The Sphinx at the Edge of the Pool

The betting pool at the office had reached $847 by the time Elena received the transfer notice to Singapore. Her colleagues had wagered on everything: which department would face layoffs, who would sleep with whom during the holiday party, how long Marcus's marriage would last after his wife's mysterious illness. Elena had contributed twenty dollars to that last one, guilty but pragmatic.

Now she sat beside the infinity pool at the corporate retreat, humidity wrapping her like wet silk, watching the sphinx cat sun itself on a nearby lounge chair. The creature—hairless, wrinkled, ancient-looking—stared back with eyes that seemed to know everything about everyone. Elena had named him Oedipus, though she'd never told anyone why.

"You're going, aren't you?"

She didn't turn. Lawrence's voice was rough from too many meetings, too many deals. He moved his chair closer, the metal scraping against the tiles. His palm rested briefly on her shoulder, warm and possessive—the same palm that had signed their divorce papers while she watched, unmoving, across a mahogany table.

"Singapore needs a regional director," she said. "You knew this was coming."

"I thought you'd say no. I thought you'd—" He broke off, gesturing at their surroundings. "We were good again, Elena. The best we'd been in years."

"We were good at pretending." She turned then, meeting his eyes. "The same way we're good at these corporate retreats, at standing by the pool with cocktails in our hands while people lose their jobs. We just don't talk about what's real."

Below them, the pool's lights flickered—a cable loose somewhere, an engineer's problem. The sphinx cat yawned, displaying teeth too sharp for something so fragile.

"Singapore," Lawrence repeated, as if the word itself might change her mind. "It's halfway across the world."

"Exactly." Elena stood up, letting the heat finally touch her skin. "Sometimes you have to go that far to figure out who you are when no one's watching."