Close to Home

by Rachel Spangler

  “I will.”

  “Good,” Kelly said curtly. “And your school work comes first, so if you have any commitments at the college, let me know. You shouldn’t miss school for work.”

  Well that sounded awfully motherly, though nothing like her actual mother. “I can let you know at least a week in advance when I’m available.”

  “Then think about scheduling and get back to me. In the meantime, keep doing what you’ve been doing.” Without waiting for a response, she turned, coffee in hand, and strode purposefully back to her office and closed the door.

  Elliot flopped into the chair at the reception desk. Who was this woman? What kind of person in the middle of a personal crisis and a professional overload refused to accept extra hours from an intern who volunteered? And who in the middle of tax season took time to lecture the intern about the importance of putting school ahead of work? She’d always heard that during this time of year, chaos reigned and all hands were required on deck at all times. Honestly, part of her had looked forward to the thrill of the fight. Instead, she felt as though she’d been patted on the head and told to just keep doing her house chores. She would’ve been disappointed or even angry at the patrician tone Kelly kept using with her, if not for the intensity behind even her most coddling comments.

  Like it or not, and she wasn’t at all sure which side she fell on yet, there was something compelling in Kelly’s drive, in her focus, in her unflinching dedication to doing everything right, and with full command. Hell, there was always something intriguing about a woman in charge, and a beautiful woman at that.

  Nope. No. Bad thoughts.

  She’d just begun to make progress here. She’d only in the last few minutes righted the ship after the whole homophobia throwdown yesterday and gotten them both back in straight-up business mode. Thinking of Kelly as some sort of beautiful accounting dominatrix would only lead to disaster. She needed to follow Kelly’s not-so-subtle cue and get back to work.

  Chapter Six

  “Is that another one of your attempts to change the smell of my office?” Kelly asked, hoping Elliot caught the disdain in her voice.

  Elliot glanced up from the plate of whatever awful dish she was currently shoving into her mouth. “What?”

  “Exactly. What in the world is that?”

  “Thai-style curried vegetables,” she said, as if the words should mean something to Kelly. Sometimes Kelly couldn’t tell if it was her city roots, her queer sensibilities, or a quality unique to Elliot, but she got the sense that they had completely different expectations for the world. Their different assumptions in any situation tended to be maddening, and even more frustrating because neither one of them ever seemed wrong so much as plain different.

  For instance, they had completely different understandings of business attire. Kelly owned a series of slacks ranging from gray, to black, to navy, and any of them could be paired with almost any of her lightly colored blouses or oxford shirts. On casual days she could sub in khakis, and on formal occasions she had a couple of skirts and two suit coats. Everything could be matched with a low-heeled shoe or flats, or if absolutely necessary, high heels. Endless options, all classic, all solid, all business standards.

  Elliot, on the other hand, wore everything from brightly colored button-ups to polos layered under long sleeves. She wore suit vests with jeans and sweaters over slacks. And patterns, Kelly never knew so many patterns existed, herringbone, paisley, pinstripe, nothing ever seemed quite static on Elliot. She never left anything un-accessorized either. Ties and wristwatches, suspenders, infinity scarves, and belts that all matched her loafers or boots or wingtips.

  Today she wore skinny jeans that accentuated her long legs and an electric blue dress shirt under a gray chevron-striped vest. She bottomed the ensemble off with Doc Marten oxfords. And damned if she didn’t look good. Not as feminine as one would think appropriate for Darlington, and certainly over-styled, but good. She projected an air of confidence, capability, and magnetism. Kelly couldn’t make a single complaint about the appropriateness of the ensemble, but the contrast with her own attire left her unsettled. If Elliot’s outfit seemed so perfect, and yet was completely different from her own business wardrobe, what did that say about her own clothes? She didn’t know, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to, so she redirected and picked on an easier target.

  Kelly took another sniff. “Do you have to eat that at the front desk?”

  “I could go back to the break room.” Elliot stood up and made a show of looking around. “Just show me where that is?”

  She rolled her eyes. In the last week she’d gotten more used to Elliot’s dry sense of humor, but her reaction generally depended more on her mood than Elliot’s comments. Sometimes she even enjoyed the banter and the caustic outlet it gave her, though she’d never admit that. “Maybe you can co-opt one like you took over my reception desk.”

  “Oh, did you mean for me to work standing up? What happened to not breaking rules for treating interns fairly? I’m pretty sure OSHA would have something to say about me having to be on my feet without a break all day.”

  “I’m not sure tax interns are covered by OSHA.”

  “You’ve got an answer for everything,” Elliot said with a little grin.

  “It’s one of the side effects of being right all the time.”

  “I know,” Elliot said with a smile. “I meant it as a compliment.”

  “I took it that way.” And she had, surprisingly. She didn’t feel nearly as defensive around Elliot as she had a week ago. In fact, she felt less defensive around Elliot than she did around anyone else these days. Maybe the difference stemmed from having no past or future. As Elliot pointed out, she didn’t know who Kelly’d been before her dad’s stroke, and she wouldn’t be around long enough to hold any grudges. Or maybe the power dynamic helped her feel safer. Elliot wasn’t trying to horn in on her business. Kelly didn’t have anything to prove to her. Elliot was short-term help on Kelly’s terms— nothing threatening there.

