The Hot Flash Club (9 page)

12

Most people who entered the offices of the senior executives of the TransWorld Insurance Corporation in downtown Boston were intimidated. That, of course, was the intention. Sleek, glossy, high-tech, the offices were meant to transmit an instantaneous message of power and wealth, just as the enormous windows that walled the corner of Alice’s office provided a view of what looked very much like the entire world.

But as Marilyn Becker established herself in the handsome ebony-and-teak office just outside Alice’s own, it didn’t occur to her to be impressed. Why should an expensive office in a multibillion-dollar international insurance corporation intimidate her? MIT didn’t. Nobel Prize–winning scientists didn’t. Nothing in the world seemed significant compared to trilobites, those cockroachlike creatures who lived in the earth’s mud almost 400 million years ago, who called this planet home for more than 300 million years. They saw continents stir, glaciers clash, volcanoes spew. Compared to that, the human race with all its egotism was little more than the wink of a trilobite’s calcite eye.

Marilyn mused on her beloved trilobites while acquainting herself with the piles of folders on the secretary’s desk and the files on her computer. At the moment, the noncontributory defined benefit retirement plans for what had been TransContinent had to be costed out and scheduled for the newly enlarged company, and possible plans for overseas companies had to be developed and plotted and costed out. That meant gathering actuarial assumptions from various countries, which meant in turn piles of paper and computerized graphs.

It would be a breeze. All these figures were negligible compared to those of paleobiology.

The hardest thing so far that day had been dealing with the damned green scarf Shirley had insisted she wear. Marilyn dutifully wore it to work, sat down at her desk with it fluttering around her, took out a pen, and shut the scarf in her desk drawer, nearly decapitating herself. She removed it immediately.

Now a movement on the computer screen caught her eye—it was her own reflection, ghostlike in the background. It gave Marilyn the strangest impulse. She wanted to take her new compact mirror out of her purse and just gawk at herself. She forced herself to work.

“Hello.”

Marilyn looked up. A man stood smiling at her. He had a thatch of black hair that he wore in a kind of scramble, just like hers. This made him look young, but Marilyn guessed this was Barton Baker, Alison Cummings’s secretary, who was—Marilyn had read his personnel file—forty-five. His wool suit and pale blue shirt looked hand-tailored to fit his trim hips, muscular chest, and broad shoulders. He was a stunning specimen of
Homo sapiens
.

“Hello,” she replied.

He arched an eyebrow. “I heard Alice had a new secretary. I’m Barton Baker. Alison Cummings’s executive secretary.”

Marilyn shook his hand. “Marilyn Becker.” At his touch, something warm surged through her—the infamous hot flash, no doubt.

“Alice’s executive secretary?” He lounged against the wall.

“Perhaps. I’m here on a trial basis. For a month.”

“Good luck,” Barton said.

“I’m going to need it?” Marilyn asked.

Glancing at the closed office door, Barton leaned close and confided, “She’s a smart woman, and principled, but she’s got all the personal warmth of an armadillo.”

Marilyn smiled at the image. She liked armadillos quite a lot—they were vaguely related to trilobites, but Barton Baker probably didn’t know that.

“But to be fair,” Barton continued, “it’s got to be hard to be a woman, and an African-American, and a vice president in this business. Anyway, I think you’ll like it here. Did she show you where the TransWorld restaurant is? It’s less expensive than going out.”

“She told me I could find directions in the employees’ handbook. She takes her lunch in her office while she works.”

“Why don’t I come back about twelve-thirty and take you down myself? It’s cafeteria style, but the food’s excellent.”

“That would be nice,” Marilyn replied coolly.

As Barton walked away, she caught herself staring at his shoulders, and his back, and his tight, taut butt. Butt! She thought
butt
! This man made her have thoughts like that? Should she have lunch with him?

Of course she could! She was a grown-up. She was
maternal
. What could possibly go wrong?

13

ALICE

Shirley lived in Somerville, one of the urban suburbs just across the Charles River from Boston. Friday evening, Alice drove through the maze of one-way streets, through “squares” without trees, benches, or right angles, past triple-decker houses jammed along narrow car-crammed streets, until she turned onto an avenue of modest single-family dwellings with driveways, garages, lawns, and cheerful beds of daffodils and tulips.

She didn’t need to use Shirley’s directions anymore. Shirley’s house
had
to be the one with the WELCOME banner appliquéd with enormous violets hanging above the purple front door, the window boxes bobbing with pansies, the wind chimes made of glittering beads and colorful painted metal angels, and the hand-painted purple mailbox swinging from a nail.

Alice sighed. She’d had a tough day at the office, she had a pile of defined benefit postretirement plans in her briefcase to read over the weekend, and she wasn’t exactly eager to spend time with Shirley, who seemed to Alice to be rather ditzy and certainly not the best candidate for owning her own business. But she’d agreed to the conditions of the HFC, and she was going to do her part and do it well, because, dammit, that was what Alice Murray was all about.

