I still go down and sit with the group. They all seem to think I’m on a one-meal-a-day diet, which is somewhat true, I suppose. And that one meal seems to be during sessions with Malcolm where he rolls in the treat cart. It really is hard not to feast off the treat cart. I tell myself that the food would go to waste anyway, so it’s not like I’m taking more than I ought from this company, but I also sort of know that if I refused to eat the treats, Malcolm might stop ordering them. Or would he? Not that it matters.
Not only am I completely starving by the time our sessions roll around, but the selection gets better and better with chocolates, champagne grapes, freshly baked breads.
One day, an assortment of bruschetta is there, and I learn that this is Malcolm’s favorite food, and I tease him about that before confessing that it’s my favorite food tied with chocolate chip cookie dough and cheese.
Cookie dough arrives in a small crystal dish with a spoon the next day.
“You are evil,” I say excitedly. But I really do want it. And, I have to keep my strength up. And hey, I’m still making him watch the videos.
I start up the video before I dig into the dough.
Malcolm is his usual incisively perceptive self. He guesses Francine’s a dancer before it comes out in the footage. He thinks one of the second-floor residents seems depressed, and when I talk to Jada that night she promises that she’ll invite her to watch Bachelor and get Maisey to tie a little baggy of homemade caramel corn on her door. That’s Maisey’s thing—tying little baggies of homemade caramel corn on people’s doors when they’ve been nice to her, or just when she randomly feels like it. I’ve gotten my share of caramel corn baggies as the letter carrier for the building, and it always touches me, not to mention being utterly delicious and decadent. I’m scared to ask how much butter she uses.
My friends think it’s amazing that Malcolm is so observant. They think it’s a good sign. I don’t tell them the part where he claims to use it only for ill.
I won’t believe it. I refuse to.
Sometimes Malcolm peppers me with questions about the town where I grew up, and it’s not just about how far Mapleton is from Pittsburgh or Philly or New York—he wants to know about the people, the culture. I dig out shots of the ridiculously tiny school I attended. He digs out pictures of the boys’ school he attended. I tease him about always being in the back of the group pictures, never a smile.
“Oh I always sat in the back—whenever I could,” he says.
“I always sat in the front,” I say.
“That’s perfect,” he says. “With your pencils sharpened.”
“And of course you sat in the back,” I say.
“Where else? The front always seemed so far away. After a while, it was, I suppose.” He sounds almost wistful.
“Would you have wanted to sit in the front?” I ask.
He declares the question unanswerable, and he teases me about always sitting up front. As the days wear on, I find that I’m showing him parts of myself I didn’t expect to show him. Our sessions get longer and longer.
“No more questions; it’s time to watch the video,” I say after a lengthy exchange on favorite music—it turns out he’s into classic UK punk rock like The Damned and Generation X. I’m more of a Sia girl, but I also like folk singers like Frazey Ford. He wants to hear more about Frazey Ford, and I tell him the music talk is over. “Time for the program.”
“Will there be no more postal quizzes? I like those quizzes,” he says.
“I can’t believe you don’t prefer the movie. When I was in school, people were glad when the teacher showed a movie. It meant you didn’t have to do anything.”
“People were glad,” he says. “But you?”
I try not to feel flattered when his observational skills turn on me. The truth is, I always secretly hated having a movie instead of classroom instruction or quizzes. Before I know it, he’s wrangling out of me what a nerd about school I was. I did all my homework, I helped out when I could. I was a Girl Scout well into high school. I always know where my keys are. I love accounting software and day planners. Suddenly I’m pulling my day planner out of my bag in order to show him my system of stickers, including stars, lightning bolts, and hedgehogs. I don’t know what’s come over me—it feels intimate, like showing him a piece of myself, the secret of how I run. And I want him to see.
“I hope you don’t think this shortens your session,” I say, shutting it and nestling it back in my bag.
“The point of chatting with you has nothing to do with my sessions,” he says, and I feel the truth of it, and my belly does its weird fluttery thing. But hey, chatting like nice, normal human beings is a good thing. Chatting is a key part of building empathy, though when I’m honest with myself, the way we’re talking is feeling like a date. A really fun and promising date.
“It’s time.” I push play.
In the days that follow, we fall into a pleasant little routine. We meet in the Blue Flame room and feast and chat, but then it’s onto the video. It’s not easy to limit the chat but I do my best. And even though he acts grumpy about it all, he keeps paying attention.
He seems to really like Antonio, and he’s happy when Antonio appears onscreen to tell a few neighbors that he landed a minor role in “Aladdin.”
On another day, Malcolm laughs when Mia comes into the frame wearing the cat suit she has to wear for her delivery job—that particular video was from a few years back, when she first got the job. “Takes a lot of nerve to walk around Manhattan dressed like that,” he says.
You have no idea how she hated it, I want to say, but obviously I don’t. I do really wish I could tell him about the big break she got recently. And I have a funny story about her delivering sandwiches to her ex while wearing the costume. I hate this deception—it just isn’t me.
