The Clearance

Jo Larkin handed Margaret Kells a folded page as the men were taking their places at the conference table. It was a list of jobs and rented rooms, the sort Margaret received every week. Halfway down, beneath an erasure that had nearly worn through the paper, she recognized her own address.

Jo had stayed in Ruth’s spare room that spring. Margaret knew that. What she had not expected was to find Hawthorne between the other addresses Jo was preparing for a security investigation, or to see how hard she had tried to rub it out.

“Personnel said to ask you what they want,” Jo said. “I’ve got the receipts at home. Some of those dates will need checking.”

Margaret flattened the fold with her thumb. The blank spaces above and below Hawthorne gave her somewhere to look while she decided whether anyone else had read it.

“Keep this for the interview. I’ll need the receipts too.”

She gave it back before Jo could ask another question. Jo folded it with the damaged line inside and put it in her notebook. Across the table Walter Ames was setting out a load summary, and the engineering director was telling someone to close the door. Nobody appeared to have noticed the exchange.

Margaret took the place beside Warren Cole, Ridgeway’s Plant Security Officer, and put his backward carbon set right while Engineering found the latest schedule. Ruth had let Jo stay while Margaret was in Sacramento. When she came home, there had been another cup on the draining board and washing on the line. A room was due to become available nearer the plant. She hadn’t asked anything else.

Now she wanted to ask Jo why Hawthorne had needed erasing. She also wanted the sheet out of this room before Frank Dacey collected everyone’s papers.

The conference room had been closed since eight. Cigarette smoke collected below the acoustic tiles, and Margaret’s navy jacket stuck to her blouse whenever she reached across the table. She had dressed for Warren’s air-conditioned office. The men had shed their jackets and spread into the extra space; she moved an ashtray and kept hers on.

Dacey stood beneath a clock that had gained three minutes since Monday. He had taken off his jacket, and the sweat beneath his suspenders had begun to show through his shirt. He flattened the schedule against the table and waited until Warren was looking at it.

“Twenty-one days for preliminary stress,” Dacey said. “Larkin needs to be inside in twelve. What am I supposed to tell the colonel?” He pushed the schedule across to Warren, keeping a finger on the test date.

“Which roster am I using, Frank? Friday’s had twelve names. Yesterday you sent fourteen.” Warren left the schedule beneath Dacey’s hand. “I need the list settled.”

Margaret set the repaired carbon packet beside Warren’s envelope and reached for the organization sheet beneath Dacey’s elbow.

“Which nine can you sign for today, Frank? Give me those and the others can wait.”

Dacey pulled the sheet free and counted the typed entries, though they had been through them before the meeting. He marked the two boxed names.

“Nine are firm. The other five can wait. It’s analysis I need settled. Larkin or Ames has to be through that door by the twenty-sixth.”

Margaret turned the sheet toward herself. Every department had room to grow except SECURITY RECORDS, ruled off at the bottom with her name beside it. Above her were the boxed names JO LARKIN and WALTER AMES. Jo held a metal ruler across her notebook with both thumbs. Walter was waiting for someone to ask him about his load summary.

“Larkin built the analysis we’ve got,” Dacey said. “Ames still has a Vulcan clearance. Warren says we can use him while hers goes through.”