OU AWOKE THE MORNING AFTER to a woodpecker sitting on his head hammering away with great gregariousness at the top of his skull. The pain worked its way from his frontal lobe through both his temples and down to the base of his head. Somewhere outside, a car horn beeped, ridiculous for this hour, and an engine was running. He closed his eyes again and tried to disappear into the world of sleep, but responsibilities, the woodpecker, and what sounded like the front door slamming wouldn’t allow him safe haven in his sweet dreams.

His mouth was so dry, he found himself smacking his lips together and thrashing his tongue around in order to gather the smallest amount of moisture. And then the saliva came, and he found himself in that awful place—between his bed and the toilet bowl—where his body temperature went up, his mind dizzied, and the moisture came to his mouth in waves. He kicked off his bedclothes, ran for the toilet, and fell to his knees in a heavy, heaving worship of the toilet bowl. It was only when he no longer had any energy, or anything left inside his stomach, that he sat on the heated tiles in physical and mental exhaustion, and noticed that the sky outside was bright. Unlike the darkness of his usual morning rises at this time of the year, the sky was a bright blue. And then panic overcame him, far worse than the dash he’d just encountered.

Lou dragged himself up from the floor and returned to the bedroom with the desire to grab the alarm clock and strangle the nine a.m. that flashed boldly in red. He’d slept in. They’d all missed their wake-up call. Only they hadn’t, because Ruth wasn’t in bed. Then he noticed the smell of food drifting upstairs, almost mockingly doing the cancan under his nose. He heard the clattering and clinking of cups and saucers. A baby’s babbles. Morning sounds. Long, lazy sounds that he shouldn’t be hearing. He should be hearing the hum of the fax machine and photocopier; the noise of the elevator as it moved up and down the shaft, its ping, every now and then, as though the people inside had been cooked. He should be hearing Alison’s acrylic nails on the keyboard. He should be hearing the squeaking of the mail cart as Gabe made his way down the hallways…

Gabe.

He pulled on a robe and rushed downstairs, almost falling over the shoes and briefcase he’d left at the bottom step, before bursting through the door into the kitchen. There they were, the three usual suspects: Ruth, Lucy, and Bud. Gabe wasn’t anywhere to be seen, thankfully. Egg was dribbling down Lucy’s chin, Ruth was still in her nightgown. Bud was the only one to make a sound as he sang and babbled, his eyebrows moving up and down with such expression it was as though his sentences actually meant something. Lou took this scene in, but at the same time failed to appreciate a single pixel of it.

“What the hell, Ruth?” he said loudly, causing all heads to look up and turn to him.

“Dada?” Bud asked, his voice sweet as an angel’s.

“Excuse me?” Ruth looked at him with widened eyes.

“It’s nine a.m. Nine o-fucking-clock. Why the hell didn’t you wake me?” He came closer to her.

“Lou, why are you talking like this?” Ruth frowned, then turned to her son. “Come on, Bud, a few more spoons, honey.”

“Because you’re trying to get me fired, is what you’re doing. Isn’t it? Why the hell didn’t you wake me?”

“Lucy, why don’t you go and wash your hands,” Ruth spoke calmly, her eyes following her daughter out of the room and then turning to Lou. “I was going to wake you, but Gabe said not to. He said to let you rest until about ten o’clock, that a rest would do you good, and I agreed,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Gabe?” He looked at her as though she were the most ludicrous thing on the planet. “GABE?” he shouted now. “Gabe the mailboy? The fucking MAILBOY? You listened to him? He’s an imbecile!”

“Well, that imbecile”—Ruth fought to stay calm—“drove you home last night instead of leaving you to drive to your death.”

Remembering then that Gabe had driven him home, Lou rushed outside to the driveway. He made his way around the perimeter of his car, hopping from foot to foot on the pebbles outside, his concern for his vehicle so great that he could barely feel them pinching his bare skin. He examined his Porsche from all angles, running his fingers along the surface to make sure there weren’t any scratches or dents. Finding nothing wrong, he calmed a little, though he still couldn’t understand what had made Ruth value Gabe’s opinion so highly. What was going on in the world that had everybody eating out of Gabe’s palm?

