He sat behind his massive walnut desk, a neat stack of cream-colored folders positioned precisely between his elbows. His office was large, filled with leather-bound books and brass lamps that cast a warm, artificial glow over the dark wood.
An eighty-dollar vintage glass paperweight sat on his desk, trapping a pale green fern in clear, heavy glass. I had bought that very paperweight for him five years ago at an antique shop in Savannah, a small token of appreciation for his years of service to Graham’s hotel company.
“Sit down, Alice,” Victor said, gesturing to the leather chair opposite him without looking up from his papers.
I sat, placing my black leather purse on my lap and folding my hands over the clasp. The leather of the chair was cold, and it smelled of new polish and stale cigar smoke.
Victor adjusted his left gold cufflink, his thumb rubbing the engraved monogram before he turned a page in the folder. His fingernails were manicured, clean and perfectly square, glinting under the desk lamp.
“The accountants are finishing the quarterly audit today,” he said, his voice flat and entirely devoid of the warmth he usually offered at our dinner parties. He did not look at me as he spoke.
“I thought we had more time, Victor,” I said, my Southern drawl sounding slow and heavy in the air-conditioned room. “The service isn’t until Thursday afternoon, and I still have to coordinate with the pastor.”
He did not answer immediately, instead using a gold pen to make a small checkmark near the bottom of a sheet of legal-sized paper. The scratch of the nib was the only sound in the room.
The lukewarm black coffee in the paper cup I had bought downstairs for three dollars sat untouched on the corner of his desk, the cardboard sleeve slowly absorbing the condensation.
“We do not have the luxury of waiting for the service,” Victor said, his tone clipped and formal as he finally set the pen down.
Victor finally closed the folder, the heavy paper making a soft, solid slap against the polished wood of his desk.
