Cocotte

by David Manoa

  “I take it this must be your dream job now, by the amount of money you are making huh? You’re on top of the world…” I added.

  A thin sheen of tears began to emerge in her electric blue eyes. Her head angled down to look at the watch my father had given me.

  “Emily, your father must be really proud of you…” I said.

  Her head rose and her eyes widened, and she slapped me in the face.

  It was so loud everyone turned, stunned. Emily stood up to leave and I grabbed her by the arm to sit her down.

  “Let go of me!” she said, trying to pull her arm away. The commotion unsettled everyone, so that the barman and the bouncer by door came over and tried to grab me. I took out all the money, in my left jacket pocket and put it on the table. There was ten thousand dollars in cash, on the bar.

  “Emily, I want you.” I said firmly.

  Her eyes shifted to the cash and then to me. Everyone was shocked at the amount. I reached into my front pockets and added to the pile. It was now higher than my tall glass of CC dry. The girls on the couch stood up and soon crowded around us. Emily put her hand on her mouth..

  “Is this a joke?”

  “No, this is your final interview for a job”

  “I didn’t apply.”

  “I want you to work for me, as my executive assistant. On this table is $50,000 dollars as an upfront payment and another $50,000 after six months with the option of full-time employment.”

  The lady from the counter hobbled in and interrupted. “What’s going on here?”

  “I’m offering Emily a job.” I said.

  “Emily, is this guy, causing you grief?”

  The woman stopped in her tracks with her hands on her face when she saw all the cash.

  “I barely know you…” Emily said.

  I paused and placed my hands on her waist. “I know you.” I said.

  We heard the whispers of the women behind us. Some of them saying they would take her place and do anything I wanted. One of the brunettes said she would do me real good for half the cash, which amused me. But I didn’t want Emily for sex and the ladies got the wrong end of our conversation. I saw a glint of opportunity within her and there was a side of me that wanted to take her away from this life.

  “Emily, our business has been acquired by Cerberus petroleum. They are the largest oil conglomerate in the world. My partner and I, are in the process of working out the restructure and I would love to have you on my team. This is your shot at your dream job.”

  I watched as she parted her hair behind her shoulders. When we both looked at each other dead in the eye, she didn’t flinch, but her eyes began to well up again.

  “Emily, I need someone I can rely on. Your education and skills will be invaluable for a role such as this. I will teach you everything I know, you won’t have to worry about experience. That will come.”

  I paused.

  “Your father will be proud of you…”

  A thin trickle of tears rolled down her cheek and she sniffled. She finally nodded. I put out my hand to her to shake hers and left my business card on the bar. I glanced at my watch and I couldn’t be bothered, waiting any longer for Marc so I got up.

  “Emily, you start on Monday. Report at my office at nine a.m. sharp.”

  ***

  Monday morning arrived and I stared out my large office window, to revel in the rising sun. In the distance was the national office for Cerberus petroleum. It was a monster of a building, standing out amongst the rest. With the acquisition, eighty percent of our intellectual properties were to be transferred and the terrible task was to lay staff off that already had duplicate roles.

  I couldn’t help but be nostalgic, about the hard yards Marc and I put in and the staff that believed in our cause. I was adjusting my silver cufflinks when Marc burst in through the door. “What's the whore doing here?”

  I glanced at my watch, to notice Emily was half an hour early.

  “I gave her a job.”

  Marc started laughing and rubbed his temples. Marc started to thrust his fingers into his straight black hair. “Are you serious? Doing what? Your personal blow job assistant?”

  “Marc, you know our hands are tied up with the changeover. I have to finalise the restructure and go through the handover of all our accounts with Sherry over at Cerberus.”

  “Sherry… mmm…” Marc said with a glint in the eye, stroking his goatee.

  “What?”

  “I’ll be happy to do a handover with her, in my bed.”

  “Put your balls back in your pants, Marc. It’s important you do your job right, securing all the intellectual property once I announce the restructure. Millions of dollars of our company secrets can’t fall into a competitor’s hands.”

  “I know, Oliver. There’s going to be some pissed off people, some of them have been loyal from the start. I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to take all they can get.”

  “That’s why, when we negotiated the deal with Sherry, we upped the redundancy package. The ones that will be leaving, will go with a golden handshake.”

  “You mean diamond…” Marc laughed.

  “I’m just glad Cerberus accepted, but Sherry keeps dragging this out.”

  “The sooner the document is signed the better!” I added.

  Marc’s eyebrows lifted, then he pointed to my door. “So where does the whore fit into all this? Is she going to work underneath your desk, while you make people redundant?

  I held my tongue, Marc had that ability to test my nerve but he was the type of guy that said what was on his mind.

  “Her name is Emily. I hired her as my executive assistant.”

  Marc scoffed at my comment and checked his phone. Oliver, you do what you think is best. I know it’s going to be a crazy couple of months, but I think it won’t bode well. Especially with the staff layoffs you’re going to do. Doesn’t help, her being a hooker either.”

  “What she did before should have no bearing.”

