Acquired

by Charlotte Byrd

I sigh. At least he got the terminology right.

  “Oh, just got a great idea. You don’t have to deliver that new boat to Gordon yet, right? Let’s go out tomorrow. You can steer the boat and I will bring the ladies. Just find us a nice place to drop anchor and we can all get wet.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Come on! Let’s break in Gordon’s new boat. Give it some fun before that boring old bastard gets his hands on it.”

  “Trevor, it is a client’s boat, not mine. My boat is in Greece right now, so unless you want to bring your hotties there…”

  He waves his hand, the idea has passed already like a wisp of cloud in the wind.

  “So, was there a specific reason you came here?”

  “Ah, yes. I almost forgot since I’ve been sitting here so long.” Trevor pops up out of the chair and grasps both of my shoulders in his hands. “I had sex with the hottest girl last night.” He releases me and runs his hand through his hair, apparently reveling in the memory. “Do you remember that girl I told you about, the one who works behind the bar at the Capital Hilton? The one with black hair and the really tight ass.”

  I don’t remember, but I nod anyway. It helps to move things along. Trevor spends a lot of time in D.C.. It’s odd, because a lot of the D.C. crowd is very earnest, engaged: the ‘work hard – play harder’ types. Trevor is purely ‘play hard.’ I guess it gives him more time to chase bartenders and waitresses.

  He goes on for a few minutes, describing the details of the encounter, in extreme detail. If I didn’t know the girl before, I could certainly pick her out now. At least, the parts of her that appealed to Trevor. While he is talking, I remember that my food is waiting for me at O’Leary’s.

  I realize that he has finished talking and is waiting for me to reply. I hadn’t really been paying attention, but my ‘That sounds hot’ apparently is enough to satisfy him. Trevor grins.

  “I have a great idea. Something fun we can do together.”

  Great. Trevor’s ideas are always expensive and time consuming. Since his own time and money are seemingly inexhaustible, he never seems to understand that other people do not have lives as unfettered. Still, now that this custom job is basically finished, I have a few weeks off before I need to get started on my next project. It might be a good idea to unwind a little bit. I had planned on heading back to the Aegean and getting on my own boat, but I decide to listen to Trevor’s proposal.

  “Tell me while we walk, I have takeout waiting for me.”

  “Oh, great, I was getting hungry.”

  Sometimes I wonder why I am still friends with Trevor. It is hard to shake childhood friendships, especially when your parents are close. And Trevor has a lot of good qualities. When I am in the mood to let loose and have a good time, he is a great guy to party with. He just doesn’t understand boundaries at all. And for a rich guy, he is a terrible mooch.

  “Ok, so I was talking to this guy the other day, you know Dave Summers? Anyway, he told me about a party in D.C. that is absolutely wild. Totally underground, exclusive guest list, NDAs, everything is super-secret. They have them once a month, different location every time.”

  “What is it, like a swinger’s thing? I thought they didn’t let single guys into parties like that.”

  “No, dude, not like that. It’s an auction.”

  “What do you mean, an auction? Like art?” I am failing to grasp why this party is so exciting.

  Trevor laughs and shakes his head.

  “No. You don’t bid on art, antiques, or any of that crap. It’s girls, man. You get to bid on girls.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Yeah, man, it is wild. You bid on a girl and if you win, she has to do whatever you want. And apparently, the girls are, like, ridiculously hot.”

  “Is that even legal? It sounds pretty sketchy.”

  “Oh, yeah, they sign agreements, they know what’s up. It’s all voluntary. And it’s serious money, too.”

  We reach the door to O’Leary’s. I nod to the hostess. She recognizes me and immediately goes to the back to retrieve my order.

  “So, what do you say? You in?”

  I am a little uncomfortable with the concept and I am certain that I am not going to be doing any bidding on anyone, but at the same time, it does sound like a crazy thing to watch. Maybe it will be fun. It will at least be a unique experience.

  “When is the party?”

  “Saturday night.” Trevor smiles and claps me on the shoulder. “This is going to be awesome!”

