Work for Hire

by Margo Karasek

  “I’m not saying I am,” I glared at Ann. The girl made liking her extremely difficult. “And I know it doesn’t make any sense for him to single me out. But, still, I get the vibe.”

  I glanced around the table. Ann scowled. Lauren yawned. Markus flickered his eyes away from me.

  “Like today,” I continued. I had to prove my point. I was not paranoid. “Why did he only stop me to say he was ‘looking forward’ to reading my brief? Don’t you think that sounded like a threat?”

  “I don’t know.” Markus leaned towards me, his voice gentle, his hand outstretched across the table, reaching for mine. “You have kind of done things to piss him off, don’t you think? Coming in late. The mess with the phone. And, of course, the essay. It couldn’t have gone over too well with Johnson. Not that I think those things were entirely your fault,” Markus soothed. “But still, I can understand why he would be irritated. Don’t you?”

  “Yes, but … ”

  “It’s that job of yours, you know,” Markus rushed on, seemingly determined to nail his point home. “If you’d only focus on schoolwork, you would have no problems with Johnson. Quit and you’ll see. He’ll love you, like all our other professors, and you’ll be back in top form again.”

  “Yes, but … ” I looked to Lauren for help. After all, the job had been her suggestion. But she was busy checking her cuticles.

  “Tekla,” Markus said warmly, patting my hand. I was grateful it wasn’t my head. “I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: The job’s not worth it. And if it’s only about the money, you know I’ll be more than happy to spot you whatever, and whenever, you need. Nothing’s worth the risk to your grades.” Topic exhausted, at least as far as he was concerned, Markus reached for his beer. “Now who wants to talk about this year’s competition? Any thoughts about copyrights?”

  I pressed my lips together—hard. Only about the money?! Markus, with his hefty trust fund and prestigious social background, could never understand.

  “Not while we’re still sober, we won’t,” I declared as I gulped down the remainder of the beer. “The next round is on me.” I would pay my own way, thank you. “But this time we’re drinking vodka.”

  THE SCREAMING IN MY HEAD the next morning reminded me why I should never drink too much and why I should never, ever, mix beer with hard liquor.

  I moaned as the screaming got louder. Luckily it only seemed to come in evenly spaced intervals. That refused to go away.

  I pressed a pillow over my head. Make it stop!

  Miraculously, it did. And then started up again.

  As no hangover headache I’d ever had came with such predictable gaps of relief, I rolled out of bed to investigate and soon realized the sound wasn’t inside my head.

  It was the telephone.

  Oh, God. My mother. I had completely forgotten to call her.

  Except it wasn’t.

  “Tekla? Tekla, this is Lisa.”

  One of my least favorite people. Calling because Gemma was missing and no one had her new cell phone number. Calling because she hoped I did.

  I had a bad feeling my Lamont-free Saturday was coming to a rapid end.

  Gemma had never made it to her friend’s birthday party—the party Monique had agreed her daughter could go to as payoff for having ditched her in favor of her husband when it came to the Bradangelina party.

  Gemma’s frantic phone call half an hour later confirmed that fact.

  “Tekla … ,” she whispered. “Tekla, I think I screwed up … Pam’s parents went to the country for the weekend and she was home alone. We thought it would be nice to have pre-party drinks at her house before we went to Kelly’s … Pam’s parents left the liquor cabinet open. We thought it would be cool to get a taste from all the different bottles. I don’t really remember what happened after the fifth drink … I’m throwing up, a lot. And Pam is passed out. I tried to wake her so I dragged her into the shower … She’s sleeping in the tub. I don’t know what to do … Lisa called me. But I didn’t tell her where I was ‘cause she was just yelling. And she told me Maman is coming home. That she had to cancel the Vanity Fair shoot all because of me. Tekla, I’m in so much trouble. That shoot was very important. Can you please come and get me and take me home? I swear, Daddy’ll pay you twice as much as normal! Just come and get me so I don’t have to go home alone. Please. No one else will bother listening to me. No one else understands.”

  I closed my eyes. Fourteen-year-old Gemma drunk. The pounding headache that my own drinking hadn’t prompted was now coming on in magnificent force.

  “All right,” I agreed while I massaged my throbbing temples. “But only if you promise to call your father. He should be at Pam’s too.”

