Whoops. That ballsy crack, although perfectly in character, meant she was now giving the back of her hand to university politics. Mouthing off in a national publication about some departmental power play is no way to endear yourself to college deans. It lays bare all their petty empire-building. Didn't seem to worry her, though; just like in the old days, she said exactly what she was thinking and let the chips tumble.
Her major occupation in recent years, as anybody who reads the op-ed pages around the country knows, was to shame American executives into getting off their duffs, to make them start diverting some of their executive perks into the serious problem of getting this country competitive again. She had plenty of ideas where the corporate-jet money could be better invested. Over the years she'd knocked out half a dozen books on technology and the American workplace—office automation, computer-aided design in engineering, robots and computer-integrated manufacturing, that kind of thing. Tam Richardson still believed America could whip the world, but it would take more than speeches and flag waving. Her latest expose of America's corporate fat cats, which actually got a sidebar in the story, claimed they'd better start cutting their million-dollar salaries and putting the money into creating American jobs, or we'd all soon end up fetching coffee for the new Pacific Rim dynamos and buying our goodies at East Asia's company store.
Only she didn't bother to say it that nicely. Worse than that, the book actually supplied a long list of America's more notoriously overpaid CEOs. I suspect there were a lot of corporate contributors to the university who'd just as soon seen her muzzled. Good luck, Tam.
Now the coincidence. The Saturday following my Friday night episode with the inscrutable president of Nippon, Inc., an event occurred that would soon bring Tam Richardson back into my life. Random luck? Fate? Anybody's guess. As it turned out, however, while I was on the phone leaving messages at country clubs for the building's attorneys, a mere five blocks away from my place Dr. Tamara Richardson was putting the final touches on preparations for an evening dinner party—destined to throw us together again only weeks later.
The dinner was supposed to be strictly social, to celebrate the beginning of her sabbatical—academic talk for a year off with three-quarters pay. There were a few dinner debts to square away, so the timing was perfect. She had several articles lined up; she'd finally axed a stormy year-long affair with a colleague in Economics named David Mason; and she was scheduled to begin a book on intelligent robots. She was trying not to think too much about academic politics and the real possibility her department chairman might consign her to some kind of academic hyperspace, there to teach freshmen for the rest of her tenured days.
By mid-afternoon she was down to the last-minute refinements on the evening's plans. Since the overnight rain had purged the soot from the air, she was feeling great. She put on a new Vangelis CD, worked a few modern-dance moves into her routine as she cleared the loose books out of the living room, and continued trying to convince herself that breaking off with Dave Mason had been a smart move. After a while, though, she wasn't humming anymore, just thinking. Okay, it had only been a week, but why had she invited him to come to the dinner? Just to be a good sport?
The thing about it was, they'd actually had a more or less
unspoken understanding not to inquire too closely into each other's occasional little diversions. They were both adults, right? This time, however, Dave had pushed it too far. He'd finally broken the rules, bringing one of his admiring grad students up to the apartment—her apartment. She bumped into them coming down in the elevator, and this one was a prize—stage makeup, bleached hair, the works.
Out of bounds. She'd nailed him right there in her marble lobby: you want to bang some Queens debutante, you'd better not be doing it here. This place is my home. She then told him to pack. The apartment was hers, and she wanted all signs of him out by Monday.
Then she'd invited him back for the dinner. Why? Could Humpty-Dumpty be put back together again? Crack eggs, make an omelet . . . she half smiled at the odd way your mind connects absurdities when you're a little overworked. . . .