Hopefully.
He took a minute to check his reflection in the hand mirror he kept in his bottom drawer. He looked tired but otherwise fine. The door opened, and his assistant entered, accompanied by someone who was clearly not a teacher at his daughter’s or anyone else’s school. Todd froze, halfway to his feet.
“Who’s this?”
Bianca indicated via a raised eyebrow that she had absolutely no idea. Meanwhile the person in question looked at him steadily and answered for herself.
“My name’s Madison,” she said.
Bianca hovered. Part of her job was to second-guess and covertly undermine every call made by whichever girl was currently working reception. Thus were the subtle hierarchies of the corporate world maintained where they really mattered—at the bottom.
“Are you—”
“I’m fine,” Todd said. She nodded once and left.
“So,” he said warmly, coming around to sit on the edge of the desk and indicating the nearest chair, “you’re at school with Meadow, right?”
“No,” the girl said as she sat neatly in the exact center of the chair. “I’ve never met her.”
“But you told—”
“How else was I going to get up here?”
Todd didn’t have an answer for that. The girl pointed at the photograph on the corner of his desk. “She’s what? Thirteen?”
Todd nodded, wondering at what point he should get Bianca back in. Soon, he was thinking. Maybe even…very soon. “Yes. Nearly.”
The girl smiled cheerfully. “And I’m nine. But I told the woman downstairs we were in the same class. And she believed me. So I guess she’s not very bright, huh?”
“She’s…never met Meadow. I’m sure she was just being polite.” This came easily into Todd’s mouth, though privately he was wondering what had gotten into Jenni, letting a random child into the building.
The girl nodded. “Maybe. Are you sleeping with her?”
Now she had his full attention. “What?”
“You look a bit ancient, it’s true. But I’m sure you can still hear reasonably well. And still do the old dirty bop.”
The…what? “Look, kid, whatever your name—”
“Madison. I just told you.”
Todd moved back around to the chair side of his desk. It was time to get Bianca the hell in here.
But then a thought occurred to him. He hesitated, hand over the phone. “If you’re not at school with her, how do you know my daughter’s name?”
The girl made a face. “Actually, I don’t know. I just do. Like I know that your other daughters are a lot older. And your wife used to drink, too—”
She stopped talking, and her head slowly dropped. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “That’s really rude.”
For a moment she appeared blank. Then she looked up again suddenly, and her face seemed different. She was blinking rapidly and seemed extremely agitated.
“Please,” she said, “can I have a piece of paper? And a pen?”
Todd’s hand was still over the button on the phone system that would summon his assistant. He moved it to point at a Post-it pad. The girl grabbed a pen from his desk and wrote something on the top note. It looked like a series of numbers.
She got four or five down and then faltered. “No,” she said, angrily. “No…”
She quickly added two numbers to the beginning. Tore off the note and stuffed it deep in the pocket of her coat, looking for an instant like some juvenile street person, hiding her favorite piece of string from aliens or the CIA or naughty ghosts. Then she threw herself back into the chair and covered her face with her hands.
Todd watched all this wide-eyed. Soon he could hear her crying behind them. It was a low, measured sound, more exhaustion than sobs. He stood again, disconcerted. Why on earth had he let Bianca even leave the room?
“Look,” he said, trying to sound more friendly than nonplussed. “Can I get you something? A drink?”
The girl said nothing, and Todd began to think she couldn’t have heard. Then, in a voice muffled by the hands in front of her face, he heard her say, “Coffee.”
“Coffee? Really? Not…a soda? Or water?”
She shook her head. “Coffee. Black.”
He went to the machine in the corner, poured a cup. Brought it back over. He slipped into the role of subservient waiter easily, having done it often enough with his own daughters. Sometimes an apparent reversal of power was the only thing that would placate a kid enough to get them to do what you wanted. Children seemed to arrive with keenly political natures, to understand how things worked right from the start.
“Here,” he said, realizing she couldn’t see him.
Slowly she pulled her hands down. Looked at the cup and reached for it with both hands. She brought it to her face and took a long, deep sip, though Todd knew that it came off the plate hot enough to sear. Cradled the cup in her hands afterward, looking down into the remaining liquid.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” she said. Then she turned her face up toward him and slowly smiled.
“So, Todd,” she said. “How have you been?”
He blinked at her. Everything about her—her voice, her smile—seemed different. The distraught child had been replaced by…he wasn’t sure what. But he did know that he didn’t want her in his office anymore.
“You’re going to have to leave now,” he said. “I can get someone to call you a cab if you need a ride home.”
“Yes,” she said, looking past him out the window. “Always generous with the small things.”
“Look—who are you?”
“Guess,” she said.
“I really have no idea,” Todd said firmly. “You got in here claiming to be a friend of my daughter’s. We both know that’s not true.”
“Please,” she said. “Tell me. Tell me who I am.”
“You’re a little girl.”
She laughed, apparently genuinely, an uproarious guffaw that took him entirely by surprise.
“I know,” she said. “Isn’t it priceless?”
“It’s a riot,” he said, leaning over to press the button to summon Bianca.
“Don’t do that,” the girl said. “Don’t you dare.”
“Listen,” Todd said briskly, “I’m done with this. I don’t know what you’re doing here, and you seem to me to be an odd little person. That’s your parents’ problem, thankfully, not mine. I’ve got work to do.”
“Oh, hush,” she said. “I’ve got no desire to spend a moment longer in your company than necessary, believe me. You recall the saying about the organ grinder and the monkey? You’re a flea on the monkey’s ass, and you always have been. But beggars can’t be choosers, and so you’re going to do a few things for me. Lucky boy.”
“I’m not doing—”
She ignored him. “First, somewhere for me to stay. I need a shower, and I’m tired of dealing with street trash from a position of weakness. Not to mention that I could use a good night’s sleep. As could you, by the look of it.”
Her voice was firm and confident now, and Todd could see how she might have been able to convince Jenni to let her up here. He was also horribly reminded of his cousin, when she’d been in the hospital recovering from a bad car accident, back in ’98. During most of the critical period, she’d floated on a river of morphine, but occasionally she fought her way free of chemicals and pain to deliver remarks whose normality came to seem extraordinary and bizarre. The contrast made the hairs rise on the back of your neck. This girl had the same effect, even though you knew she could only be mimicking some adult she knew.