  CHAPTER 14

  PAM’S HOME was a Park Avenue penthouse suite in the upper 80s. It had all the trappings—plaster moldings, arched doorways, marble fireplaces—of a top-shelf prewar Manhattan apartment.

  The frills, however, did little to conceal the empty liquor bottles strewn over the cherry parquet floor and mahogany dining room table like bowling pins scattered after a strike. Nor did they mask the stench of vomit.

  I pinched my nostrils and made my way through what looked to be an empty living room. Gemma and Pam were nowhere in sight.

  A doorman had let me in.

  “They’re expecting you,” he had said as he ushered—no, practically pulled—me into the elevator, and then the suite, seemingly ecstatic to get the whole mess of Pam, Gemma and their drinking binge off his hands.

  Poor man. I could imagine the phone calls that must have preceded my arrival. Clearly, I was the first adult on the scene. But, suddenly, when the door shut behind me and the doorman fled to the sanity of his duties downstairs, I didn’t feel quite so grown up.

  “Gemma?” I called out as an empty Jack Daniels bottle rolled to a stop in front of my feet. I stooped to pick it up and returned it to the dining room table, next to a half-finished bottle of Absolut.

  “Gemma? Where are you? It’s Tekla.”

  No reply. I eyed more bottles, some empty, some half-finished. Beefeater. El Jimador Tequila. Johnny Walker. Bacardi.

  It had been some party. No wonder the two had gotten sick. If the quantity alone hadn’t done the trick, the rainbow-colored mix must have worked its magic.

  I searched for the nearest bathroom—Gemma had mentioned pulling Pam into a tub—and pushed open a door across from the living room that looked promising.

  Bingo.

  Gemma sat curled in a fetal position on the marble tile floor. She was pale. Her head was against the wall, her mascara was smudged beneath her closed lashes, and her red lipstick was smeared off her lips and onto her chin and cheeks. I couldn’t help but observe bits of food dried in her disheveled hair, and dark stains—of either alcohol, vomit or both; I couldn’t tell—splotched all over her silk camisole and linen mini. She was a Baby Jane in full hangover glory.

  “Gemma, thank God!”

  I rushed to her. That was when I saw a girl who could only be Pam slumped in the bathtub, her skin shades paler than Gemma’s and definitely greener. But as she was snoring and therefore clearly breathing, she was in no immediate need of emergency medical attention.

  “Gemma, can you hear me?” I reached for Gemma’s arm and gently shook her when she made no reply.

  Gemma fluttered her eyes open. “Tekla … ,” she croaked. Then she burst into tears and lunged straight at me.

  I plopped down on the floor hard, with Gemma in my arms. She laid her head on my shoulder, like an infant seeking comfort from its mother, and continued sobbing.

  “Thank you for coming. I’m so sorry,” she wept.

  “It’s okay.”

  I patted Gemma’s back as she cried, but turned my face from her, barely able to conceal a retch. The girl smelled worse than the apartment.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked as I finally pushed her away and propped her back up against the wall at a far safer distance.

  Ge
mma swiped at her tears.

  “My head hurts,” she sniffed as she wiped her dripping nose. “Bad. I’m really nauseous. But I think Pam is worse. She still hasn’t woken up.”

  I sat on the floor, Indian-style.

  “Did you have anything to drink—and I mean water, not alcohol—since your party started?”

  Gemma shook her head no.

  I pushed myself up and walked towards the sink. A glass stood on its ledge. I filled it with water.

  “Here. Drink it.” I watched her gulp down the water, then refilled the glass when she handed it back, empty. “The water should help with the headache. And so will an aspirin,” I counseled as I dug a pill out from my bag.

  Gemma swallowed the aspirin and three more glasses of water.

  Good. Those should hold her over. Pam, however, was another matter.

  I turned towards the tub and the listless body that occupied it. I tapped Pam on her cheeks. Nothing. Just more snoring. I sat on the tub’s ledge and patted some more. Gemma watched my every move, her eyes bigger and darker than an owl’s.

  “See,” she whispered, a pitch of hysteria trickling back into her voice. “She won’t answer. She won’t wake up.”

  I shushed Gemma and stared at Pam.

