Professor Falstaff stood at the microphone as if it was just recently invented. His dress did nothing to dispel the old school magician vibe. His comely assistant, Tracy Sullivan, led the proceedings. He pinched the mic a few times like he was tenderizing it. After he was done he leaned like the mic was going to poison him. Most of the audience presumed the tenderizing was an attempt to remove the mic from the stand.

“Good evening,” he said in a vaguely Eastern European accent, doing further damage to the possibility of him not being a magician. “Tonight, we are here to learn about teamwork. Let me tell you something about teamwork. There is no ‘I’ in team.” He punctuated each word with his index finger, bobbing up and down like he was taking his first drum lesson.

“There's no we either, asshole,” Cheryl whispered, arms and legs crossed on a folding plastic chair. Hundreds of such chairs were arrayed in rows and columns, filling the ballroom. The chairs were then filled with smiling, staring faces locking their attention on Falstaff. Cheryl twiddled her phone.

“Shh,” Sophie snickered.

“He said that like he made it up.”

“Shh,” Sophie said trending toward a laugh, then leaned forward clasping her hands over her head and convulsed.

“Don’t tell me to shush when you’re having library giggles.”

“Shh,” came a chorus from the rows behind them.

Cheryl waved them off. Sophie, red-faced and grimacing, gave the best penitent hand gesture she could perform under the conditions.

“And now I’d like to introduce my assistant, Tracy Sullivan, who will be available after this presentation for a free massage, reiki, acupuncture and all those things your demographic loves.”

The audience tittered. Sophie had since regained her composure. Tracy moved to the front of the stage with a peppy jog. The ponytail she'd threaded through the strap on the back of her golf cap bounced to her steps. After a big cheesecake grin and ecstatic waves to the audience, she returned to her position by the video projector.

“The one real thing this guy said and they think it’s a gag,” Cheryl whispered.

“Not getting involved this time,” Sophie said.

“Are you going to be commenting the whole presentation?” Ian leaned forward and scolded Cheryl.

“Presentation,” Cheryl said leaning across Sophie, “You know what happens at presentations? People try and sell you shit you shouldn’t ought to buy. There’s a reason the weekend is free. Because these assholes are gonna throw a lot a money at this bullshit. Most of these middle-aged, doughy sacks of shit are here to be groped by that cheerleader up there for ten minutes without having to pay for it.”

“Would you please keep quiet,” came the strongly worded requests from behind.

Cheryl and Ian sat back.

“As I’ve been made aware,” Falstaff began, “We have a very special guest here tonight, Mr. Max Merkin, CEO of Mathers Chemical. Stand up, sir. Round of applause please."

“Give any more employees cancer,” Cheryl shouted just below the applause.

“Cheryl,” said Sophie.

“Like nobody knows that.”

“Keep it down,” she laughed.

“I know. I didn’t want him to hear. It would just give him a chance to born-again grandstand about mercy and forgiveness. And chemotherapy,” Cheryl stood, “Well, I'm out.”

“Where are you going?” Ian asked in a hushed bark.

“I'm not staying here with people like this,” Cheryl snapped. “If I was to eat at the same buffet as him, I'm literally breaking bread with a sociopathic monster.”

“Can you go two minutes without launching a crusade?”

“Cmon, Cher,” Sophie begged her. “Just stick it out. It’s gotta be over soon...right?” she turned to Ian.

Cheryl glared at Sophie, “I need a smoke.”

“As a team, ‘we’ is your greatest we-apon,” Falstaff said in a proud bellow.

Cheryl’s eyes popped and she left the auditorium.

Cheryl stood in the parking lot smoking. Cheryl somehow managed the feat of sometimes going months without a cigarette. She had no idea how old this torn up pack was, but they tasted like shit. She pinched the cigarette in the middle to cover the tear in the bend. She drew hard to hasten the ember’s progress toward the break. A round, middle-aged woman and her paunchy husband were walking toward the hotel. The woman caught sight of Cheryl and increased the pace of her waddle.

