Pieces of Her

by Karin Slaughter

  “Madam.” The politi took his leave.

  Laura found her cane. She wanted to get away from the table.

  “Not so fast, Dr. Maplecroft.” Nick, ever the showman, clapped together his hands. “Shall we buy you a drink?”

  “It’s very early,” Laura said, though in fact she could use something to calm her nerves. “I’m not sure what time it is.”

  “Just shy of one,” Andrew provided. He was using a handkerchief to wipe his already red nose. “Sorry, I caught a stinking cold on the flight.”

  She tried to keep the sadness out of her smile. Laura had wanted to mother him from the beginning. “You should find some soup.”

  “I should.” He tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket. “We’ll see you in an hour, then? Your panel will be in the Raufoss ballroom. Father was told to get there ten minutes ahead of time.”

  “You might want to freshen up before that.” Nick nodded toward the ladies room. He was giddy with the deception. “It’s a wonder they even bothered to open it, Dr. Maplecroft. The wives have all gone on a shopping excursion to Storo. It appears you’re the only woman slated to speak at the conference.”

  “Nick,” Andrew cautioned. “‘It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.’”

  “Ouch, old boy. I know it’s time to go when you start quoting Spinal Tap.” Nick gave Laura another wink before allowing Andrew to lead him away. The river of suited old men turned as the two young bucks, so full of life and possibility, rode in their wake.

  Laura pursed her lips and drew in a shallow breath. She feigned interest in locating an item inside of her handbag as she tried to regain her equilibrium.

  As was often the case when she was around Nick and Andrew, Laura was reminded of her eldest son. On the day he was murdered, David Juneau was sixteen years old. The fuzz along his jaw had started to form into the semblance of a beard. His father had already shown him at the bathroom mirror how much shaving cream to use, how to draw the blade down his cheek and up his neck. Laura could still recall that crisp fall morning, their last morning, how the sun had teased its fingers through the fine hairs on David’s chin as she had poured orange juice into his glass.

  “Dr. Maplecroft?” The voice was hesitant, the vowels rounded in that distinctively Scandinavian way. “Dr. Alex Maplecroft?”

  Laura furtively glanced for Nick to save her again.

  “Dr. Maplecroft?” The Scandinavian had persuaded himself that he had the right person. There was nothing more validatory than a plastic conference badge. “Professor Jacob Brundstad, Norges Handelshøyskole. I was eager to discuss—”

  “It’s my pleasure to meet you, Professor Brundstad.” Laura gave his hand a firm shake. “Shall we speak after my panel? It’s in less than an hour and I need to collect my notes. I hope you understand.”

  He was too polite to argue. “Of course.”

  “I look forward to it.” Laura stabbed her cane into the floor as she turned away.

  She inserted herself into the crowd of white-haired men with pipes and cigarettes and briefcases and rolled sheaths of paper in their hands. That she was being stared at was undeniable. She propelled herself forward, head held high. She had studied Dr. Alex Maplecroft enough to understand that the woman’s arrogance was legend. Laura had watched from the back of packed classes as Maplecroft eviscerated the slower students; overheard her chastising colleagues for not reaching the point quickly enough.

  Or maybe it wasn’t arrogance so much as the wall Maplecroft had built in order to protect herself from the stares of angry men. Nick was correct when he said that the renowned economics professor was the only woman slated to speak at the conference. The accusatory looks—Why isn’t that waitress wearing a uniform? Why isn’t she emptying our ashtrays?—were doubly warranted.

  Laura hesitated. She was walking straight into nothing; a blank wall with a poster advertising Eastern Airline’s Moonlight Special flights. Under such withering examination, she felt she could not reverse course. She took a sharp right and found herself standing at the closed glass door leading into the bar.

  Blessedly, Laura found the door unlocked.

  Stale smoke with an undertone of expensive bourbon shrouded the bar. There was a wooden dance floor with a darkened disco ball. The booths were low to the floor. Darkened mirrors hung from the ceiling. Laura’s watch was turned to Toronto time, but she gathered from the empty room that it was still too early to have a proper drink.

