by painstaking step, Albert supported Cora, and they walked, naked as a bridal bad dream the night before the wedding, past staring groups of volleyball players and disc throwers. Cora’s burn was so awesome there weren’t even any catcalls. The onlookers knew they were in the presence of something tremendous.
—Pavement.
Cora’s step jarred on the stone, sending a canvas of pain up her front.
—Ow.
—My car’s just right here.
—So close? You got here early.
—I’m not very proud to say.
Something occurred to Cora.
—Did you come to the beach naked?
—No. I was having sex with a man in the bushes behind you. We dozed, and when I woke up, he was gone and so were my clothes, towel and all various and sundry, save for the sandals I had somehow managed to not take off.
Cora let out a surprised laugh in the form of a grunt.
—I’m laughing less at the story than at your candor.
Through another squint, she could see him grin.
—I’m Albert.
—Cora.
—How about I take you to my lonely apartment, cover you with aloe, and put you in a cold bath, Cora?
—I’m in no position to decline.
Albert slipped off his left sandal, lifted up a flap, and pulled out his car key. Cora watched him with burnt eyebrows raised.
—You know, that’s a really good idea.
Some time later, after Albert more than made good on his promises, he wrapped her in a sheet, laid her on the couch, and fed her with bits of melon and cool water.
—I want to take you out to dinner to repay your kindness.
—Are you asking me on a date?
—You had sex with a man on the beach today. Are you askable on a date?
—It’s a big world. I like lots of things. I’m askable.
—All right then, I’m asking.
They married four months later. Though they occasionally indulged in sharing a boy, theirs was a rock-solid, faithful, and devoted union. Such was their bond, in fact, that by the time Cora was elected Mayor a surprisingly short seventeen years later, local Hennington argot referred to an especially strong contract as an ‘Albert and Cora’ to demonstrate its solidity.
She was concerned about the dust.
The air smelled heavily of it, but it should have been too early in the year for there to be dust, although the last rains were well gone. There was ash in the dust as well and a distant smell of burning. She paused before she led the herd up to the top of the hill that marked the northern entrance to the descending fields, a place completely lacking in the malodorous homes of the thin creatures. This was just a grassy area, and she shouldn’t have been able to smell dust at all.
(An Arboretum groundskeeper leaned against his rake, watching The Crash from behind a stand of trees. He could see them grazing in the field, Maggerty mooning along after as usual, and he also had a pretty good guess where they were going to head next.
He frowned.)
She looked at the rest of the herd behind her. A lightness of mood permeated the group but left her unaffected. She was the only one who bothered at the dust in the air. The rest of the herdmembers shuffled aimlessly about, pulling at the grass with agile lips, some of the younger calves even playing, gamboling on the lea, if anything so bulky could ever truly be said to gambol. Lush green surrounded them. Families of birds sang to each other in the trees and to those symbiotic brethren who made a meal of the ticks and other annoyances in the herdmembers’ hides. A breeze teased its way through the glade where the herd was gathered, and to every herdmember there, save one, all was well.
She sniffed again, reaching with her nose, even squinting her eyes, their weakness more than compensated for by sensitive nostrils and nimble ears that now also turned and grabbed at any evidence that might linger in the air. Nothing. There was the usual amount of thin creatures scattered in the fields, easy to sense with their eerie strangled cries and halved footfalls, oddities not excepted by the thin creature who constantly followed the herd, also present in her catalogue of senses. Nothing out of the ordinary but the dust.
She snorted and waved her great horn to get the others’ attention. The message communicated itself through the group, and the herd began to file behind her. Yet even as they crossed into the ever more verdant gardens that leapt their way down the hillside, she could still smell the dust, its persistence meaning only one thing.
Hard times were coming.
Luther Pickett, beloved foster son of Archie Banyon and heir apparent to both the Chairmanship of Banyon Enterprises and the Banyon family fortune – though there was the matter of the last name – kept an immaculate desk in the middle of an overwhelming office. Taking up fully three quarters of the forty-fifth floor (the leftover fourth given to elevators and Luther’s four secretaries), it contained a conference room, a lengthy reception hall, a full bathroom with shower, an exercise room with spa and relaxation tub, a dining room, and a whole separate apartment where Luther could quite comfortably spend the night if he chose, which he never had, not once. Luther’s desk sat in the office’s main chamber, a room whose vaulted ceiling reached so high it took up a sizable portion of the forty-sixth floor, giving Luther a two-story wall made entirely of glass. In late afternoon, the sun poured in, filling the office to the brim with a spectacular view of Hennington out into the Harbor and beyond. Aside from Archie Banyon’s own office (the three-story penthouse with the pool, driving range, and ice rink; Archie was an athletic man), Luther’s office was the most impressive, most talked about, most envied, and to the extent that smaller budgets would allow, most copied in the city.
So it should surprise no one that Luther Pickett was desperately unhappy. Really, just look at his desk. A notepad, a file, a few papers, neatly stacked. A blotter, a telephone with intercom, a computer to one side. Barely anything else. No personal photos, no mementos from company milestones, no sample Banyon Enterprises products. Even the coffee mug was black and unmarked by logo or design. Most definitely not the outward reflection of an unfettered soul.
The minimalism (some would say sterility) reached to the gray carpet and on up the undecorated walls. After three years in this office, the intended inoffensive-yet-very-expensive abstract expressionist paintings were still packed in crates thirty stories below, waiting futilely for the day when Luther would finally allow them to breathe fresh air. And there was the silence, too. No bustle, no music, not even a hum from the air conditioning, just Luther’s pen scratching across a paper or the fading click of typing on the keyboard. Yet the atmosphere was
