The Geometry of Middle Age

The corporate pyramid scheme, they'd called it during orientation fifteen years ago. A joke that wasn't funny then and certainly wasn't funny now, as Elena stood on her hotel balcony at 2 AM, staring at the pyramid-shaped lighted building across the way. She was forty-three, regional vice president, and entirely certain that somewhere along the way, she'd become the wrong kind of successful.

Her hair had started showing silver at the temples last year. Marcus had said it looked distinguished, which was the sort of thing husbands said when they were sleeping in the guest room. The pool below reflected the orange glow of the city's ambient light—streetlamps, neon signs, the endless electric pulse of a place that never truly slept.

She'd flown in for the merger meeting. The one that would consolidate three subsidiaries into one efficient, profitable entity. Efficiency. That was the word they used when they meant fewer jobs, more money for the people who already had too much of it.

"You can't sleep either?"

Elena turned. A man stood at the neighboring balcony, maybe ten years younger, holding a glass of something amber and expensive. His tie was undone, shirt collar open. One of the junior executives from the acquisition target. What was his name? David? Daniel?

"Insomnia comes with the corner office," she said.

He laughed softly. "My father always said climbing the pyramid was worth it for the view. He died at his desk. Heart attack. Fifty-two."

"My condolences."

"Thanks. It was three years ago." He swirled his drink. "I keep wondering if I'm climbing or just digging."

The orange reflection on the pool water rippled in the wind. Elena thought about the guest room downstairs, about the silver in her hair that she refused to dye, about how her children's voices sounded different every time she called home.

"Maybe," she said, "those are the same thing."

He considered this, then raised his glass. "To digging our way to paradise."

She didn't have a glass to raise. But she nodded anyway.

"To the climb," she said, and already she was thinking about the morning presentation, the merger, the corporate pyramid that needed another layer of human mortar. Below them, the pool water caught the light again, a fleeting, brilliant orange before the wind scattered it into darkness.