By the Numbers (7 page)

“She was still in the training program at Smith Barney then, but did what she could to help the other brokers try to stanch the bleeding—we noticing a trend here with our girl? Of course the day was a train wreck that started in Hong Kong and worked its way around the globe, and, really, what could she have done? The Dow dropped five hundred points. Penny said her Reuters screen was like an altimeter on a plane plummeting to the earth. The numbers just kept going down and down and down. I've never heard her like that on the phone before. I said, ‘Get your skinny ass in a cab and meet me at the Burwood.' That was the bar in her neighborhood. ‘You need a drink right now.'”

Patrick was a champ that night, helping me realize exactly how much I despised my job. For as much as I loved analyzing the data, I hated the inherent risks that came along with being directly responsible for anyone's fortune. I wasn't a daredevil. I didn't have the intestinal fortitude to be a stockbroker, and I definitely lacked the people skills. He convinced me that, with my degree and GPA, I'd have no trouble finding other work.

Patrick says, “The Cuervo's flowing, and the more we talk, the more Penny realizes she's in the wrong job and she starts to get happy. Real happy. The night actually turns into a celebration. I
want you all to picture Penny in her pin-striped suit and her floppy silk bow, suntan panty hose, sensible shoes missing at this point, one tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor, standing on the bar, belting out the lyrics to ‘It's Raining Men
.
' And
that
is when Chris walks in. He doesn't even live in the city. He was just meeting a friend down there. Well, she spots him because it's a Monday and the bar's not too crowded. She jumps directly into his arms and she says, ‘I never should have let you go!' Then she lays the biggest kiss on him you have ever seen.”

I blush and shrug and the ballroom erupts into laughter. Marjorie clenches her eyes shut and shakes her head ever so slightly.

“The best part?” Patrick says. “Chris just looks at her in his arms like he can't believe she landed there and then looks at me and then looks back at her, and then he
takes off running out the front door with her
, all
Officer and a Gentleman
style, and I didn't see them for the rest of the night.”

“Thanks again, Miss Delancey!” Chris shouts, before re-creating our epic Burwood reunion kiss.

Once the applause finally dies down, Marjorie rises to give her toast. The room becomes unnaturally quiet. She holds the stem of her martini glass so tightly that I'm shocked it doesn't snap. She takes a couple of measured breaths before finally speaking. Her fury isn't evident to anyone who doesn't know her intimately, but trust me, it's there, lurking just under the surface. My drunken wedding party has broken her one cardinal rule, which is to not embarrass her.

Too bad I'm only getting married once. Maybe next time she'll listen to me when I say I want something small and informal because I was crystal clear on who would be here and how they might behave.

“Penelope, Christopher . . . may your lives together be as long as they are happy.”

Okay, that actually seems like a pleasant wish, all things considered. Sure, one could interpret it to mean she hoped our lives were both short and fraught with unhappiness, but who would say something like that? She's not a monster so much as she's just high maintenance.

Chris leans in to whisper, “I was expecting a lot worse.”

I smile and nod, not breaking eye contact with Marjorie. I have a feeling she's not yet made her point.

“May you both be blessed with more laughter than tears. May your troubles be few and your prospects infinite. May you end each day with sweet dreams.”

“This is actually kind of nice,” he says.

“Wait for it,” I reply.

“May you build your lives together on a solid foundation of faith, trust, and love, with the sun on your face and the wind at your back.”

Marjorie pauses to take a sip of her Gibson, and then she focuses solely on me as she finishes her toast. “And may all your children be daughters.”

And there we have it.

We raise our glasses. Through clenched teeth, I say, “Was I wrong?”

Chris replies, “I'll never doubt you again . . . Mrs.
Sinclair.”

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Date: June 4th

Subject: Your calendar

Penny,

Potentially big, big news . . . Carrie from Mr. Waterstone's office just e-mailed me about your availability. She wants to put you on his schedule July 1st! This date is not a coincidence. They want to make you executive vice president on the day the third quarter begins. I am sure of it. The position is yours! So there, Vanessa!

