by Bec Linder
“You must be fucking kidding me,” I said, and hung up.
It was shaping up to be a truly excellent day.
FOUR
Sadie
I called Elliott the morning after my conversation with Carter, who—thank God—had included Elliott’s last name in his text message, so maybe I wouldn’t sound like a complete idiot.
The phone rang and rang until I was about to hang up and try again later, when someone finally picked up.
“If you’re trying to sell me something, I’m not interested,” a deep voice said.
I raised my eyebrows. Elliott needed a better receptionist. “I’m not selling anything,” I said. “My name is Sadie Bayliss. I’m calling to speak with Elliott Sloane about—”
“He isn’t in,” the man said, and then he hung up on me.
I listened to the dial tone for about fifteen seconds before I realized what had happened. I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it in shock. What kind of company was this guy running?
I called back. Nobody answered, and the call went over to voice mail. Well, fine: at least that way I could finish my sentence. “This is Sadie Bayliss,” I said. “I’m friends with Carter Sutton. He told me that you’re looking for a graphic designer. You really need to hire a receptionist who doesn’t hang up on people.” I gave my phone number, and then said, with a touch of sarcasm, “I’m looking forward to hearing from you soon.” Hopefully Elliott would be a little more polite than his receptionist was.
I shook off my annoyance and headed to the hair salon. I had an appointment to get my hair braided. I’d been twisting it myself for the last few months, but I figured a freshly braided head of hair would make me feel awesome, and it probably wouldn’t hurt my job search.
The salon was almost empty when I got there. Unexpected bonus to unemployment: running errands in the middle of the day when most people were at work. I usually liked the camaraderie and gossip at the hair salon, but today, I didn’t feel much like talking to anybody.
My regular hairdresser, Tanya, came over to greet me and said, “Goodness, you look pissed.”
“I am,” I said. “I got fired. Job searching sucks.”
“Sorry to hear that,” she said. “Sounds like you need some job-searching hair and a little peace and quiet.”
“You read my mind,” I said, and she smiled and led me over to a chair.
True to her word, she didn’t talk to me much, just worked on my hair and let me sit and flip through a stack of trashy gossip magazines. I was in the middle of an article about some starlet’s latest stint in rehab when my phone rang.
I pulled it out and glanced at the screen. I didn’t recognize the number; maybe it was someone calling about an interview. I answered, trying to sound upbeat yet professional.
“This is Elliott Sloane,” a voice said. “I’m returning your message.”
I recognized that voice: it was the rude asshole I’d talked to earlier, the one who hung up on me. And who was apparently the guy I was trying to work for. Terrific. “Sounds like you decided I wasn’t trying to sell you something,” I said.
A pause. “I’d like you to come in for an interview,” he said.
We weren’t going to talk about the hanging up incident, then. Okay. He seemed like a jerk, and not necessarily the kind of person I wanted as an employer, but I might as well get some interview practice in. “Okay, sure,” I said. “When? I just got fired, so my schedule’s pretty open.”
Another pause. I fervently hoped that my bluntness was making him uncomfortable. “Tomorrow at 3:00, if that works for you.”
“Absolutely,” I said, fumbling around in my purse for a pen and paper. “What’s the address?”
He gave me an address in Midtown. We confirmed the time and hung up, and I put my phone away.
“I just got a job interview,” I told Tanya.
She laughed. “That’s how you talk to your future boss? You’ve got balls, Sadie, I’ll give you that.”
I sighed. She was right; I probably shouldn’t have been quite so confrontational with Elliott. I was short-tempered and impatient: my worst qualities. My mother always got after me about my inability to tolerate bullshit. She said that putting up with people’s crap was the mark of a grownup. Well, maybe I hadn’t made it to adulthood yet, but at least I let people know when they sucked. It was a public service.
On my walk home, I finally called Regan. Carter was right: she was my best friend, and she deserved to hear it from me, not second-hand from Carter. She took it better than I thought she would, and seemed relieved that I was already looking for jobs.
“What did you think I was going to do,” I asked her, “sit around in despair and gaze at my navel?”
“That’s probably what I would do,” she said. “So it’s not really that far-fetched.”
“Well, you know me,” I said. “I’ve never taken anything lying down.”
Regan made a skeptical noise.
I didn’t want to go down that road with her, so before she could start giving me any grief about my year-long pity party, I said, “Why don’t you get me a job at that club you worked at? I know how to shake my moneymaker.”
“You can’t call it that,” Regan said. “That’s awful. And no.”
“Why not?” I asked. “You did it. Easy money. I could use the cash.”
“You would hate it,” she said. “You would lecture all of the clients about how they shouldn’t objectify women. You would convince all of the dancers to unionize and then the club would shut down because all of the clients would leave. I think you can find a real job.”
“You’re no fun,” I said. “Anyway, I’m home now, so I need to spend the rest of the day working on my portfolio. You want to get coffee this weekend?”
“Of course. I want to hear all about the job search,” Regan said. “You’ll have something within a week. I’ve got a feeling.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said. She could be right. Stranger things had happened.
