“Bye,” she says softly.
TINY
EVER SINCE IAN KERR WALKED into my life, change has been the only constant. Change and his incredible and undeserving devotion. I love him, and—worse—I’m addicted to him.
He calls every day to see if I want to have lunch. Invariably that means we have sex, because we can’t be within five feet of each other without wanting to rip each other’s clothes off. It’s bad enough I can’t look Ian’s driver, Steve, in the eye because of all the times I’ve exited the car with my clothes askew. I need to be able to look into my boss’s face without turning all kinds of red.
Besides, Ian’s got more important things to do than eat with me. He’s in charge of a holding company that is worth a billion dollars. A billion. I can’t even fathom that. Ian wants me to stay home and suck on my toes or something. Okay, maybe not suck my toes, but he actually said I could just sit in his converted warehouse and relax. He dragged me to the rooftop, and while it’s a cool place and I don’t mind spending an hour out there enjoying a cold beer with him after work, the last thing I want to do is sit around and have to think.
If I’m not busy or Ian isn’t occupying my attention, then all I can do is think about my mom and start crying. I’ve cried enough to float an entire armada. I hate that I cried this morning. I tried to pass them off as hate tears. I hate Richard Howe for all the shitty things he’s done to Ian. Shitty isn’t even the right word for it. More like despicable. If I could read a thesaurus, I’d come up with an even better word.
“What’s worse than shitty?” I ask Jake when I go back and hand him the mail.
“Fucking shitty?” He takes the mail and rifles through it. I wonder if he regrets hiring a dyslexic whose reading level is about that of a third grader. He’s never complained about my poor writing skills. I wonder if it’s because he and Ian are friends.
If I didn’t love Ian so goddamn much I’d run away. Run away from this job I don’t really like. Run away from the lifestyle that makes me uncomfortable. Run away from the grief of my mother’s death. But my love binds me to him more effectively than a pair of gold handcuffs. If losing my mother to cancer was painful, then leaving Ian would be…well, worse than f**king shitty. Way worse.
The unevenness of our situation agitates me. I don’t feel comfortable at his warehouse. Stupidly, I wonder how many women have slept in his bed or made coffee in his kitchen. He’s very tight-mouthed about that. He says he’s not a playboy. In fact, his lip curled in disgust when I’d even implied it, as if I’d smeared his honor or something.
And I’ll never be able to buy Ian the same kind of gifts he buys me. His closet is filled with clothes and shoes that cost more than several months’ rent for many apartments. I’m left wondering how long he’s going to be interested in a deadweight girlfriend who has a hard time remembering to smile these days.
“You’re frowning,” Jake comments, waking me from my reverie.
“Sorry, boss.” Making a face, I turn to leave.
“You really dislike this job, don’t you?”
Oh god, is he going to fire me?
“No, it’s good. Great in fact,” I lie but at his knowing gaze, I fess up. “It’s not you or this job. It’s being inside. I haven’t worked indoors since my first job out of high school waiting tables. I’m used to being outside and frankly, I miss the rush of my old job. The pressure, the challenge. Out there I felt like I was doing something. Here I feel like the only thing I’m accomplishing is a notepad full of errors”
“I’m not going to fire you,” Jake chuckles. “So you can stop the gruesome expression that you’re trying to pass off as a smile. I want to find a job that you do like.”
“Why? It’s not your responsibility to find me a job. Is it because of Ian?”
“No. It’s because you’re a tremendously hard worker. You’ve done a job you don’t like without complaint for the last four weeks. That kind of work ethic is hard to find. With your attention to detail, good memory, and quick mind, you’d make a great field agent.”
“But?”
He gives me a knowing look but not a sympathetic one. Jake has no interest in complainers. “You’d have to write reports, conduct background checks—basically, you’d have to read and write better. Think about it.”
His last words are a dismissal, and I return to my desk. The rest of the morning I contemplate his advice. Learn to read and write better. I pretty much gave up on the whole reading thing in elementary school.
Once I’d been diagnosed as dyslexic, I’d been taught a lot of coping strategies, such as better visualization and memorization skills. I have a rocking good memory, which is why I’d been a good bike courier. I knew landmarks all over this city and could find an address easily. I paid attention in class, and if my notes looked more like hieroglyphics than words, it worked for me. That’s what I used now—more pictures than words.
Jake is telling me I need to stretch myself. My mom was always accepting of the way I had compensated, and since I’d had a job and a place to live, learning to read and write better never actually occurred to me. Plus, if there was anything I hated more than being viewed as weak and unequal, it was school. I make a face even though no one can see me.
At noon, I call to Jake, “I’m going to lunch.”
“The office will be locked when you come back. I have a meeting with a tech firm to take a look at some security systems. Put the machine on.”
“Will do.”
Another reason I’m not lunching with Ian is because today I’m having lunch with Sarah Berkovich, an old high school friend. She’d called me a week ago saying she saw the notice in the Observer about my mom’s funeral. It would never have been there if I hadn’t been standing next to Ian. In fact, my name wasn’t even mentioned below the picture of him standing behind me with his hand on the small of my back. The caption read Ian Kerr, billionaire investor, attending the funeral of a friend, Sophie Corielli.
Sarah and I are meeting at Telepan—a place I wouldn’t have been able to eat at before Ian. Even though the prices are considered midrange, it still would have been too expensive when we had five digit medical bills hovering over us and I struggled to make rent on a one bedroom fifth floor walkup on the far Upper East Side. There was some pleasure in being able to agree that Telepan was just fine when Sarah suggested it, instead of having to say I needed to bring a sandwich from home.