Nine
I’m up early Monday morning ready to take on my first official duties as a strategist. Though it’s true I’m notactuallyqualified to do this job, in some ways it feels like I’ve been preparing for this for a lifetime.
I begin by strategizing how to get an extra fifteen minutes in bed—skip the shower, dry shampoo, dress the top half of my body but stay in pajama shorts.
Next, I strategize the best way to get breakfast made for me. For this, I settle on the simple yet foolproof method of letting the kitchen cupboard bang shut, which instantly summons my father. This particular kitchen cupboard has been wonky since the dawn of time, and if you don’t close it with care, it clatters shut, then swings open again until the metal handle makes contact with the cupboard besideit.
If you ever want to torture my father for information, all you need to do is slam this cupboard once or twice. He’ll break instantly.
“Watch, watch, watch,” he chides when he sails into the kitchen, shouldering past me to shut it himself. I swear he’s attuned to hear the sound of this cupboard from any room in the house.
“Sorry,” I say, not even remotely meaning it. “I was looking for the mugs.”
“What’s for breakfast, kiddo?”
“I was just about to ask you the same thing. I’mstarving.”
He slings an arm around my shoulder. “Then I guess it will have to be pancakes.”
I smile back at him. “I guess it will.”
He drops a kiss onto the top of my head and releases me to gather his ingredients while I take up position at the breakfast bar to enjoy the live cooking demonstration.
I love watching Dad pottering around the kitchen. It’s like seeing him in his natural habitat. While most of our neighbors stripped out their old kitchens and replaced them with sleek, ultra-modern upgrades, my parents have kept it vintage.
They replaced the countertops a few years ago, and upgraded the bar stools, but otherwise, everything right down to the pale-yellow wash on the walls is the same as when they bought it. It’s not aesthetically pleasing, and wouldn’t work anywhere else but in the suburbs, but I loveit.
“Carl,” Mom says in exasperation when she comes into the kitchen and sees the maple syrup. “Again?”
“Why not?” he reasons. “Annie’s not home very often.”
She makes a big song and dance about how pancakes are not a nutritious breakfast option, but parks herself at the counter beside me anyway.
A few minutes later, Dad deposits the first pancake on my plate, carrying it directly from the frying pan and flipping it down straight off the spatula. It is, quite simply, perfect. I like to think I played a small part in this—after all, I’ve had him doing practice runs the last two mornings.
“And where’s mine?” Mom asks him when he flips the next pancake onto his own plate.
“You said you didn’t want any.”
“I said no such thing,” she replies haughtily. “Annie, get me a plate, would you? Your father forgot.”
—
Connor has scheduled a strategy induction call for us at 10a.m.sharp. I’m here first, and then he’s late, so I click around and then zone out onThe Cutwhile I wait. There’s no telltale ding to alert me that someone else has joined the call, so I’m startled when his voice rings out across the room, and hastily close the tab, straightening into business mode as I do. On-screen, he’s staring back at me, pitched slightly forward, his face intent.
“Is this your childhood bedroom?” he asks, forgoing any greeting. He’s not looking at me at all, but over my shoulder, at all the details he can see in the background behindme.
“It is, yes.”
“What’s that poster of?” he asks, pointing toward the corner.
I wonder if he’d believe that my computer died if I just shut my laptop down immediately. Somehow, I sense the answer isno.
“That’s none of your business,” I say primly.
“Justin Timberlake?”
“No.”
