by J. J. Bella
"Hello?" she said, her voice making it clear that she wasn't sure who was calling.
"Mia, this is Liam."
"Oh, hi," she said, her voice thin. "What's u- I mean, what's going on?"
I allowed myself a smirk. Sure, it was a little amusing watching us both try to figure out this strange situation, but the awkwardness would need to be broken sooner or later, and I was certain that I needed to be the one to do it.
"Are you free this evening?" I asked.
"I think so, I mean, yes," she said.
"Good. I have work that needs to be done tonight, and my daughter is in for the evening. So, I'll have need of you."
"Daughter?" she asked.
Oh, right, I remembered. She wouldn't be aware of that little detail.
"That's right. I know this is last-minute, but I'll do my best to make sure that you're notified of things of this nature with more warning."
"Oh, sure. I mean it's no problem."
Good, I thought. Last thing I need right now is a complainer.
"Send me your address," I said. "I'll have someone come get you."
"OK, sounds good."
With that, I hung up. A text with her address, which was somewhere in Astoria, soon followed. I made the call for my chauffeur to come get here. Once she arrived, my evening with Olivia could begin.
"What sounds good to you, little lady?" I asked, mussing Olivia's hair as I sat back down at the table.
"Umm, Grand Szechuan!" she said referring to one of her favorite restaurants.
"Sound good to me."
"I want an eggroll, and some soup, and some General's chicken, and maybe another eggroll."
"Be careful," I said. "You eat too many eggrolls, and you might turn into one."
"Nu-uh!" she said, scrunching her face as she spoke.
Without missing a beat, she returned to the topic of what had been going on in her life, and I was, just as before, eager to hear every last detail. A half-hour flew by, and our conversation was only interrupted by another chime from the intercom.
Mia was here.
I told the front desk to send her up.
"Who's that?" asked Olivia.
"Her name is Miss Hunter. She's my assistant for the next movie that I'm working on."
"Oh," said Olivia.
A gentle knock sounded at the door, and I moved to open it. Once I did, I was greeted with the sight of Mia, her figure small in the large frame of the door, a leather bag dangling from her shoulder.
"Um, hi," she said, her eyes flicking past me to my apartment. "Oh, wow."
"Please come in," I said, stepping aside and gesturing into my apartment.
Mia didn't say a word, instead entering the apartment with slow steps, her gaze moving from place to place. I was proud of my apartment, sure, but I sometimes forgot what an…effect it could have on those who didn't live in similar circumstances. Especially someone on Mia's pay grade. I could imagine easily the Queens three-story walk-up that she shared with two other girls. She'd be lucky to have a hundred-square-foot bedroom to herself, and here she was walking into a West Village penthouse.
"Nice place," she said, her shoes echoing on the wood floor.
"Thank you," I said, taking her bag.
"Daddy, who's that?" asked Olivia, walking to my side.
"This is Miss Mia, the girl I told you about. She's going to be helping me with some work tonight."
"Does that mean we're not going to dinner?" Olivia asked.
"Um, no," said Mia. "I'm going to be staying here while you two go out."
"Oh, good," said Olivia.
"Minnie, be polite," I said, gesturing to Mia.
"Oh, hi, nice to meet you," she said, sticking out her hand.
"Nice to meet you too, um, Minnie," said Mia, taking Olivia's hand and shaking it gently.
"My name's not Minnie," said Olivia. "Only Daddy calls me that. I'm Olivia."
"Then, um, nice to meet you, Olivia," said Mia, her face reddening.
"Go ahead and play with your iPad," I said to Olivia. "I'm going to show Mia the work for tonight, and then we can go."
Before I finished my sentence Olivia was already back at the table, her iPad in front of her, her face aglow with soft blue light.
"Come this way," I said to Mia, leading her down the hallway leading to my office.
We walked on, Mia still in shock from both the apartment and meeting my daughter; I'd be impressed if she were able to form a coherent sentence. I opened the door to my office and directed Mia inside.
"First of all, thank you for coming on such short notice. I know this is a little unorthodox, but I rarely get to see my daughter."
"It's fine," said Mia. "I was just sitting at home bored anyway. I…just didn't know you had a daughter."
The first mention of our previous history, I thought. Bound to happen sooner or later.
"She's from my marriage."
"Marriage?" asked Mia, her oak-colored eyes going wide.
"Yes," I said. "But we can talk about all that later. For now, what I want you to do is going through my schedule for the next few months, getting everything in order…"
I told her what I needed, about how to transfer my rough notes of how the next few months are shaping up to look like into something a little more organized. She seemed to pick up on everything with ease.
This is an extremely useful situation, having her here, I thought.
The gears of my mind began to turn. But I put aside such thoughts for now.
"This look like something you can handle?" I asked.
"Oh, definitely," she said, sitting down at my desk and looking over the notes.
"Great," I said. "While you're here, help yourself to anything in the kitchen. Even the booze. Especially the booze."
A small smile crossed Mia's lips as she looked over the notes. Despite it being years since I'd seen her, her smile seemed to take me back in time, to a life I'd all but put behind me.
