Chapter 7
MAYA
I return to my desk to find a furious looking Katherine glaring at me from her desk.
She crooks her finger at me, beckoning me. I walk into her office.
“You’re back early,” I say, trying to adopt a breezy tone.
“Sit,” she snaps. “You’re having meetings behind my back with Zach Knight?”
“It’s not like that. He was already in there with Cecil and the others when I arrived.”
“He was?”
“He called me in to ask me something about the presentation deck, then Cecil and the other managers had to leave.”
Her office also has floor-to-ceiling glass windows looking onto gorgeous views of the Hudson and the sprawling Chelsea rooftops.
Sometimes I catch her staring at me. It’s most unnerving.
I prefer it when she’s staring out of her windows, but she often looks lost and lonely.
She doesn’t give much away about her private life, and I still don’t know if she’s single, or dating.
She’s a closed book when it comes to her personal life.
I guess we’re both similar in that respect.
“Don’t fuck with me, Maya. What game are you playing?
” she hisses in a low voice so no one else will hear.
I jolt. She’s never sworn at me like that before.
She’s sworn occasionally, but it’s rare.
She usually just gets heated and makes nasty comments, or belittles me, making me feel small, like something she should tread beneath her feet, but swearing?
No. It tells me she’s more than a little worked up.
“I’m not playing at anything. I was getting on with the work you set me.” I tell her what happened, and how I ended up being in that room with Zach. I want to reassure her it wasn’t what it seems like. She glances at me, while also peering at her screen.
“The son of a bitch,” she mumbles, eyes widening. “The meeting hasn’t been diarized.” She’s wondering if Cecil did this knowing she wouldn’t be here.
I rush to reassure her. “I wouldn’t get paranoid, Katherine. I can’t see why Cecil would do that. They weren’t having a secret meeting. You only had to step out of your office and you would have seen them.”
“But I wasn’t here,” she grinds out.
“If they wanted to keep it a secret from you, they would have held it on another floor.”
She seems suitably reassured by this. Then, “What were they talking about?”
“I don’t know. Cecil summoned me in because they had questions about the presentation deck.”
“What questions?”
“Zach wanted to know about the performance overview slide, and about the year-on-year growth.”
Her eyes narrow. “What did you say?”
“That he needed to speak to you.”
She lets out a visible sigh of relief. I use this opportunity to say what’s been needling me. “I noticed that we have some unpaid bills.”
“Have you been snooping around?” Her tone is accusatory.
“I’ve just been doing my job, and I noticed a few things.”
“Stay in your lane, Maya,” she warns. I sit quietly, sensing that she hasn’t finished. She’s so tightly wound up, her quietly contained fury festers underneath. “I’d be careful if I were you. Try not to be alone in a locked conference room with Mr. Knight. People will make assumptions and talk.”
“It wasn’t locked!”
She shoots me a pointed glare. “Why did Cecil leave?”
“He and the other managers had to go to another meeting.” The small flex along her jawline tells me she’s still stewing about something. “May I be excused? You’ve given me a lot of work to do and I need to get on with it.”
“I want it done by noon. I want that report on my desk.”
She can’t be serious. Even for her, this demand is ludicrous. “But that report will take me two hours to put together!”
“Get it to me within the next hour.” Her voice is drop-dead quiet. Underneath that calm but hard exterior, she’s seething. “If you’ve got time to talk to Zach Knight then—”
“He asked to see me.”
“I don’t know what’s gotten into your head and given you these delusions of grandeur. Zach Knight is out of your league. You’re mistaken if you think he wants to talk to you about the stupid little presentation deck you put together.”
I’m taken aback. She’s not wrong, because I do think Zach had an ulterior motive for wanting to talk to me. But Katherine’s face is flushed, and that, along with her swearing, makes me feel like a pawn in a game where I’m not even sure what the rules are.
***
I got the report done in the hour. It wasn’t as polished as I’d have liked it to be, but I did what my boss demanded.
Later as I head home, I get a text from Zach just as I’m about to open the door to my apartment. I pause to read it.
Zach: I’d call you, but I don’t think you’d pick up.
Naturally, I don’t reply, but I see bubbles appearing. He’s typing something.
Zach: Dali. Friday night? 7pm?
I quickly look up the restaurant. It’s a new fancy place. Of course it would be. I’ve never been and I only know of it because they did a big launch on opening and invited lots of celebrities. Trust Zach to want to go there.
