by Katy Kaylee
“Have you ever been an assistant before?” I asked instead, affixing her with one of my stares. I liked to pride myself on being able to see through quite a lot of bullshit without even blinking; would she try to slip something past me like so many others?
“No.”
Huh.
No. No explanation beyond that, no assurances that she would still be good for the job. Just a factoid answer. I liked that.
I looked to her face once more to see her chin tilted ever so slightly in defiance. As if she was daring me. Well, I could certainly take a dare.
I stood to my full height, the light behind me casting my shadow across the girl. To her credit, she only blinked once before she schooled her expression into that same inscrutable calm and determination.
Huh. Maybe this would be more interesting than I thought.
“If you have no experience, why do you think I could possibly use you.”
“Mr. Fitzger-” my underling started but this new woman cut him off, her eyes flashing in a way I quite enjoyed.
“It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“Doesn’t it?” I replied, surprised by her answer.
But she just shook her head. “As I said, I have no experience. What I think about the issue is moot. But you help a tight ship here, don’t you, Mr. Fitzgerald, and I doubt you would let on anyone as a permanent employee unless you were fully confident in their skills.”
“Of course,” I answered smoothly, curious where she was going. “But you’re not a permanent employee. Not yet, at least.”
She nodded. “But whoever in HR approved my application was a permanent employee. And so did the person I spoke to on the phone for my initial interview. Jenny, I believe? Then there’s Mr. Daniels here, who handled my final interview and my welcoming tour that we just completed.” She drew a quiet breath and when her gaze found mine, I saw nothing but steel there. “So, if three of your trusted employees think I would be useful to you, I’m liable to believe what they think over my own opinion.”
I leaned forward ever so slightly, interested by this strange woman and her responses. “And what is your own opinion?”
I expected her to falter there. To lie and come up with some sort of flattery that she obviously didn’t feel. Or worse, try to couch her negative thoughts in some sort of positive buzzword salad that would make me retch. All of those were wastes of time, and time was already so damn precious.
“I’m not paid to have an opinion sir, just to assist you.”
Huh. It seemed that she wasn’t going to budge on that, but I didn’t mind. I liked this challenging woman with rebellion in her stare and fight to her stance. It was almost like having a wild animal in front of me that was presenting at civility when really it wanted nothing more than to tear me down and challenge my position on top.
“Well then, Ms.… Viello, was it?” She nodded solemnly. “I’ll need three coffees from the café down the street, all large and one with two shots of expresso. My dry cleaning needs to be picked up -one of my secretaries can give you the address and the ticket. Once you have finished that, speak to one of them and they will equip your phone and work computer with everything you need to access and organize my scheduling. You are dismissed.”
She stood there, eyes flicking wide for a moment and in that breath, I thought I might have had her. But then she just gave a curt nod before turning to my underling.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Daniels. I’ll see you around the office, I’m sure.”
“I certainly do hope so,” the man said nervously, and I could see that he was actively trying to avoid catching my eye before scurrying out. He had nothing to fear from me, of course, the man did good work. But I supposed it was often intimidating for a mid-level manager to be so close to the man who controlled his entire livelihood.
But while Daniels scuttled, the new assistant walked at a standard pace, chin level with the floor and posture efficient as she exited. I watched her go, trying to see the moment she crumbled, but she held herself firm even as she talked to one of my secretaries, leaning slightly over their desk.
In that position it was impossible for my eyes not to flick to her round, thick bottom in that skirt of hers and I felt a strange sort of thrill that I hadn’t in a long time. Shaking my head, I returned back to my desk and pulled up my emails. I had a lot to do and couldn’t afford to waste time on someone I was sure wouldn’t even make it out of the probationary new employee period.
Good help was so hard to find.
Beverly
Grab coffee.
Run back to work.
Grab dry cleaning.
Run back to work.
Take diction.
Take minutes at a meeting.
Grab expensive sushi.
Run back to work.
Drop off dry cleaning.
Run back to work.
I found my days sinking into a frantic yet predictable rhythm that I sank my teeth into with everything I had.
Mr. Fitzgerald didn’t go easy on me because it was my first week, but I never expected him to. In fact, I liked to think that I had prepared myself quite well from all the stories I read online.
First of all, while I always wore sensible shoes, I did keep a pair of business heels in my small desk for meeting and other events where I might need to keep up appearances. I also made sure to have moleskin and bandages on hand for any blisters, abrasions or what have you that wanted to pop up. Not to mention clean socks. I remembered reading one story about an assistant who stepped in a puddle in the middle of one of GSME charity drive and wasn’t given a break to change it for hours.
Of course, that was just the tip of the ice burg. I always made sure I had a bottle of water and at least two power bars on me at all times. Sometimes I would be rushing from arrival at work until I left, and my only break would be in a taxi or elevator. While I was certainly supposed to have a lunch, I often used that time to get ahead on something or review my agenda on my desk.
Thankfully, almost all of my coworkers were kind. There were the usual tech heads that were standoffish and media stars who thought they were better than me, but they were few and far between.
