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Chapter One

 

“I know I had eyes when I got into bed last night,” Renny says, facing her fuzzy reflection in the bathroom mirror.   You shouldn’t have had that fourth glass of wine, her swollen eyelids declare. 

Renny Shuler shuffles into the bedroom, hating that Monday morning has once again arisen from the ashes of a perfectly enjoyable Sunday.   She peeks out the window to check the weather.  It’s only six-thirty in the morning but she already spots the early birds heading toward the subway to beat their co-workers to the office.   As two joggers wait for the light on West End Avenue with their legs pumping in place, Renny swears she can feel the pint of Ben & Jerry’s she devoured at midnight congealing on her thighs. She yawns, “What the hell are those people doing out exercising this early?

Turning from the window, she knocks into the nightstand, rattling the empty wineglass perched near the edge.  Last night was the three-week anniversary of her break-up with Michael and the official end to her mourning period.  To commemorate the occasion, she spent the night in good company with Chinese take-out and a bottle of Merlot.   Granted her relationship with Michael only lasted five weeks, but she figures a break-up anniversary is better than none at all. 

Stripping off her pajamas while waiting for the shower water to warm-up, Renny glances in the bathroom mirror and thankfully notices that her eyelids have lifted a centimeter or two.   The phone rings and Renny dashes across the apartment to answer.  “Hello.”

“Good morning, daughter.”

Renny smiles.  “Hi, Ma.”

“Wait, I have to get your father.” Her mother drops the phone and Renny hears muffled complaining as her mother pulls her father away from his newspaper.

“How’s my birthday girl?” he asks.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Ready?” her parents say.

“Yeah, I’m ready.”

Renny listens as her parents sing “Happy Birthday,” their off-key voices jarring her ear.  “That was great.  Listen, I have to get in the shower or I’ll be late for work.” 

“You’re going to work on your birthday?” her mother asks.  “They couldn’t give you the day off?”

“Shirley, leave her alone,” her father says in the background.

“What’s wrong with giving someone the day off on their birthday?” her mother retorts, clearing her throat.

“Ma, millions of people have to work on their birthday.”

“If you were—” her mother begins.

“Don’t start, not today, ‘kay?” Renny says.

“But you’re thirty now.”

Did she think I didn’t know that, Renny thinks, gripping her patience by the edge of her bitten down nails.  “I know I’m thirty.  Listen, I have to go or I’ll be late for work.”

“By thirty your brother was already married.” 

“Well, I bet Ira still went to work on his birthday.”

“You can’t compare yourself to your brother,” her mother admonishes. “He’s a man and you’re a woman.  It’s different.” 

Shoot me now, Renny thinks.

“Don’t forget, you’re coming out for dinner tomorrow night.  Are you sure you can’t come tonight?”

“No, Ma.  I told you.  I’m having dinner with Gaby and Sara.”

“Your friends are more important than your family?” her mother says, not bothering to conceal her annoyance.

“I don’t have time to schlep out to Jersey tonight.  Work is really busy.”

“Your employer doesn’t understand—” her words transform into a phlegm filled cough.  The hacking pierces through Renny, automatically giving rise to her ire. 

“I have to go, Ma.”

“One minute.” 

Renny hears her mother drop the phone; her cough resonating in the distance.   It is a harsh noise that for the last decade has played in the background of Renny’s life.  The sound of crinkling paper causes Renny to hold the phone away.  Her mother comes back on, “I needed a cough drop.”

No, Renny thinks, you needed to give up the five pack a day habit ten years sooner than you did. 

“Don’t they understand you have a family?”  Her mother’s words are punctuated by a sucking sound. 

“Ma, I can’t be late for work.” 

“Fine, just a minute.”  Her mother yells away from the phone, “Herb, come on already.”  Renny hears the rustling of her father’s newspaper dropping again.  “Come on Herb, she hasn’t got all day.  Hurry, pick up the phone.”  Then in unison, “We love you!”

“Love you, too,” Renny parrots.

Heading back to the bathroom, her temples throb after talking to her mother.  Why do I let her make me crazy, Renny wonders?

Because that’s my maternal right, her mother’s voice echoes as if from a microchip implanted in Renny’s head. 

Hot and toasty in the shower, she drowns out the echo of her mother’s carping by singing a torchy version of ‘Happy Birthday.’

