Hank has been in his office since 7:30. Now that he lives on Telegraph Hill, he can walk to work in 20 minutes. Now that Tom’s away in college, he has morning responsibilities to no one but himself. Now that Margo has remarried, he rarely has to waste a morning getting hassled about his past inadequacies or current failings. When he wakes early thinking about a project, like today, he’s free to leave his bed, exercise, walk to work. He’s put in almost two and a half hours this morning, and he’s ready for a mocha.

At the same moment, Erica is carrying another pound of candy to the office. She can’t get her co-workers to dance, laugh, or exercise at all, and any one who’s getting sex isn’t getting it in the office, so chocolate is the only remedy they have for stress.

The box in the white bag contains a selected assortment. She picked dark and light bordeaux for Linda, California brittle for Beth, peanut butter squares for Fran, cashew brittle for Evelyn, and toffee-ettes for herself. Most of the candies nest in brown pleated paper, but the toffee-ettes crowd together in white cups; they stand out like twins in bassinets above a floor of rich brown.

Erica carries the package flat on her upright palm as if it’s a small tray. She jaywalks across Sutter and Sansome, looking right for cars and left toward the display on her building. Above the entrance to the ground-floor bank is a message in programmed bulbs. It offers some interest-bearing short-term account to the public, about which Erica never attends. She’s watching for the time and temperature, which always follow “CERTIFICATES/COMPOUND MONTHLY/MEMBER FDIC.” It tells her that in another six minutes it will be 10 am. It considers the temperature to be 68°. Across the street and a block north, the marquee above the Bank of the Orient agrees about the time, but reports 62°. As usual, Erica figures the outside temperature is halfway between the two digital opinions.

Four floors up, Hank stands and stretches. He looks at his Braun coffeemaker and confirms his desire for a specialty drink. He leaves his jacket hanging behind the door as he heads out. He stops first in the men’s room.

With the candy on her left hand and her double cappuccino in her right, Erica opens the building door by pushing a hip against the square handicapped-access button. It makes the far right door move outward toward her. She proceeds to the elevator area, and there reads the marker-on-mapboard sign that someone has placed on an easel. “General Fire Alarm Test Today,” says the first line, with “10 am, Floors 5 and 6” under it. Just then, Linda joins her with the day’s mail, and a familiar female face from their 6th floor steps up to wait with them
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“Maybe we should just stay here till it’s over,” says the blonde woman whose name neither Linda nor Erica know. She’s referring to the fact that it’s now 9:55. Erica used to avoid these building drills, until lectured one day by a frustrated fireman – she’d blushed then to learn that if there were a fire and she didn’t know how to check in, she’d put first responders in danger while they searched for her in the office she had secretly abandoned. So when an elevator arrives she steps aboard, and the other women accompany her.

Erica’s normal morning procedure includes a stop in the ladies’ room before entering the office. She’s accustomed to positioning her very dry cappuccino at the end of the pull-down shelf in the stall; she has to be careful, for her coffee barely weighs enough to hold the shelf down. But she doesn’t usually have candy with her when she arrives. And she doesn’t usually have Linda. She enters the office instead, puts down her case, her coffee, the candy, her coat, and then visits the bathroom. She’s in an indelicate position when the fire alarm trips.