by Jamie Knight
I think about his clothes, how disheveled and sweaty he looked, but how determined he looked as well. My heart warms, remembering how grateful he seemed for my time and attention.
Dennis never let me help him get ready for work. He never let me help him straighten out any of his clothes or help him get styled.
I frown, remembering what an asshole he could be. How, once, he slapped my hand away. He would get so upset over the smallest of changes to his hair, the way a piece of clothing sat on him, or a piece of jewelry was oriented.
He never seemed grateful for any bit of attention I tried to give him or his clothes. He always ended up yelling at me. Never once said thank you, and when I tried to offer, he would always come back with “no, I only know what I like. You don’t have any clue, and I’d rather you didn’t get your hands all over it when I’ve gotten it just the way I like.”
In my head, I see Tommy’s face light up with happiness and thankfulness with everything I tried to do for him. I remember him soaking up my comments to him that he is better looking than the clothes he wears, and that he deserves better.
He’s like a thirsting plant that’s never been watered, whereas Dennis is like an overgrown, overstuffed garden. He’s gotten way too much attention from everybody, so much so that he doesn’t even express any gratitude for it anymore.
That’s what happens when you’re super attractive. You don’t think anyone deserves a word of thanks because you’ve never known what it’s like to go without.
I hope things are going well for you, Tommy. I hope people see you for who you are. How sweet and dedicated you are, even though you look the way you do, and shallow people are often turned off and away by that. I hope you know how handsome you are, and that you hold yourself with a bit more confidence today. Get that job that you deserve, and don’t let anyone put you down ever again.
I smile.
And thank you for making me feel useful today. Thank you for your gratitude and appreciation. I know you had no way of knowing it, but that really made my day. I hope you come back and tell me how things go. I hope tomorrow I don’t see you getting off on a lower floor. I hope I see you riding up past the eighth floor and going to the legal floor. After five years of working here, you deserve nothing less.
Isabella’s exasperated sigh pulls my thoughts away from Tommy.
“These people,” she says, “they think we receptionists run the whole dang universe.”
She pauses, laughing.
“Well, we sort of do in the universe of corporations, but come on! I can’t make magic happen!” She shakes her head.
“If the person you want to see or speak to isn’t in the office, I can’t just make him appear for you!” She sighs again. “Anyway, the boyfriend, back to him. You told him he should come to see you if he wants to see you that badly, and what did he say?”
I hate to have my thoughts brought back to Dennis when it felt so good to remember how appreciative Tommy was for my wardrobe help, but Isabella’s one of those people who likes to finish the conversations she starts, even if they are uncomfortable.
“He said he wouldn’t. He doesn’t want to even come to visit.”
“Then let him be a grumpy Gus about everything, and don’t worry about him today.” She smiles. “I know it’s easier said than done, but Melissa, honey, he doesn’t get to get mad at you for something he won’t do himself. He doesn’t get to ruin your mood because he’s deciding to be moody.”
She puts her hand on mine, though she has to reach over the little bit of my desk to do so. “Think of something else. Something that makes you a little happier for a while.”
I have no objection to that. Just as another phone call comes in, I think of Tommy and the possibility that he’s signing papers with Ms. Vanacore at the moment, and therefore, getting his promotion.
A bit of a smile starts on my lips, just thinking about him. How handsome and sweet he looks, even with his tall stature; I think about his doe eyes, and his charming smile. It’s the kind of smile Prince Charming would wear if he grew up as a poor boy and was only beginning to dream of the crown he could wear.
Good luck, Tommy. You deserve every bit of what this world can offer you.
I hang up from the latest transfer.
And I’ll count myself lucky if I’ve even contributed to a bit of that luck in the smallest way.
Chapter Nine
Tommy
Once the paperwork is all signed on the dotted line, and in triplicate, I feel like how people must feel on their wedding days or nights: full of jitters.
I’m feeling free and yet bound. These feelings overwhelm me as I leave the conference room and follow Vanacore toward an elevator. It’s one of the newer ones, added to this side of the building to accommodate the expanding partner floors, and the greater usage of offices up here.
When the elevator arrives, Vanacore holds it open for me. Awkwardly, I walk under her arm, ducking low, and feeling again like some kind of bride.
As Vanacore comes in behind me and pushes the button for what I assume is our floor, she says, “I’m looking forward to working with you, Tommy. Greatly.”
In the elevator, there’s a palpable energy between us. I’ve never felt this kind of energy before. It’s both heavy and light or excited and suffocating.
Briefly, I wonder if this is what people mean when they say certain people have “chemistry” with each other. If that’s the case, I’m not sure what kind of “chemical” reaction is going on between us, but it’s like nothing I’ve had since growing up and becoming an adult.
Vanacore is older than me — much, much older. Old enough to be my mother, and yet she has this way about her. She has this aura that’s equally charming and domineering.
Just looking at the way her hands are, how strong and commanding they are in the tiniest gestures, makes me nervous. I quickly tell myself to calm down and to get a hold of myself, since I’m going to be working for her in a very professional, very important capacity.
