Household Gods

“I see.” Sheldon Rosenthal coughed again. Nicole couldn’t help remembering what a repeated cough had meant once, in Carnuntum. But this was lawyerly pose, not pestilence. “He made a point of telling me that polishing, as you put it, was all he did: that the legal analysis is entirely yours.”

“That’s true,” Nicole said, cautious still. Of course Rosenthal had checked in with Gary before he summoned her. It was good of Gary not to try to take more credit than he deserved. But then, he didn’t need to hog credit now. He’d already made partner. Whereas Nicole -

I’ve got a job. she reminded herself firmly. It could be worse. I know how much worse it could be. She could hang on here till she got some resumes in the mail. If she found something better, she’d take it. If she didn’t, she’d keep hanging on. That was all she could do. All she needed to do, really. As long as she had food, shelter, and means to pay the bills, that would be enough.

“It is, I think, an excellent analysis,” Rosenthal said.

“Thank you,” Nicole said. He’d praised her work before. It hadn’t meant anything then; it needn’t mean anything now. Nevertheless, she couldn’t stop her heart from speeding up again… Just drop the bomb and get it over with.

He coughed once more. In another world and time, she’d have been waiting for him to break out in a rash and collapse. Instead, he plucked at the neat tuft of hair on his chin. Was he nervous? Of course not. He was playing a game of some sort, and she, it appeared, was the spectator. Or, perhaps, the target?

“Not long ago,” he remarked, “Mr. Sandoval informed me that he was resigning to accept a position with a firm in Sacramento. He has, I believe, ambitions of working closely with the State Legislature.” One of his eyebrows twitched microscopically, as if to say he found such ambitions unsavory.

Nicole had been prepared for a number of things, but this particular change of subject took her by surprise. She didn’t know Sandoval past the occasional greeting in the hall, but she could say honestly enough, “I hope he does very well.”

“I have no doubt that he will. He is able and personable and, as I say, ambitious. That, however, is not why I mention the matter to you.” Rosenthal got up, refilled his coffee cup, and Nicole’s as well, without waiting for her to nod. More power games. More odd resonances. He sat down, sipped, and resumed: “I mention it because, with Mr. Sandoval’s departure, we are left with a vacancy in our partnership structure. Would you by any chance be interested in filling that vacancy?”

Nicole sat in what felt, just then, like a perfect vacuum. He’d said words. The words meant something. What they meant…

She was sitting, she realized, and staring blankly at the founding partner’s face. It had blurred into an abstract, a pale oblong of features, two dark dots for eyes, and a grayish smudge of beard. Slowly, though perhaps not as slowly in real time as in the eons inside her head, she found the rags of her professional demeanor and put them on. The first thing that came to her, she didn’t act on. A shriek of Yee-haaaa! was hardly appropriate in the founding partner’s office.

The second response, the one she selected, came out rather well, she thought, and rather calmly, too: “Thank you, Mr. Rosenthal. I would like that very much.”

Was that the wintry ghost of a smile on that austere face? She let herself suppose it was. “Well, splendid,” Rosenthal said. “I know I must have disappointed you in our last, formal meeting. After this truly outstanding piece of work you’ve done here, I’m doubly pleased to make this offer.”

She might be half blind with joy, but she could read between those lines. He must have taken more flak than he’d expected when he named Gary and not her. He’d given her the analysis as a test of sorts. If she’d done it badly — maybe even if she hadn’t thought to ask Gary to help with the prose style — he would have had the ammunition he needed to prove he’d been right. If she did well, as she’d done, he had justification for promoting her. How long had he known Sandoval would be leaving? Had he by any chance encouraged Sandoval to leave just then?

She couldn’t ask, and she wasn’t about to try. If she hadn’t lived in Carnuntum while her body spent six days in a coma, what would have happened? If he’d just dumped the analysis on her in the state of mind she’d been in after she lost the partnership, she’d probably have told him to put it where the sun didn’t shine. Or she’d have given him a half-assed, halfhearted job, the work of an obviously disgruntled employee.

For all she knew, that was exactly what he’d expected of her. If so, he wasn’t showing it, and he wasn’t likely to. If she’d surprised him, he’d never admit it. Nor would he ever confess to disappointment that she’d proved him wrong and her supporters — the whole amazing number of them — right. Thank you, Liber, she thought. Thank you, Libera. But for you, I’d be out on the street right now.

Rosenthal was waiting for her to say something. She couldn’t let him know exactly what she was thinking, but she came as close as she dared: “Sometimes things need to work out at their own speed.”

Thanks again to the god and goddess whose answers to her prayers had taught her so much, and shown her how to conduct herself in two worlds, she’d said the right thing. “A very mature attitude, Ms. Gunther-Perrin,” Rosenthal said, nodding with more vigorous approval than she’d ever had from him. “Commendably mature. The proper attitude for a team player. Yes, I think you will be valuable to the firm in your new role.”

She heard everything he didn’t say — everything he’d said to her in this office three weeks ago. Would he attribute her change in attitude to her six-day coma? Or would he just assume that she’d taken time to rethink her priorities?

It didn’t matter. He’d changed his mind about making her a partner.

She was a partner. She’d broken out of the trenches; she had a future in the firm. Life was good. Life was very, very good.

This descent from the upper regions was far different from its predecessor. Nicole kept a deadpan expression, which must have been convincing: people glanced at her, some with curiosity, but for all they knew, she’d just gone up to get the feedback on her analysis. If the office grapevine had been humming, nobody was showing it.

Cyndi was making a point of being busy, no doubt to keep from noticing any new disappointments. Nicole thought of striding on past, but that wasn’t exactly fair to Cyndi. She let go her deadpan expression, let it go completely. What Cyndi must have seen out of the corner of her eye was a high-grade idiot grin.

She looked up from her keyboard and got the full blaze of it head-on. Her eyes went wide. “Did you —?” she asked. “Did he —?”

“Yes!” Nicole’s answer was all-inclusive.

Cyndi leaped up with a complete disregard for proper secretarial demeanor, and threw her arms around Nicole in a bruisingly tight hug. Nicole’s jaw ached with grinning, but she couldn’t seem to stop. When Cyndi whirled her in a little dance of joy, she went along, and let it spin her right into her office. She fetched up next to the phone.

She was aware, peripherally, of Cyndi setting the grapevine going at top speed. And why not? She picked up the phone and punched a particular extension. “Okay, Gary, ‘ she said when he answered. “Today I buy lunch.”

He couldn’t have helped but hear the jubilation in her voice. “Does that mean what I hope it means?”

“You better believe it,” she said.

He let out a war whoop right in her ear. It was still ringing as she set the receiver down and tried to get back to work. Futile as that was: between Cyndi and Gary, within ten minutes the news had traversed the entire sixth floor. The seventh had probably known for hours, if not for days, which way the decision would go.

It was all she could do to get away for lunch, with all the people streaming in to congratulate her. She caught herself noticing who seemed overjoyed and who eyed her speculatively — women associates, many of those last. They’d be seeing the crack she’d made in the glass ceiling, and contemplating ways of making it wider.

More power to them, Nicole thought. She had to drag Gary away, finally, which probably started a whole new spate of gossip.

So let people talk. Today, at least, she didn’t give a damn.

Gary chose Yang Chow for lunch. That seemed fitting. Nicole had eaten there when things looked their worst. It was only right she should go back now that they were looking as good as she could ever remember. She even ordered the chili shrimp again, to take the curse off it, and to make it a good-luck dish. Then she sat back in the cool open space with its white tablecloths and its candy-pink napkins, and looked out through the blinds at the