The Third Grace (28 page)

Aglaia walked through the doors of Incognito and was swarmed by her workmates asking questions about the trip and squealing as she handed out Eiffel Tower fridge magnets. During the commotion, Eb MacAdam lumbered through his office door.

“What are you doing out and about when I told you to catch up on your rest?” he asked, engulfing Aglaia in a bear hug. She squeezed back, maybe for the first time ever. It was just a reflex, she told herself.

“I came to return Moses' staff.” She could have waited till Monday, but it was a handy excuse for driving all the way downtown when she might have been pressing her dress and choosing her shoes for tonight. “Besides, I wanted to bring you something from Paris.” The box of
Punitions
cookies was sealed with a foil sticker bearing the name
Poilâne
. It was the last of her souvenirs to dispense; she'd left an apron printed with cheese wedges on the kitchen counter for her mom and a calendar with French agricultural landscapes for her dad.

“Sit yourself right here and I'll brew something to wash these biscuits down. I'd love to hear all about the costume delivery, but let's save that for next week, after you've written up a report for me.” Eb grinned; he knew she hated word processing. “But tell me how your father's doing.”

“I've probably got enough time.” She checked his office wall clock and determined to keep the interaction as neutral as possible, though Eb's cozy confidentiality invited secrets. She filled him in on the heart attack and the harvest, but the mistiness of his eyes took her off guard and, though she managed to avoid reference to more personal problems, she slipped up and mentioned the business offer made by Henry and Tina.

“I can't see myself doing farm work as a weekend habit,” she said to exonerate herself.

“I can,” Eb said and then, as though he were quoting directly from the Bible, “God sets the lonely in families, and only the rebellious live in the sun-scorched land.” Was he calling her rebellious? She began to refute the point but Eb kept talking. “As the wise Solomon said, a father's instruction and a mother's teaching are like a garland to grace the head and a chain to adorn the neck.”

“I'm in my thirties, for Pete's sake!” Aglaia laughed, but the biblical injunction rubbed her the wrong way. She thought she was done with garlands and necklaces.

“One never outgrows the great truths of literature, don't you agree?” Eb had a wily way of weaving her into the tapestry of his conversation.

“Solomon lived back where myth and history intersected,” she said, reiterating Lou's last comment to her though she hardly remembered hearing it. “Who can tell whether the writer's words are true or not, and does it matter anyway?”

Aglaia spoke in an off-hand way but she knew it mattered, so she didn't let Eb say anything when she saw his wisdom gathering in a crease between his bushy, silvered brows. Instead, she stood up, ready with an excuse to dodge more of his words that might hit home.

“I've got to go,” she said. “I need to pick up a couple of things at the drugstore and have enough time to wash and style my hair for tonight.” Maybe she'd pin it up in loose curls, since Dayna had clued her in that the formal function would be attended by Hollywood dignitaries. It was a once-in-a-blue-moon chance to capitalize on Lou's connections and convince Platte River University about her suitability. She finished explaining to Eb, “I've been asked to some swanky university dinner tonight and I'm pulling out all the stops.”

Eb's teacup clattered onto his saucer. “Do you mean the black-tie affair over at the Oxford?”

Her assumption had been right then. “I take it that the mysterious deal you've been working on so hard is for the same film after all, Eb—the
Buffalo Bill
prequel? It just dawned on me recently that there was a correlation between our project and the gala tonight.”

Eb looked shaken. “I suppose I should have told you a wee bit more detail regarding the contract we've been courting, but I didn't want to break your concentration on the Paris assignment,” he said. “In fact, I had a surprise visit from the Hollywood film company this week.”

Aglaia sat down again. Anything Eb could tell her might help her chances tonight with Oliver Upton—possibly her future boss. She suffered a pang of remorse over her intention to fleece Eb for information to her own advantage. He'd never hold her back from professional growth, but he'd also never condone any underhandedness. And she was being underhanded. However, Aglaia was increasingly convinced that PRU could give her what she needed, and this was the way the world operated, after all.

Eb asked, “How did you as an Incognito employee wrangle an invitation to the university affair? I hear it's a tightly closed event.” Aglaia read between the lines: He disapproved and wouldn't have gone himself, even if begged.

