long enough to ring him again, before he buzzed her into the front door of his building. She knew he could see her through the little camera above the buzzer and wondered if he had taken the time to inspect her before pressing the button. She hauled her sticky body up to the top floor, pausing on the landing to wipe the area under her eyes with a tissue from her pocket. A lot of her supposedly waterproof mascara had melted below the lashes. Sweating burns calories, her sister would say.
Howard opened the door and gave each hot cheek a kiss. She noticed a mist on the top of his head—the head was sweating, which she’d somehow never incorporated into the realm of possibility. But, of course, a bald head sweats, just like any other head. She remembered not to stare—men didn’t like that—but then, this was Howard; he was secure. He’d been bald for so long that he wore his skull without the anxiety of a man who it happens to later in life, and so he didn’t associate it with waning virility or whatever else.
He wore most of his distinguishing traits in that way, as incidental and entirely unremarkable. Such as the fact that he was the only Black person in Finster’s upper echelons in Germany, which he never, ever spoke about. He was technically in PR at Finster, but Anja had come to understand that the kind of soft power he’d acquired over the years was much more substantial than his official title accounted for. He would never move back to London, that was clear. He was firmly planted here. His German was impeccable, it sliced you like a paper cut.
Howard led Anja down the corridor past the living room, a mid-century forest of teak and mahogany, to the narrow kitchen where they always sat. Very far from the bed.
“Just water, thanks,” she said to his offer of a mug.
“Detox?”
“A bit jittery. I don’t need caffeine.”
“Busy in the lab lately?”
“Yes, actually. Or we’re about to be. This week is a big one.” She scare-quoted “big one.”
Without asking, he tipped a packet of electrolytes into the glass of water he’d filled and passed it to her with a spoon to stir.
“This is good timing, then. I have big news.” He scare-quoted “big news” in turn. “You probably know this already, but Finster is restructuring some departments at RANDI.” She was silent, then capitulated to admitting she didn’t know, shaking her head slightly. “Oh,” he said. “Well, now you know. They aren’t cutting the whole sector or anything, but they’re consolidating a lot of the subsectors. Most of Alloys is merging into General Futures. And Cartilage is merging back into Biodegradables, where it probably should have stayed in the first place.”
She got a split-second heart palpitation. “Back to Biodegradables? I used to be in that sector, remember, but then we all decided Cartilage should split off, because we were doing construction, not degradation.”
“Right. Your special mission, which you’ve bemoaned so much. But now your mission is complete. Voilá.”
She chewed the inside of her cheek and fingered the earbuds in her pocket. Ear buds, she thought. Small lumps of cartilage from which ears will sprout.
“It’s not technically finished, though,” she said slowly. “We still haven’t actually grown the thing in the lab that we were supposed to be making.”
“I don’t know anything about the science,” he said, and laughed, “but think of this as a big high five from the top. Apparently, they think you accomplished what you set out to do.”
“So we’re going back from whence we came. Compost.”
“Nope. That’s the thing. I don’t know about the other guy who you were working with, but they’ve set you free.”
“Free? Am I fired?”
“Why do you always expect the worst?” He paused for drama. “In fact, you’re promoted straight to consultant. Laboratory Knowledge Management Consultant, I think they’re calling it.”
She shook her head. It didn’t make any sense. “No, Howard. I’m just a lab tech. I haven’t done anything they could consult me on.” Consultant was not a title she’d ever associated with her present or future. Louis was the consultant, not her.
He seemed to be following her thoughts. “Oh, and Louis has? You know you don’t need to have any consulting experience to become a consultant.”
She bit back. “Louis is highly qualified for his job, actually.”
Howard raised his hands in mock defense. “I didn’t mean he wasn’t. I’m just saying that the qualification is not what you think it is. The qualification is just that they decide you can do it.”
She chewed her cheek, hard. “What does a knowledge manager do?”
“Whatever you want. You get a pay raise and go around telling people what to do. Threaten them if they don’t work fast enough. Do audits, interviews, suggest some restructuring where you think it’s needed. You know the drill.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know how long your first term is. Probably a year.”
“But why would they want to fire me from my job and hire me back to do nothing for more money?”
He raised his hands. “That’s how companies run. You do the time and you move up the ladder, if you’re lucky. Why all the questions?”
She swirled her glass of electrolytes without taking a sip. “Here’s a question. Since when did you become my boss? HR should be telling me this.”
He shrugged innocently. “I was on the phone with HR this morning, mentioned you were coming by, and they said I should go ahead and tell you myself. Call over if you don’t believe me.”
Howard had, of course, been involved marginally in her job at RANDI, her house—everything—for a long time. Finster was involved in all of it, and at some point Howard had become her main interface with Finster’s back end. Howard knew stuff, Howard was the cloud, that was the point of Howard. In that regard, his giving her this information was not surprising. Nothing was changing between them, not really. But she couldn’t ignore the feeling that this news he was bestowing upon her was more intrusive than some of the other ways he’d elbowed into her life.
“Am I being insensitive about this?” Howard asked. “You seem sort of subdued.”
“I’ll have to think about it.”
“Don’t be such a girl.” He smiled. “Man up. Take what’s yours.”
“I love it when men tell me to man up.”
“Just trying to boost your confidence. But take your time. Someone will email you a draft of the contract to look over. That’s all I know.”
“Thanks.” She tried to sound grateful. Guilt, gratitude: they were always twins. It was time to steer the conversation elsewhere. When Howard chose to play dumb there was no piercing the shell.
“Do you think they’ll let me consult on my own house?” she asked. “The Berg could use a scientist.”
Howard laughed. “I doubt it. The Berg is a whole beast of its own. How are things at home? I guess that’s what you actually came to talk about.”
She realized that, actually, she didn’t have a very good reason for having come here, any more than Howard had a good reason for being the one to fire and rehire her. Neither the technical malfunction in her home nor her job officially had anything to do with him. What she had really come here for was Howard himself: his signature blend of affection, approval, and authority. He would, as he always did, oblige her complaints in exchange for feeling depended upon. He liked to be needed; she offered an assortment of needs.
“I was just wondering if you have any sort of . . . overview about what’s going on with the mountain,” she said. “The temperature and everything is totally erratic. All the