Ax is getting up off the sofa as you come in, and ze looks as agitated as you've seen zir (so far). "Don't tell reporters anything. Decline to comment. Decline to be interviewed. It's pretty simple."
"Okay, sure," says Eileen. "The New York Times calls up, I tell them I'm not giving interviews. But what about when it's the pastor at church?"
Ax looks baffled and irritated. "I don't care what you tell the pastor. She's your friend, not mine."
The up-front view of private lives. This is what it's about, connecting with clients. Right?
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Neither of them is paying attention to you. Eileen is still talking.
"She's been asking how much I'll be able to increase my contribution to the parish," she says. "I don't know what to tell her. You say you'll cover things for me, but it's not as though you're giving me a regular allowance."
Then she laughs, a little sideways, like she's not sure herself whether that's a serious suggestion.
Ax is folded in on zirself by now, arms crossed, scowl in place. "I thought you'd find an allowance a little demeaning. I did say I'd pay off your mortgage, so I have no idea why suddenly your things are in my guest bedroom."
Eileen's face is cool and mulish. "There's plenty of room for me here, and then we can redirect the money you were going to spend on the mortgage. I'd be able to give a portion of that to the church, and a portion to your relatives, so your aunts wouldn't feel like you're being so stingy."
Ax's face freezes too. You've seen that expression before. Now, seeing Ax with Eileen, you recognize where the stubborn face comes from. "You are not getting rid of your biggest asset so that you can send money to Aunt Christy and Aunt Jillie."
"Family is more important to me than it is to you," Eileen says. "I'm not going to sleep well at night if we haven't taken care of them."
"Where were they when you had to work three jobs?" Ax says. "When I was being beat up at school? Did they ever even learn to use my real name, or are they still deadnaming me when they call you up?"
Big silence.
Eileen doesn't answer that last question. "They've always been as broke as we are." Eileen steps towards Ax. "Look at this place. I sent them pictures, it was them that gave me the idea to move in—"
"One more thing I have to thank them for."
"Imagine this. They know you live here, you've got this—what is it, Italian leather sofa set—probably costs more than their annual income." Eileen caresses the arm of the sofa like she used to be friends with the cow that made it. "Meanwhile, they're still living in that trailer outside Moses Lake, no jobs in sight, getting food from the parish. Going in to pick up a couple cans of pork and beans, and the front page news in the newspaper is about how half a billion dollars came to their—their—"
"Don't."
Eileen turns red.
"What do you think?" Ax says, turning to you. "Philosophical question, and you've seen more of these situations before. Do my relatives deserve a sudden windfall even though they've never done anything for me my whole life?"
"No one deserves a windfall," Eileen protests. "The point of family is, it redistributes the luck. Good and bad. Keeps things more even."
"When you're answering the question, picture a couple of women my mother's age, only they smoke and drink so much they look at least fifteen years older. They won't say a swear word, but they're perfectly happy to let loose with any racist epithet you ever heard in the last fifty years."
You take Eileen's side. Blood is thicker than water. The connections between human beings at the biological level—those are extremely powerful. It's not to say that you can't forge other bonds as well, friendship or adoption or loyalty to a country or group, but the connection of kin to kin is one of the oldest and most powerful instincts.
Ax's face gets darker as you talk. "Do you know, I don't think I've ever heard an argument based on evolutionary biology that I thought was any good," ze says. "It's used to excuse incredible bigotry."
Right. Well.
Time to redirect this conversation towards the practical aspects.
"It seems like the important thing is to resolve the living situation today," you say. "Since Mrs. Williams is not going to be living in your apartment, Ax, perhaps we should arrange to have her things returned to her own home so that she can rest comfortably there tonight."
"That is an excellent idea," Ax says.
Then there's a lot of work bringing in last-minute movers.
Ax's informal living room
Some hours later
Ze is sitting across from you, wearing a pair of Japanese-print trousers with a wrap skirt built into the waist, a Thom Browne creation.
You're both drinking blooming jasmine tea from a glass teapot.
"I maybe should have warned you that there were likely to be some complications due to my family," ze is saying.
"Mom is the reason I bought the penthouse. As soon as the money came through for our deal, she immediately developed this fear that I was going to be kidnapped and held for ransom. She was calling me three or four times a day to make sure that I was okay, asking when I was going to move someplace that had security. So I said, okay, Mom, I'll move out of the startup house.
"But now I've done that, and you see what happens. She doesn't think she's interfering, she just thinks she's being sensible for me. In her mind, I've always been impractical."
You've got some things to do that aren't going to be finished if you keep sitting here.
Forego that this evening, and you'll be able to make up for spending this time now. Platt might say you're not maintaining appropriate boundaries between yourself and your principal, but you're just having a conversation at the moment.
"Hey, I know," Ax says, sitting up straighter. "Do you want to come test-drive a Tesla with me? There's a showroom a few blocks from my house, and I've been thinking I'd walk up there and give it at try."
"Okay," you say. "I'd love to."
At some point, you're going to have to start saying no to these requests. You're going to have to explain to Ax that you're a service provider, not a companion animal. You're going to have to take some steps and preserve your own sanity before you become useless to both Ax and Platinum.
Platt wouldn't like that. But something has to give.
It isn't Ax's problem how behind you are or how much work it is keeping up with zir. Maybe you need to manage your time better, or delegate, or sleep less, but whatever happens, the client is never to feel that their use of your time is an imposition. That's a key point that Platt drives home constantly.
Later, Platt scolds you on your morning Skype call, in front of the rest of the Elite team. A couple of the more experienced Elites stare at you pityingly. It's awkward. But you're keeping your principal happy.
