Chapter 8
One Week Later
The day starts out just like all the others. I get to the office on time, and my phone starts ringing off the hook as soon as I sit down. I have clear instructions from Ms. Greaves about who I can put through and who I can’t, and all the other calls have to be screened through her first.
To screen the calls, I put the callers on hold, dial Ms. Greaves, tell her who it is, and then wait for her answer. It’s an easy enough job, and I have no idea why they are paying as much as they are to do it, but I’m not complaining.
Last week during lunch, I had looked through all of my bills and finally started to make arrangements to pay some of them off. I wouldn’t get a paycheck for another week, but I was already making plans. Maggie Mae would be paid first, then the credit cards with their exorbitant interest rates, and then finally the student loans.
Typically, the calls keep me busy from nine am until eleven am, and then they taper off. But Ms. Greaves makes sure that I don’t stay idle. Last Friday, she showed me Mr. Wild’s expense reports and showed me how to go through them and compare the receipts that he had turned in. Apparently, everything that he decides to spend money on is acceptable, no matter how great the amount, as long as there are receipts that go along with them.
“Here’s the expense report for last week. You remember what to do?” Ms. Greaves hands me the file of freshly printed pages.
“Yes.” I nod. I have no idea why they are still printing the expense reports and printing the credit card expenditures, but Ms. Greaves insists that it’s necessary.
“Okay, I expect them to be done by the end of the day.”
I nod and open the file. The expense report doesn’t take all that long. What takes the majority of my time is staring at all the insane things that Mr. Wild has spent his money on. Or rather, the company’s money on.
$3,000 on a flight to Las Vegas.
$6,000 on a new suit.
$10,000 for a one night stay in a penthouse.
And last, but not least, $3,000 on a fucking shower curtain!
There are tons of tiny expenses, too, but these are the most insane. People work hard to make three grand a month at some shitty job, and here he is spending that much on a shower curtain. It makes me sick! Who does he think he is?
My temper is getting the best of me, but I have to talk to Ms. Greaves.
“Ms. Greaves, can I ask you something?” I ask. “Here’s a receipt for a $3,000 shower curtain. Is this really appropriate to expense through the company? It seems like a personal purchase.”
I do my best to hide my disgust, but it is oozing out of me anyway.
“Ms. York.” Ms. Greaves looks up at me through her glasses. “It is not your job to make judgment calls about Mr. Wild’s spending habits. As I told you before, you are here just to compare the expenses to the receipts.”
“I know, I know. I just thought-”
“Yes, I know you thought. But, you see, my dear, you’re not really paid to think,” Ms. Greaves says.
Shaking my head, I go back to my desk. She doesn’t have to be so rude. I am making a perfectly legitimate point! I am angry with myself for even bringing it up, and I am angry at her for being such a bitch about the whole thing. Who does she think she is, talking to me like that?
That afternoon, just as the day can’t get any longer and time seems to have stopped moving at all, the doors to one of the internal offices burst open, and a long-legged woman with gorgeous blonde hair and epic breasts comes out. Her makeup is running down her face, and she wipes her tears with her shoulder.
Two large men, security guards I guess, escort her.
“You’re such an asshole, Gatsby! I’m going to sue you for this!” she yells, turning back toward Mr. Wild’s office, but the security guards nudge her toward the elevators.
“Don’t touch me! Don’t you touch me!” she yells at them. She is holding a large cardboard box in her hands, filled to the brim with all sorts of stuff: office supplies, pictures, personal things, and a fica plant.
I have seen this scene in the movies. She’s getting fired.
“You’re an asshole, Gatsby! Can you hear me? I bet you can!” she continues to holler as the three of them wait for the elevator.
“And you too, Ms. Greaves. You can just go fuck yourself!”
I look at Ms. Greaves, but she doesn’t even take her eyes off her computer screen. She doesn’t make one movement to acknowledge the woman’s presence. That makes the woman even madder. She continues to rave and rant until the elevator doors close and even after that probably, but she is out of earshot.
“Who was that?” I ask Ms. Greaves.
“Ms. York, we don’t gossip in this office.”
“I’m not gossiping; I’m just asking about an incident that we both clearly saw occur. Or are you going to deny it?”
I can’t believe that I called Ms. Greaves on her shit like that. I’m not really confrontational, but after this morning she is really getting on my nerves.
I must’ve caught her off-guard.
“She was Mr. Wild’s assistant,” Ms. Greaves says after a beat. “Mr. Wild was planning on laying her off for some time now. You were brought in to fill her spot.”
I take a step back. “Really? I had no idea.”
“As I said before, you working here, in this office, is just a trial period. If things went well here, you were going to get promoted to his office. Behind those doors.”
She points to the mahogany doors with elaborate carvings from which the woman just came out.
“Why did she say that she was going to sue him? Did they have an affair?” I ask.
Ms. Greaves finally looks up from her computer screen. She takes off her glasses and lets them dangle around her neck.
“Ms. York, that is none of your business. And in this office, we do not discuss such things.”
I nod; immediately I regret bringing it up.
“It’s bad enough that they do it in magazines all the time. Even reputable ones, like Fortune,” Ms. Greaves mumbles under her breath.
I don’t mean to be such a gossip. I’m really not in real life. I have just never really worked in an office like this before, an office veiled in so much secrecy. I really wish that a few other people worked here besides Ms. Greaves. Then I could get a more accurate picture of what is going on.
I go back to my desk and try to get back to work. But no one calls, and the expense reports are all done. My mind starts to wander. Magazines? Did Ms. Greaves say that Mr. Wild is written about in magazines? Fortune?
Of course! How could I be so stupid? I should’ve done this days ago, but I finally go online and look up Mr. Wild. What prevented me from doing this before is that I was afraid to find out that he is some grotesque old man. But now that he is being gossiped about in magazines, I have to see for myself.
And there it is! An article in Fortune magazine on one of the most eligible bachelors around – Mr. Gatsby Wild.
For some reason, the picture of him is taking a while to load on my phone, so I scroll down and skim the article.
“Gatsby Wild, only 27, is about to become a billionaire after Wild International goes public…Is famous around the LA club scenes…often seen rubbing elbows with models and celebrities…”
And then I stop reading.
His photo loads.
I drop my phone.
Tristan! Gatsby Wild is Tristan from the lake.