Riddles at the Ballpark

The corporate suite felt suffocating despite its open air. From Section 203, I watched the Dodgers trail the Cardinals by three runs, sinking deeper into leather seats that cost more than my first car. Below, the field stretched like a corporate hierarchy—a perfect pyramid of power. The front-office executives occupied the VIP boxes behind home plate, middle managers clustered in the premium sections, and those of us clinging to the bottom rows clutched our overpriced beers like life preservers.

Beside me, Marcus waved his phone. "Pyramid scheme, he called it. Said his multi-level marketing startup would 'revolutionize direct sales.' I told him that's literally what a pyramid scheme is."

I barely heard him. My thoughts were on the sphinx of our division—Director Chen, who asked riddles instead of giving answers. "What has keys but opens no doors?" she'd asked in Monday's meeting, staring at me like I was supposed to solve it. I'd said "a piano," and she'd nodded, as if I'd passed some test I didn't know I was taking. Now, in the third inning, I understood: she wasn't interested in solutions. She wanted witnesses.

"Hey," Marcus said, nudging me. "You okay?"

The baseball game continued—pop flies, strikeouts, the seventh-inning stretch—but I kept seeing Chen's inscrutable expression, hearing her riddles that weren't really riddles at all. They were tests of loyalty, of who would nod along.

"The answer to her riddle?" I said finally. "It's not about keys."

Marcus raised an eyebrow. "Then what?"

"Us," I said. "We're the ones who open nothing."