***

Soon Renny is in the kitchen swathed in her nubby blue Nick and Nora bathrobe.  Her hair is wrapped in a towel turban as she sips a cup of coffee while waiting for her laptop to power up on the kitchen table.  Michael’s recorded voice singing “Good morning to you” greets her as she signs on.

“Mourning is over,” she declares and ceremoniously hits her delete key.  “Buh-bye.” 

      While reading her e-mail, Renny recalls the last time she actually had a boyfriend on her birthday.  That would be Peter Walley, her steady in the fourth grade, but he probably doesn’t count since they never kissed.  Renny’s first real kiss came when she was twelve.

It was an April morning in 1985 that started like every other Saturday morning that year.  Renny’s mother drove her to Ranwell’s Dance Studio, where she and forty other seventh graders would spend an hour learning how to dance through the upcoming year’s Bar and Bat Mitzvah circuit.  Ranwell’s was located in the center of Springfield, the suburban New Jersey town where Renny grew up. 

 “I’ll pick you up in an hour,” her mother said, when they pulled up in front. 

“No, don’t,” Renny said.  “Last week a bunch of kids went to the diner for lunch.  I think I’ll go with them.”  At least she hoped to be included, especially if Doug was going.  Doug Nagel was the reigning king of cool at Springfield Junior High, whereas Renny hung on at the edge of cool, like the fringe of a poncho. 

“With what money?”  Her mother reached for the lit cigarette in the ashtray below the radio.  Ribbons of smoke streamed from her mouth, tangoing in the air.  She was clad in her usual floral housecoat and a trashy hat of kerchief and rollers.  Renny prayed her mother wouldn’t get out of the car.

“I have my babysitting money,” Renny said.  Outside several girls walked past the car, their blue suede clogs making a clop-clop sound on the cement sidewalk.  Renny begged her mother for a pair last month, but with her father still out of work, there was no way.  “If we can’t afford the diner, then how come we can afford these stupid dance lessons?”

“It’s important for a girl to know how to dance.  You have to dance at your wedding someday.” 

“What if I never get married?”

Her mother waved her hand dismissively.  “Narishkeit.”  Her mother loved to pepper her language with the few Yiddish words she knew.  That one meant “nonsense.”  She thought it lent her an old world air, but Renny knew it just made her seem old. 

During dance class, Renny found herself doing the Locomotion next to Lisa Wexler, Doug’s good friend.

      “A bunch of us are going to my house to hang out after lessons.  Do you want to come?” Lisa asked.

      “Sure!” Renny said. 

      Mrs. Wexler greeted the group of five boys and six girls at the front door, her brown hair in a pageboy that kissed her chin on both sides.  She wore a fitted shirt with a geometric design and a chocolate-brown, suede skirt.  Renny watched with envy as Lisa and her mother easily bantered back and forth about dance class.  Figures, Renny thought, behind every cool girl there stands a cool mom. 

Downstairs in the Wexler’s dark paneled basement, Lisa announced, “Let’s play Seven Minutes in Heaven.”  After two couples and fourteen minutes, Doug chose Renny as his closet partner. 

A pungent smell of mothballs stung Renny’s nostrils as she stood in the dark closet waiting for her never-been-kissed lips to be christened.   

“There you are,” Doug murmured just before pressing his lips against hers.  Broom bristles poked her right ankle as old winter coats pushed the two of them together like matchmakers. 

Dreamily, Renny still remembers the strange and rubbery texture of his lips and how she’d slurped, trying to keep saliva from dripping down her chin as their tongues commuted back and forth.  Then someone from outside pulled the closet door open, bathing them in white fluorescent light.  Stumbling from the closet, Renny took a seat on the cream shag carpeting next to Lisa.  Dreams of parading through school in couplehood filled her mind.  She longed to try that hand in each other’s back pocket thing, like she saw her older brother Ira doing with his girlfriend Carla. 

“I think Doug likes you,” Lisa mouthed.

Renny giggled in response.

“My turn,” Mary Huxley said, with a flip of her honey-colored hair.  She strode over to Doug, who was lying on the floor with his feet propped up on a bean bag chair.  When Doug stood, Renny’s heart fell. 

Watching them go into the closet, she tried to quiet the voices casting doubt in her head.  So what if Mary Huxley sprouted boobs in fourth grade and at twelve was better endowed than most girls’ mothers?  After all, Renny told herself, Doug shared seven very special minutes with me.