But none of them really mattered, in the end. The only person of real importance to me was my boss.
And boy, he did not make it easy.
“I need you to drop off a package to the person and address listed. No one else. If they try to have you give it to a courier, or another assistant, refuse.” Mr. Fitzgerald said as they quickly walked down the hall to an elevator. Where the package was, I had no idea, but I was sure I’d be able to suss it out before too long.
“Yes, sir,” I replied shortly.
Mr. Fitzgerald had long, long legs and he did not shorten his strides for me. I often found myself having to hurrying along behind him to keep up, so I kept my replies short lest I sound breathless. Because breathless meant weakness, and I didn’t want to show even a single drop of incapability in his presence.
He stopped so suddenly that I almost crashed into his back, killing my momentum and rising up on my toes just in time to make sure I didn’t go careening into him.
“Sir?” he asked, those deep, chocolate eyes staring me down. “I don’t recall asking you to call me that.”
Crap. Had I already gotten in trouble? Or was this another test? I always felt like he was testing me, trying to find a weakness so he could get rid of me like all the others.
Well, I had never failed a test before and I certainly wasn’t going to now.
“Mr. Fitzgerald is five syllables long while Sir is only one. Considering how often we communicate, I thought it would waste less time to use the shorter honorific.” I paused for just a beat, deciding just how I wanted to play this. While I was a straight A student and determined to be the perfect employee, I also wanted him to know that he didn’t intimidate me. I’d been through far worse with far meaner people who held much more power over my head. “Sir,” I finished defiantly,
tilting my chin up ever so slightly.
But to my great surprise, one of the corners of his mouth went up ever so slightly. “How practical of you,” he said tonelessly, his eyes roaming all over my face like he was trying to find something. It took all of the will power I had just to stare back at him flatly until he turned away and kept right on talking.
It was like those dark eyes could look right through me, seeing everything that I fought so hard to keep private and secret. My blood rushed to my ears and for a moment all I could hear was its thundering. I could feel my body trying to lean towards him, pulled by his gravitas which suddenly seemed so inescapable…
“Sir will do. Now, as I was saying…”
I jerked my mind back to attention, blushing furiously. What the hell was that?! But I didn’t have much time to question it, because then he went off into more directions which I jotted down diligently into my phone. But while almost all of my brain power was concentrated on that, the deeper, more subconscious parts were taking in everything about the powerful man in front of me.
His broad shoulders, his deep voice, that salt and pepper hair that spoke of experience and confidence. If he wasn’t my boss, if I hadn’t read horror story after horror story about him, he might have checked off all of my boxes.
Not that I had boxes, of course. I was too busy surviving, then studying, then graduating then job hunting to ever have any sort of romantic boxes.
But if I did have time for them, Mr. Billionaire Silver Fox would totally be in all of them.
Too bad nothing like that would ever happen for me.
“Surprise!”
I nearly dropped the sandwich platter I was hauling up to the meeting room for the little mini-conference Mr. Fitzgerald was having with some other big-wigs that I wasn’t important enough to know the name off. Taking a deep breath, I looked around the tower of food I was holding to see several of my coworkers, including Chris.
“What’s going on?” I asked, worried I had somehow forgotten an important event. I couldn’t have, could I? Sure, I was still figuring out a lot of the kinks of my job to make it perfectly streamlined, but I didn’t think I could do something so egregious as miss an entire celebrat-
“It’s your second week of work!” Helga from HR cheered. “Congratulations, you’ve made it farther than twenty percent of Mr. Fitzgerald’s assistants!”
I blinked at her dully. “How many get through this week?”
She paled at that. “Um, about thirty.”
I nodded, hurrying past them to the meeting room that I was still setting up. “We can celebrate when I make it through that then.”
I felt kind of bad for breezing past them, but I had work to do. And I certainly wasn’t going to make it if I paused in my duties to party like I’d earned something. I hadn’t really earned anything; I was just doing my job. No need for pomp and circumstance there.
Besides, I didn’t want anybody thinking that they could get too chummy with me. I enjoyed my privacy. Hard work had gotten me this far whereas intrapersonal relationships had just taught me from a young age that trusting someone was a bad idea. It would be better off if they just let me go about the day and do my incredibly hectic job.
By the time I finished setting up the food, the chairs, the projector and turning the heated coffee carafes on, there was still a half hour left before things were due to start. Just enough time to check in with Mr. Fitzgerald, who still hadn’t told me exactly what he wanted me to do for the rest of the day.
I had assumed that maybe it was a Monday thing, and that he would have instructions for me after his meeting -which was scheduled to be several hours. But, if he didn’t want me present for it, I could certainly get ahead on a lot of other tasks.
So, I found myself doing something I hadn’t had to do in my previous week of working there, and that was returning to his office for more instructions.
I allowed myself the comfort of wringing my hands while I was in the empty confines of the elevator. Truth be told, I was much more comfortable with the endless running back and forth and fetch quests than spending any time face to face with Mr. Fitzgerald. That seemed to be where most of the previous assistant had made a mistake. The term out of sight, out of mind definitely was a principle to live off of for the job.
