Captain of Industry

by Karin Kallmaker

  “It’ll appease my agent some if I get one.”

  “Why don’t you check your messages while I take a shower?” Suzanne pointed at the phone on the counter. “You know how to use one of those, right?”

  The knife-edged look Jennifer sent her way was grudgingly amused. “Ha. Ha. Ha.”

  As Suzanne gathered some jeans and a polo shirt that had some kind of designer label on it to take into the bathroom with her, she could hear Jennifer rapidly tapping out numbers. Her nails were lovely, but not so long she had to have someone dress her. She heard a muttered, “His crotch wasn’t in your face, honey,” as she closed the bathroom door.

  The steam cleared her head of the images of her hands under the warmth of Jennifer’s sweater. She didn’t want to forget that money was the only difference between now and just a few years ago when women hadn’t given her a second look. She thought Jennifer might be different, but for now maybe it was okay if she wasn’t. They were still going to have a lot of fun.

  Chapter Six

  It wasn’t even one o’clock when they emerged from the Times Square electronics shop with a sparkly new Nokia banana phone, a warranty and a service plan that would end the need for her answering machine.

  Jennifer told Suzanne honestly, “If you hadn’t been there I wouldn’t have survived.”

  “Worse than used cars salesmen,” Suzanne agreed. “They tried to sell you last year’s model at this year’s price.”

  “When you asked about the text-bit-mega-thingy they gave up. Thank you.”

  Suzanne looked down at her feet. “You’re welcome. The next generation, which is going to be out in the spring, will have the kind of calendar function you could probably use. When it comes out I’ll let you know. Your warranty includes an upgrade path.”

  Jennifer nodded like that made sense to her—it did, kind of. “I have an acting lesson at two.”

  Suzanne glanced at the understated Rolex on her wrist. “Let’s grab a dog and I’ll walk you to your lesson.”

  “It’s in the Village near NYU.”

  “A cab then.”

  Jennifer was unsettled but pleased by the deep, warm glow she felt knowing that Suzanne obviously didn’t want to part ways yet. “I prefer walking, if you do. It cuts down on trips to the gym.”

  Suzanne glanced at the sky and then Jennifer’s boots. “You seem weather ready.”

  “I try. And I have this new toy to pay for now. Walking when I can means I can afford that upgrade path.”

  Suzanne chuckled. Their steps turned in unison toward Sixth Avenue where hot dog carts were usually plentiful. “You play dumb really well, but I’m not buying it.”

  “Why, I don’t know what you mean.” She looked up through her lashes to find Suzanne giving her an indulgent smile. She hoped she sounded casual when she asked, “Would you like to see a movie tonight?”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s one that I’m in.”

  Suzanne’s jaw dropped momentarily. “Really? That’s great.”

  She shrugged. “I’m just an extra standing on the steps at Madison Square Garden. I’m clearly in two shots. They wanted pretty girls cheering for Michael Jordan when he walked in. I did it just after I got here.”

  “That would be really fun. Where is it playing?”

  “All over—the nicest theater is the one near Radio City Music Hall.”

  Suzanne handed over a bill for two hot dogs and bottles of water. Jennifer added relish to her dog while Suzanne squirted on mustard, and they strolled companionably down Sixth Avenue. She gestured at a storefront with her water bottle. “Cheesesteak there is inedible.”

  Suzanne gave her one of her charming, half-mocking smiles. “You’ve sampled a lot?”

  “Not a lot, but I got homesick.”

  “You can’t take the girl out of Philly?”

  “Something like that. I grew up on the plastic version available throughout the King of Prussia mall. My standards are really low.” She added quickly, “When it comes to cheesesteak.”

  Suzanne pointed out a burger joint that Jennifer recognized as new and trendy. “Bacon burger, it’s awesome.”

  “I eat bacon in months that end with Z.” If they talked about it more she’d crave it, so Jennifer changed the subject. “Have you been to any of the new plays this season?”

  After a noisy swallow, Suzanne answered, “A few. I get invites. Next one I get, would you like…?”

