It occurred to me I hadn’t asked him how much it paid. It didn’t matter. It had to be enough to keep the room at the crappy motel where I was currently staying.
That was shelter.
As for food, I could eat really cheaply. Intermittent fasting. I had that sucker nailed.
Then I remembered the folder he’d given me. He’d said something about an employment contract. No doubt the salary would be listed there. I flipped opened the folder and found the number at the bottom of the contract.
That’s when I almost passed out.
TWO
GRANT
His initials were E.G., so he guessed it made sense.
The Office of E.G.A. Associates
Two Weeks Later
“This is goingto seem like a strange question,” she said, leaning against the door frame of my office. It was at the end of the day, close to seven at night. “But what exactly do you do?”
I only had to raise an eyebrow to communicate with her that I didn’t approve of her slouching. It was a thing she did frequently, like she was perpetually uncomfortable in her shoes. However, I found it unprofessional.
She stood straight and then looked at the chair across from me. I lifted my chin and she took a seat.
Communication with Anna didn’t require a lot of effort.
In the two weeks we’d been working together, I’d learned a few things about my assistant. Very intentionally, only a few things.
I didn’t want a buddy or a friend. I didn’t even want a co-worker, really. I wanted a body who did the job and didn’t ask too many questions, which was invariably what all those MBA graduates would have done.
Tell me your secrets.
How did you get here?
How can I replicate your success?
My answer was always the same anytime anyone asked me shit like that.
None. Of. Your. Business.
Sometimes I threw afuckingin the middle of it just to make the point I was annoyed.
Anna never asked me any of those questions.
She was as anonymous as an assistant ought to be. Her clothes were unspectacular, her hair, always shiny clean, but never styled. If she wore makeup, it didn’t register with me.
All the better for her to blend into the background.
Like a wraith who moved in and out of my office. Picking things up, dropping things off. We didn’t talk if we didn’t have to. I took satisfaction in how little she registered on my brain.
But I had learned if there was something to lean on, she found it. If there was a corner to disappear into, she sought it.
Even now as she sat across from me, her whole body slouched into the chair, I was suddenly reminded of how old she was. Not sure why it bothered me, but on some level it did. At thirty-six, I was by no means old enough to be her father, or some avuncular figure in her life, but still she made me feel like I’d lived a hundred years longer than she had.
“You’re asking me this now?”
“I’m not going to lie, I’ve had to fake it with a few of the calls I’ve placed on your behalf. Some of these people act like it’s God calling and I’m like…Are you sure you’ve got the right guy because I have yet to see a miracle?”