"There's a spreadsheet titled ‘restaurants' on the desktop," I said, reaching over Mia and typing in my password. "They all have my information on file, so feel free to call them up and order anything you'd like."
"Sure," said Mia.
"OK then," I said. "I'll be going. Call me if you need anything."
Mia was already hard at work transferring my notes to the computer. She'd always been a diligent girl. I'd somehow managed to give her a taste of the slacker life when we'd been dating, and it clearly didn't take. As I stepped out of the room, I shuddered as I thought of myself back then, thinking about how much time I'd wasted partying, drinking, and sleeping around. Maybe if things were different back then, my relationship with Mia might've gone differently. But there was no use in thinking about such things.
"Ready?" asked Olivia?
"Let's do it. But leave the iPad here."
With that, we were off. Olivia and I had a wonderful night out. First, we took a walk through Central Park, where she continued to inform me, down the minutest detail, of just what I'd missed since the last week we'd had together. She told me that Amy, my ex and her mother, had been dating someone new, some agent from one of the many talent agencies in the city. Normally, I would be happy to hear this, but I knew that Amy had, whether through choice or not, a hard time keeping men around. Three months seemed to be her limit before they were gone, replaced with a new well-to-do guy. I hated this; I wanted Olivia to have some stability in her life, and a constant rotation of men was not at all conducive to this. I'd considered asking Amy if she'd rather just give me custody of Olivia, but with my work schedule being what it was, I just didn't have the time to be a single father. And I had no intention of leaving her with a nanny all day.
We had some sugared nuts from one of the carts in Central Park, so Olivia and I's appetite was set aside for a time. We decided to go see a movie before dinner –the latest Disney thing- and by the time the movie was out we were both famished. A quick ride down to West Side later and we were at Grand S
zechuan, a plate of steaming rice and General's chicken in front of us. When we finished, I checked my phone and saw that it was half past nine; just about time for me to get Olivia home and in bed. I called for my chauffeur, and soon we were back home. Olivia had been nodding off in the car, and I quickly got her dressed and in bed once we arrived home.
Once she was tucked in, I headed to the office. Opening the door with a knock, I saw that Mia was still hard at work, the only difference being my notes were now in a neat pile and a few empty containers of sushi delivery were in the trash by the desk.
"I ate at your desk; I hope you don't mind," said Mia, not taking her eyes off the screen. "I've been kind of in the zone, and I didn't want to take too long of a break."
That's what I like to hear, I thought.
"Not at all," I said. "How's the work going?"
"Good," she said. "Just about another hour and I'll be done."
"Well," I said, "I think I can take things over from here; probably about time for you to be getting home."
"Actually, I can just finish things up here, if that's not a problem. I have kind of a system going on."
Even better, I thought.
"Sure. And why don't you just go ahead and stay here tonight? I have plenty of spare bedrooms."
Mia turned away from the screen.
"Um, if that's OK with you, it's OK with me."
"I wouldn't have suggested it if it weren't. Go ahead and take the third door on the right when you leave the office. It should be ready to go, and I'll leave some sleeping clothes in there for you."
"Sounds good," she said, turning her attention back to her work.
I was more than pleased with this. Not only was she plugging away at things, she didn't seem to have any issues moving her home life around to accommodate work. Even staying here for the night didn't seem to be a problem for her. Leaving the office, I headed to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of wine. Drink in hand, I stepped out onto the balcony, the evening lights of the city aglow.
Mia was going to make a wonderful assistant. Well, assuming that our history didn't rear its head and make things awkward for us. But that could be a bridge what we'd cross at a later time, should we even encounter it. I couldn't help but find myself thinking about how nice it was to have her here, doing the work that needed to be done while I spent time with Olivia. Sure, I'd need to be doing my own work most of the time, but still…
I let the idea marinate in my mind as I finished my glass of wine before heading to bed. I had a strange dream that night, and when I awoke in the morning, all I could remember about it was walking through Central Park with Olivia…and Mia. Getting out of bed, shook the strange dream from my mind. I showered and dressed, and when I entered the kitchen, I was greeted with a sight that was odd, but most welcome: Olivia and Mia were seated at the kitchen bar, a bowl of cereal in front of them both, the two girls laughing and playing some game on Olivia's iPad.
"Good morning," I said to them both.
"Morning," said Mia.
"Morning, Daddy!" said Olivia, beaming at me with a big, adorable smile.
"You're up early, Minnie," I said to Olivia.
"I woke up early and heard Miss Hunter up, so I decided to get up too. She's nice! She made me breakfast."
"Well, I poured her some cereal," said Mia.
"Hey, breakfast is breakfast," I said. "Minnie, why don't you go get dressed and ready for school."
"Aw!" she said. "I want to play more with Miss Hunter!"
"I told you, silly lady, you can call me Miss Mia," said Mia, giving Olivia a playful poke to the side.
"I want to play more with Miss Mia!"
"Maybe some other time," I said.
With a huff, Olivia set down her iPad and went off to get ready.
"There's coffee if you want it," Mia said, picking up the iPad and pulling up some news site.
"I do, thanks," I said, heading over to the coffee pot and pouring myself a cup.
