DEFENSE

by Glenna Sinclair

  “I’d spilled most of his coffee on his newspaper, and he said he didn’t ask for a coffee that was half empty,” I said, unable to stop myself from smirking at the memory. “I told him that some people would say it was half full.”

  The receptionist shrieked with laughter, and I tried to shrink inside myself as people craned their necks to see just what was so funny.

  “You are going to get so fired!” she whispered, her shoulders still shaking with laughter. “How you are back here today?”

  “Believe me, I’m asking myself the same question,” I muttered. The receptionist had confirmed one of my suspicions. Why had my sass been tolerated yesterday—not only tolerated, but rewarded with a veritable limitless shopping spree? Add that item to the official “Shit Here Does Not Make Any Sense Whatsoever” list.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re sticking around,” she said. “You’re spunky. I’m Sam, by the way.”

  “Beauty,” I said, shaking her hand.

  “Oh, honey,” Sam laughed. “Everyone knows your name after yesterday.”

  I cringed. That felt more like a bad thing than a good thing.

  “Well, I better go focus on not spilling Roland’s coffee on his newspaper,” I joked.

  “Don’t let anyone hear you call him by his first name” she hissed, surprising me. “They’ll think you actually like him.”

  “Like him?” I frowned and shook my head. “I don’t like him. And he definitely doesn’t like me.”

  “He doesn’t like anyone,” Sam confirmed. “Well, good luck in there, soldier.”

  “Thanks,” I said, laughing and feeling uncomfortable at the same time. I felt almost traitorous talking about Roland behind his back. He’d helped me probably more than he’d helped anyone in this building. So why did all of these people work here if they all hated him so much?

  I stopped by the break room, filled a mug full of freshly brewed coffee, and took small, slow steps to ensure all of the hot liquid stayed firmly in the cup. I was going to do this right today. I wasn’t even going to give him a reason to shout at me.

  There was something almost comforting, though, in the knowledge that if he did shout at me, it was just another part of my self-enforced punishment. I’d take the licks and keep on going for as long as I was employed here. Having a clear plan—no matter how messed up it might have been—was strangely nice.

  Myra’s purse was on our desk, but she was off to parts unknown again. Was I going to be that busy once I took over for her? The thought lingered in my mind as I leaned against Roland’s office door, knocked with the hand securing the paper, and entered.

  “I have your coffee and paper here, Mr. Shepard, just as you asked,” I announced as cheerily as possible for so early in the morning.

  “No, not as I asked.” He was seated at the desk, like yesterday, but the chair was turned around. He was hunched over the keyboard to his computer, his phone display alight, working hard. The office was just as dark today as it was yesterday, the only source of light coming from his devices and that single lamp on the desk.

  “Not as you asked?” I repeated. “I promise that I paid for the paper, and the coffee is hot, and I haven’t spilled any of it…yet.”

  “Would you care to tell me what time it is?”

  My eyes darted around the room for a clock, but the light was just too dim. I jammed the paper under my arm and fished around in my purse until I came up with my cellphone, keeping my eyes on the coffee mug, willing the beverage to stay put with all of my strength.

  I mashed the button to engage the display.

  “It’s eight o’clock,” I said, confident.

  “Wrong.” He pointed at his own phone. “It’s 8:03.”

  “I rounded down,” I admitted. “If it was 8:05, I would’ve gone up to 8:10.”

  “When I say that your day begins at eight o’clock sharp, that’s what I mean. It’s not three minutes after, not five minutes after, not ten minutes after. Not thirty seconds after. Eight in the morning. Precisely. If you find you need to get here a little earlier to ensure you’re on time, do what you need to do.”

  His words were harsh, but his tone was mild. I absorbed this information without so much as a noise of protest.

  “I understand, Mr. Shepard, and I’m sorry,” I said. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Don’t waste my time with apologizes,” he said, taking the paper from me first and then the coffee, his fingers brushing mine and making me shudder inexplicably. “Just get it right the next time.”

