The Bonus

The only time Jade had ever seen a scallop was on television. She had certainly never eaten one, but when the cater-waiter in his stiff suit offered a tray, she smiled as though it were second nature and plucked one little pellet up. The thing wobbled on its toothpick spear like it could sense her hesitancy. Nobody else was eating. They clutched their Champagne flutes with white knuckles instead. The scallop hovered above Jade’s napkin, monogrammed with an “MV.” Should I throw this out? she thought. Chuck it in the fountain?

She was used to office parties with greasy pizza boxes, shots with her co-workers, rants about out-of-touch managers. But Vaning Ventures was no scrappy start-up or failing fast-fashion brand; this was the kind of place that boasted of “portfolios” and “motivated stakeholders” and “high-value clients,” brandishing vague corporatese that boiled down to: We’re rich. And this wasn’t just a good-bye party. It was a retirement celebration for Margaret Vaning, the woman who had ruled the company for nearly 30 years. The company had rented the rooftop of a swanky Soho hotel; though the air was thick with the first hints of summer humidity and a breeze jostled the string lights winding overhead, they had lucked out with a warm and rainless night.

But the mood seemed wrong. More than once, Jade saw women frown at their reflections in the spotless windows, dabbing at some imagined imperfection on their faces; men adjusted their ties so forcefully it looked as though they were being strangled. Even the gold balloons seemed to strain against their strings, arching away from one another like rivals.

Jade smoothed the front of her silver satin dress, trying not to cringe as she thought about the maxed-out credit card that had paid for it. She’d battled an incredibly competitive field of nepo babies and fellow recent college grads to land this internship, but still she felt like the ugly duckling in this sea of primped and proper professionals.

She let the scallop drop into her napkin. Maybe some dog would thank her later when she tossed it over the railing.

“Jade!”

She turned to see Brendan, who worked in the Research department. He had assigned himself the role of Jade’s mentor, giving her a tour of the office on her first day and conspiratorally whispering about which employees stole others’ lunches from the refrigerator and which ones were having an affair. He was pleasant enough, but a bit of a sycophant, always the first to reply to Margaret’s bland emails summarizing recent successes.

“Hi, Brendan,” Jade said, shaking his hand. “Did you just get here?”

“A few minutes ago. Just making the rounds,” he said, adjusting his tie. “I see Laurie’s practically salivating already,” he added in a murmur.

“Laurie?”

He nodded toward one corner of the rooftop, where a middle-aged blonde woman wearing a pantsuit was watching the orchestra’s solemn performance, their bows screeching over the strings at a frequency that sent a shiver up Jade’s spine. The woman had heavily arched eyebrows, which gave the impression that she was unimpressed by the quartet’s playing. Jade had seen her in the office before, although she usually flitted in and out of conference rooms and didn’t linger in the cubicles for long.

“VP of strategy and development. Margaret’s little sidekick, remember?” Brendan said. “Everyone knows she’s dying for Margaret’s job.”

“The board hasn’t picked somebody already?” Jade asked.

Brendan wiggled his eyebrows. “You would know, wouldn’t you?”

Through her intern tasks, Jade interacted with Margaret almost daily, feeling the older woman’s eyes following her as she prepared coffee and clicked around the scheduling software. Jade’s co-workers assumed she must know whom Margaret was planning to announce as her successor and peppered her with questions. But despite their physical proximity, Jade wasn’t Margaret’s confidante; the CEO was perfectly friendly and perfunctorily detached. Jade did a bit of Googling when she was first hired — Margaret had an architect ex-husband, a yacht lounging in New York Harbor, a Pomeranian she sometimes paraded around the office, but no children or siblings. She would be the last Vaning to hold a CEO position, and the media had been crowing for months about the company dying with her departure.

“Ah, Richard!” Brendan exclaimed, standing up straighter at the sight of the HR manager. “Please excuse me, Jade.”

Jade sighed and thought wistfully about the pajamas and mug of tea and reality television waiting for her at home. She wandered over to the rooftop’s edge, squeezing in between two tall palmera plants to gaze at the urban sprawl below. The same skyscrapers that looked so intimidating from the ground now seemed minuscule, almost fake, like the Lego cities she used to build with her brothers, like a well-placed foot could crush them. Life from the top really skewed your perspective.

