The Precipice

by Penny Goetjen

  The

  Precipice

  Penny Goetjen

  New York

  Ithaca Press

  3 Kimberly Drive, Suite B

  Dryden, New York 13053 USA

  www.IthacaPress.com

  Copyright © 2012 Penny Goetjen

  The Precipice

  All rights reserved under International and Pan American Copyright Law, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part, without the written permission of the publisher. Requests for such permission should be addressed to Ithaca Press, 3 Kimberly Drive, Suite B, Dryden, New York 13053 USA

  Cover Design Penny Goetjen

  Book Design Gary Hoffman

  Cover Photo ©Sapsiwai

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Data Available

  ISBN 978-0-9839121-4-9

  www.PennyGoetjen.com

  To Kent, who has always supported me through all my endeavors, including this one.

  Chapter 1

  Elizabeth sank down into the upholstered, swivel chair, leaning forward with her forearms against the cold, hard edge of the mahogany conference room table. She took a deep breath and exhaled what could have been interpreted as a sigh of relief. She was desperately trying to catch her breath. A wave of excitement and exhaustion coursed through her veins. Her boss had just escorted their largest client out to the elevators leaving Elizabeth to her thoughts in the quiet of the room. Only the coffee pot in the corner kept her company. The remnants of the day’s java were slowing starting to burn on the bottom of the pot, emanating its tell-tale, acrid stench.

  Their largest client had just become even larger. During her seven years in interior design and her college years at NYU, she had only dreamed of the opportunity Jack Drescher had just presented. Jack was a fairly good looking man in his mid-forties, a bit stocky with piercing blue eyes, complete with laugh lines and wavy, dirty blond hair. He usually used too much after shave, but he probably couldn’t tell he overdid it. It reminded Elizabeth of Pig Pen in the Peanuts comic strip. She pictured him with his own cloud of his scent that traveled around with him. During his visit, he had looked a little uncomfortable in his dark blue Armani suit that belied his humble beginnings. He was a self-starter who had made a name for himself and a fortune to match in real estate in New York City. Starting in the Bronx where he grew up, Jack purchased neglected properties or buildings in foreclosure and renovated them before putting them back up for sale. Before long he had amassed an impressive net worth and soon moved on to acquiring properties in Manhattan. Most recently, he had been acquiring properties throughout New England, particularly in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

  He was a powerful and well-connected man who enjoyed living a life of luxury, yet never tired of the pursuit of the next acquisition. Known for his business savvy, he seemed to know the right people in the right places that could make annoying complications go away. He travelled in impressive circles of politicians, wealthy investors, and dignitaries. Drescher had made his share of adversaries over the years, though, as he demonstrated his determination to get whatever he went after and a temper to match.

  Drescher’s latest acquisition was near Battery Park, a block west of Ground Zero. It was an empty twenty-four story foreclosed commercial building that he had purchased from a bank. Previously used for office space, the front of the property gazed across the Hudson River to the sprawling expanse of New Jersey. A glance to the southwest from the front of the building offered a view of the majestic and proud Statue of Liberty, still standing, unwavering after the dust settled from 9/11. Reconstruction efforts were currently underway in the area surrounding Drescher’s new building. He was confident that the resurgence of building would mean a rebirth in lower Manhattan. His plans were to be a part of this growth by reconfiguring his building into a luxury downtown hotel. He was planning to gut the first three stories of the building and, enlisting the help of Elizabeth and her boss, Vera Loran, transform it into the lobby of the hotel; an exquisite, unforgettable focal point that would be the trademark of this and future hotels to be owned by Drescher. Accommodations would be luxury suites, complete with fine furnishings and amenities.

  Rumors had circulated recently that Drescher was leveraged beyond his means and having serious financial problems, but Elizabeth didn’t see how that was possible if he was actively planning this new hotel project. She hoped that when she was finally brave enough to launch out on her own and open her own design studio one day, that she was able to acquire powerful, successful clients like Drescher.

  Elizabeth spun her chair around from the end of the table, toward the wall of windows behind her, high above the busy streets of Manhattan. Rain gently spattered the glass. Florescent lights from neighboring office buildings glittered through the raindrops. With the late afternoon light melting into the grayness of the rain clouds, Elizabeth became mesmerized by the rhythm of the rain and gave in to the fatigue washing over her.

  ____________

  Holding onto the cold, brass railing that traveled waist high along the inside of the wall, Elizabeth gazed out of the windows through the sheets of rain to the ocean waves crashing against the rocky breakwater below. The thunderstorm was particularly violent, the remnants of the hurricane that had worked its way up the East Coast, thrashing parts of Maine before exiting out to the open sea. Tiny bits of sleet pitted against the windows and were blown away just as quickly by the gusts of wind.

  She loved climbing the tall, spiral staircase to the old Pennington Point Lighthouse counting each step as she went, lingering on the treads that creaked. The only thing she loved more was watching a storm come in from the sea from within the solid, hundred year old walls. As a child, she would steal away from the house and head for the beacon at the first sign of an impending storm, feeling very secure and protected once inside the lighthouse.

