6. Res
6
Res
“ G ood morning, Res!” my manager says with clearly feigned enthusiasm when she sees me at my desk Monday.
“Morning, Taina,” I mutter as I sip on my latte.
“Have a good weekend?”
“You know. It was the weekend. Too short as always,” I reply. “Couldn’t really enjoy it until Sunday since I got sick.”
That’s the excuse I gave my manager when I suddenly took Friday off to fly out to Chicago to interview the prominent son of a cult leader. I’ve learned that sprinkling your lie through normal conversation, even when you don’t need to, gives the lie more legitimacy so people don’t ask too many questions.
“I’m so glad that you’re feeling better,” Taina says with a wide, fake smile that instantly puts me on alert.
“Whatever it is, no,” I say, turning back in my chair.
“Res.”
“No. Get someone else to do it,” I say. “I’m already working on two extra projects along with the rest of my duties.”
“But this one is really important. A really important client that came to us as a third party to audit their finances,” Taina says .
“You said that about the last two external audits that you put me on.”
“Res. Don’t make me have to do my job and be your manager,” she whines with a dramatic groan.
I turn to her. “On the reward shop, there’s this really expensive automatic litterbox. I’m three hundred points short for it. And that’s in addition to the reward points you’re going to give me throughout this project.”
“Deal!”
“I’m not done.”
She groans again but gestures for me to continue.
“I want the whole week of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s,” I say.
“You’re killing me, Res.”
“So are you.”
“Fine!”
“You heard that?” I ask the next cubicle over.
“Yep,” Tessa says, popping up over the divider.
“I hate you,” Taina says as she walks away.
“I don’t know what this project is,” I say after her.
“I’ll email you!” she shouts.
“You lucky bitch,” Tessa says. “Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s.”
I shrug as I continue to work. And by continue to work, I mean editing the audio of my interview with Jaxson since I’m two weeks ahead of schedule for my actual job. But no one needs to know that so they can find an excuse to give me more to do.
I don’t even know why I’m editing this audio. I haven’t even decided I’m going to post it. I’ve got so much other audio that I could be editing that’s actually scheduled to go up in the next few weeks. But every time I’ve tried to do something else or forget about it, I come back to this. I’ve been coming back to this since I hightailed it out that hotel and rescheduled my flight back to Georgia for the very same night.
“I’m going to convert you to the Sovereignty,” I hear him say again through my earphone.
“Never,” I hear myself reply.
“I’m going to invade your entire life. I’m going to consume it. I’m going to figure out everything you desire. All your wants. All your needs. All your fears. Then I’m going to shatter you. Break you into thousands of little pieces and make myself the only one who can put you back together again. And you’re going to be grateful for it, Snow White.”
This is the part I keep coming back to. This is the part that keeps me waffling between deleting this and pretending it never happened or posting it.
If I delete it… it’ll be like it never happened. Sure, Jaxson threatened to stalk me. But there was a reason I paid my own way to Chicago and left as soon as I realized what deep shit I’d gotten myself into. He doesn’t know my full name. He doesn’t know where I live. So there’s no way he could ever track me down. So while it was scary in the moment, ultimately, the man’s threat was empty. Just an example of his own self-importance. Common in people who have been raised in cults and drunk the proverbial Kool-Aid, even if Jaxson claims he thinks it’s all bullshit
But if I post it… well. I’m no one. My hundred thousand podcast subscribers audience is nothing. In the grand scheme of things, I won’t harm the Sovereignty. There’s nothing even particularly damning on the recording besides him admitting that he thinks the entire belief system of the Sovereignty is bullshit.
Posting this also wouldn’t help anyone. He told a story about becoming a pathological liar at six years old because he found out he could get away with it. He told me he believes it’s bullshit but stays for power. He told me that he’d convert me. Nothing new. No new insight. Just twenty minutes of hot air and an empty threat.
That should be the end. It’s useless trash.
So why do I find it so fascinating that I can’t hit the delete button?
I’m still waffling over it in my head as I do a final check amongst dozens that I’ve already done for an audit. Then I get the five-minute reminder for the meeting Taina scheduled for me to meet with our new client.
I close out everything on my computer and make sure to pocket my external hard drive with all my interviews on them before going to the conference room to meet with the head of the client’s accounting department.
She’s already waiting for me when I get there.
“Shelly,” I state.
“Lauressa?” Shelly asks.
“Yes. But everyone calls me Res.”
“Nice to meet you. ”
I shake her hand and say, “You too. So. Let’s start with talking about what you all need.”
“Honestly. I really don’t know what we need. It’s an entire mess.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“You look over it all and tell me,” Shelly says.
Two hours later and trying to sort out all the billing, invoices, credits, and debits later, I have to agree with her.
“This is insane,” I say for the umpteenth time.
“Tell me about it. The last guy we had over it was my boss who got caught embezzling funds,” Shelly mutters. “I was happy they promoted me from within, but that also means that they gave me his mess and now I have to fix it all. Luckily, the new person I directly report to, the owner, is understanding about it. But there are not enough work hours for me to sort this out, and no one under me can do it. It was literally cheaper to contract a third party once we did the numbers.”
“How did you hear about our firm?” I ask.
“We… It’s stupid, really,” she says.
“I’m sure it’s not.”
“I just happened to be scourging through the companies we were considering on LinkedIn to see if we had any third party connections with people who worked there, and I came across your page.”
“Ugh. My LinkedIn is a mess,” I say.
“It is,” she admits. “But it’s also the only one with a pop of personality in your profile picture, so you stood out.”
“I’ve been meaning to change that. I was going through a rebellious red hair and fuck professionalism stage. ”
That is to say, that was back when I decided to do whatever I wanted and allow myself to give in to my every whim, want, and need. I ate what I wanted. Dressed how I wanted. Dated who I wanted. Fucked who I wanted. After spending my entire life being told what to do based on a book of fairy tales and some old men’s interpretation of it, I’m lucky my rebellion against everything I was raised in never turned self-destructive. It was a near thing, though.
“And now you’re going through a rebellious purple one,” Shelly jokes. “But it was a good thing. I thought, if she’s bold enough to have big, bright red hair, a row of piercings in her ear, and a nose ring on a job networking site, she has to know her stuff. I’m glad to see I was right.”
I shrug. That’s one way to look at it. I’m just glad the hiring manager didn’t check my LinkedIn when I got this job a couple of years ago. I’m lucky I’m at a job where they don’t say anything about my piercings.
“Don’t speak too soon. You and your boss may just hate me for what I find by the time I’m done with all this,” I warn.
“No, I think we’ll probably be best friends,” Shelly says while glancing at her phone. “Have you had lunch yet? I’m new to the city too and still don’t know any good places.”
“You like Chinese food?”
“I don’t hate it.”
“I’ll take you to the best place in town. They have the best bourbon chicken in the state,” I assure.
“Bourbon chicken… what’s that?”
“Oh, you sweet summer child,” I say as I lead her out.
“Your jacket,” Shelly points outs before I can get far.
“Oh. Thanks,” I say, truly grateful. Someone might actually steal this if I left it.
I got it from my old job, right out of college, for having perfect metric scores across the board. I would have preferred a raise. But it’s a surprisingly sturdy jacket. Cool enough to wear when it’s not so hot, but warm enough for Chicago in September. The only drawback is the logo on the collar, but it’s too good a jacket for me to toss.
“Now,” I say as I pull on my jacket. “Best bourbon chicken in town?”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”