Trancas Canyon

Chicken

It was hard to believe she was in Tokyo. She may as well have been on Mars. Just last week she was temping at a mortgage office answering phones. The week before that she had been at a doctor's office. When she showed up for these entry level jobs, she was cautious not to be too efficient or too knowledgeable because it brought on questions. The last thing she wanted to do was explain that she was actually an MBA, a CFA as well as an attorney licensed to practice in four states who up until a few months ago was managing a portfolio where the minimum deposit was five million dollars.

For the six weeks after her father's diagnosis, Madli had balanced the pressures of her job with managing her father's care and being a dog owner. Three days after her father's burial, she received an email from human resources suggesting that the bereavement time she had taken was sufficient so the very next morning, she slipped into her business attire and returned to work.

In her year at the private bank, she had grown the portfolios of her clients as well as performing for the bank's bottom line. The pressure wasn't just coming from senior executives, there was also the pressure created by her competitive colleagues who had spent the last month and a half vying for her accounts.

On the morning of her first day back at the office she was overcome by the same sensation she had after the adrenaline of the funeral had worn off. Sitting in an early morning markets meeting, Madli listened to Bonnie Marshall-Freeman -- the Senior Vice President, deliver some grim news. Their brokerage division had received yet another multimillion dollar civil fine for misconduct. As Madli listened to Bonnie's silky voice, she felt the conference room table swaying as if she were on a boat. Madli did her best to stay focused and not betray the spinning she was feeling.

As the topic shifted, she closed her eyes and took a deep, long inhale through her nose. She snuck in another between the words of one of her colleagues, an expert in Biotechnology stocks, who shared news of a pact between a leading protein engineering company and a pharmaceutical giant which would send the stock of the former soaring.

Madli thought her moment had gone unnoticed but as the meeting concluded, Bonnie made eye contact with her across the conference room table. Bonnie was a fiftysomething mild mannered Canadian known for quietly getting rid of strategists who were not, as she liked to say, "earning their bread." Bonnie had paid her dues. She started her career in banking as a teller then becoming a bank manager before moving into wealth management when women were not welcomed into the club with open arms. When the meeting concluded, Bonnie made direct eye contact with Madli.

"Let's walk and talk."

"Sure."

Bonnie had a signature look -- Chanel cropped blazers and jackets in every shade of pink with skinny jeans and designer shoes. Madli's colleauges joked that Bonnie's preferred color palette was a calculated and deliberate attempt to soften her formidable personality. Today, Bonnie had accessorized her tweed jacket with a strand of knotted pearls that made a clacking sound as she led Madli to her corner office which was enclosed by three glass walls. This modern architectural feature was unique, but unfortunate for anyone who was called to sit in front of Bonnie.

Madli felt like she was climbing into the dentist's chair as she took a seat across from Bonnie's desk. Bonnie stood with her back to Madli, simultaneously looking through files on her credenza and firing off texts on her cell phone. Madli's mind wandered to the movers who were arriving at her apartment any minute now to pack up her belongings and transport them to her new condo in Wicker Park. She hadn't been to move into her new home since the day of the inspection. Tonight, after what would undoubtedly be at least a twelve-hour day, she would pick up Chicken, her English Bulldog from the boarding facility where Luke had dropped him off. Luke was serving as an expert witness in a voter fraud case and had flown to New York on the morning of her father's funeral.