“That’s how it works. Doctors don’t like competition. We prefer the deference of a sosh—socio-economic subordinate. Don’t you?”
“I don’t think I’d put it that way.”
“No one does. We’re all hyp hyp … hypocrites.”
She’s not wrong. High-flying women may fancy alpha males, but we can’t stay with one for long. We rip them to shreds when they annoy us and then they dump us for a gentler, sweeter model. If we’re wise, we find a gentle, sweet man ourselves.
But I’m not going to think about that.
Sally pours the rest of the wine into my glass, pats Karim on the cheek, and sends him to fetch another bottle. John scowls at Karim’s back and turns to me. He has been getting drunker as the night progresses and is now relaxed enough to speak. He comes from Palmerston North, he tells me belligerently when I ask. Now it is I who do not understand, so I force a smile and say, how nice.
“Are you taking the piss?” he asks.
I look at him blankly, and he turns away.
Later, we spill out of the restaurant and onto the street where there is a fountain made of large, colored buckets of water tipping into each other with a splash. I must be drunker than I thought because I seem to see a hobbit pissing in the fountain. He turns and yes, dammit, it is a hobbit, Frodo I think, although he is dressed in jeans rather than a hobbit cloak. I shake my head and follow Sally up the road to a doorway guarded by two ostentatiously large men. Sally hands them money and they step aside to let us enter.
The room at the end of the corridor is dark apart from the lights pinpointing the musicians and the strip lighting over the bar. The place is throbbing with sound, like the blood pumping through my head, thud, thud, and thud. Sally disappears into the gloom. I push through hot bodies to reach the bar, but she isn’t there, so I order myself a cocktail. Something with chocolate in it I say and turn back to the crowd, running my eyes over the dim shapes to see if I can find her and the others who were supposed to join us.
After five minutes of fruitless searching, I give up and prop myself against the bar, hoping that I will be found, trying to look nonchalant. The alcohol has caught up with me and my head fills with haze as the music thuds on through my brain.
A familiar face swims into view. After a moment’s puzzling, I recognize the man who showed me around the penthouse. What was his name?
“Nice to see you again,” he says. “Out on the town tonight?”
“I’m with friends,” I reply. “But I seem to have lost them.”
He glances at me sideways. “Has anyone told you what beautiful eyes you have?”
I gaze at him with my beautiful eyes and wonder where the nearest taxi stand is.
He moves close and puts his hand on my thigh. “My friends call me Nick.”
The night is a confusion of intimate connections of flesh; hot, hard, rough, wet, slippery, and urgent.
I fall asleep and wake in the dark an hour before dawn, alone. I am naked. My nipples are sore. There is a damp stickiness on my thighs. My head aches. I remember, and a wave of disgust washes over me, leaving my skin crawling and my stomach sour.
Like I said, good decisions are based on good information and good logic; not just acting without thinking or you might wake up and realize you’ve made a really bad mistake.
I blot out the memory and sink back into the abyss of unconsciousness.
Chapter 4
When there is a knock on my door the following morning, I assume it is Sally, whom I haven’t seen since last night.
But it isn’t Sally.
“Lin!” he says, showing his teeth. “How are you?”
I pull my robe close around my body. “Fine.”
“May I come in?”
“I was just about to go out.”
He raises his arm and leans against the door jamb, smiling, and flicks his gaze down my body, as if he knows what I look like naked.
“I’d like to see more of you,” he says.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry, but it was a mistake.”
“Didn’t feel like a mistake when you—”
“Sorry,” I say, and start closing the door. “I’m not interested.”
He puts his foot out and stops the door half closed. He is no longer smiling.
We stare coldly at each other, like sphinxes at the entrance to an innermost courtyard.
“Remove your foot. Now.”
He shrugs and steps backward and I slam the door closed.
I am angry with myself for succumbing to the alcohol and the music and his insistence. Because it didn’t work. Another man’s meager body and second-rate sexual skills couldn’t replace the memories of Ben.
Another knock comes that evening.
“Come for dinner? I’ve got a huge roast,” Sally says when I cautiously open the door. “Pork. You’ve got to help us eat it.”
“Okay.”
“What happened to you last night?” she asks when I join her and Michael downstairs. “I turned around and you weren’t there.”
“I could say the same of you.”
“We were in the back bar.”
“Oh, now she tells me there’s a back bar! I got stuck in the front one, with the property agent.”
“Handy Nicholas? Poor you.”
After dinner Michael goes to bed, where I read him Hairy Mcclary from Donaldson’s Dairy while Polly lies snoring on the floor pretending she’s asleep. But I can see the stealthy eye that opens every few minutes, waiting for me to leave so she can steal up onto the bed.
Back in the living room, his mother offers me a Kiwi version of affogato with vanilla ice cream and Dark Spice liqueur, doused with hot, strong, fresh espresso.
“How is progress on the job front?”
“A guy I used to work for wants to talk to me about a job at a new telecommunications company.”
“Bloody hell, do we need another?”
“If you want to keep the prices sharp, you have to give Kiwicom more competition.”
