I was completely distracted for the next twenty minutes as I waited for her to walk by again. When she did, she was chatting with Mrs. Andrews and laughing. I had to admit, after the second glance, she was lovely, the poised kind of lovely that my mother had. She vanished again and I went back to work.
Not more than ten minutes later, Mrs. Andrews knocked on the doorframe.
“I just wanted to see what you thought, and bring you these,” she said, after I nodded at her to come in and close the door. She also had a stack of papers I hoped were résumés that she handed me. Technically, I wasn’t supposed to see them until the choices had been narrowed down, but Mrs. Andrews made exceptions for me.
“Thank you very much. When do you need them back?” I started thumbing through them, putting aside the ones that I knew immediately were no’s in my book.
“If you could be done in an hour, no one will know they’re missing.” I gave her a smile and a thumbs up and went back through them. The girl with the red hair, I assumed, belonged to one of the résumés on the bottom. Violet Cooper, twenty-five, former Vice President of a small cable company, MBA from a small college. She’d started out in retail, and had worked her way up. This girl was a fighter. Maybe it had something to do with the red hair. I read her résumé a few more times before I put it with the rest, stuck it in a folder and scurried down to Mrs. Andrews’ desk. I was surprised to find Lucah leaning against it and chatting with her as she threw her head back and laughed.
“What are you doing on this level, Mr. Blythe?”
“I was just visiting, Miss Clarke. I had to deliver something to Mr. Clarke, so I thought I would take a moment to stop and say hello to Mrs. Andrews.” Smooth.
“Well, how sweet of you, Mr. Blythe.” I wanted to kiss him, to close the three-foot space between us, lay one on him and feel his tongue with the plastic barbell in my mouth. Judging by the look on his face, he was thinking the same thing.
“Is it warm in here?” Mrs. Andrews said, fanning herself. “Maybe it’s just me having a hot flash.” I couldn’t decide if that was a joke, or if she was being serious. Judging from the look on Lucah’s face, he couldn’t either.
“On that note, I believe I should get back to the underworld where I belong.” He did a bow and headed for the stairs instead of the elevator.
“Don’t forget your coin to pay the toll,” I called after him. His laugh echoed up from a few stairs down.
I sighed and leaned on Mrs. Andrews’ desk. She had a smug smile on her face as if she was very pleased with herself.
“So, on further inspection, what did you think? I was very impressed with that young girl, what was her name?” She started rifling through the papers.
“Violet,” I said. “Yeah, she did look impressive, but I’m not sure they’re going to go for her. Given that she’s so young and you know how much they adore youth.”
“Well, we’ll just have to wait and see. I wouldn’t mind having some more fresh female blood up here and maybe the two of you could stick together.” That was true. I hadn’t thought of that.
“I guess we’ll see.” She put the résumés back in her desk and I went back to my office, pondering.
~*~*~
Well either Violet Cooper had given out a lot of sexual favors, or else she’d really nailed the initial interview (I hoped it was the latter) because she was on the short list when I opened my email a little while later. Due to Lilia’s fabulous flagging system, it was one of the first things I read. She’d learned that what I deemed important varied, which was what made the job slightly difficult.
Follow-up interviews with everyone who made it through the first round were set for tomorrow and were going to take nearly an entire day. Lovely. I’d have to remember to drink an extra cup of coffee, or five, beforehand. Interviews, if you’ve done enough of them, can be horribly dull, unless someone says something unexpected. Or they answer their phone in the middle of said interview.
I meant to go see Dad in the morning, but of course that didn’t happen. There was a snag with some of the html coding on the beta website page for the new software and no one seemed to be able to figure it out, so a group email had been sent around to see if anyone could fix it. I had a working knowledge of html, but I couldn’t find why it wasn’t working. I sent my response back that I had no idea. Two seconds after I sent it, there was another timid knock. Sometimes when I looked up, I still thought Lucah was going to be standing there, but it was Lilia. Maybe she was so scared because I always looked so disappointed to see her. It wasn’t her fault that she wasn’t Lucah.
“Miss Clarke?”
“Yes, what can I do for you, Lilia?” She shifted from one purple satin heel to the other. Today her dress was sunny yellow, with a matching purple belt around her waist. Too bad she was a twig, or else I would beg to raid her closet.
“I’m sorry. I know it’s probably not my place, but I was just glancing at that code, and I think I found the problem.” Lilia, in addition to her own email account, had access to mine, but I forgot sometimes that she could see it whenever she wanted.
“You did?” She nodded and kept her eyes on the floor. “Where?” I nodded and she walked into my office as if I’d asked her to enter the Dungeon of Eternal Torture. But she came around my desk and stood at my shoulder as I pulled the copy of the code up.
She scanned it with her eyes and then pointed.
“There. It’s missing . . . ” she stole the mouse and moved it to the spot and then typed a few things in. “There. That should work.” For the first time her voice wasn’t a whisper. This girl knew code.
“I have no idea what you just did, but I’m going to send it back to tech and have them double-check it.”
And just like that, timid Lilia reappeared.
“I hope it’s right. I think it’s right.”
“If it is, I’m taking you out to lunch. My treat.” I smiled, but the scared look on her face just got worse. “So you know html?”