But I couldn’t just sit there with my thumb up my butt, waiting for him to get out of the meeting and then find out that I was supposed to take notes or prepare gift baskets for people or, I didn’t know, find a damn unicorn or something. So, seeing him in person was the most uncomfortable, but ultimately most practical decision.
Once the elevator doors began to open, I straightened my posture and put my practical face back on. It had certainly gotten plenty of exercise the past week and I was sure there was a lot more in store for it.
I strode past the two secretaries who didn’t even look up from their desks and rapped twice on the frosted glass door of his office. The futuristic, stylish looking blinds were all closed, letting me wonder for a minute if he was up to some sort of crazy, billionaire antics.
“Come in!”
Ah, maybe not so crazy then, when I entered, he was leaning against his desk, looking over several sheets of paper. He glanced up and looked me over, looking irritated that I was even there.
“You need something?” he asked, one of his eyebrows raising to his hairline.
“Yes, your meeting that’s coming up, with the other corporate folks-”
“What about it?”
I withheld a grimace at being interrupted. “It’s all set up and ready, but I don’t have anything in my notes for what you need me to do during.” I felt like an idiot asking, like I was supposed to know, but I forced myself to keep my same, straight face.
“Ah right,” he said with a nod, alleviating my worry. “I had assumed that you would have quit by now, so I didn’t plan for you being present.”
“Oh,” not exactly the most brilliant response, but I didn’t know what else I was supposed to say. “Well… I am here.”
“I see that,” he said, and his eyes did that roving thing where they looked over me like he was trying to pick out all of my greatest weaknesses. “Think you can handle taking notes around pointing out all the obvious, or does that take up most of your mental faculties?”
I could take quite a bit of orders, and constructive criticism, but this wasn’t that. He was being snarky at me, condescending even, and before I could stop myself, my mouth was opening, and words were coming out.
“I am perfectly capable of taking adequate notes for the meeting without being distracted by my own presence. But considering that you had to hire someone to do the task for you, perhaps the skill isn’t as easy as we both believed.”
It was like time stood still for a moment, hovering in the air between us. I held my breath, cursing myself internally from head to toe. This wasn’t how I wanted to lose my job and be included in the very long, long line of ex-assistants.
Then it suddenly snapped back into place and Mr. Fitzgerald’s head turned towards me. It took every single bit of will power I had to keep my face a professional mask, looking up at him like I had just asked for the time rather than shot him a fairly unfunny comeback.
“Are you implying that I’m stupid, or that I find you distracting?”
I couldn’t be certain, but there was something in his tone that sounded almost…amused? Surprised? I didn’t know him well enough to put my finger on it, but it didn’t sound like the pure, unadulterated rage I had expected.
His eyes stayed on me, looking right through me again, and I realized that he was still waiting for an answer. Well, he could keep on waiting, because I was going to be certain my voice was steady whenever I opened my mouth again.
“Well, Ms. Viello?”
I swallowed as subtly as I could before repeating what I had said to him the very first day we met. “I’m not paid to have opinions, sir.”
“I see.” And then the moment -whatever that moment had be
en- was gone and the man straightened up. Goodness, he was so tall. Was it really necessary for him to be so tall? It seemed like humans should be cut off after the six-foot mark. It really wasn’t fair for them to go above and beyond that.
“Opinion or not, if you’ve had time to work on your witty repertoire, then I’m sure you’ve had time to finish all of your work.”
Ah, I knew that tone. I had heard it from plenty of teachers or foster mothers who thought they caught me slacking off. He was looking down at me, that condescending sort of look on his face that I could tell was leading into a scolding.
Boy was he in for something.
I looked up to him with a smile. “Actually, all of your non-essential emails have been sorted and flagged into the categories you wished for. Your spreadsheets have all been appropriately relabeled and uploaded to the servers. I’ve made all of your calls, answered all of your voicemails you needed, and the urgent ones are waiting with corresponding notes in the software system that I was taught to use last week.” Another breath. “Your dry cleaning from Friday is hanging in your closet -I put it there during your walk about with your CFO, and your dry cleaning for this week has already been dropped off. As I mentioned earlier, the meeting room has been set up and I have all relevant files waiting for you there. Your necessary appointments have all been sent and I made sure you had a list of the optional appointment requests that aren’t on your automatic rejection list.”
“So, Mr. Fitzgerald, it seems that I had time for my witty repertoire after all.”
I couldn’t believe what I was saying. Sure, I’d been mouthy my whole life, with it getting me into as much trouble as it got me out of. But snarking to my boss of a massive media company was a lot different than being a smart aleck to a foster dad who got drunk a little too early a little too often.
I looked up at him, fearing the worst but refusing to let my face show it. If my own stupid temper was going to get me kicked out, I wasn’t going to let him know how I felt about it. My feelings were the only things that I had real ownership of my entire life, which was one of the reasons I liked to keep them so private. Sure, people called me tightly laced, stuck up, or prudish, but they never knew enough to hurt me.