The Bear at the Edge of the Pool

The bull market had turned on them all, taking Elena's portfolio and half her department with it. Now she sat at the edge of the infinity pool at the Tamarind Resort, nursing a gin and tonic that cost more than her monthly subway pass, watching the sunset turn the ocean the color of a fresh bruise.

Her palm rested on the warm concrete, her engagement ring catching the last light. She'd taken it off three hours ago after the call from Richard. "I think we should see other people," he'd said, his voice calm, reasonable, cruel. They'd been together seven years.

"That'll be thirty-eight dollars, ma'am."

Elena looked up. The bartender was young—maybe twenty-three—with dark skin and wary eyes. He held a towel, ready to wipe the condensation from her table.

"Put it on room 312," she said. "It's under my name."

He paused. "There's a problem with that room, actually."

Of course there was. Because why wouldn't there be?

The man in room 312—her boss, Marcus—had been found at dawn floating face-down in this very pool. They'd called it a heart attack, said he'd slipped, but the rumors had spread through the conference like ink in water. He'd been liquidating assets. He'd been sleeping with the intern. He'd been about to name names.

Elena had loved him once, in that way you love people who hold your career in their hands. She'd hated him too, in that way you hate people who make you question what you'd do for a promotion.

The bartender leaned closer. "Your friend left something for you."

He slid a napkin across the table. On it, in Marcus's distinctive scrawl: *The bear waits at the edge of the pool.*

Elena stared at it, and for the first time all day, she felt something sharp and clean instead of this dull gray ache. Because Marcus had been many things—corrupt, magnetic, brilliant—but he'd never been cryptic. Not like this.

Unless it wasn't cryptic at all.

She stood up, her legs steady now, and walked to the pool's edge, staring down at her own reflection distorted by the water's movement. The bear market had taken everything. Or maybe it had just stripped everything away.

"Another gin and tonic," she told the bartender. "And put it on my own card this time."