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She had on a pale pink camisole, barely a few shades darker than her skin and this time when I feasted my eyes on her luscious breasts, there was a hint of nude lace. I wanted to rip through it with my teeth and take her right there on my desk.
“I got you extra sprinkles,” she said, nudging the cup closer to me.
Her smile and wide eyes led me to believe she innocently thought I actually liked these ice cream sundaes disguised as coffee, but I was still suspicious of her. If she was getting more satisfaction out of my suffering than I was getting out of hers, what was the point?
“You must have read my mind,” I said. “Oh, I won’t need you at the article pitch meeting this morning,” I told her.
She visibly wilted. She’d been expressing how excited she was to get to the first one. Her interest in everything and desire to learn was impressive, and I knew she was disappointed. But the extra sprinkles sealed her fate.
“Really?” she asked. “Are you sure? I thought I needed to learn how to take notes for those meetings? The special format?”
“I have a project for you that I need done by lunchtime,” I said, scrambling for a project.
There was some busy work the proofreaders always complained about. Might as well give them a little treat. I told her to get the files from them and get started right away. When I left for the pitch meeting, she was poring over the papers, highlighting words and phrases. I hoped I hadn’t given the proofreaders double work if she didn’t do it right, but went to the meeting, secure in the fact that I’d done my bad deed for the day in making her miss out on it.
I was the one who suffered because she really did need to learn how to take notes for those things. I ended up recording the whole presentation, knowing I’d have to give her the recording and showing her how to take the notes myself instead of leaving it up to one of the other assistants. My revenge plot was only giving me more work to do. And probably the proofreading department as well. I could make her feel bad for inevitably screwing up, but that thought left me feeling hollow. When had I become such an entitled asshole that I made a very competent young woman miserable just because she didn’t want to sleep with me?
I was unpleasantly surprised when I got back from the meeting to find that Violet had already finished the proofreading chore. There was no way she could have done it right, even if she’d gone all the way to lunchtime. With a bad feeling, I told her to hand it in to them, figuring they’d berate her enough for me. I slammed myself in my office, telling her to catch up on my emails. I had the beginnings of a headache and for the first time, thought about how good a shot of whiskey would feel going down. It was shocking and I took a bottle of water out of my mini fridge and gulped it down with an acetaminophen tablet I dug out of my drawer. Both my brothers got on me all the time for the way I went out so much, and yeah, I got drunk sometimes. A lot of the time. Too much if I was thinking about alcohol at work, during the day.
Pamela sent me a few raunchy pictures, which didn't do anything to alleviate my sour mood. I ignored her, putting my head down to get a short power nap before my afternoon appointments. It was interrupted by Violet buzzing me that someone from proofreading was on the line. Great, just when my headache was starting to go away.
“You can give your assistant work to do for us anytime,” she said. “Thanks, Eli.”
“She did a good job?” I asked. “No mistakes?”
“No more than my guys would have done. Shockingly good for someone who’s never trained for it.”
“Well, that’s great to hear. She seems eager to learn all aspects of what we do, so thanks for giving her something to try out.” Not at all that I was being a petty jackass.
I was stunned that she did the task so well and she rose in my esteem, even though I was already pretty impressed with her so far. I checked my phone to see I had more pictures from Pamela, which I continued to ignore. I decided it was time to cut her loose and the next time I saw her would be the last time. There was also a message from my mother, which was the biggest shock I’d had in a while. Not so much the fact that she texted me, but that she was actually going to be in the States this weekend and wanted to have dinner with me. She also mentioned seeing my oldest brother Will and his kids, but since he hadn’t told me about it yet, I knew she was probably going to show up at his house unannounced so he couldn’t put her off.
It wasn’t that our mom was a bad person, or even a bad mom. She just wasn’t much to us at all. She left my dad when I was in my last year of high school and became a kind of a glamorous drifter, spending time with friends all over the world or living in hotels for months at a time if a certain city struck her fancy. We might have seen her once a year back then. About eight years ago, she chose Paris as her permanent home. The last time any of us saw her was at Dad’s and Callie’s funerals a year and a half ago, and frankly, we were all a little shocked she came back for them.
Will made the grave mistake of expressing his shock that she returned, and irritation that she was making him feel bad about not catering to her every whim when he’d just lost his wife and his two young children were off the rails from losing their mother. I hated seeing her snipe at him and finally told her to stop making everything about herself, which then of course made her really make it all about herself. It would have already been the worst few days of all our lives, but she added an extra burden to it, and if I was honest, I’d have to admit I was still a little salty about it. I called Will to give him the head’s up.
“I think it might be good for the kids to see her again,” he said. “Before they completely forget who she is.” I wondered if he was hoping she might have somehow morphed into the kind of mother who would take the kids to a museum or the park or even watch a movie in front of the tv with them.
“You hoping for a night off?” I asked, only half teasing. He’d been having trouble keeping a live-in nanny for very long and currently only had someone picking them up after school and staying with them until he got home.
He groaned, then laughed ruefully. “That’s wishful thinking, isn’t it?”
“With Mom, yes. But I bet she lets you take her to a swanky restaurant that doesn’t even allow kids.” I felt bad and tried to think of something positive to say. “Maybe she’s coming back for good. Apparently, I’m having dinner with her some time this weekend, so I’ll be the first to know.”
“Good luck. Take her to Benoit’s.”
“Benoit’s has awful French food.”
He laughed again, much more humorously. “Yeah, but you know she’d much rather have something to complain about than actually enjoy the meal.”
We hung up on that unfortunately true note, and I pulled up a bunch of design options I needed to sign off on before they went to print. Between almost needing to block Pamela’s number or risk getting in trouble for viewing porn at work, and worrying about what my mother could possibly want, I got stuck staring at the final design for an advertorial for body wash. It could end up being a lucrative brand deal for us if we got it right, but I was stumped as to which was right.
I buzzed for Violet. When she came in, I turned to her and her eyes widened. “Is everything all right? Did I do something wrong?”
I realized I must have had a scowl on my face and forced myself to relax. “You actually got high praise from the proofreading department. She said you could work for her any time.”
Violet’s face went from worried to horrified. “Well, I’m glad it was satisfactory.”
“But you don’t ever want to do it again,” I guessed. Her pretty face struggled not to break into a grin. “It’s okay. It’s deadly boring work, but it has to be done, and what’s most important is it has to be done right. So, good job.”