  I paused. “Should it Marc? You would know…”

  Marc paused and stroked his goatee again. I thought about his wife, if only she knew what he was doing…

  I think he clicked on the hypocrisy of the situation since he said nothing.”

  “Can I have your confidence then, you will keep this between us?” I said.

  “Yeah, I will keep the whore a secret.”

  I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow.

  “Sorry, I mean Emily.” Marc said.

  “One more thing,”

  “What?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “That she worked at Showgirls?”

  “Meh, the bitch is picky on who she chooses and what she likes to do, that’s all I can say.”

  Marc left and I caught a glimpse of Emily waiting outside my office as the door was closing. She had her makeup pad, using the brush to powder her nose. I paged her to come through.

  Emily had the first day of work nerves on her. Her eyes were shifting around my office and she was holding her bag like a new-born child. She stood by my desk and I took a moment to admire her business attire.

  “You scrub up quite well, Emily.”

  “Thank you,” she said with a blush.

  A black skirt started at her hourglass waist, and ended at her knees. She had a pair of shiny black heels, that put her head just lower than my chin. A cream coloured blouse covered her shoulders. She looked more respectable in my eyes and damn gorgeous. Her hair was tied back neat and tidy. She'd nailed the corporate woman look down.

  “It all makes sense now.” I said.

  “What does?”

  “When I first saw you, I remember you squinting at me.”

  Emily was puzzled.

  “The glasses. You’re short-sighted.”

  “Oh! Yeah. When I started at my old job, they told me to ditch them.”

  The glasses were of a modern design, rectangular in shape, that sat well with
her eyes. It made the dazzling blue stand out.

  “You look completely different, sophisticated. A swan…”

  “New look. New woman,” she said proudly.

  I smiled. “Take a seat.”

  I took out her contract from my desk drawer and gave it to her. I noticed how she was meticulous in reading through it and checking all the details. I handed her a folder with everything she needed to know on the details of the acquisition.

  “I will allow you a couple of days, to go through the scope of what I need to do. Your desk is outside my office on your left. I have a couple of handover meetings this week, where there will be a bit of admin from the result of those. It won’t be too much, it won’t put you out of your depth. But if you are unsure of anything don’t hesitate to ask.”

  She nodded and took a deep breath in, perhaps uneasy at the calibre of the work. I stood up to show her the door, when she stopped.

  “Why are you doing all this, Oliver? Why me?”

  I buttoned up my suit jacket and adjusted my cufflinks. I put my hand on her shoulder and held it firmly. “I need someone to rely on, I need you.”

  ***

  The next afternoon, Marc was slouched in the chair in my office, playing with the label on his tie. He seemed agitated for some reason. “So…how was the meeting with Sherry?”

  I walked over to the mahogany cabinet to take out the scotch that was aging in there. I thought I would never open it, but this situation warranted it.

  “Drink?”

  “I thought you wouldn’t ever ask!” he said licking his lips.

  I poured the amber liquid into our glasses and handed the lesser filled one to Marc. He looked up at me and sighed. “That Bad?”

  I nodded. “Sherry is the most-ruthless woman I have ever met.”

  “In bed?” Marc said, laughing.

  I didn’t laugh. “She reneged on our agreement. She wants to dissolve all the sales roles. Here’s the new agreement.” I handed Marc the documents Sherry gave me.

  “What!”

  “She felt her sales team would only be tainted, by our sales force. Sherry just wants the accounts, they will do the rest.”

  “What the fuck, Oliver! She can’t do that?”

  “Mate, we are out of the picture now. I should have put it in the contract. So much for a gentlemen’s agreement.”

  “So what now?”

  “I’ll try and renegotiate.”

  “But if it doesn’t work, I will have to tell all those who I promised transfers that they will now be redundant. The difference is with this lot, they won’t have the diamond handshake. She pro-rated their redundancy packages.”

  I took a big sip out of my glass, expecting the sharpness to hit my head and null the pain, but it wasn’t enough.

  “What a bitch!” Marc shouted.

  “Oliver, to be honest we sold ourselves out the moment we agreed to the contract. We didn’t know they would spring this on us.”

  “I know, but it gets you thinking whether our jobs are safe when we work there as consultants.” I said with my hands on my head.

  “I couldn’t care less. We are on the gravy train from this point onwards, whether or not they throw us out. Down the line it’s just an early stop. I’m riding it for as long as I can and so should you, Oliver. Besides we still have twenty percent of the intellectual property we didn’t sell, so that makes us safe if we decide to do another start-up.”

  “Yeah, for now. I’m meeting with Sherry again, I think she might try and make a play for exclusive rights to all the Intellectual Property.”

  “Mate, then I need to be there! She’s gonna try and fuck us out of our money or the I.P.”

  “Not yet. I want to be sure if that’s her intention.”

  Marc shoulders fell and disappointment clouded his face.

  I didn’t want him there, because his below the belt thinking would make things worse.

  I went through the file and called Emily in. I watched how Marc stared with intense disapproval, looking at her up and down before their eyes met.