Best,

Adrienne

P.S. My apologies about the Vanessa remark. That was unprofessional. Not undeserved, just unprofessional.

• • • •

“P
enny, are you aware the bathtub is still sitting in your driveway?” Marjorie says by way of greeting as she enters the kitchen. She makes a beeline for the fridge, where she pulls out a jar of cocktail onions and begins to assemble the makings of a Gibson.

“Yes, Marjorie.”

After selling their old house in Glencoe and relocating to Florida full-time, my folks bought a condo up here, which they rarely use. However, they had some water damage while they were gone, so they're staying with me this week. (Somehow Judith and Foster weaseled out of hosting them. Not sure how, especially as Marjorie loves to remind me that Foster's house is bigger, newer, and nicer than mine.) Fortunately, my folks have spent the majority of their time with friends at the club, so they've mostly been out of my hair. I still can't fathom why they'd keep their membership at Centennial Hills active given the amount of time they're here, but that's none of my business. I feel that when you ask someone about their finances, you're telling them you'd like to participate in paying their bills and that's not okay.

“Are you going to
do
something about the tub? Or at this point are you planning to sell it along with the house? Mayhaps you can call it a water feature?” Marjorie cracks herself up. I suspect the gin is helping her humor.

“Yes, Marjorie. I'm in the process of taking care of it as we speak.”

Marjorie finally notices I'm not alone at the table in the breakfast nook and comes to stand over the two of us, waiting to be introduced.

“Marjorie, please meet Adrienne August, my executive assistant. Adrienne, this is Marjorie Bancroft, my mother.”

Adrienne rises to shake Marjorie's hand. “Hello, so nice to meet you! Wait, did I hear you right? Do you actually call your mother by her first name?”

I explain. “Marjorie started having my brother and me call her that when we were junior high aged. She didn't think she looked old enough to have kids who were teenagers.”

Adrienne takes in Marjorie's features, admiring her plump, taut skin and bright eyes. “May I be frank? You are stunning, Mrs. Bancroft. The two of you could probably pass for sisters.”

Marjorie claps her bejeweled hands together. “Love this girl. Give her a raise.”

Great. Now I have to get Botox.

As for giving Adrienne a raise, not an issue. She's already the highest paid executive assistant in my whole division. Trust me; I've done the math, and it's more cost effective to pay Adrienne any extra dollars per hour she requests than it would be to find, train, and retain someone else of her caliber. Nine years ago, she walked into my office with her associate's degree and level of dedication forged from years of pitching in at her family's dairy farm in Kenosha. She won me over ten minutes into our interview, when she answered the standard question about describing a difficult circumstance and what she'd done to overcome it. I'd already talked to an endless parade of millennials that day, each snowflake more special than the previous, all of whom assumed they deserved a coveted entry-level position at my firm just for having shown up.

One young woman told me about the trauma of not getting into Dartmouth and toughing it out on the mean streets at Bennington College.
Vermont!
she cried.
They don't even have a Target
up there!
Another applicant described the abject humiliation of giving the salutatory speech despite a perfect GPA, since the valedictorian had taken advanced placement chemistry instead of honors chemistry. His parents tried to sue the school district, but to no avail.

As for Adrienne? She walked me through the afternoon when her parents were stuck in town with an overheated radiator, so she had to assist a dairy cow in distress with a breech birth. Without hesitation, she'd reached into that heifer, turned the calf, and saved both animals' lives. Yes, she was frightened, she admitted, but life on a farm was all about doing what needed to be done.

By the way, she was
eleven
.

At eleven, my daughter Kelsey couldn't even fix her own Froot Loops. In fact, Chris made her breakfast every day until she left for college. I was so impressed that I hired Adrienne over all the Ivy League grads. My rationale was, the kids from Harvard and Princeton hoped for a stepping-stone into my firm, while Adrienne actually wanted to
do
the job.

