Damaged

Sophia

I sleep in until ten a.m. Or at least I attempt to. My brain is so primed to wake up early that I’m already tossing and turning by eight. I wish I could just sleep like the dead, but even waking late is too much to ask for.

I feel dirty. Worthless. How could I be so na?ve?

I brought James cookies. Maybe he wasn’t going to fire me before I did that. I thought I was being clever, but look what it got me.

I should never have thought he was anything but a cold and calculating businessman. And while I shouldn’t take him firing me personally, I can’t help it.

I feel defective. The blow is not about losing the job so much as it is losing my self-confidence. Maybe the world does belong to ass kissers like Jessica. The double-major, tri-lingual try-hards.

I shouldn’t hate. Jessica does work hard. I’ll give her that.

I do a lot of staring at the ceiling and consider my life options before getting out of bed.

I know a one-year severance sounds like a great deal. I can take six months off and start job hunting then. But I’m not making enough to save as it is, so I won’t be able to afford to travel. And then there’s the hourglass on my income.

Knowing it will run out is sure to give me anxiety that won’t let me read every book I’ve ever wanted to in peace.

There’s no big win here. It’s never simple. It always sucks. I’ll have to start job hunting now, and maybe if I can get another income to stack on my severance, I can retire one year earlier to my crazy cat lady cottage.

I finally drag myself out of bed and cloak my shoulders with my comforter. Steve trails close behind me, his tail tickling my legs as I walk. I put on a pot of coffee and call my friend Alana.

She has the pleasure of not working a nine-five. She’s a concert violinist, and her current orchestra doesn’t start rehearsals before noon.

“Hey,” Alana says, sounding concerned I’m assuming for the call out of the blue. “What’s up?”

“I got fired,” I say plainly.

There’s a pause, long enough to make me frown. “Are you at home?” Alana finally asks.

“Yeah.”

“I’m coming over.”

I open my mouth, but before I can speak, Alana has already hung up. She texts me a couple minutes later saying she’ll be over in twenty.

At least I have good friends.

I put on athletic pants and a clean T-shirt and play with my hair until I don’t look like a sad, unemployed mess.

Alana shows up precisely twenty minutes later with two coffees and two cinnamon rolls. She has light-auburn hair and a baby face. Her round cheeks are often rosy even in warm weather, and in February they are nearly always ablaze.

We hug it out for a minute and sit next to each other on the couch.

“Don’t tell me it was your new boss.” Alana glances up as she accuses James.

“It was.”

“And what was the reason?”

“Officially, strategic restructuring. Unofficially, I brought him snickerdoodles.”

“You brought him what?”

I bring Alana up to speed on the incident the other night with my door, including his invitation to sleep at his apartment and how we ended up in the same bed.

Her jaw is slack by the end of it. “So, you’re telling me you slept in the same bed as James Callaway and didn’t have sex with him?” she asks like I’m leaving something out.

“I’m telling the truth.”

“Is there a patron saint of celibacy? If not, you should be canonized. Saint .”

“He is my boss. Was , my boss.”

“Oh please. You love that shit. You think it’s so spicy when people who aren’t supposed to be with each other do it.”

“When I like the guy, sure. James is an asshole. He fired me while I had one of my cookies in my mouth.”

Alana is quiet, conceding my point. “You should’ve punched him in the throat.”

I laugh out loud, and slowly, Alana does, too.

“But how much do you know about the guy?”

“Not much. Just what’s online, and it looks like he’s had his image scrubbed.”

“You know he killed someone, right?”

I recoil my head in disbelief. I haven’t heard anything like this. “Really?”

“No, seriously.” Alana leans forward. “I did a deep dive when I heard he was going to be your boss. I was reading just the other day that he was out with friends ten years ago when they came upon a sexual assault in an alley. The alleged rapist was killed. He took a brick to the brain, several times, apparently.”

“And it says James was the one who did it?”

“No, the police don’t have to name which friend did it since it was self-defense. It just says when one of the men attempted to stop the assailant, things turned violent.”

I don’t know what to think of this. James being capable of violence isn’t a surprise. “You had me scared for a minute,” I say. “I’m just glad he wasn’t accused of killing the girl next door.”

“It says he used a brick , . That doesn’t bother you?”

“He sounds resourceful,” I say and sip my coffee.

“I didn’t expect you to be defending the dude who just fired you.”

“I’m over it. New doesn’t stew.”

“Maybe you should stew.”

I shrug. “I got a year’s pay. He said he’d hook me up with a new job. I’ve had worse things happen to me in the last year.” By worse things, I mean Jake.

Alana purses her lips like she just remembers this. It’s a pitying look, and I hate it. She doesn’t even know just how much she should pity me.

“It’s not your year.”

“No,” I say, and the two of us squeeze hands. “It’s not.”

