“Your new job! You did make it to work today, didn’t you? Tell me you didn’t sleep through it.”
“Of course I went to work today. It was my first day,” I snap back, peeking inside the bag that smells unmistakably like drunken noodles.
“Well, that’s good. I totally called in sick today. But I think they expected me to!” Kate giggles casually and hands me aglass of wine. I take a sip and immediately my nerves are dulled around the edges just a little bit. I realize I haven’t eaten today, which is probably why the food smells so good.
We pull the boxes from the bag and divvy it up onto plates before making our way to sit at the coffee table. I have a dining room table, and I do make a point of using it sometimes. But not when I’m alone with my sister. When it’s just me and Kate, we eat at the coffee table, much like we did when we were kids, and our mom and dad left us home to go to business dinners or out with friends. It wasn’t irresponsible. I was old enough to babysit when they did it. But it did get lonely spending so many Friday and Saturday nights alone. I envied my friends who had family game nights or movie and pizza nights. But I also liked the time alone with my sister, even if we were different. It was the only time we felt like we could be silly instead of perfect.
“So, how was it?” she asks around a bite of fried tofu.
“It was…a lot.”
“Was the building as amazing inside as it is outside? I swear it's as tall as the Empire State Building.”
“Less than half,” I correct her. “But yeah. It’s massive on the inside. And gorgeous.”
Kate listens with wide, sparkling eyes as I talk about all the signed records and posters of artists. I tell her about the fish tanks and the bar and the glass elevator.
“That’s some Willy Wonka shit right there!” she shrieks, and I laugh, feeling giddy for the first time since I walked into the building this morning.
Before I realized that I work for the man I paid five hundred dollars for in Vegas…
On cue, Kate uses her weird, sister-to-sister telepathic powers.
“What’s your boss like? I heard the Hardin men have iron fists.”
Iron fists, sharp jawlines, and thick…well you know…
“He’s…persuasive.”
Kate narrows her eyes. “Oh? What do you mean by that?”
“I mean…he wants me to take on more responsibilities than were originally stated in the job description.”
“Anything you can’t handle? Any red flags?”
You mean other than asking me to fake being his girlfriend and pretending that we didn’t fuck each other a couple of days ago?
“Not really. Though I do need to think about it.”
Kate stops chewing and gives me a look. It’s a look she inherited from our mother, one that says the next words out of my mouth might be harshly judged.
“Is he offering enough money?”
I nearly choke on my wine. “It’s plenty of money. More than I even agreed to.”
“Then what’s the problem? You’re not getting married anytime soon. You don’t have a sugar daddy because you don’t date. Making a lot of money is pretty important for you if we are being honest.”
Kate is honest, that’s for sure. As usual, I deflect the dig about my spinster life and sip my wine while she goes on.
“Plus, you get to make a job out of your music hobby.”
I dodge that bullet too, though the last word grazes my skin a little. I hate when she calls it that, especially since she has lived most of her adult life bouncing from one guy with money to the next and asking our father for cash in between.
“It’s just a really big contract and it’s going to be a lot of work. It will take up a lot of my time. And my personal life.”
“As long as you still make time for me, I think you’ll be fine. Who knows, maybe you’ll get to write music for someone super famous! Maybe you’ll get to go on tour, and you’ll meet a hot musician! That’s endgame right there.”
I suppose if my only goal in life was to find a man who could pay my bills, I’d agree with her. But that’s another thing that makes Kate and I very different people– we don’t want the same things.
