When they were finally alone Parnell said: ‘I’m impressed!’
‘You’re supposed to be. I’m showing off.’
‘Why?’
‘Just because,’ she said.
‘Fluent in Italian?’
‘Difficult not to be. Mom was Italian…’ She nodded to the departing owner. ‘He’s my uncle: looks after me. You do me wrong, you get a contract put out on you.’
Parnell laughed with her, liking the atmosphere. ‘So, a local girl with connections?’
‘Georgetown University, reserve intern at Johns Hopkins for a year, then Dubette for fame and fortune,’ listed Rebecca. ‘Short on the fame at the moment but the money’s good and there was a promise of more this morning, remember?’
Was this the moment to put the questions? he asked himself. It might puncture the mood and he didn’t want to risk that, not yet. Edging towards it though, he said: ‘Quite a lot to remember from this morning.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I told you what I think. I think the place is knee-deep in bullshit and posturing.’
‘And you don’t like bullshit and posturing?’
They paused for their first courses and for Parnell to taste the Barollo, another owner recommendation. ‘It’s not going to affect me. Or what I’ve taken the job to do.’
‘You always been this confident?’
‘I’ve always known what I wanted to do, from the day of my first science lesson. Specialization came at university.’
‘How?’
Parnell hesitated. ‘Genetics was comparatively new. A lot of opportunities.’
‘Quickly to become known in the field,’ she finished. She raised her glass and said: ‘Here’s to ambition.’
‘You have a degree in psychology?’
‘Native intuition. I’ve told you about me. Tell me about you.’
‘Brought up by my grandmother while my abandoned, unmarried mother qualified as a solicitor. Grammar school… I don’t know what the equivalent is here, in America… scholarship to Cambridge University, graduated in time to become involved in the genome project. Worked with a lot of very qualified and clever guys. Learned everything I could from them…’
‘And achieved the fame?’ she quickly finished, again.
‘I finished off what a lot of those very qualified and clever guys began. Which I said at the time.’
‘I read it. You were very generous.’
‘Honest,’ he insisted.
‘I think that’s been noticed.’
Their plates were changed, more wine poured. Deciding the remark made the timing right, Parnell said: ‘Am I missing something?’
‘I certainly am, with that question,’ protested Rebecca.
‘About Dubette. It’s as if there’s a second meaning behind everything that’s said or done. All this dress code and understood rules and family crap… crap because there’s an atmosphere, an impression, that people are insecure. Frightened almost, which is me compounding the nonsense…’
‘Dubette are big payers… the best in the business. People with commitments, kids, don’t want to lose big-paying jobs.’ Rebecca began twirling her glass between her fingers, her meal forgotten, looking down into the wine.
‘Why should they lose their big-paying jobs, unless they screw up? You get a good job, you do it properly, do it well, not to lose it.’
‘Dubette expect the biggest commitment to be to them. Total loyalty. You signed the confidentiality contract, didn’t you?’
‘Of course I did. It’s pretty standard commercial practice, according to the lawyer who negotiated for me. I don’t see how it alters my argument. Or affects yours.’
‘I think you might have given the impression that you’re too independent… that you’re… oh I don’t know, not respectful enough.’ A flush came briefly to her face, showing up freckles around her nose.
‘Because I got my laboratory where it should have been in the first place and didn’t wear a jacket and tie to Edward C. Grant’s party! Come on, Rebecca!’
‘I was just offering a thought. What about the laboratory? You get included in this afternoon’s tour?’
Parnell shook his head. ‘Passed me by.’
‘How do you read that?’
‘I don’t. And won’t,’ said Parnell. ‘But who were the bastards you kept on about this morning?’
‘You were set up, to go into the seminar like you did. Newton should have told you. Or Benn. Or someone.’
‘Someone like you.’
‘Someone like me,’ she accepted. ‘Only I didn’t think I’d have to.’
‘I already told you, I’m not going to become part of it.’ He had asked enough questions to indicate otherwise, Parnell conceded.
‘Don’t you think we’ve talked enough shop?’ she suddenly demanded.
‘More than enough,’ agreed Parnell.
Rebecca had used her own car to get in from Bethesda, so she drove him home, refusing to start the car until he had fastened his seat belt. ‘That’s how Mom and Dad died, driving without their belts done up.’
He didn’t suggest she come up to his apartment for a final nightcap, which she didn’t appear to expect. She kept the engine running and said she’d probably see him the following day – in a voice from which he inferred she wouldn’t be particularly concerned if she didn’t.
When he did arrive that following day at the office he’d allocated to himself, adjoining the main, general research area, there were four responses to his genetics specialists advertisements and three for the secretarial vacancy.
There was also an email from the personnel director, saying that a psychological assessment appointment had been made for him for three o’clock that afternoon at Dubette’s fully staffed medical centre.
Four
‘What psychological assessment?’ demanded Parnell.
‘It’s a provision, under the employment contract,’ reminded the personnel director. His name was Wayne Denny. From their one previous encounter, when the man had been one of the selection panel, Parnell remembered a small, almost diminutive man who blinked a lot through thick-lensed glasses and found it necessary to consult papers and documents he never appeared able to locate.
Parnell knew such assessments were contractual provisions from the earlier guidance given by his lawyer when he’d seriously considered terminating his appointment before it had even begun. ‘Psychological assessments come before employment, not after. If I flunk it – although not having transgressed any company policy – you going to pay me off with a two-year salary compensation? That’s the severance term, isn’t it?’
‘Is there something medical – or mental – you haven’t been totally forthcoming about?’ asked the man from the other end of the telephone.
‘What’s the real question behind that question?’ refused Parnell.
‘You seem very uptight: resistant.’
‘I’ve got a job to do, a department to set up. I want to get on with it.’
‘So, there’s nothing you have withheld?’
‘Honesty is a legal requirement in the contract,’ said Parnell, a reminder of his own.
‘Yes it is,’ agreed the man.
Surely they weren’t, for whatever reason, legally seeking cause to get rid of him! Paranoia, he thought at once. ‘Why not invoke it?’
‘Why oppose the assessment?’
‘I’m not opposing any assessment. Just any further unnecessary time-wasting.’
‘I should have talked to you about your diary convenience. I’m sorry. But things have been moving slowly, haven’t they? You want a postponement?’
He’d be conforming, becoming one of the unprotesting herd, if he agreed. But making an equally meaningless gesture if he demanded a rescheduling. ‘I’ll be there as close to three as I can manage. Better warn him I could be late, if he’s got other appointments.’
‘She,’ corrected Denny.
‘What?’
‘She,’ repeated the man. ‘The psychologist is a woman, Barbara Spacey. And it’ll be OK if you’re late. She’s blocked out her diary for the whole afternoon.’