She knocked on the purple door.

“Hello!” Shirley said, with a big bright grin on her face. “Come in!”

Alice stepped inside. “Well,” she said, looking around at the candles, pillows, crystals, and Buddhas. “What an amazing room.”

“Thanks,” Shirley said, taking the remark as a compliment. “Sit down, won’t you? I’ve made us some Red Zinger tea.”

“Red Zinger?” Alice repeated warily. She’d never heard of such a thing. If it was anything like this room, it was probably hallucinogenic.

“It’s made from hibiscus, rose hips, and lemongrass,” Shirley told her. “It promotes energy and—”

“I’d prefer a scotch,” Alice said. “I’ve had a hard day.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t keep any alcohol in the house. I’m in AA.”

“That’s right. How long?”

“Twenty years.”

“Impressive,” Alice said, and she
was
impressed. She knew from life with Mack how hard it was for an alcoholic to stay sober. In Mack’s case, it had been impossible. “In that case, tea will be fine.”

“Great.”

Shirley poured the ruby liquid into a purple mug. A great many things in Shirley’s house were purple.

Alice sipped the tea. It was hot and thin. “I think we should get started,” she decided. “Why don’t you show me your office.”

“My office?” Shirley laughed. “Honey, I don’t have an
office
.”

“I understood you run your business from your home.”

“I do. Let me show you.”

Alice set her teacup on the table and followed Shirley down the hall.

Shirley opened the door. “This is my massage studio.” The room was small but, unlike the living room, so free of clutter it felt spacious. A massage table stood in the middle, on an imitation Oriental rug. Instead of curtains, vertical white blinds filtered the early-evening sunlight into stripes that shaded and illuminated the posters on the wall. There were colored charts of “pressure points” on the feet, the muscular system of the body, and something called chakras. A single chair sat in the corner next to a small table, which held a CD player, a stack of CDs, and many vials of oils and lotions.

“Have you ever had a massage?” Shirley inquired.

“No.”

“You should try one sometime. I’ll give you one.”

“How much do you charge?”

“It depends. For new clients, eighty-five for an hour.”

“Good. Where do you keep your records?”

“In the kitchen. I don’t like anything like that in this room, it might disturb the karma.”

“Right. Okay, let’s go to the kitchen.”

Shirley led Alice into a clean, bright, and lavender, but surprisingly uncluttered, kitchen.

“Sit down.” Shirley gestured to a chair next to a small desk and pulled a kitchen chair over to face her. “After a massage, after the client is dressed, I bring her in here and give her a full glass of water. That carries off the toxins released in the massage.”

“Never mind about that. Let’s focus on the business side of your work.”

“Uh, okay. Let’s see. Then I ask her—or him—if she wants to come the same time next week, and mark it on this calendar.”

“Then you take the payment?” Alice pulled a pad of paper and a calculator from her purse.

“Right.”

“And you give a receipt.”

“Um, no. Why would I do that?”

“Well, for tax-keeping purposes, for one.”

“Taxes! I hate taxes!”

“We all hate taxes, but we still have to pay them.” Alice peered worriedly at the other woman. “You
do
pay income tax, don’t you?”

“Of course.” Shirley shifted nervously on her chair. “A friend helps me.”

“This friend told you that you can deduct part of your mortgage and utilities because you run a business in your house?”

Shirley bit her lip. “Someone told me about that, but the thing is, I don’t want anyone from the IRS to come check up on me. It would ruin the karma of my house.”

Alice took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s come at this from another angle. How many massages do you do a week?”

“Between fifteen and twenty.”

Alice clicked her calculator. “So you make between sixty-six thousand and eighty-eight thousand dollars a year?”

Shirley gawked. “God, I wish! How did you get to that amount?”

“If you charge eighty-five for a session, times fifteen a week, times fifty-two weeks in a year—”

Shirley laughed. “Wait! I don’t charge eighty-five for
every
session!”

“Why not?”

“Well, um, some clients can’t afford that much. And some of the others have been with me for a long time, so I have to charge them what we started with.”

“Why?”

“Why have they been with me for a long time?”

“Why do you have to accept the original fee?”

“Well”—Shirley’s forehead wrinkled as she concentrated —“because I’m doing the same thing I’ve always done?”

“You’re also eating the same food you’ve always eaten—”

“Not really. I’ve gotten much more organic—”

“The point is, Shirley,” Alice snapped, “even though you’re giving the same service, you have to adjust for inflation. If the fuel you use to heat the room where you give your massages cost you ten dollars ten years ago and twenty dollars now, you need to double your rates to help offset the increase in what you pay.”

Shirley looked blank.

“Shirley.” Alice sighed, shaking her head. “How could you possibly think you could run an entire business?”

Shirley crossed her arms defensively. “Why, I’d hire someone else to do the paperwork.”

“Yes, but if
you
don’t know the fundamentals, you’ll get in a terrible mess.”

Shirley looked crestfallen. “You mean you don’t think I’ll ever be able to have it?”

