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“Bad day?” She tips her head, studying me.
“Bad year.”
Her lips form a tentative smile. “We’re only two weeks into January.”
“When you know, you know.”
She lifts her eyebrows as she picks out a scone, and I go through the mechanical act of paying for the breakfast I don’t want before sitting down at a table by the window and taking out my phone.
I take a sip of coffee as I lift the phone to my face to unlock it. The first thing I see is a text from my buddy Danny:
How’d it go? Should I take out the whiskey in a sad way or a celebratory way?
I snort, then nearly drop the coffee when I see something else in my alerts.
It’s an email from Monty Freeman of Freeman & Daniels.
I interviewed with his firm back in December. The interview itself was unremarkable. The offices were dusty, as if the lawyers who worked there had been stuffed inside and forgotten, and Freeman himself was overly friendly. I’d hoped that friendliness meant he was interested in taking me on board. But then I ran into him on Christmas Eve, a few weeks ago now.
It wasn’t a promising encounter.
I’d been walking with Danny’s little sister, Ruthie, and her daughter, Izzy, because we’d met on the sidewalk and were all headed to the same Christmas party.
Ruthie and I do not get along. When she was a little kid—a toddler, for fuck’s sake—she used to pretend she was a dog so she’d have an excuse to bite me. The years haven’t improved things between us. She’s the kind of woman who excels in driving people crazy, and she seems to have a special interest in driving me crazy.
Don’t get me wrong, she’s my best friend’s sister, and I feel protective of her. I’ve needed to roll out that protectiveness every now and then, because she’s a beautiful woman, the kind of woman whom men gravitate toward—including the asshole she was married to for less than six months. But life’s better for both of us if there’s distance between us.
Of course, Freeman loved her. He fell all over himself asking her dozens of questions about her latest vanity project—a bookmobile she set up in her old camper van. She’d even flashed him photos of it, because of course she did.
One of Ruthie’s favorite topics is how vain and self-involved I am, but I’ll be damned if she doesn’t like turning the conversation to herself whenever possible.
And sure, it didn’t do much for my ego to get ignored by a prospective employer in favor of a van nicknamed Vanny. But maybe that encounter had actually buttered him up, because now there’s this email…
“Don’t get your hopes up,” I whisper to myself.
I feel someone staring, and look up to see a woman wearing a furry onesie watching me like I’m crazy.
A low moment, to be sure.
I click into the email, everything in me concentrated on the phone screen.
I feel beyond pathetic that I’m this desperate for a job at a general practice firm I hadn’t heard of a few months ago, but I need this. I need it bad. I’m sick of feeling like a failure.
Mr. Royce,
Excuse me for my late reply. I’ve been away for an extended holiday vacation with my family. I must tell you what an absolute pleasure it was to meet your wife and daughter on Christmas Eve. You have a beautiful family, and I might add that family is very important to us here at Freeman & Daniels. Some lawyers care more about the job than they do about their lives outside of it, but we know what’s truly important. One of the benefits we offer is excellent insurance for our employees and their families.
I would be honored if you’d come in for another interview at your earliest convenience.
Yours truly,
Monty Freeman
Well, shit.
I’m frankly mystified that he’d spend more than two minutes around Ruthie and me and think there’s anything between us, let alone that we’re married and Izzy’s mine. I’d like to know how he got that impression, but at the same time…
He seems enamored with his own misunderstanding.