  Chapter 3 - Emma

  The early morning rush at Anchor Coffee is always hectic. For some reason the owners won’t put on extra staff or buy more equipment to help us handle the line that often goes out the door. ‘It adds to the appeal’ Mr. Jennings told me when I had asked him about the long lines. ‘They show people on the street that we are popular, that people are willing to wait to get our coffee.’ He may be right, but it didn’t make it any easier to deal with dozens of frantic, over-stressed and under-caffeinated Congressional staffers, lobbyists, and assorted other D.C. denizens.

  “Emma, we need more of the light roast. Run to the back and grab a couple of pounds.”

  I nod an acknowledgement to April, who is on the pour-over station, and head into the back room. Anchor is an artisan coffee roaster. We bring in raw coffee beans and do custom, small-batch roasts that we serve and sell exclusively in store. We also have to do a wide range of presentations, from Chemex pour-overs, cold brews, various espresso based drinks, anything but traditional drip coffee.

  I hadn’t even been much of a coffee drinker when I started work here two years ago. I drank herbal tea all through college. I was proud of the fact that I never had pulled an all-nighter. I never developed the caffeine habit that a lot of my friends did. They often argued that it was because I was majoring in Classics, not a hard, serious subject like engineering or biology. Maybe they were right. I certainly didn’t have any early morning labs. But at the same time, I doubted any of them could have hacked it in any of my classes. I took a perverse pride in the lack of direct job applicability of my major.

  At least until it was time to graduate.

  By the time I was in my senior year, I had started to realize that I didn’t want to go to grad school. It wasn’t that I didn’t have an interest in the subject. I did. But I talked with my professors, researched job openings, and discovered that the prospects for getting a professorship were slim, even if I got into a Ph.D. program at a top school. One of my mentors had gotten her doctorate from Harvard, but the first tenure track position she was able to get was at Kansas State, after bouncing around at different post-doc fellowships and assistant professor positions. I wasn’t sure I wanted to work so hard to end up in Kansas. I grew up in the D.C. suburbs and couldn’t imagine living that far from a major city.

  That would be an ideal career path. The more likely outcome was a series of adjunct positions where you teach one or two classes, don’t get benefits, and don’t get paid for any of your work out of the classroom. I knew some people who were grad students while I was an undergrad that went that route. They had to race between three different colleges to get enough hours to pay their bills. It wasn’t appealing. I was sure I could find something else.

  And that is how I ended up here, carrying these packs of freshly roasted coffee beans.

  I hand April the beans, go back to my espresso machine, and start work on the orders that have piled up in the few moments I spent in the back room. Someone ordered a cappuccino with coconut milk. I don’t get it. I drink coconut milk sometimes, but for some reason it doesn’t foam the way that cow’s milk does. It kind of ruins the whole point of the cappuccino. They should just order a latte and be done with it. But whatever the customer wants, I guess. I pour the milk into the metal cup and set it up to steam while I pull a double shot of espresso. Even though I had stayed away from coffee for so long, working here has turned me into a connoisseur.

  The rest of the mornin
g flies past in a blur of steam and coffee grounds. Finally, around nine-thirty, the crowd thins out. The only people remaining are the long-timers, the people who don’t come to the coffee shop to buy coffee and then go to work, they work here. About a half-dozen of them are sitting at cramped tables, typing away on their MacBook Airs. I wish I understood what it is they do all day, how they make money. But I have never had much of a head for business. They sit there silently for hours, drinking cup after cup.

  Nobody has come to the counter in at least twenty minutes, so I go into the back to do some organizing. Inevitably, some things get out of place during the morning rush, so these little lulls are a good time to put things back in order. April pops in behind me.

  “Emma, oh my god, have you seen that guy sitting at the table by the window?”

  I haven’t. Or rather, I haven’t noticed anything terribly interesting about him.

  “Um, yeah, I guess.”

  “He has been coming in here for a couple of weeks and he only comes up to the counter when I am on the register. Do you think that means he’s into me?”

  “I don’t know, April. Could be a coincidence.”