  Then again, maybe she just needed someone to talk to.

  The last option scared her more than the others.

  She hated to admit to being lonely. She was introverted by nature, but not a recluse. Tax season always meant letting go of things like church groups and the Rotary Club for a few months, but she’d never minded because she’d always worked with her dad. They talked more and shared meals, often debating new deductions or laughing about scattered clients. It might not have been a rollicking good time to most people, but this time of year generally brought an increased sense of purpose and connectivity. Maybe she just missed him and had turned to Elliot to fill the void. The thought made her uneasy.

  “You can keep your stinky food at your desk unless a client comes in, then try to put it away.”

  “Wouldn’t want to let them see the hired help eating anything, or they might think of me as human— wait, did you just call it, ‘my desk’?”

  Damn, she had. “Fine, it’s your desk, but …” She didn’t know what she intended to say after the “but,” but there had to be a caveat, didn’t there? She couldn’t just give her a semi-permanent post without setting some limitations.

  “But?” Elliot asked.

  “Keep it neat, and don’t leave confidential information out for people to see, and, and …” Elliot’s green eyes danced with mirth as Kelly struggled to remain authoritative.

  “Put my stinky food away when clients come in?” Elliot offered, her expression of amusement only amplifying her playful tone.

  “Yes,” Kelly said, struggling to remain frustrated.

  “Hey, have you had lunch yet?”

  She shook her head and didn’t add that she hadn’t had breakfast, either.

  “I have more of this stinky food to share.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  Elliot laughed. “Let me guess. You’re not big on trying new things?”

  “I have an intern, don’t I?”

  “Fair
enough,” Elliot said, “but you have to admit the intern thing is really growing on you.”

  “I suppose you’re doing pretty well,” she admitted grudgingly. “Other than the food.”

  “Wow, that was almost a compliment.”

  “Don’t let it go to your head,” she grumbled, trying not to notice the little flutter in her chest at Elliot’s broad smile.

  “Why? Because you’re afraid I’ll realize you like me?”

  Her chest tightened. “I don’t like you or dislike you.”

  “You’re completely neutral?”

  “Absolutely. I don’t even really know you.” The last thing she needed was for Elliot to get cockier.

  “I’m an open book. What do you want to know?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t mean I wanted to know you. Or that I didn’t want to know you. I just—” How did Elliot always manage to take such a little thing and turn it into something more? “You’re an intern. You do decent work. The end.”

  “And what about you? You’re a CPA, you do decent work, the end?”

  “Yes,” Kelly said.

  “But I’m also a student.”

  “Sure.”

  “And a woman.”

  “Obviously.” She felt a little twinge in her stomach. She wished she could forget that particular fact, but no matter what clothes Elliot wore, they always showcased her physical form, and despite her androgynous style, her body had more than a few curves to mark that form as female.

  “I’m also a lesbian.”

  “Not relevant.”

  “To you?”

  “Not relevant to your work, and therefore not relevant to me.”

  “I can see where you’d see the situation as cut and dried, but for me, it’s not. The fact that I’m a woman, a gay woman, very much affects my work and how I view my place in the larger community.”

  She should walk away right now. She didn’t need to get any deeper with Elliot. It was bad enough that she was warming up to her as an intern. She didn’t need to know what lay behind those sea-glass green eyes, or what sparked the confidence she brought to every situation.

  “I want to change the world. I want to make life better for the people who the current system either ignores or abuses.”

  “The system is neutral. The rules are the same for everyone.”

  “Are they?” Elliot asked what she clearly meant to be a rhetorical question.

  “Of course.”

  “So you don’t get extra deductions for being married? Or for having kids?”

  “Of course you do.”

  “Then the system favors people who are married with kids. And guess who is more likely to be married with kids?” Elliot didn’t wait for her to guess. “Straight people.”

  “Gay people can get married now,” Kelly said, trying not to think about the ring on Beth’s finger. “And have kids.”

  “They can now, but what about the people who lost spouses before the Supreme Court ruling for marriage equality, or those who don’t believe in marriage? What about military benefits and pensions? What about single parents, or single people in general? You’re single. Do you work any less than a man who has a wife and kids?”

  “No, but—”

  “And what about loopholes for large companies? Why does a woman who divorces an abusive husband now have to pay a higher tax rate while some multinational corporations pay nothing? And don’t even get me started on the penal code. If a multimillionaire robs his employees and drives the company into the ground, he gets a golden parachute while the people he laid off get stuck paying more taxes than the people who caused the whole mess in the first place. Why should wrecking an entire company be less punishable than wrecking someone’s car?”

  Kelly waved off the barrage of comments. “None of that has anything to do with being a CPA. It’s all politics.”

  “Politics and finance are inseparable. Just think about any issue on the modern political landscape, and you can easily follow the money trail right back to a straight white guy.”

  “My dad is a straight white guy,” she snapped. “Blaming him for single mothers on financial aid is an insult to him and his life’s work.”