She kept her eyes crazy-glued to the clock, blurting out, “It’s seven minutes,” as the big hand ticked for the seventh time. 

“I’ll knock,” Theresa Wimbasa said, crawling over to the closet and rapping on the door.  “Come out!  Times up!” 

Doug and Mary stepped out, their mouths puffed into matching grins.  There was a bright red hue to their lips, as if they just finished sucking cherry lollipops. 

  Suddenly Renny was painfully aware of the scuffmarks on her same old brown loafers.  Tears poked at the back of her eyes as she struggled to ignore the scrape on her heart.  She stared at Doug, willing him to look at her.  When he did, she met his gaze, keeping her tears in check.  For a moment he opened his mouth as if about to speak, but then Mary sidled up next to him.  She watched with a lump in her throat as Doug rubbed a hand across his mouth, and without a word he turned away and back into the boy she could look at, but not touch.  That’s when Renny glanced down and saw it.  Mary and Doug had their hands in each other’s back pockets.

Eighteen years and many kisses later, her adult relationships have been just as disappointing. 

Renny pours another cup of coffee, thinking that all the men in her life come with a short expiration date, turning sour after two months. The most recent was Michael.  After only five weeks of dating they got together at Grapes, a wine bar on the Upper West Side.  Two sips into her glass of Cabernet, he told her, “I think we should see other people.” 

“Oh.”  Renny had hoped they would be moving toward exclusivity, not open house.  “Well…huh?”  She swirled her wine to stave off a response.  “I guess…yeah, I see.  I mean, we don’t have to get serious just yet.  But let’s save Saturday nights for us.  After all, that’s date night.”

“You don’t understand,” he said.  “When I said other people, I meant as in not us.”

She gulped her wine hoping it would help digest his words.  “But my birthday’s in three weeks.  I’m going to be thirty.”

“I know.  That’s why I’m doing it now.  I didn’t want to ruin your birthday.”  Then he threw down a twenty to cover their round and pushed back his chair.  “I’ll see you,” he said and left.

Renny immediately downed the rest of her wine and then drank his.  She didn’t cry.  After all, it’s not like she thought he was it.  It’s just that she hoped to enter her fourth decade holding hands, instead of wringing them.

Shaking off the ghosts of relationships past, Renny clicks on her calendar and focuses on her schedule for that day.  She has a meeting scheduled this morning with her boss, Val.   Her insides churn.  When Renny was hired seven months ago by the marketing firm of Heffner, Wilde and Cooke, she hoped Val would become her mentor. 

She got part of that right.

Val is her tormentor, the quintessential bitch boss from hell.  Renny is positive Val would whip her like a horse if she could.  Instead, she inflicts her pain more subtly by stifling all of Renny’s creative ideas and belittling her frequently throughout the day.

Taking a sip of coffee, Renny surfs the web in search of job listings.  Having been employed at six companies in the last eight years, Renny has managed to job hop laterally from one corporate ladder to the next.  Her income has edged up a fraction with each job change but the rent on her small studio apartment keeps going up by whole numbers, making her paycheck-to-paycheck living hard to manage.  When she moved into this apartment, Renny saw it as a great stepping stone to the spacious one bedroom shimmering in her future.  Now she often wonders if the only thing ahead is a closet in Hoboken, furnished with a swinging light bulb and a beanbag chair.

“Well, at least this is a doorman building,” Renny mumbles.  She’s always taken great pride in the doorman thing.

Uninspired by any of the job listings, Renny goes to get dressed.  Living with a random five- to fifteen-pound weight fluctuation has led to a closet that ranges from size six to size ten with a few twelves hidden deep in the back, strictly for fat period days.  This morning the scale announces that Renny is at her low of 124 pounds, despite scarfing down high sodium food and alcohol the night before and having put her second foot on the scale quicker than usual.

Happily scanning the skinny section of her closet, Renny pulls out her new black dress and slips it on.  What it would be like to have a closet without a fat section, she wonders.

Carefully checking her reflection from every angle, she is pleased.  At this morning’s weight and her usual five feet three and a quarter, Renny isn’t rail thin, but in this dress no one would call her fat either.  Renny stalked this dress—originally priced at $275—for two months at Saks, waiting for it to go on sale.   It was definitely worth the effort.

