Acquired

by Charlotte Byrd

  Wild International is right in the heart of downtown LA. That means that there’s no street parking, and I have to bite the bullet and pay $20 for parking in their parking garage. That was half of my food budget for the week. Maybe they validate. Either way, this interview had better be worth it!

  On the first floor, I hand the security guard my ID and wait for him to call upstairs to confirm my appointment. When I pick up a magazine, my hand is so sweaty and cold that it sticks to the cover. I decide against it, placing the magazine down once more.

  “Ms. York, you can go on up now,” the security guard announces. “Take the elevator all the way to the 67th floor. Take the elevator on the far right – it’s the only one that goes all the way up there.”

  The walls of the elevator are fabric. I don’t want to wipe my sweat off on my clothes, so I slide my hands against the wall behind me to get rid of some of the moisture.

  “Calm down, calm down, calm down,” I say to myself aloud. “You can do this.”

  On the 66th floor, I take a deep breath and only breathe out when the doors open to the 67th floor.

  The doors open to a large spacious lobby surrounded by windows. The entire space has not one wall. Clouds are hugging the windows, and a few specks of sunlight break through. The lack of sunlight is the least unusual thing about this Los Angeles day.

  “Ms. York, I’m glad you made it,” a familiar voice says. It’s Ms. Greaves. She is a middle-aged woman who looks a lot like Kathy Bates. She also puts off a no-nonsense vibe that makes me feel comfortable.

  “I’m going to be the one conducting the interview,” Ms. Greaves says. I can feel my shoulders relax. Even though she comes off a bit confrontational, she’s also straightforward, and I appreciate that.

  “Follow me, please.” Ms. Greaves leads me into a large ballroom with floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides. The ballroom is empty except for one small circular table and two chairs. She sits down and opens my file. I follow her lead.

  “Well, first of all, I would like to know why you applied to work here?” she questions, looking straight at me. I know that I should keep her gaze, but I can’t help but look away. I have no good reason for applying here since I never did, but I can’t blow this question.

  “Well, I’ve always admired Wild International and all the good that they’re doing all over the world. I want to be part of something like that. I want to work for a place that makes a difference.”

  Where did those words come from? I have no idea.

  “Excellent, okay then.” Ms. Greaves nods. I try reading her, but I can’t tell if she’s one of those people who say excellent all the time, the way that others say ‘okay’, or if she really is impressed with my insane answer. The one thing I know for sure is that I am certainly impressed with myself. Thinking on my feet is not one of my strong suits.

  7

  Ms. Greaves asks a few more general questions about my experience with working as an assistant and receptionist and what I did in my previous positions at the temp agency. Answering those, I relax a bit. My hands stop shaking, and my voice grows stronger and more confident.

  And then she asks, “How do you see yourself making a difference in this position?”

  My mind goes completely blank. I have no idea. I’m not even sure what the position is, let alone how I am going to make a difference in it. So I just open my mouth and let whatever is going to come out, spill out.

  “Well, I’m a very prompt and diligent and hard-working professional, and I will bring those same exact skills and attributes to this position. I will make a difference by being the best possible person for this position, and I will give my best in all situations.”

  The answer isn’t great, but it’s not crap either. Ms. Greaves smiles. I hope that she thinks that I referred to the job as ‘the position’ instead of its actual job title because I’m professional – not because I have no idea what position I’m interviewing for.

  “Well, Ms. York,” Ms. Greaves says, closing a thick manila folder with my name on it. “I think you will be an excellent fit for this position.”

  I nearly lose my ability to breathe. “You do? Really? Thank you. I really, really appreciate it!”

  “You’re quite an impressive young woman,” she continues. “Your file checks out well, and the thing that I was particularly impressed with was your ability to think on your feet.”

  “Oh really?” I nod. I can’t stop smiling.

  “Yes, especially since you came here without having the faintest idea what position you were interviewing for and had never even sent in an application.”

  My mouth drops open. She knew! How did she know?!

  “Oh don’t worry, Ms. York. It’s okay. You have been pre-selected, and now that I’ve interviewed you, you have been approved for the position.”

  “Pre-selected? How? Why?” I mutter.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. We can’t discuss those details. What I can do is give you this packet with all the information for you to look over, and you can let me know if you’re still interested.”

  I nod and take the packet.

  “Please let me know by the end of the day. An email is fine,” she says. “If you’re interested, you start tomorrow morning.”

  I nod and say good-bye.

  I open the packet at home, sitting at the dining room table and holding my breath. The contract is long and tedious, covering everything imaginable. It’s close to seven pages in length and of a very small font. I skim it looking for the only thing that matters: the salary.

  Finally, in the last paragraph on the last page, I see it.

  * * *

  $4000 per month!

  Four fucking grand!

  * * *

  I can’t believe it. I never imagined making that much money. I pour myself a glass of wine and read the contract more carefully.

  I’m going to be a receptionist, a personal/executive assistant. My duties include answering phones, replying to emails, and miscellaneous other duties including picking up groceries and dropping off packages.

