Robin had perhaps misjudged the amount of coffee he had consumed. The little creature in his head was jazzed; it had taken up vaudeville and tap-dance, played the stage, fallen on hard times and bad habits; had strapped down his arm and mainlined adrenaline into the vein—a needle to the arm—and watched the little mushroom cloud of blood swell back into the barrel—and it was life unfolding, the blossom of electricity singing in his cells, the sizzling of electric lights being turned on—the little creature was on his way to the bright lights and the big city to make his fortune, with only a dream in his eyes and a song in his heart.
Robin was fairly vibrating.
The office was getting dark.
He reached for the light on his desk and turned it on, flooding the little stage of papers. Friday night. End of the week. Mr. Tubbs would be on his way somewhere, at one with the night and spryly strutting between the niche eateries of the business district, sniffing out the speakeasy breakfast nooks with their Himalayan salt-slab fried eggs and sourdough rye and climate-conscious Bloody Marys—the bottomless mug policy for the Monday clientele, fresh off their hangovers.
Maybe that was a more reasonable goal. Monday. Robin wrote that down on the closest piece of paper. Monday. Monday. Again, in cursive this time. Monday. Because really, what were you thinking, Robin? Christmas? Oh, the hubris of youth. The ill-reasoning of a Saturday morning. You should have picked something closer. Sooner. A more feasible distance by which to prove your mettle. Monday. Your average, underappreciated, garden-variety Monday. When he and Duncan could shake hands and let bygones be bygones, putting the past behind them and striding shoulder to shoulder into the sun-drenched valleys of tomorrow.
A plan which didn't actually answer the question of where Duncan was. Robin had seen him fleetingly in the hallway on Wednesday before he disappeared around a corner. He hadn't expected to see much of him, of course. The Summit had been in full swing. All hands on deck. Holy week for the eggheads, and Locke Labs had emptied of people. A week off to attend the seminars, a long line of pilgrims heading through the doors of the Alden Center to feast their eyes on the hallowed prototypes of everything new and shiny. And Robin should have been there. Every day, at every mixer, expertly swirling his cocktail pick of olives around a dirty martini—shaken, not stirred—coolly making a point about specific cutback altitudes.
Your specialty, said the little creature, laying back against the cushy frontal lobes, strung out.
Yes. Exactly. But this too was important. Better, even. Robin Locke eschewing the crowds for his ivory tower: a strategic retreat—another chance for him to imitate the sun, permitting the base contagious clouds to smother up his beauty from the world. And it wasn't all bad. The building was emptier than usual. He didn't have to avoid the crush of people in the atrium in the morning, or stay away from the lunch rush at the cafeteria. No more slinking around in the periphery hours. For the first time ever, he could head down to the café at his leisure, letting himself be strong-armed into ordering their award-winning half-caff, non-fat soy latte, even though what he really wanted was a blueberry mini-muffin and a cup of black tar to speed his passage to success.
Or not even success, really. He'd settle for being able to take the main elevators with the confidence of a man whose assistant hadn't found him crying into his morning yoghurt. That was a minor recurring nightmare—to be trapped in an elevator with people his own age, any one of the dizzyingly accomplished scholars fresh off their second PhDs and receiving well-deserved promotions that had nothing whatsoever to do with nepotism. Here on paid internships meant to launch the newest stars into the industry firmament—because, after all, as the slogan went, Who knows what giants walk among you? The next Tycho Reeves? The next Jeff Tracy? Let Locke Labs mold the minds of tomorrow because—Locke Labs is the future you want to see!
Just pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Robin opened his drawer and found the bottle of aspirin, turning it over in his hands and hearing the pills rattle end over end like balls in a bingo cage. Must be disappointing to join a company at the end of an era. To know definitively the best was not to come.
He twisted the cap off the bottle of aspirin and shook out two pills into his hand. They might have been something more fun, he supposed. It couldn't be too hard to track down someone from the Great Before and see if they hadn't something better on hand to jazz up the monotones of his life. He gingerly tipped the two pills into the middle of the blank space on his desk, then upended the bottle over them, pouring out the rest, a little pile of pills, and he was half-hysterical at the sight—he'd made the pyramids of Giza, the tapered heights of Tikal!—Behold the eighth wonder of the world: Robin Locke not taking any pills. Robin Locke not succumbing to the desert temptation. A little E to spice up your day, sir? No, thank you. A black beauty for the road? Those days are behind me. Speedball? With regret, I must decline.
All the slogans came tumbling out, end over end into the dark of the office, a garish clash of good intentions. Just say no, kids. Sober is better. The program works if you work it, Robin. Stay safe, Robin. Make new friends, Robin. If you don't want to fall, stay away from the edge. Like LA. Where all his former friends pivoted through on their way to sunny Napa, where their breakfast screwdrivers and prosecco lunches wouldn't seem entirely out of place between the wine tastings and the al fresco lunch dates in the garden with a vivacious Sauvignon Blanc, just a few glasses, and maybe a long, late night with a seductive Pinot Noir.
