After Office Hours

by E Caroline Wilson

  Just then, the elevator dropped again, prompting Devin to bury her face into his chest. At least this time it wasn’t a free fall, just a slight descent before jerking to a stop.

  “You’re shaking,” he observed, his hand stroking her hair.

  “That’s because I’m scared.” Her voice was muffled by his chest. “And I’m also claustrophobic.”

  “In that case, it’s best that you keep your eyes closed. These four walls can’t close in on you if you can’t see them.”

  Devin did as he suggested. Her shallow breathing returned to normal, and she became conscious of how close she stood to David, of his palm resting on her shoulder, of his other hand on her hair. She couldn’t continue to stand in his embrace…

  Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to open her eyes, then to look up. One look at his handsome face peering at her, and she wished she’d kept her eyes closed, because he was looking at her with something that looked very much like desire. It was hypnotic, rendering her unable to look away. Those electric blue eyes of his held her captive.

  The seconds ticked by as they stared at each other. Then, his face began to move in closer and closer. Devin’s face was already tilted upward to look at him, her lips already parted in wonder. When his face filled her entire line of vision, she simply closed her eyes and waited with slightly puckered lips.

  His lips felt warm on hers, his tongue sensuous as it ran over her lips. Devin clutched her padfolio in one hand—her crossbody purse was already strung across her body—and her other hand snaked around to his back. She didn’t know if there was a connection between her action and his deepening the kiss, but at that precise moment, he abandoned his exploration of her lips and pushed his tongue further into her mouth to mingle with hers. Devin gasped at the feel of his arms tightening around her, and she heard a deep rumbling in his throat that excited her.

  “You folks OK in there?”

  The male voice, likely belonging to a maintenance man, came from the other side of the doors.

  They reluctantly ended their kiss, but continued to keep their arms wrapped around each other.

  “Yes,” David called.

  “We’ll have you out in a jiffy.”

  At that, Devin dropped her arm from his back and stepped back, putting distance between them. She didn’t want to be found in a compromising position,

  David’s eyes looked troubled. “Devin, I—”

  The rest of his words remained unspoken as the elevator doors opened.

  David muttered a curse under his breath. He had to address his amorous behavior with Devin. He had no business kissing her, but damn it, he hadn’t been able to help himself. One look at her frightened expression, and he wanted to protect her. She looked so vulnerable. Kissing her seemed like the most natural thing in the world to him…

  But she wasn’t a date, she was a client, and that made it wrong. Just because he’d taken her case pro bono didn’t mean he could behave any less professionally than he would with any other client. He’d had a hunger for her ever since seeing her sex tape, and he suspected that even if he hadn’t seen it, he would have kissed her anyway, just out of sheer attraction. He’d have to be blind not to notice how gorgeous she was at their first meeting…and there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with his vision.

  He couldn’t believe how inconsiderate he’d been. This woman had come to him so shaken about her experience that she could barely tell him about it, and what did he do? At the first opportunity, he took her in his arms and shoved his tongue into her mouth, the same way Raymond Quinn had done.

  But Devin kissed you back.

  He told himself that didn’t matter, but he couldn’t help thinking…Is she attracted to me, too?

  He reminded himself that he was supposed to be charming her, not coming on to her.

  The elevator doors revealed they were slightly above the landing. The look on Devin’s face, a mixture of embarrassment and shame, was probably the same as he suspected he wore himself. She rushed forward, as if she couldn’t get out of this elevator fast enough. David’s gut instinct told him eagerness to get out had nothing to do with the claustrophobia she’d spoken of and everything to do with wanting to get away from him.

  He watched as the maintenance man offered himself as a pillar of support for Devin as she prepared to jump down approximately two-and-a-half feet to the ground. “Here,” he said, moving forward. “Let me hold that for you.” He gestured to her padfolio. Wordlessly, she handed it to him, then made the jump. She landed with a thud, but upright with the support of the maintenance man.

  David then handed her padfolio to her, along with his briefcase, then jumped down on his own.

