Tuesday Mooney Wore Black. Kate Racculia

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СКАЧАТЬ event registration table was set up, as usual, on the far left of the lobby facing the elevator bank. It was already drawing men in suits like ants to a ham sandwich. WELCOME, proclaimed a foamcore poster on a small easel, TO THE 2012 BOSTON GENERAL HOSPITAL AUCTION FOR HOPE.

      “Welcome to the Auction for Hope!” echoed a tiny blonde girl, wearing more makeup than the woman in black wore in a year, gesturing her closer. Her name was Britney. She was an administrative assistant in Boston General’s fundraising office and never remembered that the woman in black was her coworker. “You can check in here, and head up the stairs to your right for the hors d’oeuvres!” she chirped. “The program starts at seven in the ballroom.”

      “Britney, hi,” said the woman, tapping her fingers against her chest. “Tuesday Mooney,” she said. “I work at BGH too. I’m volunteering tonight. I’m late.”

      “Oh! Of course, I’m so sorry.” She waved Tuesday on, flapping her hands as though trying to clear the air of smoke. “The other volunteers got here a while ago. I didn’t realize anyone was – missing.” Britney’s teeth were very white. She still didn’t recognize Tuesday, and was, Tuesday could sense, vaguely concerned she was a random crazy off the street. Tuesday was five to ten years older than most of the other volunteers, who were generally single, young girls at their first or second jobs out of college, with energy and free time to burn. Tuesday was single but not as young. She was tall and broad, pale and dark-haired, and, yes, dressed all in black. Britney looked at her, not unkindly, as though she were something of a curiosity.

      Tuesday couldn’t blame her. She was, to the office, an oddity. She didn’t leave her cube often, communicated almost entirely through email, didn’t socialize or mix with her coworkers. Or with anyone, really. Being alone made her better at her job. It’s easier to notice what’s important when you’re outside looking in.

      She wasn’t upset that the other volunteers left without her either. She’d been distracted when they’d gone, talking with Mo – Maureen Coke, her boss, the only colleague with whom she nominally socialized. Mo was also a loner, bespectacled and quiet, unassuming in the deadliest of ways. People often forgot that Mo was in the room when they opened their mouths, which is how she came to know absolutely everything about everyone.

      It was a silent skill Tuesday respected.

      “Starting today, your mission as a prospect researcher,” Mo told Tuesday on her first day in the development office, three years ago, “is to pay attention to the details. To notice and gather facts. To interpret those facts so that you can make logical leaps. A prospect researcher is one part private detective, one part property assessor, one part gossip columnist, and one part witch.” Tuesday lifted her brows and Mo continued, “To the casual observer, what we do looks like magic.”

      What Tuesday did was find things. Information. Connections. She researched and profiled people. Specifically rich people, grateful rich people, people whose lives had been saved or extended or peacefully concluded at the hospital (in that case, she researched their surviving relatives). The information she collected and analyzed helped the fundraisers in the office ask those rich, grateful people to donate tens and hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars; she told them which buttons to push to make that ask compelling.

      Whenever the events team threw charity galas or auctions, they asked for volunteers to help with registration, crowd control, VIP escorts, and the myriad other moving bits and pieces that went into making an event run smoothly. Tuesday always raised her hand. She spent forty hours a week digging through donors’ lives, trying to understand why and where and how they might be persuaded to give away their money. Thanks to the hospital’s databases and subscriptions, and all that gorgeous public information lying around on the internet, she knew where they lived, the addresses of their summer houses on the Cape, the theoretical value of their stocks, the other organizations their foundations supported, the names of their children, pets, yachts, doctors, and whether or not their doctor liked their jokes. But she had never met them. She knew them as well as anyone can be known from their digital fingerprints, but volunteering at events was her only opportunity to interact with them in person. To weigh her quantitative assessment of their facts and figures against a first impression in the flesh. Without that, she knew, it was too easy to jump to conclusions.

      Plus, the food was usually pretty good.

      Her stomach grumbled. Tuesday’s lateness meant she’d missed her comped volunteer meal, and the Four Seasons always had great volunteer meals. She’d worked at events where dinner was a handful of gummy bears and a snack-size pack of Goldfish crackers, but at the Seasons she’d missed gourmet cheesy pasta and bread and salad and tiny ice cream sandwiches, the kids’ table version of the spread hotel catering would put out later for the real guests.

      “I guess you know the drill?” Britney gestured down the length of the registration table, at their mutual coworkers, who probably didn’t recognize her either. It was a good feeling, anonymity. “Just ask for their names and check them in on an iPad – there’s an extra one on the end, I think. Guests can write their own nametags.”

      Tuesday took a seat behind registration at the farthest end, in front of the last abandoned iPad, and set her bag on the floor. Her feet pulsed with relief. She’d left her commuter shoes under her desk, and even walking the short distance from the cab to the hotel in heels – over Boston’s brick sidewalks – was a rookie mistake. She wasn’t even close to being a rookie, though. She was thirty-three, and she’d never been able to walk well in heels.

      Her phone buzzed twice, then twice again. Then again. She felt a small bump of anxiety.

      It would be Dex. Dex Howard, her coworker from another life – who could, incidentally, run in heels – and the only person who texted her.

      Hey am I on the guest list?

      I mean I should be on the list

      Constantly.

      I really really hope I’m on the list

      Because I’m about to get dumped

      Across town, at a dark, stupid bar he hated, Dex Howard waited to be proposed to.

      Or dumped.

      Dumped, definitely.

      He sucked a huge gulp of whiskey and propped both elbows on the bar. He knew he shouldn’t be thinking like that: all or nothing, proposed to or dumped. He knew it was ridiculous and self-defeating. He wasn’t about to be anything, other than be met by his kind and affectionate boyfriend of four months – the longest he’d dated anyone consecutively, ever – who’d asked to meet him here right after work. Dex had no delusions. He only had coping mechanisms, and right now his coping mechanism wanted him to believe Patrick could potentially be proposing to him, when in his heart and his guts Dex knew – knew – he was getting dumped.

      He checked his phone. No response from Tuesday (big surprise). No other texts. No emails. No calls (who called anyone anymore, but still). The bar was called The Bank, and it was in the heart of the financial district, which meant it was full of douchebags and assholes. Dex could, when the mood struck, be either or both. It was a land of finance bros: white guys with MBAs and short hair and, now that they were in their thirties, wedding rings and bellies that pulled their button-downs tight with a little pooch of fat over their waistbands. In the corner by the window there was a cluster of young ones, fresh out of school, still studying for their CPA exams, still able to drink like this every night and СКАЧАТЬ