by B. E. Baker
I lose.
To someone I adore. To someone I idolize. To someone I respect. To someone I'd jump in front of a bullet to save.
Losing over and over and over still chafes.
But seriously, I really would do anything for Luke. Does it make me awful that I also want to do something without Luke?
Probably.
I shake my head. “I love you, Luke. You know I do, and of course we're fine. I'm just stressed and tired, that's all. I'll get the rest of the publicity proposals reviewed later today and send them to you and Rob.”
Luke releases my arm. “I know you will, and I was only teasing. I don't care where you work. I really appreciate what you've done the past few weeks while I've been planning a wedding. I can’t ever thank you enough for the time you devoted and stress you endured the past few years while I was barely hanging on.”
“Okay, enough sentimentality. Go get your crap done so you can get home in time to have dinner with Mary.”
He grins. “Sage advice.”
I sling my bag over my shoulder and head out of the office, but I don't drive home. I head for my other office, my secret office, and the place where I leave behind all the expectations that follow Paul Manning. I reach my tiny office space in Smyrna and park in one of the reserved spots. It's not fancy, but it's in between my house and LitUp's office, which makes it convenient.
Jack Campbell, I remind myself. When I walk through that door, everyone inside knows me as Jack Campbell. Everyone except my office manager Nancy, but she calls me Jack, too. It's not hard to remember, since Jack’s my middle name, and Campbell was my mother's maiden name. Nancy didn't understand why I'd start a company with a made up name at first, but once I explained that I needed to keep it a secret until it either took off or failed, she got it.
A very pregnant Nancy meets me at the front door, wringing her hands. “We need to talk.”
“Well hello to you too, Nancy. It is a nice day outside, especially for March in Atlanta.”
She looks heavenward as if asking God for help in dealing with me. “Alan is waiting in your office.”
That's never good. “We haven't had a breach.” It comes out as a statement, but she knows it’s really a question.
She shakes her head. “No, but he doesn't have good news.”
I jog down the short hallway to my office, and Alan stands when I walk through the doorway. His enormous mop of hair looks even more unkempt than usual. Grooming standards differ for IT guys, in my experience. At least he's not entirely covered in colorful tattoos or bizarre piercings.
I set my bag on my desk. “Alan, what's wrong?”
He hands me a white sheet of paper. “I'm offering you my resignation.”
My eyebrows rise. I promised a share of our profits to all of the employees who have been with me more than six months when we either sell our tech or go public. “You're leaving now? Why?” We've got a functioning prototype. We had one tiny glitch to work out before we could move to beta testing. I fixed the glitch last night, although I haven’t told anyone yet. We're so close I can smell it. “I fixed the glitch. It works.”
“That’s wonderful news, but I’ve been working on a side project at night,” he says. “A software program for law offices. Last week I found a backer, a partner really. He's a big lawyer and if he comes on, I'll get a lot of business. He doesn't want to wait any more. Your offer of an ownership interest was nice, but it's theoretical. This is real and immediate.”
I close my eyes. I can't believe Alan's leaving now. We're at our most vulnerable. “How long can you stick around? A month? Two maybe? Part time is okay.”
He makes the annoying popping sound he always makes with his lips when he's agitated.
“What's wrong?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I don't have time to do both jobs, not now that my LawFile program will be live. My contract doesn't require two weeks notice. It says immediate termination at will, by either party.”
I remember including that because I needed to be able to fire someone immediately. Alan asked for reciprocity. I want to smack myself in the head now for agreeing.
“Fine,” I say. “Well, good luck to you.”
He makes the stupid popping sound again and skulks out of my office.
“This may not be a great time to remind you that I'm due to have this baby in three weeks,” Nancy says. “Which means it's full term now and could come any day. Every candidate we interviewed to fill in for me last month was disappointing, but at this point we have to choose someone. Anyone would be better than nothing. I told you I could keep working some from home, but you really need an assistant to handle everything I can't do remotely. Even borderline incompetent is better than nothing.”
I want to scream, but I pinch the bridge of my nose instead. “Fine, that's fine. You can hire whoever you want, like I said before.”
She nods. “I sorted through a bunch of idiots, but you never showed up for any of the interviews.”
“With a glowing recommendation like ‘a bunch of idiots,’ I can’t believe I blew you off.”
She glares.
I throw my hands up in the air. “Hire the best option. I really couldn't care less.”
She huffs. “You will be working with this person closely until I'm back from my leave. The person we choose matters. You need to choose my replacement yourself.”
“Fine,” I say. “Set it up, and do it soon. I really don't have the patience to post job listings or sort through all the junk applicants.”
She smiles then. “Helpless as my husband with a cold, which is why you need a competent assistant. I'll line some options up for tomorrow afternoon. Promise me you'll be here.”
“Yes, yes, I promise I'll meet with whoever you deem decent enough to be a real candidate, and because I like you, I won’t tell your husband what you said.”
Nancy rolls her eyes. “Gee, thanks.” She drops her voice. “So is it true? Did you really fix the glitch?”
