by Paul Briggs
She wished the bus would make a stop, so she could go out and get a better look. Traveling through so much of America felt like a tour of a run-down version of the late twentieth century. This, on the other hand, looked like something from ten or twenty years in the future. The balloons hovered, vast and blue-tinted with distance, in a row that stretched from horizon to horizon. Their tops and sides were midnight blue, collecting solar energy to add to their wind power. The third of them between the lower vanes had color cells in their skin that showed ever-changing pictures of magnificent landscapes and cityscapes, wild animals, cute puppies and kittens, famous works of art, abstract and fractal patterns, and drawings by some kid who’d won a school art contest, all of course punctuated by one-second ads for Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Quesch, McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Motel 6, Comfort Inn, and the new hit movie Kobanî. They managed to be both tacky and magnificent. If we can build this, we can do anything, she thought. Only somehow, we can’t.
* * *
New York City. All four of her grandparents would be horrified to learn that she was here. They’d formed their impressions of the Big Apple in some godawful decade of the twentieth century and never bothered to change their minds. To them, it was a bigger, nastier version of Baltimore. And now, of course, two of them were in a place that was more lawless than New York had ever been.
According to the map on Isabel’s armphone, she was on West Street, just south of the Holland Tunnel. She looked around. There were two cabs on the street, but they were both black. Isabel spotted a yellow cab a couple of blocks up the street, but before she could do anything it pulled over, let in a passenger, and turned black to let everyone know it was taken.
Checking the map again, Isabel saw that the Freedom Tower was less than a mile away, an easy walk down West Street—and it was so much taller than everything else that she could hardly lose her way. She had time. She’d been hoping to see some of the sights, but there wasn’t time for serious tourism, and what she really wanted was to go there and get this over with.
The sky was overcast. The air tasted like snow about to happen. The setting sun was peeking under the clouds, sending streams of gold light over the river against the flat faces of the buildings on her left.
Isabel had always liked to think of herself as someone who could get by either in a small town or the big city. College Park was as urbane and cosmopolitan as any place on Earth, but it wasn’t big. It didn’t tower over your head. It surrounded you with what looked like a cross-section of the world’s population, but not in numbers like this.
For the first few moments, Isabel had the feeling that people were looking at her and thinking what a rube. This was soon crushed by the awareness that no one was looking at her at all, or was likely to. Heading south along the Hudson River Greenway, she knew deep down that she was tiny, broke, and one among millions. Here, there was no way you could pretend to yourself even for a second that you were a big deal.
Or possibly there was, if you actually were a big deal. She’d have to ask Sandy about that.
* * *
There were a lot of tourists in the elevator at One World Trade Center, but Isabel was the only one who got off at the ninetieth floor. When she left, she could see the renovation Sandy had been talking about. The halls were dimly lit, and the walls had been turned into video screens that showed a complex pattern of cirrus cloud over twilight sky. As she walked down the hall, the clouds nearest her glowed especially bright, as if the full moon were shining through them. Also, the recessed lights down the middle of the ceiling turned on as she approached, creating narrow cones of light for her to walk through as if she were the star of her own little noir movie.
Maybe this setup was meant to save energy after regular business hours, or to make visitors feel welcome. What it seemed to say to Isabel was: Hello. We have buttloads of money and we know exactly where you are. Isabel was suddenly acutely aware of the spot on her blouse where she’d had to hand-sew a hole back together. She had a very strong feeling that she wasn’t supposed to be here. She almost wished she’d taken another Suiamor last night, although God only knew what would have happened if she had.
Isabel wasn’t even sure how much money Sandy had. She’d found five different estimates online, the most recent of which was from back in February. All of them were pretty far apart.
Except that all of them were in ten figures.
All of them except the newest one. That one was in eleven figures.
Was it really a good idea to approach her like this?
No. No. I asked to meet her and she said yes. She scheduled this appointment, not me. This is no intrusion.
