Pineapple Street(36)
The next day at the booth passed in a blur, Georgiana feeling much like an airline hostess as she repeated the same lines over and over, a fixed smile on her face as her feet ached from standing on a thin layer of carpeting barely cushioning the concrete floor below. The conference center even felt like an airport. There was no sense of time, people rushed to and fro like ants, sipping bottles of water and wearing lanyards with laminated cards around their necks. But unlike an airport there were no bars, and Georgiana would have killed for a shot of vodka to dull the tedium.
She didn’t see Brady all day, but at five he sent her a text:
Pete gone. Room 643 at 10p?
She texted back a thumbs-up and her feet hurt a little less. In the room that evening, Meg dressed for dinner, swapping her blouse and slacks for a nearly identical set. Georgiana was looking at her phone, trying to decide where to go get food before meeting Brady, when Meg swore loudly.
“SHIT! I’m getting a pimple! Really professional.” She was peering into the mirror over the dresser, scowling at her chin.
“Oh, I have some cover-up if you want it,” Georgiana offered, reaching for the makeup bag by her bed.
Meg turned to her, looking guiltily intrigued, as though Georgiana had offered her bath salts. “Can you do it for me?” she asked.
How Meg had made it to the age of thirty without ever covering up a pimple Georgiana did not know, but she obligingly pulled out her concealer and dabbed it on the pink spot, blending it carefully with her index finger. “There you go, all set.”
“Wow, you can’t even see it,” Meg marveled, admiring her reflection.
“There’s a reason makeup is big business.”
“Well, this was only because it’s a professional dinner,” Meg snorted. “I’m not about to go rubbing chemicals all over my face regularly.” She slipped on her sensible shoes and was out the door.
Georgiana took a piece of hotel stationery and scribbled a note: “Staying with a college friend, don’t worry about me!” and left it on Meg’s bed. It was much easier to lie on paper. She put some chemicals on her face, changed into a long, flowing green dress, and strolled to a bookstore café where she passed a pleasant two hours drinking wine and eating artichoke pasta with her book before heading back to the hotel to meet Brady.
* * *
—
In the morning Brady woke at seven to catch an early train back to the city. Georgiana had to disassemble the booth and ship everything home, so she returned to her own hotel room to change into jeans and sneakers. When she quietly tapped on the door, she found that Meg was up, packing her suitcase and drinking coffee from a paper cup.
“Where were you last night?” she asked, folding a suit jacket in half and tucking one padded shoulder into the other before stacking it in her bag.
“Oh, I stayed with a college friend,” Georgiana said breezily, taking out her earrings and slipping them into her makeup case.
“Just be careful, Georgiana,” Meg said, looking at her for the first time. She held her gaze and they were silent for a moment. Did Meg think she’d been out hooking up with some random person? Or was it somehow against company policy to visit a friend in your off-hours on a trip?
“With what?” Georgiana asked frowning.
“With Brady,” Meg said. “He’s married.”
Georgiana felt the shock as though she had been slapped. “Okay,” Georgiana whispered, breaking her gaze and pulling her sneakers out from under the bed.
“Are you all set with the booth? I’m going to try to make it back to the office for the World Bank call this afternoon, but are you all by yourself today?” Meg asked.
“Yeah, but it’s easy. I have the binder,” Georgiana trailed off, her mind still spinning.
“Okay, I’ll see you at the office, then.” Meg nodded and pulled her wheelie bag out the door, leaving Georgiana stunned and alone.
NINE
Darley
Darley didn’t think she would do well in prison. She would miss her latte maker, for one thing. And the kids. But after Malcolm’s American Airlines deal fell through, she knew someone would swoop in to partner with the Brazilian airline Azul. She spent an afternoon examining the competition and decided it was going to be United; they didn’t have the same stake in South America’s market and needed to catch up. She checked the stock price. In her mind, she made her move and took a big position. A week later on CNBC they announced that United had paid $100 million for a 5 percent stake in the company. The stock price jumped. Darley’s imaginary wallet fattened.
The thing was, as bad as Malcolm getting fired looked, being investigated for insider trading was decidedly worse. Malcolm had a three-month tail on his contract with Deutsche Bank. Even though he didn’t work there anymore, he couldn’t trade in the airline sector, which meant Darley couldn’t either. They would pay him three months of salary plus his deferred compensation from bonuses, and then after that, nothing. She and Malcolm were on the clock, counting on him getting a new job before the taps were turned off.
* * *
—
Finally, his relentless networking paid off, and he had landed an interview with the private equity firm Texas Pacific Group. It was a prestigious job, one he would be far more pleased about taking than the subpar banks the headhunters had been lobbing his way, but after the first round of interviews it became clear that if Malcolm were hired it would be to work in the Dallas office.