“Oh, I’m not late am I?” she called to Cheryl as she ambled closer.

“Yeah,” Cheryl grumbled, “But you didn’t miss anything.”

“I’m Pam.” She shot her hand at Cheryl. “Pam Francis. That’s my husband Larry.”

“That’s great,” Cheryl said avoiding eye contact and hiding behind her cigarette.

“You probably think it’s weird going to a teamwork conference as a couple, huh?”

“No. In fact, I’m not thinking about it at all.”

“But a marriage is a team right?”

Cheryl dropped her head and sighed, staring hard at the ground and taking out a third of the cigarette in one draw.

“Larry is an…”

“Accountant.”

“How did you know?”

Cheryl looked Larry up and down, “It just came to me.”

“You should be a psychic,” Pam tapped Cheryl’s arm with the back of her hand.

“And have to listen to your thoughts too?” Cheryl thought, “Did I say that out loud?”

“What does your husband do?”

Cheryl made eye contact with Pam for the first time and hoped she looked as much like this woman’s particular death as possible. “I don’t have to be a psychic when you leave no thought unexpressed.”

Larry made a low rumbling chuckle. Pam’s smile shriveled she and began pushing Larry toward the hotel. Sophie, Ian, and Carl emerged and spotted Cheryl. Cheryl turned away toward the street and nursed the stump of the cigarette before lighting a new one on the dying spark of the first.

“Soph, get your bow,” she said as Sophie approached. “Put one between my eyes.”

“Oh, stop,” Sophie replied.

“This is lame.”

“I don't know, maybe. But it might be exactly what we need.”

“Give me a break, Soph. This shit’s a scam.”

“I've been willing to follow you from public humiliation to public humiliation. I don't think it's asking much for you to return the favor just once. But if you want it to just be you and Sophie again I'm happy to oblige,” Ian said as he stepped close to Cheryl.

“That would be great,” Cheryl said.

“No. It wouldn't.” Sophie stepped between them. “Let's just...I don't know. Go for a walk or something. Calm down.”

“Well if you still feel like being a team, I’ll be at the breakout.” Ian stalked back the hotel.

“The very vocabulary of this shit puts my teeth on edge,” Cheryl seethed.

Carl looked like a lost sasquatch.

“Carl?”

Carl scratched the back of his head and squinted.

“Really? This is something you need to think about?” Cheryl said, shifting her weight.

“I don't know, Cher. We're already here. It's worth a shot. Or at least a laugh.” Carl said.

Cheryl rolled her eyes, shook her head, and let out an exasperated grunt. “You too, Judas? A walk sounds good.”

She spun on her heel and walked away. Sophie put her hands to her head and sighed. Carl looked hangdog as he went to catch up with Ian. Carl looked back at Sophie. She gave him a pantomime sad face and consolatory wave. She jogged to catch up with Cheryl.

The breakout was conducted by the Blue Scarf Ladies, a group of older women who known for being savvy investors. Their combined worth, a total of fourteen members, was close to a billion. They peddled in a folksy charm that emboldened the average man to blow a lot of money in the stock market.

Ian sat in a plastic chair and Carl sat cross-legged on the floor.

After forty-seven minutes of a droning presentation that exhibited no signs of relenting, Ian leaned to Carl, “You’ve known Cheryl for a while, is this just her?”

“Cheryl is a tough one. You just have to accept the fact that she is always going to be walking around in a suit of armor.”

“I’m accustomed to her suit of armor, it’s these fixations she gets. She wants us to work better as a team, but doesn’t actually want to do anything to advance that goal. She’d rather just keep slamming our heads into a brick wall going after an absurd gang. That’s not what I signed up for. We’ve completely ignored Vyx. His campaign is rolling right along. And the only one who could possibly get through to her is always carrying water for her.”

“Oh, Soph, well, you gotta understand, Sophie and Cher are like sisters. Sophie went to live with Cher’s folks when her mother died. Sophie is the only one that Cher doesn’t wear the armor around.”

