As I walked to my office, I noticed that there was a young woman sitting in front of my door. She was pretty, in a girl-next-door way and completely engrossed in something on her phone. I cleared my throat.
“I don’t know who you are, but I would like to get into my office, and you appear to be blocking my way.”
The young woman looked up. Her eyes were a startling green and for just a moment I lost myself in them. And then she spoke.
“Are you Mr. Rake?” she asked, getting to her feet and dusting off her skirt.
“That’s what it says on the door,” I said, gesturing to the plaque above the door to my office. This is odd, I thought. Most of my clients make appointments and never first thing in the morning. Plus, she didn’t look like she had the money to hire someone such as myself. Her clothes were neat, but not expensive. She looked more like a secretary than the rich wife of a cheating husband.
“I’m Bernadette Saunders. I have an interview with you this morning, for an assistant position.” She glanced at her watch, but looked away quickly.
She looks like a secretary. My prior thought came rushing back. Of course she looked like a secretary, she was applying to be one. To be mine, in fact. I had completely forgotten that I had spoken to her on the phone yesterday and set up the interview. Soon after the call, I’d gotten a lead on a client’s wife and had spent the rest of the day chasing down the lead. It turned out to be a dead end, but I had been up late working on it and slept in a bit this morning. I glanced at my watch. It was 9:00 a.m.
“And what time was our interview?” I asked.
“8:00 a.m.,” she answered, a bit timidly.
“Ah well, sorry about that. I was busy with a case.” I didn’t clarify that the case was last night and I was busy sleeping this morning. I unlocked the office door and gestured for her to enter.
“It’s fine,” Bernadette said, but I could tell she was lying. It didn’t bother me much. She would either do the job or she wouldn’t.
I immediately went over to my computer and started it up. For a few minutes, I didn’t even realize that Bernadette hadn’t moved from the entrance of my office. I finally looked over at her. She looked bewildered.
“Is something wrong?” I asked, looking away from her and back to my computer.
“No, nothing’s wrong,” she stammered, doing an even worse job of lying. “You just have a lot of stuff.”
I looked up again and imagined looking at my office from her eyes. Yes, there was a lot of stuff, but it was part of my job. I had to stay well informed. There were books on human psychology squeezed into a tall bookcase and gossip magazines were in stacks on the floor. Most available surfaces had haphazard piles of my notes, ideas on leads or better ways to investigate. And there were a few half-empty coffee mugs laying around, but that was only to be expected. I had to put in a lot of late nights in my line of work.
“It’s all part of the job,” I said briskly. I was starting to go through my emails to see if I had any new client requests.
“Even this?” she asked, holding up a tabloid magazine and looking just a tiny bit smug.
I smiled right back. “Yes, of course. Especially that. Do you know how much time I can save tracking down some of my client’s spouses when those magazines do half the work for me?”
“Oh, I see.” She deflated a little. “So, you primarily find proof that spouses are cheating? That’s what Emily said.”
I didn’t look up this time. “Yes. My clients come to me wanting proof their significant others are cheating on them, and I get them that proof.”
“But what if they aren’t?”
“Aren’t what?”
“What if they aren’t cheating? I mean, surely sometimes people are wrong.”
I did look up at her then. Her eyes were wide with curiosity. For a moment, I thought she looked so . . . innocent. I doubted that she had ever had her heart broken. If my experience was anything to go on, she’d find out what that was like eventually. “They always cheat. Monogamous love is a flawed social construct that is proven time and time again not to work. If the spouse isn’t cheating, then likely my client is cheating and just hoping their spouse is as well to assuage their own guilt.”
“For a love detective, you sure seem pretty cynical about love.”
“It’s great for me,” I said with a smile. “Ensures that I have plenty of business.” I got up and walked over to her. She was pretty, but not gorgeous. She was like your friend’s kid sister who grew up to be really cute. Her dark auburn hair was up in a bun and with her hair pulled back, the freckles on her face were more obvious. She looked like she was playing the part of a librarian with her pencil skirt and glasses. But there was something endearing about her, something warm. The pencil skirt showed a very nice curve of her butt and though her blouse was modest, I could see she was well-endowed in the chest area as well.
“Do you want the job?” I asked.
“Wait, you’re offering me the job? But I haven’t given you my resume or interviewed with you,” Bernadette said as she fished around in her purse for a resume.
“You either can do the job or you can’t. Besides, it’s not rocket science, so I’m sure you’re qualified. Unless you don’t want the job.” Really, I had no interest in listening to her tell me about other boring office jobs she had done. I was pretty sure she could file papers and answer the phone, since even a trained monkey could do that. And if she couldn’t, I would just fire her.
“No, it’s not that,” she amended quickly. “I’ve just never been offered a job before interviewing for it. And to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what you are looking for. I mean, I figure standard admin duties.”
“Yes,” I said, a bit exasperated. “Basic administration duties. Filing and organizing. You can answer phones and whatever else. Well? I need to get to work. Are you going to take the job or not?”
Bernadette looked uncertain for a moment but decided quickly and nodded. I figured she must be desperate for work to accept a job from me, but I wasn’t going to argue.
“Thank you, Mr. Rake,” she said, extending her hand for me to shake. “I would like the job.”
“Call me Edgar. Mr. Rake makes me sound like my father,” I responded, ignoring her proffered hand.
“When would you like me to start Mr.—um, I mean Edgar?”
“Well now, of course. You can start, I don’t know, organizing stuff.” With that, I returned to my emails. Inconspicuously, I glanced at her several times to see what she would do. I half expected her to just walk out the door. Instead, she began to sort the piles of magazines that were stacked around my office.