Status Quo

Luwanda sat in the middle of her board meeting, bored to tears, but not showing it. In the last four years, she'd learned to hide all emotion from her employees, indeed from everyone. It was the only way she knew to run two companies. She talked to no one, she confided in no one, and she insisted on complete transparency in all her dealings. Why else would she voluntarily bug her own office and let the police have a twenty-four-seven window into her business? Ever since the incident with her brother four years ago, she'd insisted on random sweeps of her companies to root out corruption and bad-faith dealings.

The group turned to her and she asked the one question that would have sent a lesser employee into a panic. Nancy answered without trouble, and the discussion was on. Since this was the first time Nancy was presenting, Wanda was sure to go easy on her, not that the others realized it. She'd taken to business the same way that she'd taken to nursing seven years and a lifetime ago. Under the expert tutelage of Gregory Frederickson, she'd dove nose-first into the world of finance and somehow learned to swim.

"Is there anything else?" Luwanda said dully in her usual monotone, something that her people had come to expect from her.

"No, ma'am."

"Then we will meet again next week to discuss the Saunderson proposal." The higher-ups gathered their things, quick to shuffle out of her presence. Very few people voluntarily hung around her. The old her would have taken it personally. But that was before she'd been forced to grow up so fast.

"You have no more appointments today," her secretary said.

"Very well. Thank you, Mrs. Grady," the woman nodded. She headed to her office to work, the spectacular view of Queensdale lost on her. Nothing brought her joy anymore. Few things had brought her joy in her past, but it was worse now that he was gone. She looked over profiles and proposals from her greedy board of directors and wondered silently at their collective stupidity. Did they really expect her not to connect the dots on this latest proposition? It would leave the company vulnerable to take over in a year. Right now she held at least 52% of both companies, making her word law. That would change if she didn't stay vigilant.

Setting the proposition to the side with her notes on it, she tackled the everyday minutiae of being a CEO. She reviewed complaints and proposals, approving some and rejecting others. Others still she scheduled meetings for; she was a very hands-on boss. Most appreciated it, but her Board didn't.

"I… It's time to go home," Mrs. Grady told her.

"You go, Mrs. Grady. I want to finish up some paperwork before heading out. Goodnight."

"But…"

"Is there something you needed?" Luwanda asked.

"No… It's just… It's Friday night. A young thing like you should be out having fun."

"Have I ever struck you as the 'partying' type?"

"No, but… it would shock your competition. No one would expect it."

"I have no desire to shock anyone," the twenty-nine-year-old said. "I do, however, require concentration to finish this stack of proposals. Goodnight, Mrs. Grady. Enjoy your weekend for me. I'll see you on Monday." Finding nothing to say to that, the older woman made her way out of the office, saddened that her boss was wasting away like this. Luwanda had been tightly controlled from the moment they met, but she'd watched the joy drain right out of her as the years wore on. Now all that was left was duty and obligation. There had to be a way to bring fire back into the young woman's life.

Luwanda, oblivious to her secretary's musings, threw herself into her work, memorizing names and events as always. It was ten at night before she finished. Picking up the phone, she called the limo service and arranged for a pick-up. She was comfortably wealthy and could afford the small expense. Besides, her mother would complain if she was seen not keeping up appearances, and she didn't want to argue. The woman would find enough other things to complain about during their monthly shopping expedition. Making her way to the parking garage, she greeted the cleaning staff by name on her way out. The limo driver was known to her as well and she greeted him. The man was used to her late-night pick-ups and drove her home in silence as she worked on some paperwork from the office. He'd learned long ago not to bother engaging her in conversation. She tipped better when he left her alone.

Once she was alone, Luwanda inspected her house for bugs before heading to her soundproof, device-proof second floor and locking herself in. Only there did she let go of the iron restraint on her emotions. She finished her paperwork and worked on perfecting her Arabic until 2 in the morning, then cried herself to sleep for the loss of a man who had hated her.

The next morning, she woke early, as was her routine, and cleaned her house. The housekeeper came in during the week and cleaned the downstairs as she had for… the previous owner. But she took complete responsibility for the second floor herself. She cleaned and worked out and drank her soylent since everything tasted like wood chips anyway. It was how she got all her nutrition now. She'd lost a ton of weight when she first went into mourning, but she felt no joy in that either. It was all meaningless. An hour before her alarm went off, the woman showered and drove herself to jail. It was time to visit her brother.

"Still keeping up that vow of silence I see," Derek said when he came into the visitation room. The woman said nothing.

"You're the reason I'm here, you bitch. Why don't you just admit it?" More silence met this declaration. It didn't take long for the man to start venting his woes at the woman. She sat silently and took the verbal abuse, her mind on other things. Precisely an hour later, her alarm beeped. Without a word, she stood and left.

"Hey! I wasn't finished with you, you lousy bitch!" her brother called out the door after her.

"Why do you come here every week?" the guard asked as he checked her out of the jail.

"It's my penance," she said. "See you next week."

She drove herself home and swept for bugs again. Finding none, she locked herself upstairs and worked on her Mandarin until the wee hours of the morning before crying herself to sleep again. Sunday she went to church early, then worked on her Italian and Spanish all day. She brushed up on her Japanese before going to bed, crying as usual.

Monday, she called a limo to get her to work by 6:30 and worked until her secretary showed up.

"My God, child. What time do you get here?" she exclaimed, pouring out the pot of burned coffee the younger woman had made for her. Instead, she put on a pot of fragrant herbal tea, the jasmine scent permeating the room.

"Early," Luwanda said. "I like to miss the traffic." The two worked in silence until her first meeting. She was just finishing up with that meeting when her secretary came in, white as a sheet. "What is it, Mrs. Grady?"

Without a word, the trembling woman turned on the television. "-once again, for those of you just tuning in. Tyr Anasazi, the playboy millionaire who went missing four years ago and was presumed dead, was found today off the remote coast of-" *Thump*

The woman looked around to find that Luwanda Anasazi had fainted, the cheap copper ring that she always wore glinting dully in the morning light.