Emee
“No more hockey players !” I shout into the air above my keyboard. “I hate to generalize, Milt, but really, they are the worst, worst clients.”
It’s crazy to think I have professional hockey players as clients in the first place. I pinch myself every day wondering how I ended up here.
The irony is thick as syrup.
Yeah, it’s a thing. A cuddlist.
A lucrative thing as well.
I adjust my phone so it’s sitting at a right angle to my keyboard on the glass top of my lacquered white desk, then blow at a speck of lint on the screen, clicking my mouse, analyzing and adjusting my schedule.
5:15 am Wake
5:15 – 5:30 am Use restroom, brush teeth, moisturize face, take morning supplements
5:30 – 5:45 am Sunrise yoga, drink twenty ounces of water
5:45 – 6:05 am Shower, towel dry hair, try new frizz taming product
6:05 – 6:30 am Gratitude journal, pick out clothes, get dressed, make bed
And so it goes. Organization calms me. When I know what’s coming, I feel in control.
Milton, one of my undergrad professors turned friend and colleague, sighs on the other end of the line.
He’s been my biggest champion as I started my practice, and even co-signed on this office space.
The building is brand-new, and the leasing agency never would have taken a chance on me without his backing.
The building is so new, in fact, mine is the only occupied office on my floor right now.
“Come on, Emee,” he says. “The league pays well. Think of that thirty-acre listing in Metamora you showed me at lunch the other day. I’m trying to help make your Martha Stewart dreams come true. I want you out of that slum lord hovel you’re in.”
It’s cliché, but after reading Anne of Green Gables as a little girl in the tin can we called home, I always dreamed of living on a farm. I thought that’s where happiness lived. Combine that with my obsession with all things Martha Stewart and I’m on the hunt for my own Turkey Hill.
But, even with my generous per-session pricing, the dream farm that just came on the market requires a down payment that my bank account isn’t ready to support.
Thanks in part to my inability to say no to my brother.
With a degree in kinetic psychology, there was a high probability I would be waiting tables before settling in bitterly as an underperforming suburban real estate agent. So, I’m grateful for where I’m at.
But impatient.
“Milt.” I keep my voice even, applying a coat of Tart Cherry lip gloss, rubbing my lips together before continuing. “The last player you sent me kept burping and…well, something far less appropriate than burping. Let’s just say, he needed to lay off the chili.”
“I’m begging you. This guy’s got a two-game suspension which is still under review, and could be up to five games if he doesn’t show proactive steps toward anger management. Between the two of us, I’m sure we could get him back only missing two games. Maybe three.”
He sounds stressed, and although I respect him, I also know he’s a mad fan of the Detroit Blades. And, I owe him. Big.
“What did he do?” I ask, ticking away on my keyboard, arching my back, working to break the habit of slumping when I’m at my desk.
“Well, most recently he took umbrage with a hand gesture from a member of the opposing team and proceeded to knock out four of his teeth, as well as punching the referee attempting to stop him. Off the ice, last week he rammed a guy’s car in the parking lot of Lucky’s Steakhouse.
Seven times. Apparently, the guy parked his Hummer across three spaces at the front of the restaurant, including one of the handicapped spots. ”
“Sounds charming.” I say my lips tucking into a frown, looking out the window with a stab of jealousy at a helicopter circling a high rise, wondering if one of my billionaire clients is inside.
I bet whoever is in there could buy their own Turkey Hill a hundred times over.
My desk chair squeaks as I lean back, reaching toward the African Violet sitting on the corner of my desk. I pinch off a wilting flower, remembering the hot guy that gave it to me on our first date a couple months ago, after my friend Anita signed me up for Hollar, the latest, hottest dating app.
The guy was clever and funny in our chats, and finally after a week of back and forth on the app, we set up a coffee date.
He greeted me wearing a Tom Ford suit and lavender tie that matched the blooms on the little plant he offered as a gift.
He was also eighteen, not the twenty-six on his profile. Turns out, he was here on a student visa, which was expiring, and he thought ‘I looked like a nice, lonely lady’ and would be willing to help him out.
And marry him.
Funny thing, that was one of the best dates I’ve had since I set upon the Lewis and Clark style expedition that is online dating.
A pounding on my office door tightens the invisible binding around my chest as I pop a finger on the mute button. It’s after hours, I have no more clients scheduled, and my floor is empty except for my office.