The door to the office was open, but as soon as Isabel entered, the woman behind the desk said, “Office hours are over.” She looked at Isabel with an expression of distaste. Her clothes looked expensive and impeccable, her hair was a shade of dark magenta that didn’t occur naturally in mammals, and her face was about thirty years younger than her neck and hands.
“I have an appointment.” The you-don’t-belong-here feeling was so strong Isabel had trouble getting the words out. And at this point the secretary hadn’t just noticed the mended spot on Isabel’s blouse, she was staring at it like it was an infected wound.
“You’re… Isabel?”
“Yes. I know it’s not until five-thirty, but I didn’t want to be late, so I showed up a little early.” Isabel sat down.
“No, you can go back,” said the secretary. “She said to let you in as soon as you arrived.”
Between the reception area and the offices was a furiously glittering bead curtain. Mostly blue beads, with clear beads forming the De L’Air logo in a sort of hanging mosaic. It seemed a little too tacky for such a classy office, but just as Isabel was passing through it, she thought holy shit this thing is made of real diamonds. De L’Air diamonds, but still, diamonds.
And no sooner was Isabel through the curtain than she was face to face with the CEO herself. Sandy was wearing charcoal-gray slacks, a cashmere sweater the exact color of wet cement, and shoes that added maybe an inch to her height. At some point she’d traded her thick glasses for contact lenses, or possibly corrective surgery. Her hair still went down past her shoulders, but she wasn’t wearing it in a ponytail any more. That bothered Isabel a little—years ago, she’d modeled her own ponytail on Sandy’s and had never gotten around to changing it. But then, it looked decent and kept her hair out of her face.
“God, how long has it been?” Sandy hugged Isabel, then pulled back just far enough to look her in the face. Isabel had looked into Sandy’s eyes many times during their childhood, but had never been able to decide on their color. Depending on the light, they might be pale gray, pale blue, or pale green. Mostly they were just pale. They looked so strange without thick lenses in front of them—kind of naked.
Isabel glanced around at the office itself. Midnight-blue wall-to-wall carpet. Ice-blue walls. Sculptures made of some kind of crystal, lit with beams of white light. The overall effect was cold, but with a couple of patches of warmth. One of these was right at Sandy’s desk, which looked like mahogany and had a lamp on it with an amber LED bulb. Another was a pair of comfortable-looking red leather chairs with a small table between them and a light on overhead, set so they half-faced out the window and half-faced each other.
“Have a seat,” said Sandy. “I’ll get us some dinner.” She stepped over to the entrance, then turned back. “You don’t have any allergies, do you? Food allergies, I mean?”
“Nope.”
“Anything else? Dietary or religious restrictions?”
“If it’s food, I’ll eat it.”
“Good.” She stuck her head through the curtain. “Olivia, would you call Dapur Emas and have one of those satay party platters sent up here? A Full Eight Combo with coconut water?” Then she turned back to Isabel.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Oh yes I did,” said Sandy. “Maybe once a week I have time for
a real dinner. The rest of the time I live on meal-replacement shit. Tonight I want to eat some critters that were killed on my behalf. And I don’t want to eat alone.”
Isabel nodded.
“Of course, basic hospitality says what I ought to be doing is taking you out to a world-class restaurant.”
“Please don’t do that.” Isabel put a hand over the mended spot on her blouse. Then she changed her mind and stretched the fabric a little, so Sandy could clearly see it.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t be doing you any favors, showing you off in front of this city’s social scene in your current packaging. Not just the blouse—your boots, your hair… personally, I think you look great, but other people don’t have my good taste.”
Isabel smiled a little. This was good. This was putting off the moment when she’d have to beg for help.
“If it helps, people here aren’t shallow so much as they are scared,” said Sandy. “Ever read ‘Masque of the Red Death’?”
Isabel nodded. She had in fact read it, back in school, many years ago. Either Poe or Hawthorne had written it. Something about a castle with all the doors locked, a big fancy crazy party going on inside, outside everybody around was dead from some kind of epidemic… her memories of it were vague, but she was pretty sure that was the gist of it.
