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I watch myself stand. I watch myself pull Smuckers into my arms. “Keep your cookies,” I say. “And keep your money, too. Smuckers and I are not for sale.”
Speaking those words, I feel this rush of energy, like I’m sticking up for that girl I left in the dust of Deerville. I’m sticking up for Vonda O’Neil.
It feels amazing.
I turn. I walk. My knees are shaking like Jell-O, but I walk. With every step, I feel stronger. Expanding beyond my container. Bubbling over, wild and free.
I can’t believe they’re letting me leave, but they are. I get out of the police station with nobody stopping me. So they never intended to arrest me after all.
I walk down the sidewalk feeling strangely new.
Never again.
Chapter Five
Vicky
The first board meeting takes place on a Wednesday at Locke Companies headquarters. I enter the address from the sheet the lawyer gave me into my phone. It’s an easy subway ride.
The headquarters turns out to be one of those grand Financial District buildings, gleaming white stone and glass shooting high up into the sky.
The doorway is actually a bank of doorways that seems designed to illustrate the concept of redundancy. There’s a revolving door, an automatic single door, a single door for people with handicaps, a double door for people with handicaps, an automatic double door, a nonautomatic single door, and one last door, added, perhaps, as an insult to the undecided, next to which a uniformed attendant stands.
Above is a row of blue flags, flapping in the wind. Specifically they are Royal Blue 1—that’s the Locke Worldwide corporate color. This is something I learned from the packet the lawyer put together for me. The flags are emblazoned with the Locke logo, interlocking circles in the shape of a building, or a penis, if you will.
I take a deep breath and walk under the blue awning and enter a five-story-tall lobby with a giant triangular rock five stories high with water cascading down its sides into a Royal Blue 1 fountain.
One of the men behind the security desk rises. He suspects I don’t belong.
I can’t blame him. I’m wearing a black sweater with dusky pearls, a gray skirt, and kitten heels. When I put it on this morning, I felt like it embodied the timeless glamour of black, but now that I’m surrounded by women in chic brights and wow-factor shoes and men in head-to-toe GQ, it seems to embody I’m a sad panda.
Smuckers doesn’t care; he’s riding in his favorite purse today, gray pleather with a comfortable place for him to stick out his head. I can feel him wagging his tail in there, sensing petting opportunities.
“Service animals only,” the guard says.
I tell him that the dog belongs to the Locke family, that he’s expected. He frowns for a second, waiting for me to retract my story, maybe, then makes a call. Moments later, he waves me to the crystal elevator bank.
I ride up to the fifty-fifth floor and get out.
Into another world.
Manhattan at street level can be gloomy, especially around the Financial District with all the tall buildings.
But this place is spacious and dazzlingly sunny, with floor-to-ceiling windows that have a view of the river. But what’s most remarkable is the blue, blue sky, impossibly, soaringly blue with white puffs of clouds.
The floors are an expanse of sparkling white tile sweeping out to a balcony edged with grass and furniture more appropriate to a chic lounge bar. The walls are composed of giant sparkling blue tile with a glow that comes from cracks between the tiles. Yes, that’s the way the place is lit—a glow between tiles!
The flora scheme is tropical, with potted palms and Royal Blue 1 calla lilies as large as dinner plates.
It’s designed to impress, but really it just intimidates the shit out of me.
At the far side of the expanse of loveliness is a glass-enclosed meeting room, a fishbowl for the fancy. Six men and one woman sit around a table in there. I spot Henry at the head of the table.
Did they already start? I pull out my phone. I’m five minutes early.
“Can I help you?”
I turn, startled, not having noticed the two women corralled inside a large circular desk tucked discreetly to the side—so as not to spoil the impact of the room, I suppose. The desk would be the only place you can’t see the view.
