14
I arrived at the office the following morning at 9:15, carrying coffees and a box of Montgomery Donuts.
Stuart looked up from his desk at the sound of the door opening, and his brow furrowed. “We start working at nine.”
“Good morning to you as well,” I said cheerily. “Coffee?” I placed one of the cups on his desk. “And once you give me a key, I can be here earlier. But I’m not getting here early just to sit outside the door.” I cleared a spot on one of the chairs by the door and set the donuts down.
“I’m here by eight,” he said, smelling the coffee before taking a sip.
“I swear I didn’t lace it with arsenic to steal your job.” He looked up in alarm. “The donuts are another story altogether. Eat those at your own peril.”
Stuart shook his head but did look over in interest at them. No one could resist Montgomery Donuts.
Still in my jacket and hat, I strode purposefully to the back office that Michael had come out of the day before. “What do you think you’re doing?”
I looked at Stuart over my shoulder. “Bringing the boss coffee. Like a good secretary.”
“I’m your boss.”
“Now, Stuart,” I said, turning to face him. “That just isn’t true. Because you work for Michael, and he hired me. Now don’t you worry about what I’m doing and go help yourself to one of those donuts.”
“The poisoned ones?”
“I don’t need poison,” I said. “I’m going to take your job on my own merit. You wait and see.”
I should have knocked. Especially after Larry. But it would have ruined the period on my sentence to Stuart, so I did not. “Coffee?” I asked as Michael glanced up in surprise, a phone receiver held to his ear. He nodded, and I placed the coffee in front of him and then retreated, closing the door behind me.
“Which desk is mine?” I asked Stuart as I removed my gloves.
“I don’t care,” he said, head still bent over his desk.
I looked around the office. “I suppose you’ll need to move, then.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll need a phone, assuming you still want me answering calls. And the only desk with a phone is the one you’re sitting at.”
He glared at me. “We’ll get another phone.”
“Lovely. Where are you planning to put it?”
“I don’t have time for this. Why don’t you call the phone company and get another phone installed for you to use.”
“I’d be happy to,” I said. “But you’ll still need to move so I can use the phone.” If he had brought me coffee, I wouldn’t trust it based on the look he was giving me. But the phone rang. “Would you like me to get that?”
Scowling, he answered the phone. “Landau campaign.” A brief pause. “NO! I told you that was no good.”
I spent the morning cleaning and organizing the office. If anyone walked in here, it was going to be obvious what a rinky-dink organization they were running. And I realized quickly that, even without having spoken to Michael other than to say the word coffee , I was going to have my work cut out for me here. They had no idea what it took to run a campaign.
“Where are the other campaign workers?” I asked Stuart around lunchtime when no one else had joined us.
“There aren’t any yet,” Stuart said gruffly.
“Well, who does cold calls and leaflets and press releases?”
“I do.”
“You do realize we need an actual staff if we’re going to have a shot at this thing, don’t you?”
“It’s grassroots still.”
I shook my head. “With all due respect, the time for grassroots and no help was a year—maybe two—ago. The election is less than six months away. We need a staff.”
“Are you planning to pay them?” I didn’t respond. “That’s why we don’t have a staff. I don’t even know how he’s planning to pay you.”
“The Washington Post said—”
“Who do you think told the Post that we had donors?” Stuart asked impatiently. “It’s the only reason they wrote about him at all.”
I took this in, the wheels spinning in my head. Cheap labor wouldn’t be an issue. But I wasn’t going to make the calls I had to make for that in front of Stuart. He would shoot down my plan. So instead I asked if he would like me to pick up lunch.
Orders in hand, I walked down the street toward Hofberg’s Deli. But I stopped at the pay phone a block away from the restaurant and fished a dime from my purse. I told the operator whom I wanted and waited.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice asked.
“Louise? This is Beverly Diamond—Mildred Gelman’s daughter.”
“Hi, Beverly. How’s Millie doing?”
“Same as she ever was. Just at my house these days.”
“Why at your house?”
“Long story—listen, Louise, I have a favor to ask you.”
Louise listened and agreed to help. I thanked her, hung up, and then hummed under my breath as I went to get the sandwiches. At this rate, I would have the manager job in under a week.