We're interrupted by the intern from earlier, who has returned with not one, but three bottles of sparkling water in his hands, and an apologetic smile.
"I'm sorry, sir, but if you'll follow me, there's a better room available now, and we'd like to make you comfortable there for the interview."
My brows rise as he leads the way down the hall, the two of us on his heels. I look over her shoulder, because she's leading me, and spot her shooting off another email to Arista on the go, thanking her for stepping in.
She works faster than I had even hoped for. I couldn't have asked for better results if I'd screened veteran assistants for years before accepting one.
I'll have to remember to send Arista a gift basket or something. She's earned it. This might've been an accidental, spur-of-the-moment hire, but she's already far exceeding the level of competence that the others before her exhibited. Which is to say, she's amazing, and they sucked.
We're in the next room for less than thirty seconds before my interviewer comes in and introduces herself, and we start the questions. The whole time, she sits a recorder on the table in front of us, and though she tries to make it subtle, every shift of her legs is an intended distraction, made to derail me for a moment.
Too bad I'm used to underhanded tactics like this.
"So, you're new to this country, I hear. Can you tell us why you left your old one to come here, where you're virtually unknown, when yourallegedsuccess there is so prominent?"
It's a trip-up question, and I see it coming a mile away. Lucky for me, I've prepared for just such questions with aplomb.
"I decided to try a new market and enjoy an adventure of sorts while visiting family and old friends." It's close enough to the truth, which is that my brother had been demanding I come in to see him, and Jun needed someone to work for him. They don't need the finer details of the whole process.
"Hmm," she muses, chewing on her pen cap while she stares down at her paper and frowns. "So does that mean you're not tied down? Won't your family miss you? Or do you plan to go back and visit while you're working for kNight Entertainment?"
Either she's fishing for information they couldn't find online, or she's nosy for her own benefit. I'm not interested in feeding into it no matter the motive. "My personal life and my professional life are completely separate, and my family is used to my hectic work schedule and dedication to my craft. They respect my decision to come here, so far from home, and we're in touch. I've only been here a few months, so it's hardly as dramatic as you make it sound."
She knows she's been caught out, and her question hasn't truly been answered. I watch in real time as she deflates, tugging her skirt down with a huff of irritation. Likely she thought she'd get in with a low level celeb with that fishing attempt and then try her luck later.
I don't mix business with pleasure, though. I know better than to shit where I eat. I like girls, that's no secret. But I don't date, or play, with the ones I'm tied to in a work aspect. That's a surefire way to make things totally awkward really fast.
"So, do you have any more questions for me?"
She asks the usual ones—what's life like here, how am I adjusting, what do I have planned for the future; we talk about my upcoming appearances, and I give her the details my agent and the company have cleared me to divulge, without giving away too much. When the interview is over, we shake hands, and she moves in for a hug. Before I have to deflect it awkwardly, though, Denali steps in and slings her tablet between us, smiling too sweetly for her own good.
"Thank you so much for your time, Miss Robertson. We're on a tight schedule, so if you don't mind, we'll take our leave now. It's been apleasure."
She inserts herself between me and the woman, and I see a bite in her come out as the girl tries to snub her outstretched hand. Denali tugs hers back with a shrug and turns on a dime, not even pretending that she's in the least bit shocked at the other woman's actions.
And then I'm ushered out to the waiting car, where she turns on me with a scowl.
"You're a womanizer," she says plainly, no emotional inflection in her voice at all.
"Ilikewomen," I admit, though it feels a little more shameful to tell my new assistant this than it is when I admit it freely. "That's not the same."
"Your last assistant leftnotes,"she points out, and sure enough, when she turns the tablet around to face me, there's a whole email filled with notes in the drafts folder of the assistant email account. It's got details about things I do, habits I have, things she did and didn't like about me.
The list of things she didn't like is longer than the things she did.
"She must not have liked me," I point out, grinning smugly. "Did theyallleave notes?"
I'm only partially curious. I couldn't care less. Clearly, they didn't work out for a reason. People who lose their jobs or leave their jobs naturally harbor some discontent?—
"Not all, but enough of them did. I'm surprised you never found the files." She ticks off things on the list as she reads them out loud. "Harsh taskmaster. Inpatient. Self-important. Shameless flirt. Ego the size of a planet?—"
"I do not have an ego that big." I'm affronted at the comparison, really. It's insulting. "It's notsmall,but it's notas big as a planet."
She eyes me like she's seeing me for the first time all day. "Men like you are trouble."
Spoken like she knows from experience. "Men like me?"
The car starts to move, and as I argue with my new assistant, the driver puts the divider up so he can ignore us in peace.