  In the movies, they always woke the passed-out drunk with a good dowsing of cold water. And Pam was already in the shower.

  “Hand me that towel,” I demanded as I slid off the tub’s ledge, reached for the cold-water knob and turned it on full force. “And step back. This might get messy.”

  Water sprayed into the tub, over Pam, and onto the floor.

  “What in the bloody hell is going on here?” boomed a voice from the bathroom’s door.

  I jumped away from the running shower, like a burglar caught in the act.

  Mr. Lamont.

  “And why in hell won’t anyone answer when I call?” he chided.

  I simply gaped at him. His presence was so unexpected—although, of course, it shouldn’t have been.

  “Daddy!” Gemma wailed, bursting into fresh waves of tears. With a towel clutched to her chest, she sidled her way behind my back, away from her father.

  Mr. Lamont scowled.

  We must have made some picture. Me, slack-jawed. Gemma, disheveled and crying, and hiding behind me. Pam, unconscious in the bathtub. The water still running.

  Shit. The water. I charged into the shower and screwed the knob to off. Maybe flooding the bathroom wasn’t such a hot idea. Pam was just as unconscious—except now she was soaked. Soon she’d probably be cold, and a perfect candidate for pneumonia. I snatched the towel from Gemma, bent over Pam’s prostrate body, and tried to pat-dry her wet face, hair and shirt front.

  “I repeat, what in the bloody hell is going on here? And for God’s sake, Gemma, stop that sniveling!”

  Mr. Lamont’s voice stopped my clearly futile efforts. Gemma only sniveled louder.

  “Ahh … ” I inched towards Mr. Lamont as Gemma practically molded herself onto my back.

  “Gemma,” Mr. Lamont snarled. “Stop hiding behind Miss Reznar.”

  Gemma, head low, stepped around and stood next to me. Mr. Lamont glared at his daughter.

  “Look at you! You’re pathetic.” He leaned towards her. “And you stink! To think, people outside our family have actually seen you in this state. Go find your coat or sweater or whatever else you had on when you first got to this God-forsaken place. You’re going home. The car is waiting downstairs. We’re leaving. Now.”

  “What? W-wait!” I sputtered as Mr. Lamont turned to leave, obviously expecting Gemma to follow, sans me or … “What about Pam? We—you—can’t just leave her here. Alone. She’s still unconscious.”

  Pam groaned, a sign of life. Mr. Lamont glanced at her, disgust and annoyance—whether at Pam or me, I wasn’t sure—painted all over his face.

  “Her parents claim they’re on their way,” he shrugged.

  I couldn’t believe my ears.

  “But they’re not here yet!” I sputtered. “She’s Gemma’s friend. They both got into this together. You should at least call a relative of hers who can come and stay with her until her parents get back to New York. She’s only fourteen, and she will probably be very scared when she’s fully awake,” I finished lamely, out of arguments.

  Could Mr. Lamont truly be this cold?

  “If you’re so worried about her,” Mr. Lamont replied, “you stay.”

  I gawked. Words failed me. He was decamping with Gemma, leaving Pam and me behind. The implications of that retreat raced through my head: Pam was barely awake. I didn’t know her parents. Aside from this one encounter, I didn’t even know Pam. Hadn’t actually spoken to her. And she sure as hell didn’t know me.

  “I’m not going without Tekla,” Gemma declared with resolve, filling the sudden silence like a voice from the heavens. “And I don’t care how long it takes or who finds out.” She sat on the tub’s ledge, her arms crossed, her lips pouting. “Even if Page Six shows up.”

  Mr. Lamont fixed his stare on Gemma. His nostrils flared when she didn’t respond to the threat.

  “Fine,” he finally said. “If you insist. I’ll see what I can do.”

  I couldn’t shake the feeling some form of retribution would eventually follow.

  “I CANNOT BELIEVE you do something so horrible to me, your Maman. No?”

  Monique Lamont lounged on the white leather sofa in the Lamont townhouse underneath her portrait, the two dogs at her feet. She was clad in her signature black Balenciaga—this time a pencil skirt and loose button-down shirt that looked anything but loose when it draped her generous body. She was cover-girl fabulous, revealing not a hint of the hurried eight-hour transatlantic flight anywhere on her person: no bags under her eyes, not a hair out of place.

