by Lisa Wells
Meemaw and Ms. Grace had become friends a few months back after meeting in a long line at a coffee shop.
“But…” The window-rattling racket of a freight train passing by on the tracks that weren’t more than a hundred feet away from their backyard fence forced Aggie to stop and wait to finish her sentence. They were the tracks that separated the bad zip code areas of Kansas City from the good zip code areas of Kansas City.
Aggie and Meemaw shared a two-bedroom duplex on the wrong side of those tracks. Had their address been on the other side, Maxwell Treadwell wouldn’t have felt the need to have Meemaw looked into. Aggie couldn’t wait for the day she could afford to move them to a better neighborhood. And to make enough so that Meemaw wouldn’t have to work. If anyone deserved retirement, it was her.
While the train blasted its horn, Meemaw hopped up and got the butter dish off the cabinet and brought it to the table, where she proceeded to smear a thick layer of it over a slice of white bread. Then she folded the bread in half and took a big bite.
She always waited to do this until the dinner train rolled by, because the noise prevented Aggie from cautioning her on making healthier eating choices.
Three minutes and ten seconds later, the noise outside stopped. At midnight, it would be the same song and dance.
“What was it you were saying?” Meemaw prompted before Aggie could mention the butter situation.
“What if her grandson thinks this job interview proves the only reason you’ve pursued this new friendship of yours with his grandmother is to get something out of her and not for the simple reason the two of you hit it off?”
Meemaw scowled. “Because I didn’t ask her for the favor. She asked me if I thought you might be interested in helping Little Maxi out of a jam.”
“Little Maxi?” The throb in her head lessened as she laughed.
“That’s what Ms. Grace calls him.”
What an unfortunate nickname. All Aggie could think of when she heard Maxi was maxi pads. She bit her lip to keep from laughing, because Meemaw wouldn’t appreciate her fourth-grade humor. With much difficulty, she refocused. “Are you sure this isn’t just the two of you scheming to get your grandchildren hooked up?”
“Why in tarnation would we do that?”
“Umm…because you think I’m perfect, and she thinks he’s perfect. And the two of you have decided that would make us perfect together.”
Meemaw dropped her fork, and a flush stained her withered cheeks.
The only time Meemaw blushed was when she’d been caught. Which was seldom because she could scheme with the best of them. “That’s really what this is about? You two old broads are matchmaking.”
“Bless your heart. Don’t you just think you’re too smart for your britches? Well, you listen to me, missy, you don’t have a job. He’s got a job that needs filled. Don’t you go and embarrass me by not going in for the interview Ms. Grace went to a lot of trouble to set up for you. The fact we’d like to see the two of you hit it off has nothing to do with this opportunity.”
Aggie rubbed her temples with her index fingers. The throb was back. This whole conversation was her fault. She should have never told Meemaw this morning she was once again unemployed. Meemaw, who’d never been without a job since she was fourteen, didn’t understand Aggie’s lack of commitment to the jobs she had held since graduating from college. And that was partly Aggie’s fault as well, because she didn’t want to hurt her feelings by explaining her need to find a career. One she could see herself staying in for thirty years and getting a pension from. Keyword being a pension. A job that would keep her from ending up like Meemaw.
In eighteen months of looking for the perfect job, so far, she hadn’t found a workplace that whispered in her ear, “This is your forever home.” And if there’s one thing she’d learned from watching Meemaw work herself to the bone all these years—in jobs she didn’t even enjoy—and still not able to retire, it was that the endgame was all about the quality of your pension plan. She lowered her hands to the table and picked up her fork. “Fine. I’ll go in for the interview.” She stabbed the meatloaf, picked up her knife, and sliced off a bite.
For a few seconds, they ate in silence.
“If he does offer you the job,” Meemaw said, “I expect you to take it.” Instead of looking at Aggie, her concentration was on seeing how many green beans she could stab onto her fork at one time. She managed four and ate them.
“Of course you do.”
“I’m not fool’n now. I wouldn’t be able to hold my head up around Ms. Grace if you shunned her grandson’s offer after she got you an interview.”
There were some arguments Aggie could win with Meemaw. This wasn’t one of them. Not outright, anyway. “Fine. If he offers, and the benefits are agreeable…I’ll accept.”
Meemaw’s gaze snapped away from the remaining green beans on her plate and speared Aggie to the spot. “I’m sure he pays his assistant quite generously. Do I have your promise you’ll accept? Who knows? You might find you’re good at it and not quit halfway through the honeymoon phase.”
Respect kept Aggie from rolling her eyes. There was no way in hell a nine-to-five office gig would be her forever type of job. “If Little Maxi offers me the job,” she said, sugared-tea sweet, “I promise to accept.”
That didn’t mean she wouldn’t do everything within legal limits to keep him from offering her the position. And she had the whole weekend to devise the perfect plan. A plan so perfect only a fool would offer her the job after she put it into motion.