Maya: Sounds good
Zach: Pick you up at 6.30pm?
I shiver in shock. Absolutely not.
Maya: I’ll meet you there
He’s always so quick to offer and help, but there’s no way I’m having him pick me up.
He needs to realize that we are not continuing from where we left off.
He’s typing something again, so I wait patiently.
I’m still waiting a few minutes later, wondering what he’s writing that’s taking so long, when his text lands.
Zach: Great
I frown, and find myself wondering what he typed out and then deleted.
Dinner with him is not a good idea, but if I do this, then it’s done and we can get on with our lives again.
He says he wants to catch up, but there’s an undercurrent of something between us and my mind drifts to him more often than is good for me.
I find myself thinking of him, when I should do my utmost to forget him.
Nothing good will come of this, ever, but after this he’ll have to leave me be.
I walk into my apartment, set my bag by the door and slide off my shoes. Then I scream at the sight of Fleur, wearing green mulch on her face. She’s wearing a silk robe, her hair tied up in a towel, all I see are big eyes peering at me from a green Wicked-Witch-of-the West face.
“I borrowed two avocados. I’ll get you some tomorrow,” she says. “I’m going on a date.”
I frown, because the two are so not related. “Another one?”
“I’m a woman with a mission.” She folds her arms, looking smug.
“Why homemade? Why don’t you just buy a good mask?”
“Would have, but this is urgent self-care after emotional trauma.”
“More emotional trauma?” Her stories often make me laugh out loud, but they also worry me. There are a lot of psychos out there.
She nods. “I went on another date, using Dave’s dating app. It’s not going well.”
I’m starting to get annoyed by Dave. I’ve never met him but he uses the coworking space all the time.
Apparently, he’s working on a dating app, and Fleur, bless her big, warm, helpful heart, is testing it for him, much to my shock.
He’s slowly building up a database of subscribers and she’s on it, and going on dates with men suggested by the app.
I’m not surprised that most of them have been horrendous.
I don’t even want to think about the sample size of people he has currently subscribed to it.
“Do you need to keep testing his for him? I’m scared one day I’ll come back and .
..” I don’t want to finish. At thirty-three years of age, Fleur has an ever-expanding list of dating disasters.
She could write a book about the men she’s met.
Men who lie about their height, and weight.
Men who look nothing like their profile pics.
Men who bring their mothers. Men who pick their noses and eat them.
Men who only talk about crypto and blockchain, as if it’s a personality trait.
If her bad dates were a Netflix series, she’d have six seasons ready to roll.
“Dave’s a sweet guy! He’s helping me, not the other way around.”
I disagree. Fleur has a heart of gold and she can’t see when people are taking advantage of her. I’m tempted to go to the coworking space and have a word with him.
“Who are you seeing tonight?” I ask, and wonder if, going forward, I should demand she send me a photo of the guy she’s meeting, his name and address, car registration number and the location where they’re meeting.
Just in case.
“A guy who is emotionally unavailable, but spiritually perfect,” she replies.
I gasp, shocked. “He said that?”
She nods. “It was on his profile.”
“That doesn’t even make sense. What does he mean?”
“I guess I’ll find out tonight.” Avocado drips dangerously close to her eye.
“You’re really going out tonight? You said last night was a disaster. Maybe take a break in between, for your sanity,” I suggest.
She shrugs, then touches her face gingerly. “Almost dry.”
“You could just … eat an avocado. I’m sure the nutrients will get into your body that way.”
“I could but this way it goes straight into the skin and works it magic directly.”
“I see.”
“How was your day?” she asks, cheerily.
My stomach tenses. I’d rather not talk about it. I haven’t told her about my past, that I was a housekeeper’s daughter on a billionaire’s sprawling estate. I also haven’t mentioned anything about the Stella VIP event, so I don’t know how to casually bring the subject of Zach up.
“Why don’t you tell me about your date last night?” I deflect. Pretty soon I’m going to need to diarize Fleur’s dating events just so I can keep up with them. She’s currently seeing a few guys every month. First dates, all of them, and she always comes back disillusioned.
She groans. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“Start at the beginning.”
“Okay, but first, I don’t have long before I rinse this off. Can you help me pick between the black dress and the green one?” She wanders into her bedroom. I follow, then lean against the doorframe as she takes both dresses out.
