Woman King

CHAPTER 3

For several days after returning home I did not sleep well. Though I fell into bed exhausted, I was awakened in the middle of the night by a dream featuring an enormous panther walking beside me. The setting for these walks seemed familiar to me, but I could never tell exactly where we were. A very odd detail in these dreams was that I felt the animal wanted to speak to me. But of course that was ridiculous.

Lack of sleep made me increasingly agitated as the days went on. Indeed, I was in no mood to be gracious when the call came from one of my clients asking for an impromptu meeting at my offices. In my experience, no client ever wants to meet the same day unless they intend to fire you. I agreed to the meeting and spent the better part of the morning trying to keep my already shredded nerves from disintegrating.

At 1 pm inside our office conference room, I greeted my client, a real estate developer who wanted to buy a pair of apartment buildings, tear them down, and build two enormous towers in their place. It would be a difficult project because it involved temporarily relocating hundreds of people, and then offering them a chance to return to the new apartments in the towers, but at the same rent they paid previously. My client also wanted the height of the two buildings to be greater than what the law allows, something that worried city officials, who had never granted such a waiver.

The list of concerns had been mounting, now making it almost a full day’s job to respond to the telephone calls and emails regarding the project. I have a small but highly competent staff in the office, yet it was obvious that this project was becoming overwhelming. Generally, I don’t believe in being overwhelmed and refuse to allow myself to feel that kind of emotion. The problem, in this case, was that it blinded me to my own limitations.

“Thanks for making time to see me, Olivia,” he said with a smile that did not reach his eyes.

“You don’t need to thank me, Tom,” I said, my lips fixed in a weak grin. “But I am wondering what brought you to my office in the middle of the day instead of calling.”

“Listen, um, I have been speaking with my investors and we have decided that we’d like to bring in another consultant to help, err, round out the team.”

“Round out the team,” I repeated.

Tom looked down at his hands for a moment before he spoke, a sure sign I was going to hear bad news.

“The thing is,” he stuttered. “We’ve been speaking with Stoner Halbert and have asked him to come on board.”

There he was again. It seemed we were going to be spending a lot of time together, whether it suited me or not.

“I see,” I said calmly. “Have I failed to do something? Are you unhappy with my work?”

Tom shifted in his chair, but again would not meet my gaze.

“Olivia, this is a big project and we absolutely must get approval. The bank has given me a limited time to complete the entitlements, or the loan will evaporate. Lately, well … Look, this is no reflection on you. I think this is a situation where a larger team makes sense. We need some additional firepower.”

It was difficult for me to hear him speak because the blood was pounding so loudly in my ears. I had never been superstitious before, but I was beginning to wonder if someone or something had jinxed me.

You know how there are moments that define us as adults? Well, this was one of them for me. I did not want to lose the project. I was already worried about my reputation, having lost one client already to Halbert. Professionally, I could not allow myself to become enraged, so I swallowed my pride. After a lengthy and awkward moment of silence on my part, I put on my game face and smiled.

“Tom, if you think that bringing Stoner on board will help improve our chances, then I am all for it,” I said, my voice slightly cracking. “Why don’t we set up a meeting next week to get the team together and brief him on the status of things.”

Tom smiled, and this time it was a genuine smile.

“I knew this wouldn’t be a problem for you, Olivia,” he said beaming. “You are one tough cookie. I’ll tell Stoner to call you and you two can arrange a meeting.”

“Great. OK,” I said, beaming right back at him, “I will look out for his call.”

We shook hands and I showed Tom out. After he left, I walked back to my office, shut the door, and, for the first time in many years, began to cry.

Halbert must have been on Tom’s speed dial, because he called me less than an hour later to arrange a meeting. By the time he called, I had stopped crying and had moved on to brooding.

“Aren’t you a good sport,” he purred into the phone when I told him I would make the necessary arrangements to merge our teams. “Not many people would be as gracious about having to work with another consultant. What’s your secret?” His tone was friendly, but oddly biting and I was anxious to get off the phone.

“The important thing is for this project move forward and for the client to be happy,” I said, trying to sound indifferent.

I was, of course, lying