I have a real job.
Heels clicking on the uneven cobblestones, the hypnotic sound soothes me, my hands smoothing the thrift-shop suit I wear today. My lilac silk shell (ninety-nine cents because it was red-tag day at the thrift shop) is neatly tucked into the waistband of a skirt I’d let out yesterday.
A few extra pounds fill out my frame now. Three years of working midnight shifts processing checks for a bank have turned me into a desk jockey. I could play a vampire in a movie—I am that pale.
My body craves movement. Excitement. Change.
“Hey!” Turning, I see the most delicious set of masculine legs pumping my way. The legs are attached to a torso chiseled and peppered with dark hair. His arms reach up with such effort and agility. Washboard abs give a display like a work of art.
Sweat coats the neckline of the upstretched shirt that covers a guy who couldn’t be more than eighteen, his face intense and focused, so utterly engrossed in trying to catch something that the force of movement entrances him.
I am invisible.
“Jim! Watch out!”
A shout, the man’s voice a high baritone out of range. A grunt, then—slam! I am diagonal in mid-air, my heels flying high, the soothing click-clack on stone gone in nanoseconds. My right side is now awash in sweaty muscle as I am tackled to the ground by a dripping wet piece of marbled sex on legs. He pins me to the newly-sodded grass strip next to the sidewalk.
Riiip.
There goes the back seam of the only skirt I own, the sound of tearing like hearing my hopes split in two.
Way to go, Carrie. Blow your shot at looking decent before you even sit down at your desk.
My brain processes the moment with two completely different minds. One mind pictures what just happened—a game on the quad and a ball that went off course. An accident. Pure coincidence.
The other mind apparently is controlled by something deeper. I like the feel of a wall of muscle pressed against my entire body, one knee wedged between my legs, a bone pressing into my hip—oh, dear.
That is so not a bone.
He knocked the air out of me. And not just from that tackle.
Rough hands and a rougher voice enter my consciousness.
“Get the fuck off her!” an angry male voice, mature and refined, growls into the space above me. A light Irish accent. Or maybe Australian? Something foreign, but in English. A sudden withdrawal of movement and the guy who tackled me is flung across the air. He lands with an “oof” sound that makes me giggle. Even with the air knocked out of me, I can’t help but laugh.
“My God, Carrie, are you injured?” The lilt takes on a decidedly Irish accent. I stop laughing, then look up into the worried face of Eric Horner.
I haven’t seen Eric in more than three years, and he seems bigger. More mature. More substantial.
And definitely more powerful.
“Hey!” The guy who knocked me over—Jim?—gives Eric a shove with one hand, barely moving the Irishman. Short hair means Eric’s deep auburn locks and the long braid he’d worn when I last saw him are a memory.
Like my crush on him. And his crush right back at me…
He ignores Jim and reaches out for me. My knee is skinned and blood fills in the mesh of my pantyhose. The back of my tight skirt is split high. Not so high as to show my butt, but close.
“I said ‘hey!’” Jim shouts.
“Heard you,” I grumble, leaning across his twitchy feet to grab my own shoe. Jim knocked me off my feet and out of my shoes. A giggle bubbles up again.
I suppress it.
Eric turns to Jim and the two are inches from each other, faces burning with aggression.
My former anthropology teaching assistant and what looks like a football player are squaring off.
Over me.
Not me in a romantic sense. At least, not Jim. Eric, though, is protecting my honor in some kind of sweet, macho way.
I don’t know what to do.
A tiny crowd forms, and then triples in size as an orientation group walks by, the teen boys so geeky. They look like baby birds in a nest, with long, hairless necks and cheeks.
The girls stare at me. The boys stare at the cockfight that’s about to erupt.
One of Jim’s friends lumbers over. “Don’t pick a fight with a professor, you douche. Wanna miss your chance at the draft?”
