4
RYDER
Isit at one of the lacquered wooden tables that are arranged in rows through the dining room at my grandmother’s senior community. Gam’s running late, as she has been for at least the past thirty years, so I take the opportunity to make a call that’s been running through my mind on repeat ever since Eve Harper let me know my apartments apparently have a reputation.
I normally don’t let things like that bother me, but… I’ve always prided myself onnotbeing that kind of guy. The one who puts profits over people without taking a second to consider that I might be taking advantage of someone.
And what she said has me questioning what might be going on in my apartments that I don’t know about, whether it’s shoddy construction materials or mismanagement. I leave the day-to-day stuff to my wonderful business manager, a woman named Sana who started as my assistant many years ago and is now… something.
I should probably give her a new title. I’ve given her plenty more money over the years, but we never bothered updating her actual job. She’s not really a business manager.Or an assistant. Something more than either one of those jobs but she does them, too.
I dial her as I wait for Gam to make her appearance.
“What’s up, Ryder?” she asks.
Sana likes getting straight to the point.
“I was talking to the woman who owns the sunflower farm. Says we have a reputation for poor-quality apartments. Sounded like bugs, plumbing issues, the works.”
She hums. “Well, it’s not like building managers are coming to me to rat themselves out. From what I can tell, all our properties have the occasional issue but they’re pretty promptly taken care of.”
“Can you take a look at any outliers? Any that report an exorbitant number of charges and any that have too few?”
“Sure thing.” She pauses for a moment, the clicks of her keyboard filling in the background. “Any follow-ups or do you want me to just let you know what I find?”
“Just let me know what you find. I don’t have a plan of action yet.”
“You got it,” she says, her signature end-of-phone-call sign-off that’s as good as a three-second warning if you want to get in any other requests before she hangs up on you.
“How’s the office?” I ask quickly, because even though I know Sana has everything under control—far more than I ever did—I feel like I should check in every once in a while.
“Same as it was the last time you were here,” she says.
“So, no one knows whether to fear you or love you because you have the fiercest resting bitch face I’ve ever seen but you regularly steal my credit card to provide breakfast to the staff?”
She’s quiet for a moment. “You know about that?”
“Of course I do.” When she says nothing in response, I continue, “Though to be fair, I only knew because Jamiefrom accounting flagged the first one as a suspicious charge and let me know.”
“You’ve known this whole time but didn’t tell me?”
I shrug even though she can’t see me. “I thought it was kind of a fun thing. You know, like the parent who takes a kid out for a sneaky ice cream and tells the kid not to say anything. I thought it was nice of you. Build up a little camaraderie in the office. I’m happy to be the parent in that situation.”
She sighs. “And all this time, I’ve been hiding it.”
“Makes it more fun that way.”
“For you, maybe.”
“Well, yes.”
I can only imagine her eye roll. “Do you need anything else, Ryder?”
“No, Sana. Thank you for your help.”
“You got it.”
This time she doesn’t wait her full three seconds, and when I hang up the phone, I send her a quick text to thank her for taking care of things while I’m gone.
