Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 73372 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73372 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
I like this. I like how a file goes from chaos to order under my hands. I like that there’s a right way to do it and a wrong way, and I can tell the difference.
What I don’t like is the rest.
I don’t understand why the female associates take meetings behind closed doors with no case files on the table. I don’t understand why a woman named Sabine came out of Partner Larroux’s office at six-forty-five on Wednesday with her lipstick reapplied and her blouse buttoned one hole lower than it was when she went in. I don’t understand why the clients who come through the lobby are flanked by men who don’t carry briefcases but do carry something under their left arms that makes their jackets hang wrong.
I file these things in the yellow category. Things that don’t fit but feel important.
Blythe catches me frowning at a file on Thursday afternoon. “Problem?”
“This retainer agreement.” I turn it toward her. “The billing structure doesn’t match the service description. They’re charging for litigation support, but the scope is listed as ‘client relations.’ That’s not—that’s two different things.”
Blythe takes the file. Her eyes move over it fast, practised. Then she closes it and hands it back.
“Tab it blue,” she tells me. Her voice is careful. Neutral in a way that isn’t neutral at all.
“But it’s not compliance. The billing code—”
“Tab it blue, Daisy.”
I tab it blue.
FRIDAY. END OF MY FIRST week. I’m at my desk early because the coffee disaster taught me to build in a margin, and I’m three files deep in the Marchetti account when the air in the office changes.
I don’t know how else to describe it. The fluorescents don’t dim. The temperature doesn’t drop. But something moves through the firm like weather through a valley, and everyone adjusts at once, without speaking, without signalling, as if they all heard the same frequency and I’m the only one without a receiver.
Sabine puts down her phone. Partner Larroux comes out of his office. Two associates in the corridor turn on their heels and walk toward the lobby. Blythe, at the desk across from mine, goes still for a half-second, then opens a compact and checks her teeth.
I follow the current.
He’s standing at the reception desk.
Tall. Dark suit, no tie. Hair that’s dark enough to be black in this light, pushed back from a face that makes my brain short-circuit and produce nothing useful for a full three seconds. He’s signing something the receptionist has put in front of him, and the pen moves in his hand the way expensive things move, without effort and without sound, and his other hand rests in his pocket with a stillness that suggests he has never once in his life been seven minutes late for anything.
Every woman in the lobby has repositioned. Sabine is closer to the desk than she was a moment ago. The two associates from the corridor have found reasons to be carrying things past reception. Even Kaye is here, emerging from the executive suite with her graphite jacket buttoned and a smile that is warm and professional and something else I can’t name.
“Mr. Almazov.” Kaye extends her hand. “We’re so glad you’re here. Conference room three is ready for you.”
He lifts his head from the registry.
His eyes are grey. Not the soft grey of overcast skies. The grey of something mineral, something compressed. He takes Kaye’s hand, and the smile he gives her is perfect, wide and easy, a smile that costs nothing and promises everything, and it doesn’t reach his eyes.
I know because I’m close enough to see.
I’m close enough because I forgot to stop walking when my brain short-circuited, which means I’m now standing several feet from the reception desk holding a Marchetti file with colour tabs fanned out like a paper peacock, and I’m openly, catastrophically, obviously staring.
He sees me.
His gaze tracks from Kaye’s face to mine, and it happens in less than a second, and in that second something moves behind the grey: an assessment, a calculation, an inventory taken by a man used to cataloguing everything in a room. His eyes drop to the file in my arms. The colour tabs. My coffee-stained blouse hiding under the navy jacket. My flat shoes on the marble floor.
The smile changes.
It’s still wide. Still easy. But something about the angle of it tightens, and for one beat I have the feeling I have been read from cover to cover by a man who does this for a living.
Kaye is saying something. Conference room. This way. He turns to follow her. He is a few steps past me when he glances back.
Just once. Over his left shoulder. His eyes find mine like he already knew where I’d be.
Then he’s gone. Through the glass doors, into the conference room, and Kaye pulls the door shut behind them, and the lobby exhales.