Odessa

Odessa is the Texas headquarters location of the Sitex Oil Corporation of America, where Emma Harte’s confrontation with Harry Marriott reaches its decisive point. Though the novel offers little description of the city itself, it gives Odessa a clear role as the business setting for a protracted corporate contest and Emma’s victory in securing Sitex’s leadership.

Corporate Setting

Emma attends board meetings at the Sitex corporate headquarters in Odessa. The meetings belong to a wider stretch of business travel: after almost six weeks away, she is leaving Texas for the relative calm of her own corporate offices in New York. Odessa is thus presented less through its streets or civic life than through the institutional space of the oil company and the pressures of its boardroom.

The Contest at Sitex

The meetings in Odessa mark the culmination of three years of what Emma regards as despicable, manipulative fighting. She considers Harry Marriott, Sitex’s president, an increasingly poor and dangerous decision-maker, unable to grasp the changing conditions of international business. At the end of the struggle, Marriott is removed as president and moved upstairs to the chairmanship. Emma’s preferred successor takes charge, with the board’s full support, and she considers the company safe.

Emma’s Departure from Texas

Emma leaves Texas physically tired from the battles that have punctuated the latest board meetings. Her fatigue does not diminish her attention to the company: aboard the private Lear jet, she reviews the Sitex papers and makes notes for future reference. She hopes there will be no more vicious confrontations, but her departure follows no easy reconciliation. When Marriott appeals to their friendship of more than forty years, Emma answers with silence, and she feels no joy at his downfall even as she secures the outcome she wanted.

Geographic and Narrative Significance

Odessa’s narrative importance comes from the contrast between corporate struggle and the places Emma associates with rest. She is relieved to leave Texas for New York, while the thought of returning to Pennistone Royal in Yorkshire—her home and a source of peace—further eases the tension of the trip. Texas itself has a rough, sprawling power that reminds her of Yorkshire, but the Odessa meetings have left her exhausted. The location therefore anchors a decisive episode in Emma’s international business life while helping measure its personal cost and the restorative pull of home.