A murmured wave of irritation rolled across the sea of pastel, French-cuffed shirts and silk ties. The sun glinted off their diamond tie-tacks and platinum cuff links. Alas, none of them burst into flames.
“No vampires I see. Just zombies, huh?”
No response. Which only went to prove her point, she supposed. She strolled past the built-in fire place, an absurd artifice in Los Angeles. Still, it could have added intimacy to the spacious, high-ceilinged room. If the room had been a color, instead of an institutional grade of not-quite-white.
She made her way to the head of the teak, sleeper wood conference table, where the man who had introduced her now pulled the chair out for her. He wore a suit that cost more than most people’s cars, and stood as tall as she did. The Baroness’s three-inch heels put her at six foot six, and she towered over many of the men in the room, but that didn’t stop their hard stares and derogatory smirking.
She flowed into the chair, an overstuffed, brad-studded monstrosity whose claret leather matched her waist-length braid. “Thank you, Mister Scalinescu.”
Sydney, the man who had introduced her, a handsome man whose grey pinstripe matched his shock of wild hair, whose accent and attentions made the Baroness calm and happy, a man she loved but didn’t like and was still legally married to, nodded and gave her a sad smile. She smiled back in earnest, then set her violet eyes on each and every one of the CEO’s and COO’s locked in the conference room with her.
“Gentlemen. Questions?”
They attacked like stockbrokers at the bell.
“What is your overall marketing strategy for the upcoming fiscal year?” John Long could have been yelling at his eight year old for not taking out the trash. Before she could finish saying that she’d hired a competent person to head marketing and he should be consulted on this question, and that furthermore that was John’s job, hers was to oversee day to day operations and bottom line performance, Dicky Goodman tossed an imposing, acronym-laden manual in her direction. “How do you intend to be proactive in the wake of the Enron-inspired mutual fund reform?”
“Right!” snapped Stanley “Moochie” Martin. “Not to mention recent additions to the SOX laws, which require complete retooling of our current accounting strategy.”
This made her laugh. “If that’s true then you’ll be visiting your old company president in jail. Assuming you’re lucky enough not to go there with him.”
Her candor slowed them but heated them too, and more vitriolic questions were directed not to her but to Sydney. “Why do we need a new company President?”
“What happened to the old company president?”
“What are this woman’s qualifications!” Jason Bell scowled at her and into his Dingleberry and up at her again. Jack Conner’s cell phone rang and he answered it, informed the caller that he was in “some ridiculous meeting with some new employee,” and hung up, rolling his eyes.
Moochie and Rodger Paradowski made loud jokes about how the Baroness probably wanted to be president in order to enjoy the low hanging fruit of three-legged horses, and Dana Cinders shot Sydney Scalinescu an unveiled snarl of scorn along with his unfounded (though close!) accusation: “Since when do your little mistresses get to play house with your company!”
“Lends a whole new meaning to bottom line performance, huh?”
“Does this woman even know what day by day operations consist of in a manufacturing facility?”
The Baroness stood. “Look, she’s leaving already.”
“Gotta be tough in the business world, chicky!”
“I knew she wouldn’t last long but this is a record.”
She reached behind Sydney to a black leather satchel. “Boy I sure hope she doesn’t have a gun.” Gaffaw gaffaw. She unzipped the center pocket and withdrew a twelve-inch, anatomically correct, soft flesh-like rubber penis, complete with molded testicles. She slammed it against the table—“There!”—where it sat upright on the testicles, its circumcised tip swaying cheerfully. “Do I know everything now?”
The room went silent. Save the fleshy swaying of the dildo. Schwep, schwip, schwep.
“I can write my name in the snow, too,” she assured them. “It’s just hard to read.”
She looked around the room again, but all eyes were focused on the waving rubber penis.
“Anyone with serious questions should stay. Anyone who wants to continue to embarrass himself, there’s the door.” She held her arm out accusing and ominous, like the third ghost, a Ghost of Business Future, and this time the gaze of each man met her own.