  “It happens a lot, though. I mean, it’s like he waits for me.”

  I am skeptical. The idleness of working behind the counter at a coffee shop could lead one to flights of fancy. April is particularly susceptible.

  “Has he done anything else? Flirted with you at all?”

  “Umm, I think so. I mean, he smiles at me a lot.”

  “So, why don’t you ask him out?”

  April looks shocked.

  “I am not going to ask him out. He should ask me out.”

  I sigh. We have had this conversation before.

  “Do you think he’s cute?”

  “Duh, haven’t you seen him?”

  I have and I suppose he is, though not to the point of getting as worked up as April, but I let it go.

  “So, what’s stopping you?”

  “What if he has a girlfriend, or he isn’t interested? It would be so awkward!”

  “Oh, well then. Guess you will just have to wait.”

  April huffs and leaves the storeroom. I am not exactly a relationship expert myself, none of my college boyfriends lasted more than a few months, but I am not inclined to just sit around and wait for someone to come woo me. I couldn’t stand the kind of ‘will he, won’t he’ anxiety that April lives with. But she seems to love it. It gives her energy, a sense of excitement.

  The rest of my shift passes without incident and I collect my things and head home. I have been working since six in the morning and I can’t wait to take a nap. I have never been an early riser and this job has definitely taught me to enjoy going to bed early and taking naps. Luckily, the apartment I share with Willa is only a short walk away from Anchor. It isn’t too humid today, so the walk is pleasant.

  I grab the mail and head upstairs to my apartment. As I separate out the letters into a ‘me’ pile and a ‘Willa’ pile, I notice something strange. A ‘past due’ notice from a company called Navient. I open the letter and read it in disbelief.

  My student loan payment is past due.

  I don’t even have student loans. My parents paid for my tuition. My father had made a big point of telling me that while complaining about my choice of major. They had finally gotten accustomed to me pursuing Classics when they died in a car crash about a month after I graduated. But they had paid for my tuition out of pocket, I was sure of it.

  I call the number on the letter to explain the situation. It must be some kind of clerical error. Emma Taylor is probably a pretty common name, after all.

  After navigating an interminable voice-activated menu system, I am forced to listen to minute after minute of excruciatingly bad ‘on hold’ music. I almost give up when a bored voice pops in on the other end of the line letting me know that this call will be recorded for training and quality assurance purposes.

  I explain the situation, as calmly as I can. But I have trouble maintaining my composure as the person on the other end tells me how my parents took out loans for tuition in my name. They had made payments for several years, including pre-paying for a few years after their death, but now the money has run out. And there is a balance due.

  One hundred and seven thousand three hundred and forty-four dollars and thirty-five cents.

  Chapter 4 - Emma

  When I get off the phone, no closer to a resolution of this problem that I didn’t even know I had, I find myself in need of a distraction. The sudden appearance of this massive debt, the revelation that my parents had lied to me about my financial situation, it is too much to handle. I send a group text to a couple of friends and get ready to go out. As expected, responses from April and Hannah come in almost immediately. They can always be counted on to be up for a night out.

  I stand in front of my closet, mentally dressing in every outfit I have. Unbidden, the price of each article of clothing pops into my head. Now that I’m confronting a six-figure debt, every little thing that I have bought feels extravagant. I take out a simple black dress and a pair of silver heels. It may be a bit too fancy for where we are going, but I don’t care. I need to feel good about myself tonight.

  I walk the few blocks to the bar in the still warm evening air. The only plus side to humidity is that it means you don’t need to bring multiple layers with you when you go out at night. A man holds the door open for me and gives me a smile. I return a curt nod. I’m not in the mood for flirting tonight. I walk past him, grab a seat at a tall table, and pull out my phone. My friends haven’t arrived yet and the last thing I want is to be sitting alone in a bar with nothing to do. At least with my phone I can pretend to be busy. It keeps a good percentage of the random guys from clumsily hitting on me.

  Nobody comes over, thankfully, and soon April arrives. I see her come through the door and look around the dark room, so I wave to grab her attention. She orders a Moscow Mule and hops onto a chair, planting her elbows on the table, and looking at me quizzically.