  “Yes, of course,” I babbled. I could still feel his fingers on mine but had no idea why they’d made such a strong impression. It had been an accident, our hands touching. Was it because of that terrible scar? Did it repulse me?

  “Anything else?” Roland asked pointedly. I realized that he was staring at me, staring at him, and I quickly lowered my gaze.

  “No, sir,” I said, “oh, except this.” I located my wallet and extracted his credit card. “Thank you, again, for everything. This may sound kind of stupid to someone…well, someone like you, but it’s really fun to be able to get a huge tub of ice cream and not have to eat all of it at one time. I’ve never had my own freezer before!”

  He gave me an odd look that I couldn’t quite define before taking the card from me.

  “You also got a cellphone, I see,” he said, not acknowledging my gratitude again, or somewhat thankfully, my awkward admission about the ice cream.

  “Yes,” I said. “It seems like there’s kind of a steep learning curve, but I’m pretty confident I’ll get the hang of it.”

  “Email me your number,” he said shortly, looking back down at his keyboard before launching into a storm of typing. “You need to be available at all times as my assistant. I need to be able to count on you if I reach out and need something done.”

  “Of course,” I said, bowing like an idiot before spinning around to hide my burning blush. Why was I so stupid and awkward around this man? “I’ll email you right now—as soon as I get back to the desk. No problem. Just let me know—or Myra, she’s still here, obviously—if you need anything. When you need anything, I mean. I know you’re really busy and you need lots of things.”

  “Beauty?”

  “Yes?” I turned around eagerly. “What can I do for you?”

  “Shut up and leave.” He’d never stopped typing.

  I all but ran to the door, more to escape my embarrassment than to escape the man still seated at that desk, running a company in the dark.

  “There you are!” Myra exclaimed, as I popped back into the main office. This place was so much friendlier than Roland’s cave. Maybe it was just the lighting, but it even felt easier to breath out here.

  “Sorry I ran off yesterday,” I said, sheepish, but Myra waved my apology away.

  “Well, you already know the worst of your new job, which is to say that your boss can be a little difficult.” She smiled. “But since that little bit of unpleasantness has passed, we can continue your training.”

  Myra said it like Roland’s temper was nothing, just something to endure now that I’d seen it myself.

  “Does it ever get better?” I asked, taking the day’s box of documents to be digitized from her and opening the lid.

  “Better?” She blinked at me.

  “I mean, does he ever stop yelling and stuff?”

  “You have to understand, Beauty,” she began, “just how much stress that poor man in there is under. He’s running this big company through a computer and a phone and his brother. If his temper’s short, it’s only because he doesn’t have very much time to waste on anything else.”

  “So he was easier to get along with before the company was really successful?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.

  “Well, sure, he was really easy to get along with before…” Myra trailed off and frowned.

  “Before what?” I prompted. Whether she liked it or not, this training was going to include all the company gossip. I f
elt like I needed to know if I was going to be the man’s assistant.

  “Did I show you where the company cafeteria was yesterday?” she asked, completely shifting tack. “You ran out so soon. I had a list of things I was going to teach you yesterday, and another one for today. Now we have to get through both of them today—and that blasted box of documents.”

  I hid a small smile behind my hand. If Myra was going to stonewall me, fine. And if she was going to make me feel guilty for leaving her here all alone yesterday morning, fine again. I had other sources now. I was sure I could get my new friend, Sam, the receptionist, to divulge some secrets.

  “You didn’t show me the cafeteria,” I told Myra, “but that can always wait until lunch, right? What else should we be doing?”

  Myra rarely stayed at her desk, receiving an agenda of items to attend to on Roland’s behalf via email at the start of each workday. I shadowed her on her jaunts across the office and to other companies on floors below, observing the surprisingly high energy in a woman about to retire. If I’d put in as many years as she had in the workforce, I would’ve been taking it easy during my final week.

