Good Pet

When I do, I sit back in surprise. I roll back from my tiny, ergonomic desk and look at her. It’s just as she swipes her long mane of white hair behind her shoulders with one hand and leans on a fancy cane with the other.

And when I say fancy, I mean fancy. It really is like what you expect to see on an old southern madam type: long black shaft, circular gold handle.

“Ms. Vanacore? Can I do something for you?”

“Yes, in fact, you can, Tommy,” she says.

I sit at attention.

“What can I do?”

Ms. Vanacore just smiles.

“Go out to lunch with me,” she says.

The way she says it, it’s like she’s asking me out on a date, not out to a business lunch — which this should be, but the vibe isn’t there. There’s nothing “business-y” about it.

“What? Now?” I gesture uselessly at my computer, at the screen, where I had just been contemplating opening up some of Ms. Vanacore’s client folders and beginning to compile notes on her days in court and the most recent proceedings. “But, I was just about to look through your court notes and everything…”

A warm, gregarious laugh interrupts me.

“Don’t worry about that now, Tommy. There will be plenty of time to do that after lunch, though I understand what it’s like to be eager. To be a go-getter like yourself.”

She swivels my larger-sized office chair toward her.

“But I’m not taking no for an answer, Tommy.” Her tone is not necessarily threatening, but it’s not necessarily as warm and jovial as before. “I’ve asked you to come out to lunch with me, and what I ask my assistant lawyers, I expect to get.”

Though her face has remained soft and genteel, her words are a little more than intimidating. They make me chilly in my gut. I decide right there; it’s not worth arguing over. It’s not worth getting off on the wrong foot with my boss over. Especially not on the first day and the first couple hours of working for her.

I force myself to smile and to make the smile as warm and nonthreatening as possible. It’s the same smile I learned to wear around my dad when he interrogates me about whether “I still have money” or not.

“Okay. Sure.” I hoist myself out of my office chair. “Lunch sounds fine, Ms. Vanacore.”

“With me,” she adds as if I’ve forgotten.

“Yes.” I smile again. “With you, Ms. Vanacore. It sounds like a lovely idea, ma’am.” I swallow thickly, hoping it doesn’t show on my throat or in my face.

Ms. Vanacore brightens like it’s been my idea to invite her on this lunch outing, not the other way around.

“Just fabulous, my boy.”

She takes a bit of my oversized suit jacket in her free hand and begins to lead me toward the door. As she touches me, I feel the chilliness in my stomach subside. A knot of some kind takes its place, but I’m not sure what to make of it.

“Follow me. We’ll take my car.”

On both of these statements, I know I don’t dare to argue or offer input. Ms. Vanacore has just that level of presence — like she’s my mother or something. A maternal force meant to be respected and bowed to, not questioned or ignored. But to say that I feel fear or intimidation because of this, that’s not true. That’s not all I feel.

As Ms. Vanacore and I make our way out of her office, to the elevator and inside of it again, I’m overwhelmed by her energy. The way the power of it envelops me. It fills me up and strangles me at the same time. Looking at the cane resting in her hand, I can’t help but imagine what those hands might feel like on me and what that cane might be like against my skin.

Fucking hell, Tommy! What the hell are you doing thinking like that? Why are you thinking like that?

I shift nervously in the elevator, put my hands in front of my face for a moment.

Not working under a boss for more than a few hours, and already you have some kind of dread involving her and her cane? Your old-enough-to-be-your-mother boss?

As the elevator comes to the executive level, where we have to cross to a different set of elevators, Ms. Vanacore says, “Don’t worry. I have a nice big Cadillac for us to travel in, so you don’t need to stress if you’re worried at all about your size.”

I shake my head, blushing deeper. She seems so cavalier about an aspect of my body that no one else seems to have the ability to ignore. How tall and broad I am. How much of a literal big target it has made both in the office and in my life up until now.

“You like Cajun food?” she asks, as the elevator doors bings open.