Rebound (15 page)

Susan was wildly
ambitious, but she had lived in the same brick and wood building
since she’d first moved to Chicago. It was old and didn’t have a
working elevator, and no central air conditioning for those
scorching Chicago summers. But it did have a great view of downtown
and the river, and in the winter, the steam radiator heat was
enough to make you feel you were in the tropics of Borneo instead
of snowed in by sub-zero blizzards. It was home now, and the only
thing on earth that could get her out of it would be a house she
herself designed...but maybe not even that. In her heart, she loved
old houses. An old house with a big front porch, huge bay windows
and hardwood floors.

Jill’s hand shook
hers, gripping her by the wrist, pulling her out of the
elevator.

“You okay?” Jill
looked into Susan’s eyes.

Susan shook her head.
“I’m fine.” Driving whatever in the hell she’d been thinking of out
of her head, she focused on her game plan again.

Dazzle the board with
her ultra modern, sleek, chic design. Pour on how envious other
cities will be, stuck with their old, dilapidated opera houses.
Then show them the plans for the rest of the allotted land. A high
end mall--just like the Mall of America--wrapped around the main
tower. And all glass, to match the building reminiscent to the
Bio-Dome.

Susan knew that most
opera houses weren’t so tall. But in her mind’s eye, she saw it as
a beacon. It would shine and glint beautifully, matching the
surrounding skyscrapers’ modern feel. And, after all, the board had
asked for ideas for creating more room in the allotted space. The
obvious answer was to build up.

The opera house part
would be on the first floor, with seating enough for half a
football stadium, and an elaborate, cutting edge stage to mount all
those operas on. Everything would be smooth and sleek, and would
put all other houses to shame.

Her design would be
the toast of the opera world, the beginning of a new trend, and
would secure her partnership prospect with Woods, Farrow, Blank and
Stein.

At least that dream
would come true. There was no way she was going to lose this
project. She’d been top in her class in college. She’d won every
contract she’d worked on for three years running. And it was her
time to shine.

But as Susan strode
into the conference room, nodding and smiling at the assembled
council members, she didn’t feel shiny. She didn’t feel strong or
confident. What she did feel, acutely, was alone. Absently she
checked her cellphone for messages. Just a text from him would make
her feel so damn wonderful right then.

But no one had left a
message. Susan dropped the phone in her jacket pocket and took a
deep breath, trying to keep her attention locked on what she was
about to say, and failing, and finally just trying to keep her mind
on her breathing. Dr. Garvin had been big on breathing exercises
when Susan had first started therapy.

Take deep, slow
breaths, focus on the bad feeling, the one that made her tense. And
as she breathed out, she was to let her exhalation blow that
feeling away from her. Let it float away. Did she feel more
relaxed?

Yes, she did.

Good. Now replace
that bad thought, that bad feeling, with another, better thought, a
good, excited feeling.

“I’m going to win
this project!”

An elbow jostled
Susan out of her reverie, Jill’s voice coming in a hissing whisper.
“A little louder. I don’t think the entire committee heard
you.”

Susan’s eyes snapped
open, and she felt her face turn beet red. At least three of the
dozen board members were openly staring at her, two with disdain
etched in their expressions.

“Cripes!” Susan
turned around and started pulling her papers out of her
portfolio.

Jill connected a
thumb drive to the computer system and began to download the audio
visuals for Susan’s presentation. She started to pass Susan a
hand-held control, but seeing how Susan had already dropped and
shuffled the papers of her portfolio case, she kept the control,
saying, “Just nod your head when you’re ready to go to the next
image.” She plucked the jumbled pages from Susan’s hands and
riffled through them, putting them in order again.

Susan needed to get a
grip, to steady herself.

She felt a familiar
vibration in her jacket pocket, indicating she’d just gotten a text
message. Though she would usually never check for a text while in a
meeting, she was desperate for a distraction, something, anything,
to keep her from throwing herself out of the council’s tenth-story
window.