But he’s starting to see my friends and neighbors as human beings, and I don’t care how hopeless he makes it sound, I’m going to take that as a great sign. That’s how it was with Scrooge, right? Once he really looked at Tiny Tim, his heart opened. Maybe this is working.
I dine with my traveling team buddies, which is to say I have a drink and laugh and chat with them while they eat. Afterwards I take a walk down Pine Street toward the Embarcadero.
That’s when the call comes in.
I don’t recognize the number, but sometimes I answer unknown calls because I just never know if it’s somebody from the building.
“Is this…Stella?” the woman on the other end asks.
I freeze…is it the Bexley office? I’ve been dreading a call from the Bexley office. “Can I help you?” I ask.
“Is this Stella?” she asks again.
I wince. “Who is this?” I ask.
There’s a long silence on the other end. “It’s Stella,” she says. “The real Stella,” she adds.
“Oh.” My pulse pounds. “Um…oh.”
“Who are you?” she asks. “What are you doing? What’s going on?”
“Um, okay, it’s kind of a long story,” I begin. Am I really saying that?
“I think I’d like to hear it.”
“I don’t mean any harm—I swear. Do you remember in the elevator at the Blackberg Inc. headquarters? The letter carrier you were stuck with?”
“Wait, what? Is this…”
“Noelle,” I say. “Please, Stella, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for it to go this long. I mean you no harm—I swear.”
“Wait, what? You’re the letter carrier I was trapped with? You took my place? Oh my god, did you talk me into quitting so that you could take my place?”
“No, I swear! I wanted to get in to see Malcolm Blackberg—I was trying to see him, and I had your card in my hand from when you gave it to me. They thought I was you.”
“Why let them think that? You’re the letter carrier. I don’t even get it…”
“I am a letter carrier, yes…” I tell her the story in one lo
ng ramble, how I was there to beg him to save 341 West 45th. How I had video to show him. How I let them think I was her and magically, he thought he had to watch the footage.
She’s laughing by the end of it. “Hold on, let me get this straight. You’re making Malcolm Blackberg watch interview footage of people in an apartment building? And he thinks it’s the coaching? I’m stunned he’s going along with it.”
“Well, I told him if he doesn’t watch it, he’ll get an X for the day.”
“No.”
“Yes,” I say.
She practically screams with laughter. “Oh my god, you’re threating a client with an X? Oh my god, you are off the chain!”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I swear I’m not trying to steal your identity or anything like that.”
“Wait, wait, hold on,” she says. “I only called because I just got a new paycheck deposited into my account. I thought it was a mistake, being that I haven’t shown up at work since that day we met—like I flew out here and I haven’t looked back. I was wondering why they never called me to see why I didn’t show up. And I logged into the intranet and I see you’ve been updating the checklist and things? And this phone number. You have quite the operation.”
“We’re trying to save our building. I know it all sounds outrageous.”
“You clearly found the packet,” she says.
“Yeah,” I say sheepishly. Is she going to turn me in?
“Did you know that you got a glowing performance review from the client?”
“What? I did?” I ask, stunned.
“They don’t think we can see them, but we can. If you know where to look,” she says. “I can’t believe he gave you such a good review for making him watch those videos.”
“Trust me, he wants to get out of watching the videos.” I tell her how he offered me money. She’s shocked I didn’t take it. “I know it’s wrong what I’m doing,” I say. “I don’t want to get you into trouble.”
“Wait,” she says. “I’m in Estonia, right?”
“Are you enjoying it?” I ask. “I hope you’re enjoying it.”
“It’s the best decision I ever made,” she says. “I’d be miserable right now. And I really always hated traveling with the client. Like, god. I’d be stuck in that hotel.”
“It’s not so terrible.”
“It’s a gilded cage,” she says. “To me, anyway. But, here’s the thing. You want to keep working as me? You understand I’m getting your paycheck, right?”
“I don’t care about the paycheck. I meant it—that’s not why I’m doing it.”
“Okay…” she says. “So I’m being paid for the work that you’re doing. Umm, why would I object to that?”
I stop at a corner. “You’re okay with it?”
“Dude, you’re working as me and I’m getting the money. I’m good with it. Just don’t let them know I know. Maybe I’m out here not giving a second thought to my life in the US. And if there’s extra money that magically gets in my bank account from them paying me for work you’re weirdly doing…it’s not like I’m even looking at my bank account, right? I don’t know anything and I’m not in on it. That’s my position.”
“Oh. Okay,” I say. “Wow, thanks.”
“Just write a letter of resignation at the end of it. Email it to HR saying you quit as of whatever the date is. They’ll never have to be the wiser.”
“Wow, thank you,” I say.
“Hey, thank you,” she says. “I mean, seriously.”
“Okay. Wait—what’s up with the per diem?”
“Blackberg gives you a hundred and fifty bucks a day for meals and incidentals. You can get shit delivered from online stores and charge it to the room if you want. A per diem is money for whatever you need to sustain your existence there.”
“I would never need that much.”
“Well, you should spend it. It’s there for you. Why not go crazy?”
“I’ll think about it,” I say diplomatically. “So you’re really okay with me doing this?”
