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FOUR
Who knew so much time could fit into one little week?
It was simultaneously too little time to get everything done, and too much time to have to spend trying not to think about Hunter and Paige. I tried to avoid the pair of them while still getting work done by burying myself in hours-long conversations with Sandra back in D.C., choosing color palettes, editing photos for perfect composition, and, of course, setting up conference calls with the director of our sizzle reel to make sure that everything was going smoothly.
Between my workload and Paige’s—having to put together a party for two hundred and fifty people, filling in all the details like tablecloths and bunting and engraved placeholders that Hunter had left out when he sketched the broad outlines—avoidance was pretty easy.
Avoiding constant phone updates from my mom—“Paige says they held hands! Paige says Hunter mentioned an island he would love to take her to! Paige says Hunter complimented her on her eye for color and detail!”—was a bit more difficult.
So when my phone rang, I paused for a second, pondering if it might be worth it to endure a storm of you didn’t pick up your phone, you had me so worried, I thought you were dead, you don’t care about your mother disappointment, in exchange for not having to hear her urgent update on what sickeningly cutesy nicknames Paige and Hunter had come up with for each other, or what they were planning on naming the children.
On the other hand, those disappointment storms were a terror to behold, let alone experience. I sighed and picked up the phone.
And saw that its caller ID was showing not my mother’s number, but my boss’s.
What the heck? My status update wasn’t due until tomorrow.
I answered with trepidation. “Allison here, sir, hello?”
“How are you doing, Ally?” he asked jovially.
“Just fine. And yourself?” I returned, unable to break the rules of Southern politeness even as my stomach tossed and turned in anticipation of bad news. What other reason could there be for an early call, praising me? Not freaking likely.
“Oh, I can’t complain,” he said. “After all, if they let me start complaining I might never stop, har har.”
I decided to bend the rules of Southern politeness slightly, and if not exactly cut to the chase, at least sidle around in its general direction.
“Sorry to hear that, sir. Is there anything I can help with? Is that why you called?”
“Oh, not at all, not at all. Just calling to check in, see how things are going. I know how overwhelming it can all be, your first time out.”
My first time out on something that wasn’t swathed in pink and coded girly so many ways that a seasoned cryptologist would give up and cry, he meant, but I let it slide in the interest of not getting fired.
“I’m doing just fine,” I said. “Busy, but you’ve seen how I can juggle multiple tasks. I know my status update is scheduled for tomorrow, but I can give you a preliminary one if you—”
“Great, great, great,” he interrupted, clearly having not listened to a word I’d said. “That’s great, Ally, I’m glad. There’s just one little thing—”
Of course there was.
“It’s that Chuck—you know Chuck, great head on his shoulders, member of the old frat, knows how we do business here—Chuck has expressed some concerns.”
Of course he had.
I managed to restrain myself from saying that I’d like to express some concerns to Chuck myself, preferably with a paintball gun, and instead asked, as pointedly as I could without my boss feeling like I was ‘giving him lip,’ “Do you have any concerns, sir?”
He huffed into his mustache, annoyed that I’d even somewhat called him out on his passive-aggressive bullshit. “You know it isn’t like that, Ally.”
Oh, wasn’t it?
I bit my lip to keep from blurting out my mental catalogue of all the humiliating crap he’d thrown at me in the past with a hangdog look and an insistence that his sexist outlook was just company policy. Giving me every single feminine hygiene client, like their product was radioactive or something. Denying me the Lockheed guns contract, even though I’d been out at the shooting range since I was six and the guy he did give it to wouldn’t know a stock from a barrel. Laughing off my sexual harassment claims when the guys from accounting made comments about my legs, telling me to just ‘appreciate the compliments before you’re too old to get them.’
I concentrated on the important thing. He had, technically, said that he wasn’t concerned about me. “I’m glad to hear that. So you agree with me that I won’t be needing any oversight.”
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