by Claire Adams
“No, no, no, no,” the woman cried.
I finally saw her. A red-faced woman shrank back when the guard walked in. I wasn’t sure what bothered me more: the fact that this was going on at all, or the fact that things like this must happen all the time if the receptionist didn’t even care.
As much as I needed work, this obviously wasn’t the place for me. I wasn’t going to wait around any longer. I got up to leave.
“Thank you,” I said and rushed out the door.
The medical office was only two blocks away. I could practically see it from my car. It sat at the corner in between two restaurants with a glass wall encasing the lobby. As I got closer, I could see yellow construction paper hands taped to the window.
There was no sign on the building above the front entrance, and when I got to the door, there was a paper taped on it with big red letters at the top saying, “Eviction.” I leaned against the glass and sighed. It was always the same game, moving from one disaster job to the next, never really finding anything worth my time.
I figured they must have paid for their ads in advance. Which was a little frustrating for me that they didn’t make sure to stop the ad.
All my life, I’d put in the work. I spent years working on my degree. Business school was one of the hardest things I ever had to go through. They had us reading five full-length textbooks in the span of three months. I had to juggle internships, jobs, and a workload that would drive anyone insane.
The teachers made failing us an art form. They engineered impossible tests and assigned us 10,000 words a night. Less than a handful of people were left in the after-graduate program. We were the only ones that could make it.
I worked harder than I ever thought possible to get my degree. I deserved something worthy of my skills. Instead, I was starting at the bottom, competing with people that had their GEDs.
The last place on my list was the non-profit. I retreated to my car to call them. The husky woman’s voice came on. “Thank you for calling. If you know your party’s extension, press one. If you’re inquiring about the receptionist position, please visit us at 46 North Stern Avenue. For all other questions, comments, and concerns, please leave a message after the beep. Thank you.” An answering machine beeped.
The building was at the eastern edge of the town, where the ghetto met the restaurants and cafes that served the office lunch crowd. There were gravel lots, meager brick buildings, and rotting cars on the edge of the road.
It was an unmarked brick building sitting on the edge of the corner next to a laundromat. I parked my car in the lot in back and walked around to the front. The office was small, with a single room behind the desk and thin carpeting.
Nobody was around, so I sat in a chair in the lobby. Toys were scattered around the floor, and a tiny shelf of mismatched children’s books sat on the far wall.
A woman emerged from a back room. “Hi, can I help you?” She was a large woman with a bright red face and curly yellow hair.
“Yes.” I got up to hand her my resume. “I’m here to inquire about the receptionist position.”
She took my resume and scanned it over.
“The ad didn’t say anything about the job,” I said.
“Here.” She handed me the resume back. “That’s because we don’t want anyone to know about it.”
“May I ask why?”
“Because we work with children.”
My instinct was to run out the door, but I didn’t have very many options. “What’s the charity called?”
“Hands of Love.” She turned on her computer and stared at the startup screen.
“What exactly is the ad for?” I leveled with her. “What do you do?”
“We work with low-income families to get them in touch with services.” She turned away from the computer.
“Services?”
She lifted a white binder off the desk below and set it on the counter. “Look it over.”
It was an extensive list of charities and government services. “This is wonderful,” I said.
“Thank you,” the woman beamed. “I guess you could call me a case manager. I work with the families, find out their needs, and I send them where they need to go.”
“I wouldn’t mind taking the position,” I said. “If you’re willing to hire me.”
“Well, you definitely qualify.” She looked me up and down. “I’ll have to do a background check, of course, but that won’t take more than a day.” She ducked down and pulled a paper off the desk. “Go ahead and fill out this application. I’ll be with you in a bit.” The woman disappeared into the back room.
The application was basic. I finished it within a few minutes. When she came out, I hopped up and handed it to her. She took the paper, typed something into her computer, then looked up at me. “So far, everything looks good. You’ve got the internship unless your background check comes back and we find something we don’t like. But I suspect that won’t happen.”
“Internship?” I asked.
“We’ll just call it a trial period.”
“What does that mean?” I was furious. I thought I had a job, not half of one.
“It just means that I’ll get a tax credit for taking you on and paying you.”
“Oh,” I said. relieved. “Is that it?”
“Yeah, it’s simple stuff. Stare at the screen all day, play every game imaginable. I don’t care, but keep an eye on the kids when the parents are in their appointments. They run everywhere, and they draw on every surface imaginable.”
“That sounds amazing.”
“It’s a zoo, but I love it. Keeps me on my toes.”
“I am definitely going to like it here,” I said.
“I think it’ll be fun.”
There wasn’t much to go over. Most of my time would be spent filing papers and filling out a spreadsheet with her scheduling information. The place mostly ran itself. I wasn’t sure if this was progress or a waste of my time, but I was glad to have a real job.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jake
That morning, two men in slick suits waited for me in the lobby. They both stood up and walked into my office when I opened the door. Mr. Hansen sat down in the left chair. He was a small man with slicked-back hair and thick, black-rimmed glasses. The other man was Mr. Patrick. He was tall and wire-thin. I’d been seeing them both so long that there was no need for pleasantries.
