Chapter 30: What Larkspur Funds

Room 114 had never held a board meeting, and at nine o'clock on Wednesday it held one.

Twenty students sat at their easels with their charcoal in their laps.

Behind them, on folding chairs and paint-spattered stools, sat the board of Larkspur Partners.

Nadine had her laptop on a stool and her hoops swinging.

Winslow sat against the wall under the broken radiator with his arms crossed.

The Tower's chief financial officer had come in a suit and a clean tie.

He clutched his briefcase on his knees.

The board chair with the white braid sat in the teacher's chair.

The night doorman sat beside her in his green jacket, with his cap on his lap.

He was there for the sixty.

On my desk lay a single pear.

"Good morning," I said. "Everyone here is a witness, so please don't doze."

A boy in the back row held up his hand.

"Ms. Sorrell, is this a real board?"

"It is the realest I have."

Laughter.

I took a sheet from the folder Nadine had brought.

"Larkspur Partners holds thirty-eight percent of the stock of Gaines Hospitality," I said. "As of this morning, it holds none."

The chair's pen stopped.

"I'm moving all of it, and the note on the Tower building, into a trust."

I set the page down.

"It belongs to the people who work there."

"Every cook, housekeeper and bellman gets a vote and an equal share. Nobody can sell the Tower without them."

The doorman set his cap on the floor.

His mustache moved.

He did not say anything, and he took out a handkerchief.

Nadine, with enormous dignity, wiped her eyes on her scarf.

"That's the first thing," I said. "The second is smaller."

I turned and looked at the room.

The room I had taught in for six years.

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