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“Darn you!” I shout, after Zachary’s eluded me, yet again.
“I play cars!” a high-pitched voice shouts. It’s two-year-old Claire, careening into her big brother’s bedroom in her jammies, as her mommy strides behind on a FaceTime call.
Claire plops herself into my lap, like it’s the most natural thing in the world to do, and repeats her command. Only this time, she adds the words I live to hear: “I play cars, too,Auntie Char Char!”Oh, my heart.
“That’s great news, babe,” Tessa says on her call. She takes a seat on Zach’s twin bed, as Ryan on their call says, “The space is a homerun.” As he proceeds to elaborate, I lean down and smell Claire’s towel-dried hair like a junkie getting a fix. I freakinglovethe smell of freshly shampooed toddler hair. It’s crack to me.
I didn’t always want kids. For a long time, I was pretty sure kids weren’t in my future. But then Zach came along and made my heart ache and yearn in a whole new way. And if that wasn’t enough to make my biological clock start ticking for good, Claire came along almost three years later to perform that service. For a while, I thought Carlo might be the father of my future babies. But man, when I found out what he truly does for a living, that plan was immediately scrapped, along with the relationship itself.
“You can hold a car while Auntie Char Char chases me,” Zach says, his tone brimming with the authority of an older sibling. I should know: I’ve got two older brothers who always used to boss me around, just like that.
Not surprisingly , Claire protests, and I have to jump in and play referee, at which point, Zach begrudgingly hands his little sister the blue car she wants.
“Okay, keep me posted,” Tessa says on her call with Ryan.
“Are the kids still awake?”
“They’re right here, playing cars with Auntie Charlotte and Rudy.” Tessa holds up her phone to our happy group on thefloor, and both kids call out their happy hellos to their doting daddy, while I shoot Ryan a wave and a smile.
As Ryan chats with his enthusiastic kiddos, Tessa gets up and hands me the phone to make it easier for everyone to converse—and, suddenly, I’m the meat in an adorable kid-sandwich, as the kids smash themselves against me to fit their faces onto the screen.
“All that sounds amazing, guys,” Ryan says to his kids, after they’ve told him about their day. “Can I get a goodnight kiss? It’s your bedtime, I think.” When the kids lean into the camera, Ryan does the same on his end; and when all goodnights and I love you’s have been administered, and Tessa has started herding her kiddos off to bed, Ryan says to me, “Hang on, Crazy Girl. I have some good news for you.”
“I’m Nut Job. I’ll go into the other room.” The kids are talking so loudly with Tessa, I don’t need to explain my change of venue. I bound into the living room with Rudy at my heels and plop onto the couch. “Much better. What’s up?”
Ryan grins. “I made some calls on my way to the airport, and you’ve got a job interview tomorrow morning.”
“Oh my gosh. Thank you!”
Ryan explains that his old boss at the brokerage firm where he used to work is looking for a part-time, remote personal assistant. He tells me the hourly wage, and I whoop with glee. “Fair warning, though,” he says, “the reason he pays so well is he keeps churning through assistants. They keep quitting on him.”
“Why?”
“He’s super demanding and meticulous. He’s not a creep at all, or I wouldn’t set you up with him. But he’s got some peculiar tendencies, for sure.”
“That’s fine with me, especially at that hourly rate. After serving drunk and nervous passengers for twelve years, I’ve seen it all. My skin is thicker than a rhino’s at this point.”
Ryan chuckles. “I figured you wouldn’t mind working for a weirdo for a few months. You only need the job while you’re fixing up the condo, right?”
“Or I get a flight attendant job. But yeah, once I’m done with the condo, I’m definitely heading back to sunny LA.”
“Okay, don’t tell him that. Make him think you’re imagining working for him for ten years.”
“Got it.”
“Nobody ever lasts long with him, so I don’t feel bad about you leaving the job after a few months.”
“If I get it.”
“The odds are high. He’s already got a bunch of interviews lined up tomorrow, but I talked him into squeezing you in, first thing at eight o’clock—a full hour before his first scheduled interview. He hates wasting time, so if you impress him, I’m positive he’ll offer you the job on the spot and cancel everyone else.”
“Holy crap, Ryan. Seriously? This is amazing. Do you have any tips for how I might knock his socks off tomorrow?”
As I’m asking the question, Tessa sits down next to me on the couch, so Ryan and I quickly get her up to speed. Tessa questions me working for a demanding prick, even part-time and temporarily, but I quickly convince her I’ll be fine.
“Okay, I’ve got some important tips for you, Char,” Ryan says. “Wear all white to the interview tomorrow and make sure whatever you’re wearing is meticulously ironed. If you’re dressed in crisp, spotless white, Jerry will think you’re detail-oriented and meticulous across the board. He’ll eat that shit up.”
I frown. “Most of my clothes are in storage in LA, along with my furniture. I only brought one small suitcase of clothes with me to Seattle, and I didn’t pack anything white.”