  “It’s not. It’s not about any one individual. It’s merely acknowl-edging that some types of people are more likely to know how to work the system to their advantage. Your dad was clearly successful. He got an education, he learned the tax system, and he used it to build a business. He didn’t do anything wrong. Still you have to admit he could only do those things because he could afford to go to college in the first place, and because he had someone teach him how the system works, and because he had the support of a family or peers who helped him along the way. He didn’t do anything alone.”

  “You don’t know my dad.” She practically spat, fully engaged now. “You know nothing about what kind of support he had or what he had to do to work within the system.”

  “Then tell me,” Elliot said softly, the challenge in her voice replaced by genuine interest. “Help me understand.”

  Kelly clenched her jaw, fuming that she’d let Elliot get to this point. The whole conversation had gone way too far. She should’ve walked away as soon as things turned personal, but now she had to either defend her dad by revealing things she didn’t want Elliot to know, or refuse and let her believe she’d won. She should choose the latter. What did it matter if Elliot thought less of her? She’d admitted she didn’t know him. Elliot barely even knew her. And yet, loyalty demanded something, didn’t it? “My dad was a single dad. His parents died before I was born. He raised me completely on his own while working full time, and he never once complained or asked for a handout.”

  “So do you think he should be denied a tax break given to married people? Was he any less valuable to society, or to you, without a wife by his side?”

  Kelly folded her arms across her chest.

  “And the business he built, does it matter any less to the people who depend on it than Proctor and Gamble or Chrysler do to the people who depend on them?”

  “No.”

  “See what I mean?” Elliot asked triumphantly. “There are people working hard and raising families and building businesses all over the country, but the only people getting rewarded by our tax codes are the ones who fit the mold of what certain people value.”

  She couldn’t disagree with the concepts, but something about the tone irked her. It reminded her of someone or something, and even if she couldn’t think of who at the moment, the association wasn’t a pleasant one. “So you just want to be a CPA so you can go around Robin Hooding? You’re here to bend and break rules?”

  “No, I want to be a CPA so I can learn the system, learn how to use it like the rich guys do. I want to learn every loophole, every unfair law, every trick of the trade the old boys use to keep their network in power. Then when I’m so far into their pyramid of wealth, I want to start tearing it down from the inside.”

  Rory.

  Elliot sounded just like Rory. She even looked a little like her, too— tall and athletic with a swagger to match. No wonder she got on Kelly’s nerves so badly. Elliot reminded her of everything she couldn’t stand, of everything she’d lost … no.

  She wouldn’t go there.

  Rory wasn’t the problem, or at least not all of it, and Elliot wasn’t Rory.

  It was just their shared rhetoric that scared her. Talk of inequality and toppling the system threatened her last black-and-white refuge, the last place in her life where things felt fair and controlled. Elliot had no such issue as she forged on.

  “As long as the same few people control all the wealth and hold all the positions of power, nothing will ever change. But if we get women and minorities and people raised in poverty into positions in Congress and tax policy centers and the IRS, we can begin rebuilding the system in our image instead of theirs.”

  “Don’t include me in your, ‘we.’ I’ve no desire to be the king or queen of anything.” She wouldn’t get caught up
in an impassioned speech, especially not one from one of Rory’s student disciples. “I like the rules. I like order. I like helping my friends and neighbors make sense of their businesses, their finances, their responsibilities as American citizens, and while you’re working in my office, I expect you to do the same.”

  “Fine. I understand,” Elliot said, the passion in her voice replaced with disappointment.

  “Good.” Kelly turned back toward her office. Back to business, both literally and figuratively.

  “One more thing though,” Elliot called just before Kelly reached her office door.

  “What’s that?” she asked, determined to remain cool and distant.

  “I was raised by a single parent, too,” Elliot said, her smile smaller and more reflective than earlier, but no less sincere. “We have more in common than you think.”

  She shook her head. She wouldn’t get caught up in the unsettling emotions the little connection inspired. She had nothing in common with Elliot, at least not anything that mattered.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Anthony,” Elliot greeted the old woman as soon as she waddled through the door. She stood squat and hunched under the weight of a heavy down coat and multiple scarves.

  “Good? It’s negative fourteen windchill out there.”

  The weather conversation again. “Going to be like this for a few more days, I hear,” she said, in her best impression of the farmers who came and went all day long. They all, every one of them, told her they hadn’t seen a winter like this in decades. Too cold to snow, they all proclaimed. All the hassle of freezing temperatures with none of the water needed to hydrate the fields or raise the natural water table. She had learned to echo their clipped sentiments without ever mentioning global climate change. “Dryest February on record.”

  “Indeed,” Mrs. Anthony agreed as she set about unbundling herself. First the zipper, then the sleeves of the fluffy blue coat, then the buttons on a heavy wool sweater she let hang open before starting on the scarf. Elliot watched in amusement as she held the end of the scarf still and turned her entire body in a circle. She fought the urge to offer help, because she didn’t think she could prevent herself from giving one quick tug and sending Mrs. Anthony spinning around the waiting room like a dreidel. Instead, she folded her hands in her lap and waited until the pile of winter apparel was safely hung on the coatrack and out of reach before asking, “How can I help you today?”