  “Sure. If I’m not working.”

  Jennifer hardly noticed the blocks passing until they reached Bleecker Street and were standing in front of the unassuming door to the studio. Suzanne, she’d learned, had seen more than a few plays. She’d even gotten in to the exclusive opening of Rent. So far, she didn’t seem all that engaged by a deeper analysis of the actors and stories, and Jennifer would have loved to have talked about that with someone outside her acting class. Well, Suzanne was gorgeous to look at and pretty funny and smart and that was all attractive and unsettling.

  And she was a woman. Surprise, surprise, she’s a woman.

  “This is me.” She put her hand on the door.

  “How long will you be?”

  “Ninety minutes. I have to go—the instructor locks the door on time and I still pay if I can’t get in.”

  “I’ll be around. Call me.”

  Jennifer ran up the stairs to the studio, clutching her new phone and for the first time ever wishing her class would go quickly.

  Chapter Seven

  This is so weird. I can’t do this. I want to blink really badly. His eyes are bloodshot. Does my breath smell like hot dog? Jennifer swallowed and managed not to blink by focusing on the instructor’s voice.

  “Keep breathing… Don’t drop eye contact. It’s only been thirty seconds.” Constanza’s modulated tones were only slightly calming. “A tense body can’t fully express itself. Breathe…”

  The old building funk of the studio was only partially masked by the sandalwood incense that their teacher lit at the beginning of every class. Of the mix of men and women, nearly all of them were older than Jennifer, and working in technical support jobs with gigs on the side whenever they could find them.

  She’d been paired with Franklin again, probably because they were the two tallest people in the room. She personally would have liked working with someone else, but perhaps Constanza had picked up on her mild dislike of him and decided to make her work through it. She probably did smell like hot dogs and Franklin definitely smelled like onions so they were even. They were standing close enough that their noses could have touched if either of them shifted their weight. Don’t blink.

  Constanza shook the bells on her wrist, sparing her arthritic hands from clapping for their attention. “Okay, class, let’s all move. Whatever comes naturally to you today.”

  Jennifer still didn’t like motion warm-ups. They seemed lacking in purpose. The people who tried to be raindrops were not successful, that she could tell. She was already comfortable with what her body could do and dance lessons had taught her how important refining small muscles could be. She already knew how to hold a pose without seemingly breathing, and how stride and shoulder position conveyed health and age. Pretending to be a rock just didn’t seem useful.

  “Not inspired today, Jen? How about an amoeba?”

  “Sorry. I was thinking too much.” She gave an amoeba a try. Eyes closed, arms swinging wide then close, legs slow-motion pumping, she vocalized a low monotone and waited for a new cue.

  “Very good Ethan. Franklin, you’re full of energy today. Jenny, does your amoeba have plans to do something?”

  “Dancing at Studio 51 later, but right now my amoeba is just hanging around.”

  She heard Constanza sigh. “Let’s try trees that turn into rivers.”

  Richard struck a rigid pose, arms creating a triangle that peaked over his head, and announced, “The Larch,” which made a few people snicker.

  She didn’t think Constanza would be impressed by her fluid tr
ansition from a huddled ball to full height, palms and face basking in an imaginary sun, but her personal trainer would have liked it. She swayed to a rising wind.

  “Angelina, that’s terrific. Richard, you’d make a great hedge. Franklin, that was a very short-lived tree.”

  “Tragedy in the Amazon,” Franklin said. “Rainforest and all that.”

  At least Franklin sounded as if he found the exercise somewhat tedious too.

  Rivers, then horses, and finally it was time to improvise with a few short instructions as a guide. She liked improv, and the skills it honed—spontaneous emotional reaction, lightning change of demeanor, reading other performer’s cues below their character—were ones she could practice and improve. She thought she held her own fairly well throughout the exercises. Sometimes she missed the humor, though, especially when Richard, in one scene, froze into tree pose and said, “The Larch” again. She pretended she got the joke that everyone else clearly did. Maybe Suzanne would know why it was cracking everyone else up.