  After today, Dr. Maplecroft’s reputation would be the least of her worries.

  Laura could hear the tinkling of keys on the piano as she took her place at the end of the bar. She rested her cane against the wall. Her hand was reliably steady as she found the pack of Marlboros in her purse. There was a box of matches on top of the glass ashtray. The flash of nicotine catching fire soothed her jangling nerves.

  The bartender came through the swinging door. He was stout and starched with a white apron wrapped around his thick waist. “Madam?”

  “Gin and tonic,” she said, her voice soft, because the cacophonous notes from the piano had turned into a familiar melody; not Rossini or even, given the locale, Edvard Grieg, but a slow tune that escalated into a familiar verve.

  Laura smiled as she blew out a plume of smoke.

  She recognized the song from the radio. A-ha, the Norwegian singing group with the funny cartoon video. “Take On Me” or “Take Me On” or some variation of those words repeated ad nauseam over a relentlessly chirpy electric keyboard.

  When Laura’s daughter was still alive, the same type of candy synthpop had recurrently blared from Lila’s record player or Walkman or even her mouth while she was in the shower. Every car trip, no matter how short, began with her daughter tuning the radio dial to The Quake. Laura was not shy with her daughter when she explained why the silly songs grated on her nerves. The Beatles. The Stones. James Brown. Stevie Wonder. Those were artists.

  Laura had never felt so old as when Lila had made her watch a Madonna video on MTV. The only semi-positive comment Laura could muster was, “What a bold choice to wear her underwear on the outside.”

  Laura retrieved a pack of tissues from her purse and wiped her eyes.

  “Madam.” The bartender pronounced the word as an apology, gently placing her drink on a cocktail napkin.

  “May I join you?”

  Laura was stunned to find Jane Queller suddenly at her elbow. Andrew’s sister was a complete stranger and meant to stay that way. Laura struggled to keep the recognition out of her expression. She had only ever seen the girl in photographs or from a great distance. Up close, she looked younger than her twenty-three years. Her voice, too, was deeper than Laura had imagined.

  Jane said, “Please forgive the interruption.” She had seen Laura’s tears. “I was just sitting over there wondering if it’s too early to drink alone.”

  Laura quickly recovered. “I think it is. Won’t you join me?”

  Jane hesitated. “You’re sure?”

  “I insist.”

  Jane sat, nodding for the same from the bartender. “I’m Jane Queller. I think I saw you talking to my brother, Andrew.”

  “Alex Maplecroft.” For the first time in this entire enterprise, Laura regretted a lie. “I’m on a panel with your father in”—she checked the clock on the wall—“forty-five minutes.”

  Jane worked artlessly to mask her reaction to the news. Her eyes, as was so often the case, went to Laura’s hairline. “Your photo wasn’t in the conference directory.”

  “I’m not much for photographs.” Laura had heard Alex Maplecroft say the same thing at a lecture in San Francisco. Along with shortening her first name, the doctor felt hiding the fact of her womanhood was the only way to make sure that her work was taken seriously.

  Jane asked, “Has Father ever met you in person?”

  Laura found the phrasing odd—not asking if she’d met Martin Queller, but whether or not Martin Queller had met her. “No, not that I can recall.”r />
  “I think I’ll actually enjoy attending one of the old man’s panels, then.” Jane picked up her glass as soon as the bartender set it down. “I’m sure you’re aware of his reputation.”

  “I am.” Laura raised her own glass in a toast. “Any advice?”

  Jane’s nose wrinkled in thought. “Don’t listen to the first five words he says to you, because none of them will make you feel good about yourself.”

  “Is that a general rule?”

  “It’s carved into the family coat of arms.”

  “Is that before or after the ‘arbeit macht frei’?”

  Jane choked out a laugh, spitting gin and tonic onto the bar. She used the cocktail napkin to wipe up the mess. Her long, elegant fingers looked incongruous to the task. “Could I bum one off you?”

  She meant the cigarettes. Laura slid the pack over, but warned, “They’ll kill you.”