And then the next demand…
University of Washington Campus
Red Square
Today Ax has you along to visit the university. Someone in computer science is making a pitch for endowment funds from Ax, and ze has brought you "to help me understand what I'm hearing."
When you get there, Ax is waiting for you in the brick-lined courtyard at the center of campus—the one with the long view all the way to Mount Rainier. Ax is wearing a hoodie, tapered jeans, and Steve Madden stilettos. The outfit says Startup, But Not. Students keep walking by and pointing.
Ze isn't in a good mood. "I don't know what they need me for," ze says. "You've got Amazon and Microsoft in this town. You've got the Gates Foundation."
"I think you'll find everyone has an idea about what I should be doing, and a hot take about what it means when I don't," Ax replies.
A beat, and ze hears zirself. "Sorry," ze says. "The situation isn't your fault, but I'm not having a good day."
You raise your eyebrows.
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Did you see this?" Ax produces a folded magazine out of the pocket of zir hoodie.
The lead article is "New, Newer, Newest: Tech Money and the Erosion of High Culture." The article profiles Angela Falter ("new"), Mark Zuckerberg ("newer"), and Ax Williams ("newest").
It goes on to explain why non-generational wealth is undercutting symphonies, ballets, and opera companies across America.
"Museums are suffering," the article adds on page three, "as the wealthiest potential donors have no sense of their own history." It also quotes a neuroscientist on the erosion of attention span in the age of smartphones.
"I mean, Angela Falter of all people," ze says. "She's literally appeared on stage with Hillary Clinton. I think she has some money invested in private prison companies. Neoliberal complicit in carceral justice system, is what I heard."
"It's hard to be alive and not be complicit in something," Ax replies. "But I think I could pick better complicities than hers."
Ze stops and glares out the window for a few minutes, as usual when ze is thinking. It's a bright day today, for Seattle: sun coming through a break in the clouds, seagulls in flight.
"Anyway, the point is," ze says, "she and I don't exactly move in the same circles in any sense other than using Platinum as a concierge. That's not the link, is it? You guys don't buy Zuckerberg's cars or something, do you?"
"No."
"Okay. Well, we need to work on this."
So…
Your host from the CS department still hasn't arrived—extremely bad patron management skills here—and a light rain is starting to fall. Ax acts like ze doesn't notice. This might not even be an act: living in Seattle, ze's probably used to it.
"I need to be in the public eye in the way that I choose," Ax says. Ze's in fidget mode now, cracking zir knuckles as well as pacing, building up a head of energy the way ze does whenever there's a problem. "No more seeing what happens. I'm thinking the Venice is Sinking Masquerade. It's a fundraiser, I go every year—it would reflect the real me."
You note this. The Venice is Sinking Masquerade. It's probably not exactly on the wavelength of the Met Gala, if Ax was going even as a non-wealthy, non-famous person. You can check it as soon as you get back to your hotel room.
"I thought maybe we could get a photographer and we could have a journalist attend to start work on a profile piece. You can attend as well, and we can put together a little entourage for me…Oh, look, our host."
Next
And indeed a man is walking quickly in your direction, saying "Sorry, sorry!" and holding out a tray of coffees. "I thought I could just get us a few drinks, but the register was down at the Starbucks, I don't know who does the infrastructure around here." He struggles over the problem of how to shake Ax's hand while simultaneously handing zir a cold-pressed nitro coffee (no straw) and also not dropping the rest of the coffees on the ground.
This turns out to be about how the rest of the day is going to go.
You and Ax spend three hours touring computer labs and listening to pious sentiments about STEM education for marginalized populations.
All three of the professors you meet are keen to talk about how important it is to raise the proportion of non-men in tech. They've clearly agreed in advance that this was a good line of argument, but confronted with Ax zirself, and Ax's completely deadpan handling of zir own gender, the professors (all male themselves) falter, not quite sure whether they should or should not appeal to Ax's own experience.
Ax taps zir feet impatiently throughout the second half of the interview.
That is usually not good.
"I think we can safely call that a train wreck," Ax tells you with some satisfaction as you're walking away from the building. "I assume we got the B-list Begging Staff, and they bring their A game when they talk to Gates."
Some Platinum clients have a personal assistant screen any philanthropical outreach requests. It's something you could think about for Ax as well, if ze gets over zir fear of having a staff. So far, you've only gotten as far as providing occasional cleaners. No live-in housekeeper. That day will come, but it hasn't arrived yet.
Your ride with Ax back to the Escala. Ze talks the whole time about the need to develop and establish an image, to take control of zir program of operations. This is evidently zir new priority.
"I was hoping for someone a little more…sophisticated, I guess," Ax says, when you introduce your pick.
"We have to start small," you say. This is not quite fair. Someone with even slightly stronger social connections would have been able to place an article on Ax in almost any magazine you liked. It's just not your strength.
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Venice is Sinking Masquerade Ball
Metropolist, Seattle
The masquerade takes place in a darkened warehouse. Inside, performers on aerial silks and hoops dangle from the rafters of the high ceiling, holding champagne bottles to refill the drinks of those below. There are also a couple of stilt walkers in extremely tall tuxedos, but you can't tell whether they are performers or just part of the crowd.
No one gets in without a mask, but there are some vendor stalls up front for people at a last-minute loss: masks in leather and papier-mâché and laser-cut metal.
You yourself are wearing:
Though it performs much the same function as a mask, the face paint can't easily be removed, and there is something subversive about having it instead of some cloth or cardboard construction. Especially in the dim light, it really does suggest fur or feathers on the upper part of the face.
Platinum customers are in the VIP area. The base-level tickets cost only about a hundred dollars, but those people have to pay for their own drinks, and they don't have anywhere to sit down. The VIP space has drink trays and sofas.
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