“Tell me something wonderful, boys,” I said.
Hansen set his briefcase on the table and opened it. “These are your personal balance sheets.” He slid the paper over to me, and I nodded.
“This a summary of your stock portfolio.” Patrick reached into Hansen’s briefcase and handed me a packet.
“You’re making a significant amount of profit from your shares in the company, as well as your individually held businesses,” Hansen said.
“We can decrease your tax burden by sending funds offshore.” Patrick reached into his briefcase and handed me a paper and a pen. “If you’ll just sign here.”
“I’m not sending my money overseas. I’m paying taxes.”
“Sir.” Hansen straightened his tie. “I’d highly advise against it.”
“I concur,” Patrick said.
“Neither of you are here to tell me what to do with my money. You’re here to brief me. Thank you for the information. That’ll be all.”
I showed them out.
Money had become nothing more than a random number that kept fluctuating. I could never understand the advisers. The second they saw a minus sign on one of their papers, they started losing their minds. Loss was a sin to these people. They were acting as if my financial decisions had a bearing on my well-being. But I never had to worry about whether or not I’d have a place to stay or if I could keep the lights on.
I would always have the things I needed to survive. Unlike Mercedes. Her life was fragile. She could lose the house or find herself facing a medical bill she couldn’t pay. There were
so many things that could destroy her life and the lives of her mother and father. I needed to protect Mercedes from all of that.
It didn’t matter what she said. She had no idea what she was turning down. It could take millions to pay for intensive cancer treatment. And if it spread, the disease could eat away at every part of the body: the liver, the heart, the brain. Mercedes’s father needed a team of physicians to meet his specific demands.
He couldn’t stay in public hospitals. They wouldn’t give him what he needed. The doctors would take a quick look at his chart, mutter something, and walk away. It sickened me to know that her father was in the hands of those butchers.
Halfway through the day, I had six cups of coffee in my system. My hands shook, and I was trying to go over financial reports, but all I could do was look down at the phone sitting on my desk. I had three summaries to write, and I was starting to go over the numbers for the Kyoto chains.
I didn’t have time to worry about any of this, but how I could I possibly think straight knowing that Mercedes could be in trouble? I picked up the phone and called Larry.
“Nicos, buy-one-get-one beef tacos.”
“How are you, Larry?”
“Good, good. Everything work out okay?”
“Yes, thank you. I wanted you to go a bit deeper. Get everything.”
“You got it,” he said.
Two hours later, Larry sent an email containing a dossier filled with old addresses, vital documents, and personal information. It included medical and school records. I went over her father’s charts.
He was progressing well, but he’d been on the chemo for so long that it was starting to cause health issues. The doctors were well aware that there could be damage to his organs, but instead of doing something about it, they just pumped more chemo into his bloodstream.
The doctors weren’t making a mistake. They were just being efficient. They had other patients to see and the cost of his care to worry about. Pumping him with chemo was easy and effective. All they had to do was write a script and send him down the hall.
Aside from treatment for his sleep apnea, there were no other signs of care. It was depressing. Mercedes told me not to pay. She’d probably get mad at me for doing it. But I couldn’t let her watch her father die, even if she got so mad she never wanted to see me again.
They made payments to the hospital and the insurance company regularly. As I expected, it was more than they would ever be able to pay, which was probably what pushed Mercedes to take the job with Tony.
These bills were the only thing that Mercedes and her mother could think of. It was why her mother worked three jobs and why Mercedes signed up for an escort service. She was willing to give anything, even her dignity to save those bills. All I had to do was go to my bank’s website and transfer the funds. It was that simple. Not helping her family when it was this easy wracked me with guilt.
I couldn’t leave it at that, and I knew it, but I couldn’t keep delving into her life. I finished my summaries, kept my eye off the phone, and moved on to a simple lunch. Mercedes was always a paycheck away from death. Anything could happen, and there was nothing I could do to protect her, not fully.
I opened the email Larry sent me and pulled up her academic records. She graduated with a master’s in business two years prior, and she hadn’t had a decent job since. Her employment history was abysmal. Most of her work history was when she was in her early 20s. They were basic jobs like clerk and cashier. Her first job was as a salad artist at a restaurant called Lettuce and Pickles. She started when she was 15 and stayed for more than a year.
I shook my head. I was starting to miss my normal life, before all the money. I liked that world better than this. It made me feel nice knowing that she was a bridge back to normalcy.
She started at the university when she was 18, right on time, and managed to graduate with a steady GPA, a nearly impossible feat at her school. She stopped working during her after-graduate program, and she hadn’t had a stable job since.
I couldn’t imagine her being trapped in that house, waiting for somebody to call and give her a job. She wasn’t lazy or making excuses. She simply didn’t have very many options for work. The city’s economy never fully recovered, and people were still scrambling to find anything they could. Mercedes got lost in the cracks.
