“I’m not sure I’d even want it. All I want is another firm to work at where they respect me and the people. They’re horrible here, Cassie. The guy is such a bigot. But I can’t afford to leave.”
“I’ll keep my ears open for any developments. If they listen to Harvey, maybe he can use his contacts to get you a position somewhere else.”
“You know, I had a crazy thought about starting my own business. I’ve seen so many people who need help and have no idea how to get it. Not only filing their taxes but getting their benefits from the government. Like I said, crazy.”
“It’s not so crazy, Blake. You’re really one of the good guys, you know? And if you’re serious, I’d love to talk to you about working with you on that. My degree is in public health and urban development. So you could handle the numbers, and I could do the social-services aspect of the business.”
The light finally changed, and he hurried across the street only to see the sign in the window of the gym that the smoothie bar was closed for renovations.Great.
“Well, right now I barely have the money to keep paying my rent for the year. I don’t know how we’d do this. But it’s a nice dream at least.”
He heard noises in the earpiece, and Cassandra lowered her voice to a whisper. “I gotta go. I’ll be in touch.” And then she was gone, leaving him standing on the cold windswept corner. A text buzzed, and he glanced at it to see Michelle’s name. Unwilling to pile more guilt on himself, he didn’t bother to open it now, deciding to wait until he had a spare moment to read it.
“Hi there.”
Blake glanced up to see the young woman who worked at the smoothie bar.
“Sorry, the smoothie bar is closed.”
“Yeah,” he said, gesturing to the window. “I saw the sign. Is it permanent?”
“Nope. The owner is switching to a cold-pressed juice bar. The changeover should only take a week or so.” She opened the door and waved at him before going inside. “Come by when we reopen.”
A pang of longing hit him. Last week, after he’d gotten home from work, he’d taken the subway late at night to Hard Core and saw the Grand Opening signs for the juice and snack bar. He’d peered in the windows at the setup. Pride in Jeremy’s accomplishment swelled his heart. There was even a banner of Gino, the handsome front man of the gym, holding the juices in his hand, beckoning people to come in and try a free sample. And Blake saw another banner with a woman exercising, so he knew Jeremy had taken his idea to market the gym to both sexes instead of concentrating on only men.
He missed Jeremy so much. Nights found him barely sleeping, missing Jeremy’s warmth, the sound of his breathing, his heartbeat, the touch and taste of his skin.…Blake missed everything about him. Days of numbness passed by with him going through the motions. When he’d walked out on Jeremy, Blake walked out on life.
Dammit.If he didn’t stop thinking about it, Blake would burst out crying in public. He blinked rapidly and hurried to the coffee stand, picked up a buttered bagel and coffee, and walked in through the front door at the stroke of seven a.m. As usual, Lucy had a snide comment for him.
“Nice to see you aren’t late again.”
Once. One damn time he was late through no fault of his own. The train got stuck, and he didn’t make it to the office until eight a.m. Biting back what he really wanted to say—You know I’m never late unless there’s train trouble—Blake gave her a tight smile.
“Good morning, everyone.”
He set his coffee and the bag with his bagel down on his desk, took off his coat, and hung it on the rack. It wasn’t his fault he was always the last one into the office. None of the other staff lived in the city; they were all within a ten-minute drive. Thank God the tax deadline was drawing near, but that also meant things were heating up, and Blake knew crunch time was upon them. Already Oscar and George were with customers, and even as he sat down and turned on his computer, three more people walked into the office.Christ.
But with Lucy giving him the stink-eye as she passed his desk to greet her customer, Blake gulped down his coffee and followed her, a winning smile plastered on his face. Two men and a woman waited, and Lucy immediately chose the younger, white man. Blake knew why. She was as bigoted as her brother, Kyle, and the older man wore a head covering as did the woman. Lucy didn’t like to talk to “foreigners.”
“Who’s next?” He looked from the man to the woman.
“We’re together,” she stated in perfect English with a slight accent Blake recognized as Indian or Pakistani. “This is my father, and we both need our taxes done. I have my W-2, and he only has social security. He got hurt last year and hasn’t been able to go back to driving a cab.”
“No problem. Follow me.” She helped the elderly man up, and together they walked behind him.
He sat them both at his desk and pulled up the forms on his desktop. “Let’s start with your father first. Is that okay?”
“Yes.” From her large tote bag, she pulled out a file and gave him the paperwork. It didn’t take him more than twenty minutes to do the simple return and move on to hers, which wasn’t that much more complicated. She worked in a shoe store and made less than thirty thousand dollars a year. Once again he knew, as with the woman he’d helped with the baby, these people weren’t receiving all the benefits they could. He itched to tell them about the cell phone the state could provide for them, the housing they could apply for instead of the $950 a month rent she paid for a tiny one-bedroom apartment in Little Neck. She confided in him that she wished they could move so she could have some privacy. Right now she slept on a pull-out couch so her father could have the bedroom to himself.
“I can’t afford to even look at other places to live right now. After rent, food, and other necessities, there’s little left over.”
“I hope you are getting help from the government, you know, like for housing and heating and everything else?” This was as far as he’d allow himself to go. Much as Blake wanted to help them, he needed his own job.
“I don’t know about all that, but my father is very proud and doesn’t like to accept help. We will manage.”
At that moment Lucy walked by his desk, and he shut his mouth but scribbled some phone numbers on a paper for various government help lines and pushed it toward her. He might not be able to call for them, but at least he could show them the way.
The day passed in a haze of numbers and faces that all blurred together so that when ten thirty p.m. rolled around and it was time to close, Blake’s head pounded, ready to explode. He certainly had a new respect for these tax preparers and knew he’d never sneer at them again. The train ride was relatively empty as no sane people were on their way into the city, and he cleared his mind of the chaotic day. One good thing about this job was that when he left, he could forget about it until the next day. No files waited for him to finish or deadlines ticked. Just another day, and another hundred or so people and their returns.