Chapter Two
Max Treadwell hated surprises. Especially on Monday mornings. He’d walked into his office, expecting to find Grandmother fulfilling her one-day notice, and instead found, he was fairly certain, the source of his current headache. The Chosen One was shockingly thirty minutes early. She stood at his desk with her back to him, thumbing through a stack of his papers. She had arrived for her interview wearing the type of short dress women wore at the clubs he frequented. And she had topped it with a scarred bomber jacket. Interesting choice for an interview.
He’d dug into her social media presence over the weekend. Under her biography she’d written the quote:
Life’s a journey to ping-pong through in a haphazard fashion.
No wonder she couldn’t hold a job. The asinine life philosophy would leave all who followed its wisdom mutilated and defeated.
“I take it you’re Agnes Johansson?” he said.
She whirled around, a look of bemusement—not embarrassment for having been caught snooping through papers on his desk—in her lavender-blue eyes. She batted her long lashes at him. “You can call me Aggie. And you must be Little Maxi Treadwell.”
He scowled. “It’s Max. You’re not on my schedule for another half hour. Do you happen to know where my assistant went?”
“She called last night and asked me to come in early. She said you really put a lot of stock on punctuality, and I do oh so want to make a good first impression. Speaking of good first impressions, Ms. Grace is such a sweet woman. Anyway, when I got here, she told me to tell you that she’s meeting my meemaw for coffee and she’d try to be back in time for you to take your lunch break.”
He swallowed the dismay he felt over Grandmother’s lack of professionalism and…well…almost everything about the woman standing in front of him. “I see.”
“Oh, and she said to tell you that she’s had the phone forwarded to your desk, so answer when it rings. And to remind you that you’re expecting an important call from a client.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Let me get this straight, she called you in early and then still left you here unattended and the phones unmanned?” Grandmother’s one-day notice hadn’t even made it past hour one.
Aggie’s eyes narrowed a fraction, like maybe she found the comment a subtle dig. “Your phone has rung twice, and since yo
u’re expecting an important call, I took the liberty of answering. I left your messages for you there by the phone.”
“Thank you.” The initiative didn’t mesh with his view of her as an employee train wreck. She could have just as easily let the calls go to voicemail. He picked them up and grimaced. The handwriting was horrific. “I can’t read these.”
“My bad.” She plucked them out of his hand then held one up. “This one’s from Grant. He said to tell you to check your email before interviewing me.”
Damn. “What?”
Her lips pressed together in a firm line. “Well…he didn’t say my name, but he described me.”
Max pinched the bridge of his nose. He should’ve grabbed a cup of coffee after his morning run instead of showering and rushing to work. “What did he say?”
“He called me the chosen one.”
“And the second message?”
She glanced at the other one. “This was from a fun-sounding Tabitha, who said to tell you she really hated that she had to hurry off.” She dropped the messages into the trash bin and picked back up his papers she’d been thumbing through before.
His first impression of the Chosen One was cementing his decision to implement his and Grant’s plan. He strode to his desk, swiped the résumés out of her hand, and motioned for her to have a seat in the chair across from his desk. The scent of her perfume tickled his nose. Not strong. Subtle. Flirtatious. He ignored the asinine desire to linger so he could inhale her deeply.
“Didn’t anyone teach you it’s impolite to snoop?” He did a quick glance around to see if anything else looked out of place. The blinds that he closed every night before leaving had been opened. One of the chairs in the seating area had been turned to face the view of Kansas City out the floor-to-ceiling wall of windows from his third-story office. He refocused.
“Snoop?” The Chosen…Aggie stuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She had a lot of loose strands, like maybe she’d yanked up her ponytail in a hurry. “For your information, your grandmother, Ms. Grace,” she said, “handed them to me before leaving and asked me to alphabetize them.” Instead of taking a seat, she leaned the curve of her hip against his desk. “Since this is a courtesy interview that won’t end in an offer, why don’t I help you find the best candidate?”
Oh hell no. It would end in a job offer. An offer he needed her to refuse. “Not a courtesy interview at all,” he said. “I know all about your employment history, and I’m willing to cut you some slack. Do you have a résumé?”
“My employment history?” Traces of steel hardened her tone. “Since I haven’t yet given you my résumé, how do you know anything other than my name and who my meemaw is?”
“Grandmother mentioned that you’ve had a run of bad luck job-wise.”
“Oh.” She leaned down, picked up a bag that was way too large to be a purse, and set it on the chair. For a few moments, she rifled through it before pulling out a tube of toothpaste, a Rubik’s Cube with all the correct colors on each side, a bag of gummy bears, and a rather heavy-looking hammer.
He cocked his head. Should he ask?
She straightened. “Damn. I knew I forgot something this morning. If I could borrow your computer, I’ll pull up my Aggie’s Assets and print it off for you. It will only take a jiff.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Aggie’s Assets?” Did it include her bra size along with her typing speed?
She cheerfully nodded.
“That won’t be necessary. You can email it to me later today.”
“Thank you.” She shot him a bright fake smile. “Meemaw said you were a peach.” Her tone was suddenly purely Southern in every way possible. The accent. The sweetness. The thinly veiled insult.
“I do try to be a peach every chance I get,” he said drily.
One by one, she put everything back into her duffel bag of a purse. How did she even manage to carry that thing?
