topknot. He cares about this a lot, Jackal thought.
She tasted it, like something she'd swallowed with her tea: what did
she care about that much? It struck her again how much older than her
they all were. Did surety of purpose come with age? How do they know
what they want, she wondered, watching Jordie cresting on his own
wavefront, earnest and emphatic, making even Sawyer smile faintly and
reconsider. Jackal already knew she'd go back to the class: Khofi said
she needed this to be the Hope, and it was the first tangible direction
Ko had ever pointed her in, even if they hadn't yet actually told her
where she was going. But there was a destination, and Neill was already
beginning to assess her ability to reach it. Those were the sandpaper
moments. She predicted her future: a little extra attention, more
opportunities to practice, more direct coaching. More praise than the
others when it was needed to motivate her. A larger share of criticism,
when it was time to refine and integrate her understanding. Neill would
make sure she learned.
And she loved it. Even with too little sleep
and apple lumps in her stomach, she hurried toward it. The work was
like nitrogen in her blood, a fizzing feeling when she did well. Here
she felt confident, real. Here she felt safe. When she doubted herself
and her ability to play the role that she was being customized for, she
pushed herself harder, staked out another skill and skinned it and
sucked it from the guts down to the marrow. It nourished her spirit in
the same way that Snow sustained her heart.
She ran all the way from the bus. Neill
wouldn't wait for her, Hope or not. He always started on time: it was
one of what he called the hard rules, the ones with no flex. Middle
managers fostered the rumor that he had once opened a strategy meeting
at the appointed time, without the CEO of Ko. He was still outlining
his role as the facilitator and reviewing the proposed agenda when
Smith stepped into the room. Jackal imagined that had been a great
relief for the other executives, who were probably trying to decide
whether to actually do business without the Chief or to piss off Neill
at the start of the most delicate political activity of the Ko planning
year. The story went that Neill had peremptorily waved Smith up to the
head of the table without pausing his monologue; and that while the
rest of the room held its collective breath, Smith had simply smiled in
a way that could have been either polite apology or confident
amusement, and taken her seat. Most of Ko scoffed at this as
embellishment, but Donatella had been in the room, serving as the
meeting's recorder. Lately whenever Jackal got too scared, she tried to
remember that Ko's Chief knew how to smile.
Neill, of course, could smile a dozen
ways: that was one of the skills.
She cornered into the room at three
seconds before ten o'clock, and smiled as Jordie shoved his palmtop
aside to make space for her. She shrugged off her jacket, moving easily
in her Neill-inspired clothes that she now understood were designed to
be non-threatening and comfortable to stand in for hours at a time. She
laughed with Svenson over her breathlessness, and fumbled in her bag
for a disk she'd copied for Allison, a collection of live soleares
flamenco performances that was one of the staples of her music
collection. She loved to share this music with people; she wondered
what Allison, with her precisely constructed approach to the world,
would make of the percussive clapping and the shouted encouragements
that jostled for rhythmic space, wove themselves into a net that caught
the passionate singing and threw it back out to the listener. “There's
ten songs and a history of flamenco with a bunch of links, and an
amazing video of the story of Carmen set to flamenco, really powerful.”
Allison was smiling; so was everyone else. “Ah,” Jackal said, “I'm
being enthusiastic again. Well, there you go. There's a lot of beauty
on this disk, it's worth
She tasted it, like something she'd swallowed with her tea: what did
she care about that much? It struck her again how much older than her
they all were. Did surety of purpose come with age? How do they know
what they want, she wondered, watching Jordie cresting on his own
wavefront, earnest and emphatic, making even Sawyer smile faintly and
reconsider. Jackal already knew she'd go back to the class: Khofi said
she needed this to be the Hope, and it was the first tangible direction
Ko had ever pointed her in, even if they hadn't yet actually told her
where she was going. But there was a destination, and Neill was already
beginning to assess her ability to reach it. Those were the sandpaper
moments. She predicted her future: a little extra attention, more
opportunities to practice, more direct coaching. More praise than the
others when it was needed to motivate her. A larger share of criticism,
when it was time to refine and integrate her understanding. Neill would
make sure she learned.
And she loved it. Even with too little sleep
and apple lumps in her stomach, she hurried toward it. The work was
like nitrogen in her blood, a fizzing feeling when she did well. Here
she felt confident, real. Here she felt safe. When she doubted herself
and her ability to play the role that she was being customized for, she
pushed herself harder, staked out another skill and skinned it and
sucked it from the guts down to the marrow. It nourished her spirit in
the same way that Snow sustained her heart.
She ran all the way from the bus. Neill
wouldn't wait for her, Hope or not. He always started on time: it was
one of what he called the hard rules, the ones with no flex. Middle
managers fostered the rumor that he had once opened a strategy meeting
at the appointed time, without the CEO of Ko. He was still outlining
his role as the facilitator and reviewing the proposed agenda when
Smith stepped into the room. Jackal imagined that had been a great
relief for the other executives, who were probably trying to decide
whether to actually do business without the Chief or to piss off Neill
at the start of the most delicate political activity of the Ko planning
year. The story went that Neill had peremptorily waved Smith up to the
head of the table without pausing his monologue; and that while the
rest of the room held its collective breath, Smith had simply smiled in
a way that could have been either polite apology or confident
amusement, and taken her seat. Most of Ko scoffed at this as
embellishment, but Donatella had been in the room, serving as the
meeting's recorder. Lately whenever Jackal got too scared, she tried to
remember that Ko's Chief knew how to smile.
Neill, of course, could smile a dozen
ways: that was one of the skills.
She cornered into the room at three
seconds before ten o'clock, and smiled as Jordie shoved his palmtop
aside to make space for her. She shrugged off her jacket, moving easily
in her Neill-inspired clothes that she now understood were designed to
be non-threatening and comfortable to stand in for hours at a time. She
laughed with Svenson over her breathlessness, and fumbled in her bag
for a disk she'd copied for Allison, a collection of live soleares
flamenco performances that was one of the staples of her music
collection. She loved to share this music with people; she wondered
what Allison, with her precisely constructed approach to the world,
would make of the percussive clapping and the shouted encouragements
that jostled for rhythmic space, wove themselves into a net that caught
the passionate singing and threw it back out to the listener. “There's
ten songs and a history of flamenco with a bunch of links, and an
amazing video of the story of Carmen set to flamenco, really powerful.”
Allison was smiling; so was everyone else. “Ah,” Jackal said, “I'm
being enthusiastic again. Well, there you go. There's a lot of beauty
on this disk, it's worth
Similar Books