“A friend asked me to escort her ages ago. I thought it was just another run-of-the-mill arts mixer, but now it appears as though I'll be in enemy territory tonight.” She framed her next words craftily. “Would you rather I not attend?” Aglaia held her breath over her bluff, not meeting Eb's eyes but picking at the stitching on her purse handle. To her relief, he answered in the negative.

“No, by all means go. After all, it's not as though Incognito were the one currying the favor of the studio. You understand that PRU is shamelessly trying to get the costuming account, don't you?”

“Oh, I hadn't realized…” Aglaia let her voice falter despite the guilt she felt over her deceit.

“In fact,” he said, selecting a folder from his filing drawer, “you should be armed before entering their camp.” He held out the thick report labeled
RoundUp Bid Tender
. “You may as well have a look at it now. I think you'll be as excited as I am about the project possibilities.”

Aglaia couldn't believe her luck, Eb handing her the sensitive data like this. She paged through the file, noting the scale of the job and the challenge it would present for Incognito—or whoever would win the contract bid. She was sincere in her approving comments about Eb's marketing skills: his selection of costume sketches from her own portfolio, his division of labor that depended heavily on her input as head designer, the record of Incognito's past successes—many of them her own creations.

That's when she spotted what she hadn't allowed herself to admit she was looking for—the bottom-line figure Eb had submitted for the bid to win the
Buffalo Bill
wardrobing contract. She almost gasped. Little wonder the university wanted this account and that Lou was meddling in it!

At that moment the penny dropped for Aglaia. As clear as day, she understood that Lou was using her and that, if her services were procured as the consultant for Oliver Upton's arts department, Eb would be left handicapped, without a chance at winning the movie contract, which—as Eb's tender proposal made clear—rested greatly upon her own skills. Aglaia would then be working for the competitor on the most lucrative deal Incognito Denver had ever had a shot at. She stood at a fork in her road, knowing she faced a decision of much greater magnitude than whatever job she'd have in a week from now. She stood at a moral crossroads, cursed without a compass if she continued to reject the guidance of morality offered by the biblical convictions of her forebears.

“A
re you ill, Aglaia?” Eb, waiting to refile the folder, had seen the lass's eyes widen and the color leave her cheeks. She shook her head, but she'd seemed edgy since entering his office half an hour ago and, for all her pother about getting home to change for the evening, she didn't look as though she'd be going anywhere just yet. He topped up her china teacup and poked it towards her. “Take a sip.”

It was good to have Aglaia back safe and sound. There was always some danger in travel these days, and he didn't know what the business would do if it lost her. But of course travel wasn't the most likely way to lose Aglaia. He wasn't blind; he was aware of the risk that his training and her proficiency could result in her defection to another company. Perhaps that was even the reason for her attendance at the festivities this evening; perhaps she was trolling for a new job. He'd known it before he handed her the classified RoundUp file, but true freedom of will was predicated upon knowledge of one's options, Eb believed, and at the end of the day he had confidence in Aglaia's ethics and discretion. If he couldn't trust her with sensitive information, then he'd misjudged her as management material for Incognito.

But the poor thing looked miserable at the moment, so Eb took Aglaia's hand in his own. She didn't pull it away as at other times he'd chanced such an unprofessional, fatherly touch.

“What's troubling you, lass?”

She bit her bottom lip, she shifted in her chair. “I'm petrified,” she finally blurted.

“I suspected as much. Your eyes are stormy.” He waited; there was more, he was sure.

“I've been reading the Bible,” she said with effort, as though admitting to pornography. Eb was gratified to hear it; the Bible seemed to be the last book most people picked up these days.

“Ah. That would do it.”

“What are you saying? The Bible is supposed to bring comfort, first of all.”

“Where did you get that daft idea?”

“I used to be comforted when I read it long ago,” she said, and he knew then that the inscrutable Aglaia had a past of faith, after all. “But all the comfort dried up,” Aglaia said. “The words keep haunting me but they mean nothing, as though I'm reading Greek.”

“Perhaps it's just seemed that way to you for a period—your soul's dark night.” Eb had discovered that when one lost faith in the literature, one lost faith in the writer—no matter the book. “You feel as though God has let you down?”

