Christopher Reich - Numbered Account

Nick made his way around her living room, stopping to examine a picture here, a knickknack there. “Someone once told me that every man and woman could easily choose how happy they wanted to be. The whole thing boiled down to a simple equation. Happiness, he said, equaled reality divided by expectation. If you don’t hope for much, then reality will almost surely beat your expectations, therefore you’ll be happy. If you expect the world, you’ll always be disappointed. The problem is for folks who always want to be happy, the dreamers who put a big ten on the bottom of that equation.”

“What do you expect, Nick?”

“When I was young, I wanted the ten. We all do, I guess. After my father died and things took a turn for the worse, I would have been happy with a three. Now I’m more optimistic. I want a five, hell, I’ll take a risk, give me a six. If six days out of ten are good, I’ll be all right.”

“I mean, what do you really expect? What do you want to do with your life?”

“Well, obviously I’d like to put my father’s murder behind me. After that I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll stay in Switzerland for a while. Fall in love. Have a family. Mostly, I want to feel like I belong someplace.” A feeling of intimate complacency fell over Nick as he spoke to Sylvia, almost as if he were yielding to a mild opiate. He barely knew her, yet already he was sharing his innermost feelings, dreams he had held for a future with Anna. Dreams for another world, he reminded himself. And another lifetime. “What about you?”

“I change from day to day, from minute to minute. When I was growing up, I wasn’t very happy. I always wanted my mother to come back. I would’ve taken a four. When I first began at the bank, a nine. Anything was possible. Today, with you sitting in my dining room, I still want a nine. I’d rather be a little disappointed than not have wished at all.”

“What do you really want?”

“That’s easy. To be the first woman on the executive board of USB.”

Nick ended his tour of her living room and fell into the overstuffed couch. “A dreamer, eh?”

Sylvia sat down next to him. “Why else would I help you with these binders? They’re darned heavy to carry around.”

“Poor Sylvia, what will we do with her?” Nick rubbed her back. “Bad back?”

She nodded her head. “Uh-huh.”

He lifted her legs onto his lap and massaged her calves. “And your legs. They must be killing you?” Running his hands along her smooth legs sent a current of desire through his body. He had forgotten the touch of a woman’s body, forgotten seduction’s joyous impatience.

“As a matter of fact, yes.” Sylvia pointed to a spot that needed particular attention, and he obliged. “That feels much better.”

“And your feet?” Nick threw off her loafers. “To think they had to carry around such an enormous load.”

“Stop,” Sylvia cried. “That tickles. Stop it now.”

“What, this tickles?” He ran his fingers lightly over her stockinged toes. “I don’t believe it.”

“Please stop.” But her command dissolved into laughter. “I’m begging you.”

Nick paused momentarily, allowing Sylvia to place her feet on the floor. “What will you give me?”

She smiled coyly. “How about I try and elevate your top number?”

“I don’t know. That’s pretty serious stuff. How high do you think you can get it? An eight?”

“Definitely higher.” Sylvia gently bit Nick’s lower lip, then caressed his neck.

“A nine?”

She straddled him. Slowly, she unbuttoned her shirt until it hung open before him. “Higher.”

“Higher than a nine? Nothing’s perfect.”

Sylvia unsnapped her brassiere and gently rubbed each breast in turn across his open mouth. “Take that back.”

Nick closed his eyes and nodded his head. He had decided to go for the ten.

Nick arrived at the office the next morning, eager to begin work on a document that would be sent to institutional shareholders—naturally, under the Chairman’s name—detailing steps the bank would take to cut costs, increase efficiency, and better operating margins. All were measures designed to improve financial performance over the next five years. He set to work drafting an outline, but after only a few minutes he discovered it impossible to concentrate. Images of Sylvia flooded his mind. He saw the curve of her waist. He felt her firm belly. He ran his hands over her endless legs. Without speaking, she made him smile; without moving, she made him wince; without breathing, she made him pant.

Abruptly, Nick rolled his chair away from the desk. He rubbed his hands slowly on his thighs, requiring some physical assurance that it was him having these thoughts—the same man who only two months before had left behind a woman who loved him and whom, he was afraid to admit, he might still love. You’re a cad, he thought, jumping at the first woman who comes your way. You betrayed her. No, a calmer voice objected, Anna belongs to your past. She’s safer there.

At half past nine, Rita Sutter tucked her head into his office.

“Good morning, Mr. Neumann. You arrived early this morning.”

Nick looked up from his work, surprised. He hadn’t seen her outside Kaiser’s suite of offices once in the four days he’d been on the Fourth Floor. “Not much choice, if I want to keep up with the Chairman.”

“He brings out the best in us all,” she said, venturing a foot inside. She was wearing a navy blue dress, a strand of pearls, and a white cardigan, and carrying a sheaf of papers. She managed to look chic, mature, and a little bit sexy all at the same time. “I haven’t had the chance to congratulate you on your promotion. You must be very excited.”

Nick sat back in his chair, confused by her solicitous approach. She was hardly the kind to engage in idle chitchat. Her primary responsibility was the ordering of the Chairman’s day, and she performed her task with a mastery worthy of a seasoned military staff officer. Nothing reached Kaiser without her prior knowledge and approval. No phone calls, no letters, and certainly no visitors. (Sterling Thorne being the exception.) No matter how hectic the day became, she kept Kaiser focused and on schedule, all the while retaining a composed, unflappable air. Nick wondered what she wanted.

“It’s an honor to be here,” he agreed. “Though I wish the current circumstances were a little different.”

“I’m sure Herr Kaiser will manage just fine. He won’t let go of the bank without a fight.”

“I don’t imagine he will.”

Rita Sutter came closer to the desk. “I hope you don’t mind if I tell you how much you look like your father.”

“Not at all.” He had been curious to learn how well she had known him but hadn’t yet found the right moment to ask. “Did you work together?”

“Why yes, of course. I started at the bank a year after he did. In those days we were a small group, about a hundred of us. He was a good man.”

“About time someone confessed to liking him,” he said under his breath, then stood and motioned to the chair opposite his desk. “Please have a seat—that is, if you have a few minutes free.”

Rita Sutter sat down on the edge of the chair, fingering her pearls. Her tentative stance suggested a brief visit. “Did you know that we all came from the same neighborhood, Herr Kaiser, your father, and myself?”

“You lived on Eibenstrasse too?”

“Manessestrasse. Around the corner. But Herr Kaiser lived in the same building as your father. They were never close as children. Your father was a much better athlete. Wolfgang kept to his books. He was still quite shy in those days.”

“The Chairman, shy?” Nick imagined a small boy with a limp arm dangling uselessly at his side, no thousand-dollar suits to camouflage it. Then his thoughts turned to his father, and he fought to locate some memory of him as an athlete. Sure his dad had played golf, but he had never once thrown a baseball or kicked a soccer ball with Nick.