A new tax form had been filed. I clicked on the pink sheet. It was for new employees, and it was dated from two days ago. I couldn’t believe it. She didn’t tell me that she got a job. Would that cut into our time together? What if she stopped seeing me altogether?
I researched her position. It was at Hands of Love, which sounded like a rub and tug massage parlor. But it was actually a charity.
I thought about calling her to say congratulations, but I hesitated. If she’d wanted me to know about her job, she would have told me. Besides, I’d have to explain to her how I found out, and I couldn’t tell her the truth. I decided to wait to see if she told me herself.
Late that afternoon, I was certain that I had lost my mind. I was writing incoherent financial summaries and trying not to go back into Mercedes’ file. I stayed away from most of it, only pulling out the most relevant information; not that it mattered. I was committing one felony and about to commit another.
I reset the password on Mercedes’ financial aid account and entered it myself, a federal crime. Then I downloaded her loan documents. There were hundreds of pages of tiny legal script, binding her to years of impossible payments. I balked when I saw the numbers. I had no idea that they charged so much for tuition.
I wasn’t going to pay her loans off, not automatically. I didn’t want to stress her out even more. I’d be lucky if she stayed with me after I paid off her father’s doctor bills, but I had to do something.
That was an eventuality, even with decent pay. She wouldn’t have been able to pay for her school loans and pay her bills. She certainly couldn’t do it if she ended up having to take care of her mother. They wouldn’t make it at all if she had to take on the role of breadwinner.
Their house would crumble, her mother would deteriorate, and Mercedes would start to fade away just like her family. The extra money she’d save would give her enough to live independently and gain some freedom.
When I ultimately made the decision to pay her student loans, it was because I knew that Mercedes might never have a chance to leave her parents’ house if I didn’t. I wanted to get her out of that world where everything was waiting to die, and put her in a place where she could have hope.
When I got off work, the second I hopped in the limo, I called Mercedes.
She answered. “Hello?” The TV blared in the background.
“Hey,” I said.
“Oh, hey.” I heard a bang, muffling the sound of the TV. “Sorry, it’s kind of loud.”
“You’re fine,” I said. “What are you doing tomorrow?”
“First, I’m going to get out of bed. Then I’m going to sit on the couch.”
“So, you’re free tomorrow evening, then?”
“Yes.” I could hear her smiling.
“Good, because I am just itching to see you.” I held her up a second longer to see if she’d tell me about the job.
“What are we doing tomorrow?” she asked instead.
“I’d like you to choose this time,” I said.
“Then it’s a surprise.”
Mercedes hung up.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mercedes
I walked out of my room. My mother sat in the living room with a novel and a cigarette. “Sweetie,” she said, setting her cigarette down.
She motioned for me to sit in the seat across from her. It was meant to be a casual gesture. Really, she just wanted to interrogate me.
“How are you, darling?” she asked.
I sat down. “I’m okay, I guess.”
“Good.” She took a long drag off her cigarette and blew the smoke up over our heads. “How’s your friend?”
�
��Mother… don’t you dare do this.” I got up, grabbed two sodas, and walked out into the living room where my dad was sitting with the TV turned on full blast. He grabbed both sodas and put the TV on mute.
“Who was that at the door?”
I shot up off the couch and ran into my room. As soon as I slammed the door, they burst out laughing. They were tag-teaming me. I locked the door and took out my laptop. I had to be with Jake in six hours, and I knew they were going to hound me every time I left my room. I didn’t have to work today, though now I was starting to wish I did.
When I did start getting ready, I had to find a way to sneak my makeup bag and curling iron past my mother to get into the bathroom. I waited till it was time, then wrapped them in a towel. That way, I could bunch the towel up and carry it with me.
When I left the room, the towel scraped against my leg, and my makeup bag fell out. “What are you getting all dressed up for?” My mother stared at my bag. “Huh?”
“It’s nothing.” I dipped down. The towel came loose, and the curling iron fell out.
“Are you going out with your friend?”
“Ha!” My dad laughed from the living room.
“Mercedes, I’m your mom. You know you can tell me anything, right?”
“Leave me alone.” I grabbed my things and ran into the bathroom. When I walked out of the bathroom after getting ready, my dad sat at the table, and they both stared at me. “Go away.”
“Sorry, sheesh.” My dad walked back into the living room.
I called Jake as soon as I got inside my room.
“Hello?” he said.
“My parents are torturing me. They won’t be happy until they run a full background check on you.”
“Are they being persistent?”
“You have no idea,” I said. “Call me when you get here, and I’ll climb out my bedroom window.”
“Are you sure you’ll be able to make it out of there okay?” Jake asked.
“No, hurry up. Get me out of here.”
I laid back down on the bed and closed my eyes. Where did I want to go? It was my choice tonight. He’d probably take me for sushi in Tokyo if I asked him to, and that bothered me. He was too giving, too complex.