Eb moved the tissue box a bit closer to Aglaia, just in case. She sniffled but didn't respond. “The Bible's not some fabrication like this,” he said, pointing to
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
, “or this.” He nudged the copy of
Theogony
still sitting where Aglaia had put it down before her trip to Paris. “In these the reader is invited to gain immortality through the nectar of the gods, or be saved from a crisis by emptying a glass fortuitously labeled ‘Drink me.' But I've found the Bible is no quick fix for the psyche, nor is it some vague commentary about the inclination we all have towards the supernatural.”

“It sure isn't a quick fix. I'd just as soon read either of those,” she said bitterly, pointing to the books Eb indicated, “as trust in something that promises hope and doesn't deliver.” Eb discerned a wailing in her heart, like a little girl missing home, and breathed unspoken words to God:
Lord, hear her prayer!

Aglaia pulled a tissue. “I don't know why I'm crying,” she apologized. Eb had never seen her weep. He patted her hand again.

“I've always said a few tears are cleansing, lass. We were born from the waters of our mother's womb, after all—a river meant from eternity to sweep us into the glassy sea, into the presence of the Lord. Longing for heaven but made of the earth, we all climb out onto dry land to save ourselves and end up wandering in circles in the desert, noses to the ground, lost in the middle until the voice of the Living Waters calls us on.”

Aglaia had a mushy clump of tissues in her hand, and Eb lifted his trash basket from behind the desk for her convenience.

“If you love the Bible so much, why surround yourself with all these other books? How do you know they're not just as real, just as true, as
that
?” Aglaia pointed her chin towards Eb's hand resting now on the large-print, illustrated version of the Bible he kept at work for when he needed a little pick-me-up.

“You keep reading your Bible and you'll know the difference,” Eb said. His words weren't the ones that would confirm truth to her heart—it would take the Scripture itself to convince her, he knew. “A wiser man than I once said that the Bible fulfills all the longings aroused by fairy tales passed down through the ages and tells us what they really mean. Look into the Word and it will look right back at you; it will see you and change you. It's a living text. You can read every other book in the world, lass, but the Bible is the only book that reads you.”

The uniformed doorman at the hotel directed Aglaia through the Victorian lobby to the Sage Room. She entered to the strains of a Latin soul band and the flux of the elegant masses milling between tables set with linen and silver—definitely not in the cowboy theme one might expect for celebrating a western movie, she thought. The chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling cast a glow that bounced off sparkling earrings and sequined gowns. Her own little black dress wasn't floor length, and the retro Japanese buttons scavenged at a garage sale—a few of which she'd worked into a simple bracelet—weren't even cut glass. Perhaps her style might pass as “understated,” but she already felt out of place.

“There you are.” Lou moved away from her surrounding group and greeted Aglaia by kissing the air near her ears, French style. She was wearing the flamboyant magenta designer dress purchased in Paris. “Come and meet my associates.”

They were turning heads, she and Lou. Someone placed a flute of champagne in her hand and Lou led her regally into the throng by the elbow, introducing her as a chef might present his
pièce de résistance
, alternatively as one of America's top costume designers and as a world traveler just returned from an international business trip to meet leading curators in Paris. Aglaia didn't know how to put the lid on Lou's exaggeration, and her sputtered disavowals withered beneath their praise—praise Lou seemed to take as complimentary to herself, the way she puffed up and beamed. She once even said, “She's sitting with me up front tonight. Perhaps she'll have a word to say to us all then.”

A word to say? Aglaia hoped Lou was kidding. She gulped at the thought of speaking publicly and eyed the head table set on a dais above the multitude. But she'd better get used to the limelight if she intended to work in this circle.
Since
she intended to work in this circle, she corrected herself. Her decision to go for the PRU position was all but sealed, and if it took dropping the sum of Incognito's bid into the right ear, she might be willing to do even that. The realization of her own avarice threatened to sadden her.

Throughout the cocktail hour Lou and Aglaia flitted from one cluster to another, here meeting a colleague from the sociology department, there a scriptwriter. The words came more easily to Aglaia with each introduction, the flattery of being recognized grew more pleasant. It was good that Eb wasn't present tonight because his down-to-earth honesty would be embarrassed for her, especially after their talk this afternoon that she was trying to banish from her mind.

“You're perfect arts world material,” Lou said
sotto voce
as the university's president raised a glass in their direction over coiffed and dandied heads. Aglaia was at last succeeding at her long-held desire to rub the bumpkin off herself. Lou disappeared to consult with hotel management, leaving Aglaia to stand solitary in the crush. Behind her two women gossiped, speculating on who was who.