He returned to the kitchen, where Ruth was still sitting at the table feeding Bud.

“Ruthy.” He cleared his throat and made an attempt at a Lou-style apology, the kind of apology that never involved the word sorry. “It’s just that Gabe is after my job, you see. You didn’t understand that, I know, but he is. So when he arrived at work this morning bright and early, knowing that I was still asleep—”

“He left five minutes ago.” She cut him off right away, not turning around, not even looking at him. “He stayed in one of the spare rooms because I’m not too sure if he’s got anywhere else to go. He got up and made us all breakfast, and then I called him a taxi, which I paid for so that he could get to work. So I suggest you get out of this house and take your accusations with you.”

“Ruthy, I—”

“You’re right, Lou, and I’m wrong. It’s clear from this morning’s behavior that you’re totally in control of things and not in the least bit stressed,” she said sarcastically. “I was such a fool to think you needed an extra hour’s sleep. Now, Bud,” Ruth said as she lifted the baby from his chair and kissed his food-stained face, “let’s go give you a bath.”

Bud clapped his hands and turned to jelly under her raspberry kisses. Ruth walked toward Lou with Bud in her arms, and for a moment Lou softened at the big smile on his son’s face. He prepared to take Bud in his arms but didn’t get a chance. Ruth walked right on by, cuddling Bud tightly while he laughed uproariously at her kisses. Lou acknowledged the rejection. For about five seconds. And then he realized that he needed to get to work. And so he dashed.

In record timing, and thankfully due to Sergeant O’Reilly’s not being on duty as Lou fired his way to work, Lou arrived at the office at ten fifteen a.m.: the latest he had ever arrived at the office. He still had a few minutes before the weekly in-house meeting ended, and so, spitting on his hand and smoothing down his hair, which hadn’t been washed, and running his hands across his face, which hadn’t been shaved, he shook off the remaining waves of dizziness of his hangover, took a deep breath, and entered the boardroom.

Inside, there was a collective intake of breath at the sight of him. It wasn’t that he looked so bad. It was just that, for Lou, he wasn’t perfect. He took a seat opposite Alfred, who beamed with astonishment and absolute delight at his friend’s apparent breakdown.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” Lou addressed the table more calmly than he felt. “I was up all night with one of those stomach bugs, but I’m okay now, I think.”

Twelve faces nodded in sympathy and understanding.

“Bruce Archer has that very same bug,” Alfred smirked, and he winked at Mr. Patterson.

The switch was flicked, and Lou’s blood began to heat up, expecting any minute for a loud whistling to drift from his nose as he reached boiling point. He sat quietly through the meeting, though fighting flushes and nausea while the vein in his forehead pulsated at full force.

“And so, tonight is an important night, lads.” Mr, Patterson turned to Lou, and Lou zoned in on the conversation.

“Yes, I have the audiovisual conference call with Arthur Lynch,” Lou spoke up. “That’s at seven thirty, and I’m sure it will all go without a hitch. I’ve come up with a great number of responses to his concerns, which we all went through last week. I don’t think we need to go through them again—”

“Hold on, hold on.” Mr. Patterson lifted a finger to stall him, and it was only then that Lou noticed that Alfred’s cheeks had lifted into a great big smile.

Lou stared at Alfred to catch his eye, hoping for a hint, a giveaway, but Alfred avoided him.

“No, Lou, you and Alfred have a dinner with Thomas Crooke and his partner. This is the meeting we’ve been trying to get all year,” Mr. Patterson said, looking concerned.

Crumble, crumble, crumble. It was all coming tumbling down. Lou shuffled through his schedule and ran shaky fingers through his hair. He pointed his finger along the freshly printed schedule, his tired eyes finding it hard to focus, his clammy forefinger smudging the words as he moved it along the page. There it was, the audiovisual conference call with Arthur Lynch. No mention of a dinner. No damn mention of a damn dinner.

“Mr. Patterson, I’m well aware of the long-hoped-for meeting with Thomas Crooke.” Lou cleared his throat. “But nobody confirmed a dinner with me, and I made it known to Alfred last week that I have a meeting with Arthur Lynch at seven thirty tonight.” He looked at Alfred with confusion. “Alfred? Do you know about this dinner meeting?”