“Let’s be clear: I don’t know you’re doing it. I have no idea. We never had this conversation. I’m just teaching English in Estonia. The risk is not mine.”
“Okay,” I say.
“I mean, how am I supposed to know you’re doing this? Who would ever do such a crazy thing?”
“I know,” I say. “What kind of freak?”
She snorts. “And one thought,” she says. “Maybe somewhere along the line, you figure out you should write a few lines about the progress of the client in that blank space to the right of the participation field. Did you see it? That comments field to the right of the checkbox field? Maybe not every day, but it’s common for us to say things like, one hour of relationship-building skills completed. Conversation about points of view. Positive reinforcement. I’m not officially telling you what to do, but it’s what I do. Go google soft skills and use some of that language.”
“Oh, wow. Okay,” I say.
“They won’t bother you as long as you don’t fuck up. Wow,” she says. “Good luck with saving your building. I mean it.”
“Wait—one more question. What does happen if I give Malcolm an X?”
“That’s why it was so hilarious that you were threatening to give him an X—an X means willful non-compliance. You seriously can’t give him an X.”
“But what would happened if I did?” I ask.
“Malcolm Blackberg’s program is court-mandated, right? So if you gave him even one X, he’s basically refusing to comply with a court order. The lawyers for the party that brought the suit would see that X and they could haul him back in to court if they wanted, maybe throw him in jail. Once you hit submit, the X goes out to everyone. It’s a nuclear bomb, my friend.”
“I had no idea,” I say.
“I know, which is totally hilarious. Do you know how many times I fantasized about putting a big fat X in that square? Sometimes when the clients are being impossible, I pull out a notepad I have and I write something in, like I’m giving a bad report, but that’s the closest I ever came. I never imagined threatening them with an X. Blackberg must’ve been shitting. Seriously, Bexley Partners would never give an X. Even if there was an interruption or scheduling snafu, we let them make up the work the next day, or double up an hour if they can’t extend. I mean, if Bexley Partners’ coaches were running around giving clients Xs, the firm would never get any business.”
“What if you entered it by accident?”
“You have a few minutes to edit your grade and your comments after you hit submit. But then it goes out. And this conversation? Never happened.”
“Got it,” I say. I thank her and hang up.
Get Malcolm thrown in jail? That’s what I was threatening him with?
It’s so not me. But Malcolm thought that’s exactly what I was doing. I smile, leaning back on a building, watching the sunset, phone in hand, admiring the woman that Malcolm seems to think I am.
15
Malcolm
It’s a day of meetings, morning to night.
I find I’m excited for it.
I haven’t felt this excited about my business in a very long time. Or maybe it’s just life. I don’t know. I’d felt bored in the past year or so, and now I don’t.
I make Elle ride in the limo with me—that’s the only way I can fit in my sessions with her. Twenty minutes here, ten minutes there.
She settles into the back next to me. Being in this small space with her is more intimate than the hotel. I feel like we’re alone together, cut off utterly from the world, even though my driver is on the other side of the security panel. Somehow that makes it hotter.
Out the window, the city glides by, but my attention is homed in on the freckle on the side of her lips. I draw in her sweet, bright coconut-berry scent, letting it fill me. The tips of her eyelashes, I notice, are covered in clumpy black mascara, but up close, you can see the pale roots of them, sandy brown like her hair. Every detail of her is mo
re delicious than the last.
She’s wearing one of her pantsuits and yet another butterfly bow tie, and something else that’s new: a raincoat with a crisscross line design, but when you look closely, the lines are made up of tiny hedgehogs. It looks worn, well loved.
This is definitely a woman who doesn’t do a lot of shopping, but it’s not that she doesn’t enjoy fine things—I have a front-row seat for that during our coaching sessions when our treats cart comes. And I saw the way she drank in the grandeur of the hotel lobby that first day, mesmerized by the luxury. And from time to time I still overhear her gushing about how comfortable the bed in her room is. Nearly two weeks we’ve been here and she’s still into it.
Yet she didn’t take the money.
Why not take the money? So much about her just doesn’t add up. I find it strangely thrilling.
“You’re in a good mood,” she says.
“I have a lot of meetings today,” I say. “And one negotiation. And I’m expecting them all to go very well.” I’m also, perversely, looking forward to my session with Elle.
“What is it about meetings and negotiations that you enjoy so much?”
“The interaction. The challenge, I suppose,” I say. “The element of the unknown. I like to predict what people are going to do, but they sometimes surprise me.”
“You enjoy when people surprise you?”
“Are you doing my technique on me?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, smiling.
“I enjoy finding out about people. I suppose most people walk into a negotiation seeing potential foes and obstacles arranged around the table, but I see a kind of journey of discovery. As annoying as they are, people really are kind of fascinating sometimes.”
“Is it possible you’re a people person and you just don’t know it?” she asks.
“Nope,” I say.
She snorts. “Is it possible you are just so full of bull?” she asks prettily.
I grin. “Nope,” I repeat, because nope is just the kind of answer Elle would hate. Elle is a cat who doesn’t like a closed door.
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