  Gemma sat—no, slumped—opposite her, freshly showered, with her hair groomed and face scrubbed clean. A fresh sweatshirt and pants replaced her stained outfit. She smelled like body wash and shampoo, like vanilla and almonds, all visible signs of the binge drinking—except for her pallor and drawn eyes—gone.

  “I work so hard for you, and you hurt me. No?” Monique sighed. She fluttered manicured fingers in front of her daughter’s face before she let the hand drop back to the sofa. “And your poor father. He is so angry, so hurt by what you do. You, his peu fille. He is just devastated. Crushed.”

  At that last pronouncement, I raised a skeptical brow. Crushed? Somehow I didn’t think so. Mr. Lamont was long gone. He had called Pam’s parents before he dragged her tutor out to the penthouse to babysit until they returned. Problem of Pam? Solved.

  Then he herded us to the car and dropped us off at the townhouse—but refused to go in himself. In fact, he hadn’t uttered a word to either Gemma or me the entire ride. He just grunted at the driver, pointed us out to the curbside and sped away, destination unknown.

  Devastated, my ass.

  “And I try to work so hard,” Monique continued. “Now I have to fly back tomorrow just to finish the job.”

  I peeked over at Julian. He stood slumped against the living room wall. Like me, he was probably too tired or annoyed to leave the unfolding Lamont drama. I imagined he had the headache of arranging the abrupt return trip home because, unlike Monique, he looked exhausted. The black of his irises contrasted starkly with the red in the rest of his eyes. His slim-fitting Prada shirt and slacks seemed wilted, too. He looked like a man who hadn’t had time to change in more than twenty-four hours.

  “And your poor brother,” Monique lamented. “Do you know the housekeeper says he spends the entire night crying because he thinks something bad happen to you?”

  Surprised, I turned back to Monique. Xander’s eyes had been red and puffy when we first arrived at the house, yes, but the minute he saw Gemma, he hissed a, “You bitch, you’re dead!” under his breath and disappeared upstairs, probably to lock himself in his room doing God-knows-what.

  “I am very disappointed in you, Gemma.”

  Mo
nique stared at her daughter, but Gemma seemed completely uninterested in her mother’s disapproval. Actually, she appeared uninterested in the situation as a whole. She sat staring at the wall, saying nothing, twirling a strand of hair around her finger, her mouth petulant—an angry teenager in full rebellious glory. Whatever, her expression screamed to anybody willing to listen.

  “And I am very sad to say I will have to punish you for this … this drinking,” Monique said before she got up from the sofa. She ran her hands down the length of her skirt, straightening out nonexistent creases. “You cannot go out for all of this week. We talk about what will happen on the weekend later, when I return from Paris again, oui? Now please go upstairs and think about how you have hurt this family.”

  Monique flounced out of the room. Gemma stalked after her.

  That’s it? My mouth gaped open as I watched the two leave. That was Gemma’s whole punishment for almost drinking herself to death, for upending everyone’s weekend and dragging her mother across the Atlantic? Staying home during the school week, with no other privileges taken away, and a we-will-see-about-the-weekend?

  “Forget about it,” Julian advised as he tapped me on my shoulder. He shook his head. “That’s just how they are. I’ll take you home. Maybe we can grab coffee on the way. I need caffeine.”

  WE WENT TO GRUMPY’S Café in the East Village because Julian refused to step foot in a Starbucks. “Corporate assassins,” he had called them as we passed three in the vicinity of two blocks and my mouth salivated over the possibility of a tall mocha latte with peppermint, no whip. “They destroy local café culture. Plus, their coffee sucks.”

  So we had trekked twenty blocks and now sat over two steaming cups of real cappuccinos in downtown’s take on an old-school coffeehouse, tangerine walls and abstract portraits of naked women included.

  I sipped my cappuccino. It really was good. And it smelled even better.

  “What a day. What a nightmare.” I shook my head and contemplated the steam rising from the cup. “Poor Gemma.”

  “Poor Gemma?” Julian tore his eyes away from his own cup and stared at me, incredulous. “You’ve got to be kidding me. She created the whole mess, and you feel sorry for her?”