Jade turned around at the sound of cheering and whistling; Margaret Vaning had swept onto the veranda. Jade took a seat at her assigned table as Margaret nodded and waved and made her way toward a podium set up against the backdrop of the blackened sky. Laurie immediately swept away from the musicians and greeted Margaret with a hug; it seemed she hadn’t been watching the performance at all but vying for the opportunity to greet the CEO first. Brendan scooted his seat into place next to Jade and drummed his fingers expectedly. Everyone was still applauding, their smiles stretched thin; Jade’s palms hurt, but she didn’t want to be the first to stop.

Laurie snatched a flute of Champagne from a nearby waiter and thrust it into Margaret’s hand, then strode to a seat at the frontmost table. Margaret cleared her throat and brought her mouth to the microphone. The rustling and whispers that had inundated the room immediately simmered as if a lid had been dropped atop it.

“Good evening,” Margaret began. She had a staccato transatlantic accent, a low voice emphasized by the microphone. “Thank you all for your kindness and generosity as I part ways with the company my grandfather established nearly a century ago. Forty years with the same company is, some might say, a life sentence.” She paused. A few people chuckled uncertainly. Margaret pursed her lips in a slight smile and continued.

“Life and work are so often intertwined these days. But life is not about the deals brokered, the assets acquired. No: the true backbone of this company are the people within its walls; the ones who make successes both professional and personal happen …”

Jade crossed her legs, uncrossed them. She fidgeted with the silver ring on her middle finger, a $4 piece from Target that she hoped was passing for something finer. She wondered what kind of cake was going to be served later, then thought with slight horror that these weren’t the sort of people who ate dessert. Her eyes fell to Laurie up in front. The VP’s lips were moving as though she, too, were giving the speech. “Margaret’s pet,” Brendan had once whispered. But, Jade remembered now, there had been rumors years ago that Laurie had once joined forces with Margaret’s ex-husband in a failed coup. Funny, how close the two women seemed now.

“… I’ve always said the future belongs to those who fight for it,” Margaret was saying. “The future is uncertain; of that, I’m certain. But the one who wants it most, that’s the one who deserves it, no?”

Another pause. Brendan was nodding, although Margaret hadn’t spoken for several seconds. Laurie licked her lips.

Margaret gazed around the room impassively, letting the silence swell. “I know all of you in this room believe this to be my retirement party,” she said finally. “And it is, in part. But it is also…a game.”

Everyone exchanged glances at one another; Brendan started to clap, but froze when nobody joined him.

“A game,” Margaret repeated, “to determine who will take my place.”

She swept off the podium without another word; the scraping of pushed-back chairs and the din of conversation rose like dust particles in her wake. “Games, like, relay races? Scrabble? I wasn’t prepared for this,” Brendan anguished.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jade could see Margaret approaching their table, Laurie dogging behind her half a step. Brendan stood up straighter. “Ms. Vaning!”

Margaret arched an eyebrow. “You may call me Margaret, Brendan, as you normally do.”

Brendan bowed his head. “I just — I was curious — I wanted to ask about what you said in your speech? About some sort of game?”

“The game hasn’t started yet, dear man. You must relax.”

“Absolutely. You’re right.” Brendan turned sharply to Jade. “Could you get me a glass of Champagne?”

Jade chuckled. Brendan was her friend, sort of; he wasn’t one of the guys who conflated “intern” with “servant girl,” at least. “What?”

His eyes darted back and forth between her and Margaret. “You heard me.”

“Fetch me one too,” Laurie said. “And another for Ms. Vaning.” She plucked Margaret’s empty flute from her hand and shoved it into Jade’s.

As Jade jostled through the crowd, obstinately taking her time to grab potstickers from a passed tray, she caught snippets of conversation, peals of nervous laughter. Everyone seemed to be speculating on Margaret’s criteria for a replacement. What would a game demonstrate to her? “Did we have to memorize the quarterly numbers?” “Is it some kind of scavenger hunt?” Jade was curious as well; the idea of a game seemed to go against the no-nonsense image the CEO always presented.

Jade secured the Champagne and brought it back to the group. “Thank you,” Margaret said to Jade, the only one to do so. “Are you paying attention?”

Jade blinked. Surely Margaret wasn’t considering her for the position?

A cater-waiter carrying a tray of cocktail shrimp sauntered past. Margaret whipped around to catch his attention. The shawl that had been draped loosely around her shoulders fluttered to the ground like shed snakeskin. Jade bent to pick it up. “Ms. Vaning—”

Laurie snatched the shawl from her arms. “Margie, dear, you dropped this.”

