Coming of Age: Volume 1: Eternal Life Page 10

  Wells looked around at the other students as they seemed to meditate for a moment, carefully selected from among the rich palette of colors, and began tracing lines and curves across their own pieces of paper.

  She refused to close her eyes, but she did try to look inside herself. All she could feel was the descending darkness of the stroke, the floor becoming the ceiling, and her sense of falling into deep, soft snow. Not a good memory. Not a place she wanted to commemorate. If she tried to draw that, she would have to sketch the acoustic tiles and recessed lamps in the conference room at Bryant Bridger & Wells in shades of gray and silver, then slowly cover them over with black chalk until the whole paper was solid charcoal.

  She took another peek at the developing images the others were making. Bird wings—no, from the angle, those were stylized angel wings. Hands clasped in prayer. A vase of flowers. All in pastel blues and rosy blushes. However, one woman with unkempt hair was drawing a snarling black dog with vampire fangs. Wells didn’t know if the woman was being more honest or simply displaying a different kind of predictability.

  She looked across the room to the wall behind the instructor. To the left of the bulletin board hung a fire extinguisher: bright red enamel bottle, yellow classification label, silver anodized bracket, black hand grips and hose with a flaring black nozzle. Since her mind was so empty, she might as well draw that. At least it had all the colors in her pencil box.

  She picked up the red pencil and began drawing the extinguisher’s bottle. She made two straight, vertical lines for its sides, a rounded curve for the hemispherical top, a shallower curve for the flat bottom. Suddenly she remembered what she had hated about art class in grade school. Artists—and the people around her doing praying hands and angel wings—knew some special technique for making an image leap off the paper in three dimensions. But when Wells tried, she could only draw the outline and edges of things, flat images in two dimensions. She had no feeling for depth, perspective, or surface contours. Her drawings had all the depth and subtlety of an eight-year-old child’s. I’m caught in some kind of Byzantine icon, she thought. Trapped in Flatland.

  This wasn’t a new fault she could attribute to the stroke. Wells had always been a terrible artist. She could see depth in the works of others, of course, and appreciate the reciprocal play of light and shadow, highlighting, and texture. She could understand the principle of perspective intellectually. But she just couldn’t make her hand, the tip of her pencil, reproduce the sense of depth on paper.

  She owned artworks, of course. Her apartment was full of them, mostly floral still lifes, many incorporating the orchids she loved, some realistically drawn, some more impressionist, but all alive with color and leaping off the page. Antigone Wells fancied herself a connoisseur of botanical art. But she couldn’t draw worth a damn. Her medium was words, the structure of a good logical argument, the advantage gained over an opponent by the presentation of compelling facts. That was what made her study law and become an attorney—not this mucking about with pencils and chalk.

  Wells put down her red pencil and stood up.

  The instructor came over to inspect her work.

  “Done so soon?” the woman asked.

  “No. I can’t do this. It’s not me.”

  “Everyone feels that way at first.”

  “For me, it’s a good place to stop.”

  She picked up her jacket and purse, thanked the woman, and went out into the hallway. This late in the afternoon, the center was busy with children doing after-school activities. As Wells walked down toward the entrance she passed a room with a hardwood floor, mirrors, and ballet bar, designed for aerobic exercises and dance. She glanced through the open doorway and saw young boys and girls in white pajamas, standing in rows, moving in cadence. Their movements lacked the flow and rhythm of dance. Instead, they looked more like jerky robots. She focused on the action and guessed they were practicing some kind of martial art: step forward, punch, step forward kick, step back, block then punch—all at the direction of a young man, also wearing pajamas, who faced them and performed the same movements while barking short words in what she guessed was Japanese.

  After two more sets of advance and retreat, the instructor gave a quiet command, and the ranks of students broke up into pairs. Then he came toward the doorway where Wells was standing.

  “Can I help you?” he asked politely.

  “No, sorry. I was just watching.”

  “Is one of these students yours?”