And it could’ve been
Kevin...

But it wouldn’t
be.

But when Susan turned
around and wandered over to the windows, she pulled out her
cellphone and there it was. A text message from Kevin.

Susan’s hand jerked
and she dropped her phone, sending it clattering onto the tile
floor. She dropped to one knee, scooped the cellular device from
the floor and scrambled back to her feet. The screen was black. She
clicked a few buttons and shook it.

Damn
piece
of
crap
.
She slapped it against her palm, then tapped it hard
against the faux marble window frame.

Jill’s heels clicked
across the tile floor, before she leaned in, grabbing the cellphone
from Susan’s hand just as she was about to really pound the sucker
into the wall.

“What’s going on?”
Her brows were knitted, and she looked both pissy and
frightened.

“Damn thing won’t
turn back on.” Susan ran a hand over the tight bun she’d pulled her
hair into that morning. “There’s a text on there. It’s
important.”

“Okay,” Jill said,
her thumbs clicking on the phone’s keys, and it lit up, coming back
to life. “You just have to finesse these things sometimes.” She
clicked on text messages, scrolled to the most recent and handed it
back to Susan.

It was still there.
Text message from Kevin Jacobs. Sent two minutes ago.

Susan opened it and
read the four word message.

IN
TOWN. DINNER TONIGHT?

Susan exhaled the
breath she’d been absently holding, a warmth spreading from her
chest out into her limbs, making her tense body relax and her
headache melt away. She couldn’t restrain the big goofy grin that
spread across her face.

Kevin was in town,
and he wanted to see her.

Jill nudged Susan and
hummed. “Looks like it was a good message?”

Susan closed her eyes
and felt that warmth flow into her head, making every thought glow,
and when she opened her eyes again the world was glowing too. The
sunshine pouring through the windows was golden, and the sky had
never seemed so blue.

She needed to get a
grip before she had a beautific orgasm right there in front of the
board.

Susan rolled
her eyes, keyed
Yes
into her phone and
hit
send
. She clicked the
phone closed and adrenaline surged through her veins. Kevin wanted
to see her, and the opera house account would be hers.

She turned on her
heel, strode toward the confused looking committee members, and
beamed a dazzling smile their way, making them sit up and pay
attention, all smiling unabashedly back at her.

“So let me tell you
about our new opera house,” Susan purred, nodding to Jill to start
the slides on the screen behind her.

* * * *

The opera house
committee was enraptured by Susan’s pitch, and by the time the
first visuals of the actual opera house lit up the screen behind
Susan, the members were
oohing
and
ahhing
, and each one had the same mesmerized
expression on their face--eyes bright, mouths alternating between
smiling and slack-jawed wonder. As Susan explained the finer points
of the opera house, the state-of-the-art stage, and the tourist
magnet that the mall would become, she could see the green light
blinking on each and every face of the board.

Except one:
Maestro Antonio Rossi. The hoary, cadaverously thin Maestro sat
quietly with his arms folded over his chest, listening to Susan’s
every word. And as each visual of Susan’s opera house blazed across
the screen, Maestro Rossi’s impassive expression changed, slowly
falling into a scowl, those severe gray eyebrows dipping down into
a disdainful
V
.

Susan ignored the
sullen orchestra leader and pushed on as the 3-D virtual
walk-through began. Glowing green lines made up the matrix that
constructed the building. As they moved through the building, they
passed under the arches of the main entrance, through the massive
lobby, and the twin bars for intermission, and in through the main
entrance to the music hall. There, the giant screen behind Susan
made all the difference, expanding the scope of the presentation,
allowing the board members to feel how massive and grand the hall
would be.

The tour went on to
show many of the cutting-edge stage changing devices, and some of
the backstage devices, even moving back to show the enormous
loading bay, just so there would never be a problem with bringing
scenery in, no matter what its size.