Eric snorts. “The only draft he has a chance at is the breeze that blows when his date runs out the door after seeing his wee little pecker—”
I am standing now and grab Eric’s arm, hard. Jim’s turned away and doesn’t hear, but his friend does. He shakes his head hard, like a dog with a wet face. Like he can’t believe a professor would—
Wait. Professor?
“You’re a professor here now?”
With one eye glaring at Jim, he spares the other to smile at me. “Yes. Assistant Professor Horner. Department of Latin American Studies.”
“No kidding.”
He brushes my shoulders. Grass floats off like it’s escaping. “No kidding.” His lip curls up at the expression.
“Congratulations,” I add. “Last time I saw you, you were headed to Mexico for archival and then field work.” I had been jealous then, an eager sophomore ready to follow. Anthropology and archaeology were my passions. The past is so fascinating.
Especially when it’s not your own.
“There was an opening after Professor Michaelson died,” he says, shrugging. “I had six months to finish my dissertation and defend it, and I did it. Got the job. Here at Yates forever, if they’ll have me.” The grin he shoots toward the administration building looks a little morbid.
’Til death do us part, I think.
“What are you doing here?” he asks. We start to walk toward the main building, my right ankle a bit wobbly. By the end of the day, I can tell, my ankle will throb and scream. Right now it’s just whimpering.
“New job. Starting this morning,” I say, my voice a bit unsteady. I hadn’t really thought about what it would be like to run into people from my time here, three years ago. So many ghosts.
“Job? What are you to do?” His homeland’s accent comes through, the words rolling off his tongue like a melody. I always loved to hear Eric talk in lecture class.
He loved to just be with me. I friend-zoned him, though, and he wouldn’t dare date a student. The time we’d spent hanging out for a semester carried with it a weird air. Unrequited feelings suck. They suck when you’re the one carrying a torch for someone else.
I think it’s even worse when you’re the object of the unwanted affection.
Eric’s look of anticipation makes my stomach flip, and not in a good way. He walks up the small set of stairs to the main doors. I cut left, and he follows.
“This is the dean’s wing, Carrie. Are you working…” His voice fades out and his eyes grow wide. “Aye, no. He didn’t.”
I stop. Acid runs through me, quick and edgy, making my blood boil and bubble. I feel my face flush. My knee feels like pins are pricking it.
“He what?”
“Are you the new program coordinator in the dean’s office?” Eric whispers. His face spreads with ten different emotions in ten seconds. I react with a cold shutdown of every emotion I can.
I succeed, but barely. Watching him, I pretend this is a field study. I’m just observing him. A watcher doesn’t react. A watcher just sees.
“It’s Dean Landau now, you know,” Eric says in a tight voice. He pulls the cuffs of his shirt down to poke out from under his jacket. Hs eyes have changed. Closed off. Gone dark. He won’t catch my eye.
Uh-oh.
“I heard yesterday. I didn’t know until then,” I tell Eric.
He doesn’t seem to know what to do with that information, his mouth opening and closing three times before he snaps it shut, like a trap door.
And then emotion flickers in his eyes. “Good luck, Carrie,” he says, turning to a small stairwell that leads up, I know, to the Latin American Stu
dies department’s offices.
That emotion. I know it well.
It’s pity.
You see pity in enough eyes and you come to detect it before your mind knows.
Shake it off, I tell myself. Great. Now I’m using pop music to guide my inner emotional state.
It could be worse.
As he walks up the stairs I search the hallway for a women’s room. Aha! There it is. I remember now. There’s one on every floor, to the right of the stairwell.
I go in, pushing the heavy, windowless oak door. A radiator hisses. In August? I chuckle. Good old Yates. Dad always told me Facilities was the department that received the least funding and the most responsibility. The job never ended, which was good for him. He got plenty of work. I frown at the memory.
Fat lot of good it did him.
One look in the mirror and I groan. My hair is a tangled mess with grass in it. My knee looks like I got checked in roller derby by someone named Hellbrawna Knockyersocksoff. A smudge of dirt rims my right eye socket, like a football player wearing under-eye grease.