  Elizabeth was lost in the midst of the storm so she didn’t hear anyone approaching from behind. A hand was placed on her shoulder. She sprang out of her chair, spinning around in mid-air, landing on her feet with arms flailing, desperately trying to grab onto an arm of the chair to steady her, and then flopped awkwardly back into the chair. Her face turned red when she looked up and saw the amused look on Vera’s face. “Sorry, Liz. Didn’t mean to startle you.” Her voice was rough and raspy from decades of smoking cigarettes. She preferred the long skinny brown type that looked more like cigars than cigarettes.

  Elizabeth quickly tried to gather her composure in front of her boss. She could feel her face turning red. She hated when that happened. Her boss seemed to have a knack for catching her in uncomfortable situations, or rather putting her in them. “No, n-no. That’s all right. I just…I just got lost in my thoughts. That was quite a proposition, wasn’t it?” switching the focus back to the excitement at hand.

  Vera leaned her back side against the end of the table next to Elizabeth’s chair and folded her arms as if keeping a measured distance from one of her staff. Elizabeth took that as a sign that she should stay seated. She looked up submissively at Vera. There was a package of smokes jammed into the pocket on the lower right side of Vera’s teal blue linen suit jacket with part of the plastic wrapping poking above the top of the pocket. Elizabeth didn’t have a visual on her boss’s lighter, but the bulge in the pocket on the left side of her jacket told her it was tucked in there.

  “Drescher has big plans for the future and he wants Loran Design to be a big part of it, you to be a big part of it,” she added the last part for clarification and emphasis. It wasn’t lost on Vera that Jack
had a twinkle in his eye when he gazed toward Elizabeth, fifteen years his junior. Who could blame him? She was an attractive, intelligent, yet shy, woman in her late twenties who usually dressed quite conservatively. Her shoulder length, silky dark brown hair had a slight bounce to it when she walked. She was tall, thin, and proportionately shaped with warm, blue eyes that had a way of smiling at you, while hiding pain that had been buried so long ago. A couple of small, slash-like scars on the side of her face near her chin were the only detectible imperfections.

  Vera, on the other hand, was not so tall and usually wore three-inch spiked heels to compensate for her lack of height. She was a thin, very stylish woman with short, almost masculine, coarse blond hair, the color of which originated from a bottle. Although the years had taken their toll and the lines on her face gave away her fifty-something age, she was always dressed as if the next client through the door was going to be from Cosmopolitan Magazine. The design studio had been engaged by its share of clients that Vera could name drop with, but Cosmo hadn’t been one of them.

  Loran Design had grown with its clients, both residential and commercial, but it had been a long, hard fight for Vera to transform her company into one of the top design firms in the city. The battle came with a price. While her friends were marrying and raising children, Vera was burning the midnight oil preparing presentations for prospective clients, trying to build a name for herself and a business to sustain her. Men had come and gone in her life, having different priorities than her at the time. Eventually the men stopped entering her life on a personal level, so she was just grateful when they became clients. Her work had become her life. So if her biggest client kept coming back for more and her top staffer was part of the reason, so be it. It was good for business even if Elizabeth was oblivious to it.

  Vera barely stifled a sinister chuckle as she looked down at Elizabeth. Reaching her right hand into her pocket she pulled out a small package wrapped in clear plastic. Her hand with its pale, wrinkled skin, protruding blue veins, and fingers bent into a seemingly permanent clutching position, looked like a vulture’s claws grasping its next meal. Vera skillfully tapped the package against the side of her left hand. A single cigarette emerged. Raising the package to her mouth, she pursed her lips, accentuating the wrinkles encircling her mouth, around the lone cigarette and pulled it out. By the time she had returned the remaining cigarettes to her pocket, she had already retrieved the lighter from the other pocket with her left hand. In a single, flawless motion that comes from many years of repetition, Vera pressed down on the red tab on the lighter, inhaled deeply while looking up toward the ceiling, lit the end of the cigarette, and then released the tab and shoved the lighter back into her pocket. Turning back to Elizabeth, she exhaled the smoke into her face. As on many occasions, Elizabeth just held her breath as long as she could to minimize the second-hand smoke she breathed in.

  Elizabeth despised her boss’s smoking habit. She considered it quite disgusting. Filthy. Maybe it fitted her personality. She found it tiresome to have her clothes reek of cigarette smoke at the end of each work day. Realizing she was still holding her breath to avoid breathing in the smoke from Vera’s cigarette, Elizabeth exhaled a long, deliberate breath. She wished she didn’t have to breathe in again. She blinked and tried hard not to cough as she took a shallow breath.

  “Sometimes I wonder about you.” Vera shook her head slightly. Standing up, she turned away from her and walked half the length of the table before she turned around to face Elizabeth again, motioning with her left hand while grasping the cigarette, “Are you really that naïve?” Her tone was beginning to sound condescending.

  Elizabeth tried to control her reaction, but inadvertently furrowed her brow.

  Vera’s voice suddenly became much quieter. “You do realize that Jack finds you attractive, don’t you? And I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that. In fact, that could really be to our advantage.” She looked into Elizabeth’s eyes for a reaction.