The tour moved
swiftly through the large office spaces and practice halls that
littered the upper floors, even the possible apartments and condos
further up.

The virtual tour shot
up through the top of the tower, spun around, and arched downward
until the point of view was at eye level, standing in front of the
whole complex.

The council broke out
in a round of applause, making Susan smile broadly and even blush.
But further up the table, right beside the council chairman,
Maestro Rossi shot her a scornful glare.

Susan gulped but
returned her attention to those who were now standing and moving
toward her to ask her questions about her “amazing opera
house.”

After almost ten
minutes of this, the council finally took their seats. The chairman
was talking quietly, yet animatedly, to the Maestro. Susan waited
patiently for the two men to give her their attention again.

“Ah, Miss. Rhodes,”
the chairman said, finally looking up. “Your presentation was very
impressive. We’ll give it the utmost...consideration.” At the last
word he glanced at the brooding Maestro.

Susan smiled at the
chairman, at each of the council members, and even to the taciturn
Maestro. “Thank you all for your time.”

She turned to help
Jill gather their supplies, but Jill already had everything stowed
away in her carryall satchel. Jill really was too good. Susan
looked at her watch. Only a quarter to eleven, so they had time to
shop for Jill’s new shoes before lunch at Bloomy’s.

They exited the
conference room and strode out to the waiting room. There were
already other architectural firms in waiting. Brad Nichols and Ed
White from Roman and Hendrickson, a congregation of drones from
Architect House, and--

“There’s Francesca
Costa,” Jill groaned, glancing in the woman’s direction.

Susan didn’t look,
she knew all too well what Francesca Costa looked like--Michelle
Pfeiffer with bigger boobs. She was always impeccably dressed,
though those Armani, Prada, and Dolce & Gabbana suits always
had to be specially tailored to showcase the woman’s magnificent
rack. And even though the first major building she’d designed was
back in the eighties, she didn’t look a day over thirty, not a line
on her exquisite, angular face, and her hair always a soft,
natural-looking blond.

Susan would know.
Francesca Costa had been her idol in college, her aspiration. She
admired Francesca’s style, her accomplishments, that she owned her
own architectural firm and yet made time to design many of the more
monumental buildings herself.

That was until
Francesca hadn’t hired Susan.

Susan had
prepared like mad, pouring over her résumé and portfolio, having
her hair and nails done, and maxing out her Visa to buy the perfect
black power suit. Francesca had glanced at her résumé, and had
flipped through the designs in her portfolio like a bored teenager
flipping through
Time Magazine
. She’d
snapped the case shut and impatiently handed it back to
Susan.

“No imagination,”
Francesca had said, smiling beautifully, yet looking
disappointed.

Her assistant had
ushered Susan from her office before she could say anything. Not
that Susan could’ve said anything. She was in shock. Costa
Architectural Consortium was her first and only choice. She hadn’t
planned on working at any other firm. For the next week, Susan
stayed in bed, ordered in pizza, and didn’t bother with any sort of
grooming, not even a shower.

When Liz
arrived--having excluded New York and Los Angeles as potential
cities to start her art career in, and insisting that Chicago was
an up and coming Mecca--she’d found Susan holed up in her
apartment, hair a horror, pizza boxes strewn everywhere, and
smelling like the ninth circle of hell.

She herded Susan into
the shower and dragged her out for Chinese food and a night on the
town. Some sesame chicken and three lemon drop martinis later, she
had a smile on Susan’s face, and half the bar hitting on them
both.

The next day, after
her hangover had faded, Susan started sending out her résumé all
over town--even out of town--and had wound up with a great offer
from Woods, Farrow, Blank and Stein.

So Susan felt no
need, compulsion or want, to ever lay eyes on Francesca Costa
again. All it meant was she had a little competition now. And if it
had been Francesca herself pitching a design for the opera house,
Susan would’ve given it a second thought. But Susan knew that
Francesca hadn’t designed anything in almost five years.