I suck in a breath and hold it.Fine? He can’t mean that, surely. My father always gets his way, and he makes sure everyone around him knows it. To hear him simply reply withfinemakes dread well up inside me.
“Then you will come and work for me.”
And there it is.
“What?” I say.
“If you’re not going to use the education I paid for, then you’ll need to repay me, Iris.”
“Of course I’ll repay you,” I mutter. That had always been my plan. “But—”
“You’ll do it at the firm, where I can keep an eye on you. Where I can teach you the value of hard work.”
An angry grumble sticks in my throat. Ididwork hard, harder than half the people in my class, it seemed. And for what?
“I’ll take a portion of your paycheck until you’ve repaid your debt,” Dad adds.
My jaw tightens. Of course he will.
“What would I evendo?” I protest. He can’t be serious. Dad’s company is one of the top architecture firms in the city, and I don’t see how a college dropout like me will do anything other than get in the way.
Unless he’s hiring me as a janitor. That’s a very real possibility.
“We need a new assistant for one of the senior architects. Let’s see if you can handle it.”
Okay, so heisserious.
I scowl bitterly. It shouldn’t surprise me. It’s not only an attempt to control me, he’s trying to punish me for letting him down. For never being the daughter he wanted me to be.
“I don’t—”
“I’ll give you a choice,” Dad interjects. “You can either go back in there and ask for an appeal, or you can come work for me. It’s up to you.”
I’m silent as I contemplate my options. I’d been so relieved to get out of school, but will working for my father be any better? No doubt I’ll make a mess of things there, too, and he’ll have even more ammunition against me. On the plus side, I guess, the harder I fail, the more likely he’ll be to get rid of me. Then I’ll be free to go back to my own life. Whatever that might look like.
Besides, what choice do I have? It’s not like I have any work lined up. College was supposed to be my do-over, and look how that turned out. I’ve been cobbling together temp jobs on the side to cover my meager rent and living costs, and the last job I had working the skating rink snack stand at Rockefeller Center ended after New Year’s. I literally have no other plans.
And there’s zero point in calling my mom. She’ll just say what she always says: “You know how your father gets.” Her way of dismissing his demands. Of avoiding any conflict whatsoever.
And that’s when the last bit of fight drains from me. There’s no way I can win this.
“Fine,” I murmur, resigned tears pressing at my eyes again. “I’ll… I’ll take the job.”
“Be in the office at 8 a.m. sharp tomorrow,” Dad says brusquely. And with that, he ends the call.
2
IRIS
I’ve never been a day drinker, but today seems like the perfect time to start.
When I push into Marco’s, a bar in Brooklyn Heights, I’m relieved to see the lunch crowd is thinning. Ideally, I’d like the entire bar to myself, so I can drown my sorrows in gin and cupcakes, alone.
After the phone call with my father, I stopped in at my favorite bakery to grab a box of their cupcakes. It was money I shouldn’t have spent—money I didn’t have—but I couldn’t stop myself. It’s the only thing that could make this awful day any better.
I meant to head straight home to Queens, but I was too busy sobbing into my cupcakes and accidentally got on the wrong train, ending up in Brooklyn Heights. By the time I realized and exited at Clark Street, I didn’t have the energy to get back on the train. Instead, I stumbled into the nearest bar clutching the cupcakes, needing a gin and tonic more than ever.
A spot opens at the bar, and I slump onto a stool with a weighted sigh, dumping the box onto the bar in front of me.Waving the bartender over, I order a drink, then pop open the top of the box, selecting another cupcake.
