It was like one of those mornings on a crowded subway train when you’re close to someone hot: the journey halves. On the far side of the chrysanthemums, he saw a slim and tight lady: foxy enough to front her own band. She looked Japanese, honey-skinned, with backswept hair, in a pale blue business suit, patterned blouse, and flower broach. She was maybe five years older than himself.
This he could handle. The journey more than halved. He made a quick adjustment in his pants.
“There is something else Trudy, but I’m not sure I should say.” Ms. Marvelous yelled a corny stage whisper. “A little bird told me… No, I shouldn’t say… Really? Don’t twist my arm.”
Ben tuned out, and into the foxy lady. She was gazing at the award, or somewhere near it.
He’d seen her twice before since the conference started Tuesday: sightings that raised hopes but came to nothing. On the first night, she appeared with Dr. Hiroshi Murayama at the Sanomo company’s reception. Yesterday, she crossed this lobby in T-shirt and shorts, spun through the door, and turned right. And now she stood not ten feet in front of him, her brown eyes lit from Twelfth.
Marcia Gelding’s ears wiggled with all the phony grinning. “Well, Trudy, I think I may be allowed to say this. We’re having an extra-special meeting one week Monday, when our esteemed chairman, Dr. Eberhardt Poyser, will be here in person for, shall we say, a special briefing, at the National Institutes of Health.”
The crowd erupted: went wild, ecstatic. She didn’t need to say it: they got the message. There was only one thing the CEO could mean: their vaccine for HIV was coming through. Doc Mayr’s big invention—one of the holy grails of biotech—was to be approved by the FDA.
A forest of phones rose, and a braying broke out like a flock of sheep on crystal meth. “Speech, speech, speech, speech, speech.”
Now the vaccine chief looked younger. And more than that: bigger. She let go the rail and didn’t fall. Then she launched into a spiel, introducing “our team” in the landmark trial of “WernerVac.” Over here, Simone Thomas (red beehive) from the University of Alabama. Over there, Steve Kwong (an athlete) and Heinz Hendricksen (a cadaver) from Cornell University, New York. By reception, Wang Lei Wu (thick eyeglasses) from Tsinghua, Beijing, and Maureen Valentine (puckered lips) from Cape Town.
“Finally, of course, the first author of our paper. How are you? Where are you? Frank?”
A primitive bark broke from a shiny steel wheelchair, and Dr. Frank V. Wilson, the trial’s principal investigator, scooted from a space to Ben’s right. He’d visited the module on Wednesday afternoon: mid-fifties, silver hair, broken veins. His lips: downturned. Eyes: sullen gray. He trailed body odor fit to gas chickens.
Ben floored the award and joined the splashing palms. Then he caught the foxy lady’s gaze.
Hard.
Three
DR. SUMIKO HONDA stared at the guy stood grinning between Marcia Gelding and Trudy Mayr. Since the conference started Tuesday, she’d seen him twice before and still didn’t know who he was. He was obviously on the inside with BerneWerner Biomed but looked too young and fresh for senior management.
If he wasn’t so keen to clap that asshole Wilson, he might be exactly the right person to approach.
Wilson. Wilson. All roads led to Wilson. God, how she hated that man.
“Thank you,” the CEO oozed. “That really was marvelous.”
“I will treasure it for always. Oh, my.”
The guy looked so professional in his sharp navy suit: minimalist lines, draping coat, worsted serge. Her gaze skipped in micromovements: from his coal black hair to his puppydog-sized hands, and fresh-faced cheeks shadowed with stubble. He glanced, left–right, then, yes, straight ahead. She saw his eyes flash. So fast. They were a funny shade of blue, and kept dancing here and there, as if he was reading his life off cue cards.
Then her gaze dropped to where she feared it shouldn’t go: a gentle curve of cloth below the award.
“Marvelous. That’s lovely. Thank you all so much. Now, let’s do some business. Chop, chop.”
In the corner of an eye, Sumiko tracked the presentation party: Marcia Gelding and Trudy Mayr to a pair of leather armchairs; the guy the other way, toward reception. He carried the award and dragged a purple trolley-case to a roped-off line at the desk.
The first time she’d see him was Tuesday night in the ballroom, at a Sanomo company reception. He arrived in that suit and, without breaking apart his chopsticks, stabbed four onigiri into his mouth. The second time was yesterday, right here in the lobby, as she left the hotel to run. If she hadn’t been determined that she wouldn’t look insane, she’d have spun a full circle in the door.
But here was an opportunity she’d been waiting on for months. She focused on Ms. Gelding and Dr. Mayr. They were settling into the armchairs, beside a glass coffee table, only paces from the chrysanthemum pot. Steve Kwong took a third chair, but a fourth remained empty, partly obstructed by a Kentia palm.
Sumiko ran her hands down her best blue dress. Now was her chance. This was it. She’d walk right up, slip into that empty chair, and tell the Atlanta people what she knew.
First step… Second step… Another… And another…
Then she paused to reevaluate her plan. Marcia Gelding was a player with a notorious disposition. Her reputation could curdle distilled water. When the Swiss-based Werner Laboratories swallowed Berne Therapeutics of Rahway, New Jersey, people said she personally signed four hundred terminations and described it as better than sex.
Sumiko felt gripped by a familiar tension. She seemed to live under the spell of secret sisters. An inner voice said this. Then another said that. They were incapable of agreeing on anything. If one were to settle with Sense and Sensibility, the other craved The Silence of the Lambs. If one went shopping for organic cotton tampons, the other returned with boil-clean sponges. Right now, one told her, “Walk