  “No. I was taking an art class.”

  He nodded and moved away.

  “Is that karate?” she asked suddenly.

  He came back. “Yes, a style called Isshinryu.”

  Without thinking, she said, “I suppose I’m too old …?”

  He paused. “There’s also a tai chi class. It’s perfect for people of all ages.”

  Wells had seen them: old people, frail people, moving in slow motion, pushing on invisible stones, being pushed back by invisible waves, silent as mimes. Tai chi was too static and lifeless for her taste, but at least it was more rhythmic than yoga, less chaotic than modern dance.

  “Couldn’t I try your thing?” she asked. “This Iss-shin-something?”

  “It’s a mind-body discipline that takes a long time to master.” He hesitated. “Okay, sure. Our adult class is Monday and Thursday nights. Beginners welcome.”

  Then he turned away to guide the sparring pairs.

  Wells went back to her apartment and her orchids.

  2. Slow-Motion Train Wreck

  “We’ve got to convince Dad to retire,” Leonard Praxis told his brother at a private meeting in the chairman’s office. Their sister was calling in from Denver on speaker phone—kept at a low volume so the conversation wouldn’t be heard beyond those walls.

  “Doesn’t Human Resources have a policy on that?” Richard asked. “About everyone retiring at sixty-five? We could simply wait a few months and let that kick in.”

  “That’s just for employees,” Leonard said. “And even there, we’ve granted exceptions in the past. The policy has never been tested against senior executives—or family members.”

  He paused for Callie to chime in, but the connection remained eerily silent.

  “Dad’s the biggest shareholder,” Richard said slowly, “with thirty-five percent of the company.”

  That gave Leonard an idea. “I hold fifteen percent and, among the senior executives on the board, I know I can swing another ten percent. You each hold ten. So together we can force him out.”

  Richard was nodding thoughtfully but didn’t commit himself.

  The speaker box made a small noise, perhaps a muffled cough.

  “I’d need both of you with me on this,” Leonard stated flatly.

  “Dad’s done a pretty good job over the years,” Callie said. “He’s kept the company on an even keel—despite current difficulties. I trust his judgment.”

  “Except that he’s had a near-death experience,” Richard said. “Who knows how much brain damage he suffered? He’s now an untested quantity.”

  “He seemed pretty sharp to me,” their sister replied.

  “The point is,” Leonard said, “he had a massive heart attack. And what’s running inside his chest now is, at best, a science experiment. There’s no telling how long it will last.”

  “He’s held the reins for almost twenty years,” Richard put in. “We knew this day would come sometime, when the next generation has to step in. Dad is not going to live forever. This is an opportunity for him to bow out gracefully.”

  “And I’m already—” Leonard started, then stopped himself. How was he going to end that sentence? In place? In charge? In control? It sounded bad. “I’m not doing such a bad job here, am I?” he ended lamely.

  “You’re not doing badly,” his sister admitted. “But you don’t have his experience or his connections. And the position you took on that St. Brigid’s fiasco—”

  “The Legal Department backed
me on that!” Leonard shot back.

  “So? They were wrong, too, not to settle. I’m just saying another year or two of grooming under him—and paying attention this time—couldn’t hurt.”

  “So we don’t have your shares?” Leonard said.

  “No, not at this time,” she said. “Not like this.”

  “Then I hope we all get the luxury of waiting.”

  * * *

  The Great Crash came three weeks after John Praxis returned home from the hospital.

  He was out jogging that morning, following the challenging road that curved up through the fog from Sea Cliff to the Legion of Honor museum, listening to KCBS in his ear buds. The first news story simply said that the People’s Republic of China had sold a block of U.S. Treasury bills.

  Praxis noted the fact, buried among the weather and traffic reports. People and countries must be rolling over their investments all the time, he figured. He continued his morning run.

  The second version of the story mentioned a large block of bills, ten-point-two trillion dollars worth, which—the announcer read in the same monotone—accounting for inflation, represented ninety-five percent of the Chinese government’s holding of the U.S. national debt.