  “Sir,” he said, extending his hand to the maintenance man, “I want to thank you for rescuing us so promptly. It was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic in there.” Not that I minded all that much.

  “You two were lucky,” the man replied. “Sometimes these elevators break down carrying a full load of a dozen people. The air can get thin awfully fast when that happens.”

  “Heaven forbid,” Devin murmured, handing David his briefcase. “Thank you very much, sir.”

  Another elevator came to a stop and opened, apparently summoned by the repairman. David saw they were on the eighth floor.

  The maintenance man draped his arm over the door to hold it open. “Your chariot awaits,” he said. “And I’m sure that this time you won’t have a problem getting to the lobby.”

  “I hope not,” Devin said with a chuckle as she stepped inside.

  David followed. “Thanks again,” he told the man. He pressed the button for the lobby, followed by the door close button. Then he turned to Devin. “Well, that was exciting,” he said, eager to make conversation, to feel her out. Anything to get an idea of what she was thinking.

  “This was the type of excitement that, frankly, I could do without,” she replied dryly.

  “Devin, about what happened—”

  “I think it’s best if we don’t talk about that.”

  David pursed his lips. Of course, she was right. “All right. But will you agree at least to joining me for an early lunch? I can, uh, give you a few tips on interviewing with the firm. I’m sure they’ll call you.

  “They did,” Devin began. “I meant to tell you. I had a call from someone at the firm named Ms. Baxter. They liked my resume and want me to come in to interview. It’s set for tomorrow. I was so concerned with this morning’s meeting with Mr. Jessup, I didn’t give it much thought.”

  “I’m not surprised they called you. I ran into Marianne in the break room this morning and asked her how the search was going for someone to cover during Carla’s maternity leave. She said she had several strong candidates, including an office manager with no legal experience, but who could probably be trained to take on extra duties. I was pretty sure she was talking about you.” He grinned at her. “So does that mean you’ll have lunch with me?”

  “Sure.”

  He glanced at his watch. “We might be a little early for lunch, since it’s not yet eleven. There’s a good Mexican place by Lincoln Center. Do you like that type of cuisine?”

  “Very much.”

  “Good. Let’s go. I can get us a cab.”

  “It’s such a nice day, and we’re so close to Lincoln Center. Why don’t we just walk? You said we’ll probably have to wait a bit for them to start serving lunch, anyway.”

  “Yes, you’re right. We might as well walk. They’re at Columbus and Sixty-Second.”

  They stepped out of the elevator into the lobby. After leaving the building, they walked to the corner of Ninth Avenue, then strolled north.

  “So what time is your interview tomorrow?”

  “Two-thirty.”

  He absorbed that information. He almost wished the interview had been scheduled for before lunch. It would no doubt be awkward for Devin if she ran into her mother on her way out of the interview. Amparo usually started work around four-thirty, and the
interview process, which would include filling out an application, an interview with Marianne and then with founding partners Ben and Larry, could easily run two hours. He had advised Devin to tell them Amparo had told her about the job opening only if she was asked, but he was betting they wouldn’t ask. He didn’t feel Devin needed to hide her familial relationship to the firm’s cleaning woman, but ideally it would best not be known until after she got the job.

  “Tell me, Devin,” he said, still thinking about Amparo, “how does your mom get to—what is it, Washington Heights?—from Madison Avenue at night?”

  “It’s actually Hamilton Heights, south of Washington Heights. She takes the bus, coming and going. The M4 runs up Madison Avenue and down Fifth, and crosses to the West Side at A Hundred-and-tenth.”

  “Does she clean offices full-time?”

  “She cleans full-time, but not offices. Her full-time job is at the Four Seasons.”