It’s not that Renny isn’t attractive.  With her big brown eyes, long wavy chestnut hair, the right outfit and attitude, she has no problem pulling off attractive.  It’s just that these stars line up for her on rare occasion.  Most days, Renny wears a well-worn cloak of disarray with frizzed hair and faded make-up. 

Taking out her blow dryer and setting her hopes on a good hair day, Renny contemplates her birthday plans. After work she is meeting her two best friends, Gaby and Sara, for a celebratory dinner.  The three of them met twelve years earlier as freshmen at Syracuse University.  Inseparable during school, they all chose to move to Manhattan after graduation, sharing a one-bedroom apartment in their early years after college.  They are meeting tonight at Volume, a hot new Manhattan eatery where the food presentation is even more beautiful than the pretty models pretending to eat it. 

With a final spritz of hairspray, Renny stuffs her blow dryer back in the drawer of her vanity and checks the clock sitting on top.

Eight forty-five.

“Shit!” Renny exclaims. “I can’t be late for work again.”  Rushing around her apartment, she debates her transportation options.

Cab.  No good.  After paying the Hunan Park delivery guy last night she has only a dollar and a MetroCard left in her wallet.

A trip to the cash machine cancels out the time saved by the cab. 

The only option is the subway and being late.  Being temporally impaired, Renny always seems to be living life down to the last minute and usually twenty minutes past that.

Quickly she throws herself together and is at the door of her apartment.  She takes a quick scan of her stuff–briefcase, keys, shoes and make-up case for quick application on the subway.

“Oops, almost forgot the laptop!”  Renny dashes to the kitchen, shuts it down, and stuffs it in her bag. 

The phone rings. 

She debates answering, but instead lets her machine to pick up.  Anyone calling during the morning rush deserves to be screened.  The familiar voice of an elderly man emanates from her machine, his consonants blending to sound as if he’s clearing his throat, giving hint to his Eastern European heritage.  “Khello.  Khello…Cosmo’s Deli?  It’s Mendelbaum, vere the hell is my tea and pineapple danish?  You’re late and I’m vaiting!” 

Renny glances at her watch.

“Auch, damned machines!” he yells.  A banging noise and the obvious fumbling of a phone reverberates through her apartment, followed by a loud click and a dial tone. 

Renny lets the apartment door close behind her and heads off to take her place among the masses.

***

Bobbing and weaving through the morning crowds like a punch-drunk prizefighter, Renny ducks into the deli across the street from her office.  There is no way she can face a meeting with Val without an extra jolt of caffeine.

As she reaches the counter, Elsay, the owner of the deli, greets her.  “Renny, what can I get for you on this beautiful morning?”  Elsay is a Middle Eastern man in his early forties, a thin black mustache stretched above his mouth.  As usual, he wears a powder blue button-down shirt, black slacks and a white apron.

“Just black coffee and a buttered roll,” Renny answers.

“I have fresh oat bran poppy brioche,” he offers.  “Or how about a slice of double blueberry loaf?” 

How can someone get so excited over bread, she wonders?  “No thanks, Elsay.  Just black coffee and a buttered roll.  I have to be in a meeting in a few minutes.”

Grabbing the items from the stacks on the counter he “tsk, tsks” under his breath while putting them in a bag.  “Always black coffee and a buttered roll.  Is so boring.  Today is your birthday.  You should live a little.” 

“How did you know it was my birthday?” 

“A good business man knows everything about his customers.”   He winks. 

Renny’s banter with Elsay has become a staple in her morning diet over these last few months.  The fact that he has a crush on her, however unrequited, doesn’t bother her at all, especially since it always ensures her a better place in line.

Renny reaches for her wallet and her stomach sinks.  She doesn’t have enough cash.  Luckily, Elsay waves her off, giving her the bag.  “No, no, this morning is on the house.  Happy birthday.”

A heavyset man in line behind her yells, “Hey, Elsay, how come I didn’t get nothing free on my birthday?”

Elsay snaps, “Be quiet!  Or I spit in your decaf.”  He gives the fellow an evil glare and the man is silent.

All smiles again, Elsay leans over the counter toward Renny.  “So how about I take you away this weekend for a romantic rendezvous?”

“And ruin the professional relationship we have?  No way.”  She winks and heads toward the door.

Elsay yells after her, “Professional relationship is boring too, goes good with black coffee and buttered roll.”

