“Well, I’m sharing with Pete, and he might leave after his panel, so there is a chance I’ll have my room to myself the second night. You could ditch your slumber party with Meg and join me. Unless you guys had big plans to give each other pedicures and do face masks.”
“I don’t think robots have toes,” Georgiana joked. “This will be so fun! A cute meetup in DC! I love it.” She kissed him and they didn’t bother spraying the sweat off before climbing into her bed. Love was often gross, really.
* * *
—
When she arrived at the convention center on Tuesday, dragging her perfectly packed suitcase behind her, she was relieved to see that her new posters had survived shipping and the booth was put together just as her binder had promised. She worked alone, building the plastic displays and filling them with trifold pamphlets, arranging books on the tables, and tacking the blowups to the cork board. She honestly had no idea what she was doing, but the guy who had the job before her had made her a detailed instruction manual, and she followed it faithfully and hoped for the best. When she finished, she felt sticky and disgusting from the train and the exertion, so she headed to the hotel to change and find the rest of the team.
Meg from grant writing was already in the room when she got there, unpacking her rolling bag and hanging her suits and blouses in the small closet.
“Hey, roomie,” Georgiana trilled, plonking down on the bed by the window.
“I’ve only taken half the hangers so that you’ll have plenty of space for your stuff.” Meg glanced up briefly from her unpacking. “Also, I like to shower at night so you can have the bathroom in the morning, or we can decide who will go first.”
“Oh, great. I actually got super sweaty down at the booth, so I was going to grab a shower before dinner. Do you know if people are going out?”
“Gail and I are going to meet with some counterparts from Peace Works, but I’m sure someone will be in the hotel bar later.” Meg frowned as she dusted the top of a tasseled loafer before placing it carefully on the closet floor.
By the time Georgiana got out of the shower Meg was gone, so she threw on jeans and an embroidered blouse and brought her book, a biography of Roger Federer, down to the bar. She ordered a vodka soda and a turkey club and alternately read and people watched as she ate. It seemed like most of the guests in the hotel were here for the conference too. There were a lot of white women in saris, a fashion choice that was rampant at her office, everyone coming back from India with reams of silk that they wore around New York with clogs, their hair either gray or tinted with henna. Georgiana’s own mother would sooner wear a bathrobe to the Colony Club than a sari and clogs.
By nine she had finished her sandwich and drink and didn’t particularly feel like hanging around by herself in a hotel bar, so she went back to her room, changed into her pajamas, and read in bed until Meg came home at ten and bored her to death talking about all the really excellent contacts she had made at dinner. If this was business travel, Georgiana didn’t see what the fuss was about.
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.