  David listened intently. He’d known scholarship students during his primary education, as well as kids in college and law school, who came from working-class backgrounds, but he’d never known anyone who actually came from public housing. Being poor was a foreign concept to him, for he always knew he would be successful, would never have to worry about money, or about having a nice place to live. He was secure in the knowledge that he and his brother would one day jointly own the building they’d lived in all their lives, a six-story townhouse in a prime location that had considerably appreciated in the years since its purchase and was now worth millions of dollars. It was hard for him to grasp the struggles of people like Devin and Amparo, for whom getting out of the projects was a huge deal. He also couldn’t imagine having to work a second job just to get by, the way Amparo did. She wasn’t an old woman, but she wasn’t exactly young, either. He put her age in her upper forties. In their own way, the DaCostas had achieved upward mobility, perhaps not to the same extent as his fellow attorneys who were the sons and daughters of social workers or mail carriers. Amparo made her living cleaning up after hotel guests and office workers, but Devin had managed to become an office manager, ordering supplies, paying bills, making travel arrangements for her bosses. She probably earned the same or even more in her one job as Amparo did working two jobs. He found himself rooting for their continued success. Amparo was too nice a person to have to work so hard in her middle age, and as for Devin, the more he talked to her, the more he liked her. There seemed to be so much more to her than the other women he dated. Nor was she completely wrapped up in her career, like many of the women he knew. He and Devin had a lot in common. They both enjoyed smooth jazz, old anthology series like the Twilight Zone and One Step Beyond, and they both adored gangster movies, amusing themselves by reciting lines of dialogue from The Godfather movies. There was much more to Devin DaCosta than just a gorgeous face atop a heavenly body.

  He acknowledged her mention of the Four Seasons with a nod. The elegant hotel was just a block away from Holt & Cotten’s offices. At least Amparo didn’t have far to go between her two jobs. Still, it couldn’t be easy, being on her feet all day. At the firm, she mostly emptied trash bins and vacuumed, perhaps did a little dusting on request, but cleaning hotel rooms was a lot more involved…changing bed linens, cleaning toilets, tubs, and tile. “That’s a lot of hard work,” he remarked.

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds. She works Monday through Friday for the cleaning service, but she works one weekend day at the hotel, so she has one weekend day off totally and one day during the week when she only cleans offices for about three hours.” Devin shrugged. “She knows she won’t be able to keep it up forever, but for the time being she’s doing fine. She’s worked at the hotel for years. The maids get decent wages, she gets a free hot lunch every day, and the guests like her, which means good tips.”

  “It’s not surprising that the guests like her. She has a very pleasant personality, and she goes the extra mile in her work.”

  “She always taught me to do my best, no matter how insignificant the job,” Devin stated proudly. “She took the second job cleaning offices around the time we rented our current apartment. You see, we used to live in the projects, and now our rent is much higher.”

  “I figured as much when Jessup made that insinuation about your mother not making enough money to pay the rent.”

  “I’m afraid it was more than an insinuation.”

  David listened as she confided her fears that Jim Jessup planned to tip off the Housing Authority about her fudging her income on phony W-2’s and pay stubs. “I worked for him three years before I moved,” she explained. “In all that time I understated my income to the management office. I got the distinct feeling he was hinting that he was prepared to report me to the housing authority if I didn’t accept his offer.”

  David thought quickly. “You said you worked for Jessup six years and didn’t move until you’d been there for three?” At her nod, he said, “I really don’t think you have to worry, Devin. I doubt they’ll come after someone who hasn’t lived in public housing for three years. It would be different if you were still a tenant. Those are probably the people they prosecute.”

  She let out a relieved-sounding sigh. “I hope you’re right. They charged us next to nothing for rent because my mother’s income was low for a two-person household.”

  “But haven’t you worked since graduated high school?”

  “Yes, but as soon as I learned how payroll taxes work, I started creating dummy W-2s. I even created phony pay stubs with the help of correction fluid and a photocopier. Because of the low rent, I was able to save a lot of my salary.”

  “That was…smart.”

