Perri O'Shaughnessy - Keeper of the Keys

Hair flyaway, pulling at a blouse that didn’t quite cover her firm belly, Denise popped her head into Ray’s office and reminded him to remember to take his laptop home. Her husband was a former linebacker at UCLA and even Martin hadn’t dared to attempt a come-on, not that she would ever bow to his facile charm, something Ray had always admired about her. “I attached the Antoniou presentation on an e-mail. Tomorrow’s so crucial.”

Ray nodded.

“Are we ready?” she nervously asked.

“We will be.”

Her intrusion snapped him back. Along with whatever Denise had cooked up, he had drawings, schematics, and calculations to assemble. He organized his desk, feeling as immortal as a teenager, and as reckless. His work never stopped. For the first time in a long, long time-since he had built his own house-he was doing exactly what he wanted to do on a design.

All because he had said to hell with it.

Although it could come to nothing. No way to tell yet, while they were still in the fantasy phase of the Antoniou project. Strange how it took a crisis to make a person not give a damn, and therefore do some of his best work ever.

Work was an antidote to anxiety. You could forget things working. Spreading the large prints out on his cherry table, he thought, No mistakes.

In the afternoon, he hosted a difficult meeting. Four associates, all younger than Ray, in their mid-to-late twenties mostly, three men and a woman, waved their hands above the conference table, wary. News of his fight with Martin had obviously spread, causing universal consternation. Trust Suzanne to regale them with every grisly detail. They had to be wondering if the partners would break up.

Who would they want to win?

A delicate seesawing of talent was necessary to make a success of an architectural firm like theirs: on the one side, Martin the sales guy with the accountants, Hal and Gary, who didn’t pay people until they begged, cried real tears, or threatened to sue; and balanced on the other side, Ray and the overblown assortment of tender artistic types.

The money guys disdained the artists as lightweights with a frivolous disregard for financial realities. The architect/artists hated the money guys back, not so much for forcing them to live within the numbers, but for their contemptible interest in such things. They all needed each other, that was the problem.

“The museum job is going well,” Ray announced. The amber sunshine was wasted on the people gathered in the white-walled conference room with its framed black-and-white photos of completed projects. Ray had noticed, after spending a few years at grad school in New Haven, that people in L.A. had the same negative moods, suicidal, enraged, frustrated, and were as angry as people in harsher climes, but in his view, they had them less often. He put it down to weather.

Today, however, the glum faces of his staff did not reflect this mellow summer afternoon. They wanted to know they had jobs. Ray assured them they did.

Martin entered the room, twenty minutes late. His bloodshot eyes belied the hearty smile. He had probably been fortifying himself at the trattoria next door. He looked good, though, dark purple dress shirt, black slacks, black tie, black Nikes. Suzanne’s face turned that familiar pink. Ray realized that Suzanne had probably been taken in by his son-of-a-bitch partner also, and that catapulted him out of his pseudo-calm.

“Afternoon, all,” Martin said. “What am I missing?” He didn’t look at Ray.

“Hey,” they all said back, suddenly less gloomy. Martin had the effect of a person with a golden glow.

“We’re talking about the firm’s direction,” Ray said. “Sit down.”

“What a good idea, Ray. I think I’ll sit down.”

Supercilious asshole. “Let’s keep this short. We all have work to do. Martin?”

Ears pricked up. Coffee cups clanked on the table.

“As you all know, Achilles Antoniou, the main donor to the museum project,” Martin said, “also wants to build a dream house in Laguna. He has three acres of land with an ocean view and no idea what to do with it. After a lot of legwork on my part, he agreed to a set of preliminary designs, which I know Ray and Denise are working up. We’ve got a meeting coming up on Thursday, tomorrow, and I’m feeling very optimistic. I’ve told him Ray’s a genius, and the rest of us are, too. I think he believed me about Ray. He had seen some articles-anyway, if Denise and Ray need help, you guys get on it, okay? This could solidify our name in the business, and that’s good for all of us. Plus-money. We all like bonuses, don’t we?”

They almost jumped up and down like cheerleaders at the thought, even though Ray noticed Martin hadn’t, in fact, offered any bonuses. As a partner, he had no power to offer bonuses on his own. You had to hand it to Martin. He had probably lavished a good five minutes of brainpower on this latest manipulation.

“If Ray lands this project,” Martin went on, “we’re all safe for the next year. Better than safe. We can expand.”

“If Antoniou likes what we do for him,” Ray said. Only he and Denise knew what a stretch that might be at this point.

“If you do your job,” Martin said, staring him down, “he will.” Excusing himself, he left the room.

They were all looking at him. “He seems to have the firm well in hand,” Carl, a junior associate and provocateur, said with a crooked smile. “So you entirely with us, Ray? Not planning to jump ship? I mean, there’ve been rumors.”

“Obviously, it’s too early to get into this discussion, Carl.”

“When would be good for you, Ray?”

“I’ll let you know.”

“Because we have a right to know what plans you and Martin have for the company.”

All heads nodded somberly.

“We should talk.” Martin opened Ray’s door without knocking.

“Not now.”

“Come on, Ray, lighten up. I took my punch like a man, didn’t I? And I apologized, but if I didn’t apologize enough I’ll get down on my knees and kiss your loafer. Listen. I’ve been thinking about Leigh-wait-wait, I just want to say, I know you’d never hurt her. I’m sure she’s fine. You still haven’t heard from her?”

“No.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Martin repeated. He essayed a small smile. Ray was struck by a vision of Martin and Leigh at the cheesy motel, the way the cheap bed would have creaked, the way Martin would have taken her every which way. That last image Martin had left him with-

Turning his chair toward the window, he didn’t answer. Whatever Ray said would be very, very final, and a part of him didn’t want all this to fall apart, the business he had sweated and put his soul into for six years.

Eventually, the door closed. But Martin had brought up Leigh. Of course. Thinking about Leigh made him feel crazy, like throwing himself out the window. What should he do? The clenching tension that gripped him whenever he thought about her took over once more. Every muscle in his body fought every other muscle in an internal death-struggle. He stayed like that, jaw tight, eyes squeezed shut.

What should he do?

After a while, relief came as his thoughts drifted back to the tapes.

Two tapes now. Thinking about the tapes was a way to manage the unmanageable tension of Leigh’s absence. He could mull over them endlessly, the tapes, the models, the keys, the memories-all these things at least were in his control, susceptible to analysis.

He replayed part of the tape in his mind, the second one. It was just a fragment of a conversation, like the first tape. He knew his mother’s voice.

“Stay away! How did you-”

“I’m giving you one more chance. I don’t know why I should. I loved you once, I suppose that’s it.”