“Brooks,” I said out loud, to see how it sounded. It sounded the same way he looked. Really fucking good.
He wanted me to have his card and he wanted to pay for my stitches, even though I’d read something of his that I wasn’t supposed to read. I’d breached the trust between an employee and an employer and, to make matters worse, I then broke his glass, bloodied his towel and basically ran out of his house like a scared child. Cringing, I vowed to apologize again, this time without the intensity between us. I could control that, since it was all one-sided. He was a very handsome man but he was most definitely ogled and flirted with by beautiful women much smarter than me all the time.
I decided then, to keep my job and salvage my dignity, I’d apologize as soon as possible and pay him for the glass I broke, put it all behind me and move on.
Moving on meant no more thinking about him, which would be significantly harder now that I knew he was an absolutely and utterly delicious fox. But I could do it.
It should be easy to stop thinking about him, looks or not, because really, I didn’t know him at all. My fingers on my temples, I attempted to rub away the growing lascivious thoughts in my brain. I needed to stop thinking about him.
It should be easy.
I’d turn to my hobby, my anxiety-shielding, worry-thwarting, mind and hand occupying hobby of baking.
After I got paid my first paycheck from cleaning houses, I did something I didn’t usually do. Instead of rushing to the consolidators to make my massive payment or paying my rent straight away, I went to the grocery store. And not just any grocery store—the expensive one with whole and natural foods. The one where everything was organic, premium, new, improved—the one where ladies had dogs in purses and wore patent pumps to buy their milk. I perused the aisles and dreamt of the day where my cupboards would be full of the best ingredients—not what was on sale or dented. And, though I should’ve put every extra cent to my debt, I purchased the biggest, best bag of blanched almond flour that I could find. It wasn’t on sale; it was fancy and it was mine. And then I bought myself fresh hazelnuts from the per-pound nut silos—none of the bagged and salted stuff. After a few other ingredients, I proudly handed over a crisp $100 bill to the cashier and took my ingredients back to my tiny hole in the wall and made, for the first time since my mom died, a fresh batch of perfect French macarons with fresh hazelnut butter filling. The smell that filled the apartment was finally something that brought me happiness and peace.
I’d wrapped up a couple in some cellophane I’d picked up at the market and taken them with me to make my payment. It was the first time I’d gone to the consolidator in the city—I made my payments back home to a friendly little woman in an older office building that was adjoined to a shady dentist. This was New York City though, and even debt consolidators wore suits and worked out of high-rises. The Uber to the office was the hardest—paying money so that you can go pay more money is a hard pill to swallow when you’re broke. Another jagged pill? Holding a bi-weekly paycheck for $4,000 and knowing that if I didn’t have the debt, I’d easily be building a nest egg for a new, perfect life.
“Hi,” I greeted the man behind the metal desk, one of six, three on each side of the room. There were no privacy partitions, no white noise—not a lot of discretion is afforded to you when you’re a financial deviant. “I called last week. My account was transferred here by your sister company in Connecticut.” My hands worked on the edges of the envelope, folding them and unfolding them, the most cash I’d ever had at once all in my hands, ready to turn over to a complete stranger.
“Last name,” he said flatly, his eyes never leaving the old rear-projection computer screen.
“Moore,” I said, “Britta Moore.” He typed two letters then scrolled, clicked and turned to me. Whistling, he shook his head a few times. “That’s a lot of debt for a young girl like yourself. Tell me sweetheart, you like to play cards or chase the high?” I stared at him for a moment, his thin mustache wiggled on his lip as he smiled, a trickle of irritation making its way into my hands. I gripped the envelope tight.
“Medical debt. My mom was sick and our insurance fell through.” As if I needed to explain it to him.
“That’s a shame,” he said, outstretching his hand to me, palm up. “You know the drill. Payment minimum is $200, but the more you pay, the faster you’re done.” As if he needed to say that. I’m sure he could see I’d been making these payments for some time. Taking out my rent in cash, I shoved the bills into my coat pocket and put the envelope in his hand without making contact. He lifted it, thumbing through the bills quickly. “$2,500 this month?” his eyebrow quirked slightly before he typed the number and hit enter, before I had a chance to verify. “See ya next month sweetheart,” he said, without looking, handing me a receipt printed off of a printer that I think was in existence when dinosaurs were around. I knew it was collecting debt but still, with that amount of cash I’d have thought there would at least be coffee, or a mint. Instead, the interaction took less than two minutes and I was being shooed away to free up space for some other poor