  “Yes, that’s what Dr. Koop tells us.” Jane held the cigarette between her lips. She picked open the box of matches, but ended up scattering them across the bar. “God. I’m so sorry.” Jane looked like a self-conscious child as she gathered the matches. “Clumsy Jinx strikes again.”

  The phrase had a practiced tone. Laura could imagine Martin Queller had found unique and precise ways to remind his children that they would never be perfect.

  “Madam?” The bartender had appeared with a light.

  “Thank you.” Rather than cup her hands to his, Jane leaned toward the match. She inhaled deeply, her eyes closed like a cat enjoying a sunbeam. When she found Laura watching, she laughed out puffs of smoke. “Sorry, I’ve been in Europe for three months. It’s good to have an American cigarette.”

  “I thought all of you young expats enjoyed smoking Gauloises and arguing about Camus and the tragedy of the human condition?”

  “If only.” Jane coughed out another cloud of dark smoke.

  Laura felt a sudden maternal rush toward the girl. She wanted to snatch the cigarette from her hand, but she knew the gesture would be pointless. At twenty-three, Laura had been desperate for the years to come more quickly, to firmly step into her adulthood, to establish herself, to become someone. She had not yet felt the desire to claw back time as you would a piece of wet muslin clinging to your face; that one day her back might ache as she climbed the stairs, that her stomach could sag from childbirth, that her spine might become misshapen from a cancerous tumor.

  “Disagree with him.” Jane held the cigarette between her thumb and forefinger, the same way as her brother. “That’s my advice to you on Father. He can’t stomach people contradicting him.”

  “I’ve staked my reputation on contradicting him.”

  “I hope you’re prepared for battle.” She indicated the conference buzzing outside the barroom door. “Was it Jonah or Daniel who was in the lion’s den?”

  “Jonah was in the belly of a whale. Daniel was in the lions’ den.”

  “Yes, of course. God sent an angel to close the lions’ mouths.”

  “Is your father really that bad?” Laura realized too late the pointedness of her question. All three Queller children had found their own particular way to live in their father’s shadow.

  Jane said, “I’m sure you can hold your own against the Mighty Martin. You weren’t invited here on a whim. Just keep in mind that once he’s locked onto something, he won’t back down. All or none is the Queller way.” She didn’t seem to expect a reply. Her eyes kept finding the mirror behind the bar as she scanned the empty room. Here was the octopus from the lobby, the one who was desperately in search of something, anything, that would render her whole.

  Laura asked, “You’re Martin’s youngest?”

  “Yes, then Andrew, then there’s our older brother, Jasper. He’s given up glory in the Air Force to join the family business.”

  “Economic advisory?”

  “Oh, God, no. The money-making side. We’re all terribly proud of him.”

  Laura disregarded the sarcasm. She knew full well the details of Jasper Queller’s ascendancy. “Was that you just now on the piano?”

  Jane offered a self-deprecating eye-roll. “Grieg seemed too aphoristic.”

  “I saw you play once.” The shock of truthfulness brought an image to Laura’s mind: Jinx Queller at the piano, the entire audience held rapt as her hands floated across the keyboard. Squaring that remarkably confident performer with the anxious young girl beside her—the nails bitten to the quick, the furtive glances at the mirror—was an unwieldy task.

  Laura asked, “You don’t go by Jinx anymore?”

  Another eye-roll. “An unfortunate cross I bore from my childhood.”

  Laura knew from Andrew that Jane abhorred the family nickname. It felt wrong to know so much about the girl when she knew nothing of Laura, but this was how the game had to be played. “Jane suits you more, I think.”

  “I like to think so.” She silently tapped ash off of her cigarette. The fact that Laura had seen her perform was clearly bothersome. Had Jane been rendered in paint, lines of anxiety would have radiated from her body. She finally asked, “Where did you see me play?”

  “The Hollywood Bowl.”

  “Last year?”

  “Eighty-four.” Laura worked to keep the melancholy out of her tone. The concert had been a last-minute invitation from her husband. They had eaten dinner at their favorite Italian restaurant. Laura had drunk too much chianti. She could remember leaning into her husband as they walked to the parking lot. The feel of his hand on her waist. The smell of his cologne.

