Chapter 25 – Anna
TWENTY-FIVE
ANNA
She woke up feeling like there had been this shift inside her. So she pulled the covers up over her face.
Monday Morning
Me: I’m sick.
E.G.: You’re not sick.
Me: I have a fever of a 102.
E.G.: Bullshit. You’re embarrassed because you got snot on my shirt. Get over it and get your ass to work.
Me: I’m pretty sure it’s the plague.
E.G.: It’s not the plague. Is my 9:00 am coffee going to be late?
Me: Yes! Because I’m sick and have the flu and can’t come to work today.
E.G.: You’re lying. Now man up and get your ass in here and start acting like an adult.
Me: Are you saying I was behaving like a child? Because I cried on your shoulder?
E.G.: Not Thursday night. Then you were feeling a lot of complicated emotions. Which makes sense. I was delivering body blows. Now be an adult. Come to work. Face the music.
Me: Adulting is hard.
E.G.: Yes. Where the hell is my coffee???????
Me: Be careful. I’m might spit in your coffee.
E.G.: With the cold foam on top, I doubt I’ll notice.
I put my phone in my back pocket and sighed.
I was already in line at the damn Starbucks.
I’d had a hundred conversations with myself this morning, why it was perfectly okay to take a sick day and not have to see him. Then another hundred conversations that predicted he would see right through that and I didn’t want to look like a coward.
Except the closer the bus got to the office, the more I started to panic. I don’t know what happened on Thursday. I don’t know why I broke down like that. I just did. I could look at it maybe a little more closely, but I really didn’t want to.
I was delivering body blows.
Yeah, there was nothing good about digging too deeply into that. I was embarrassed that it happened and I didn’t want to see the person who had witnessed it.
That was fair, wasn’t it?
Apparently not.
“Order for Anna!”
I stepped up to get my order. His venti nitro with sweet cream, his one and only daily indulgence. My tall latte with sugar free vanilla. I didn’t always treat myself, but I thought today warranted it.
I took the tray and made my way down the sidewalk to our building complex. When I stepped inside our office door it was just past nine.
I guess I hadn’t hesitated all that long.
Dropping my stuff off first, I made my way to his office, coffee and newspapers in hand.
“Wow!” he exclaimed upon seeing me. “What a miraculous recovery.”
“Venti nitro cold brew with sweet cream cold foam and one lugee,” I said, as I put it down in front of him.
He smirked. “As if that would put me off my coffee. Sit.”
I sat. “Are we going to do a whole thing?”
“Whole thing?”
“A breakdown analysis of Thursday, because I would rather not.”
“God, no,” he said. “That was all way too heavy, don’t you agree?”
I did, but still. “This is what adulting looks like? Willful denial?”
“Yes. Avoidance is the key to success. Keep up, Flowers. You and I are on the same page. How about we get back to business?”
That seemed like a good plan. “Okay, what do you have for me?”
“I sent you an email,” he said, without looking at me. “Five new proposals. I want a first glance assessment of all of them by EOD.”
“You know you sound like a dork, when you talk in acronyms like that,” I told him.
“You know you sound like a wounded Disney princess when you cry.”
I scowled at him.
He scowled back.
His scowl was better.
“Fine. I’m leaving. Just tell me one thing. What does your family think of me?”
I couldn’t imagine what they thought. About my past, about my behavior. About E.G.’s behavior toward me. It all had to seem abysmally strange.
“They like you more than me.”
“Then my elaborate plan to replace you has worked,” I said, tapping my fingers together like an evil genius.
“Seriously, they want to adopt you.”
“I should let them. That would make me your sister and then I could be as obnoxious to you as I liked.”
His body froze, and his expression shut down, and just like that, we were back to weird.
“Or not,” I added, in denial about where that went weird. “I’ll just go and read those proposals.”
“You do that. Oh, and Flowers?”
“Yes, boss?”
See what I did there? Threw in a little boss action. Him. Boss. Me. Assistant. Nothing to see here, folks.
“We have an appointment at three o’clock today. I put it on your schedule.”
“Okay. What’s it for?”
“We’re going to the DMV. You’re going to apply to get your driver’s permit and then I’m signing you up for driver’s ed.”
My jaw dropped. “I’m pretty sure you can’t make me do that.”
“Driving is a life skill, Flowers. One you should have. Don’t fight me on this.”
“I’m going to learn. Eventually,” I said defensively. “When I need to.”
“You need to now,” he insisted.
“Why? I get everywhere I want with public transportation, and if that doesn’t work, I can spring for the occasional Uber.”
“Because I might need you to drive at some point. For some reason. Maybe if we have to travel out of state. Whatever. The point is, it’s something you should know how to do, and as of now, your job requires it.”
There was absolutely no reason to be annoyed by this. It made sense. It’s not like I didn’t want to learn how to drive. It wasn’t some kind of phobia holding me back. I just hadn’t made it a priority.
Still, I just didn’t like his high-handedness about the whole thing.
“You know, you may be my boss, but that doesn’t mean you’re the boss of me in all things.”
“You are correct,” he said, dismissing me, and turning his attention to his double monitors. “But in this…I am. Three o’clock. We’ll need to leave here by two-thirty.”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
I had this ridiculous urge to stick my tongue out at him, but I refrained.
After all, I was an adult.
Grant
I pretended to track the S&P500 figures, which I already knew, but I wasn’t seeing anything on the screen.
That had gone surprisingly well. Much easier than I’d anticipated. My family flew back to Florida yesterday with the final demand that I do right by Anna.
I’d taken their words to heart. If my behavior on Thursday was any indication of the kind of person I could be to her, then it had to end now. I’d reached that conclusion before, only to back away from the decision.
Now, there was no hope of holding on to anything rational with Anna.
With her, I was nothing but irrational. My ability to cause her pain was…unimaginable.
I needed to obey my family and do right by her.
Step one. Teach her how to drive. It would only further her independence.
Step two. Improve her professional and financial circumstances to the point where she would never worry about food and shelter again.
Step three. Cut her loose.