She holds them both up. “Which one?”
I point to the green one. “It makes you look slightly wild and dangerous.”
“Cool. I want him slightly afraid.”
I chortle. She must be such a hoot on her dates. So cute and funny and unique. She’d be an amazing catch for the right guy. It’s heartbreaking what she’s having to sift through.
“Last night?” I prompt, as she slides the black dress back into her closet and lays the green one on the bed.
She rolls her eyes. “The guy wanted me to come home with him, otherwise he wasn’t going to pay the bill.”
My eyebrows raise. “You’re joking.”
“That’s what he said.”
“I’m shocked and disgusted.”
“See what I mean? No way was I going to go home with him. I can afford to settle my share of the bill, for goodness sake!”
“What do these men want?” I am horrified. And glad that I’m single and so focused on my career, although that isn’t really going anywhere at the moment.
“We know what they want,” she says matter-of-factly, rummaging through her makeup bag. “But I have principles, and besides, he wasn’t all that. He had jowls.”
I laugh. “Jowls are not a crime.”
“They are when they’re combined with entitlement. Stupid prick,” she snaps. “He said he was a brutally honest person.”
I laugh at the absurdity of it. Of him, and that he found it normal to talk to my friend the way he did. “A loser like that is not worth your time.”
“I know! So I left. Paid for my half of the bill and got the hell out of there. I walked home. Ate a whole bar of chocolate, cried for a bit—”
“Fleur!” My heart breaks. I was working late last night and I didn’t get back until after ten. She must have been in her room. I go hug her but step back seeing her dried-up avocado face. She nods, telling me she’s fine. That she’s not falling apart.
“It was only for a bit, and then I remembered I’m fabulous, and amazing, and a great catch for the guy who truly deserves me.”
That’s my girl. “Yes you are.”
She touches her face again. The avocado is starting to crack. “I’m ready. Let me jump in the shower. I’ll be quick.”
I retreat to my bedroom and change into leggings and a soft sweater. I re-read Zach’s texts again.
Friday. Dinner.
My stomach tightens again. The restaurant he’s picked is super exclusive and will come with the type of menu that would make an ordinary person’s jaw drop.
A restaurant like the one Cecil took me and Katherine to once, where menus don’t have prices.
I’m going to insist on paying my share, because there’s no way I’ll let him cover it.
I don’t care how awkward that makes things.
I can afford it. What I can’t afford is the implication. Like Fleur’s loser date. I hope Zach understands what this is, and what it isn’t, but I’m starting to think he’s noticed my coldness and he knows better than to try to make dinner be anything else.
“I’m out, and I’m running late!” Fleur shouts from her room. “Come and tell me about your day.”
I saunter into her room. She’s changed into her dress, and is dusting powder across her cheeks. Her damp hair hangs loose around her shoulders.
“Enough about me. Tell me about you.”
My heart skips a beat, or three. I’m not sure I’m ready to tell her, to even talk about this out loud. I can’t say a word to my mom, ever. “I …” I hesitate, then force myself to speak. “I might be meeting someone on Friday.”
Might? You are.
I can’t get out of it now.
She turns slowly to face me. “You might be what?”
“It’s not a date-date.”
“Maya Santiago. You’re going on a date … to meet a man, I presume, and you only tell me now?”
“It’s not a date. It’s just dinner,” I manage to say. “With someone I used to know many years ago.”
“Oooohhhhh!” Her eyes flash with excitement. “A long-lost love? Second chance? High-school romance? Love rekindled?”
I ignore her million questions as heat creeps up my neck. “It’s really not a big deal.”
She lets out a small, incredulous laugh. “I’ve lived with you for sixteen months. Sixteen. And this is the first time you’ve ever said anything like this.” She steps closer, eyes bright with makeup and curiosity. “Who is he?”
I run my hand across the back of my neck, feel the sweat on my palm. “Just some guy,” I say evasively.
“What guy?”
“It’s all you’re getting.” I’ve already said too much.
She studies me for a moment, her expression softening. “Do you want it to be a date?”
“No!” I cry. “We’re just catching up. One dinner. That’s it.”
She smiles gently. “Okay.”
I nod, mostly to convince myself. “It’s not a date.”
“Of course it’s not.” She turns back to the mirror, starts dusting powder across her face. “But you’re still going to need help picking an outfit.”
That’s true. “I probably will.”