And my skirt makes me look like a whore. One more inch and not only would people see my panties, they’d be able to tell whether I waxed down there.
No time to head home. I check my phone. Hell. I’m late already! With the handful of things in my purse that might help, I scramble to look presentable, washing off the dirt, blotting the worst of the blood up and ignoring the run on my pantyhose.
On ever-wobbly ankles, I make my way to the dean’s office. With a trembling hand I open the outer door and walk up to an empty reception desk.
Mine. That’s where I will soon sit.
And then a woman stands from behind the counter and her eyes meet mine.
Definitely not filled with pity.
Chapter Ten
“No way,” Claudia Landau hisses as our eyes meet. In high school we called her The Claw, and if looks could kill, I’d be dead nine times over right now.
Her fingers fist in her hand, the bright-red nails curling in so hard her nickname rings in my ears. I’ve shed enough blood today. Don’t need any more, especially at her hands.
“You got the job? You?” She snorts and unfurls her hand. Fingers reach up and she tucks a long strand of onyx hair behind one perfect ear. Claudia is beautiful. Stunning. Model perfect, with flawless porcelain skin. Wide chocolate-brown eyes, broad, high cheekbones. Full lips.
And a personality as ugly as the outside is gorgeous.
“Carrie Myerson,” she says, circling me like I’m a piece of meat. Her eyes take in my skinned knee, my messy hair, and suddenly my stomach goes cold. All the promises I made myself seconds ago fade.
It won’t be okay. Nothing will be okay here. Professor—no, Dean Landau will be hard enough to work for.
I’d forgotten about Claudia.
“You look like a piece of shit that’s been dragged around attached to the ass hair of a cat,” she murmurs. Her voice is like an icicle. Cold, and with a point that pierces.
Eloquent. She always did have a flair for the dramatic. In middle school, she tormented me. Talked a friend into stealing my clothes once while we were in gym class. I had to wear my gym uniform the rest of the day. That’s social suicide when you’re in seventh grade.
Then in eighth grade, she got jealous when I won the choir competition. I had the only solo in the spring concert. Somehow, she spread rumors that I spread rumors that the football team captain had gotten the head cheerleader pregnant. And they aborted the baby. You can’t prove that you didn’t spread rumors.
Convenient, huh? I was shunned. Booed at the concert. Mrs. Byers, the choir director, tried to control it, but you can’t stop the contagion of a queen bee on the warpath.
After that, she’d just been a royal bitch to me and anyone she didn’t suck up to for popularity points. Some new, shiny object caught her attention. Her drama followed.
I see college hasn’t matured her at all.
“Nice,” she says, waving her hand dismissively, “suit. If you can call it that. The tear up the back is a great touch.” Sarcasm drips from her words like venom.
Please tell me she doesn’t work here.
A new wave of cold takes over. I fight not to shiver. No way could she be my boss, right? I was told I report directly to the dean.
But if they created some job between us…
The doorway between the little reception room and the dean’s actual, private office fills with a strong, wide man with grey hair and stylish glasses. He’s looking down at a stack of papers and bumps into Claudia, who sneers at him. She yelps.
“Papa! You almost made me break a heel!”
“I barely brushed against you,” Dean Landau says. His voice is neutral. Controlled.
He’s used to dealing with her. I feel a pang of sympathy. Raising a daughter like The Claw must take a lot out of you.
The sympathy fades when he looks up and sees me. Dark brown eyes catch mine. There’s an intelligence there. It’s scanning me. He’s like a robot programmed to evaluate.
Then he smiles, and he’s charming. Really warm and welcoming, as he reaches his hand out and pumps mine hard.
“Carrie! So glad you’re here.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was a nice guy. Like Brian. Or my dad. Or Mark—
Oh. Wait. Nice guys don’t arrest your dad and testify against them.
And they definitely don’t set your dad up for federal drug charges.
“I’m so pleased to work with you,” the dean adds. I see. This is the game.
We pretend nothing ever happened. Before.
Before.