I wish I could explain just how much it wasn’t my year. How Jake had been cheating on me since we were sweethearts. And that even though he annoys me, my stupid heart won’t stop its savage pounding around James.

It’s my fault. I bottled myself up like this. And as close as I am to shattering the glass, I feel the words crash and pile up in my throat. I never said anything about the extent of my problems then, and I’m not going to now.

I just want a hand to hold.

“I have some good news,” Alana says, breaking the silence.

“What’s that?”

“I talked to Hailee this morning. She’s coming to New York in a couple weeks with Alex.”

“Oh, that’s great,” I say, but even I can hear the lack of enthusiasm in my voice. There was no exclamation point. Hailee makes me think of James because her perfect boyfriend is billionaire buds with him.

“Anyway, you two should hang out a lot while she’s here. You’re not working, and she won’t be either.”

I nod. I’m not looking forward to that. I’m happy for Hailee. She got her life together big-time in the last few months. New job. New boyfriend. New state.

She had always looked up to me as someone who had their shit together. I’m not looking forward to her finding out that I’ve fallen apart.

I eat my cinnamon roll, just so Alana doesn’t worry about me. But really my stomach feels like it’s being squeezed in a giant fist.

We talk for another half hour, but not about anything deep, and then before I know it, we’re hugging and she’s leaving.

I don’t want her to go.

I want to beg for her to skip rehearsal. Get Thai takeout for lunch and watch crappy movies with me all afternoon. But wouldn’t that be pathetic? I can’t make up my mind whether it would be or not before she’s walking out the door and I’m closing it behind her.

I kick off my athletic pants where I stand. They were a charade anyway. This was an underwear kind of day.

I go back to the couch and see that I have two missed calls from Richard. I’m sure he wants my keycard ASAP.

He’ll need to change all the computer passwords, too. The gallery is essentially a bank in terms of the assets it holds.

I sit on the couch, already dreading the prospect of how I’m going to spend an entire day to myself, when there’s a knock on the door. I look around first to see if Alana forgot something, but I don’t see anything.

Maybe she turned around because she realized the sheer amount of sadness I was hiding from her. Slim chance.

I’m sure her phone is in the cushions, and I’ll remain mute about the extent of my hurt the same as I did before.

I don’t put my pants back on, and I don’t look through the peephole. It’s about one second later that I realize these are mistakes. I open my smooth new door, and James Callaway is standing with a white cake box in his hands.

He has a few strands of hair in front of his face like it’s been a rough day, and his navy suit is wrinkled in the shoulders.

It’s not until his eyes travel down my bare legs that I shuffle step so I’m half-hidden behind the door. “What the hell do you want?” I try to be tough and look him in the eye, but I chicken out and focus on the cake box instead.

“I brought a peace offering. You didn’t sign those termination papers you were emailed yet, did you?”

“No.”

“Well…” James’s eyebrows perks. “Please don’t.”

“Do you care to share the reason behind your sudden change of heart?”

“Jessica broke her leg. Fractured her tibia and fibula, to be precise.”

“Oh my God, what was she doing? Is she okay?”

“Ice skating. She’ll be fine. But I need an Egyptologist. One who can walk, preferably.”

“I’m not as much of an expert as her.”

“But you know the basics?”

“Sure, but…” I shake my head. “What’s in the box?”

“Coffee cake.”

I sigh and regain a sense of pride by acting like I’m too good for this. I should slam the door in his face. But I can’t. I at least have to talk to him. “Let me just… get dressed.”

“Of course.”

I don’t tell him to wait or come in. I just shut the door. I take an extra minute after I throw my pants on before opening the door again. Letting him wait.

James is standing just as he was before.

“So, you don’t want to fire me?”

“Precisely.”

I’m not too proud to say no to being the second choice, am I? Is this shameful? Going to Egypt to look at artifacts is a dream. But it might be just as satisfying to say no. To get my pride back. Seeing James Callaway with a cake box in his hands is a sight to behold. He’s already been taken down a peg.

“Look, we’re adults here. How much?” James asks.

“How much what?” I say, even though I know exactly what he’s getting at.

“Your new salary for the year. How much?”

My hands are suddenly clammy. This is a once-in-a-lifetime deal for me. I have the upper hand over a billionaire. A part of me wants to shout out a million dollars, but for that kind of money, I’m sure he knows he could find some professor or expert willing to drop everything and fly to Cairo.

He raises a brow, waiting for my number. I think of the balls painting.

“Three-hundred thousand—”

“Done,” James says quickly. Way too quickly. Like he was expecting me to say a million.

“And ninety-ninety thousand.”

“Done.” I see his face twitch like this was an easy win.

Shit. Shit. Shit. I blew it. My one shot. “After taxes,” I add quickly.

“What?”

“That’s what I’d need after taxes to say yes.”

James looks at the ceiling, where he does some quick math. “So, about seven hundred thousand total?”