  And when she did go back to her desk to check the agenda or if there was some free time to work on digitizing between tasks, the phone would often blare, scaring us both. The only person ever on the other end of that line was Roland.

  “I’m surprised you don’t have many missed calls from him,” I said, as Myra prepared to forward him some information he’d asked for.

  “What do you mean?” she asked absently, clicking away at the computer.

  “I mean, if you’re rarely here, at the desk, always running errands around the building, then don’t you think he’d call? He seems to be really needy.”

  “There’s no need for him to call when I’m not here,” she answered, sending the email with a small sound of triumph and bringing the agenda back up on the screen. “He can see if I’m here or not for himself.”

  She pointed toward the ceiling to a small, black lens.

  “A camera?” I nearly shouted, causing several people to swivel around in their desk chairs to try and see what was wrong with me. “Sorry. But a camera? Really?”

  Now I understood my creepy feelings, the impression that I was under scrutiny. I’d felt like that when I first got here because it was true. There really were eyes on me, and they belonged to Roland Shepard. My skin crawled in earnest.

  “I don’t see why you’re so upset about it,” Myra said, shrugging. “How else do you expect the man to keep track of what’s going on in his own office?”

  “Well, he could come out here, for one,” I said. “Not lock himself away. He doesn’t have to spy on us. Oh, wait. Does that thing have audio?”

  “Of course it does,” she answered, almost crossly. “So does that one, and that one, and that one, and the one in the break room, too. How have you not noticed them?”

  Because there were too many other things to notice, like how attractive Dan was, or how afraid I was of not fitting in, or how fast I was running away from my past, or how frightening Roland was, or how mightily I was struggling to prove that I could do this job…somehow. There had been many, many distractions to keep me from noticing the cameras this place was apparently bristling with, but now that I knew they were here, I couldn’t not see them.

  Roland watching me get his coffee in the morning, or stopping by to chat with Sam. Roland watching me as I sat at this very desk, staring right back into his eyes through the camera.

  I averted my gaze.

  “There are cameras everywhere, you know,” Myra said, calm as a cucumber. “You should pretty much assume you’re being recorded everywhere you go, you know. Even our phones have video.”

  “It just seems weird,” I said, feeling defeated and cagey. Roland had heard everything I’d said about him while sitting here. I’d been true to how I felt, but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel guilty about my words. They probably weren’t things I’d say to his face, given the chance.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Myra said absentmindedly. “It gets nice, after a while. Like a guardian angel, always looking out for you.”

  I blinked at her, surprised at her sentimentality. Up until now, Myra had seemed like a no-nonsense woman. She looked up at me, bewildered.

  “What?” she asked, then frowned. “Oh, Beauty. Silly girl. It’s not as if Mr. Shepard doesn’t have anything better to do than stare at his employees all day. I imagine he simply glances at the camera on our desk to see if there’s a body in the chair so he can ask us to do something.”

  I did feel silly, but I felt no less scrutinized. There wasn’t an inch of the office that escaped the camera’s singular glare. No matter what I did or where I went, there would always be the chance that Roland would be watching me, probably ready to leap at the chance to criticize me for messing up.

  The day passed slowly, the cameras a constant, distracting companion. It was difficult to keep up with Myra and keep tabs on the things she was telling me I would have to be doing soon with the feeling that I was being watched and judged very thoroughly.

  It was a relief to leave the building at the end of the workday, practically skipping to the parking lot in the sheer joy of not being watched by Roland Shepard on a camera. I imagined him hunched over his laptop, studying my every step, and shuddered. It was too creepy to think about.

  “Looking much better than yesterday, if I may say so.”

  I turned around in the parking lot to see Dan, twirling a set of keys around on his finger.

  “Feeling much better than yesterday, and since I’m not sobbing with makeup running down my face, I think it’s fine that you say so,” I sassed, happy to see that friendly face of his. It was also a relief to be able to talk to whomever I wanted to however I wanted to. I always felt like I was treading on thin ice with Roland. How could Dan be so different from his brother?