  They took a break and Richard amused them with his decision the previous night to answer all his calls as if he were Elmer Fudd. “I’m sowwy your pwinter dwiver is malfunctioning. That sometimes happens with Wotus One-Two-Twee.”

  His Fudd laugh was spot-on, like all of his impersonations. “You could be on Saturday Night Live,” Jennifer told him. “I think your presidents are as good as the people they have.”

  “But what would they need with someone as good as what they have?” Richard twitched his compact shoulders and peered up at Jennifer, transformed into Columbo. He pointed at her with a mimed cigar. “One more thing. Where were you last night?”

  “Playing the part of a model at a party.”

  “Nice work if you can get it,” Angelina said. “I saw the pajamas.”

  Momentarily puzzled, Jennifer realized what she meant. “That photo made it into the Times?”

  “Not the Times.” Angelina gave her the usual hostile eye roll. “Just the gossip page on America Online.”

  “Oh. She said she worked for the Times. It’s a good thing she got that picture instead of—” Jennifer was about to explain her near-face plant when Constanza called them back to work.

  Angelina gave her a big fat false smile. “You’re the star of the tell-all crowd.”

  It wasn’t the first time another woman was bitchy to her for no apparent reason. It wasn’t her problem if someone else was threatened by whatever they thought Jennifer had and they didn’t. But she wasn’t going to be dismissed. “Modeling pays the bills. But I have the same ambition as the rest of you, to work and practice and become an actor.”

  Laughter could be like a knife, she thought. The teacher didn’t laugh, and neither did Richard, but all the others did.

  Shoulders back and down, she imagined a thread running straight up from the top of her head that made her even taller. Lauren Bacall had had her share of being dismissed as a pretty face. “I can’t have the same ambitions as the rest of you? What am I missing here?”

  Nobody said anything, and Jennifer gave Constanza a long look. The classes weren’t cheap by any means. She’d settled on this one because the group size was small and the teacher didn’t let the students pick at each other—until now.

  “Jenny, you’re not missing a thing,” Constanza said. “We’re here to learn and practice and get better.” It was said with conviction but contained none of the words that Jennifer would have preferred to have heard. Like potential and talent.

  Shake it off, she told herself. Just like on the runway, whatever is happening backstage can’t show. She remembered that Suzanne was waiting for her and then shook that off too.

  She had dreams, and nobody was going to stop her.

  Chapter Eight

  Suzanne tossed her empty Starbucks cup into the trash and checked her messages again. Hurrying through the clusters of students emerging from NYU buildings she skipped the new, unread ones and reopened the one from “JLMT.” Working through the typos that she knew were all too easy to make on the phone keys, she deciphered it to say, “You’re my first text. Does this work? Done. Meet me arch in park.”

  She snagged the attention of a stocky, curly-haired woman in Doc Martens. “Can you tell me where the arch is? In the park? Near here?”

  “Washington Square Park? Sure. Hang a right on Waverly and keep going to Fifth Avenue. You can’t miss it.” She got a lopsided smile. “Hot date?”

  “And I don’t want to be late.”

  “Does she have a sister?”

  “I don’t know,” Suzanne admitted, realizing that was the truth.

  “Story of my life. Good luck.” Waved on her way, Suzanne said a thank you over her shoulder.

  The massive nineteenth-century arch was, in fact, impossible to miss. And under it, looking like something that had stepped off the pages of Vogue, was Jennifer. She seemed unaware that a couple of tourists were surreptitiously taking her picture. What was that like, Suzanne wondered. She’d had her own fifteen minutes of fame when the AOL buyout had been announced, but never had anyone lurked around her with a camera, just waiting for her to look casually, stunningly gorgeous on a crisp blue and white winter’s day. Jennifer was doing just that, and didn’t even seem to be trying.

  Her breathless “Hi” was not entirely due to having half-run most of the way. “How was it?”

