“I’ve lived,” I said. “More than a lot of people my age. And I’m adaptable.”
“Tenacious,” he muttered. “It’s what I saw in you when I hired you. Turns out though, you might have a little ambitionin there too. Alright Flowers, you want to see if you can take on more. Go grab a pad and pen. You can sit in on my next meeting. Just sit there. You say nothing, you contribute nothing. You’re just there to observe.”
“Awesome. Good. Yes. Thank you.”
His eyes narrowed. “Did you plan all this? When you started talking about your awful date with Kevin?”
“Kenny,” I corrected him. “And no. It just sort of came to me while we were talking. This job is my life right now, I should make it as important as I can.”
Because it was the work that was important.
“Is this the part where I’m supposed to say a work/life balance is important to your overall health, or some shit like that? Because I won’t.”
“Ha,” I barked out a laugh. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Simple. You don’t care about that shit.”
He moved his chair closer to his desk and went back to looking at one of his two computer monitors.
“You’re correct. I don’t. We’ll need another chair for you to sit.”
“On it.”
“Don’t disappoint me, Flowers.”
“I won’t,” I said, confidently.
There was only a small, small part of me that understood how crushed I would be if I ever did.
He went back to his screens and I turned to leave.
“Oh, and Happy Birthday. The tenth you said?”
It was a made-up date. I’d been left at the hospital and someone in the administration department had filed paperwork on my behalf so I could get a birth certificate.
I nodded. “I’m not a big birthday person.”
Birthdays were for kids who had parents to celebrate them. I wasn’t wistful about the things I didn’t have, I preferred instead to focus on what was in front of me.
This job. This was the thing that mattered.
NINE
ANNA
She knew there were lines that shouldn’t be crossed. But she didn’t see them.
The first thingthat stopped me was the door to the suite. I had a fob that was programmed to unlock the door the minute it touched the side panel. Out of habit, I immediately attempted to pull the glass door open without checking to see if the green light showed above the panel.
But when I tugged on it, it was clearly still locked.
I attempted the fob again and this time watched the panel successfully light up green. But when I pulled the chrome handle again, it didn’t budge.
Which meant the deadbolt hadn’t been unlocked. Something E.G. did with a key every morning. Just like he locked it every night before they headed to the elevators.
He was late. It was no big deal. I’d just wait by the door until he arrived.