“Thank you, Laurie,” Margaret said, locking eyes with Jade as she took the shawl back from Laurie. “Always so observant.”

The group soon meandered from small talk into a conversation about ex-employees, catching Jade up on an HR report from last year in which a junior associate had claimed her manager refused to approve any vacation days.

“To be fair,” Brendan was saying, “she wasn’t really trying to take a vacation. Her husband was sick and she had to take days off to bring him to appointments.”

“She could’ve hired a nurse with the salary we paid her,” Laurie sniffed.

“C’mon, Laurie, you’re saying she shouldn’t have gotten time off to take care of her own husband?” Brendan asked.

“We all know Laurie doesn’t value marriages very much,” Margaret cooed, patting Laurie’s arm. A thick silence fell as Laurie laughed uncomfortably. Brendan coughed and excused himself.

“While you’re up, dear,” Margaret called after him, “could you bring that man in the gray checkered suit over here? He’s one of our most important investors and I can’t let the night pass without greeting him.”

Was this the game? Jade wondered. Doing chores and performing docility?

“I can do it,” Laurie said, squaring her shoulders.

Margaret shook her head brusquely. “Let him do it. You’ve done enough, dear.”

Brendan returned a moment later with the investor and picked up a fresh glass of Champagne. “Margaret, I was just telling Mr. Tennyson here—” he enthusiastically swooped his arm, and a splash of liquid immediately stained the investor’s arm. Brendan turned bright red.

“I’m so sorry, sir,” he stammered, picking up a napkin and dabbing at the man’s sleeve. “Let me just…”

“Brendan, please,” Margaret barked, guiding Mr. Tennyson away by the shoulder.

Brendan hung his head. “I’m screwing up,” he lamented.

“Please.” Laurie rolled her eyes. “You have no chance.”

“And you do? We all know what happened between you two.”

The night tumbled by in more rounds of Champagne, pinched faces turning red and relaxed. Margaret kept Jade close by as she flitted in and out of different groups, asking some employees innocuous questions about their favorite memories on the job and sending others on inconsequential tasks. Laurie hovered by all the while; Jade was sure that if she noticed this, Margaret certainly did, too, but the CEO made no mention of it.

Finally, at around 11 o’clock, Margaret beckoned to Jade. “Could you please bring a tray of Champagne glasses and accompany me to the podium? I want to raise a toast to my successor.”

Jade obliged, balancing the tray of glasses as she climbed behind Margaret to the podium. The room hushed; forks tinkled against flutes. For one wild second, Jade imagined it was her they were all waiting to hear from. She who could send interns running around like retrievers, she who commanded the attention of the room by the simple weight of three letters tacked to the end of her name.

But it was Laurie who was called up to the stand, Laurie whose hand Margaret raised like an Olympic champion. “I have been watching,” Margaret said into the microphone, “and although many of you are deserving, I would be remiss not to hand down this honor to one of my closest, longest friends, the woman who helped bring Vaning Ventures to the top where it belongs.”

The veranda erupted with applause. Laurie put a perfectly manicured hand to her heart and blinked tearily at the PR team’s cameras. Margaret pressed a leather briefcase into Laurie’s chest.

“Your legacy,” Margaret said, smiling more broadly now, teeth bared. Her eyes were wide, immune to the camera’s dazzling flashes. “Go on. Open it.”

Laurie took a deep breath and slid open the briefcase’s latches. Click, click. She lifted the lid. Her smile froze, then dropped. She blinked and gaped at Margaret, still looking at her like prey. “Is this a joke?” Laurie asked.

“What is it?” Brendan said, leaning so far out of his seat that he hovered halfway across the table. The question spread around the room like a skipped rock tearing through a pond.

Margaret leaned closer to Laurie, her soft voice just captured by the microphone. “You wanted it, darling. Now it’s yours.”

Laurie lifted a piece of paper that shook in her hand. Jade clapped a hand to her mouth and set the tray of glasses atop the closest table. The red ink stamped across the top read FINAL NOTICE. Laurie pawed through other bound packets: pending litigation, moneys owed, liquidation.

“Margie…”

The others cheered louder, Champagne-addled minds interpreting Laurie’s speechlessness as overwhelming joy. Margaret cackled. Her eyes flicked to Jade. The weight of what Jade, and no one else, had seen passed between them like a playground’s sacred pinky promise. There was no legacy, only a burden. Margaret hadn’t crowned a successor. She had escaped.