“Hmm? Free to go. Now’s your chance. No takers?”
A man in the back, who she knew to be a COO named Rodney Freemore cleared his throat. “Could you, ah…put that away?”
“Oh? Why? Make you uncomfortable?”
“That’s not really fair,” said a CEO.
The Baroness leaned over the table. “Everybody. In this room. Has lost the privilege to speak of fairness.”
The CFO, who to his credit had so far said absolutely nothing, raised a hand, one finger, like a British school boy. “With a new captain at the helm, the stockholders are going to want an official financial strategy. How soon do you think you’ll be able to provide that?”
“Again, not my responsibility. But I should tell you: we’re looking into re-privatization.”
“I’m sorry?”
“If I’d been president six months ago, most of you wouldn’t be here. I don’t agree with the decision to go public. The first thing I plan to do is see if we can reverse that.”
“You can’t fire your stockholders Miss Vo—”
“Baroness. And don’t tell me what I can’t do. Because quite frankly? You have no idea.”
* * *
The scientists arrived for their scheduled meeting early and curious. Dr. Krawkow came in cautiously, as though entering a cave. His blue eyes contrasted nicely with his grey elbow-length ponytail. Egan McClure followed, his bushy auburn chest-length beard and hair making him look less like a PhD chemist than a Maine Lobsterman. Grinning, wiry Akira Nakajima wore suspenders and a belt, followed by Rashid Bajamal who rocked a giant Fila sweatshirt and a pair of Timberlands (funky fly fresh) despite being from Yemen. Maurice Nesculescu’s blue pleated pants were an inch too short and he nearly walked into the doorframe for interpreting a graph.
Rin Ping, the Chinese-Thai American, looked model-fabulous in her ripped-from-the-catwalk wardrobe. Today she sported a velvet magenta top that set off the highlights in her hair, with flowing, bootcut pants. She entered looking stern and suspicious behind the smiling but equally doubtful Maria Juarez, a tri-lingual, round-goddess beauty of a woman who had raised up two girls around earning her PhD.
The Russians—angry, slender Alexei Balakirev and jolly, ruddy Nikolai Uliishev—came in together, in the midst of an argumentative discussion in their native tongue. Once they were seated, Nikolai turned to Dacianna and Sydney. “He is telling me the phosphorus to fluoride ratio in line five should be reversed and I am saying he is wrong. The problem is with the acid.” Finally, in strolled Dr. Wolfy, as the Baroness fondly referred to him: Wolfgang Fassbinder, who leaned against the doorframe looking like a Volvo commercial, smirking in his Idolater jeans and fisherman’s sweater.
They quieted when she stood at the head of the table. “You are all managers of your respective departments,” she began. “I have good news and bad. The bad news is, you’re fired.”
She waited but the sound of complaint was so subdued as to pass for the results of indigestion.
Krawkow’s blue eyes narrowed. “All of us?”
“Yes.”
Egan spoke up next. “You’ve made us all redundant then?”
“Not exactly. That’s the good news. Survivanoia is desperately in need of scientists. It’s the managers we don’t n
eed anymore.”
Low grumbling, like lions thinking about getting up to hunt.
Alexei spoke while glaring at the table. “How many? Scientist? Will you do need? Ing?”
Daci took a quick head count…eight, ten. “At least ten to begin with. But we’re hoping to find about twenty before the end of the year.”
Nikolai asked, “And how soon?”
“Quite. Very. Tomorrow? When can you start?”
“What about interviews?”
“You’re managers, interview each other.”
Dr. Wolfy had been leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He took a step forward and addressed the white elephant. “Why is it you don’t want us to be managers anymore?”
“Your degree is in analytical chemistry, yes?”
He nodded and pursed his lips. “Ja? Und?”
“Tell me how that qualifies you to supervise people.”
He leaned back against the wall. “We all had to teach. Is same thing.”