I shake my nerves away just as the doors open, and Vanacore holds the door for me again. Again, I sneak past her. But this time, I feel like she’s watching me — watching my ass as I go by.
I hurry out of the elevator and put a bit of distance between us. Enough distance to strike those thoughts from my head, but not enough to take the lead.
“I’ll show you to my office, your part of it, go over some notes about how I like my business conducted,” says Vanacore, as she strolls ahead of me, oblivious to any of my awkward posture or the fact that I might have felt her looking at me that way. “We’ll go from there, Tommy. Wouldn’t want to overwhelm you on your first morning, after all.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say, and quickly follow after her.
“I like the way you do that, Tommy.”
I huff, trying not to let her hear too much of it.
“Like how I do what, ma’am?”
“That,” she says.
“Call me ‘ma’am,’” she adds. “Young men these days don’t call me that. They call me things like grandma.”
In the pause between her words, I shiver.
“That’s one of the reasons I hired you for this job, Tommy. You know how to treat your elders the right way.”
“I do my best, Ms. Vanacore, ma’am,” I say, working to follow after her, and not sound like this is the equivalent of a marathon to me.
Vanacore’s eyes meet mine for a moment, as she looks back at me.
“As much as I love all of that, you may call me Vanacore, not Ms. Vanacore. Not anymore, understand?”
“Yes, Ms.— I m-mean Vanacore, ma’am.”
Ms. Vanacore just chuckles and stirs me up with those hypnotic eyes again.
“Good.” She turns back around, quickening her pace, as though she can’t wait to get to her office and show me around it. “You and I are going to work great together. I can tell already.”
After this, she doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t need to. Her
words reverberate in me long after she holds the door open for me again, lets me into her office and begins to educate me on what I’ll be doing for her.
Over the next few hours, I’m Ms. Vanacore’s shadow and vice versa. She shows me around her office — where she likes to keep her files, how she likes her desk to be kept when she’s not sitting at it, and then finally, where I’ll be stationed.
As it happens, I’ll be in a little “alcove,” a little makeshift cubicle created by a fancy Asian-style screen, and one of her large windows. Here I have my own desk, my own laptop, and yes, even my own phone.
It’s not as big or fancy as the one on Ms. Vanacore’s desk, but I’m not expecting it to be. After all, if people call me, it’s generally going to be just to leave a message for her, not to actually talk with me.
“Go ahead and take a seat,” says Vanacore, pulling out my chair for me, and guiding me into it.
As she does, I can’t help but feel torn between discomfort and gratitude. On the one hand, it’s a nice gesture. On the other, I still can’t shake the feeling that I’m being treated like some sort of “date”— some beauty prize being placed on a pedestal.
“Let’s get you set up with having access to my accounts so you can reply to some of my emails, finish some of my reports and case notes for me when I’m not able to complete them myself.”
“Okay, sure,” I say, a bit surprised at how secretarial a lot of that sounds.
It looks like I’m going to be a bit like a glorified secretary, but I’m not about to complain. Earlier this morning, I wasn’t even sure I’d get looked at for the job. So, I can’t spit in the face of my good fortune by complaining about the details of that job now.
“Whatever you think would be the best use of my time, Ms. Vanacore, ma’am. I’m here to do whatever you need me to. Whatever makes you feel like I’m fulfilling my duties.”
Vanacore’s beautiful, weathered face perks up in my words.
“Just what I like to hear, Tommy.”
She smiles at me as the computer boots up.
“I was right to pick you, after all. So glad about that.” She holds my eyes with her for a moment as the home screen comes on, and she types in the password. As she does she shares it with me, writes it on a sticky note, and plasters it where I can see it. “H@cklEBErRyFiNn,” it reads.
“Huckleberry Fin,” she says. “You know, like the famous book, but spelled a little differently. With those numbers and capital letters we’re supposed to put in, to make a password more secure.”
I nod, deciding I should commit this to memory as quickly as possible. Passwords were meant to keep people out, not to be kept out where everyone can see.
“Got it.”
From there, Ms. Vanacore clicks into the company’s network. Again, she shares with me the login information: her username and password. The same thing goes for the interoffice communication system, Watercooler — our version of Instant Messenger — and the email program.
She shows me her login details, as well as how to set up my new one with new credentials.
“You’ll need both,” she explains, leaning in close to me. Much closer than she really needs to, given the situation.
But I don’t say anything, and she doesn’t move to do anything differently. She keeps her body pressed close to mine, enveloping me in her cloudy perfume. The warmth coming off of her, it’s like she’s still in a sugar cane field somewhere in the South, not in a high-end office in Manhattan.
“You’ll need both my login information and yours. Sometimes you will be acting on my behalf, and sometimes you’ll be acting on yours. I’ll expect you to have the good grace to know when and where to use either, Tommy.”
With her sun-beaten, sugar-cane scent enveloping me as it is, it takes me a minute to realize she’s been talking to me, let alone waiting for an answer.
“Yeah, sure thing, Ms. Vanacore, ma’am.”
Ms. Vanacore looks back at me, her silver-gray eyes pressing into me like a maker’s mark.
“Do you think you can set something up, or would you like me to show you how?”