  Praxis stumbled, caught himself, and then took two more steps. He really didn’t want to break his stride, not when he was all hooked up with his heart rate monitor and pacing himself, especially when he was almost at the top of his run, with the square façades and colonnade of the museum just appearing out of the mist ahead. But he did stop. That’s not a sale, that’s a dump! he realized. And in a flash it occurred to him: Who’s around to buy up that much paper?

  He turned and loped back downhill, taking long strides in triplets to the rhythm in his brain: This is bad … this is bad … this is bad!

  Within forty-five minutes he was downtown in the thirty-eighth–floor conference room watching the story unfold on the widescreen with his two sons. They switched back and forth between the world news on CNN and the financial news on CNBC. In either case it was bad.

  The Dow Industrials were down about a thousand points, heading toward a loss of fifteen hundred for the session, or a drop of about seven percent—and that was only the beginning, all the commentators warned. The Chinese had announced their intention to “get out and stay out” of the U.S. debt market until the government stopped “intentionally inflating” the supply of dollars in order to “erode the value of its obligations.” Praxis’s original suspicion had proved accurate: No buyers existed for that much suddenly available paper debt. In fact, Japan, the Caribbean banking centers, Brazil, and the major oil exporters—the next largest holders of U.S. debt—were all following China’s lead. The credit rating agencies had announced that at two o’clock Pacific time—after the markets had closed on the East Coast and before they were due to open again in Asia—they would officially adjust the rating of federal debt instruments.

  “This is bad,” Richard said, echoing his father’s earlier sentiments.

  “Thank God we don’t hold any T-bills,” Leonard said with a chuckle.

  “You don’t understand,” Richard said. “There goes half our backlog in government projects.”

  “Or worse,” Praxis added.

  “We surely don’t have that much going with the Feds,” Leonard objected. “The wharf at the Norfolk navy yard and the ring road at Sheppard air base, sure, but we’ve been light on federal projects since—”

  “You still don’t understand,” Richard insisted. “Every project backed by government bonds is now in question. That’s all our transportation work, all the water projects, half the power plants. Even if that backing is no more than five or ten percent, losing it puts the whole financing package in question. And don’t think this won’t spread to the states, too. This is just terrible.”

  John Praxis made a decision. “Start an analysis, Richard. See where we stand. See if we can come up with some kind of strategic plan.”

  “What plan?” Leonard demanded. “What can we do?”

  “We can start by suing for breach of contract,” Richard said.

  Praxis sucked his teeth in disgust. “That only works if the client has money. Look, I don’t know what we can do yet. But if we start by demanding strict terms and payment assurances, we’ll lose these customers for a generation. Maybe we can somehow signal our willingness to go long on the payment schedule.”

  “Then we go bankrupt,” Richard said. “We have suppliers and subcontractors to pay, too, you know.”

  “Yes,” Praxis agreed. “But it’s better to stretch than to break—which is what will happen if we get pushy with our clients. We need to show a willingness to work with them rather than fight them. Maybe even trade payment up front for some kind of equity position, where feasible.”

  Richard was aghast. “And become—what? A banker?”

  “Be reasonable, Dad!” Leonard said. “We don’t have enough credit to cover—”

  Praxis interrupted them both. “We have a damn sight bigger credit line than our government clients right now. Let’s be prepared to use it. We’re in a whole new world, boys. And if ever there was a time to go all hands on deck, this is it.”

  * * *

  The day Antigone Wells returned to the offices of Bryant Bridger & Wells, the legal secretaries chipped in to buy a box of Krispy Kreme donuts and left them on the desk of her administrative assistant, Madeline Bauer. Although the pastries had no aroma to speak of, their scent—or simply the rumor that free food was available—wafted through the four floors of the law office like invisible pheromones. No one told Wells, of course.

