Kate Racculia - Tuesday Mooney Wore Black

People tried. Dex had tried, and was genuinely upset about the whole thing, which is why Tuesday let him get away with making morbid jokes at the event’s expense. Pryce’s wife – the woman in teal – had tried. They both whaled on his chest. She puffed air into his lungs. Nothing worked. Vincent A. Pryce was toast, and the next morning the Herald upheld its long tradition as the city’s classiest rag with the headline PRYCE BIDS FAREWELL.

Tuesday picked up the phone.

“Hey Trish,” she said. “Are you drunk-dialing me at two in the afternoon? Because I wouldn’t blame you if you were.”

“Ha ha ha,” said Trish. Tuesday hadn’t worked with her often, but enough to know Trish was sarcastic as hell. Everyone on the events team was. It seemed a necessary disposition for a job that was five percent emailing, five percent decision-making, ten percent constant overtime, and eighty percent shitstorm crisis management. Tuesday had nothing but respect for the events team. “I wish I were. You have no idea how badly I wish I were,” said Trish.

“What’s up?” Tuesday spun her chair away from her computer and propped her bare feet on a pile of binders.

“Okay, so. This morning we finally processed the auction bids, at least on the items we were able to get to before, you know.” She laughed. “I still can’t believe it. I mean, a dude fucking died. He died .”

“Worst. Event. Ever,” Tuesday said.

“I can hear my performance review now: ‘So Trish, you’ve had a great year, except for how you ran literally the worst event in development history.’”

“You’re looking at this wrong,” Tuesday said. “What if the dead guy left us money in his will?”

“You’re terrible,” Trish said. “Anyway, so – you were standing next to that guy when he threw fifty K on the New Kids?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It was Nathaniel Arches. I think I filled out the paperwork right. It was crazy right after, because he bid and then the guy – died – but I asked him. I remember, Archie—”

“Nickname basis already?”

“We had a moment. Or two or three.” Tuesday picked at her fingernail. “I asked him if he meant it, did he honestly want to bid fifty thousand dollars for the chance to chest-bump Donnie Wahlberg, and he said yes.” He’d actually said – absently, stunned as everyone else in the room – Sure, who wouldn’t . “I told him we’d bill him.”

“That’s interesting. Because we just called his office, and they wouldn’t pay.”

Tuesday stilled. “What?” she said.

“I spoke to his secretary and she said he wasn’t even there . At the event, I mean. I got the feeling he was there in the office and just didn’t want to talk to me.”

Tuesday leaned forward, squaring her feet on the carpet.

“You there?” asked Trish.

“Yeah, I’m here. What – what a flake.” Tuesday turned back toward her desk, lined with her carefully indexed and color-coded binders: new prospects, old prospects, research and database policies and procedures. Information – data, facts – you could trust. Once you found it, it stayed put. It didn’t charm you or mislead you or make you laugh despite yourself. She knew better than to trust people. She rubbed out the not what I expected note she’d written in her mental file on Arches, Nathaniel – good thing she’d used a mental pencil – and replaced it with basically exactly what I expected .

“What a dick,” Tuesday said.

“That’s what I was afraid of.” She heard a whoosh of air that could only be Trish sighing heavily. “Do you remember who the other bidders were? The two fighting over it?”

“Sorry. I was too far away to see.”

“Screw it. I’m going to take the tickets for myself. You want to come?” Trish laughed. “You know, I’m like the only woman my age who wasn’t a New Kids fan. The irony, right?”

“I wasn’t either,” said Tuesday. “They were too—”

“Adorable,” Trish said. “God, they were so cute I could puke. I skipped right past cute and went straight to Johnny Depp, do not pass Go. And the Diet Coke guy, that commercial where he takes off his shirt?”

“I’m learning a lot about you right now, Trish,” said Tuesday. “I think you mean Lucky Vanous.”

“You are a human Google. I love it.” Trish cleared her throat. “Thanks for nothing. I’ll keep you posted if I hear anything more from our rich dick. Unless …”

“Unless what?” Here it came. The no-business-asking-for ask.

“If you had a moment or two or three with him, do you think you’d get any further on the phone?”

“Trish. No.”

“Can’t hurt to ask!” said Trish. “Thought you might not mind a reason to reach out and touch him.”

“You’re better than that, Trish. Or at least you’re capable of making better jokes.”

“C’mon, it’s for a good cause.” She laughed. “I’m just kidding.”

“No, you’re not.”

“You’re right, I’m not. K, gotta go, let me know if you change your mi—” And she hung up midword, presumably because another crisis was cresting in her inbox like a horrible wave.

Tuesday set her phone back in its cradle.

She hated that she felt bruised, but she did. Bruised by a grotesquely wealthy stranger who owed her nothing, and to whom she owed even less. She’d just – recognized him. No, that wasn’t quite it. Yes, she’d recognized the rich man she’d researched, but there was something about him that her research hadn’t seen but her gut had.

There was more dirt to dig up.

She stood and stretched. It was the low part of the afternoon, post lunch, with nothing to look forward to but the end of the day. Her fellow researchers were either away from their cubes at meetings or buckled down with their headphones on. She flexed her feet. She could get away with not wearing shoes because the prospect research department was tucked back in a weird little makeshift office, all by itself, adjacent to the first-floor lobby of a corporate office building. The main development office was up on eight. Research had been up on eight too, once upon a time, but the office kept growing – it was still growing, though at a much slower pace since the market seized in oh-seven – and Mo, looking out for her team of professional introverts, practically sprained her shoulder raising her hand when operations asked which team would be willing to move to the first floor.

It felt more like a clubhouse than an office, surrounded on two sides with huge tinted windows looking out on the little park in front, the Verizon building next door, the entrance to the Bowdoin T station, and the parade of tourists and students and homeless and smokers and the occasional period-costumed Betsy Ross or Ben Franklin on their way to nearby Faneuil Hall. The office had a propensity to flood in the winter when the pipes froze. It definitely hadn’t been designed for its current purpose, but it was snug and functional enough, and best of all, nobody came to visit. Ever.

She kicked her slippers free from the jumble of shoes under her desk and stepped into them. They were plush, fuzzy, and leopard-print, her spoils from last year’s research team Yankee swap; wearing them felt like nestling her feet inside stuffed animals. She shuffled over to the kitchenette and filled the electric kettle.

She dumped a packet of cocoa mix in a paper cup.

It took only two minutes for the kettle to boil.

But by the time she padded back to her desk, she had five new Outlook emails, three more in her Gmail inbox, and her Facebook wall appeared to be one post, the same, shared about ten times. Her bag was buzzing like a pissed-off bee, her phone one long, continuous thrum.