  The next two weeks will be my trial period, and if that goes well, then I will get full-time pay: an additional $1000 per month, plus benefits.

  Benefits. No other company I have worked with has ever offered benefits, and I’m constantly afraid of going to the doctor when I get sick out of fear of the medical bills that I’d incur. This place is amazing!

  I don’t sleep a wink that night and get up around five to get ready. Even though my hair and makeup usually take me less than twenty minutes to do, today I spend a full hour on it. I blow-dry my hair and then flat-iron it, spray it with moose, and curl it with Maggie Mae’s thick curling iron.

  I arrive at work half an hour early and decide to go on up anyway. This time the security guard, whose name is Tom, is ready for me. He takes my picture and hands me my badge. The whole process takes a bit of time, and I start to worry that I won’t make it to the 67th floor on time. But Tom assures me that everything is going to be okay.

  I smile and wait.

  Finally, with my newly minted warm badge in hand, I step into the elevator and press 67. To my surprise, my hands are no longer shaking. The badge with my full name, Annabelle York, and the best standardized picture I’ve ever taken gives me a strange and unfamiliar feeling of confidence.

  I am Annabelle York, and I belong here. I was hand-selected as a personal/executive assistant to work at Wild International, and I can really do a good job here.

  “Ms. York, you’re right on time.” Ms. Greaves flashes me a smile from her desk. “I like that.”

  Instead of the main receptionist desk in the middle of the lobby, there are suddenly two desks sitting before me. One large glass one where Ms. Greaves sits and one smaller, wooden one with the same elegant Scandinavian design where I will sit.

  Ms. Greaves turns on the computer for me and gives me all the login information. She also shows me how to answer the phone. “This is Mr. Wild’s office. How may I direct
your call?”

  “You will be getting all the calls for Mr. Wild today. I will be supervising,” she explains. She shows me all the buttons and what each one means. One puts someone through to Mr. Wild, and the others send the callers to various other departments in the building.

  “You will not be putting anyone through to Mr. Wild today. If someone asks directly for him, you tell that person that he is in a meeting and take a message. This is very important, do you understand?”

  I nod. “Does Mr. Wild never take calls?” I ask.

  “That’s none of your concern, Ms. York,” she says. “But no, that’s not always the case. But until you know him well, you will not know which calls he’s taking and which ones he’s not. So I will take care of that for now.”

  I nod. Suddenly it occurs to me that I have no idea who this Mr. Wild is. I imagine an old, ugly CEO or executive man who looks good in a suit but is basically a walking corpse. Someone with a really old wife, and grandchildren. Someone who probably misses seeing his kids and grandkids grow up because of all the hours he puts in at work.

  Or worse yet, what if he’s some elderly bachelor who dates twenty-year-olds? Yuck!

  I’m about to ask Ms. Greaves about him, but I feel like it’s a stupid question. It definitely isn’t professional to talk about the boss in this way, and I am not going to start my first day here on the wrong foot. Whatever he looks like and whoever he is is fine by me. It’s none of my concern, as Ms. Greaves said.

  * * *

  8

  One Week Later

  The day starts out just like all the others. I get to the office on time, and my phone starts ringing off the hook as soon as I sit down. I have clear instructions from Ms. Greaves about who I can put through and who I can’t, and all the other calls have to be screened through her first.

  To screen the calls, I put the callers on hold, dial Ms. Greaves, tell her who it is, and then wait for her answer. It’s an easy enough job, and I have no idea why they are paying as much as they are to do it, but I’m not complaining.

  Last week during lunch, I had looked through all of my bills and finally started to make arrangements to pay some of them off. I wouldn’t get a paycheck for another week, but I was already making plans. Maggie Mae would be paid first, then the credit cards with their exorbitant interest rates, and then finally the student loans.

  Typically, the calls keep me busy from nine am until eleven am, and then they taper off. But Ms. Greaves makes sure that I don’t stay idle. Last Friday, she showed me Mr. Wild’s expense reports and showed me how to go through them and compare the receipts that he had turned in. Apparently, everything that he decides to spend money on is acceptable, no matter how great the amount, as long as there are receipts that go along with them.

  “Here’s the expense report for last week. You remember what to do?” Ms. Greaves hands me the file of freshly printed pages.

  “Yes.” I nod. I have no idea why they are still printing the expense reports and printing the credit card expenditures, but Ms. Greaves insists that it’s necessary.

  “Okay, I expect them to be done by the end of the day.”

  I nod and open the file. The expense report doesn’t take all that long. What takes the majority of my time is staring at all the insane things that Mr. Wild has spent his money on. Or rather, the company’s money on.

  * * *

  $3,000 on a flight to Las Vegas.

  $6,000 on a new suit.

  $10,000 for a one night stay in a penthouse.

  And last, but not least, $3,000 on a fucking shower curtain!

  There are tons of tiny expenses, too, but these are the most insane. People work hard to make three grand a month at some shitty job, and here he is spending that much on a shower curtain. It makes me sick! Who does he think he is?

  My temper is getting the best of me, but I have to talk to Ms. Greaves.

