Sandra didn't know about what happened at the airport. She didn't know what happened with my job, despite her best attempts at interrogating the answer out of me. She didn't know about Michael. I told Sandra almost everything, but this had to stay with me. Because I was going to kill his memory. I was. Somehow, I was.
"I know you want to keep Zara safe from whatever it is that's going on—"
"Nothing's going on," I interrupted.
Sandra waved her hand. "Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, nothing's going on," she said. "But this 'nothing' that's going on, I know you think the best thing to do is block Zara from it, but…"
My eyes searched Sandra's face as she ducked her eyes.
"But?" I pushed.
"But it's affecting her," Sandra finally said. "It is."
A flare of red-hot anger boiled up in my chest and I pushed past my friend, saying, "Sorry, you're wrong."
I didn't look back at her as I went into the kitchen where Zara was sitting at the table with hummus and vegetables.
"Hey, baby," I said, kissing the top of her head. "How was school?"
"Fine," Zara said before crunching into a carrot stick.
I heard the echo of my words in my child's voice, but so what? That's how ninety-nine percent of kids said their day went. It meant nothing. And it most certainly did not prove Sandra right.
I slipped into the chair next to her and brushed her hair from her face, tucking it gently behind one ear. Her attention was focused on a book about national parks in Utah. I was going to let her read, but Sandra's warning nagged at the back of the mind.
"Z, honey, you're alright, right?"
My daughter looked up from her book and her snack, and it was like looking into a mirror: lips drawn up just a little too tightly, cheeks straining, smile not quite reaching the eyes.
"I'm great."
She dropped her eyes, dropped her smile, and I saw the same sag of relief in her shoulders. I ran my hand over her hair once more.
"Good, baby," I whispered. "Good."
I pushed myself back from the table and went back into the living room.
Sandra was waiting for me, eyes searching my cloudy face. "Abbi, listen—"
"I've got to get back to it," I said and sat back down at the computer.
I told myself this was the best way to help Zara: earn money, provide a steady home, be responsible.
And I almost believed it.
Michael
"Next."
I had cut off the director of HR mid-sentence and she stopped to stare up at me. She was holding a clipboard with a stack of resumes, and she had been running me through the credentials of the first candidate they'd brought in as my replacement personal assistant.
"Mr O'Sullivan?"
I didn't bother glancing down at her. Her name was Becky or Patricia or something.
"I said, 'Next.'"
Becky or Patricia or something frowned. "I'm sorry?"
I nodded and jerked my head toward the lobby where a woman sat in a sharp navy-blue suit jacket and matching pencil skirt.
"She's not going to make the cut, so let's see the next one," I said, turning on my heel without another word and marching away back down the hallway as Becky—let's go with Becky—shook her head in confusion and hurried after me, the click-clack of her heels getting closer and closer.
"Sir?" she breathed, slightly out of breath as she caught up to my side. "Sir, Mr O'Sullivan, you didn't even meet her."
"Didn't need to."
I was typing an email on my Blackberry as I walked, and Becky's voice was growing more and more distracting.
"But sir, she graduated with honours from Denver University and received a masters from Boulder and—"
"Next."
"Sir, she comes with great recommendations from Terry Maxwell where she worked for five years and—"
"Next."
Becky rounded the corner with me toward my office.
"Mr O'Sullivan, with all due respect, I think you might feel differently if you just speak with her for a minute or two to—"
I whirled around to face Becky in the doorway to my office. "Listen, Becky—"
"It's Patty."
"Listen, Becky, that woman out there was chewing her nails like a beaver chews wood," I said. "I demand a lot from the people who work for me, and frankly I'm not quite sure Levi, Levi, & Burke is interested in a costly lawsuit when she has a nervous breakdown after a week. Do you?"
Becky was staring up at me with wide, startled eyes. I slipped the first resume from her clipboard, balled it up in my fist, and tossed it down the hallway behind her.
"So, like I said, next."
With that, I slammed the door shut in her face.
I gave Becky credit for being sharper than she and her triple D breasts looked, because for the next candidate she didn't let me go into the lobby to greet and instead brought him to a conference room she'd cleverly set up with food, and more importantly, my favourite kind of whiskey. Maybe I'd have to see what other secrets Becky had hidden later that night.
"So, Mr…Reeves," I said, twisting in boredom to and fro in the chair at the head of the massive sixteen-person conference table. "Your GPA at CSU was only a…3.82. Do you attribute that missing .18 points to laziness or general incompetence?"
Mr Reeves looked in panic toward Becky for some kind of assistance. She let her chin fall to her chest, suspecting where this was going.
Mr Reeves blushed, shifted in his chair uncomfortably, and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Um, sir, well, many would consider a 3.82 to be a rather commendable grade point average."
I turned my distracted attention from the panoramic