My heart leaps into my throat when my brother’s voice comes through the door. “Carrot.” He uses the nickname he gave me when we were kids, so I already know he’s not stopping by with a maple bacon flavored cheesecake.
Which is a thing. A good thing, as Martha Stewart would say.
He knocks again, harder. “Let me in. I know you’re not snuggling some lonely billionaire in there, it’s after five.”
The muscle in my forehead ticks as I reach under my desk and press the button to buzz him inside.
He bursts through the door, and it takes only a few seconds for me to assess that he’s lost more weight. His eyes are more sunken than when I saw him a week ago for breakfast and gave him rent money.
His dark hair is slicked back, olive skin showing a few new sores, reminding me of how different we are. Not only in looks, but the opposing directions our lives took.
We were like peas and carrots growing up, hence my nickname. But even with my red hair, our parents never could keep straight who was peas and who was carrots.
I point to the cream-colored leather sofa under the expansive windows to my left, making a ‘be quiet’ gesture with my finger to my lips, which he acknowledges with a salute. An homage to his other nickname for me, which is ‘sergeant’.
The late-afternoon April sun streams around him as he flops down on the sofa with a dramatic sigh, retrieves his phone from the back pocket of his dirty jeans, and starts scrolling.
The phone I pay for.
I draw a deep breath, my head falling back, gripping the front edge of my desk.
I give it a solid shove, sending my chair spinning watching the ceiling turn into a twisting white hurricane.
I have too many men in my life, and none of them give me orgasms.
What wrong turn did I take that I spend most of my waking hours with men, many of them attractive and most of them wealthy, and I’ve yet to find one I’d let get inside my pants?
I drop my foot to the floor, stalling my chairy-go-round with a jolt, and consider the color-coded schedule displayed on the screen of my Mac.
Then I shoot a glance at Benjamin, noting a fading bruise under his eye and the streak of dirt on the arm of the sofa where his left foot is resting.
The band around my chest ratchets down and pressure builds behind my eyeballs.
“Please, I’ll double your hourly rate.” Milton says.
Now we’re talking.
I’m silent as he goes on.
“Playoffs are coming, they need him. This city needs him.” He clears his throat, there’s a quick pause, and I remember what my used car salesman grandfather always told me about negotiating. When they throw out an offer, let it sit there.
Whoever talks first, loses.
I hold my breath, fluttering my fingers under the auto dispenser of lavender hand sanitizer on my desk. A spurt of cool gel streams into my palm as I rub my hands together and wait.
One one thousand.
Two one thousand.
Three…
“Okay,” Milton’s exasperated voice comes through, “fifteen hundred. Fifteen hundred an hour, Emee. That’s as high as I’m authorized to go. For four sessions, that’s six grand.”
Ah, the sweet taste of victory with zero calories.
“Fifteen hundred a session,” I counter. “A session is forty minutes. If this testosterone tornado is one minute late, I cancel his appointment and I still get paid.”
Benjamin starts to cough on the couch, the horrible hacking sound growing deeper and more foreboding every week.
Pressure pops in my ears as I grind my molars. Benjamin pushes onto his feet, fist covering his mouth as the cough turns to a choking sound. He takes four long strides toward the hidden closet on the wall, slapping his palm onto the door and helping himself to a Coke from the mini fridge inside.
Then he turns my way, pointing to his head, squinting at me. “What’s with your hair?” he says, as I flap my hand, gesturing for him to shush.
“When?” Milton sounds relieved. I aim my mouse over to the available time slots on my screen as he adds, “I’ve got him waiting outside if you can fit him in.”
I roll my eyes at Benjamin’s wet slurping sounds as he mockingly twirls his finger in an imaginary tendril of hair.
I bought this…beach waver contraption off a Facebook ad and used my lunch hour today figuring out how to use it to tame my Lucille Ball red curls into pageant-worthy spirals. It worked, even if I agree I look a little ridiculous.
“What’s his name?” I ask Milton, clicking on the ‘add new client’ tab in my scheduling program.
“King Hertzof,” Milton says.
Coke sprays from Benjamins lips onto my white carpet, which takes what’s left of my fifteen hundred dollar per session dopamine high and stomps it out.
“King Hertzof?” Benjamin repeats, his bloodshot eyes snapping wide, swiping the back of his hand across the dripping soda on his chin, as droplets of the brown liquid seep into the carpet in front of his worn, mud-covered Nikes.
“That’s his name?” I question on a sigh, not caring which one of them answers.
“Yep.” Milton confirms.