I can play, too. If life handed out degrees, mine would be a Bachelor’s degree in Pretending Nothing Happened.
Maybe a master’s degree.
Make it a Ph.D.
“Dean Landau,” I say, matching his grip. It’s strong, his skin impossibly smooth for a man. My dad and Brian have rough hands, the kind of palms a man gets from twisting wrenches, holding roofing nail guns for hours, laying pipe.
Dean Landau uses his mind to earn his living, though. And never, ever his hands.
Wouldn’t want those to get dirty.
I know he leaves that to other people.
“Have you spoken with IT yet?” the dean asks, already looking back at his papers. Claudia watches us like a snake deciding which of two mice to eat.
“IT?” I ask, feeling dumb. He sounds like he’s saying eye teeth, which makes no sense.
He nods, not making eye contact, and begins to turn away. “You need to go to Information Technology, in the engineering building, to get your staff permissions, email, and such. Just come back when it’s done.”
And just like that he’s gone, the door to his office closing like a coffin lid.
Claudia’s eyes burn into me. “You didn’t even know that?” She snorts.
Rage fills me. My face flushes, and I know I look like I’m twelve. Mark used to say emotions showed on my face like a neon sign.
“Why are you here? Other than to visit your father?” I ask, working hard to maintain a professional tone.
“I am here because I want to be,” she says, crossing her arms and leaning on a filing cabinet across from the main reception desk.
My desk.
If I pick a fight, this will be the worst ten minutes of any new job ever. I decide to try a new tack.
“Fine. If you’re here, maybe you can help me.” Asking her a question can’t hurt, right?
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she says loudly. “You want my help? You take the job I was supposed to get and now you want my help?”
A slow dawning of understanding pours in me. The cold starts to fade. “You wanted this job?”
“No shit, Dumbass.” Nice. The Claw always did have a potty mouth.
“I didn’t know,” I answer. It’s all I can think to say.
She snorts. “You come along, begging for a job, and everyone moves heaven and earth fo
r you. Suddenly it’s a ‘conflict of interest’ for my dad to bring me on as the admin.”
Conflict of interest. Oh, no. Is it a conflict of interest for the man who turned state’s witness against my dad to be my boss?
I can’t lose this job. I just can’t. Two years and I get my student loans under control and with free tuition, finish my degree. For all that, I can handle The Claw.
“I am sure Human Resources made a decision in the best interests of the university,” I say, the words smooth and flowing. My mouth even feels surprised. It’s like the words came from someone else.
I’m never that calm and composed when confronted.
The sound of a cell phone buzzes in her purse. As she looks for it, I step into the hallway and head for the IT department.
Her eyes follow me until I hit the stairs, where I collapse into an overwhelmed heap on the landing, my knee and ankle throbbing.
Why would The Claw need a crappy entry-level job like this? Even the job ad that someone from the alumni association sent me, after they called, said someone with an associates “or two years of college” was sufficient. The Claw graduated with Amy in May. Claudia had options. Why this?
And the dean. I can manage this for two years, even if my head screams every time I am around him. My dad is dead because people lied. I was orphaned because Landau lied.
My life has been ruined by him.
My shoulders relax and my head’s throb changes. Pain fades. A clarity emerges.
This is even better than my original plan.
Chapter Eleven
“Anchovies!” I exclaim, excited. My stomach growls. I’m wearing my old, grey, stretched out yoga pants and a loose baby blue cami. The trailer gets hot. Late summer in southern California is like living in dry soup. Christina Perri sings in the background out of my tiny old laptop speakers. Three fans in the small trailer windows make an attempt to blow air around.
I’m sweating like a pig, but I’m happy.
“On your half,” Amy groans. “Keep them there. They taste like salty pieces of shoe leather that crumbles.”
“Delicious salty pieces of shoe leather!” I shoot back. My mouth is so happy as it bites down on the corner of a piece of pizza bigger than my head. Sicily’s Pizza is the hometown college favorite. For three years I’ve suffered without. No more.
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