  “Well, I’m glad that you’re finding your rhythm,” he said, looking me up and down in a way that made me blush. “Though I do remember you used to have plenty at a shitty little bar across the state.”

  “I’d prefer to leave the past where it lies,” I said, twirling my own keys to match his boisterous fidgeting.

  “That’s the problem with the past, Beauty,” he sighed, his face playing at resignation. “It never lets itself be left behind.”

  “Maybe for some people,” I allowed. But not for me. I couldn’t have my past be present right now, not when I was so focused on doing well here, on tentatively moving forward.

  “Yeah, maybe just for some people,” he mused. “Well, would you care for a ride to wherever you’re headed? Dinner, perhaps?”

  “I have a car,” I reminded him, jingling my keys loudly. “And dinner’s waiting for me at home.”

  “Oh?” Dan asked, his ears practically perking up in interest. “Someone waiting for you at home? A boyfriend, eager to impress you with his prowess at the stove?”

  “No,” I snorted, laughing. “A crockpot.”

  One of the purchases I’d made when I still had Roland’s credit card in my possession was a slow cooker. The packaging promised that I could dump a bunch of ingredients in before I went to work and get home to a delicious dinner. To a person who wasn’t so confident in her cooking skills, that seemed like a damn miracle.

  Dan laughed, too, and shook his head. “Well, I’ll let you get to that,” he said. “Wouldn’t want you to burn your house down with scorched dinner. But could I take you out sometime? When dinner’s not waiting for you?”

  I put my hands on my hips. “That sounds awfully like a date,” I mock scolded. “And I don’t think you want me reporting to human resources that I’m feeling pressured to date my boss.”

  “I’m not your boss,” he scoffed. “That’s my brother’s job. And there’s no office policy about dating.”

  Dating? Really? Did Dan actually want to date me? My cheeks colored of their own accord, and my stomach seemed to try to take flig
ht inside of my body.

  “That may be,” I said, keeping my voice as light as I could. “But it’s still not really professional, is it?”

  “Not really professional is me asking you for another lap dance,” Dan purred, unperturbed.

  My face was so hot I wondered if I was running a fever. How could he just stand there, straight-faced, propositioning me to take my clothes off? I should’ve known back at the bar that agreeing to dance for him would come back to bite me in the ass.

  “You’re right about that,” I managed to say. “That wouldn’t be very professional at all.”

  “Just keep it in mind, is all I ask for,” he said, grinning and turning to go. “The date, that is. Not the lap dance. Though a man can dream.”

  He sauntered over to the nicest car in the lot by far, and I watched him go, wondering just what was so great about a crockpot dinner that made me pass up that tall drink of man. He was so sexy, and in spite of my misgivings about our professional relationship, I actually wanted to go on a date with him.

  Hell, if I were being perfectly honest with myself, I would’ve given him another lap dance. That’s how much I liked him.

  Maybe I’d understand Dan and Roland’s differences better if I’d had a sibling. Alas, though, I’d been a single child—probably for better than worse. I didn’t envy the idea that I’d have to deal with a living sibling, angry at me for causing our parents’ deaths.

  But the difference between the two men was vast. Dan was handsome, for one, and outgoing, easy to talk to and get along with. He was flashy but compassionate, and flirtatious to boot.

  And then there was Roland. Reclusive, unpleasant to gaze upon, and endlessly rude. How could they both be products of the same parents? I resolved to ask Sam as soon as possible if Roland wasn’t perhaps adopted into Dan’s family—or the other way around.

  The rest of the week flew by. I started getting to work at 7:30 in the morning just to try and avoid Roland’s ire at my incompetency, but he still found things to be critical about.

  “Too casual,” he barked at me when I gave him his paper and coffee while wearing dark wash jeans—which I thought looked fantastic with my blazer.