“I understand that, but at some point, if you keep standing with the dictator and don’t question their edicts, you’re complicit."

“And we put it all into pumpkin futures…” the Blue Scarves buzzed.

“As much as I hate to eat crow,” Ian muttered, “Cheryl has a point about this retreat.”

“A retreat at a hotel on the expressway.”

“Now,” the apparent lead Scarf announced, “We’re going to pass around this apple. When you get the apple, I want you to stand up and give a few words about how you feel about the apple.”

“How can that possibly be of any value?” Ian said louder than he had intended.

When Sophie caught up with Cheryl she grabbed her shoulder and spun her around.

“What is your deal?” Sophie snapped.

“My deal is I'm tired of wasting time.”

“Like chasing after idiot bank robbers for months?”

“If you don't like the way I do things maybe you should go and be a little team with them.”

“You're taking your shit out on me now?”

“I work better on my own.” Cheryl started walking away. Sophie pulled her back.

“Bullshit. What was I there for? Just to be a sounding board for your bitching?”

“It's probably time you stopped glomming onto me. Show a little independence for once in your clingy life.”

If Sophie was capable of making an enraged face she was making one now.

“I put my life on the line for your stupid crusade, because I believe in you. Out there in the middle of the night torching useless warehouses by myself, while you sat at home stewing about how everyone else makes your life difficult.”

“I never asked you to help me. You just attached yourself to me like always. You've been doing that since we were kids. If I asked mom and dad for something, you'd want it too. I joined the field hockey team, you joined the field hockey team. You didn't give a shit about field hockey. Everywhere we went you were stuck to me like a tick.”

“Because you're my sister. I looked up to you. I wanted to be just like you.”

“You were adopted.”

Sophie's eyes welled and her lip quivered.

“Fuck you,” she shook. “I barely recognize you anymore.”

“Get a good look, because this is me.”

Sophie could no longer dictate the volume and frequency of the tears that escaped her eyes. Cheryl tossed her the room key, it landed on the floor by her feet.

“If you're going to ugly cry you might want to go lock yourself in the room for it.” Cheryl turned and walked away.

Sophie wrapped one arm around herself and covered her face with her hand. Her body shook with soft sobs. She bent down and snatched the room key off the floor. She hurried off before she lost her composure.

Cheryl returned from her lengthy constitutional and two ambulances were in the baggage roundabout in front of the hotel, loading laden stretchers. Cheryl could see in one stretcher rested the former Max Merkin.

“No big loss,” she thought.

In the other stretcher laid the lifeless body of Pam Francis.

“What the hell happened?” Cheryl asked a paramedic.

“Cardiac arrest,” the medic replied, “Both of them.”

Among the crowd of rubberneckers and gawkers, was a cluster of attempted empathy gathered around Tracy Sullivan, who was sobbing and hanging her head.

“Did she get cut from the pep squad?” Cheryl asked a bystander who happened to be Larry Francis.

“She found ‘em both,” Larry said in the same apparent emotional state he was in while trudging through the parking, earlier, on Pam’s invisible leash, “Within fifteen minutes of each other.”

“Is cheerleader doing full service? Fehrle I would expect, but I would have never guessed Pam had a naughty streak."

“God forbid.”

“Where were you?”

“Drinking.”

“I hear that.”

Cheryl stood and regarded the weeping Tracy. Tracy turned her to wipe her tears on her sleeve.

“Bone dry,” Cheryl thought. “Her eyeliner is perfect. Drama queen.”

Cheryl entered the lobby of the hotel. The complimentary massage, reiki, whatever appointment book was sitting on a pedestal by the check-in desk. Cheryl scanned the entries.

Max Fehrle: 7:15

Pam Francis: 7:30

The names were written in the same handwriting and in a darker ink than the rest of the names, which had been written using the fading pen resting in the spine of the book. The other names were also in all different handwritings. She flipped the page. Next to the entry for 8:45 was written "Sophia Fischer" in the darker ink and flowery hand of Max and Pam’s entries.

“Sophia?” she thought. “Since when?”