Todd didn’t have an answer for that. The girl pointed at the photograph on the corner of his desk. “She’s what? Thirteen?”
Todd nodded, wondering at what point he should get Bianca back in. Soon, he was thinking. Maybe even… very soon. “Yes. Nearly.”
The girl smiled cheerfully. “And I’m nine. But I told the woman downstairs we were in the same class. And she believed me. So I guess she’s not very bright, huh?”
“She’s…never met Meadow. I’m sure she was just being polite.” This came easily into Todd’s mouth, though privately he was wondering what had gotten into Jenni, letting a random child into the building.
The girl nodded. “Maybe. Are you sleeping with her?”
Now she had his full attention. “What?”
“You look a bit ancient, it’s true. But I’m sure you can still hear reasonably well. And still do the old dirty bop.”
The…what? “Look, kid, whatever your name—”
“Madison. I just told you.”
Todd moved back around to the chair side of his desk. It was time to get Bianca the hell in here.
But then a thought occurred to him. He hesitated, hand over the phone. “If you’re not at school with her, how do you know my daughter’s name?”
The girl made a face. “Actually, I don’t know. I just do. Like I know that your other daughters are a lot older. And your wife used to drink, too—”
She stopped talking, and her head slowly dropped. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “That’s really rude.”
For a moment she appeared blank. Then she looked up again suddenly, and her face seemed different. She was blinking rapidly and seemed extremely agitated.
“Please,” she said, “can I have a piece of paper? And a pen?”
Todd’s hand was still over the button on the phone system that would summon his assistant. He moved it to point at a Post-it pad. The girl grabbed a pen from his desk and wrote something on the top note. It looked like a series of numbers.
She got four or five down and then faltered. “No,” she said, angrily. “No…”
She quickly added two numbers to the beginning. Tore off the note and stuffed it deep in the pocket of her coat, looking for an instant like some juvenile street person, hiding her favorite piece of string from aliens or the CIA or naughty ghosts. Then she threw herself back into the chair and covered her face with her hands.
Todd watched all this wide-eyed. Soon he could hear her crying behind them. It was a low, measured sound, more exhaustion than sobs. He stood again, disconcerted. Why on earth had he let Bianca even leave the room?
“Look,” he said, trying to sound more friendly than nonplussed. “Can I get you something? A drink?”
The girl said nothing, and Todd began to think she couldn’t have heard. Then, in a voice muffled by the hands in front of her face, he heard her say, “Coffee.”
“Coffee? Really? Not…a soda? Or water?”
She shook her head. “Coffee. Black.”
He went to the machine in the corner, poured a cup. Brought it back over. He slipped into the role of subservient waiter easily, having done it often enough with his own daughters. Sometimes an apparent reversal of power was the only thing that would placate a kid enough to get them to do what you wanted. Children seemed to arrive with keenly political natures, to understand how things worked right from the start.
“Here,” he said, realizing she couldn’t see him.
Slowly she pulled her hands down. Looked at the cup and reached for it with both hands. She brought it to her face and took a long, deep sip, though Todd knew that it came off the plate hot enough to sear. Cradled the cup in her hands afterward, looking down into the remaining liquid.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” she said. Then she turned her face up toward him and slowly smiled.
“So, Todd,” she said. “How have you been?”
He blinked at her. Everything about her—her voice, her smile—seemed different. The distraught child had been replaced by…he wasn’t sure what. But he did know that he didn’t want her in his office anymore.
“You’re going to have to leave now,” he said. “I can get someone to call you a cab if you need a ride home.”
“Yes,” she said, looking past him out the window. “Always generous with the small things.”
“Look—who are you?”
“Guess,” she said.
“I really have no idea,” Todd said firmly. “You got in here claiming to be a friend of my daughter’s. We both know that’s not true.”
“Please,” she said. “Tell me. Tell me who I am.”
“You’re a little girl.”
She laughed, apparently genuinely, an uproarious guffaw that took him entirely by surprise.
“I know,” she said. “Isn’t it priceless?”
“It’s a riot,” he said, leaning over to press the button to summon Bianca.
“Don’t do that,” the girl said. “Don’t you dare.”
“Listen,” Todd said briskly, “I’m done with this. I don’t know what you’re doing here, and you seem to me to be an odd little person. That’s your parents’ problem, thankfully, not mine. I’ve got work to do.”
“Oh, hush,” she said. “I’ve got no desire to spend a moment longer in your company than necessary, believe me. You recall the saying about the organ grinder and the monkey? You’re a flea on the monkey’s ass, and you always have been. But beggars can’t be choosers, and so you’re going to do a few things for me. Lucky boy.”
“I’m not doing—”
She ignored him. “First, somewhere for me to stay. I need a shower, and I’m tired of dealing with street trash from a position of weakness. Not to mention that I could use a good night’s sleep. As could you, by the look of it.”
Her voice was firm and confident now, and Todd could see how she might have been able to convince Jenni to let her up here. He was also horribly reminded of his cousin, when she’d been in the hospital recovering from a bad car accident, back in ’98. During most of the critical period, she’d floated on a river of morphine, but occasionally she fought her way free of chemicals and pain to deliver remarks whose normality came to seem extraordinary and bizarre. The contrast made the hairs rise on the back of your neck. This girl had the same effect, even though you knew she could only be mimicking some adult she knew.
She seemed to take his silence as acquiescence. “When I arise, bright like a phoenix from Lethe’s snoozy flames, there’s someone I very much want to meet again. A mutual friend. You’re going to make it happen.”
“I can’t imagine who you’re talking about,” Todd said, finally pressing the button, glad to be on solid ground. “We don’t feature anyone from boy bands or TV shows. It’s a policy.”
“A ‘boy band’? What on earth are you talking about?”
He heard his assistant’s door opening along the corridor, then her hurried footsteps. Bianca was paid 20 percent more than anyone else at the same job level in the company. She was worth it.
The little girl heard it, too. Her face darkened. “Toddy, this is one of those times where you can make a bad choice or a good one. Don’t fuck it up.”
The door opened, and Bianca came striding in. “This person’s going to leave now,” Crane told her.
The girl sighed histrionically. He ignored her. “If she makes a fuss, call the police. She’s here under false pretenses, wants to meet a celebrity.”
Bianca stood by the chair, looking balefully down at the girl. “On your feet,” she said. “Now, princess.”
“Oh, you tedious people,” the girl muttered wearily. She stood, ignoring the hand Bianca held out, her eyes still on Crane. “I don’t want to cause a fuss. You’re forcing my hand, don’t you see?”
Todd retreated stiffly behind his desk. Bianca would handle this, had indeed already taken the girl’s upper arm in her hand and gotten her as far as the open door.
He looked down at his papers, suddenly anxious to immerse himself in work. There was something about the way the girl had spoken in the closing stages that was tugging at him. Tugging hard.
“Good-bye,” he muttered.
The girl winked. “Watch your back,” she said, and then she was gone.
