My father was the only person with the money I needed. But before I could ask for it, we needed some kind of relationship.
That was the whole reason I was here.
“Yeah, I’m enjoying it so far. Do you . . . work?” I asked. It seemed easier to ask questions rather than answer them.
“I do. And I’m often passing through Bloomsbury. Perhaps we could meet? Have lunch, or even a coffee?”
He sounded nice. Friendly. Hopefully he could be easily persuaded that leaving my mother pregnant and penniless at nineteen, then never paying child support, constituted a string of piece-of-shit moves that warranted reparations. My plan was to convince him that he could make amends by paying for my mother’s knee replacement. And in my dream of dreams, foot the bill for some decent health insurance for her going forward. At least until I was earning enough to pay it myself.
“That would be . . . nice.” Would it? How would I avoid launching myself across the table at him and trying to strangle him?
“Have you been to the British Museum yet?” he asked. “It’s in Bloomsbury and it has a nice restaurant we could go to.”
“I haven’t,” I said, starting to worry about how I was going to be able to leave the office to go get a coffee without getting fired.
“Well, we could try there? Or somewhere else if you’d prefer?”
“What about a Saturday? My working hours are a little . . . unpredictable.”
“Yes,” he said, sounding enthusiastic. “You could come to the house if you wanted. Or maybe that wouldn’t be a good idea. I don’t know. It’s up to you.”
I swallowed. When he said “the house,” I presumed he meant his house. His house, where he lived with his actual family. The woman he married and had two children with. All while my mother and I were struggling to pay our rent. But maybe if I met his wife and his other children, that would help? Maybe they would directly or indirectly help me win my argument, which presently amounted to “this is a debt you owe me and my mom because you were a complete douchebag twenty-eight years ago.”
“Sure. That would be great.”
“I can’t do this Saturday. What about the following week? At half eleven?”
“Eleven thirty? Absolutely.” At least I would have been at my new job more than a nanosecond. Hopefully I’d be able to tell him a little more about what I did by then.
“I’ll text you the address.”
“Great.”
I ended the call but kept staring at the phone. Could I really handle having lunch with the man whose absence had meant my mom had to work three jobs? The man who could have saved me from a childhood of plugging holes in the floor so the roaches couldn’t get in?
“We’re going to need more wine,” Natalie said.
“Or fifty thousand dollars,” I replied.
She stood. “Wine it is.”
Five
Sofia
Day seven at Blake Enterprises and I’d opened up the office at five thirty this morning. I was on my third cup of coffee and it wasn’t even seven.
Andrew swept through my door, his hard, high glutes flexing merrily in his jogging bottoms. Instead of pretending I didn’t exist, he stopped dead in front of my desk. “Don’t come in before eight.”
Before I had time to respond, he breezed into his office and slammed the door shut. Was he trying to be nice? I mean, he was telling me I didn’t have to get in so early. Scratch that—he was ordering me not to come in so early. But his tone and his manner suggested it wasn’t for my benefit. Maybe my ass-ogling was a little too obvious.
“Good morning, Andrew,” I bellowed after him. I wasn’t going to let him get to me. Not today. Yesterday had gone by without him speaking a single word to me. He’d forwarded me three emails with the single word “Deal” on each of them. He’d passed me sitting at my desk at least six times and not made eye contact once. Still, he hadn’t shouted. Hadn’t thrown anything. I had to think of the upside.
As usual, Andrew spent the entire morning behind his door, not a sound coming from his office. Consistent with every other day since my arrival, Douglas appeared at noon and knocked on Andrew’s office door. Jeez, this was a man who liked routine. Both the electronic calendar and the paper one that I kept on my desk were all scored out until midday. What was he doing in there? And why was I running two identical calendars?
When Douglas came out, he was grinning. Andrew must be in a good mood. This was a chance to give him back some of the work he’d been giving me.
I gathered up my papers and knocked once, didn’t wait for an answer, and walked in.