by Davis Bunn
Then he kissed her.
The moment lasted until Esther heard Abigail say, “Eww.”
After a dinner of cannelloni and salad, after a fleeting series of conversations with both daughters, and after the girls had been pulled from a final half hour online, Esther spiced her good-nights by asking if the girls might be interested in earning some money. Those were the two bits of advice Rachel had offered—online gaming, and money they did not have to account for. Esther knew she risked Craig’s daughters seeing it as a bribe, but she remembered what it had meant for Nathan to slip her cash, so she offered. Esther explained that she was putting her brother’s house up for sale, and she needed help going through his things. She would pay them ten dollars an hour. After the girls agreed and plans were put in place, Esther stood on her front stoop and waved good-bye as they drove off in Craig’s car. All in all, she decided she could count the evening as a genuine success.
Esther locked her front door, climbed the stairs, and entered the office. The headsets were on a side table, the second chair back in her bedroom. Samantha’s place in the office chair still felt warm. Esther switched her monitors back to the data stream and reviewed the global status. The Far East markets were well into the new day. The Shanghai Index was still in government-induced lockdown, while the others had shrugged this off. The currency markets remained stable.
By the time she completed her review, Esther felt like she was back in analyst mode. She regretted the shift, but she also welcomed it.
Because it was no longer business as usual.
She was going into this fully aware, knowing there was a very real chance her old life could actually be demolished in the process. She could argue the point all day long, but what Talmadge Burroughs had suggested meant others could see what was happening as well. Going public with her fears could cost her the only professional life she had ever known. The only job she had ever wanted.
Even so, she knew the time for hesitation and internal debate was over.
As she placed the call, Esther decided it did not feel as if she were simply taking the next logical step. More like the rock was already rolling downhill.
Her friend answered, “Sterlings.”
“Keith, hi. I know I probably shouldn’t be calling this late, but—”
“Esther? Is it really you?”
“In the flesh, sort of.”
“Wow, this is amazing. We were just talking about you . . . when was it, honey?” A voice in the background murmured something. “Carla says you need to fly up for a weekend. The girls are going to forget what you look like.”
Keith Sterling had been her closest friend at the University of Chicago, the only member of her class who did not shun the fourteen-year-old freshman genius. Now Keith was a high school math teacher. He had gone on for an education degree, stepped into teaching, and never looked back. To put it simply, Keith loved kids, family, and math in that order. Earlier, Esther had felt kind of sorry for him. Now she envied his ability to remain so buoyant and enthusiastic. Not even six classes of bored teens five days a week could dent his passion. Esther was godparent to their second child. But none of this was why she had phoned him.
Esther said, “I need your help designing a new website.”
Keith earned extra money serving as project web designer for a number of local companies. “Sure, Esther. You know I’ll—”
“Right now,” Esther said. “Tonight.”
“Esther . . . it’s after ten. I have classes—”
“I’ll pay you whatever. But I need the basic structure up and running by start of business tomorrow.”
There was a long pause, and Esther feared he was looking for some way to turn her down. Finally, Keith said, “Okay. This is kind of weird.”
“What is?”
“We just learned our youngest needs braces, which our health insurance doesn’t cover.”
“I’ll pay for them.”
“No, you won’t. But you can help.”
“Deal.”
Esther heard Keith ask his wife to put on a fresh pot of coffee. Then he said, “So what’s so important that it’s going to cost me a night’s sleep?”
22
WEDNESDAY–FRIDAY
The next two days passed in a relatively calm state. Esther went about her normal routine, though in truth she felt as if she were acting out someone else’s life. Her office and the trading floor had never felt more alien. The most real component was meeting Craig for lunch on Thursday, hearing his repeated thanks for her trying to draw his daughters from their shells.
She spent Thursday evening working on her website. Keith had installed a counter at the bottom of the home page, and the small number of visitors mocked her efforts. The site’s traffic remained but a trickle. She fired off midnight emails to her allies in DC, New York, and London. She alerted Patricia and Rachel and Craig and Talmadge Burroughs. Then she went to bed.
The next morning, Friday, Esther phoned the office on her way to Nathan’s clinic. When she asked how things were on the trading floor, Jasmine replied, “It’s like watching a volcano cook. What’s the name for one of those experts?”
“There are several different kinds,” Esther said. “Seismologist, volcanologist, or a specialist on geological deformities.”
“How do you know this stuff?”
“It was on my final at Caltech.”
“Girl, are you serious?”
“No, Jasmine, of course not. Now tell me what’s going on.”
“They got their hands tied, is what. And they do not like it.”
“You’re saying the traders are actually operating within SEC guidelines.”
“Strict guidelines. As in, do this and don’t make any money. While the missing five are probably out grabbing gold with both hands.”
“You heard something from your friend?”
“You mean my ex. And the answer is no, not a peep. Which is worse than strange. It hurts. Do guys take a secret class in how to break a girl’s heart?”
