Personal Status — 2013-09-22
Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men and the Great Desmond.
It was upon the best of intentions that I planned to release my next story,
'The Magical, Mesmerizing Mystery Tour' this past week. All that was needed was one last review prior to release and then the tedious process of publishing the SmashWords and Amazon versions would begin, a process that requires a days worth of mindless, uninterrupted effort
Then the contrariwise Muse took hold and insisted that a story be written, a story, alas, destined for another market, and when the Muse so orders, mortals even such as the Great Desmond must obey. Said story, when completed, is expected to complete an effort that has taken me more than a decade to complete, an elevation to a position that only a select few within the field have accomplished. That process, in addition to private personal matters, has occupied my attention for the past week. Or so I was expecting.
And whilst in the middle of this story, another story also presented itself, and insisted that it, too, be written.
This story, on the other claw, is a companion piece to the aforementioned
'Mystery Tour' story, which shall be named
'The Education of a Siren', which also begs the notion that both are only part of a much larger series with actions behind the scenes of these two and any potential subsequent stories. Here is a sample:
Her fist. His face. What she wouldn’t give to arrange that meeting.
But it wasn’t going to happen. He was probably in his office, screwing up or just plain screwing someone, if he wasn’t off screwing someone else at some club or party even this early in the afternoon, while she was sitting alone in her bedroom still holding her termination agreement. Some agreement: sign this and get a pittance, or don’t sign and we’ll sue you for everything you have, everything any potential children might have and any potential grandchildren will be sold into slavery. And by the way, you won’t say anything about it to anyone and we won’t spread the rumors that you were sleeping with your boss and tried to blackmail him, although we might just do that anyway just because we can. You can’t even say that we said that, because we will come after you with a defamation suit that will bankrupt you just during the pre‑trial discovery phase before you can even try to prove we said that. In fact, it would be best for everyone if you were give up trying to work on Wall Street and just to crawl back to your podunk Midwestern hometown and not compete with the boys ever again because the one thing they could never accept was that a woman like you could outperform the best of them, not to mention the worst.
Well, they actually didn’t say any of those things, not that they ever needed to say them, but they certainly implied them.
It certainly didn’t help that her un‑boss Dexter was gloating over her dismissal all throughout the process. It was that image of that shit‑eating grin on his face plus the exquisite image of her fist punching his teeth out that so occupied her thoughts that it took several moments for her to recognize that her cell phone was ringing. She flipped it open, not recognizing the number, and said, hesitantly, “Hello?”
“Eva-lina?”
Only one person ever called Evangelina Eva-lina, and that was Liza Merryl, the senior who mentored an innocent freshman sorority pledge and taught her the real facts of life, in life, on campus and especially on Wall Street.
“I just heard. What really happened?” continued Liza.
The gossip gravevine worked fast on Wall Street. Elapsed time, one hour, twelve minutes between the arrival of the head of Legal and several other legal types plus two security guards at the door to her office to her return to the apartment she shared and the phone ringing.
“Dexter wanted to make a big splash by shorting some East Asian property. I ran the figures and told him it was a losing proposition, so did everyone else, but he just bulled through all of our objections, and, of course, he lost big on it.”
“How big?”
“28 large.”
“28 million dollars? Ouch. That would leave a pretty big dent on the department bottom line.”
“And, of course, he couldn’t be fired over it, so I was next in line to be picked as the sacrificial lamb.”
“They should have rewarded you.”
“They should have listened to me, but he’s the old man’s nephew so he gets the kid gloves treatment while the rest of the department gets the shaft, one by one.”
“That’s Wall Street for you.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Eva-lina, you need to get a change, and I know just the thing. There’s this Renn Faire this Saturday up north of the city. They’ve got this crystal shop to die for there. They’ve got loads of real crystals, all colors, even clear. Very clear.”
Evangelina listened carefully for any signs that her roommates were around, which, at this time of the day, was unlikely due to their 10-12 hour work days. “Very clear, Liza.”
“I pulled a few strings for you. There’s this thing that’s a mystery tour thing, where you get picked up and taken off somewhere mysterious, but its a cover for a covert recruitment drive. I got you a ticket to it this Saturday. There will be a meet&greet get together in the afternoon: someone will contact you there.”
That got Evangelina’s attention. There were bathroom rumors about a secret Old Girl’s Network around Wall Street and beyond, but only rumors and even less than rumors. Still, if anyone was a member, it would definitely be Liza.
“Don’t let me down, Eva-lina: I cashed in some pretty hefty favors to arrange this. But, if you work out, you’ll not only get picked up for a real position, that position will be something that will let you take some revenge against Dexter and his old man, too.”
“For that, if they asked, I’d work a strip joint 24×7.”
Liza was silent for a moment. “That won’t be necessary, but you will have to show every bit of smarts and drive I remember in a freshman pledgie. These past years working drudge work on Wall Street had better not’ve dulled your edge.”
“After what just happened to me, my edge is very sharp.”
Look for this in the coming weeks.