I've never regretted my decision, especially because Adrienne's essentially the Karl Rove of office politics. For example, I work with a woman named Vanessa, whom I used to quite like. I found her professional and courteous, capable of producing top-notch work. Adrienne was only with me a week before she came into my office with a grim expression on her face.

“That Vanessa woman who just left?” she said, pointing at Vanessa's retreating form. “What's her deal?”

I glanced up from my monitor. “What do you mean?”

“Were the two of you up for the same job recently?”

“Funny you should ask that, but yes. I was promoted over her.
That's why I'm in this office with an actual door. I got the position, and that's why I was able to hire you.”

“Huh.” She chewed on her lip and made no motion to leave.

“Is there something on your mind, Adrienne?”

Adrienne pulled out her steno pad. “I've been making some notes—in my opinion, she's trying to undermine you, trying to make you look bad.”

I gave her my full attention. “How so?”

Adrienne tabbed through her pad. “Are the two of you friends?”

I shrugged. I was not normally one to mix business with my personal life, but I wasn't opposed to being friendly when the opportunity arose. The research indicates that people who have friends at work report higher levels of job satisfaction. “More like colleagues. I don't see her socially, no. We don't have lunch together very often, as I'm usually eating at my desk. I think we might have had coffee? We do say hello in the hallway, and she's quite personable. I like her.”

Adrienne nodded. “Uh-huh. Has she ever met anyone in your family? Or, does she have any children, especially around your kids' ages?”

“No. She's never met anyone in my family, and she doesn't have any children. I'm not even sure if she's married, actually.”

Adrienne chewed her lip some more. “Yeah. That was my concern. You don't ask her personal questions, so the exchange is kind of one-sided. She seemed really interested in questioning you about your kids in the staff meeting with all the EVPs. Specifically, she wanted to know about Jessica's college visits and all that these visits might entail. If she doesn't have a child doing the same thing, and if you're not buddies, doesn't it seem kind of odd that she'd want to take time out of the middle of a meeting to parse out your
schedule like that? Particularly when you're trying to figure out who's going to run that gigantic new project in New York? To me, seems like she's trying to plant seeds of doubt about your availability and your focus.”

“Hmm,” I said, letting that tidbit sink in. Generally, the child-free aren't much into hearing what we breeders have on the horizon, especially once the kids aren't cute anymore, but I assumed Vanessa was being polite.

“That's not the only time,” she added. “She said something about Kelsey's recital on the conference call with the New York clients yesterday. Later, in the elevator with Mr. Waterstone, she wanted to know if you were leaving early to see Topher's hockey game. Then she brought up the college visit thing, too. It's not a coincidence.”

“You're right. It's not a coincidence; it's a pattern,” I said.

“She's gunning for your job. She's trying to make you look like you're too busy being a mommy to do your job.”

“But that's not true!” I protested. “I always put the firm first.”

Just ask Chris, I thought, recalling a recent argument.

“I know. That's why you're going to shut her down the next time she gets nosy, particularly in front of decision makers. As far as she's concerned, you live with ten cats. Share nothing with her, okay? Loose lips sink ships.”

Thanks to Adrienne, I saw for myself exactly how Vanessa was jockeying for my position. I'm still polite, but I never let down my guard around her, and I redoubled my efforts in the office, which is why I couldn't stop myself from replying to Adrienne's e-mail this morning about getting a little work done. The Vanessa threat is always on my horizon.

Marjorie has been hovering behind us as we review our
paperwork. I ask, “Marjorie, do you need something? If so, can I have ten minutes? Let me finish up, and then I'm all yours.”

Adrienne offers, “I've never seen anyone as devoted to her job as your daughter. I can't believe she's even taking any vacation this week. She's never not working. Truly, she's the first one in every day and the last one to leave. You have how many more vacation days banked now, Penny? At least forty? You could abscond for the rest of the summer if you wanted. Anyway, there's a project that's ready to roll as soon as she signs off on it. Instead of making the client wait, she's carving out time to double-check it right now. Who does that? I had this sixth sense she was antsy, so I e-mailed this morning, and I was right. She asked me to bring everything here, telling me she'll enjoy the wedding weekend more if she could just check this task off her list. How dedicated is that?”

