Banner swings a look over the crowd.
“I don’t give a damn about odds,” she says. “Odds don’t tell me what I can’t do. Odds just tell me how hard I’ll have to work to get what I want. Don’t allow anyone to make you feel less.”
A wry smile quirks the mouth that so captivated me ten years ago.
“Let me get even more personal for a minute.” She swallows, glances at the floor and then back up to meet the crowd’s attentiveness head-on. “I’ve always struggled with my weight. For most of my life I compared myself to my sister, who was naturally slim. I compared myself to women in magazines, who looked nothing like me. I let men determine how I felt about my body based on how they saw me. I allowed those things to make me feel smaller than I was. Not on the outside, on the inside. On the inside I was a highly intelligent woman who spoke several languages, was the first in my family to go to college, and won full scholarships to the schools of my choice, but I hid that girl under bulky clothes.”
Banner disabuses me of the notion that I’ve gone undetected when she looks directly at me, finds me in the very back.
“I hid her in the dark,” she says more softly, holding my stare for a few seconds before moving past me, but even when she looks away, I feel seared. Like in one glance and with a few words she’s burned years away. She takes us back to a darkened laundromat. The bright swirl of whites flashing in the washing machine. The toss and slap of darks in the dryer. The thump-thump of my heart while I waited to kiss her again.
“I don’t hide anymore,” Banner continues. “Not in the dark. Not under bulky clothes. Not even behind my intelligence, which I sometimes used as a shield to keep people out. Whether I’m five pounds up or ten pounds down, I’m done hiding. I am done letting my waistline and other people define me.”
She shares her husky laugh with the crowd.
“Culture twists what it is to even be a feminist, tries to sort us into categories and force us to choose between being a good mother and being a successful businesswoman. I unabashedly want to rule every boardroom room I step into, and I unashamedly want at least four kids.”
She smiles and shrugs.
“What can I say? I’m Catholic.”
She pauses for her audience to laugh, wearing a small grin while she waits.
“What I’m saying is be unafraid to want it all and be disciplined enough to work hard to get it.” Her smile fades, replaced by a steely determination that radiates from her inside and glows out. “We can be fierce and feminine. Tenderhearted and tough as nails. Life is seldom binary. And I’ve talked a lot about patriarchy and living, working in a male-dominated culture, but men are not our enemies. Any force that would diminish us, pigeonhole us, would make us one thing instead of all that we are, that’s the enemy . . . even if it’s inside of you.
“There are some real jerks out there, especially in the locker rooms and boardrooms we frequent, but there are good men, too. I have good men in my life. My father, who’s been faithful to my mother for forty years. My boyfriend is a good man. Sometimes they feel more like exceptions than the rule, but they’re out there.”
Her expression softens and her smile grows wide.
“If there is one thing I can leave with you, it’s this: we work in a jungle and are surrounded by alpha males and apex predators. Everyone’s looking to be the last one standing, to be at the top of the food chain, and they sometimes don’t care who gets hurt in the process. Don’t lose your heart. Don’t lose your soul. Don’t lose your compass, and that doesn’t mean don’t win. Win. Fight. Conquer. You have just as much right to success as anyone who works for it. It may be a jungle, and they may be lions . . .”
She pauses, her eyes finding mine again, holding mine.
“But the daughter of a lion is still a lion, and this is your domain.”
“You got everything?” I ask Iris, rolling her suitcase out to the front of the hotel and peering up the street for the car taking her to the airport.
“Yeah,” she answers absently, checking her phone. “I’m sure Sarai is fine. It’s just lice, but August figuring out lice?”
“Yeah,” I agree with a wry grin. “Get home as fast as you can.”
We both laugh at that.
“I just want to make sure it’s handled thoroughly.” She pokes out her bottom lip. “I do hate to leave early, but I’ve gone to all the sessions I wanted to attend.”
“Good. I’ll debrief with the team next week to hear takeaways, things we learned. That kind of thing.”
“I, uh, saw you.” Iris glances up from her phone, assessing me and chewing the corner of her bottom lip. “In Banner’s session. In the back.”
“Oh yeah?”
And, Iris? And?
“Iris, I think this is your guy in the black Tahoe. Oh, nope.”
“Was it just a matter of checking out the enemy, or . . .” Her expression asks me to fill in a blank I have no intention of filling in.
“Bagley’s a rival firm.” I keep my voice even, neutral. “But Banner’s not my enemy. I was just curious. Don’t read too much into it.”
“What would I read into it?” Her eyes are wide and innocent, but I know better. Iris has survived a lot, been through things that sharpen your senses and intuition.
“Just checking on an old . . .” I search for the right word “. . . friend. Banner and I went to college together.”
“I had no idea.” A grin spreads on her face. “Did you two date or something?”
I look past her shoulder to the black SUV pulling up.
“Not exactly. Drop it, okay? Your car’s here.”
After a searching glance, she shrugs. “Consider it dropped.”
We greet the driver, and I haul her bag into the back.
“What are you doing tonight?” she asks, one foot on the running board, one foot on the ground.
“There’s a thing at the bar. I’ll show my face. Or I may skip it and go crash. I’m exhausted.”
She climbs in and leans out the window. “Thank you for the opportunity to come and experience this.”