He should probably feel bad he couldn't remember any names.
Chad? Joe? Frank? Biff? Chet? Tony Prito? Mark Matter and the Cosmic Realm?
Names usually went a long way in making friends.
Friends? Ha. What was he saying? He'd burned that bridge, hadn't he? Burned the boats too. Razed the nearby village for good measure. He didn't do friends.
Had he ever?
He pushed the pills together, little stones in a little altar, his heart staggering in his chest, only half-way through its marathon, and maybe he should go a bit easier on the caffeine tomorrow.
"Robin?"
He heard his name, and he sat up, head snapping to attention in a way that hurt, and he looked at the person in the doorframe, his brain trying to pull the details together from the farthest corners of the universe. He looked without seeing—an image with no meaning: lumpy brown sweater, rounded shoulders, freckles, and red, frizzy hair—a woman—the radical antithesis to the pretty young things hired on by their directors—a drab, solid hulk of the female form, steady and unchanging, save for the seasonal cardigans—a brutalistic design of fantastic indifference to time and opinion, appearing before him, deux ex machina. He didn't know how much he'd missed a familiar face until now. Fanny! His other sentry at the gates—seer, prophetess: the lady liberty who cried give me your poor, your huddled Robins! His spirit buoyed up so fast it almost made him sick, but he didn't care.
She was here, and Duncan would be too, soon enough—any day now—and Robin was standing on the verge, awaiting the dawn of the next age—the old was gone, the new had come!—a warm spring wind filled his sails, pushing him out into blue waters of a peaceful sea. Things would be normal again, back to the way they'd always been, or had been this year anyway, and last Saturday's speculations weren't hubris after all: it had been confidence, Robin. Confidence in the Hereafter! Confidence in the kind hand of humanity!
"Fanny!" Robin threw out his hands in greeting and the pills went flying, skittering across his desk and over the edge. "You're here. How wonderful." He found he really meant that.
Fanny came towards the desk, eyes narrowing at him, and he couldn't think why she was giving him that look, gaze flicking down to take in the scene of scattered pills. "You're going to give yourself an ulcer if you keep taking them like that."
Like what? By the handful? By the truckload? Overdose on aspirin? The thought tickled him—that something so domestic could finally strike him down, after he'd already tempted fate so many times before. The elegance of the hotel OD. If he'd wanted to off himself, he'd have done it already. It wasn't off the table, the little creature shouted gleefully in his ear. Just indefinitely postponed. Another tomorrow to hold his last rites. He'd have to make sure there was room in the Schedule. He might take some preemptive action on his own: call up the best funeral homes, make the arrangements ahead of time. He didn't want Duncan to deal with the logistics again. Once was enough, no? "I was…counting them."
"Why?"
"For inventory. We need more aspirin." Correction. "I need more aspirin."
"I can see that."
"How was the Summit? The convocation, I mean. Last day of the seminars. Another Summit for the books, done and dusted. Can't wait for next year."
"I wasn't aware you enjoyed it."
"Oh, the autographs, Fanny. The adoration. I didn't think I'd make it out in one piece."
"Is that what happened to your eye?"
Robin put a hand to his shiner. "I fell down some stairs."
She didn't believe him.
"Perhaps an angry run-in with a kitchen cupboard. Or would you believe I've joined a weekend football club?"
"No."
Slightly insulting, but fine. "It was just a misunderstanding." Robin gestured theatrically. "A frisson, if you will. A gentlemen's disagreement. My friend likes to think with his feelings." Truly a friendship for the ages. He and Scott would have matching yachts and call each other 'old sport' and double in tennis on weekends.
"Is that so?"
"Yes, I think that's fairly accurate. So, what brings you here this fine evening? I thought you'd be well on your way to—" he realized too late he didn't know how to finish that sentence, "—bridge night with the ladies?"
Thankfully, she chose to ignore him. "I've brought you some papers."
"But I have so many already."
"You asked for these last week," she held out the folder, "and I didn't want to wait until Monday. I wasn't expecting to see you here."
A lie, surely. Robin took the folder and opened it to the first page. The New De Laval: Specific Impulse for the Modern Engine, by Hiram Hackenbacker. Thrust Reduction and Noise Abatement: Engine Longevity in Takeoff and Climb-out, by Hiram Hackenbacker. "Oh, right. These."
"Keeping an eye on the competition?"
The caffeine died off, all at once. The military march, the beating drum of his heart. The silence muscled its way back into his head, fists full of cotton balls to stuff into every corner, muffling the sound. "What?"
"The Tracys' chief engineer?"
"Oh. Yeah. That's what I was trying to do." What else could it have been? Certainly not the will to improve himself. Maybe just the misguided notion that things might actually matter.
"I'm sorry I didn't bring them earlier."