“By that logic every mother on the planet is qualified to run your department.”
Wolfy let out a loud and lengthy breath of air. Then he chuckled. “Perhaps.”
“But, please, Miss Von Baroness,” Nikolai paused and blinked. “Is not bad to be scientist again, many of us do not even much like manager-ing. But you know. We make better. Money.”
He muttered this last word at the floor, then glanced up at Dacianna like a high school boy who had just asked her to the dance.
“Nikolai. All of you. I promise we would not insult you by asking you to come work for us at less than you were making at your previous posts.”
Akira tapped the table. “For you to do this make you become…” His eyes searched the room while he converted his circular language to Dacianna’s linear counterpart. Then his grin flashed and he pointed a finger. “Insane. Then they will fire you.”
Daci laughed as if he’d told an especially funny joke. “They can’t, Akira.” She turned to Sydney, still standing silent behind her. “Can you, Mr. Scalinescu?”
Sydney’s eyes shot her a look to chill blood but his corporate smile and velvet voice stayed in place. “No, Miss Von Baroness. I can’t.”
* * *
On the rare occasions that Sydney visited Los Angeles, he insisted on eating at I’ll Tell Ya’s, “Because there’s nothing like it in New York.”
“Of course there isn’t,” Daci laughed as they were driven to the restaurant by Sydney’s rented Limo service. “You try to tell most New Yorkers what they’re going to be eating and you’ll get beaten. Publicly.”
Sydney laughed his gracious gentle laugh. Daci ran a hand through his thick hair, pushed back and graying like a mobster Beethoven.
“You’re looking very leonine lately.” That shock of grey had progressed to a streak of white so perfect and stately that Sydney had, on more than one occasion, been accused of having it dyed.
He tugged gently at her complicated braid. “What about you? Dating a macramé artist these days?”
“Pornographer. But he does live in Venice, where macramé artists are wont to hang out. Peddle their wears.”
At the restaurant, Attalla remembered them but not their preferences, so he started with the basics. He glanced slyly at them, first individually, then farther from the table, as if to get a view of them as a unit, a couple. “Uhm, look like yeah,” he mumbled and strutted to the kitchen.
“When are we going to move on the divorce, Syd?”
“When I want a divorce. Which at the moment I do not. Especially since New York doesn’t offer a no-fault divorce. I don’t blame you. And I’m certainly not going to allow you to blame me.”
She didn’t take the bait, said simply, “I can file in California.”
Attalla arrived with their food and a bottle of wine. “The reconciliation platter,” he said, laying out three plates of assorted, fancy hors devours looking things. The scents spoke of distant lands and high adventure: Sharp cardamom and earthy clove reminding Daci of Arabian Nights, mustard and paprika calling up the Horn of Africa. She closed her eyes and allowed the world and its culinary riches to engulf her.
Attala’s voice was low and rough, like the purring of a favorite cat. “Look like you fight. Before. Now you finish, come here, I feed you nice meal for two.” He opened their wine, let Daci sample it.
A velvety burst of fruit followed by just the slightest lingering of smoke. “Perfect,” she breathed. “Dry as the desert and fruiter than West Hollywood.”
Attalla filled both their glasses. “Look like good luck.”
“See?” said Syd, sampling his wine. He nodded his approval. “Attalla doesn’t think we’re irreconcilable.”
“Attalla doesn’t know that we’ve been fighting for six years. Or that ‘finishing’ entailed me taking over your company.” She raised her glass in a toast. “Here’s to me!”
“What if you make it work? The company I mean.”
“What if I do?”
“Would you stay?”
“With you or with the company?”
Syd gave her what she’d long ago termed his Dad Look.
“Is that why you agreed to this arrangement?” She asked. “You think it might win me back?” Her question was gentle, as was his response. Perhaps Attalla’s sweet breads, spicy meats, and citrusy fruits had some healing powers after all.
