voice that told Milada to drop the subject. “Besides, as you can see, I’m teaching.”
“So get yourself on a tenure track, then.”
“Like I have any desire to dive into a time suck like that.”
“Ah,” said Milada, a bit too smugly. “Then you should have plenty of time to serve on the Wylde board.”
Kammy collapsed with a melodramatic groan. Resting her forehead against the dark, varnished hardwood of the bar, she asked, “Why are you so obsessed with me living your idea of a productive life?”
Milada had to smile to herself. The eternal teenager was still hiding inside her sister, just beneath the skin. “Because you are perfectly capable of living a more productive life.”
“Why aren’t you giving this lecture to Zoë?”
“If she’d sit still for five minutes, I would.”
“You’re just compensating,” Kammy grumbled.
“You’re just sublimating,” Milada snapped back.
Always the same routine. The same questions and the same answers. But she had to ask, she had to nag. “Well, I’ll let you get to your friends.” Milada cringed as soon as the words came out of her mouth. She sounded like somebody’s mother.
“Have fun with your Mormon boy.”
“It should be an adventure.”
Milada paid the tab. She glanced over her shoulder as Kammy joined her friends—or colleagues, or classmates—at a table near the back. Kammy had friends. Friends that came and went without the world ending or beginning, something Milada had never been able to manage. She rationed her friends the same way Kammy rationed lovers.
Returning her billfold to her inside breast pocket, Milada felt the envelope and sighed. She was getting forgetful in her old age—the envelope was the reason she’d arranged this meeting with Kammy in the first place. She wrote a few lines on the back and strode over to the table, ignoring the intrigued looks that turned in her direction. “Here,” she said, handing the envelope to Kammy.
Kammy opened the envelope and took out a Wylde corporate ID card.
“No rush,” Milada said. “But try to get some hands-on experience in the next couple of weeks. Kick the tires, take the databases for a spin. Whatever one does with whatever they do.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Milada patted her on the shoulder. “I wrote my address on the back. Stop by some time and enliven my life of quiet desperation.”
Kammy turned the envelope over and nodded. “Sure. If you say so.”
“I’ll see you, then.”
“Yeah, later, Milly.”
She wasn’t out of earshot when somebody at the table said, “Wow, so it really does run in the family.”
“What, you guys didn’t believe me?”
“Pretty rare, though, isn’t it? A trait like that?”
“Rare doesn’t mean zero.”
They were referring to her hair and skin. Kammy described their observable condition as hypomelanism. In simpler terms, they were albino. It was genetic, and it did run in the family. Except that they got it from the first of their stepfathers, long after their parents had died.
Chapter 18
A man’s known by the company he keeps
The stressed-concrete entranceway to the Japanese restaurant was tucked in between the parking garage and a movie theater. Steven pulled into the parking garage and said, “Are you sure this is the right place?”
Milada looked again and replied that it was.
“When do you need to be picked up?”
“I should be fine for the evening. If not, I will call a taxi.”
Once she got inside, Milada felt more reassured. The sharp scent of shoyu and boiled rice at once brought back a decades-old memory of strolling through Shibuya a quarter-century ago, before Japan’s real-estate bubble burst.
The sushi chef called out a greeting from the bar. The floor area, crowded with tables, wrapped around the varnished pine sushi bar. A waitress, a small Japanese girl, bowed to her.
“I’m here to meet a Mr. Troy Ellis—”
“Milada!” Troy stood and waved. Seeing the eager young Mormon again, all square jaw and broad shoulders, she knew he was the boy who as a child sat through all the elementary school self-esteem courses and believed every word he heard.
The waitress led her over to the table. Troy came around the table to hold the chair for her. The waitress gave her a menu.
“Did you find the place all right?”
“My driver has a talent with addresses and directions.”
“The sushi’s quite good. Take your pick. I usually go with the tuna roll or California roll.”
Milada nodded. She put down the menu and took a sip of water.
“So,” said Troy, “how’s your knowledge of Mormons coming along?”
“It’s still pretty much confined to what you don’t do. I’m up to tobacco, alcohol, and caffeine.
“Technically it depends