Zoe took all this in. “You spent a bit longer listening at the door than you let on didn’t you?”
Eddie blushed. “Maybe a little. But it was very interesting.”
“He really called him fat face?”
“I got the impression it was a childhood nickname.”
Zoe nodded – those could still hurt, there were a couple from her own past that she would rather not think about.
“Did you want to buzz through and tell him I’m here?”
Eddie pulled a face. “Not really.”
“Because you don’t want to interrupt the argument or because you’re still not sure about how the intercom works?” asked Zoe, sympathetically.
“A little from column A and a little from column B.”
Zoe passed the time waiting for the sibling argument to end showing Eddie how to use the intercom. She had showed him three times already but Eddie was not a fast learner.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” there was a question she had been wanting to ask Eddie since day one and she now seemed to have time, “how did you get this job?”
“I was in Nick’s bar – what’s it called?”
“Nick’s.”
“That’s the one. I’d been out of work for a while – I don’t interview well you know.”
“Really?” said Zoe, trying to sound surprised.
“It’s true. Anyway, I was talking to Nick – not angling for something but just, you know, pouring out sorrows to a bartender, telling him how I was going to lose my apartment if I didn’t find something soon (probably shouldn’t have been wasting my money on beer but – you know). I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t know he owned the bar, let alone that he had all this,” he indicated the office and the building in general, “going on.”
“And he said, ‘Do you want a job?’. Just like that. Never paused to wonder if I’d be any good at it. More impressively, he didn’t fire me when it turned out that; no, I am not any good at it.”
“That’s amazing,” said Zoe. Just when she thought she had Nick all figured out she learnt something like this. The man was an enigma wrapped in a conundrum, sealed in an asshole.
“We have sort of an unspoken arrangement,” Eddie went on, “I can have this job as long as I keep looking for another one.”
“And you’re still looking?”
Eddie nodded. “It’s harder than you might think to find something I’d be good at.”
“Oh well.”
“I guess that’s why I’m a bit nervous about,” Eddie jerked a thumb in the direction of the office door. “I think I’m probably one of the things that Mr. A thinks Mr. N is wasting money on.”
“You know you called him Nick a minute ago,” pointed out Zoe.
Eddie shrugged. “Then he was a bartender. When he’s a bartender, it’s okay for him to be Nick.”
“Fair enough.”
“It wasn’t a problem until these last few weeks,” Eddie went on. “Mr. N never came here. I only popped in once a week to pick up his mail and answer it. There really wasn’t any need. To be honest he was paying me for nothing, but I think he liked giving me the job so it didn’t seem like charity – which I guess it is. But now he’s doing this ‘project’,” he air-quoted the word, “with you, then suddenly I have to be here to organize things. I mean, if I’m honest, there’s not a lot to organize but… when you’re going from nothing to organize to something to organize then a little can seem like a lot – if you see what I mean.”
“Can’t he do it himself?” asked Zoe. One positive thing she could say about Nick was that he had never struck her a lazy.
Eddie shot a glance over his shoulder to make sure that the office door remained closed, then leaned forward to whisper. “I don’t think he’s that good at organizing stuff either.”
Zoe would really have liked to learn more about this particular area but, as soon as the words were out of Eddie’s mouth, the office door flew open, slamming into the wall with a bang that made Eddie jump out of his chair, terrified he had been caught in the act. Adam Rothberger strode out, his face flushed from shouting, his forehead knotted in fury. His eyes landed on Zoe who was staring at him, wide-eyed, standing behind the desk.
“Who the hell are you?!” He had no real right to question his brother’s visitors – they were both CEO, with no difference in the influence that they wielded, and Nick never questioned any of Adam’s appointments.
“Zoe Blanchard, Mr. Rothberger. Sir,” mumbled Zoe meekly.
“Zoe…” A succession of expressions marched with comic speed across Adam Rothberger’s face. First recognition of the name, then confusion at how the name did not match the face, then realization at why there was this change in Zoe and then horror at how thorough and effective that change had been, and finally he was back on anger, still at his brother but now with a new reason and a new focus. “Tidy yourself up!”
With this barked command delivered, Adam Rothberger strode back across to his own office, secretaries and PA’s hastily getting out of his way as he passed. The office door slammed.
“You know, you do look different today,” Eddie was not swift on the uptake. “Nice though.”
“Thanks,” said Zoe. It was good that her transformation was noticeable, it meant that they were on the right track, but it also reinforced some of the doubts in her head. Now she would have to have a difficult conversation with Nick, and he was bound to be in a bad mood after arguing with his brother. Oh goody.
“I’ll just see if Mr. Rothberger – Mr. N – is free,” said Eddie, reaching for the intercom with trepidation.
“I’ll just go in,” said Zoe, noting with pleasure the look of relief on Eddie’s face – if her own day seemed unlikely to get any better, she could at least improve someone else’s.
Nick looked stressed when Zoe entered, but not angry – at least not yet. Zoe took a deep breath.
“Morning.”
Nick glanced up. “Morning. I…” He paused in thought for a moment. “I’m sorry, what is it we were going to do today?”
“We were going to,” Zoe tried not to grind her teeth as she spoke the words, “try to fix my walk.”
“Right,” said Nick.
“You said I walked like John Wayne.”
“Did I? Yeah, that sounds like something I would say.” He was obviously distracted. Zoe would have had considerably more sympathy if he had not compared her gait to that of ‘the Duke’, on the other hand she was a sympathetic person (or ‘doormat’ as Alisha put it).
“Is anything wrong?”
“Something’s always wrong,” said Nick. “Why is life never easy?”
“I guess some people are just born to suffer,” said Zoe, hoping that she did not sound too sarcastic. Which wasn’t easy when she was listening to the wealthy CEO of a company, who did damn-all but draw a salary, complain about his lot in life.
“I mean, there are probably people who are worse off,” admitted Nick – it was nice to know he had that much self-awareness. “But that doesn’t make your own problems seem any less to you – you know.”
Zoe nodded; she did know. We all know. One of the major annoyances of life is that there is always someone worse off than you – nothing makes stubbing your toe on the same day as getting a massive tax bill worse than the knowledge that there is someone out there worse off, and the temptation is to think that that person is only being worse off to spite you.
“Did you want to talk about it?” Just because, Zoe thought, in the big scheme of things, your problems don’t really matter, doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve a sympathetic ear.
Nick shook his head. “My shit – I’ll deal with it. Let’s get back to your walk. I thought I could demonstrate to you how a woman is supposed to move, but it turns out I’m a bit too good at walking like a lady and it started to freak me out, so instead I’ve put together some video clips that I think demonstrate elegant, ladylike movement. Then I’ll film you walking, and when you see the diff
erence I think you’ll see how my way is better. Right let’s…”