“A woman says she is leaving because she doesn’t like my business practices. Then she tells me she thinks she can fix those practices. Doesn’t it follow that if she can, and furthermore does, and is able to succeed because I stood aside and allowed her to do so, that she would stay with me? Does that seem truly unreasonable?”
“Yes.”
Again with Dad Look.
Daci poured them both another glass of wine. “Your selective memory has erased the section where it’s the silent partner who demands that the woman gets brought on board. Also, even if my position were the result of your forethought rather than your mere acquiescence, I decided to leave because your business practices were cruel and inhuman.”
“But not unusual, and therefore not illegal.” He shot her a crooked smile.She took a close look at him, searched his dark eyes, and realized how difficult it seemed to look into his face and recall the terms cruel and inhuman. Syd, the man, was neither of those.
Still. “You let yourself, or at least your stockholders, behave in a despicable manner.”
“Is it unforgivable?”
Daci searched their shared platter for something especially tasty. “I don’t know yet.”
Syd rested his chin in his hand, then clutched his wineglass, then emptied it and folded his hands. “Let me please tell you something. Things will often go wrong because you let them slip away from you.”
“Why did you let the company go public?”
“Perfect example.” He offered his sad smile. “I heeded the advice of an accountant. And he made the company money. So he did his job.”
“Everybody made money but you may all end up in hell.”
“With a corner office and a brass name plate.”
Daci savored a chunk of sweetly spicy meat, considered her not-quite-ex husband. “You think I’m self righteous.”
“Uhm hmm. I wouldn’t necessarily label your anger as misplaced. But you should know. These things that you learned, that made you leave, are quite small compared to much of what goes on in the world run by the moneyed elite.”
“Why do you stay in it?”
“Why does your father stay in it?”
Daci paused, weighed this statement. “Meaning what exactly?”
Sydney’s smile went toothy and nostrils flared. “Could be something terrible, couldn’t it? Given the man’s position.”
And of course
Daci knew that. She’d kept a purposefully ignorant distance from her father’s business, especially since discovering the blood on her husband’s hands. But she also knew that Sydney sometimes used that carnivorous smile just to unnerve people.
“He makes wine, Syd.”
“He makes money.”
“Wine money. Not blood money.”
“People seem to have this idea that the road to wealth and power is mysterious and unknowable. In fact it’s a scalable pyramid with well-specified means of getting to the top. And once you’re at the top you don’t simply decide you’re through, clean out your desk, and get yourself a job stacking lettuce at the corner grocer.”
“So how do you get out?”
Sydney let out his low mean growl, his Corporate Laugh.
“Why don’t you first worry about getting in.”
“I am in.”
“So it must seem. Just recall this conversation the moment you realize that something has slipped from your control and you now must face the consequences of other people’s actions.” He took her hand in both of his, drew it to him, and kissed it.
“I do hope,” he told her, emptying the wine bottle into his glass, “your consequences are less harsh than mine have proved.”
Daci set her palm against his face. His stubbly cheek made her recall the peppery scent of his aftershave, which pulled her back to the night she’d met him. She’d been sitting in the cab of a dark blue Ford pickup, simultaneously chewing three pieces of Hubba Bubba. At age nineteen, she still liked to chew the whole pack at once, all five chunks, but sometimes that made her drool on herself and Dennis and Brian could actually be back any minute.
She wedged the gum against the back of her teeth, plied it with her tongue, and then proceeded to blow a bubble which, from her perspective, seemed as big as her head. And when it popped she grandly removed the whole mess from her face with one smooth motion and grinned at the novelty of it—in 1989 “less-sticky” Hubba Bubba was still a fresh product.
She was stuffing the mess back into her mouth when someone tapped on the truck window. She gazed past her own reflection in the glass to see a well-built man in a stylish suit. Given that he had to stoop to see in the truck, he must have been over six six. She recalled how much this had pleased her, given her own height.
Baroness Von Smith Page 23