  “Ms. Greaves, can I ask you something?” I ask. “Here’s a receipt for a $3,000 shower curtain. Is this really appropriate to expense through the company? It seems like a personal purchase.”

  I do my best to hide my disgust, but it is oozing out of me anyway.

  “Ms. York.” Ms. Greaves looks up at me through her glasses. “It is not your job to make judgment calls about Mr. Wild’s spending habits. As I told you before, you are here just to compare the expenses to the receipts.”

  “I know, I know. I just thought-”

  “Yes, I know you thought. But, you see, my dear, you’re not really paid to think,” Ms. Greaves says.

  Shaking my head, I go back to my desk. She doesn’t have to be so rude. I am making a perfectly legitimate point! I am angry with myself for even bringing it up, and I am angry at her for being such a bitch about the whole thing. Who does she think she is, talking to me like that?

  That afternoon, just as the day can’t get any longer and time seems to have stopped moving at all, the doors to one of the internal offices burst open, and a long-legged woman with gorgeous blonde hair and epic breasts comes out. Her makeup is running down her face, and she wipes her tears with her shoulder.

  Two large men, security guards I guess, escort her.

  “You’re such an asshole, Gatsby! I’m going to sue you for this!” she yells, turning back toward Mr. Wild’s office, but the security guards nudge her toward the elevators.

  “Don’t touch me! Don’t you touch me!” she yells at them. She is holding a large cardboard box in her hands, filled to the brim with all sorts of stuff: office supplies, pictures, personal things, and a fica plant.

  I have seen this scene in the movies. She’s getting fired.

  “You’re an asshole, Gatsby! Can you hear me? I bet you can!” she continues to holler as the three of them wait for the elevator.

  “And you too, Ms. Greaves. You can just go fuck yourself!”

  I look at Ms. Greaves, but she doesn’t even take her eyes off her computer screen. She doesn’t make one movement to acknowledge the woman’s presence. That makes the woman even madder. She continues to rave and rant until the elevator doors close and even after that probably, but she is out of earshot.

  “Who was that?” I ask Ms. Greaves.

  “Ms. York, we don’t gossip in this office.”

  “I’m not gossiping; I’m just asking about an incident that we both clearly saw occur. Or are you going to deny it?”

  I can’t believe that I called Ms. Greaves on her shit like that. I’m not really confrontational, but after this morning she is really getting on my nerves.

  I must’ve caught her off-guard.

  “She was Mr. Wild’s assistant,” Ms. Greaves says after a beat. “Mr. Wild was planning on laying her off for some time now. You were brought in to fill her spot.”

  I take a step back. “Really? I had no idea.”

  “As I said before, you working here, in this office, is just a trial period. If things went well here, you were going to get promoted to his office. Behind those doors.”

  She points to the mahogany doors with elaborate carvings from which the woman just came out.

  “Why did she say that she was going to sue him? Did they have an affair?” I ask.

  Ms. Greaves finally looks up from her computer screen. She takes off her glasses and lets them dangle around her neck.

  “Ms. York, that is none of your business. And in this office, we do not discuss such things.”

  I nod; immediately I regret bringing it up.

  “It’s bad enough that they do it in magazines all the time. Even reputable ones, like Fortune,” Ms. Greaves mumbles under her breath.

  I don’t mean to be such a gossip. I’m really not in real life. I have just never really worked in an office like this before, an office veiled in so much secrecy. I really wish that a few other people worked here besides Ms. Greaves. Then I could get a more accurate picture of what is going on.

  I go back to my desk and try to get back to work. But no one calls, and the expense reports are all done. My
mind starts to wander. Magazines? Did Ms. Greaves say that Mr. Wild is written about in magazines? Fortune?

  Of course! How could I be so stupid? I should’ve done this days ago, but I finally go online and look up Mr. Wild. What prevented me from doing this before is that I was afraid to find out that he is some grotesque old man. But now that he is being gossiped about in magazines, I have to see for myself.

  And there it is! An article in Fortune magazine on one of the most eligible bachelors around – Mr. Gatsby Wild.

  For some reason, the picture of him is taking a while to load on my phone, so I scroll down and skim the article.

  “Gatsby Wild, only 27, is about to become a billionaire after Wild International goes public…Is famous around the LA club scenes…often seen rubbing elbows with models and celebrities…”

  And then I stop reading.

  * * *

  His photo loads.

  * * *

  I drop my phone.

  * * *

  Tristan! Gatsby Wild is Tristan from the lake.

  9

  I come home in a daze. My mind feels like it has been put through a blender. I have no idea what to do. Or what to think. My mind is going around in circles. It is Tristan. My boss is Tristan. How can that be? What the hell is Tristan doing running this company? What the hell is my boss doing hiking along in the Californian wilderness? Tristan said that he was a skiing instructor – a ski bum. He said that he rafted in the summer – a river rat. How can a river rat and a ski bum run a multi-national corporation?

  “How was work?” Maggie Mae asks without looking away from some reality television program she’s watching. I’m a sucker for reality TV too – together we enjoy all the favorites. Real Housewives of New Jersey and Atlanta are my true guilty pleasures.