  Jane said, “That was part of the Jazz Bowl before the Olympics. I sat in with the Richie Reedie Orchestra. There was a Harry James tribute and”—she squinted her eyes in memory—“I fell out of time during ‘Two O’Clock Jump.’ Thank God the horns came in early.”

  Laura hadn’t noticed any slips, just that the crowd had been on its feet by the end. “Do you only remember your performances by their mistakes?”

  She shook her head, but there was more to the story. Jane Queller had been a world-class pianist. She had sacrificed her youth to music. She had given up classical for jazz, then jazz for studio work. Between them all, she had performed in some of the most venerated halls and venues.

  And then she had walked away.

  “I read your paper on punitive taxation.” Jane lifted her chin toward the bartender, silently requesting another drink. “If you’re wondering, Father expects us to keep up with his professional life. Even from nearly six thousand miles away.”

  “How edifying.”

  “I’d say it’s more alarming than edifying. He sneaks his clippings into my mother’s letters to save postage. ‘Dear Daughter, we attended supper with the Flannigans this weekend and please be prepared to answer questions pertaining to the enclosed abstract on macroeconomic variables in Nicaragua.’” Jane watched the gin fall from the bottle. The bartender was being more generous with the alcohol than he’d been with Laura, but beautiful young women always got more.

  Jane said, “Your passage about the weaponization of financial policy against minorities really made me think about government in a different way. Though, to hear my father tell it, your type of social engineering will ruin the world.”

  “Only for men like him.”

  “Be careful.” This was a serious warning. “My father does not like to be contradicted. Especially by women.” She met Laura’s gaze. “Especially by women who look like you.”

  Laura remembered something her mother had told her a long time ago. “Men never have to be uncomfortable around women. Women have to be uncomfortable around men all of the time.”

  Jane gave a rueful laugh as she stubbed her cigarette into the ashtray.

  Laura motioned for another gin and tonic, though the first one sat sourly in her stomach. She needed her hands to stop shaking, her heart to stop pattering like a frightened rabbit.

  The clock gave her only thirty minutes to prepare herself.

  In the best of circumstances, La
ura had never been a comfortable public speaker. She was a watcher by nature, preferring to blend with the crowd. Behind Iacocca’s keynote, the Queller panel was expected to be the most well-attended of the conference. The ticket supply had been exhausted within a day of the announcement. There were two other men who would join them, a German analyst from the RAND Corporation, and a Belgian executive from Royal Dutch Shell, but the focus of the eight hundred attendees would be squarely on the two Americans.

  Even Laura had to admit that Martin Queller’s C.V. could draw a crowd: former president of Queller Healthcare, professor emeritus at the Queller School of Economics, Long Beach, former advisor to the governor of California, current member of the President’s Council on Economic Development, at the top of the shortlist to replace James Baker as Secretary of the Treasury, and, most importantly, progenitor of the Queller Correction.

  It was the Correction that had brought them all here. While Alex Maplecroft had managed to distinguish herself first at Harvard, then Stanford and Berkeley, she would have likely lived in academic obscurity but for her writings and publications accomplishing something that no man dared: vehemently questioning the morality of not just the Queller Correction, but Martin Queller himself.

  Given Martin’s standing in the economic and business community, this was tantamount to nailing the Ninety-Five Theses on the church doors.

  Laura gladly counted herself among Maplecroft’s converts.

  In a nutshell, the Queller Correction posited that economic expansion has historically been underpinned by an undesirable minority or immigrant working class that is kept in check by nativistic corrections.

  The progress of many on the backs of an other.

  Irish immigrants erecting New York’s bridges and skyscrapers. Chinese laborers building the transcontinental railroad. Italian workers fueling the textile industry. Here was the so-called nativistic correction: Alien Land Laws. No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs. The Emergency Quota Act. The Literacy Act. Dred Scott v. Sandford. The Chinese Exclusion Act. Jim Crow. Plessy v. Ferguson. The Bracero Programs. Poll taxes. Operation Wetback.