Kiwicom, the incumbent telecom company, is especially adroit at keeping politicians happy and customers on their books.
Sally sits up and refills our glasses. “Is it a fair life for women in your IT world?”
I shift my glass around in my hand to avoid the lipstick mark I have left on the rim. “It’s fair up to a certain level. Above that, it becomes pretty tough and you have to act like a man to survive. What we might think of as considerate behavior, the corporate Mafia would consider softness.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Some women treat their femininity as a weapon and use all their wiles to get their way with the men they deal with.”
“Yep, seen it.”
“I don’t do that. Probably because I still think of myself as a geek rather than a girl. Once a geek, always a geek.”
“You’ve scrubbed up pretty well for a geek.”
“And you for a cutter up of dead people.”
“I don’t tell people that’s what I do. Tends to put men off.”
“Who did you enjoy yourself with last night?”
Her mouth gives a little quirk. “Karim, actually.”
“He seems a nice guy.”
“He is a lovely guy. But Karim will qualify as a doctor soon, and I expect he’ll head off into the wild blue yonder with a pretty young wife of his own culture at his side. Not some old Anglo-Saxon atheist like me.”
“There’s always John, although he seems a bit morose.”
“He’s got good reason to be morose. Once upon a time he used to run an investment company.”
“How did he end up as a nurse?”
“When the economy took a dive, the company he ran took some hits, and he took a risk that the dip was temporary and propped it up with his own money. When they found him out, he got the sack and was lucky not to be sued for making fraudulent statements. Lost all his money and his trophy wife. She kept what was left of the family assets and sued him for support.”
“
There must be some kind of work around for a secondhand executive.”
“In New Zealand when you fall from grace, no one will touch you,” Sally says. “He couldn’t get even the lowliest of accounting jobs. Then he thinks, well, he’s paid a few million in taxes over the years and so perhaps the Government will help. And they did. On their terms. Work and Income told him it was either nursing or cleaning toilets.”
“You’d think they’d show a little more sensitivity.”
Sally chortles. “Sensitivity? For a white middle-class, middle-aged male? No way. I’m sure they rubbed their hands together with glee when he sold his city apartment and his Mercedes in a fire sale and moved into a cheap studio.”
“Poor guy.”
“Yeah. I feel sorry for him.”
“Not much to build a relationship on.”
“Who’s looking for a relationship? And he’s terrific with Michael.”
“You’re not looking for anything permanent?”
Sally looks into her glass. “We’d all like something permanent. Handsome, well paid, interesting, kind, but there just ain’t so many of those sorts around, are there?”
“Nope,” I reply. “It’s a hard road finding a good man.”
I glance at Sally. Her eyes are fixed on her glass and she has that half smile on her generous mouth. I feel a rush of warmth toward her. Sally is everything one could want in a friend.
“I had a good man, but I screwed up.”
Now she looks up. “Screwed up how?”
“Slept with someone else.”
“And he found out,” she prompts, her green eyes aglow with interest.
“I told him.”
“Oh, big mistake.”
I sigh. “Yes.”
“Telling him, I mean. Was your man American?”
“Kiwi.”
“Fantastic! Where does he live? Here in Wellington?”
I shake my head. “In a small town south of Queenstown, near Invercargill.”
“Invercargill? Well, I’m sure he’s very nice, anyway. Any chance of making up?”
“I—don’t think so.”
“There are other fish in the ocean. You’ll have to come out with us. What was your bloke like?”
“I thought he was good looking,” I tell her. “Brown hair, blue eyes. Strong tanned arms.”
“Mm-hmm!” she says.
“But he didn’t earn much.”
“Interesting?”
“Very interesting. And nearly always kind.”
“Wow, Lin, three out of four! What a catch.”
“But also very irritating.”
“Duh? He’s a guy, right?”
“And far too attached to his daughter.”
“He sounds better and better. Give me his e-mail address! I’ll call him in for an audition.”
I laugh and throw a cushion at her. “No way!”
“I should organize a dinner party where you can meet some interesting people.”
“That might be fun,” I reply, and try to smile a genuine smile.
“We’ll make it fun,” she replies. “Shall I organize you a man too?”
“No thanks.”
“I’ll ask the gay guys from upstairs then. They get back from Hobbiton next week, I think. You’ll like them, they’re Americans too.”
“I’m not—okay, whatever.”
On the roof terrace I lean on the railing sipping my wine and looking out over Wellington. There is a full moon tonight, tipping the roofs and treetops silver.
Suddenly, the metal bucks in my grasp and the railing peels away from the terrace and falls down the side of the house. For a moment I teeter on the edge, undulating, like a fish trying to swim backward. My glass flies from my hand, splashing red wine into the air, then wine and glass follow the railing down.
I gasp and clutch at the pillar that had been anchoring the balustrade only a few seconds before, and manage to hold myself back from slipping over the edge.
There is a clang as the railing hits the wall and a crash as the wine glass falls onto the concrete beneath the trees at the base of the house.
