She laughed. “No, my dear. Everyone here is somebody. Let’s continue,” she said, and led me farther down the hall to another room, a beautiful library with what looked like hundreds of books if not more than a thousand, two computers, printers, and a rack of newspapers. A tall, thin man in a dark brown sports coat and brown slacks came out of an inner office. He had four books in his hands. He wore a pair of glasses in round frames and had his charcoal-gray hair pulled back and tied in a short ponytail.
“Ah, Professor Marx,” Mrs. Pratt said. “Roxy Wilcox might be your new student.”
“Excellent,” Professor Marx said, barely giving me a glance. He turned and began to place the books he carried in the bookcase on his right.
“I didn’t mean to create such excitement,” I muttered when we stepped out of the library.
Mrs. Pratt nearly laughed. She stopped with an extended smile. “Professor Marx is our resident intellectual. He was a college professor at one of the nation’s most prestigious universities.”
“What would I do in there?”
“You would be schooled in current events and historical background, along with the arts, literature, classical music, even pop and jazz. Of course, you need to have a good working knowledge of business and some math.”
“Math, too?” I groaned.
“Just to make it seem as though you know what the Pythagorean theorem means,” she said. “I’m kidding. You’ll get a smattering of the subject.”
“What about business?”
“Very important. Most of Mrs. Brittany’s clients are involved in high finance. You know the difference between a put and a call, shorting a stock, capital gains, things like that?”
“I know a great deal about that, actually,” I said. “My father is in finance.”
“Oh, that’s good. You’ll learn more about it, of course, have a deeper understanding. It’s all just information that will help you conduct an intelligent conversation. Don’t worry. It’s not that intense. Professor Marx is an expert in giving our girls just enough to convince any man that they’re not airheads.”
“I was lousy in school, but I’m not stupid, even though I’m sure I won’t know most of what he expects me to know,” I insisted.
“I wouldn’t be showing you around here if Mrs. Brittany thought you were stupid, Roxy. I assure you of that,” she replied. “You will also go to the library to meet with Professor Brenner, a retired speech and drama professor, who will give you speaking lessons.”
“Speaking lessons?”
“Improve your speaking, I should say. Make you more conscious of how you pronounce words, avoid slurring. You want to sound li
ke someone who deserves to be making the sort of money you’ll be making, don’t you? It’s all about impressing people, Roxy. Making good first impressions.”
I looked into the classroom dining room as we passed by it again and digested all she had told me so far, all that I had to learn and achieve.
“Professor Marx knows about all those subjects you listed?”
“As I said, he’ll make sure you know enough for your needs,” she replied.
“Really, Mrs. Pratt, I’d like to know, how long does this all take?”
“I told you it depends on the trainee, obviously. Some can’t hack it and are given a kill fee and sent on their way.”
“Kill fee?”
“Some money to leave with,” she said dryly. She looked at her watch.
“Is there anything else?” I asked.
“Training-wise?”
“Yes.”
“Mrs. Brittany herself will evaluate how you walk and move, whether you have proper poise, and she will instruct you in that regard.”
“You mean I don’t walk right or sit right?”