“Show you” has a strange magnetic reverberation do it or a strange tug to it. One that almost makes me feel like I’m on an invisible leash in her hand, not in an office chair.
It takes me a long second, but finally, I answer.
“No. No, ma’am.” I clear my throat, shaking off the feeling I have of falling under a spell. “I can figure it out for myself, thank you.”
Disappointment of some kind lights across her face.
“No disrespect meant, ma’am,” I say quickly. “I just think that, uh, if I’m really going to prove myself worthy of being hired for this position, I should be able to set up my own accounts without needing to be shown. That’s all.”
Under my soft, noncombative tone, Vanacore loses her disappointment. She warms back up as if what I saw was nothing more than a passing dark cloud.
“That’s just fine. Just fine, Tommy.”
When she smiles at me, it’s like I’m being sealed or stamped as hers to hoard and protect. She moves off and away from me.
“I’ll leave you to set up whatever personal accounts you need or want to.” She settles at her desk — something I can see only in the shadow, moving across my privacy screen. “I’m going to get caught up on some phone calls with clients. The winners and losers of the day.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say softly. “I’ll try to make sure to keep my activities quiet and impact your work time as little as possible.”
“That’s just fine,” she says. “If you are looking for something to do after setting up personal accounts, you may log in to mine and start putting together notes from my most recent court dates. Add them to the case files and so forth.”
After that, she picks up her office phone and begins her calls. They all start and end in the same way with this cheerful, Southern aura. I’m not sure if it’s an act, or how she really is with people, but it’s not my place to judge or think too hard.
I’ve got actual work to do. Work for my boss. Who’s a lawyer. I’m no longer an aid, so I can’t just waste away my time gossiping and judging others.
Chapter Ten
Tommy
The lunch hour comes more quickly than I expected. In between setting up my new intra-office communication profile, my email account, and my own subfolder in the law floor’s filing system, I’m more than occupied. So occupied, in fact, that Vanacore actually has to come over into my cubicle to get my attention. She leans over my chair and says my name for me to realize I’m being called to.
When I do, I sit back in surprise. I roll back from my tiny, ergonomic desk and look at her. It’s just as she swipes her long mane of white hair behind her shoulders with one hand and leans on a fancy cane with the other.
And when I say fancy, I mean fancy. It really is like what you expect to see on an old southern madam type: long black shaft, circular gold handle.
“Ms. Vanacore? Can I do something for you?”
“Yes, in fact, you can, Tommy,” she says.
I sit at attention.
“What can I do?”
Ms. Vanacore just smiles.
“Go out to lunch with me,” she says.
The way she says it, it’s like she’s asking me out on a date, not out to a business lunch — which this should be, but the vibe isn’t there. There’s nothing “business-y” about it.
“What? Now?” I gesture uselessly at my computer, at the screen, where I had just been contemplating opening up some of Ms. Vanacore’s client folders and beginning to compile notes on her days in court and the most recent proceedings. “But, I was just about to look through your court notes and everything…”
A warm, gregarious laugh interrupts me.
“Don’t worry about that now, Tommy. There will be plenty of time to do that after lunch, though I understand what it’s like to be eager. To be a go-getter like yourself.”
She swivels my larger-s
ized office chair toward her.
“But I’m not taking no for an answer, Tommy.” Her tone is not necessarily threatening, but it’s not necessarily as warm and jovial as before. “I’ve asked you to come out to lunch with me, and what I ask my assistant lawyers, I expect to get.”
Though her face has remained soft and genteel, her words are a little more than intimidating. They make me chilly in my gut. I decide right there; it’s not worth arguing over. It’s not worth getting off on the wrong foot with my boss over. Especially not on the first day and the first couple hours of working for her.
I force myself to smile and to make the smile as warm and nonthreatening as possible. It’s the same smile I learned to wear around my dad when he interrogates me about whether “I still have money” or not.
“Okay. Sure.” I hoist myself out of my office chair. “Lunch sounds fine, Ms. Vanacore.”
“With me,” she adds as if I’ve forgotten.
“Yes.” I smile again. “With you, Ms. Vanacore. It sounds like a lovely idea, ma’am.” I swallow thickly, hoping it doesn’t show on my throat or in my face.
Ms. Vanacore brightens like it’s been my idea to invite her on this lunch outing, not the other way around.
“Just fabulous, my boy.”
She takes a bit of my oversized suit jacket in her free hand and begins to lead me toward the door. As she touches me, I feel the chilliness in my stomach subside. A knot of some kind takes its place, but I’m not sure what to make of it.
“Follow me. We’ll take my car.”
On both of these statements, I know I don't dare to argue or offer input. Ms. Vanacore has just that level of presence — like she’s my mother or something. A maternal force meant to be respected and bowed to, not questioned or ignored. But to say that I feel fear or intimidation because of this, that’s not true. That’s not all I feel.
As Ms. Vanacore and I make our way out of her office, to the elevator and inside of it again, I’m overwhelmed by her energy. The way the power of it envelops me. It fills me up and strangles me at the same time. Looking at the cane resting in her hand, I can’t help but imagine what those hands might feel like on me and what that cane might be like against my skin.