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“Did I sound like me?” I ask. “You know, like a woman?”
“No. You sounded like a man who was very sick,” he replied.
“Perfect. Mr. Rio wants to talk to my father, and you know that isn’t going to happen.”
“You’re going to call and pretend to be him?” he asked, sounding shocked.
“What choice do I have?”
“Ovi, if Mr. Rio learns the truth, he is going to be very angry.”
I knew that. “If he finds out my father hasn’t been in the factory in a month, he’s going to be angry anyway. So, what do I have to lose? Besides, I spoke to my father, and he should be back to work in a week. All we must do is get Mr. Rio to think my father is home and sick until he’s back. Can you keep our secret a little longer?” I pleaded.
“Yes. I can,” he said and ended the call.
We were asking too much of Almi and I knew it. He wasn’t doing this just for my father. He was doing this for me too. I hadgrown up with his daughter Mia and we used to play with our dolls all the time together. One day I would eat lunch at Almi’s house and the next day, Mia would come and eat lunch at our house. Mia was the closest thing I had to a sibling. But she left Tabiq to go to college in Europe and never returned. Like so many other people I knew. Once you got a taste of what it was like elsewhere you saw that the possibilities were endless. Unlike here. You had a job, and you’d most likely do that same job until you are too old to work.
Once upon a time, I had wanted to leave, but my mother had been so sickly, and someone needed to be there to care for her while my father worked. They never asked me to stay. They didn’t need to. It had been an honor to care for her until she passed. But now that she was gone, and it was my father who needed me, just in a very different way.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and said a silent prayer that this would work. Then I dialed Mr. Rio’s number. He answered almost immediately.
“Trye, I thought you’d have texted me instead of calling,” he said.
I would’ve if I thought you’d have accepted that.
Forcing a pretend coughing fit, I covered the phone and started what I hoped was the beginning of a performance of a lifetime. “Mr. Rio...I...I am very sick. I can,” coughing again, even louder, then added, “can’t talk much. I will be,” coughing again so much that it actually hurt my throat, “be back to work next week.”
“I understand. Are you able to email?”
“Yes,” I choked out.
“Okay. When you’re feeling up to it, please send the list of outstanding orders along with their status and I will take it from here. We can talk when you get back in the office.”
“Thank you, Mr. Rio,” I said and ended the call.
I put the phone on the coffee table in front of me and leaned back on the couch. It seemed like I pulled it off.Can’t believe it, but I think I just bought my father a couple more days to get his stuff in order and get back to work.
My father never talked about work, but I imagined he was returning to his job. He said he was coming home. He needed to earn money, and, in that position, he earned a very good salary. Hence, he was able to take off for so long. I wish he would just be honest and clear with me. Then again, I didn’t think he really knew what I’d been doing while he’d been gone.
I dialed the number he’d called me from yesterday, but it said it was no longer accepting calls. Did that mean it was shut off? Just another thing I didn’t know.
With nothing else to do, I opened my father’s laptop and for the next few hours, I prepared the reports for Mr. Rio. I didn’t need to have a business degree to know we were well behind on most orders and for some of them, it was weeks. He was going to be upset when he read it, but lying about it would only make things worse. Customers needed their orders, and I wasn’t the one who could drive the staff to produce more. Maybe Mr. Rio being back was a good thing. Just not so good timing for my father.
I read the email one last time before pushing send. As ugly as they were, they were facts. At least I wouldn’t need to see him again or feel his wrath for all that was going wrong.
It had been a long day, and I was tired. Mentally. Physically. Emotionally. Just drained. But for the first time in a month, I felt as though I could just go lay down and sleep without worrying about what was going on at the factory. What I should be doing. None of it was my responsibility any longer.
As I kicked off my heels and pulled my feet up onto the couch, I chuckled. This had become such a mess. I remember the first day I went to the factory to talk to Almi about my father. Wemet in my father’s office and his cell phone buzzed. It had been Mr. Rio checking in. I had no idea what made me pick it up and reply, but once I did, one message turned into ten. Before I knew it Mr. Rio was giving me instructions, and I was implementing them.
Almi had been sitting there the entire time just watching. I looked up at him and said, “What have I done?”
He told me that I was pretending to be my father and now I must continue until he returned. We both had thought that it would only be a day or two. Maybe a week. We were wrong, but once the lies had started, all we could do was continue and hope he’d return before Mr. Rio did.
That didn’t work the way we had planned. And we sure never thought I’d get caught in my father’s office. An entire month had passed, and no one had caught me. One day with Mr. Rio back in Tabiq, I got caught hiding under the desk.
I panicked when I heard the keys. Flying off the chair and crawling under the desk was the first thing that came to my mind. Foolish. Where was I going to go from there? It made me not just look guilty, but childish as well. I was so embarrassed. There was just one thing I was grateful for. He didn’t know who I was, so nothing really linked me back to my father except the fact that I was sent there to retrieve his laptop and phone. For all Mr. Rio knew, I was hired to do it.
Hmm. What kind of job would I qualify for? Actress? I sure had done a lot of pretending lately. But I think I did a fair job at handling the reports that Mr. Rio requested. If I hadn’t already burned my bridge, I could’ve applied for a job. Goodness knew they needed more help. It was something I had mentioned in my email to him. That the staff was doing the best they could but could no longer keep up with the increase in demand.