* * *
Two hours before my interview with Elliott, I stood in front of my closet, trying to figure out what to wear.
Carter had told me that Elliott was a hippie, which would suggest a floor-length skirt and an embroidered peasant blouse. But he sounded like a corporate asshole on the phone, which meant black pantsuit and silk blouse. But I was applying for a design job, and everyone expected creative types to wear something quirky and off-beat, like ordinary business casual dress would suck all of the artsy inventiveness straight out of our DNA.
I was at an impasse.
The perfect outfit eluded me. I wanted to look confident and capable, like I made grown men cry every day of the week, but I also wanted to look like good ideas were dripping out of every pore.
It didn’t really matter. It wasn’t like I cared about getting this job. Elliott was a jerk. I didn’t want to work for his stupid company.
But he would probably pay me a lot of money.
But I didn’t want to sell my soul to some Wall Street douchebag.
But… money.
I sighed and shook my head. I needed to make a decision. Fine: I would go all-out. I pulled clothes out of my closet. High-waisted black pants, sky-high hot pink heels, long-sleeved black leotard. Jade drop earrings. I pinned my braids into a knot on the top of my head, slicked on my favorite crimson lipstick, and looked at myself in the mirror, one hand on my hip.
I looked creative as shit. I would hire me. The woman in the mirror wasn’t really me, though. She was the person I’d been a year ago, and that Sadie was long since buried.
It would have to do. There wasn’t time to change again.
I took the subway to Midtown and walked the few blocks to the address Elliott had given me, enjoying the decisive sound of my heels clicking along the sidewalk. My father liked to tell me that 75% of success was faking it until you made it. I was never sure how he arrived at that exact number, but right then, I wanted to believe he was right. I wo
uld blow into Elliott’s office like a hurricane, and he would fall all over himself to give me a lucrative contract plus benefits.
And then… what? I would tell him to get lost, that I didn’t want to work for someone like him?
Get real, Sadie. If he offered me a job, I would probably take it. My parents didn’t raise a fool.
I watched the elevator numbers slowly tick up to the sixteenth floor.
The doors slid open and I stepped out.
Directly in front of me was a vacant reception area with a large paper banner tacked to the wall that read, “ZAWADI YA MAJI LLC.” A single light fixture above the receptionist’s desk served as the only illumination. Beyond the desk, a huge, almost entirely empty space stretched the full length and breadth of the building, with huge windows along the far walls casting rectangles of light onto the bare concrete floors.
Okay, creepy abandoned office, not exactly what I was expecting. I took a deep breath and took a few steps into the gloomy interior of the room. “Hello?” I called.
A scraping noise caught my attention, and I whirled around to see a person standing up from a desk shoved against one of the windows. The figure was back-lit by the windows, and too far away for me to make out any details, but from the height I guessed that it was a man. Elliott, no doubt, hanging out alone in this fright factory.
Bracing myself, I walked toward the mystery man, plastering a cheery smile on my face. If I was going to get murdered and dumped in an alleyway, at least I would look good doing it.
“Elliott Sloane?” I asked, as I approached.
“You must be Miss Bayliss,” he said, and I recognized that voice: deep like a distant clap of thunder. He came forward, away from the window, and as my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I was able to make out his features.
He was, quite frankly, the best-looking man I had ever seen. And I lived in New York, and saw models on the street on a somewhat regular basis, so that was saying a lot. He was tall—certainly over six feet—and had a surprisingly full mouth that was offset by the strong line of his jaw. His hair, so blond that it was almost white, was combed back from his forehead and buzzed fashionably short on the sides. He wore a suit and tie, and I wondered why he was so dressed up when he was the only person in the office. Not that I was complaining. There wasn’t much better in life than a good-looking man wearing a well-tailored suit.
Really, though, what on earth had Carter been talking about? This man was no hippie.
He extended a large, freckled hand, and I shook it automatically, feeling a little shell-shocked. Our palms touched. His felt rough and callused in sharp contrast with his perfect hair and nice suit. It was the palm of a man who worked for a living, and I couldn’t imagine this man doing a day’s labor in his entire life. I watched his hand completely enfold mine. It made me feel small in a way that sent a delicious shiver down my spine.
My libido, neglected for so long, sat up and took notice.
Oh no. Down, girl. No inappropriate lusting after rich weirdos. Especially rich weirdos who happened to be white. I had promised myself that I was done fooling around with white boys.
I licked my dry lips and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” With any luck, he wouldn’t notice that my voice sounded a little more squeaky than usual.
“Likewise,” he said. “Carter told me you’re very talented.”
He didn’t mean it as innuendo, but my filthy brain was happy to interpret it that way. I would have loved to spend a few hours showing him exactly how talented I was… in bed.
Shut up, brain. “You’d probably like to take a look at my portfolio,” I said, and felt myself blush. Portfolio wasn’t supposed to be a euphemism. “If there’s somewhere we could sit…” I glanced around the barren office space.
Elliott cleared his throat. “Yes. Well.” He looked at me, unblinking, and I waited, not sure where this was going. God, he was gorgeous. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” he said. “I’ll need to locate a second chair.”