  “We were trees and rivers and amoebas, and one of our improvs was hilarious. I actually got a laugh.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself. “Tiring, and I have to say, sunshine or not, it’s colder than it was this morning.”

  “How about something more than a hot dog? Or do you want to fetch a coat from home?”

  “I’m going to need one. No—” Jennifer waved a hand as Suzanne began to take off her overcoat. “That’s very gallant, but I have one at home, and I should get it. If you were serious about going to the movies.”

  “I totally was.” Her phone rang and she gave Jennifer an apologetic look. “Do you mind?”

  “Not at all. Let’s walk while you talk.”

  They headed up the Fifth Avenue canyon of posh mansions and condo buildings before turning toward Park, but Suzanne lost track of where they were as she tried to find and keep a connection. “It’s a friend from Connecks. Something about a rumor of a merger between two of our former rivals and the new board is looking for someone to run the transition who knows the players and the tech.”

  Jennifer smiled brightly. “I’m going to pretend I understand what that means the same way I pretended I knew why saying ‘The Larch’ repeatedly was funny at class.”

  Suzanne laughed outright. “You’re not a Monty Python fan?”

  “I’ve seen Holy Grail.”

  “Your education is not complete—Annemarie?” Suzanne gave Jennifer an apologetic smile as she spoke into her phone. “What’s up? How are you?”

  Through the crappy call quality she could hear that Annemarie’s usually calm voice was laden with urgency. “This merger is going to create a new company bigger than we were, and they’re looking for a neutral party to do the transition. You need a team, right?”

  “I still don’t know what you’re talking about. Nobody has called me about anything.”

  “Your name is being bounced all over the message boards.” Annemarie suddenly sounded as if she were speaking from Mars via a long, wet tube. “When it got attached to the project the stock prices of both companies went up.”

  She glared up at the tall buildings surrounding her. She needed a land line. “I’ll call you back from a better connection after I see if I can find out anything. If this is real, yeah, I’m interested and I’d need a team.”

  Annemarie’s happy tone was the only thing the phone really picked up. She flipped it shut and slid it into her jacket’s inside pocket, her mind overrun with numbers, possibilities and a list of barriers to be overcome by the two companies. They had complementary assets in networks—r />
  “Ahem.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, startled. Glancing around she asked Jennifer, “When did we stop walking? Where are we?”

  Jennifer tipped her head to one side and Suzanne could feel the lists and questions she was forming in the back of her mind all start to fuzz. How did a look from those eyes slide right along her spine like that? Leaving her feeling weak and breathless and strong all at once?

  “Nice to be forgettable. And if I’m going to my apartment for a jacket, we have to turn here. If you can walk and talk at the same time.”

  Her brain was turning to soup. Is this what happened when she got to know a Hot Girl? It felt really great to think about kissing Jennifer and all the things they could do when they were alone and it felt totally foreign that she couldn’t hold a thought for more than two seconds. “I can’t get a solid connection here. I need a land line.”

  “I have one of those.” Jennifer turned her head to seemingly study the side of a passing bus. “But it sounds like whatever it is might be very distracting.”

  “I’m going to need to use my computer, I think. This would be a great opportunity.”

  “I understand that. We’ll do the movie another day.”

  “No!” Think, think, think. “Sorry. Why don’t I meet you outside the theater later?”

  “It shows at five thirty and eight.” Jennifer coughed slightly. “I might have seen it more than once.”

  “Five thirty.” She glanced at her watch, looked up to see an available cab approaching. “See you five fifteen and popcorn’s on me.”

  The cab had U-turned and crossed the next intersection before Suzanne fully comprehended that Jennifer wasn’t in the cab with her. “You stupid nerd!”

  The cab driver gave her a startled look.

  “Not you, sorry.” Geek with shit-for-brains, she railed inwardly. Did you even say goodbye?

  Chapter Nine

  If there was one thing Jennifer wasn’t used to, it was being left standing on a sidewalk completely forgotten. She had watched in shock as the cab disappeared. Were all computer nerds like that? Dangle a shiny object and you didn’t even get a “see you later”?