Chapter 24: The Joke

In January the firm voted for its next managing partner, and Alexander ran for the chair and won it.

He told me the count in the kitchen at six, with his coat still on.

"Seven to two," he said. "The tax partner counted twice to be sure."

"Who were the two?"

"Braden's old friends. They're sending me flowers. It's a tradition, apparently."

I kissed him in the doorway, and then I went to work.

I had a place to go to now.

The small office behind the lobby had belonged to my father for thirty years, and he had never once sat in it.

The brass key on my ring opened it every morning.

I had painted the walls plum.

The old rent ledgers sat on a shelf, next to a framed photograph of my father.

He was in a blue work shirt, squinting at the camera, with grease on his thumb.

The two women who ran the front desk upstairs had a raise and a plant.

Every morning they sent down coffee with a note that said: From the sixth floor, with respect.

I kept all the notes.

On the second Friday of the month the senior partner rode down in the elevator himself.

The rent went to the estate lawyer, as I had promised, but he brought the partners' thank-you card anyway.

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