“Something is going on,” Esther said. “They’re being sequestered.”
“What?”
“Thinking.” She cast about but could come up with nothing tangible. “Have you heard from Jason?”
“He’s not shown up. Three days and counting. My pals in his front office are talking about a weekend cookout to celebrate.”
Esther said, “I’m going to take the day off.”
“Might as well. Nothing going on around here. Unless of course somebody actually erupts.”
“If that happens, you know what to do.”
“Take photos and send them viral.”
“Jasmine . . .”
“I know, I know. You’ll be my first call.”
Esther sat quietly for a while. It was the first time she had taken a day off in forever. She half expected the sudden vacuum would be terrifying to face, but instead she felt as though she was getting ready for whatever came next.
After her visit with Nathan, the middle portion of Esther’s Friday was spent reviewing the technical content on her website. It was one thing to dash through the math in an auditorium, and another thing entirely to hold up seven years’ work to public scrutiny.
That is, assuming anyone who could actually follow her work gave the website a second glance.
The site’s logo was Keith’s idea. He was big on spiritual meanings and the Scriptures. In their midnight conversation, as she explained her volumes of calculations, Keith had said, “That’s it.”
“What is?”
“The website’s name. ‘The Book of Esther.’”
She felt the sudden grip of memories. “Keith, no.”
“Hang on a second. Let me check . . . BookOfEsther.info is yours for three hundred bucks . . . Okay, done.”
“Keith—”
“You’re not allowed to argue with the designer at one in the morning.”
“That name carries a lot of painful memories.”
“It’s per
fect. Wait until you see it up, then if you still don’t like it, we can argue once we’ve both had some sleep.”
Keith then had Esther pile her tattered volumes on a coffee table and shoot photographs of them. The one he liked best now resided just below the website’s headline. Every time Esther read the site’s name, she shivered from the impact of events she had not thought of in years.
But she had to admit, the title worked.
Keith had her scan pages from her calculations. He loved the ones with coffee stains and smudged corrections and microscopic notations running down the sides. For the home page he used the first calculation that linked the concept of global risk and interconnected national markets. The formulas were underlined and circled and had shooting stars decorating the top of the page. Keith faded the scan and set a pale rendition to either side of her initial text. This same design became the backdrop to each component of the website. The result was, in a word, impressive.
Meanwhile, she and Craig kept in touch with each other. His end-of-term exams were under way, so for now their conversations consisted of quick snippets, mostly just checking in, each asking how the other was doing. But Esther kept a mental list of things she wanted to discuss once his exams were over. The very idea that she remained open to sharing her thoughts with a man was enough to give her the shivers.
Friday afternoon, a half hour after school let out, Esther was standing in front of Nathan’s home as Craig drove up. The two girls rose slowly from the car and gave the house a sullen look. Again Samantha’s music was turned up so loud that Esther could hear the tinny beat drifting across the front lawn.
Craig approached her and said, “Maybe I should stay.”
“Didn’t you tell me you had another exam?” Esther saw Samantha hit a button on her iPhone and then heard the music shut off. She found this mildly interesting.
Craig replied, “The last two exams are Monday.”
“Use this time to study. I’ll drive them home.”
“But . . .”
“Go, Craig, and try to get some rest while you’re at it.”
Samantha muttered, “She doesn’t want you to see how she works her slaves.”
“You were the one who wanted to come,” Craig reminded her.
The girl turned away. “Whatever.”
Esther gripped his arm and drew him down the walk. “Put them and us out of your mind.”
He sighed. “She and her mother fought last night.”
“Craig, look at me. They’re my concern today. Now, please, go.”
Esther stood at the curb with a smile planted on her face as Craig drove away. Then she walked back toward the house. The girls must have seen something in her expression, for the sullen resentment that had carried them this far began to fade. Samantha pulled out the earbuds and wound the tiny cable around her phone. Abigail took a step closer to her sister as though trying to shield herself from whatever came next.
“I’ll be straight with you,” Esther told them. “It will be great if you want to work. But you’ve already earned your keep, just being here.”
The girls exchanged a look, then Samantha said, “You’re paying us just to hang around?”
“If that’s what you’d like to do, yes.”
“That’s cool,” Abigail said.
“No, it’s not,” Samantha shot back. “It’s a bribe.”
“You’re both right,” Esther said. “But the truth is that I really don’t want to be alone in my brother’s home. I’ve had a lot of time to get used to the idea that he’s never coming back here. I thought I was ready. But I’m not.”
Samantha’s curiosity got the better of her. “You said he was in an accident?”
“Yes, one that killed his wife. She was expecting a baby.”
A bird chirped. A car honked somewhere in the distance. Finally, Abigail asked, “So, you’re afraid it’s haunted?”
“Not like you’re thinking,” Esther replied. “But, yes, there are ghosts inside. A lot of them.”