The blood pounds through my veins, thud, thud, thud, as I look at the swathe the railing has made in the branches of the cherry tree below. It is a long drop down.
Then I pull myself back onto the safety of the terrace and slump into the deck chair. The wind has cooled the sweat on my skin and my pulse has slowed almost to normal when I notice the blood.
Goddammit! There are bright red smears all over my white trousers. I twist my right arm and see the long gash running from elbow to wrist.
After I have cleaned my arm and thrown the trousers into the washing machine, I go back out onto the terrace. When I run my hand lightly over the side of the pillar I can feel the jagged edge of torn metal.
Well, that could have been nasty, I think, and return indoors to call the property agent.
Chapter 5
In Courtenay Place the streets are full of inward-facing bars and fast-food joints. The wind seems to funnel through the grid, tossing garbage in the air and across the roads. My eyes quickly fill with grit, so it is a relief to reach the Museum Art Hotel where I am meeting Robert.
When I first met Robert Smith he was running a small software company near Tunbridge Wells. I had just completed my degree in Computer Science, which I’d switched to from English Literature when I realized I preferred logic to language. He was feeling nostalgic for America and liked my accent, and that is where my career began.
That first job is always special. Robert had a small team of clever oddballs working on the software. God, we were heroes! They don’t write software now as easily as we wrote it then. When Robert sold out, I was so angry I broke it off with him, but by then he’d started looking at the sweet young Jamaican girl who did our accounts the way he used to look at me, so I knew it was ending. I got out first, pretended it was my choice, pretended there weren’t any scars.
The company that bought us laid us all off pretty damned quick and moved the software, and we never heard about it again. They swooped in and took all the tapes away and cleaned out the off-site backups too. I wished I’d kept a copy, but you never think that the security risk is from the owners, do you?
I didn’t hear from Robert for a couple of years until he recommended me to a company in London looking for a development manager. And we kept in touch after that whenever he visited England—he was living in Vegas by then—and eventually I forgot we’d ever been anything more than occasional work colleagues.
Earlier in the year, he contacted me when he needed some help and so I worked for him for a few months. That job ended, and when I decided to come to New Zealand, Robert told me he had a venture starting up in Wellington and there might be an opportunity for me.
I thought about it long and hard, but you have to utilize favors, don’t you, to keep climbing the ladder?
In subdued lighting Robert can still look like a catch. His hair is a subtle shade of bleached blond and his tan speaks of some place where men are not afraid to use a sunbed. Only his chicken-skin neck betrays his true age.
He rises to greet me, blinking in the dim light of the lobby bar, blue lenses circling his irises before settling into place.
“How are you, my dear?” he asks, and smiles his shiny triangular smile, like a discreet shark.
“I’m well. Can I get you another drink?”
He finishes his glass. “Whiskey.”
“I know.”
“The good stuff.”
I order him the best they have and a glass of Chablis for me.
“No Moana?” Moana was Robert’s aide, in more ways than one. A big beautiful island girl.
He glances up but doesn’t meet my eyes. “I left her in Hawaii. She doesn’t need to come on all my trips.” Then he says, “Caught up with lover boy yet?”
I put my glass gently down on the table. “That’s all over. So, you’re setting up a new telco to compete with Kiwicom?” I ask.
Robert smirks but lets me change the subject. “Indeed. The company’s called Hera. We’ve got an international set of investors as well as the usual local suspects.”
“There’s a lot of Government money sloshing around for broadband.” I have done my research. “Are you looking for a slice?”
“The Government is letting us join the Broadband Consortium on the condition we prove our commitment by launching a pilot service by March.”
“Less than six months away!”
“We’re slipping badly behind the plan. The guy running the project had a nervous breakdown or something, so we need another project manager urgently.”
The project manager is the person who works out what needs to be done and when it needs to be done and chases everyone to make sure it is done. Of course, it’s more complicated than that, and a lot of it involves writing up plans, reporting on status of tasks, and meeting to discuss issues, risks, and constraints. And, hopefully, find solutions.
“So are you interested?”
“I am very interested.”
“They’re not expecting to pay expenses so you’d need to find your own accommodation.”
“I already have an apartment.”
“So you’re already committed to living here, huh?”
“I like Wellington.”
He smiles his small, expensive smile. “Don’t get too comfortable, Lin. In this country you’re the alien.”
I take a sip of the wine and look around the bar at the other guests. This is one of Wellington’s top hotels, so you can expect there will be a few foreign visitors. The woman talking to the bald man, for instance. The way she is dressed, the makeup, and the perfect hair don’t look local. And I can easily recognize the origins of the Asian women sitting at the table beyond us and the beautiful South American girl at the bar.
Everyone is an alien somewhere, but I seem to be an alien every place I go. If it isn’t the Asian eyes, it’s the American accent. If it isn’t how I look and sound, then it’s because I am a thirty-nine-year-old woman working at a level more commonly occupied by middle-aged men.
I lean back in my chair and scrutinize Robert’s face. “I never told you I was born in New Zealand, did I?”
Trilemma Page 2