“My team?”
My knees were actually trembling. I was afraid he’d fire me then and there. But then he hitched himself up in his chair and I knew I had his attention.
“Do you have an admin yet, Mr. Nutting? If you don’t, I’d like the job.”
“You?” His face twisted into an expression that was somewhere between bemused and amused. “Huh. Didn’t see that coming. Have to say, Grace, I’d already written you off as kind of a . . . Well, a nice girl. And the thing about nice girls is—”
“They finish last.”
“Right.”
He laced his fingers again, tapping his thumbs together. His eyes became slits. He looked me over like a car he was thinking about buying. I sat very still.
“Huh,” he said again. “I planned to tell HR to start looking for my assistant today. But maybe this would save them the trouble,” he mused, his voice so low it almost felt like I was eavesdropping on his inner monologue. “If we do it right, it might save the company some money to boot. Can’t hurt to try. Can it?”
He sat there for a long moment. I barely breathed. Finally, he unlaced his fingers.
“Okay, Grace, here’s the deal. You can stay on as my assistant—”
“Thank you, Mr. Nutting! Thank you!”
“Hang on, hang on,” he said, holding up a hand to stave off my flood of gratitude. “Don’t thank me until you’ve finished listening to what I have to say. I want you to continue in your current position, taking care of the administrative work for Peter, Ava, and the rest of that team. In addition, you’ll be my assistant.”
He wanted me to do my current job and take on a new one? I’d have five bosses instead of four? I bit the inside of my lip. Five bosses . . . Well, okay. Ava and the others were pretty self-sufficient. Mostly I took phone messages, made copies, and followed up on paperwork for closings. Twenty percent more of that should be doable. If that was the price of being indispensable, keeping my job, my insurance, and keeping Jamie in Landsdowne, so be it. I could do this. I had to.
“That’s fine, Mr. Nutting. Won’t be a problem.”
“Not so fast,” he said. “Working for me won’t be like working for the rest of them. I get to the office early and leave late. Ten hours is a short day for me, most days it’s twelve, even fourteen hours. When I’m here, I’ll expect you to be here, too, placing my calls, keeping my calendar, and taking care of all of my personal business—picking up my dry cleaning, taking my car in for service, that kind of thing.
“I know,” he said, reading my mind. “It sounds crazy. Nobody has their assistant do all of that anymore. But juggling calendars, organizing conference calls, typing my own memos, and handling domestic chores isn’t a good use of my time or the company’s money.
“I’m sure this comes as no surprise, Grace, but I make exponentially more per hour than you do. So I make sure that every minute of my day is spent focusing on the big picture, doing the things only I can do, steering the ship. Before I do anything, I ask myself, Is this the highest and best use of my time? If the answer is no, I delegate the task to someone else. If you decide you want this job, then a lot of the time, that someone will be you. There would be no salary increase. But you’d keep your benefits, which, as you’re aware, are more than generous.”
I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t the scope of the work that bothered me. What did I care what he wanted me to do, as long as I got paid? Work was just work to me. It always had been. I’d never had a career, only jobs. They weren’t fulfilling, but they paid the bills.
But . . . ten-, twelve-, fourteen-hour days? How was I supposed to manage that? I already got up at five every morning so I could visit Jamie first thing, then went back right after work. The staff at Landsdowne was great, but I still needed to keep on top of Jamie’s care and be his advocate. And I needed to talk to him . . . I needed that. But Jamie needed to stay at Landsdowne, so I had to make this work. But how?
“I do want the job, Mr. Nutting. Really,” I assured him, responding to the look of doubt in his eyes. “I won’t have any problem doing anything you ask me to. The only thing is . . . the hours. Would it be possible to limit my schedule to, say, ten hours a day? I go to see my husband every evening and—”
He started shaking his head even before I had a chance to finish.
“I’m sorry, but when I’m here my assistant is here. That’s the deal. If you want to keep working at Spector, you’re going to have to spend less time with your husband and more time at the office.
“I don’t mean to sound cold, but you’ve got a choice to make, Grace. And you’re not the only one. Spector is a company that runs lean and mean, always has. That’s why we’re successful. Anybody who wants to work here has to pull their weight and then some. If they can’t, they can’t stay.”
He laced his fingers again, propped his elbows on the desk, and looked at me. “So? What do you think? Do you want the job?”
“Yes, sir.”
What else could I say?
“Good,” he said. “I’ll be honest—I’ve still got doubts about you, Grace. If you can keep up with me, then you have a future at Spector. If not? I’m sure there are plenty of places that’d