  “So, what’s the occasion?”

  “No occasion, I just thought it would be fun to go out.”

  “Really? Emma, the girl I have to drag out of her apartment to go out even a couple of weekends a month just has the urge to go out on a Thursday when she has to open the shop tomorrow?”

  “Are you complaining?”

  “No, no. Just a little surprised. Are you sure nothing is up?”

  “Oh, look, Hannah’s here,” I say, deflecting. I don’t want to think about my student loans, let alone talk about them all night.

  Hannah strides in, turning heads in a wake behind her as she does. Among all my friends, Hannah stands out. Tall and lithe, Hannah had been a high jumper in college. She has the dimensions of a runway model, but also the muscular grace of an athlete. Her light brown hair is pulled back in a simple ponytail. Her whole look is of an elegant nonchalance, a kind of effortless beauty that would have infuriated me if she weren’t such a great person.

  “Hey, Emma, what are we celebrating?”

  I groan.

  “Why does everyone think that something special is going on? I go out sometimes, you know.”

  “Yeah, kicking and screaming.” Hannah laughs. “Seriously, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing! I just wanted to get a few drinks and hang out. Why are you two so suspicious?”

  The two of them look at each other and shrug. I give an exasperated sigh and down the rest of my cocktail. I signal to the waitress to bring me a refill.

  April and Hannah aren’t wrong. It is unusual of me to be the instigator of a night on the town. Even in college, most of my partying was done at my own apartment with a handful of friends, rather than out at clubs. Not that I was averse to drinking and having fun, I just preferred to be comfortable while I did it.

  We settle into a routine conversation about our weeks. Since April and I work together and have ample time to talk over the coffee grinder and milk steamer,
this means either listening to Hannah’s stories or talking over each other to tell our own. Round after round comes and soon I am utterly lubricated. April gets up to go to the bathroom and the table falls quiet for a moment. That is when I notice Hannah’s bag. I hadn’t seen it when she walked in, but now it is dangling off the back of her chair. It looks like a Louis Vuitton, but it couldn’t be authentic. Hannah doesn’t have that kind of money.

  “That is a great bag, Hannah, where did you get it?”

  I expect her to say she had found it online or had gotten it from one of those knockoff bag sellers downtown. But she doesn’t.

  “Oh, I just picked it up from the Saks over in Chevy Chase.”

  “Wait, you mean that is a real Louis Vuitton?”

  “Mm-hm.” She nods, a wry smile forming on her lips.

  “I mean, no offense, but how did you afford it?”

  “I, uh, came into a little bit of money recently. Nothing special.”

  “Lucky you, I guess. What happened, some rich relative you never met pass away?”

  “No, nothing like that. Just a little business opportunity.”

  Hannah is a freelance graphic designer, so she has a pretty variable income. I guess it isn’t hard to imagine she had gotten a big project and used the money on a fancy purse. I just thought she would have told me if she had such a good gig. Maybe it had just slipped her mind. Regardless, she doesn’t look like she is going to say anything more, so I don’t press her any further. Besides, April is coming back from the bathroom.

  “Ok, so I was coming back from the bathroom and I noticed this guy, don’t look now, but he’s sitting there at the bar, and he was totally staring over here.”

  Despite her warning, I glance over at the bar. There are a number of men sitting there, either alone or with a friend or date. None of them are looking in our direction. April gives an exasperated sigh.

  “Short, dark hair, gray blazer with the black shirt…next to the overgrown frat bro…”

  I identify him. He is leaning against the bar on one elbow, opening up to the rest of the room. His other hand holds a rocks glass filled with amber liquid. He is chatting with another man. The ‘frat boy’ is a tall, broad shouldered guy who looks like he used to be in good shape and then let an excess of alcohol settle around his mid-section. Not so the dark-haired man. His face is lean and angular. His jaw muscles pop out as he crunches on a handful of bar snacks. His jacket is hanging open, revealing a tight-fitting shirt underneath that clings to his muscular torso.