The Futures(13)

“Well, Julia,” Laurie said. “You’ve come along at a good time. I’m in need of an assistant rather urgently. It’s paperwork and record keeping, running errands, basically pitching in wherever you’re needed. Does that sound okay by you?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then I’d like to offer you the job. We’d need you to start next week. The salary is twenty-five thousand dollars, plus health insurance.”

I nodded vigorously. “Thank you, Laurie. Yes. I’d be thrilled. Thank you.”

She stood up and shook my hand. “You can find your way out okay?”

It was the lunch hour, and the office was abandoned. I wound up looping the perimeter of the floor before eventually finding my way back to the elevator. I was dizzy with relief. Someone was willing to pay me for my time! No matter how paltry the money, no matter how humble the work might be—this was exactly what I needed. Balance had been restored between me and everyone I knew.

On my first day at the Fletcher Foundation, I found a list awaiting me, sitting in the middle of my new desk. The list, from Laurie’s former assistant, outlined in neurotically perfect handwriting all the tasks I would have to, in her words, “learn how to perform immediately.” By the end of the first day, I had them down pat. I wondered whether my predecessor was just not very smart. Maybe she had been fired, based on how challenging she seemed to find these tasks.

On my second day, I had an early morning e-mail from Laurie asking me to brew the coffee when I arrived. There was a small kitchenette with a sink and a microwave and an old drip machine. It seemed easy enough. When Laurie arrived twenty minutes later, I delivered a mug of coffee to her desk with two Splendas, as requested. She was on the phone. A minute later, she called for me to come in.

“Julia, thank you for the coffee, but I’m afraid—well…you didn’t use soap on the machine, did you?”

I had to think about that one for a minute. Soap? “Oh—oh, I’m sorry, Laurie. I washed out the basket in the sink and I used the sponge on it. Maybe the sponge had soap on it. I thought I should clean out the basket, and—”

Laurie sighed. “Yes, you’re right, you should clean it, but don’t use soap on it. Just use very hot water to rinse it, then dry it off with paper towels. You see, it makes the coffee taste like soap. I can’t drink this. Why don’t you ask Eleanor to show you what I mean? And if you wouldn’t mind making a new batch.” She slid the mug across the desk.

I rinsed the basket several times with near-scalding water. I wasn’t going to ask Eleanor for help. I had met Eleanor the day before, and she scared me. She was the foundation’s one-woman publicity department. She had red hair and a porcelain complexion and dressed like a Vogue editor. She had started five years earlier as Laurie’s assistant. I was sure she didn’t have the time to help me with coffee brewing. Meanwhile, I began to reevaluate my feelings about my predecessor. Maybe she hadn’t been fired. Maybe she had gotten fed up and quit.

Eleanor walked past the kitchen as I was very, very carefully drying out the filter basket. She stopped and stared at me from her towering stilettos.

“Oh, no. Let me guess. You used soap on the machine.”

I laughed nervously. “Yeah.”

“Don’t worry. It’s just one of her pet peeves. How’s it going otherwise?”

“It’s good. I think I’m getting the hang of—”

“Good,” she said, then glanced at her watch, which was large and gold and glinted in the light. “I have to get on a call, but why don’t we have lunch sometime? We should get to know each other. Next week, okay? Let’s say next Friday at twelve thirty.”

“Sure—yeah—yeah, twelve thirty is great,” I stammered.

“See you then,” she said.

That week and the next passed uneventfully. I kept minutes at the meetings: the fall deadline for grant applications was September 15; plans were on track for the gala in November. I answered Laurie’s phone, filed her paperwork, made polite small talk while I waited to use the copy machine. On Friday morning, at the end of my second week of work, the phone rang. “Julia, it’s Eleanor.” Her voice crackled from a bad connection. “I’m off-site this morning, so I’ll meet you at the restaurant, okay?”

The ma?tre d’ sat me outside. Eleanor arrived ten minutes late. She tossed her long red hair over her shoulder and dropped her bag onto the seat next to her. She kept her sunglasses on. I wondered how she managed to afford all of it, the watch and the bag and finely made clothing. Surely the foundation didn’t pay her that much. She waved to get the waiter’s attention. “Iced tea, please. Julia?”

“I’m okay with water.”

“And an ashtray, too. Thanks.”

She pulled out a pack of Camel Lights and a silver Zippo. “So,” she said, leaning back in her chair, directing a stream of smoke from the side of her mouth. “Laurie tells me you’re friends with Henry and Dot.”

“I guess so. Really it’s more my parents. They’re friends with the Fletchers.”

“Close friends?”

“Kind of. My dad is one of Henry Fletcher’s lawyers. They go way back. My mom is involved in some of the same organizations as Dot. You’ve met the Fletchers, too?”