Chapter 2 – Grant
TWO
GRANT
His initials were E.G., so he guessed it made sense.
The Office of E.G.A. Associates
Two Weeks Later
“This is going to seem like a strange question,” she said, leaning against the door frame of my office. It was at the end of the day, close to seven at night. “But what exactly do you do?”
I only had to raise an eyebrow to communicate with her that I didn’t approve of her slouching. It was a thing she did frequently, like she was perpetually uncomfortable in her shoes. However, I found it unprofessional.
She stood straight and then looked at the chair across from me. I lifted my chin and she took a seat.
Communication with Anna didn’t require a lot of effort.
In the two weeks we’d been working together, I’d learned a few things about my assistant. Very intentionally, only a few things.
I didn’t want a buddy or a friend. I didn’t even want a co-worker, really. I wanted a body who did the job and didn’t ask too many questions, which was invariably what all those MBA graduates would have done.
Tell me your secrets.
How did you get here?
How can I replicate your success?
My answer was always the same anytime anyone asked me shit like that.
None. Of. Your. Business.
Sometimes I threw a fucking in the middle of it just to make the point I was annoyed.
Anna never asked me any of those questions.
She was as anonymous as an assistant ought to be. Her clothes were unspectacular, her hair, always shiny clean, but never styled. If she wore makeup, it didn’t register with me.
All the better for her to blend into the background.
Like a wraith who moved in and out of my office. Picking things up, dropping things off. We didn’t talk if we didn’t have to. I took satisfaction in how little she registered on my brain.
But I had learned if there was something to lean on, she found it. If there was a corner to disappear into, she sought it.
Even now as she sat across from me, her whole body slouched into the chair, I was suddenly reminded of how old she was.
Not sure why it bothered me, but on some level it did.
At thirty-six, I was by no means old enough to be her father, or some avuncular figure in her life, but still she made me feel like I’d lived a hundred years longer than she had.
“You’re asking me this now?”
“I’m not going to lie, I’ve had to fake it with a few of the calls I’ve placed on your behalf. Some of these people act like it’s God calling and I’m like…Are you sure you’ve got the right guy because I have yet to see a miracle?”
“What if I told you I was a criminal mastermind, in charge of a vast network of people who do my bidding? Would you resign?”
She laughed and the sound was rusty and hearty at the same time. “Hell, no. I have health insurance. So what do you do?”
“I invest in talent,” I answered.
“Talent? Like actors, singers, that kind of thing? Are you some kind of remote Hollywood agent?”
Did I want to answer any of this?
It was late. I was tired. She had to be, too.
She’d worked until the end of every day with me for the past two weeks, which was never before eight at night.
She’d done this with no complaint and no explanation of why she needed to leave on time.
Despite the hours being listed as eight to five in the employment contract.
In my continued effort to know as little about her as possible, I had no idea where she went when she left this office. She had no idea where I went, either.
This completely generic office space, in this completely generic building complex on the outskirts of downtown Houston was our entire world together.
I planned to keep it that way.
“No,” I finally said.
She waited a beat, then nodded once. “Good talk then. Whelp, see you tomorrow.” She stood and smoothed out the wrinkles in her slacks.
I liked that, too.
Anna didn’t press me. There was absolutely nothing she expected from me, including polite behavior.
The relief was stunning. I didn’t have the energy to try with people, so I didn’t. But there was still a part of me that felt their disdain at my behavior. Rightly so. I was rude.
I could have let her leave for the day and that would have been the end of it.
But if after two weeks of employment she still didn’t know what I did, also felt unprofessional. On my part. Because I hadn’t explained the operation to her.
“Sit, Flowers,” I told her. “You need to know what we do.”
She shrugged, then sat down again.
“Seriously, weren’t you even mildly concerned you were working for a criminal organization?”
“You’re too pretty for prison,” she answered unapologetically.
She’d said during our interview that she was not afraid of anything and that was something else I’d found to be true.
Two days into the job, I’d asked her to place a call to the CTO of a nationally prominent tech company and she hadn’t blinked. Simply asked if there was a direct number because she was doubtful the chatbots were going to let her get that far.
“I’m a venture capitalist,” I told her. “It means I find what I think are talented people with good ideas for companies and I invest in them.”
Her jaw dropped. “Wait? That’s a thing in real life? You’re talking about the Shark Tank.”
I sneered. I hated that silly show with its television personalities. “I am decidedly not talking about the Shark Tank. What I do is real.”
She took a moment to stare at the generic mug on my desk. I told myself it was for an afternoon cup of tea, but the truth was, I hated tea.
“You mean if I have a good idea for a company, I tell you about it and you just give me money to make it happen?”
“I do.”
“What if I fail?”
“That’s the risk I take. I don’t back a lot of failures though. It’s what makes me, well, me.”
She smiled and it changed her face. Made her softer and entirely too vulnerable.
I wondered if she knew that. She wouldn’t like it. She wouldn’t want anyone to see any chinks in her armor.
How was that something I already knew about her?
“Now I get it,” she mused. “That’s why your phone is ringing off the hook with people who only want five minutes.”
“Which you will never give them.”
She laughed. A slightly menacing sound. “And that’s why all those fancy people in the business suits and the leather billfolds were lined up in the lobby a few weeks ago to apply for this job. They thought they were going to learn all your money ninja tricks.”
“They did.”
“But you got me instead. Just a normal, boring, old assistant. I don’t even have a business idea.”
“I’m aware. It’s been helpful.”
“Be careful. That almost sounded like a compliment. Don’t want to mess with your growly-boss image. You need me for anything else tonight?”
“No.”
“Night, then, E.G.”
She turned and left the office without any more fanfare.
I thought about how she referred to me.
E. G.
It had been a conversation on her first day.
What do I call you?
Mr. Allen was my father. No one called me Evan. But Grant, which my closest friends and family called me, felt too personal.
I didn’t want personal, I wanted professional.
She actually came up with E.G., and it worked.
E.G. was fine.