Woman King

CHAPTER 1

“Listen,” he said. “You’re not going to like what I have to say.”

He paused to give me time to prepare.

“The board has decided we need someone more, well…powerful. I’m afraid we’re going to have to let you go. We want to win this contract without having to compete for it.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said, my voice rising in indignation. “As I’ve mentioned to you before, this agency requires the contract be put out to bid. You’re firing me because you don’t like the way the rules work?”

For a moment, I thought I’d saved my job by presenting the truth of the situation.

“It’s finished, Olivia. The board has made its decision,” he said. “We certainly appreciate your efforts, but we need someone more dynamic, because this contract is very important to us.”

In the days that passed, I worked hard to put that unfortunate call behind me. Olivia Shepherd Consulting had a full roster of clients. As a private consultant to individuals and companies with specific political problems, I had a number of other projects already on my plate.

In fact, before I could dwell too much on what had happened, I received a call asking me to interview for an opportunity to represent a large foundation based in San Francisco. The organization had an endowment in the billions and supported most of the arts and cultural institutions in the region. Anyone turning on a public broadcasting station has seen the foundation’s name roll past with heartfelt thanks for their generosity. The committee planned to interview several candidates, and assigned me a thirty-minute slot to present my credentials.

Truthfully, I felt somewhat annoyed at not being asked outright to represent the group. I’d done work for a number of the beneficiaries of their grants, and felt that the foundation should have known immediately that I was the right person for the job. Still, I spent the requisite time reviewing the organization, its structure, priorities and board of directors.

When the day of my interview arrived, I was prepared, a binder of information and a list of questions to ask tucked into my briefcase. Nevertheless, the weather that day seemed to conspire against me. Rain fell ceaselessly, and by the time I left for the appointment in the afternoon, the streets were flooded. A fierce wind was blowing, rendering my umbrella useless. It was not long before my leather pumps were drenched down to the soles of my feet. The pant legs of my navy suit, which I had picked up from the cleaners the day before, were soaked, weighing down my steps.

As I trudged toward the foundation’s door, the appointment was beginning to feel more like an obligation than an opportunity. Yet, despite my misgivings, I managed to get through the first round of interviews, feeling good about my rapport with the committee.

On the day of my second interview, I walked out of the house with no binder, no power point presentation, and no plan at all for how to secure the job. I had convinced myself that the second interview was a formality and that I would easily convince the foundation’s executive committee to hire me to represent them.

As it turned out, I was profoundly mistaken. When I walked into the conference room for my appointment, an assistant asked for a copy of my presentation so it could be loaded onto her laptop. I replied somewhat cavalierly that I had no presentation and would be improvising my remarks. From the worried look on her face, I should have known that I was not taking things in a promising direction.

While I made it through the second interview, it was not a pleasant forty minutes. I’d come to see the committee carrying nothing but my sense of entitlement. The committee clearly had expected something more substantial.

Afterwards, I tried to convince myself that the fact that no one had called me for two weeks didn’t mean anything. These are busy times, I reasoned. And although I had other work to keep me busy, something was gnawing at me. In the weeks since that first horrible phone call, I had begun to feel off balance. I seemed to be missing my former connection to my clients. I became argumentative, when I should have been a peacemaker. I was passive, when I should have spoken up. Nothing seemed to satisfy me.

Before me was a shelf full of trophies. I had won dozens of awards for the witty, pithy phrases and ideas I’d dreamt up for my clients. Work that had won me accolades from my colleagues. I was successful. I had the respect of my peers. I had savings stored away in a bank account. But something definitely was not right. I could still hear the words in my head: “We need someone more powerful.”

It was time to visit my best friend Lily to get some perspective. Lily’s office is on the sixth floor of San Francisco’s Main Library. She has a view of City Hall from her window. My offices are nearby on Van Ness Street, also close to City Hall, where I conduct a lot of work for my clients.

“What do you think he meant?” I asked, seating myself in her office as she typed away.

“Why are you obsessing about this?” Lily asked, her fingers flying across the keyboard. “People will say anything to get off the phone. Maybe he was nervous. You don’t fire someone who for years has been your consultant over the telephone. He had to know that was tacky. He was probably at a loss for words.”

Lily Prescott manages San Francisco’s library branches. San Francisco is comprised of a rich urban quilt of different neighborhoods that crisscross the hills and valleys of the city. Tucked into each of these distinct villages is a library branch. The branches, some built early in the 20th century thanks to the generosity of Andrew Carnegie, are teeming with people at all hours of the day and night.

I met Lily a few years ago when we were neighbors in an apartment building near the waterfront on the Embarcadero. I had returned to San Francisco from Washington, where I’d worked as a press secretary to a member of Congress. Lily came from Portland, where she had worked as a children’s librarian. We were both living in small studio apartments until we could find more permanent homes. Eventually we both left the building; I moved into a small house in the Inner Sunset District my grandmother left me when she died, and Lily found a condominium in the Mission. Our time on the waterfront was limited, but our friendship stuck.

“I agree that it’s tacky to fire someone over the telephone, but he meant the words he used…powerful, dynamic,” I said, grabbing a few almonds out of a bowl on her desk.

“Olivia, what’s done is done. You need to focus on something else. Maybe you’d like a new book to read. Tell me what you would like. I’m sure we have a copy.”

“Lily, why is it that the library always seems to have the exact book I want? I must like titles that interest no one else.”

“We have a very well-stocked library,” she said. “And you seem determined today to find fault with yourself.”

“What about the foundation?” I asked, trying to avoid a discussion about me. “That should have been my project. Instead, they hired Stoner Halbert.”

Lily shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

“What?”

“I heard that he might also have been hired to… well, to pick up where you left off with your last client.”

“You heard that?” I choked. “That’s not something you hear. What’s the real story?”

Lily stopped typing and looked over at me.

“I saw them together at City Hall. I suspect he had an appointment to see if he could persuade the department to forgo soliciting bids and just award them a sole-source contract.”

“And how long were you going to wait before telling me this?”

“Olivia. What does it matter? I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Too late,” I said, and walked out of her office.