“Things here aren’t quite that extreme,” said Sandy, “but sometimes it has that feel to it.” No, Poe had definitely written it. Hawthorne had written the one with the black veil.
“See, New York has been really lucky the last few years,” Sandy said. “Most of the crazy weather has passed us by. The river got a little high during the last Monsoon, there was that ice storm in January—that was pretty bad—but we got through it all right. We’ve been lucky, and we know we’ve been lucky, and of course the rich people here are the luckiest of all… and we’re starting to understand just how fragile it all is. So when somebody comes into a party or something with anything about them that suggests they’re at all down on their luck, it’s like they’re the bloody shroud guy in that story. Just standing there reminding us all of everything we’re trying not to think about.
“Wait a minute—I’m doing all the talking here. How’s Martelle?”
“Martelle Sherman?”
“How many Martelles do you know?”
“I haven’t thought about her in a while,” said Isabel. “I heard someone saying her parents are going to Oregon and moving in with her.” Under other circumstances, being reminded of her co-Valedictorian would have irritated her.
“I was sure you two were either going to end up married or kill each other,” said Sandy. “And how’s your family?”
And here we go. Isabel opened her mouth to say something along the lines of fine, only we’ve run into a little trouble… but the words just wouldn’t come. For the space of several breaths, she just stood there, biting her lip, desperate for anything to say.
“Look, I can’t do this,” she finally said. “They’re in a FEMA center, and it’s completely toilet. Worse than toilet. I’m gonna make a bonfire out of my pride here—help us out. Please. I’m begging. I’m not asking for much, and I swear I’ll pay you back—”
“Sit down.” Sandy hadn’t raised her voice, but her smile was suddenly gone.
Oh shit. This is already going wrong. Isabel sat down in one of the two armchairs. Sandy stood in front of her and leaned in a bit, looking her in the eye. Right now her eyes were pale green like iceberg lettuce, and it took an effort of will for Isabel to meet her gaze.
“Three times,” said Sandy. “Three times I called your dad myself and offered to help. Three times he said no. Two weeks ago I texted your sister—knowing she’s a single mom, knowing there’s no way she doesn’t need help—and I got no reply.”
That explained it. Nothing made people OOP angry like having their do-gooder impulses thwarted by the very people they were trying to do good to. Chelsey, you lying… crotchburger. And why didn’t you tell me, Pop? “I didn’t know,” said Isabel. “I’m sorry.”
“They didn’t tell you? Shit…” Sandy paused. “Yeah, that would make me look kinda bad, wouldn’t it?”
“Not really. It’s not like you owe us anything. Hell, in my case—”
“Excuse me? Are we friends or are we not?”
“Would I be here if we weren’t?”
“Then stop acting like I’m the fucking Godfather!”
Isabel sat there for a couple of seconds, biting her lip, looking at her feet. How could this be going so badly? How could she have botched the simple task of asking an old family friend for help? She came to us and offered to help us out. She came to us three times—no, four—and it was us who turned her down. Now here’s me coming into her office like Bob Cratchit begging for an advance from Ebenezer Scrooge, as if I expected her to say no. That would annoy almost anybody.
“I’m sorry,” said Sandy. “I’m making things worse, aren’t I?” She sat down in the chair next to Isabel.
“I didn’t mean to insult you. I just… wasn’t sure how you still felt, and…”
“See, this is what I’m talking about. You’re scared of me. You. The girl without fear is scared of me.” She sighed. Isabel thought for a moment. She hadn’t even realized she had that reputation. The girl without fear… was that really how people thought of her?
“For the longest time,” said Sandy, “people in this town treated me like I was just this little bug they could step on any time they felt like it. I would have killed for some fucking respect. And now that I have it, now that people have to respect me…”
Isabel opened her mouth. Then she closed it again. Then she thought no, she doesn’t want me to be scared of her and opened it again.