“Is that Brad Pitt over there by the
hors d'oeuvres
table? There's a rumor he owns a home in the area.”

“I don't think so—get a load of the ugly escort. Speaking of which, did you see Chapman's new girl? She's a pretty decoration, but not Lou's usual sort.”

Jolted, Aglaia listened more closely.

“I heard she's grooming a new
protégé
. But what's Lou doing here anyway? I thought this dinner was an arts event.”

“I heard about an alliance between arts and sociology, something to do with this movie—it's been kept very hush-hush.”

“Well, she sure loves to show off. Take a gander at that gown! I suppose she thinks she can get away with it because she's from New York.”

Their voices faded as they moved away, but Aglaia continued to eavesdrop wherever possible. She sidled up to a rookery of scholarly types who were arguing the shortcomings of blind peer review. Boring, she thought as she moved towards the champagne fountain, a hot spot in the room, and listened in as a tall fellow in Armani raved with a couple of associates in a Californian accent about some designer's portfolio. Just then, Lou caught up to her with a stout, bearded man in tow.

“Aglaia Klassen, I'd like you to meet Dr. Oliver Upton, head of the university theater department,” Lou said. Aglaia's belly jumped with nervousness. This was the man responsible for hiring the new wardrobe consultant!

“Pleased to meet you, Dr. Upton,” Aglaia said.

“Call me Oliver.” He pumped her hand. “So you're the genius Lou's been bragging about. I've kept an eye out for your work ever since she recommended you to me. You're a busy gal.”

Aglaia made a polite objection but Lou broke in. “You'll soon learn that creativity is greatly admired in this crowd, Aglaia. Get used to it.”

“Talent like yours shouldn't be wasted in the private sector,” Oliver said. “The university has funding to encourage
real
arts development.” He laughed heartily, but it sounded fake to Aglaia.

“Excuse me for interrupting,” the Armani-clad stranger broke in. “I couldn't help overhearing. I don't think we've met formally yet.” He introduced himself as Jerry from RoundUp Studios, along with his coworkers, then turned to Aglaia and began conversationally, “I hear you're the city's up-and-comer for costume design.” Aglaia read something more beneath his off-hand manner, and both Lou and Oliver were listening intently. “I understood you worked for a private firm, not the university.”

“Well, at the moment I do.” How had he known her employment history?

“I met your boss earlier this week,” Jerry said, reading her mind. He was likely curious about why she was at the university function—the competitor's territory—to begin with, but he didn't ask. Aglaia's face heated up; it looked bad for Incognito that she was here and, besides, Eb's words from earlier today still echoed in her mind as though he were standing next to her.

“Her
current
boss,” Oliver interjected in the discussion. “We hope to remedy that soon—don't we, Lou?” A knowing glance passed between the two.

“On that note, Oliver, why don't you and Aglaia find a quiet spot somewhere while I squire these gentlemen around?” Lou asked. She took Jerry by the arm.

“Yes, let's move out into the lobby and have a chat about the advantages of working for Platte River University,” Oliver suggested. Aglaia saw him hand Lou a royal blue cloth folder, nodding meaningfully at it, as though Lou should take care of the item for him.

During the next few minutes, as Aglaia stood by a marble column, Oliver Upton pitched the consulting position to her, outlining the salary scale and the benefits she might expect to receive if she accepted his offer.

His tone indicated he expected her to accept. When he alluded to the possibility that she might have information from Incognito useful to PRU, Aglaia didn't contradict him though she didn't tell him yet the figure she'd read in Eb's office, either. He smiled smugly as though they had a deal, then, and Aglaia felt powerful and very desired.

“We'd be delighted to have you join our team, Aglaia. Submit your
resumé
directly to my office—don't go through human resources, now—and we'll set up an interview for early next week. Just a formality,” Oliver said as they re-entered the ballroom. He gave the thumbs-up to Lou, who rejoined Aglaia now.

“You made an excellent impression,” Lou said.

“How can Oliver tell anything about me with that short an interview? I hardly said anything.”

“He values my referral of you, and he made the job offer, didn't he? Besides, I meant you impressed the movie VIPs, too.” Then, almost inaudible as though speaking to herself, Lou added, “This is going better than planned.” She checked her Gucci watch and frowned over towards the entrance as though awaiting someone who was late.