  Elizabeth could feel her face turning red again. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

  Vera’s hands rested on her hips, the cigarette sticking out like an extension from her left hip. The cigarette ash was hanging precariously in danger of falling off. She appeared to be carefully choosing her words before she spoke again. “You need to be more aware of what’s going on around you.” She started making her way back toward Elizabeth, stopping at the last chair and leaning her right side against the padded chair, hands still on her hips.

  Elizabeth watched in horror as a large clump of ash fell toward the floor, landing on the black floral Oriental rug next to the pointed toes of Vera’s shoes. Her boss was unaware of her indiscretion, but Elizabeth couldn’t tear her eyes away from the glowing ember until it died out. She returned her gaze to her boss who stepped closer for effect and continued.

  “For a young woman, who is talented and shows a lot of potential, you sure don’t have any street smarts.” Vera was hovering uncomfortably close to her at the end of the conference room table. “But you need to figure out how to do everything in your power to make sure Jack is happy. He is a major client and we need to cater to him, to his needs. Whatever they might be.”

  Elizabeth cringed. She wasn’t exactly sure what Vera had meant by her last comment but wondered how much more of Vera’s berating she was going to have to endure. Looking carefully into her boss’s face, into her eyes, she thought she had the look of someone who was desperate enough to do almost anything to keep herself from becoming a has-been. Her eyes were red and blood-shot. The skin on her face was pale and drawn. She tended to go heavier on the eye liner and mascara than Elizabeth cared for. And the worst part of it all was that her breath smelled like an ash tray. It was hard to imagine anyone wanting to kiss her.

  They were interrupted by Sara, the office receptionist, a young perky woman with a blond page boy hair style, who stuck her head into the conference room far enough to tell Elizabeth that her grandmother was on line one. Liz did her best to stifle a gasp at the announcement. Her grandmother usually only called when something was amiss. Elizabeth switched her gaze from Sara to Vera to catch her reaction. It was well known that Vera vehemently opposed personal calls on the company clock. Elizabeth watched as Vera’s eyes widened as she shook her head slightly. Vera stood up from her resting spot on the conference room table, turned her back to Elizabeth, and then flicked her cigarette over her shoulder as she walked toward the door. Elizabeth watched again in horror as a lump of glowing grey mass fell into her lap. She jumped to her feet in time for the ashes to roll off her skirt and fall to the floor. Elizabeth’s nostrils flared. She looked toward Vera as she reached the conference room door. Vera turned back toward her and struck an authoritative pose with one hand on her hip and the other poised with palm toward the ceiling and her cigarette caught securely in the “v” between two fingers. She asked Elizabeth to stop into her office before she headed out for the weekend. Elizabeth cringed on the inside. Her blood pressure was escalating. She knew what that meant; Vera wanted to get started on developing ideas and making preliminary sketches for Jack’s project. No time to waste! Instead, Elizabeth really wanted to just enjoy some R & R this long weekend. The whole office had been working hard lately. That never seemed to bother Vera. It was as if she had nowhere else to go and nothing else to do.

  She took a deep breath and reached for the receiver to speak to her grandmother.

  Chapter 2

  Elizabeth rode down in the elevator with two middle-aged men in dark suits. She recognized them as attorneys from the firm of Mendelson, Jenkins, and Leate. They had entered on the nineteenth floor and stood next to her, self-absorbed in their own conversation, without so much as a nod or a word. They didn’t seem to notice she was even in the elevator. She was entertained by their chatter, though, tossing client names around like confetti, bantering back and forth about this judge and that judge. Amazing how u
nprofessional two guys can be.

  The elevator doors opened to the lobby and the two men pushed forward to exit before Elizabeth. She stood back. A smirk spread across her face as she watched them enter the bustle of the lobby and stride swiftly across the broad room, their egos in tow. She shook her head. “Jerks.” Her voice was barely audible. She stepped out into the flurry of activity.

  It was a grand room with a high ceiling, antique brass chandeliers, and dark marble pillars spaced evenly throughout. Warm burgundy carpet with a stylized oriental pattern anchored the large space. It was furnished with traditional mahogany side and coffee tables, paired with stately wingback chairs, and set in small groupings. Since the location was a popular meeting place after work on a Friday afternoon, many of the chairs were occupied by other young professionals, with glasses in hand. Located on the far left side of the lobby was a rather large, European style bistro that catered to the lunch and dinner crowds. Happy hour was in full swing with a noisy crowd of young urban movers and shakers. On the opposite side of the lobby were a newspaper stand, a shoe shine booth, and a modest flower shop.

  Elizabeth noticed a small group of men in suits gathered just ahead and to the left of her path to the exit. She recognized the one gesturing with his hands while he talked as the mayor of New York City. The rest were probably aides and a handful of the city’s well connected.

  Elizabeth walked halfway across the lobby when someone stepped out from behind one of the grand pillars from her left, startling her. “Elizabeth, so good to see you again.” It was Drescher and he was right in her face, smiling with a strange look in his eyes. She wasn’t surprised that he was among the mayor’s entourage at happy hour.