Chapter 3
Chapter three
George
My key barely clears the lock before Baxter hits the door like a small, enthusiastic freight train.
I brace against the doorframe, briefcase swinging, as seventy pounds of golden retriever attempts to climb directly onto my chest.
The moment he barrels into me, something in my shoulders gives way. I had not realized how much of the day I was still physically carrying until Baxter's affection knocked straight into the center of it.
"Yes, hello, I live here," I tell him, and he wags harder, as if confirming this is excellent news.
I set my briefcase on the entry table. Work ends here. At least, in theory. This is home.
The late evening light cuts across the hardwood floor in long amber slabs, and for a moment the house feels almost warm.
Baxter follows me to the kitchen in tight circles, his nails clicking a frantic rhythm against the tile.
I measure out his kibble, two and a half cups and not three, regardless of the deeply persuasive expression with which he suggests he is being denied his most basic civil liberties.
While the scoop levels off, my phone vibrates against the counter.
Mother.
I answer on the second ring, because ignoring her generally creates a larger problem.
"George," she says briskly. "Have you seen Eleanor's latest email?"
"I have."
"Good. We're adding a dinner on Thursday before the engagement party. Very small. Immediate family and a few close friends."
I pour Baxter's kibble into his bowl.
"That seems reasonable."
“Do you have someone to bring?”
Baxter freezes mid-tail wag, as if even he understands this is now a high-stakes portion of the conversation.
“Yes,” I say. There is a brief pause, followed by my mother sounding more pleased than any human being should sound over a logistical update.
“Oh good. I thought you would never get a girlfriend.”
I lean back against the counter. “Thank you for that ringing endorsement.”
“What’s her name?”
“You haven’t met her,” I say carefully.
“That is not a name, George.”
“No,” I say. “I would prefer to let her introduce herself when you meet her.”
Another pause stretches across the line.
"Well," my mother says finally, "we'll correct that soon enough."
"I'm sure we will."
She hangs up before I can respond.
Baxter headbutts the cabinet below the counter.
It is his standard protest against any pause in the feeding process.
"I've made a significant error in judgment," I inform him.
He stares at the bowl. I set it down, and he collapses into his dinner with the single-minded focus I typically reserve for depositions.
I lean against the counter and pull up Tessa's contact in my phone. Tessa Bloom, Client Liaison. She'd been unexpectedly easy to coordinate with about this whole thing, almost breezy, which I find either reassuring or faintly destabilizing depending on the hour.
I put my phone face-down on the counter.
Baxter finishes his bowl and looks up at me with the profound, liquid patience of someone prepared to wait forever.
"Walk first," I say, retrieving his leash from the hook. "Then I need to work."
Immediately, he sits perfectly and I clip the leash to his collar, which is more cooperation than I receive from most people in a given week.
Outside, the neighborhood has settled into its quiet evening version of itself, porch lights warming the oak-lined street. Baxter sets a brisk pace and I let him, my mind already sorting the problem into manageable components.
I should prepare a brief. Something structured, specific, and professionally delivered would neutralize the variables before they could compound.
My match would need names, histories, behavioral expectations, the precise social geography of a Maddox family event.
I pause while Baxter investigates a particularly absorbing patch of grass with forensic dedication.
I wonder briefly whether Tessa keeps candidate wardrobes on file, then recognize the thought as irrelevant and discard it.
Baxter looks back at me over his shoulder as if he's heard something I haven't said aloud.
"Don't," I tell him.
He trots on, tail arcing in a slow, unbothered sweep.
By the time we round back onto my block, I have a working outline in my head.
Back inside, I change into the particular worn oxford shirt that constitutes my version of casual, which Baxter acknowledges with a single thump of his tail.
I open my laptop at the desk, and he performs his nightly ritual of turning twice before flopping at my feet with a sigh of theatrical finality.
The document opens clean and white. I type Maddox Wedding Brief as the title and feel the particular satisfaction of a problem becoming a project.
I pause, fingers over the keys, because the title is just not quite right.
I change it to Girlfriend Brief and move on, even though it looks absurdly direct in twelve-point font.
Before I reach the first header, I frown. Matches at ERS usually involve paperwork, and a great deal of it. NDAs. Contracts. Layered agreements with enough legal cushioning to survive minor warfare.
But when I spoke with Tessa today, she'd implied it was already handled, that my fake girlfriend was waiting and ready for the first event.
I text her: Do I need to fill out or sign more paperwork?
She responds with a winky emoji: No additional paperwork required on your end.
I stare at the screen longer than necessary. The emoji feels unserious. Possibly mocking. Possibly playful.
I purse my lips and text back: I'll provide a briefing document shortly.
Her reply arrives in under a minute: lol ok sure.
I read it twice, uncertain whether it constitutes professional confirmation or something else entirely.
Eventually, I classify it as confirmation and return to the document.
Section one: Principal Background (George Maddox).
I feel faintly strange typing out things like my favorite color, my favorite food, and other details I haven't organized for anyone's benefit since early childhood.
I note that I'm a data analyst, the oldest child, that my younger sister Eleanor is the one getting married.
I avoid any mention of net worth. Tessa will see these documents, and I have made it this far without anyone at work knowing that I am, in the most inconvenient possible sense, secretly a billionaire.
Baxter drops a tennis ball onto my foot.
"I'm working," I say, without looking down.
The ball rolls two inches. He nudges it back against my foot with his nose.
I pick it up, throw it into the hallway, and listen to the scramble of his retreat.
Section two: how we met. I stare at the blinking cursor.
The obvious answer is through work, but my family knows I work for a matchmaking firm.
Any hint that this is manufactured and they would sense the inconsistency immediately, with the unerring instinct of people who have been suspicious of me since adolescence.
I type: We met at a gallery opening.
It is at least plausible, and gives this woman conversational material that won't require her to know anything about contract law.
Baxter returns at speed, drops the ball, and looks at me with luminous expectation.
"One more," I say, and throw it again.
I add a note in the brief's margin: confirm candidate's comfort level with art as conversational topic.
It occurs to me I know very little about the kind of person Tessa typically selects for cases like this.
What does she look like? How will she carry herself in a room full of people trained since birth to identify pretense?
But Tessa has one of the highest placement success rates at ERS. If anyone can find the correct person for this situation, it's her.
I draft section three about acceptable behavioral parameters. When I reread it, I wonder, with a flicker of discomfort, whether it sounds less like a brief and more like a list of complaints about people.
Baxter resettles at my feet, warmer and heavier against my ankles, a counterweight I hadn't known I needed.
I finalize the document at nine forty-seven with six sections, two appendices, a family reference guide with photographs I'll attach separately.
It is thorough. It is precise.
It is, I acknowledge in the privacy of my own skull, mildly excessive.
I attach it to an email, then hesitate with my finger over the trackpad, rereading the subject line: Briefing Materials. Please Review. I add: I recognize this is detailed. It will make things easier.
I send it before I can overthink it.
Baxter lifts his head and looks at me with calm, uncomplicated certainty, as if the outcome of this entire scheme is already settled and I'm simply the last to know.