Nathan’s house was located in Providence Plantation, an older subdivision off the main southern artery, Providence Road. Like most of its neighbors, the modest home had been built on an oversized lot, among ancient oaks and a magnolia whose limbs stretched out almost fifty feet. Nathan had lovingly restored the place, tearing out many of the interior walls and turning it into an open-plan haven with sweeping views of the back garden, which his wife had landscaped into an extension of the nearby arboretum.
None of this, of course, was why Esther had dreaded today’s task.
Nathan’s office was the only room on the first floor that was still sectioned off. The windows overlooked his wife’s rose garden, overgrown now from lack of care. When Esther opened the windows, the room became filled with the fragrance of spring blooms and the sound of bees.
She took her time, forcing herself to inspect each wall in turn. Getting it over with.
Nathan’s office was covered with photographs of their early lives. Many of the pictures she had not seen since childhood. She knew what he had done because he had described the process, ungluing old family prints from their mother’s albums, restoring them with the same care and attention to detail as he had shown their home. Then enlarging them to the size of portraits. His walls contained no record of their mother’s swift illness or their father’s determined retreat. All the pictures here were of happier times.
Esther did not even realize she was being observed until she heard Abigail ask, “Why are you crying?”
Esther resisted the urge to hug the girl. “I found the ghosts.”
On Friday evening, Esther deposited the two girls back with their mother but not before she had paid them, and in cash. The pair watched her count out the money with a sense of subdued delight. And perhaps a little guilt from Samantha, who had not done anything the entire day except text her friends and play on one of Nathan’s spare computers and listen to music and pretend not to hover while Esther and Abigail talked and packed. Esther watched them walk to the home where supposedly neither of them felt welcome. When they both turned at the door and waved, Esther counted the afternoon as a true success.
She carried the three boxes of personal items into her home. Her plan had been to use an empty corner of her attic and store the items away. Just as she had done with all her memories from that time.
Instead, as she entered her home, the sunset played over the empty walls. She compared it to Nathan’s house, where every room had contained a wealth of memories and hope. Nathan’s late wife came from a family of seven, and the kitchen and family rooms held testimonies of every niece and nephew. Nathan and his wife had tried for years to have children. The accident had come just three weeks after they learned she was finally pregnant. Esther settled the last carton on her dining table and stared at the room’s lone painting, an abstract oil fashioned from mathematical designs.
When the phone rang, she knew it was Craig. She answered with, “I’m so glad you called.”
“You know just the thing to say to a guy who’s been slaving over books all day. How were the girls?”
“Very well-behaved, all things considered.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“Abigail’s been talking, then.”
“Telling on her sister is one of life’s great pleasures. Did Samantha really do nothing all day?”
“They kept me company, and they kept the ghosts at bay. Mostly. That was worth the price of admission, believe you me.”
“I’m in seminary, remember. We’re officially not allowed to believe in ghosts.”
“Then you don’t want to come around Nathan’s place.”
“What do you mean?”
She carried the phone back into the dining room and seated herself in front of the first box.
“Esther?”
“Give me a minute.” Slowly she lifted the top picture, the one that had brought her to tears. She set it down before her, glad she had company for this moment. “Nathan
had a lot of photographs from the lost years. There’s one picture in particular. I actually dreamed about it the other night. I’m sitting in my father’s lap. Nathan is standing to the left of the chair.”
“How old are you?”
“Four, I think. Pop is reading and . . .”
“Esther, hon, what is it?”
“Nothing. It’s just . . . it’s been a long time since I used that name for my father.” Esther traced a finger over the image, smearing her tears across the glass. “He’s reading from his favorite book of the Bible.”
“The book of Esther,” Craig said. “Of course.”
“I loved listening to him read. He would stop and talk about what each scene signified, how the world might have looked, and what was going on beyond the words.”
“Making it come alive for the daughter he named after the heroine.”
“Yes,” Esther said. “Pop was a great storyteller.” She sat staring not so much at the picture, but at the two lives that were no more. She had no idea how long she was quiet. Long enough for her neck to cramp. “I suppose I had better let you get back to your books.”
“The books can wait.”
“Craig . . .”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
23
SATURDAY
That night Esther was attacked by a serious case of the doubts. This was the name she had given to midnight worries back in her teens. Demanding that the principal of her middle school allow her to take the SATs five years early, threatening to go to the county superintendent if necessary, fighting because that was how she met every challenge. Only at night had she allowed herself to wonder if she was indeed able to meet the trials she was setting in place.
At three thirty in the morning, she rose and entered her office and scanned the markets. The world held that sort of weekend calm she had always considered false. The risks did not simply disappear for two days. She shifted the data streams, moving from Shanghai to Melbourne to Rio to Mexico City to Vancouver to Chicago to New York. She recalled Jason’s response to her early report, suggesting the bank take a more conservative approach to these dangerous times. Jason had called it following the party line and scorned her for even making the recommendation. That was the day the traders started referring to her and Jasmine as the Downside Twins.