***

The offices of Heffner, Wilde and Cooke occupy three floors in one of the many high-rise buildings in midtown Manhattan.  The twelfth floor is for the executives, the eleventh floor is where the art department and creatives do their thing, and the tenth floor is for the rest of the staff.

Renny works on the tenth floor and this morning she navigates the maze of cubicles like a well trained lab rat, her face set in a Lomanesque expression of one continuing to work long after the job has lost its excitement.  Internally the tenth floor is known as the “pee-on” floor.  That’s because the tenth floor is always the target when something goes wrong and the executives need someone to piss on because they’re pissed off.  Renny has been splattered on several occasions.

Just outside of Renny’s small windowless office sits Lucy, the unpolished twenty-three-year-old assistant she shares with five other marketing analysts—the vague title Renny holds and detests.

Lucy hangs up the phone as Renny approaches.  “You’re late.”

“Good morning to you, too.”  Renny grabs a stack of folders from the out box on top of Lucy’s file cabinet.

“What’s so good about it?  Did you know that if you travel the subway every day for a year it takes two weeks off your life expectancy?  Twenty-six years and you’ve lost a whole year just because you rode the subway.  The only thing I don’t know is whether they were talking about one way or round trip.”

“Where did you hear that?”  Renny asks.

“I read it.” 

Lucy is convinced she knows everything, which is amazing considering she’s never ventured out of New York’s five boroughs.  Instead, she credits her tidbits of knowledge to something she’s read; even more incredible since Renny’s never seen Lucy read anything other than the Post and the National Enquirer.

“What are you looking for?” Lucy asks, as Renny rummages through the folders.

“My copies.” 

Lucy grabs the stack from her. “It’s not in there.  The copy machine’s broke.”

“So use the one on the executive floor.”

“I’d have to go upstairs for that,” Lucy whines. 

“Did you do the Fenway letter for me?”

Lucy shakes her head and starts to type.

“Lucy, I need that this morning.”

She keeps typing as if Renny weren’t there.

“Lucy!”

Stopping, Lucy looks up at her and blows out a petulant puff of air. 

“I told you I need that this morning,” Renny says.  “Look outside, the sun’s up, the subways are packed and everyone is drinking coffee from little cardboard cups.  What does that tell you?”

Lucy rolls her eyes. 

“It’s morning and I need that letter!”

Sighing, Lucy reaches for papers in her box.  One by one, she holds up various items, each with a different denomination of money clipped to the front.  The smallest amount is a ten-dollar bill.  “Let’s see, I have letters for Mark, Mr. Wilde’s football pool, and a product analysis for the accountants to go over.  Everybody gives me stuff today that they needed yesterday.”

Then Lucy holds up a sheet with no money clipped to it as if it were the tail of a dead skunk.  “This must be it.  I think you forgot something.” 

“This is nuts,” Renny grumbles, pulling out her last crumpled dollar bill.  “I thought we were friends.”

“This isn’t personal, it’s business.”  Lucy quickly snaps the bill from Renny and clips it to the paper, sniffing, “A buck.  Are you shitting me?”

“It’s all I’ve got.”

“I’ll take it, but I usually get at least ten.”

“You should get fired,” Renny warns. 

Lucy shrugs, because that possibility is out of the question.  In the land of pee-ons, Lucy is the only one with an umbrella.  She has worked at Heffner, Wilde and Cook for five years and has dirt on everyone, twelfth floor included.  Renny wonders what it is that Lucy knows that allows her to keep her job and her attitude. 

“Get it to me soon, please,” Renny says heading towards her office and plunking her stuff down on her desk.

Lucy calls out.  “I’m so glad you used the magic word.  Oh, by the way, Val was looking for you.” 

Renny nods.  “I have a meeting with her at ten.” 

“They moved it up to nine.  She said to send you in there if you ever came in.”

Renny looks at her watch.  Nine twenty-five. 

“Shit!”  Renny charges back into the hallway.  “Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

Lucy shrugs and types, the only sound coming from her the cracking of gum and the jingle of bracelets.

She grabs a stack of folders from her office and races out past Lucy.

“You might want to rethink the shoes,” Lucy calls.

Renny looks at the commuting sneakers still on her feet and debates whether she should change shoes and be even later or just go as is.

As is wins.  Renny charges toward the elevators. 

***

In the elevator Renny tries to shake off the feeling of doom that has taken hold of her bowels.  “It’s just another meeting,” she whispers.  A meeting she is twenty-five minutes late to.

