Forgive Me by Joshua Corin Page A

through the doors and then across the street to the parking lot and then—
    “Mr. Berman.”
    Male voice. From behind.
    Ross became an ice statue, four steps away from the lobby’s parquet tiles.
    “Mr. Berman, I just wanted to tell you…how sorry I am for your loss.”
    Ross turned around. He vaguely recognized the man from the ballroom, from one of the tables near the back. The man was older, maybe sixty, though with an athletic build and animated brown eyes. His suit was also brown, and impeccably smooth. He held out a steady hand. At first Ross didn’t understand why. Then common sense resumed, and Ross shook the man’s hand.
    “Thank you.”
    “My name is Buddy Meeks. Here is my card. I actually am from Atlanta and I’d love to hear more about your charity.”
    With his other hand, just as steady, Buddy Meeks produced a fudge-hued, palm-sized piece of card stock and slipped it to Ross with confidence and dexterity. Buddy Meeks was obviously a card-sharing pro.
    “Thank you,” Ross repeated, and turned to continue his retreat.
    “Oh, and Mr. Berman?”
    “Yes?”
    “Even when things look bleak, remember that perspective is always subjective.”
    Perspective is always subjective?
    That had to be up there with “the grass is always greener” and “every cloud has a silver lining.” Empty bons mots one and all. But when your bank account numbered in seven digits, you probably believed that every bit of wisdom you spouted offered some worth. And so, there on the stairs, as Ross itched to leave, ached to flee, Buddy continued to expound on his empty-minded bromide about perspective. Ross nodded at the appropriate places, added “Mm-hm” when “Mm-hms” were due, but acting was never his forte, and what this man was saying amounted to little more than fortune-cookie gibberish. Always darkest before the dawn, huh? And what kind of dawn might a recently paroled black man expect when it came to gainful employment? Or how about a twelve-year-old girl who has just given birth nine months after being raped? How rosy were her dawns going to be, Buddy?
    It was no different, really, from that out-of-touch drivel Phillip had written in his speech. It was as if these men and women lived in an alternate reality where Ayn Rand’s philosophies were healthy and productive rather than responsible for some of the worst economic disasters of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It was enough to made Ross sick, enough to make him angry, enough to fire up his engines and propel him toward action. Because he believed in the ideology of the Serendipity Group. He even understood, in the abstract, why, six months ago, they had chosen Phillip to receive special attention.
    Phillip, through his company, had exploited thousands of low-income families from Seattle to Portland. He had fed them home loans they could not afford and then made a profit each time they failed to repay. Sure, the government finally outlawed these practices and had even fined brokerage firms such as Phillip’s for their bad behavior, but no one went to prison. Phillip’s bonus this past year had been over three million dollars. His bonus! And he wasn’t ashamed about it. He had boasted about it to Ross over the phone.
    “It’s the free hand of the market giving me a reach-around,” he’d said, laughing, but then they changed subjects, because talk of money, understandably, had always been a point of contention between them. They mostly discussed science fiction, fantasy, and comic books. They both geeked out over science fiction, fantasy, and comic books. Phillip was one of the few people in the world with whom Ross felt comfortable discussing his infatuation with
Ms. Marvel
and conversely, Ross had been Phillip’s only confidant when it came to the latter’s undying love of
Fraggle Rock.
    When it didn’t seem as if Buddy was anywhere near a conclusion, Ross finally piped in, “I’m sorry. Really. But I need to get