"It's fine. Everything's fine." Someone else was speaking his words, crisp and professional, a radio host of the highest caliber. "Dad admired them, you know. Used to say, 'that's how you run a business, Robin. The Tracys didn't automate like the others, Robin.' People, not machines. That's their motto." Takes a real savvy businessman to pull that off, kiddo. "He liked the way they worked." The way Jeff Tracy ran things. The way he had sons who weren't trash-fires lighting fools the way to dusty death. "But you know all that. You worked for him. I'm sure you heard a lot of things."
"I did," said Fanny. "Your father was a good man."
You're being entirely too serious, Robin, said the little creature in his head. No one wants that.
Robin assembled a smile, his best imitation. "Yeah. A regular Kris Kringle in business casual."
"You should go home, sir. It's Friday. Get some rest."
"You're right." The darkness knotted in Robin's throat like a hard, dry-swallowed pill. Go home. Have a night cap and an hour or two of taking down the news. Fall asleep on the couch or have the moral fortitude to walk down the hall to the crisp hospital corners of his well-made bed, the memory foam mattress and high-denier sheets. "I should go home. Light some candles, do some yoga, practice my breathing." Dim the lights, curl up in a nice bottle of Glenfiddich. "My body is a temple."
Fanny was wearing another look he couldn't decipher, and he wanted it to be Monday already, a new week, when she'd bring him tea and they'd chat about something small, inconsequential—the weekend, the traffic—and life would just be going from thing to thing to thing. From work to notes to homework to heating a cup of instant noodles in the dark of his kitchen, to turning the news on to running the radio, to shower to bed and starting up all over again, rising with the first strains of dawn, the dulcet siren song of his brittle management.
"Fanny?"
Duncan was at the door, a black leather dossier in his hands.
Robin stood up. "Duncan?"
"I thought you'd gone home, Fanny."
"I was just on my way, sir."
"Good." Duncan turned, tucking the dossier under his arm, and disappeared out of sight.
"Wait!" Robin scrambled out from behind his desk and ran after him, following him down the hall. "Duncan! Wait!"
Duncan had stopped by the elevators, the angles of his steam-pressed suit terse and demanding. "I just came to get some papers."
"I haven't seen you all week."
"It's been a busy few days."
"How are you?" The question sounded strangely formal.
"As well as can be expected on a Friday afternoon." Duncan glanced at him. "On Monday I expect you to have covered that bruise. We can't have the head of the company walking around with a black eye."
"No, sir. We can't."
"Glad you agree."
"Can we talk?"
"About what?"
"Friday," said Robin, and then felt a horrible need to clarify. "Last Friday."
Duncan neither raised or lowered his voice. "What would I have to say?"
"Anything. Whatever I deserve. That I'm an idiot and that I don't think about the consequences of my actions and…"
"Is that what you want to hear?"
"I'd settle for hearing anything at all right now."
"I don't even know what to call it, Robin. You were drunk, and you got into a fight at the Summit. You were escorted off the premises by security."
"I can explain."
Could he?
"At a black-tie event, Robin. At a dinner. The only reason you're not front-page news again is because the organizers of the Summit have no interest in being associated with that kind of scandal. What were you thinking? Were you thinking?"
"I don't know."
"Was it Scott Tracy?"
"What?"
"I was informed the altercation involved Scott Tracy."
The truth burned on his tongue. "It did."
Duncan's jaw tensed for a moment. "I asked you to stay away from the Tracys. Here I've been worried you'd somehow damage a possible working relationship with the multibillion dollar global enterprise that is Tracy Industries—but instead you've managed to impress everyone at the Summit with your astounding lack of self-control."
"I really screwed up, Duncan."
"I don't need your apologies." There was something new in his voice. "This isn't about me. It's never been about me. This dinner was supposed to be about your father's work. Richard Locke's legacy in the field. People were supposed to remember him—they wanted to see him realized in his son, one last time."
In the silence, the static was picking back up. "But I'm not him."
"Yes, you have made that abundantly clear to everyone."
"I didn't mean for any of this to happen."
"But it did." The words were sharp, disdainful. "And I'm so tired of waiting for things to be different. The way your father talked about you—Robin's better, he would say. He's back, my old Robin. The one he remembered. He was so happy to see you do well, and he believed—and I believed with him—that you had changed."
"I have."
That was a lie, wasn't it?
A comforting fabrication to whisper to himself at night in self-soothing.
"Last Friday you made him ridiculous, Robin. You showed the world that his kindness counted for nothing."
The elevator had arrived, the doors sliding open.
"Please don't say that."
"I should have said it sooner. But I've been doing what everyone has done for you your entire life: make allowances where there should be none. That was my mistake." Duncan stepped into the open arms of the elevator. "I'll see you on Monday, bright and early. As always." He pressed the button for the lobby. "I would tell you to think about this, but what you feel now—whatever guilt you always manage to muster—it'll pass. It always seems to pass."