Twenty-Thousand Dollars

‘Twenty-thousand dollars.’

My ears rang with the words. My eyes barely registered them written on the little pristine cheque. The world was muffled like my head had been thrown underwater. Only my hammering heart tethering me back to that room.

That big glass room. Full of light. Bright and white and brilliant. Clinical, transparent, far too large. Windows stretching from floor to ceiling on every visible wall, showcasing the ominous skyline that loomed above the city. The boiling sunlight flooding in. CCTV cameras in every corner. The eerily quiet office out of sight sat just behind me through the glass doors. The long black desk that stretched between them and me.

They matched the room. The row of people lined up before me. Sitting in their crisp black suits, perfectly styled hair, fixed, unwavering smiles. Beautiful people. Symmetrical and clean. Not a hair out of place.

I was not so. I dressed smartly—or as smartly as I could. I did not have fine clothes nor the money to spend on them. I did not have reason to dress beautifully, and if I did, this would not be one of the occasions I would want to try.

I had never learnt the innate skill of successful women to apply makeup as though I had been born glamorous. Too little, and I looked tired and unwell. Too much, and I looked like a failing drag act. My burgundy clothes were pulled from bargain bins many years ago when I had had to apply for a job, and now they did not fit properly. But it was all I had to show them.

Each of them sat differently—the illusion of original thought. A boy band lined up for the camera, each with their signature pose displaying their uniqueness: the bad-boy, the romantic, the comedian, et cetera, et cetera—a performance of character to sell the idea of humanity.

They cared. They really cared.

Not the they that sat before me, the They that had brought the panel of perfected people to our meeting. The big They. The They who rehearsed and selected this collective figurehead before me. To bear down on me in droves from a safe distance.

The They chose the executive office on the top floor to have this meeting. They that wanted ten polished smiling faces to be staring down one lonely, underdressed woman, in a room bigger than her flat, windows bared on all sides, the eternal drop below her looming always. One long shining table: the panel on one side, herself on the other. A cheque slid across it, valuing more money than she earnt in a year.

Beside me, my lawyer was eager. I saw the twitch in his face, the wriggle in his fingers, itching to reach out and take the cheque from me. He had eyes only for that tiny piece of paper.

That scrap of paper had been meaningless until someone wrote upon it what it valued. It could have been made into a sheet of A4 for printing a memo in some other office far, far away. It could have been dyed pink and used for a child’s drawing that wound up on the refrigerator.

But now, it held more value than I did, and my attorney knew it.

He did not see the cold empty eyes. He did not see the suffering woman he was meant to represent. He saw the money, and he saw a technical win. He saw the little black book that sat across from us finally being shut and the case ending here and now. A lazy man. A greedy man. A man who lived in the now. To whom empathy was meant for characters on TV, not the living.

I knew what he wanted. I knew what he wanted me to do: absolutely nothing. He wanted a string of clients who never spoke and let him arrange profitable deals day after day. He wanted compliant cases that earnt him plenty of money and success without raising a finger, only by the subtle art of keeping the client silent.

I couldn’t afford better. This money could afford better, but it would come with a thousand strings—all of them tying to an NDA and any chance I had to get what I wanted.

And I knew what I wanted. I wanted to speak. I wanted to rage against my dry throat and enrage my representation in doing so. I wanted to say what I had to say and let Them hear the emotions their gesture made, even if it was just through their cameras.

But speaking was so so hard. I was a portly insect, watched by a web of ravenous spiders, stuck under the blinding magnifying lenses flaring on all sides. Any movement was potentially deadly, but sitting still could be just as worse.

I began to tremble, emotion overwhelming every atom of my being.

Perhaps they thought the emotion was gratitude or wonder. Perhaps they thought me glad. Perhaps many people in this room before had shaken with glee and broke down in tears, crying thanks at their magic slip of paper she had slid over with such familiarity. For the woman directly at the centre, with the slicked-back ponytail and the little black book, beamed all the more brightly.

“That’s right, dear,” she said, her voice unnaturally deep and sickeningly sweet. “That’s all for you. You want that money?”

She phrased it like a question, but her tone and icy blue eyes said it like an order. ‘I wanted that money.’ ‘I wanted to accept the deal.’ ‘I wanted to do as I was told so I could escape the harsh burning room.’ That’s what those eyes said. That’s what this room said. What They said through her. Their mouthpiece.

And I so badly wanted to listen. To obey Them. To close the blinds on the wide window walls, to turn away from the security feed, and say goodbye to the army of hungry spiders for good. But their condescension… their assumption that I would be grateful...

My words caught in my throat, my brow beaded with sweat, my hands shook so hard I may well have ripped the cheque in two by accident. And they grinned more broadly as they watched me squirm.

“This is it?” I managed, quiet and hoarse, a rumble before the lightning. “This is what it means to you?”

It was unclear from the sunlight behind her, casting her in shadow and blinding me as I shook, but I could have sworn her smile wavered.

“I said from the start,” my voice finding courage. “That money was not the object. I said from the start that I wanted no ‘compensation’. No bailout. I just wanted some justice.”

My lawyer smelt danger. His check dangling on a precipice. “Now listen here, dear—”

“No! Enough!” I exclaimed, all chance of composure gone.

The room was still. The air was tense. I felt like the whole office behind had stopped to watch. There was no way to tell this, of course, other than that intrusive prickling feeling that thousands of eyes were watching you out of sight. I spotted the cameras gleaming in the sun and wondered how many more were looking through there.

“Money means nothing to you people!” I continued, my voice building to a crescendo I did not know I was capable of. “Nothing! And you know that this is a life-changing amount for me. You try to exploit that instead of any admission of guilt or attempt at humanity!”

I stood up. I grabbed the cheque in both hands. An audible gasp from my lawyer as his eyes bulge from behind his glasses. For a moment, I stop and look at those loopy letters:

‘Twenty-thousand dollars’

Twenty thousand dollars.

That’s enough money to buy a car. To put down a payment on a house. Live comfortably enough to look for decent work with good pay. See the world. Security for myself and my family.

A life-changing amount of money. Money I will no doubt never see again—the sort of money these suits could spend in a month.

The sound of ripping paper had never been so satisfying. The pained cry from my attorney wasn’t human, but it was pleasing. Watching all the clean pearly-white smiles die into bitter frowns was sweet and dear. The fluttering of each half of the cheque as it made its way to the smooth, cool table was majestic. And it was by far the best use of that cheque I could think of.

The woman in the pony didn’t react more than purse her lips, making her face suddenly lopsided and unflattering. Eventually, she picked up a pen and wrote something in her little black book. Something I no longer cared about. I was determined that by the next time I saw her and her book that I would have caused them enough trouble to make her buy a second. There would be far more notes to come.

She tucked her pen behind her ear with slightly shaking hands, a content smile stretching over my trembling face. I left the room brimming with adrenaline, wondering if she knew she had pulled a hair out of place.

Twenty-thousand dollars well spent.