Hail Mary

‘It’s the best offer you’ll get,’ he said, running a waxy hand through his hair. ‘Trust me. It’s your word against his, and you could do a lot worse than twenty thousand. That’s a nice little payout—think of the shopping, hey?’ he laughed, discussing a trifle. ‘I’m advising you to take it. Of course, it’s your decision, but I do have the paperwork here ready for you to autograph.’

She looked blankly at the slim file he’d slid across the desk. Unnervingly thin, easy to file.

‘There’s a non-disclosure agreement, of course. The settlement means you won’t be allowed to discuss this with anyone. No doubling your money in the papers, my dear,’ he chuckled, a bloodshot twinkle in his eyes. ‘So I suppose you won’t be needing this any longer—in fact I’d recommend you destroy it. Don’t want it falling into the wrong hands. Very comprehensive note taking though, I must say. You’d make an excellent secretary. What was it you did here, again?’ he asked, looking at his watch, closing his briefcase, ruffling his hair.

She hovered one hand over the manilla file and, with the other, unwittingly caressed the spine of a little black notebook he’d thrown onto the desk. The pages smelled of silky ink, of recent, unerasable history forming the last year of her life. Cathartic and sharp-edged.

‘We could do it now? Get everything sorted, no more dragging on this terrible business?’ he adjusted his belt, waxed leather, the blue-striped shirt splitting slightly where it tucked into the suit trousers, bulging over his stomach. Pale, coarse hairs poked through the hole. He caught her eyes in the silence.

‘Is there something wrong?’ She opened her mouth, hesitated. ‘Trust me, you don’t want this following you around. If this goes to court, you know, it won’t be a nice private matter like it is now. Everything is public once the courts and the media get a hold of it, my dear, you don’t need me to tell you that. And a man of his standing, you know… well, I’m sure it doesn’t need to come to that, does it? You just need to keep those lips good and sealed.

‘Ah, look, I have an hour before my two-o’clock. How about we celebrate this victory over lunch? My treat, of course. Although maybe I should charge it to you now that you’re getting a nice little settlement pot, hey?’ he laughed once more, throaty, coughing. Twisted his watch, patted a hand across his gut. ‘Just a joke, my dear. It would be on expenses, of course. Client care, I believe it’s called.’

He bounded to the door, pressing the file into her hands as he went. She hadn’t moved.

‘Oh, is it a pen you're after?’ Surprise raised his eyebrows. The one he handed over was silver, fat, branded with his name in plastic ink. Should have been cold except for his clammy fingers imprinted on the shaft. ‘You can keep it. Consider it a souvenir.’

Then his hand was in the small of her back, guiding her through her door and out of her newly-old, twelfth-floor office, her view of downtown receding into the door frame. The file slid into her bag next to the notebook. The pen she held tightly, her knuckles turning white.

‘I thought all women carried pens in their bags of goodies. Pens and their husband's screwdrivers,’ he laughed again. ‘Or is it husband's screws? I can never remember that joke. Although I probably shouldn’t make a joke with you in an elevator, hey?’ and that laugh, echoing through his torso as he nodded in the direction of her notebook, its spine visible in her open bag, shook the shirt buttons already threatening to burst off his chest. He cleared his throat of the embarrassment in the silent vacuum, the sound bouncing with his reflection along the four mirrored walls. Down they went.

The elevator announced its arrival at the ground floor and she was ushered into the lobby. Small of the back, back against the wall. Her favourite security guard opened the glass gate for them both, smiling his below-the-eyelashes-smile when he caught her eyes. Her companion was through the gate while she still fingered the spine of her notebook sticking out of her bag, backwards and forwards.

‘Actually,’ she said, clumsily lifting out the file, ‘I want to end this now.’ And she signed the settlement on top of the security guard’s bench, not recognising her name in the lawyer’s wet ink, and pressed pen and paper back into his chest, guiding him towards the exit.

‘Right, oh, well. Okay’ he stuttered, half out of the door. ‘Well, I’ll ensure these get to where they need to be, of course, and I’ll be in touch. Lunch next time you’re in a sticky situation, perhaps,’ he grinned, grinding his teeth, nodding, waving the file as an adieu.

She followed, her hand on the glass door pane, a moment’s hesitation when the guard called out ‘hey, Mary, you dropped this!’

But she had gone, and all he saw in the glass was his own reflection, holding out a small, black notebook with a faded spine.