I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. The whole situation was just so absurd. “Why on earth,” I said, “are you renting this huge space if you don’t even have an extra chair?”
“The company needs room to grow,” he said, very stiffly, like I had offended him.
Oops. So much for this job. Well, interview practice. I decided to roll with it and see how far I could push him. I took an exaggerated look around the room and said, “Yeah, I can see that you and your fifty employees are really in danger of outgrowing the available space.”
He smiled. It was a small smile, reluctant, but it was there, and it made him even more attractive. I was truly screwed. “Carter should have warned me about you,” he said.
“Yeah, well, he’s used to me,” I said. “Don’t worry about the chair. We can stand at your desk.”
The smile disappeared. “I’ll find a chair. Please wait for one moment.” He strode off into the shaded depths of the room.
I shook my head. What a strange man. I moved toward his desk, just a few feet away, and slid my coat off my shoulders. Then I took my laptop out of my bag. The wonders of the digital age: my portfolio was 100% portable.
I had everything booted up and ready to go by the time he returned, carting a plastic chair that looked like it had seen better days. He set it down beside me and crossed around to the other side of the desk, where he took a seat in an enormous, over-designed leather chair, one of those things with mesh and titanium and adjustable lumbar support, all the bells and whistles. That must have been where his entire furniture budget went.
I took a seat in the sad plastic chair. It wobbled beneath me on uneven legs.
“So, do you want to see my portfolio?” I asked.
I sat and watched him click through my portfolio, feeling oddly nervous. A job offer would be nice, but more than that, I wanted him to be impressed with me. It was so stupid. I didn’t know anything about him, but the focused way he stared at my computer made me want him to turn that intensity on me, to gaze at me like he wanted to understand everything about me.
I’d always been a sucker for a pretty face.
I had expected Elliott to give my portfolio a cursory once-over, the way people who didn’t know much about design usually did. But instead, he spent a long time going through it, frowning slightly, a small vertical line wrinkled between his eyebrows.
The minutes dragged on. Finally I couldn’t take it any longer. I cleared my throat and said, “I’ll be happy to answer any questions.”
“I don’t have any questions,” he said, without looking away from my computer.
Well, okay then. I crossed my legs and looked out the window, dangling one shoe from my toes. The view was completely uninspiring: an office building across the street, and beyond it, another office building. I wondered why Elliott had chosen this space as his office. Maybe he was a masochist, and enjoyed working in bleak, creepy environs. He needed to invest in a rug, or at least some decent overhead lighting. A few throw pillows. Maybe a comfy sofa for naps.
Shit, maybe I should just try to get a job with Google.
Elliott’s voice interrupted my interior design fantasies. “You can do web design, is that correct?”
I turned my head away from the window and said, “That’s right. If you look—I think it’s number 29, with the—”
“The red background,” he said, clicking. “Yes, I see. And can you code it as well?”
I shrugged. “I did that one from scratch, but it’s just the CSS and HTML to make it look nice. I can’t do any of the back-end stuff.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to have any experience with software engineering,” he said. “That’s fine.” He clicked a few more times, that line between his eyebrows making a reappearance, and then looked up at me and said, “I’d like to offer you some work.”
I sat back in my chair, trying to decide how I felt about that. Excited? Terrified? “What do you have in mind?” I asked.
“It would just be a
contract position,” he said. “Frankly, I can’t afford to hire a full-time employee at this point.”
“Benefits and whatnot,” I said. “I understand.”
He nodded. “There’s a major international development conference in four weeks, and I’d like to have a full branding package by then. Business cards, website, informational packets. I’ll pay you $100 an hour.”
That was a good rate: on the high end for freelancing, but not so high that it felt like pity or a personal favor. Elliott was a strange bird, but he fascinated me, and he couldn’t possibly be a worse boss than my last one. And it would get Carter and Regan off my back. I took a deep breath and said, “When do you want me to start?”
He smiled at me, wide and genuine, and it hit me like a punch to the gut. I wanted this man: fast, hard, and as often as he liked.
And now he was my boss, which meant he was totally off limits. I had really put myself in a bad situation. It was going to be a long, frustrating four weeks.
Suck it up, Sadie. Sexual frustration was better than eviction or starvation.
“You can start on Monday,” he said. “If that isn’t too soon.”
“Monday is fine,” I said.
“Good,” he said. He stood up and extended his hand. I scrambled to my feet and shook hands with him, feeling that same staticky charge as our skin met.
Lord help me.
“I’ll see you Monday morning at 9, then,” he said.
“I’m looking forward to it,” I squeaked, and got myself out of there before I did something dumb.
FIVE
Elliott
Every night, I returned to Africa in my dreams.
I dreamed of the town in northern Uganda where I lived for a year, and my house there, and the amarula tree outside where the neighborhood children waited each morning, first for a glimpse of the strange white man, and then, after they grew to know me, to say good morning and show me whatever treasures they had accumulated in the past day: an empty Coke bottle, a new puppy. I dreamed of the dirt road out of town, and the thorny cattle kraals where the herds spent their nights, and the women walking to the market in their brightly-colored skirts.