"Listen," I said. "I did some thinking, I have a proposal, if you're interested in hearing it."
Mia looked up at me from the iPad, her eyebrows crinkled in confusion. I could only what she thought I had in mind.
"What do you think about you moving in here?"
Chapter Eight
I just about spit out my cereal.
"Move in?" I asked.
"Not as a permanent situation, of course," said Liam, standing there all casual, as though he'd asked something out of the ordinary.
"Well, I figured that much," I said.
"Think about it," Liam said. "We're going to be attached at the hip until this project's finished. Last night was a little different because Olivia's here, but there're going to be plenty of nights when we're working together like this. It just makes sense for you to stay here."
I mean, he was right- my job was to be his personal assistant for the duration of this production. Still, it seemed so…unorthodox, and that wasn't even taking into consideration our history.
"But…what about my other place?"
"Don't worry about it," Liam said. "I'll cover your rent. Hell, if you even want to move into your own place when this is all taken care of, I can help you out with that. Consider it a bonus."
My jaw dropped slightly at this. New York wasn't the cheapest place in the world, to put it lightly, and the majority of my paycheck after taxes went to my tiny room in Astoria. And here was Liam, offering to cover the costs like it was nothing.
"Think about it; you can save your money while you're here, and then you'll have your own place afterward. Not to mention the commute."
He had me there. Getting from Astoria to Midtown every day was quite the pain in the ass- the less said about New York subways, the better. It was a perfectly sensible arrangement, but something about it seemed strange. Living with my ex who I hadn't seen in six years, who was now kind-of my boss? But it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
"How about this," said Liam, "just think about it today. Take your time. At the end of the day, we can revisit the issue. And if you want to go forward with this little…arrangement, I can have your things sent here by the end of the day. But no pressure- if you want to stay at your place, that's fine with me; I just think that this would be easier for both of us."
He made a strong case, and I could see the business skills that he'd been developing coming out.
"OK, I'll think about it," I said.
"Great," said Liam, a smile forming on his face.
I'd be lying if I said that the whole time that Liam and I had been talking I wasn't distracted by just how goddamn good-looking he was. He was dressed in a crisp, white dress shirt, the fabric fitting his torso perfectly. The top button was undone, giving a hint of the sculpted pecs beneath. He'd always been in good shape, but it was clear that over the last few years he'd been giving his body the same serious attention and diligence that he'd been applying to his career. Liam's golden hair was wet and tussled, a few thick strands draping over his mile-high cheekbones. The smile at the end just killed me; he could've probably asked me to walk around the rim of a volcano and I would've done it.
We finished up breakfast and headed out, dropping off Olivia along the way.
Once we were at the office, we went right into a long day of meeting with various crew members. At this point in the production, we needed to lay the groundwork for filming. So, the first priority was getting a director settled on. Once the director was hired, we could delegate the rest of the work to him, and take more of a bird's eye view of the production. Even though this job was a little strange, working with my ex and all, I was grateful for the opportunity. I knew that once this movie was finally out the door I'd have a hell of an addition to my resume. My gofer days might very well be behind me.
We met with a few different directors during the day, some being famous faces that I recognized. I couldn't believe that my job now was chatting with some of the most powerful men and women in the film industry. But I kept m
y excitement down, focusing on my note-taking otherwise helping out Liam, however, I could.
I had the hardest time getting over this new Liam. Gone was the slacker that I knew so many years ago. He was calm, professional, and diligent. The staff loved him, too. All throughout the workday he'd chat with employees, catching up on what was going on with their lives and seeing what projects they were currently busy with. It was a far cry from the isolated second floor of Bronzeplate where the peons could only go if we were summoned.
Soon, the workday was wound to a close. We hadn't decided on a director, but we'd gotten the names down to a short list. Liam's favorite was Ian Carmichael, a fresh-faced thirty-something who had mostly music videos to his name. This surprised me, as many of the directors we'd met with had years of work and tons of films under their belts. I could see that Liam was enthusiastic about giving new talent a shot, and I loved that about his company.
"Well," said Liam, as we finished up for the day in his office, "have you had a chance to think over my proposal?"
"You know what?" I said. "It sounds crazy, but I think I'm down."
Liam smiled and gave an enthusiastic nod.
"Awesome," he said. "I'll have your things sent over this weekend. Just let me know what you'd like me to have them bring."
"Sounds good," I said. "But…there's one thing I'd like if we're going to be doing this. I mean, not just this arrangement, but for us working together."
"Oh?" asked Liam, his eyebrows raising.
"Yes- stop acting like we didn't date!"
The words came tumbling out of my mouth, almost as though I didn't have any control over them. After I spoke, I froze in place, my eyes wide as I awaited Liam's response.
"It's Friday night, Olivia's at a friend's for the evening- how about dinner?"
"Um, sure."
I wasn't going to lie- the idea of grabbing dinner out on the town with Liam was pretty appealing. And I was eager to learn what, exactly, had been going on in his life for the last six years.
"Great. I know a great Thai place nearby. You into Thai?"
The truth was that I'd eaten so much take-out Thai food over the last few months that my body was probably eighty percent peanut sauce at this point. But Liam didn't need to know that.