“Hmm,” is Marjorie's response.

“Okay, then, Marjorie, I'll be with you in a few,” I say, and I literally turn my back to her. I hear her splash some more gin in her glass, which means that everything will be “brilliant, darling” very soon. I plan to hustle Adrienne out of the house before that happens.

“What's the situation with the bathtub?” Adrienne asks. “You mentioned it's been here since yesterday?”

“Uh-huh. The guys from the scrap yard weren't sure where to leave it, so they dumped it at the end of the drive. Interesting approach to problem solving. It's too heavy for us to move on our own, even with all of Topher's friends helping, so I'm trying to get the crew here again to relocate it into the backyard. The damn thing is really throwing off the caterers and the people from the party-rental place, since it's cutting off the main artery to the house and backyard.”

Adrienne frowns. “Why am I not managing this process?”

“Because it's not your responsibility.”

I've never allowed Adrienne to handle my home life because I feel this crosses a line. Asking an assistant to pick up dry cleaning, schedule a haircut, or buy a present for a loved one does free up the exec to focus on more pressing corporate business, but the act inadvertently creates intimacy, a glimpse behind the curtain of one's real life.

To me, it's important that Adrienne never feel like she's an ad hoc extension of my family by having to manage my personal affairs. The more private matters run over the course of a business relationship, the more muddled the lines between professional and personal become between boss and assistant.

And we've all seen how that worked out for Chris.

Adrienne asks, “Have you tried threats and recrimination?”

“I have, but I feel like my home run swing is bribery. I've put out a number of calls, so we'll see who responds first.”

Adrienne does not seem satisfied with this answer. “If you change your mind, I'm here to help.”

“Thanks. Let's power through this so I can get back to dialing for dollars.” I don my reading glasses for the final document review and everything seems to be in order. I'm almost done initialing all the forms when the doorbell rings, but I don't make any motion to get up.

“Do you need to get that? Or shall I?”

“No. I'm sure it's a neighbor telling me there's a tub in the driveway.”

“Ha. Okay.”

I keep reading and initialing and thirty seconds later Topher
appears in the kitchen doorway. “Hey, Mom, Nancy from down the street stopped by. She wanted to let us know that—”

“Tub.”

“Yep. What are we up to so far?”

“Fifty-six percent of all households in a two-block radius. We have one hell of a neighborhood watch program, if the crime in question were marauding vintage plumbing fixtures.”

“Right? Like that's not getting old.” Topher walks farther into the kitchen to grab a soda. “Oh, hey, Adrienne. What's up?”

“Your mom's crossing her t's and dotting her i's.”

Face shrouded in concern, Topher glances back over his shoulder. “Really? You're working? You'd better finish up before Kelsey catches you doing anything not wedding related, Mom. She will shit kittens. I'm not kidding.”

He's right, too. Kelsey isn't my most rational child on her best day, and the stress of this week has taken a toll on her already delicate constitution.

Last night we all endured a half-hour crying jag, not because of Barnaby, but because Kelsey's friend Hannah isn't coming to the wedding.

Her friend Hannah who isn't even invited to the wedding.

Her friend Hannah she hasn't spoken to since fourth grade when her family moved to Salt Lake City.

I quickly initial the last document and almost have Adrienne out the front door when Kelsey comes bounding down the stairs with yet another Cherry, Cherry Danish from Milo's truck. Does she have a secret stash of those somewhere? I've been finding the wrappers all over the house. At first I thought Barnaby was picking them out of the trash, because I keep forgetting he's gone. (Sniff.)
But when he was alive, he was far too gracious and proper to dig through the garbage. I imagine his only regret in life was a lack of opposable thumbs and the ability to operate a knife and fork. He always seemed vaguely embarrassed having to eat from a bowl on the floor, like an animal.