“Well, yeah, Lou,” Alfred said in a mocking tone with a shrug that went with it. “Of course I do. I cleared my schedule as soon as they confirmed it. It’s the biggest chance we’ve got to make the Manhattan development work. We’ve all been talking about this for months.”

The others around the table squirmed uncomfortably in their seats, though there were some, Lou was certain, who were enjoying this moment profusely, documenting every sigh, look, and word to rehash it with others as soon as they were out of the room.

“Everybody, you can all get back to work,” Mr. Patterson said, looking forward. “We need to deal with this rather urgently.”

The others emptied the room and left Lou, Alfred, and Mr. Patterson at the table; Lou instantly knew by Alfred’s stance and the look on his face, by his stubby fingers pressed together in prayer below his chin, that Alfred had already taken the higher moral ground on this one. Alfred was in his favorite mode, his most comfortable position of attack.

“Alfred, how long have you known about this dinner and why didn’t you tell me?” Lou immediately went on the offensive.

“I told you, Lou,” Alfred responded calmly.

With Lou a sweaty, unshaven mess and Alfred appearing so cool, Lou knew he wasn’t coming out of this looking the best. He removed his shaky fingers from the schedule and clasped his hands together.

“It’s a mess, a bloody mess.” Mr. Patterson rubbed his chin roughly with his hands. “I needed both of you at that dinner, but I can’t have you missing the call with Arthur. The dinner can’t be changed; it took us too long to get it in the first place. How about the call with Arthur?”

Lou swallowed. “I’ll work on it.”

“If not, there’s nothing we can do, except for Alfred to begin the dinner, and Lou, as soon as you’ve finished your meeting, you make your way as quickly as you can to join Alfred.”

“Lou has serious negotiations to discuss with Arthur, so he’ll be lucky if he makes it to the restaurant for after-dinner mints. But I’ll be well able to manage it, Laurence.” Alfred spoke from the side of his mouth with his usual smirk. “I’m capable of doing it alone.”

“Yes, well, let’s hope Lou negotiates fast and that he’s successful; otherwise this entire day will have been a waste of time. This is the second time this week there’s been a mix-up with meetings, isn’t it?” Mr. Patterson asked.

“No, no, this is the first. Alfred scheduled the other meeting after I told him I wasn’t available.” Lou felt drips of perspiration rolling down his back. His shirt clung to him, his tie choked his neck, and his hair felt matted to his head. He hoped neither of them could smell, like black coffee, the stench emanating from his underarms.

Alfred turned to Lou in surprise. It wasn’t like Lou to throw something like that at Alfred in front of Mr. Patterson. But the accusation was like blood to a shark, and Alfred was done with circling and was ready to bite. The corner of his lip turned up in a snarl as he said, “I know, Lou, and I apologize for that, but it was a development deal worth one hundred million euros. I couldn’t hold back on that just because you needed to take the morning off.”

Mr. Patterson looked to Lou.

“I didn’t take the morning off.” Lou leaned in, his voice breaking as it rose in pitch. He realized he sounded like a teenager standing up to his parents, but he couldn’t help it. He wiped the sweat from his lip with the back of his hand. “It was an hour. Just to collect my mother from the hospital. Then I was straight back in. You could have waited. That was the first hour I’ve taken off in five years working here.”

“Wow.” Alfred smiled. “Then you really know how to choose your hours. You could have picked a lunch break or something. Anyway, I closed the deal, Lou,” Alfred said, taking that first bite into Lou’s flesh. “I did it alone. So there’s no need to worry.”

Lou, trembling with rage, looked from one man to the other. He wanted to punch Alfred. Alfred wanted him to punch him. Lou looked to the water jug filled at the center of the table and thought about flinging it at Alfred’s head. Alfred’s eyes followed Lou’s gaze. He smiled knowingly.

“Do you need a glass of water, Lou?” Alfred asked. “You don’t look well.”