“When you were trying to talk to my family, why didn’t you call me?”
“Because you were the only one who didn’t need help,” she said. “Sorry. I’m not used to dealing with people who need family members to run interference for them. And I’m really not used to dealing with people who don’t want my money.”
“Just out of curiosity—how much money have you got?”
“That’s not an easy question to answer,” said Sandy. “Most of it’s in the form of assets whose value changes from day to day. And there’s a lot of stuff I control but don’t own. Like, ten percent of my earnings and salary goes to the Symcox Foundation. I’m pretty much the deciding vote in how that money gets spent, as long as it’s spent making the world a better place, but it stops being mine as soon as it goes to them.
“My biggest single asset is De L’Air Diamonds—the original diamond company. I own that completely. It isn’t publicly traded. I also own fifty-seven percent of De L’Air Capital LLC—that’s the holding company that owns forty-two percent of De L’Air Graphene and Diamondoids.”
“Which I’m guessing is a lot bigger than the diamond company.”
“And you’re right. I also own about ten percent of De L’Air G&D in my own name, and the Symcox Foundation owns another six percent. So between me, myself, and I, we’ve got the company well in hand.”
“Forget what you control. Just tell me what you own. Give me a ballpark sum.”
Sandy actually bit her lip and blushed at this point.
“Sixty-one billion,” she finally said.
There was a long pause.
“Sixty-one,” said Isabel.
“Yep. Billion. With a ‘b’.”
“No, I knew that much, I just didn’t know… Jesus.” Isabel was having trouble getting her mind to take that all in. Something small and stupid inside her was squeaking SIXTY-ONE BILLION? I know we’re a capitalist country and all, but do they seriously let you have that much money? That’s like letting somebody have a nuclear bomb! Hell, you could probably buy a few nukes with that kind of money! Or build your own!
Sandy nodded. “I’m officially the richest woman in the world. Richer than J.K. Rowling or the Walton heirs or the Queen of England or the Sultan of Brunei’s favorite wife.”
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br /> “That’s… that’s… sixty-one billion, I mean… sorry, I know I’m sounding really slow on the uptake.”
“No, it’s okay. Some days I don’t believe it either.” She smiled a little. “If it helps, less than one percent of that is liquid.”
“Liquid?”
“Liquid meaning I can just take it and spend it, without selling anything else. I mean, I can’t exactly go to the supermarket and say ‘Hey, you got change for a holding company?’ So if it makes me seem closer to human-scale to think of me as only having five hundred forty-two million, one hundred thirty-six thousand, nine… sorry. Keeping track of exactly how much cash I have on hand is a hard habit to break.”
Because in case you’ve forgotten, five years ago she was poorer than you. Now look at her. And what have you accomplished? Isabel told the little voice inside her head to put a little sock in it.
“Let’s get this part out of the way right now,” said Sandy. “One way or another, I’m going to get your family some help—don’t worry about that. But we’ve already established that it’s not going to be simple. They’re not going to let it be simple. You might’ve made a bonfire out of your pride, but your dad and Chelsey are a different story. They won’t take anything that smells like charity, even now.”
“I can’t believe she lied to me,” said Isabel. “Chelsey, I mean. She told me she’d tried to ask you for help. She did this big speech about how you forgot where you came from.”
“Well, it’s true I haven’t been back since the funeral. I’ve just been so busy—first school, then Verdissimus, then De L’Air… but I bet I could still take apart a steamed crab with the best of them.” She smiled, then was silent, staring out the window.
“You want to know the truth?” she finally said. “People like me—to the extent that there are people like me—aren’t really from anywhere. There are places where we’re born and raised, and sometimes those places are good to us, but we never fit in there. And most of what shapes us, growing up, is inside our heads.” Sandy sighed. “I could just buy the damn island and be done with it, but as I understand it, your father doesn’t own the property anymore.”