I nod. “I set up calls with 3M and Siemens for tomorrow. I'll need that file we discussed with the specs and the price points Andy worked up.”
“On your desk.”
I have no idea what I'm going to do without Nancy, who I still can’t believe is leaving me for nearly two months. I'm surrounded by happily married people and their growing families. I think maybe all their unadulterated joy is making me crabby.
3
Trudy
I apply for a dozen more assistant jobs on Monday morning at places that are also looking for IT specialists. Until I have an offer, I should keep looking.
Both of the interviews I set up for Monday afternoon are a bust. The boss at the law firm disgusts me. I can’t imagine seeing him every day. The second, an ENT clinic, says I don't have enough experience. Apparently I need several years practice to be competent to make copies, line up appointments, and pick up coffee. I pin all my hopes on the third place, when I head in for the interview on Tuesday. It's a great fit and they love me. Unfortunately, when they make me an offer, the pay is so low I'd practically lose money on the gas to and from work. It hurts me to turn them down, but I don’t have much choice.
My phone bings and hope blossoms in my chest. Which is stupid, because no jobs are going to text me with interest.
TROY IS DOING AWESOME, Pam texts. HOW’D THE INTERVIEW GO?
My feet drag as I walk toward the car. I can’t quite bring myself to text her back and tell her I bombed out. Somehow being offered a job and still having nothing to show for it makes me feel worse, not better.
Why is having hope and losing it harder than no hope at all?
I check my email one last time before I turn the key in the ignition, and it's a good thing I do. A company called SITB would love to interview me, and they're in a big hurry. I dial the number immediately.
“It's a great day at SITB,” a man's voice says. “How may I direct your call?”
“Uh, I received an email from Nancy Jones wanting to s
et up an interview. She mentioned you were on a tight timetable. I just walked out of another interview, but I could come by on my way out of Atlanta, if she has time to see me today.”
“What's your name?”
“Tr—Uh, Gertrude Jenkins.”
“Hold please.”
Beep. Beep. Beep. “This is Nancy.”
“Hi Nancy. My name is Gertrude Jenkins. I saw your email a few moments ago. I just left another interview and your office is on my way home. I thought I'd check whether you happened to have time to meet with me today.”
“You're fast,” she says. “I love it. Yes, why don't you come by now. How soon can you get here?”
I glance at the address. “Twenty minutes, give or take?”
“See you then.”
The office isn't much to look at. A simple storefront with a modest sign that reads, “SITB.” Below the large lettering on the acronym, much smaller letters read: A Tech Startup. I wonder what SITB means.
The pudgy receptionist greets me with a genuine smile. “Hello,” he says, “and welcome to SITB. How can I help you today?”
“My name is Gertrude Jenkins. I called a few moments ago. I’m here to meet with Nancy Jones for an interview as an assistant.”
He nods. “My name is Ishmael, but everyone calls me Ish. I'll just need to see your driver's license to verify who you are. And if you can look over this and sign it, I'll let Nancy know you're here.” He hands me a document.
I look down and read the heading. 'Confidentiality and Non-Disclosure.' I lift one eyebrow at him. “Is this really necessary? I'm only here for an interview.”
He shrugs sheepishly. “The boss is pretty particular, I guess.”
Great. Another lunatic. Why is every interview I manage to get at a place run by oddballs? I guess there's a reason these offices are hiring. I try to read the document, but my eyes blur. Finally I give up and sign it at the bottom of the third page next to the x. I hope I didn’t just trade Troy for this interview.
Nancy's belly rounds the corner before she does. I remember being that pregnant. I could barely eat, and I couldn't see my toes at all.
“Gertrude.” She looks me over head to toe, and her eyebrows rise. “You're a lot younger than I anticipated.”
“You're a little more pregnant than I expected.” I grin.
She chokes back a laugh. “Understatement of the day. Well, never mind. Come on back.”
Ish hands my license back to me, and I give Nancy the Non-Disclosure as he passes her the copy of my driver's license. It takes quite the paperwork shuffle to clear me for an interview. I wonder whether this is a CIA front. I’ve clearly been watching too many old reruns of Alias.
I follow her around the corner. Nancy waves her hand at the large space that opens up in front of us. It’s segmented into eight or so cubicles, and more than a dozen doors branch off of the central area.
“We're a pretty small office for now,” she says. “Twenty-four employees, including me. You'd make twenty-five. Administrative support, as you can see, occupies the cubicles that compose the heart of the office. The programming and testing units are on the far left.” She points. “And the business related employees are on the right.” She points toward the far corner. “If you're a good fit, you'll be taking my office until my return.”
“So this position is temporary?” I try to keep the disappointment from my tone, but I’m not sure whether I succeed.
“Sort of,” she says. “It will be an employee position, but we'd be looking at an initial term of three months. I've been pulling double duty as both the boss' assistant and the office manager for eight months, but I recently convinced Jack to hire someone as an assistant until my return. For now, I'll just say we don't let good people go without a fight. There's more than enough work to go around, even after I come back full time. I wouldn’t worry too much about the ‘interim’ in the title.”