“No, I don’t mean that at all. You’re an intelligent, competent woman. You just need to learn a few basics. And that’s why I’m here. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Let’s start with the records you do keep. Receipts for gas, for example.”

“For gas?”

“Don’t you drive to some of your clients’ homes?”

“Yes—”

“What percentage do you drive to? Half? One-fourth?”

“I’d say half.”

“So you can deduct the gas you use driving to and from their homes, and a portion of your auto insurance and excise tax and automotive repair expenses.”

“Oooh,” Shirley said. “Wow.” She smiled. “This could be fun!”

Later, as Alice drove back toward her condo on the Boston harbor, she realized she felt refreshed.
Invigorated.
Shirley might be naive about certain bookkeeping matters, but she was smart enough, and quick, and remarkably, for someone her age,
eager
to learn. And she made no secret of her admiration for Alice’s business acumen or her awe at Alice’s long and steady history with one company.

It felt nice. These days, at TransWorld, as in the corporate world in general, experience, wisdom, institutional memory meant nothing. The world had moved on, was moving, thanks to computers, at speeds Arthur Hudson couldn’t have predicted when he founded the company thirty-five years ago. The world had changed, and so had Alice, but the world was new each day, while Alice only grew older.

Now TransWorld executives commuted between Asia and California, between South America and Africa. TransWorld dealt with countries Alice had grown up fearing, countries with communist-sounding names like Azerbaijan or bizarre names like Jabung, which sounded like something her boys, as children, would have named one of their space toys. What she hadn’t realized before was that at some point in her life the entire map of the world had internalized itself in her mind, heart, and soul, and like a complex pinball machine, certain names, when hit, lighted up and binged, sending spurts of fear or distress through her intelligence. She could relearn the world map with its fractured new countries, its unstable political structures, and she
would
, but the harder work would be disconnecting old emotions.

It would help if she had more amiable colleagues instead of the Champion jackals drooling and licking their chops at her heels. It would help if she believed in what she was doing, the way Shirley believed in her retreat. Once, not even so long ago, Alice had felt
good
, pulling together a package of benefits that would slide right into the company’s budget while at the same time providing serious security for the thousands of company employees. Now the bottom line was company profit, and she was supposed to be just one of the clever schemers employed to provide the least in order to save the company money, and employees beware.

Shirley was always babbling on about
balance
. Well, perhaps Alice could improve the balance of her own life.

She’d start, she decided, parking her car in its reserved spot at the side of the long brick building extending out into the harbor, with her own home. The second bedroom of her condo was a home office, stacked with charts, reports, and other TransWorld material. Letting herself into the foyer, she checked her mailbox, stuffed the envelopes into her bag, and, too wired to wait for the elevator, clipped up the steps to the third floor. She would clear a space next to her computer for Shirley’s center. She’d pour a glass of sherry and spend a couple of hours working up a dynamite preliminary précis that would have investors fighting to write Shirley checks. Unlocking the door of her condo, she decided she could also check the Internet and pull together some figures about the increasing popularity of holistic—

She dropped her bag on the entrance hall table, walked into her living room, and shrieked.

Alan, her oldest son, her pride and joy, was lying on the sofa, watching TV. Alan had actually listened to his mama and gotten an MBA, so when he applied at a Houston oil corporation, he walked right in at managerial level. At thirty, he pulled in a salary that rivaled Alice’s and allowed him to dress his big, handsome, college-football-fullback body in the finest suits and shirts and ties money could buy.

“Alan!”
What was he doing here?

She rushed over to hug him till they both were out of breath. “Darling, how wonderful to see you! Have you got conferences in Boston?”

“Uh-uh.” He wouldn’t look her in the eye.

She studied her boy. Alan had lost at least fifty pounds since the last time she had seen him. His clothes hung off his scrawny body. He needed a haircut and a shave, hell, the boy needed antibiotics, it looked like, the way the whites of his eyes were red.

“What’s going on?” she asked, worries banging around in her head like bumper cars at a carnival.

Alan ran his hands through his hair. “Well, a lot. You could say a lot has happened.”

“Genevieve Anne?” Alice had never liked his wife, a gorgeous beauty queen who intimidated everyone with her slinky long body and African princess cheekbones. Alice thought the woman shallow and pretentious, but she always took pains to hide her opinion, realizing that not only was her son wild about her, he also was lucky to have someone with him who could work the cocktail party crowd as well as Genevieve Anne.

“Yes, Genevieve Anne. She left me for someone else.

But also, Mama, I lost my job and had a kind of nervous breakdown.”

“Oh, honey.” She sank down on the sofa next to him.

“I’m on antidepressants, but I need some time to get my shit together so I can start over. I was thinking maybe I could stay here with you for a while.” “Of course you can,” she assured him. “You can have the guest bedroom.” Her thoughts whirled.

She would have to move her computer and desk and papers and reports into her bedroom, open up the sofa bed, and turn her second bedroom into Alan’s room. Just for a while.