  There was some sense of discomfort when Marc got up to leave. He frowned at her while walking past. Emily held her composure, ignoring him.

  Marc did a blow job motion behind her back at me.

  I was trying to keep a straight face.

  “Emily, I need you prepare the files, for this lot of redundancies.”

  “I finished all the ones you gave me. You sure this is not a duplicate?”

  “No, it's not.”

  I watched when she flicked through the documents Sherry gave me. It was cute to see her long lashes flutter through her glasses.

  “Oliver… This is our half of our sales force, all the names of our account managers," she said. “What happened?”

  “Sherry.”

  Her eyebrows raised and I walked in front of my desk to sit down on it.

  “Sherry Rowan is the national sales manager for Cerberus petroleum. With the acquisition, we agreed that that only the duplicate roles in our company would be made redundant.

  “And she made the decision to lay off all of them.”

  “Exactly. I need you to finish off the rest of the documentation so I can call a meeting next week. Sherry has also asked for another meeting with me to finalise.

  “Okay.”

  I paused. “Are you free for dinner tonight?”

  Her ears pricked up and she finger-combed back a lock of her hair. “Oh! Oliver?”

  “Sherry arranged a meeting over dinner and I want you there.”

  “You sure?”

  “I want to keep this professional and having you there will change the dynamics.”

  “Dynamics?”

  “I picked up very early in that meeting with Sherry that she has a fondness for younger men.”

  Emily cracked up laughing. “She’s a cougar…”

  I nodded. “I was hoping to get the rest of the information but she purposely stretched it out.”

  “What info do you need from her?”

  “The file she has details of about the Pro-rated payments, of all our account managers, based on the individual’s performance and time in our company.”

  “That sounds fair.”

  “No. when we signed the agreement we asked for a significantly higher payout, to recognise their efforts and loyalty.”

  I glanced at my watch and it was two p.m. "Emily, I need you to go through all the documents and get a heads up. Take the afternoon off, to find an outfit. I expect you to have a change in wardrobe now you are working for me.”

  She smiled at me and held the folder against her chest.

  “No clear heels then?”

  “I’d fire you if you turn up in those. Dinner is at nine pm. I’ll pick you up.” I added.

  ***

  I adjusted my black tie and unbuttoned the lowest button, of my steel-grey suit. I had trouble finding my key to my grey Lamborghini, then I realised it was in the left pocket of my jacket. I guess having those bundles of cash in them from the week before, nulled out any sensation of objects being in there.

  The night was hot and humid, so I took the canopy down. The benefits of a convertible. The moon was beaming brightly through the clouds. It looked like it was going to clear by the time I arrived at Emily’s apartment.

  The Lamborghini’s engine sounded like a growling cougar. I upshifted on the paddles on the steering wheel, to get to my destination faster. The jolt from the gearbox engaging gear made me flinch and thwarted my thought process. My mind started to ask some questions about Emily that got me thinking about that awkward moment with Marc.

  I shook my head, wondering what kind of woman Sherry was, setting a business dinner at nine p.m. I drove down Queen Street and turned right onto Customs St, to see Emily waiting by the bus stop. She looked breathtaking, in the humid heat of the night. I loved how she flicked her shoulder length hair to one side. She wore a dark red dress that had ripples and folds. She held her red purse, looking out
for me. The way she stuck out was like a rose, in the thorn bushes. But the outfit she'd chosen was not appropriate, regardless of how great she looked.

  I pulled up at the bus stop and noticed she wasn’t wearing her glasses. She had a dollop of Russian red lipstick on her lips and the rest of her makeup was neutral, which was good. I was still disappointed.

  “Get in.”

  She tried to open the door. “It’s locked.”

  “You have to pull the door up.”

  The people in the bus stop snickered when the door rose upwards like pair of scissors. Emily climbed in and got comfortable and peered at me with an excited smile on her face. I reached into the glove box and gave her tissues.

  “What’s that for?”

  “Wipe off the lipstick now.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it. Where’s your glasses?” I said.

  “In my room.”

  “Go get them.”

  Emily wanted an explanation.

  “This is a business meeting. I want you to convey a professional image. I don’t want you squinting on the relevant documents Sherry will give us and I don’t want her to have the impression, that you are some tag along.”

  “You mean you don’t want her to think I’m an escort.”

  “To be blunt, yes. Emily, in this world first impressions go a long way, I need you on your A-game."

  “I am on my A-game.” she said.

  I frowned. “Where is your notepad and tablet then? How are you going to note any significant information?” I shook my head. “Did you bother to read over the files?”

  She went red with embarrassment and got out of the car. The people at the bus stop cracked up laughing. My fingers were tapping the steering wheel, my mind wondering if I made the right choice on her.

  ***

  The drive to the restaurant was a silent journey. I glanced at Emily to see her sulking, I put my hand on her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, I was tough on you back there. I shouldn’t have taken my frustration out on you.”

  Emily's eyes were red like her dress. She took off her glasses to wipe the fog that had built up on them. “I understand. You said it was a business meeting. I just wanted to impress you that’s all.”