Freedom [243]
The next afternoon, after Soquel had returned to the airport, Lalitha locked the door of Walter’s office and knelt down between his legs to reward him for his labors.
“No, no, no,” he said, rolling the chair away from her.
She pursued him on her knees. “I just want to see you. I’m so greedy for you.”
“Lalitha, no.” He could hear his staffers going about their business at the front of the house.
“Just for a second,” she said, unzipping him. “Please, Walter.”
He thought of Clinton and Lewinsky, and then, seeing his assistant’s mouth full of his flesh and her eyes smiling up at him, he thought of his evil friend’s prophecy. It seemed to make her happy, and yet—
“No, I’m sorry,” he said, pushing her away as gently as he could.
She frowned. She was hurt. “You have to let me,” she said, “if you love me.”
“I do love you, but this is not the right time.”
“I want you to let me. I want to do everything right now.”
“I’m sorry, but no.”
He stood up and zipped himself back into his pants. Lalitha remained kneeling for a moment with her head bowed. Then she, too, stood up, smoothed her skirt on her thighs, and turned away in an attitude of unhappiness.
“There’s a problem we have to talk about first,” he said.
“All right. Let’s talk about your problem.”
“The problem is we have to fire Richard.”
The name, which he’d refused to speak until now, hung in the air. “And why do we have to do that?” Lalitha said.
“Because I hate him, because he had an affair with my wife, and I never want to hear his name again, and there’s no earthly way I’m going to work with him.”
Lalitha seemed to shrink as she heard this. Her head sank, her shoulders slumped, she became a sad little girl. “Is that why your wife left on Sunday?”
“Yes.”
“You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?”
“No!”
“Yes you are. That’s why you don’t want me near you now.”
“No, that’s not true. That’s totally not true.”
“Well, be that as it may,” she said, straightening herself briskly, “we still can’t fire Richard. This is my project, and I need him. I’ve already advertised him to the interns, and I need him to get our talent for August.
So you can have your problem with him, and be very sorry about your wife, but I’m not firing him.”
“Honey,” Walter said. “Lalitha. I really do love you. Everything’s going to be OK. But try to see this from my side.”
“No!” she said, wheeling toward him with spirited insurrection. “I don’t care about your side! My job is to do our population work, and I’m going to do it. If you really care about that work, and about me, you’ll let me do it my way.”
“I do care. I totally do. But—”
“But nothing, then. I won’t mention his name again. You can go out of town somewhere when he meets with the interns in May. And we’ll figure out August when we get there.”
“But he’s not going to want to do it. He was already talking on Saturday about backing out.”
“Let me talk to him,” she said. “As you may remember, I’m rather good at persuading people to do things they don’t want to do. I’m a rather effective employee of yours, and I hope you’ll be nice enough to let me do my work.”
He rushed around his desk to put his arms around her, but she escaped to the outer office.
Because he loved her spirit and commitment and was stricken by her anger, he didn’t press the issue further. But as the hours passed, and then several days, and she didn’t report that Richard was backing out of Free Space,