from her office. Now it’s in one of her cabinets. She was afraid of Fat Little Dick mocking her.
“Hi. We’ve got an all-staff in fifteen, remember? Down in the main boardroom.”
She sighs heavily and raises her silver-screen eyes to me. They’re big, dark, expressive and sparsely lashed under fine eyebrows. I can detect no trace of makeup on her face bar a rose lipstick.
She moved here with her parents from France when she was sixteen and even though she’s now in her
early fifties, she still has the remnants of a growly purr in her voice.
Helene doesn’t notice that she is elegant, which makes her even more so.
She wears her hair in a short, neat cut. Her short nails are always painted cream pink. She buys all of her clothes in Paris before visiting her elderly parents in Saint-étienne. The plain wool sweater she’s wearing now probably cost more than three full carts of groceries.
In case it’s not painfully clear, I idolize her. She’s the reason I stopped wearing so much eye makeup. I want to be her when I grow up.
Her favorite word is darling. “Darling Lucy,” she says now, holding out her hand. I put the folder into it. “Are you all right?”
“Allergies. My eyes are itchy.”
“Hmm, that’s no good.”
She scans the agenda. For bigger meetings we’d do a bit more preparation, but the all-staffs are pretty straightforward since the division heads are doing most of the talking. The CEOs are there mainly to show involvement.
“Alan turned fifty?”
“I ordered a cake. We’ll bring it out at the end.”
“Good for morale,” Helene replies absently. She opens her mouth, then hesitates. I watch her try to choose her words.
“Bexley and I are making an announcement at this meeting. It’s very significant for you. We’ll talk about it straight after the meeting.”
My stomach twists. I’m fired for sure.
“No, it’s good news, darling.”
The all-staff meeting goes according to plan. I don’t sit next to Helene during these meetings, but instead prefer to sit with the others, mingling in. It’s my way of reminding them I’m part of the team, but I still feel their reserve with me. Do they honestly imagine me snitching to Helene about their shitty days?
Joshua sits beside Fat Little Dick at the head of the table. Both are disliked and seem to sit together inside a bubble of invisibility.
Alan is pink and pleased when I bring out the cake. He’s a crusty old Bexley from somewhere in the bowels of the finance section, which makes me feel even better about making the effort for him. I’ve passed a pretty frosting-covered peace offering over the fence between the two camps. It’s how we Gamins roll. In Bexleyville they probably mark birthdays with a new calculator battery.
The room is crowded with latecomers leaning against the walls and perched on the low windowsill.
The buzzing chatter is overwhelming compared to the silence of the tenth floor.
Joshua hasn’t touched the wedges of cake that sit within arm’s reach. He’s not a snacker or even an eater. I fill our cavernous office with the rhythmic sounds of my carrot crunching and apple biting. Ziplocs of popcorn and little pots of yogurt disappear into my bottomless pit. I demolish tiny crunchy smorgasbords every day, and in contrast Joshua consumes peppermints. He’s twice my size for heaven’s sake. He’s not human.
When I checked the cake, I’d groaned out loud. Of ALL the possible cake decorations the bakery could have used. You guessed it.
A consummate mind reader, Joshua leans forward and takes a strawberry. He scrapes away the icing
and looks at the little blob of ivory on his thumb. What will he