  That morning she was sitting at her desk, wondering what came next and afraid to discover she no longer fit into anyone’s plans. For an hour she played with the computer, refamiliarizing herself with the software for managing emails, caseload assignments, and accounting of billable hours. It was all vaguely familiar, but she still had nothing to enter, no messages to send. Wells ended up reading months-old emails that Carolyn Boggs had already answered, trying to remember the details of cases where she was referenced and the circumstances of those where she was not. She felt like a fraud.

  A young woman—early thirties, daringly dressed, face hidden behind a donut—popped her head into the open doorway. “Hi, Auntie!”

  Wells groped for a name. Giselle-something. “Can I help you?”

  “Oh, um, yeah.” The woman swallowed hard. “I’m, um, trying to find Thorvaldsen Electronics in the files. Which side did we represent?”

  Wells stared at her. Then, like the answer floating up at the bottom of that old toy, the Magic 8 Ball, the word appeared in her mind. “Defendant.”

  “Oh, right! Thanks, Auntie!”

  “You’re welcome!”

  Two minutes later, Sully Mkubwa stuck his head in. He wasn’t eating a donut but held one wrapped in a paper napkin. “Welcome back, ma’am,” he said, then paused. “I forget, who is the psychologist at the American Forensics Institute that we go to for expert testimony?”

  Wells stared at him for a moment, then the information tumbled out. “There are two, actually. Amy Lewis does our civil cases. Peter Behrend handles the criminal work.”

  “Thank you, ma’am!”

  “Oh, Sully?” she called after him.

  “Yes, ma’am?” His head came back into the doorway.

  “Didn’t you and Amy date a couple of summers ago?”

  “Why, now you mention it, I believe we did.”

  “Then you’re a heartless cad, Sully.”

  “Thank you, ma’am!”

  After three more of these pop-up exchanges, including one where Carolyn Boggs—also bearing a donut—asked about one of the emails Wells had just read, she became suspicious. She stalked out of her office and found Madeline applying bright-red varnish to her nails.

  “I’m glad to see you’re keeping busy,” Wells said.

  “Hey! I’ve been working my ass off in the pool for three months. I’m just happy
to get back up here and relax. Is there something you need me to do?”

  “Tell my why everyone has a sudden case of amnesia this morning.”

  Madeline glanced at the big white box with the green polka dots. By then the donuts were half gone. Wells walked around her desk and found a note in front of the box: “Help yourself, but be sure to say ‘Hi’ to Auntie and ask her a question.”

  “Are they testing me?” Wells asked suspiciously.

  “I think they’re trying to make you feel needed.”

  “Well, isn’t that just humiliating!” Wells fumed.

  “In a nice, pathetic, disparaging sort of way, yes.”

  “I don’t suppose you had any hand in this?”

  “No, ma’am. I hate Krispy Kremes.”

  Before Wells could comment, one of the legal secretaries came up to Bauer’s desk, reached for a donut, then froze, withdrew her hand, and ran back down the corridor. Wells turned to follow the direction of the woman’s glance and saw Ted Bridger coming from the other direction.

  Bridger was carrying a gray-cardboard file folder, not very thick, a case in the early stages of documentation. He reached for a donut with his free hand, paused to read the note. “Are you ready to get back to work?” he asked. “Oh, ‘Hi, Auntie,’ by the way.”

  “Hello, Ted. Of course, I want to work, but—” She lowered her voice. “I’m just not sure how much law my battered old brain retains right now.”

  “Shh! They’ll start saying that about all the partners,” he said, smiling.

  “I’m serious, Ted. Two weeks ago I could barely read a newspaper.”

  “So … do you need to take some tests, or pass the bar again?”

  “Nothing that formal. I’m just not sure how sharp I am.”

  “And will that fix itself by wondering about it?”

  “Well, no …”

  “Then here!” He shoved the folder into her hands. “Simple case. Two parties. Dispute over contract terms.” He paused. “If you want, take Carolyn and Sully along as training wheels—in case you get stuck.”