Once she’d finished repacking, she gave him a saucy smile and then took a seat.
“I’ll start the interview by asking you to fill out a questionnaire.” He walked around his desk and sat. His knees hit the desk. Damn it. She must have sat in his chair and jacked up the height.
“Like a test?” She retrieved a gummy bear from her suitcase and popped it past her bright red lips.
“More like a personality survey.” He tore his gaze away from her mouth and reached under the chair to adjust it.
“You’re testing my personality?” She eyeballed him. “Why?”
“The job as my assistant is demanding and somewhat odd at times, so I need someone I’ll mesh with. After the impressive number of employers you’ve burned through, you would agree meshing is a good thing. Right? Even for a temporary position.”
“Temporary?”
“What? Did Meemaw forget to tell you?” he asked in a patronizing tone that came out sounding just like his father. Good. That was the plan, after all. Channel dear old Dad during this interview.
Her nostrils flared. “I must have missed that memo.”
“My permanent assistant, the one Grandmother was filling in for, is out on maternity leave. And I’ll be honest with you, her shoes will be hard to fill.”
“Your permanent one or your grandmother’s? Because…I mean…Ms. Grace left me alone in your office. I’m thinking I can slide into her shoes just fine and dandy.”
Did she mean to downplay her abilities just now? If so, what game was she playing? “My permanent. My competitors have tried to lure her away for years. Lucky for me, she’s loyal.” He opened his laptop, shook the mouse awake, found the email from Grant, then clicked the link and hit print. “Are you not interested in a two-month job?”
“Temp work is my favorite.” Aggie crossed her legs at the knees, causing her already short skirt to slide up ever so slightly, showing off her slender, toned calves. “Especially if it pays well. Meemaw said she was sure you would be super generous with my compensation, considering I’d be doing you such a huge favor and all, helping you out in this bind.”
“Bind?”
She leaned in, her eyes twinkling like a person privy to insider information. “You know… Since you knocked up your permanent assistant. You know, the Loyal One.”
He coughed. Damn it. “I did not get her pregnant. She’s happily married. And I have plenty of candidates to choose from for this position, so there isn’t any bind here for me to get out of.” Where in the hell had she gotten that misinformation?
Aggie gave a delicate shrug and settled back in her chair. “Right. My bad.”
He grabbed the pages of the survey off the printer without looking at them and handed them across the desk to her. He glanced at the pencil holder. Empty. His germophobic Grandmother must have confiscated his writing utensils for a thorough disinfecting. He sighed. “Do you have a pen?”
Once again, she rummaged in her purse, this time pulling out a condom. She glanced up at him, and for a moment, a hint of red flushed her cheeks. Then she gave him a wicked grin. “I have an extra if you want this one. It’s glow-in-the-dark pink.”
He said nothing. What could one possibly say to a job candidate who had just offered you a condom? If it weren’t for the fact he knew Grandmother hated pranks, he’d think this was all one elaborate prank.
She dropped the condom back into her purse and pulled out a pen. “You don’t mind pink, do you? It’s my lucky color.”
And all this time he thought it was hideous orange. Like what was on her eyelids. “It’ll be fine. Fill this out and return it to me when you’re finished. You’ll have one hour.” He held out his hand. “I’ll need your phone so you can’t contact anyone for insight on how you should answer a question.”
She handed over her cell. Easily. Too easily. “And your bag.” She could be hiding a dictionary in that thing. Or an entire library.
Aggie lifted
her purse and placed it on the edge of his desk with a thump and then flipped through the pages of the document. “Do you have a clipboard, or should I use the corner of your desk?”
“Follow me.” He marched out and pointed at the receptionist’s desk.
“Won’t your receptionist need her space?” Aggie asked.
Don’t even get me started on the receptionist fiasco. “I don’t have one of those at the moment.”
Aggie chuckled softly. “Is it just me or is there a pattern forming that doesn’t reflect well upon you as a potential employer?”
“It’s just you.” Grandmother was supposed to have hired him a receptionist last week. Not only did she not get that job accomplished, but to make matters worse, over the weekend, she called and asked him not to fill the opening until she’d made up her mind if it was a position she might want to tackle. After all, it wouldn’t be as demanding as that of his assistant.
Aggie studied him as if looking for a sign of lying. Then she shrugged. “My bad.”
He snapped his mouth shut, pivoted, went back to his private office, and turned off the air for the receptionist area.
…
Aggie watched the great Max Treadwell stomp back to his office and shut the door with a defined click. His expression when she accused him of getting his last assistant pregnant had been priceless. For a moment, she thought she might have given him a heart attack. There was no way in hell he’d offer her the job now.
She scanned the personality quiz. I’m in search of someone whose personality meshes with mine. Jeez. She was applying to coddle to his office needs, not his heart needs.
She read the first question. Laughed. Read it again.
Explain zymology. Why did his assistant need to know the chemistry of fermentation? Did he have a side hustle making beer? Or did he want to assess if she was the personality type to have a beer with him after hours?
What is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis? Well, duh. It practically gave you the answer in the word itself. Who didn’t know that the longest word in the English language was a name for a lung disease?