Mr. Patterson finally spoke up, “Is something the matter, Lou? You do look—”

“No,” Lou interrupted Mr. Patterson, cutting him off far more rudely than intended. “I’m fine. All is fine. In fact, I’m feeling better than usual.” He tried to perk himself up but felt a bead of sweat drip down his forehead. He quickly brushed it away. “I’m ready to go, ready for two important meetings this evening, both of which will be an absolute success.”

Mr. Patterson frowned. “Lou.” He was silent for a moment. “Are you sure you’ll be able to—”

“Absolutely,” he interrupted again. “I have never let you down before, Mr. Patterson, and I don’t intend on doing it now.” Not when so much was at stake.

Mr. Patterson looked at him with concern, then grumbled something inaudible, gathered his papers, and stood up. Meeting adjourned.

Lou felt like he was in the middle of a nightmare; everything was falling apart, all his good work was being sabotaged. He stormed out of the meeting room, ignoring Alfred’s faux-concerned voice calling to have a private word with him. Lou headed straight to Alison’s desk, where he threw the details of that evening’s dinner on her keyboard, stopping her acrylic nails midtap. She narrowed her eyes and scanned the brief.

“What’s this?”

“A dinner tonight. A very important one. At eight p.m. That I have to be at.” He paced the area in front of her while she read it more carefully.

“But you can’t; you have the conference call. It took us weeks to set that up. If you don’t talk to them tonight, they’ll go with Raven and Byrne, and you don’t want that.”

“I know, Alison,” he snapped. “But I need to be at this.” He stabbed a finger on the page. “Make it happen.” Then he rushed into his office and slammed the door. He froze before he got to his desk. On it his mail was laid out neatly.

He backtracked and opened his office door again.

Alison snapped to it quickly and looked up at him. “Yes?” she said eagerly.

“The mail.”

“Yes?”

“When did it get here?”

“First thing this morning. Gabe delivered it the same time as always.”

“He couldn’t have,” Lou objected. “Did you see him?”

“Yes,” she said, looking concerned. “He brought me a coffee, too. Just before nine, I think. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he snapped.

“Em, Lou, just one thing before you go…Is this a bad time to go over some details for your dad’s party?”

She’d barely finished her sentence before he’d gone back into his office and slammed the door behind him once again.

THERE ARE MANY TYPES OF wake-up calls in the world. For Lou Suffern, a wake-up call was a duty for his devoted alarm clock to perform on a daily basis. At six a.m. every day, when he was in bed sleeping and dreaming, thinking of yesterday and planning tomorrow, his alarm would ring dutifully and loudly. It would reach out from the bedside table and prod him right in the subconscious, taking him away from his slumber and dragging him into the world of the awakened. Lou would wake up; eyes closed, then open. Body in bed, then out of bed; naked, then clothed. This, for Lou, was what waking up was about. It was the transition period from sleep to work.

For other people wake-up calls took a different form. For Alison, it was the pregnancy scare at sixteen that had forced her to make some choices; for Mr. Patterson, it was the birth of his first child that had made him see the world in a different light. For Alfred, it was his father’s loss of their millions when Alfred was a child, forcing him to attend public school for a year before his father made it all back. It changed him forever. For Ruth, her wake-up call happened on their last summer holiday, when she walked in on her husband with their twenty-six-year-old Polish nanny. For little five-year-old Lucy, it was when she looked out into the audience during her school play to see an empty seat beside her mother.

Today, though, Lou was experiencing a very different kind of wake-up call. Lou Suffern, you see, wasn’t aware that a person could be awakened when his eyes were already open. He didn’t realize that a person could be awakened when he was already out of his bed, dressed in a smart suit, doing deals and overseeing meetings. He didn’t realize a person could be awakened when he considered himself to be calm, composed, and collected, able to deal with life and all it had to throw at him. The alarm bells were ringing now, louder and louder in his ear, and only his subconscious could hear them. He was trying to turn the bells off, to hit the snooze button so that he could nestle back down in the lifestyle he felt cozy with, but it wasn’t working. He didn’t know that he couldn’t tell life when he was ready to learn, that life would instead teach him when it felt he was good and ready. He didn’t know that he couldn’t press buttons and suddenly know it all; that it was the buttons in him that would be pressed.

Lou Suffern thought he already knew it all.

But he had only scratched the surface.