And Val despises tardiness. 

Doris, Val’s assistant, smiles at Renny as she rushes down the hall.  “They’re expecting you, Renny.  Go right in.”

Renny manages a smile, wondering how Doris, one of the nicest people ever, has endured working for Val for the last ten years.  A slightly graying woman in her late fifties, her tall frame is stylishly dressed and her desk is always immaculate. 

She hesitates at the closed wooden doors leading into Val’s office, suddenly realizing what Doris said.  “They?  Who else is in there?”

“Lance.”

“Lance,” Renny says with distaste.  The name itself slithers across her tongue.  One of the doors snaps open, making Renny jump.

“There you are,” Val says dryly.  “Well, come in.  It’s about time you joined us.”   As always, Val’s short jet black hair is neatly slicked into place.  Muscled legs peek out from under a dark pinstriped skirt that falls just above her knees.  Her white blouse is crisp and smooth as though even wrinkles know not to mess with Val. 

Renny walks in and finds Lance sitting next to Val’s desk.  They exchange polite nods and Renny takes the other seat by the desk.  The furniture in the room is sharp and angular, giving the office a cold edgy feel.

Renny looks at Lance.  He joined the company a few months before her.  At first they were friendly, even flirtatious.  Renny had to admit that for a brief time she actually considered him as a romantic possibility. 

That is until they worked together on the Magic Razor account.  He screwed her by deliberately making a last-minute change in the date of their meeting with Val and not telling her.  Lance presented their ideas as his own.  He got all the credit and Renny got a lesson in watching her back.

“Now that we’re all here, let’s get to it.”  Val takes her place behind the large steel desk that dominates the room.  The sunlight glares through the window behind her hitting Lance and Renny in the eyes.  Renny struggles not to look away. 

“As you both know, we’ve lost several accounts over the last six months, leaving our bottom line in the crapper.  The partners are looking to me to turn things around and I am looking to the two of you.”

Renny’s innards twist as she silently prays that this doesn’t mean she’ll have to work on another project with Lance. 

“There are two ways we can beef up the bottom line, bring in new business and layoffs,” Val pauses. “I plan on both.”  She gets up and paces around the room.  “A few weeks ago, Mr. Heffner had dinner with Walt Cedar, the CEO of Cedar Foods.  It appears that they’re in the process of starting a new snack chip division.  Their first product will be potato chips slated to come to market early next year.  They want something fresh, but according to Heffner, the old man hates change.  They’re making the round of presentations next week.  And so one week from Friday, at eleven, they’ll be here with their ad agency reps in tow.  That doesn’t give us much time, but we are going to take this potato chip from conception to birth.  They need a product name, a campaign plan, and a long-term marketing strategy.  That’s where you two come in.” 

Lance starts, “You want us to work on this…” 

“…together?” Renny finishes.

“Not exactly.  I’m quite aware that there’s no love lost between the two of you, but now we’re all going to benefit from your shared contempt.  I’m going to loosen the leash on this one, giving you autonomy.  Let’s hope I don’t regret it.  Each of you will devise a different strategy and all the elements that go with it, with my input of course.  As long as the idea is up to snuff, you’ll each have the chance to pitch it to the client yourself.” 

Renny is stunned.  She’s never been given the opportunity to present by herself.  This could be her big break.

“The person whose campaign they choose gets a promotion to account manager, my job.  I in turn get bumped up to partner.  Win-win.”  Val pauses.  “Oh, I almost forgot the last detail.  The loser gets terminated.” 

The room is silent.

Renny tries to keep her voice from faltering, “But what if neither of us wins the account?” 

“Then you can keep each other company on the unemployment line.  This may seem harsh, but I believe that the best work comes under pressure.  Besides, there’s no room here for dead weight.  If either of you have a problem with this, the door hasn’t moved since you came in, you’re free to use it.  You have autonomy in that, too.  Security will be happy to escort you out.” 

Renny holds her face steady under Val’s scrutinizing stare. 

“Good.”  Val picks up her phone, letting them know they are dismissed. “Doris has files for each of you on the project.”

Renny follows Lance toward the door.

Val calls after her. “And Renny.”

She turns, “Yes?”

Val’s voice is caustic.  “Next time, save the tennis shoes for the weekend.  We dress for work here.” 

____________________