Hearing the number aloud takes my breath away. He tilts his head, waiting for an answer.

“Yes.” I try to nod casually. “Yeah, that’ll do.”

“Okay. But just for one year. You’re going to appraise and then inventory this collection. Afterwards, it will be decided if there’s still work for you.”

“I’d prefer it that way,” I say, like I’m unbothered by his further want to get rid of me.

“Sure. I’ll have it in writing before we leave. I’ll text you the details tonight, but the flight is tomorrow. Be ready to go first thing in the morning.”

“Sounds good,” I say. I feel my confidence return. The confidence he broke in the first place.

He turns to go, seemingly unhappy that he lost this round, but I decide I’m not done yet and hold out both hands. “Excuse me.”

James pauses.

“The cake?” I nod at the box.

He stares at me with those dangerous green eyes. Maybe this is going too far, but I don’t chicken out this time. I look right back at him with my hands out.

“Right. Enjoy.” He holds it forward but doesn’t let go right away.

He stares at me. Really stares at me. An expression that seems to bore through my skull and read my every thought. He can see this is a farce on my part. That I’m barely hanging onto this tough girl act.

I swear I see the corner of his mouth creep up an inch—an amused smile. He lets go and walks down the hall. When my door thunks shut, the sound doesn’t seem as loud as my wild beating heart.

I push James’s eyes away in my head. He’s hot, but four hundred thousand after taxes. This is the biggest win of my life, and to think it was seconds before I answered the door that I was going to run out to get three bottles of wine and just as many pints of ice cream.

The money is not enough to retire, but it’s enough to do whatever I want next.

I could fill my retirement account and not worry about having to work until my dying breath.

I could get a down payment on a house in Connecticut if I felt like it.

Holy shit. I don’t care that I probably could’ve taken James for a little more. The excitement lessens a little when I realize this money is for a year of work. A year working for the man who just fired me like I was nothing right after I thought we were getting along.

And it starts tomorrow. I’m flying across the world with him.

I open the box and stare at the cinnamon crust of the coffee cake. I’m trying to regain my feelings from the win, to have a victory slice, but my stomach is crumpled in a fist again. Only this time it’s James’s.

I can’t help but sense that this money comes with a price. And it may just be paid with my pride.

There’s too much business to dwell on though. The next thing I know, I’m calling Alana with the news and asking if she can watch Steve.

I decide to get some fresh air and go shopping. I don’t go all out, but I spend a couple hundred dollars on some pre-Egypt clothing to celebrate my new salary. I keep the clothes professional, more workwear, like I’m going for a dig.

The last thing I want is to be too dressed up around James after I slept in his bed like a creep.

I buy a couple linen shirts, black tanks, and flowy olive-green trousers. And just like that, my excitement is back. This is a dream job. An adventure.

Sure, we’re collecting artifacts and bringing them back to America so the financiers who buy them can brag about their mantelpiece. But I’m trying to not be a cynic. Some of the people who buy these artifacts will be passionate about their history.

Alana is downright worried I’m going to be killed. I had to convince her not to skip her rehearsal to come back to my apartment and try to talk me out of it. But that was before she heard how much I’d be making.

Going with him is a no-brainer. Even if James did brain some creep with a brick. I doubt we’ll even be working together that much. I’ll be doing assessments and inventory and be stuck in a back room if I had a guess. My cute outfits will be for the turquoise eyes of the sarcophaguses only.

Oh well. I am officially a glass-half-full gal. That’s something four hundred grand allows you to be.

Back home, I spend the evening packing and trying on all my outfits in the bathroom mirror. And yes, maybe I watch The Mummy . While it may not be an accurate representation of modern Egypt, it gets me pumped.

James texted me earlier to be in the apartment lobby at eight a.m. for the car to the airport.

I think about watching The Mummy Returns , a much worse film, because I’m not going to be able to get much sleep anyway. I decide against it, take a hot shower, and climb into bed. I’m finishing the day the same way it started—restless and staring at the ceiling. Only this time I’m victorious.

Until I hear something from above. From James’s apartment. I sit up to hear it better. It’s not the sounds of sex—it’s a woman’s laugh.

It’s brief and I just hear it once, but there’s no mistaking that’s what it was. It didn’t come from a TV. It had a real, echoey quality to it. I would almost prefer to hear the sounds of his emotionless sex than this.

There was an intimacy to it. James isn’t funny for everybody; he must like this girl. I hold one ear cocked to the ceiling, ready for the sounds of pleasure and bed creaks, but nothing comes.

A minute later, I’m beginning to wonder if I even heard a laugh. Or if I’m imagining things.

Things I don’t want to be real.

I roll onto my side and try to get some sleep. Who cares if James has a woman over, I ask myself, but from the way the question twists my insides, I’m afraid the answer is me.