  “You can say it,” she said flatly. “It was dishonest. But it got Mama and me out of the projects, and I’m not ashamed. Plenty of rich people have gotten rich by underhanded means.” She stared at him in defiance. “I might as well tell you the whole story, David. I didn’t just do it for myself. I had a side hustle going, creating dummy documents for my neighbors. I charged fifty dollars for each set of documents and made quite a tidy profit each year.”

  “I’m surprised your ex didn’t turn you in for doing that, since he’s obviously vindictive.”

  “Well, I haven’t done it since we moved, and it’ll probably be hard to prove. Also, some of his friends were among my customers. I was more worried about Mr. Jessup reporting my true income to the Housing Authority. You see, David…”

  He was glad his first name rolled off her tongue with such ease.

  “…I’m ambitious. It was a big step to move out of the projects to a place where there are finished walls instead of painted cinder block, where there’s no graffiti in the laundry room, and where my mother feels reasonably safe coming home after dark most of the year, but I’m not going to be satisfied with that. I want more out of life, as much as I can get. I know I won’t be like Sonia Sotomayor or Ursula Burns—”

  David interrupted. “I know who Justice Sotomayor is, but who’s Ursula Burns?”

  “She’s my she-ro. She was raised in the projects on the Lower East Side, became a mechanical engineer, and by the time she was fifty she was President of Xerox, and eventually its CEO. Like me, she’s black and was raised by a single mother.”

  “Quite a success story.”

  “I admire her greatly. Justice Sotomayor was also raised in the projects, up in the Bronx. Both she and Ms. Burns are older than my mother, but I do know someone who might end up at the top of her field. There was a real smart girl, my age, who lived in my building. She used to help all of us with our algebra. She and her family moved away when we were in tenth grade. I don’t know what happened to her, but I’d guess she’s on the director path by now, maybe even the V.P. track.”

  They reached the restaurant and were quickly seated, being among the first lunch customers. The restaurant’s location on the West Side would make it easy for Devin to get home. Besides, he thought with a twinge of guilt, no one from the firm would see them over here. He didn’t wan
t anyone in the office to be able to connect him with Devin DaCosta. As he’d told her, it was a necessary safeguard in case she was hired to prevent anyone from finding out about her rather mortifying personal issues—Holt & Cotten was way too conservative to hire anyone who’d posed nude to be the face of their firm. But what he hadn’t told her was that the firm discouraged dating among its employees, a stance they’d taken since before his time, when apparently a male paralegal supervisor started an affair with one of the women in his department, resulting in messy claims of favoritism from the other staff members.

  David couldn’t say he disagreed with the policy. He personally preferred to keep his private life private, even from his family members. After experiencing a few misfires, he now attended family functions solo, and he never allowed the women he dated to stop by his office, even if they suggested it.

  If Devin were hired, the firm’s policy would give him a perfect excuse for not continuing a liaison with her, if he was successful in having one. He couldn’t even be sure she would be offered the job, despite her being more than qualified. The founding partners, Ben Holt and Larry Cotten, weren’t particularly progressive in their thinking. If they did consider having a pretty woman of color at the reception desk, it would be strictly for appearances, to show they were liberal when David didn’t believe they were.

  And he didn’t see the point in telling Devin about Holt & Cotten’s position about employee dating unless she was actually hired.

  *****

  Over a lunch of shrimp fajitas, he told her what to expect at her interview. “You’ll first be seen by Marianne Baxter, the woman who called you. She’s assistant to the big bosses, Ben Holt and Larry Cotten, and she has an assistant of her own. You see, Holt & Cotten is a small firm, with about twenty attorneys. The big firms have hundreds of lawyers on staff. Marianne pretty much runs the office, and her word carries a lot of weight. You’d be reporting to her. Anyway, after she interviews you, if she feels you’re qualified—and I’m sure she will,” he added, winking at her and being rewarded with a smile, “you’ll then be brought to meet with Ben and Larry. After they interview the applicants they called, they’ll discuss the best candidates amongst themselves and make a decision.” He hesitated a few seconds, not wanting to beat a dead horse. “Again, Devin, it’s important that no one know about our affiliation.”