Weird. “Good to know.”
As we approach the corner, she indicates the doorway on the left. “Jack works there. My office is on the right. It's smaller, but it's also way neater if that helps.”
She's not lying. Her small, polished wooden desk has one organizational unit where several papers and a file folder are stacked. Notepads sit on top of one another on the opposite corner. There's one framed photo in the center of the desk of a freckled man, Nancy and a young toddler at the beach. Nancy’s belly is flat, and they’re all beaming at the photographer.
“Let’s check out Jack's office,” she says.
I follow Nancy through her doorway and take one step into the office that's kitty-corner to us.
A quick glance tells me the guy lives in a state of barely restrained chaos. Piles of files cover the desk, an upright cabinet, and the windowsill. Notepads rest on top of piles, and are shoved in between stacks of paper. Incomprehensible notes and numbers appear to be scrawled across all of it. Post-its are stuck to the desk, notepads, and even the walls. Mary would have a heart attack, and although I'm much less compulsive than she is, my fingers itch to tidy it up. Immediately.
“Would cleaning this up be part of my job?” I ask.
Nancy's laugh starts in her belly and fills the room. “You might never make it out alive. No, Jack doesn't like his stuff touched. At all. In fact, he’s pretty insistent no one mess with anything in here. Your job is organizing everything else. Meetings, appointments, phone calls, and presentations. How good are you with Microsoft Outlook and Word?”
I bob my head. “Decent. They're simple programs.”
“True. I saw you've had a few years of college. Your major is computer science?”
I nod. “That's right.”
She narrows her eyes. “Why apply for an assistant job?”
Paisley and I prepared for this exact question. I'm supposed to tell her that I love to interact with people. I chose my major wrong, which is why I never graduated. I'm excited for this job, and ready to make this into a career.
Except that's a lie, and now that I'm staring her in the eyes, I can't bring myself to say it.
“I'm recently divorced and I need money,” I say. “I graduate in May and every single IT position I've found requires two years experience, so I don't qualify. The few that don’t require two years of experience are unpaid, and I need income.”
Nancy bobs her head. “The good news is, we only need you for the next few months. So as long as you can commit to staying for that long, if your dream job falls into your lap after I'm back from my maternity leave, well, I'll be sure to sing your praises. It’s hard to find a competent candidate who isn’t aspiring to something else, so I get it. And I appreciate your honesty.”
I sigh. “That’s a relief. My friend thought I should make up a story, but I didn’t feel good about it.”
“I think we should start the formal interview now, Gertrude. Does that sound alright with you?”
I nod, and she ducks back into her office.
“Do you ever use a nickname?” Nancy asks. “Because my favorite aunt is named Gertrude, oddly enough, and she goes by Gerty. I don’t think I’ve ever met another Gertrude in my life, so I thought it would be funny if you did, too.”
No one has ever called me Gerty, not one single time, so of course I say, “I totally do. What a small world.”
The words pop out of my mouth unchecked, unapproved, unconsidered. I want to yank them back, but I'd look crazy. Why would I tell the truth about my reasons for applying to be an assistant, and lie about something as stupid as a nickname? A horrible nickname.
I must want Nancy to like me. Which is kind of pathetic, but if a connection to her dear old aunt gets me this job, I'll take it. We chat for another twenty minutes, running through more typical interview questions. My past experience, my skills, my work availability.
“Do you have any questions for me?” she asks.
“If I get the job, what does it pay?” Please be more than eight dollars an hour. Please.
“Since you'd be working f
ull time, we’d offer you a full employee package. Starting salary would be thirty-five thousand a year, with two weeks of paid vacation and eight holidays per year. I know that sounds low, but with benefits it comes to almost thirty dollars an hour.”
I hadn't even dreamed of finding a job with medical insurance. I cannot break down sobbing in the office in front of this woman who barely knows me. I dig my nails into my palms until it hurts and inhale deeply. “When would you expect to let me know?”
She pops up quickly for someone with such a large belly and peeks around the corner. “Ideally, I'd love to have you meet Jack today so we could tell you tonight or tomorrow. We're in a bit of a hurry.” She rests her hands on her stomach.
“I’d imagine you can't sleep more than about an hour at a time right now,” I say. “Is he or she a nighttime kicker?”
“You have a child.” She sounds surprised.
I nod. “A four-year-old son.”
“This one's a girl, but I have a nearly three-year-old son at home already.”
I mentally stomp on the spike of jealousy that shoots through me. I want another child and I'd love a girl, but I can barely manage Troy. Besides, it's not like I've got any plans of finding someone to father another child anytime soon. “Congratulations. What wonderful news! You're a brave woman to have them so close together.”
She sighs heavily. “Well, that wasn't bravery so much as fate.”
“Some of the best things in life happen in ways we don't plan.”
Nancy perks up at the sound of a deep voice coming from down the hall. “Finally. That's Jack.”
My hands shake a little. I need this job. I deserve this job. Paisley said this would be my best year yet, which requires me to find a job that pays a decent wage with benefits.