All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai

Author:Elan Mastai
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-12-08T16:36:18+00:00

82

The staff of Barren & Associates waits for me in the conference room. After I ignored their messages for another week, while Penny and I cloistered ourselves in each other, they threatened to convene the meeting at my condo if I didn’t come to work today. I step up to the glass door and wait for it to slide open, like doors are supposed to, but it doesn’t because there’s a handle to turn, even though the technology already exists for doors to just open automatically. Do you have any idea of the germ count on the typical doorknob? Your exposure to microorganic pathogens would be no worse if you wiped your hand all around the inside of a public toilet.

My fifteen employees start applauding and flexing their zygomaticus muscles to bare their teeth and gums, which makes me recoil until I realize they’re smiling at me. On a conference table made from a slab of maple tree encased in a cube of transparent epoxy are stacked several copies of the Toronto Star with my sketch on the cover. I’m getting better at plucking information from John’s memory, so I recall the one guy who isn’t clapping, a decade my senior, is named Stewart and he’s the firm’s operations manager.

“We’ve had so many calls about your speech that I had to put the interns on the phones to keep up,” Stewart says.

“That’s, uh, good,” I say. “Isn’t it?”

“Look, we all knew what we were signing up for when we came to work for you,” Stewart says. “You are the Barren. We are the Associates. But we spent weeks on that speech. As a team. Not just on the visual presentation. On the text. The references. The research. This was supposed to be the firm’s introduction to the international community. You didn’t use a word of what we all agreed you’d say. You didn’t even acknowledge us sitting there in the audience. It was supposed to be a big night for the rest of us too. And, by the way, the conference is making us pay to replace the glass you defaced.”

I get the impression this is a huge moment for Stewart, a boil that needs to be lanced. My immediate reaction is to get the hell out of here and never come back. I’d rather throw myself through that window I drew on and plunge to my death than deal with office politics. I’ve never been in charge of anything before and it’s a measure of the grasping alarm I feel that the only thing I can think to ask myself is—what would my father do in this situation?

“Tell the conference organizers we’re happy to pay for the window as long as it’s removed without damaging my sketch,” I say. “We’re going to hang it right here in our office, so it’s the first thing anyone sees when they walk in. Now, there were five hundred people at the speech, right? And how many people read this newspaper?”

One of the associates pulls up the information on her cell and shows it to Stewart.

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