The Break(30)

“Am I interrupting something?” she asks, which makes me even more nervous. To Harrison, she says, “I didn’t realize you had the conference room.”

“I don’t,” Harrison says, gesturing to me. “This young woman is June Waters, and she’s all yours.”

Something prickly passes between them, but then Louisa rolls her eyes and it seems mostly over. Harrison gives me one last perfect smile and leaves us alone. Louisa doesn’t smile, and it sets me right on edge again.

She looks at me—really looks. “You know,” she says, still in the doorway. “I really do need an assistant.” And then she grins, and that’s the moment I get a feeling like this is going to happen—like the chilly version of her I just saw wasn’t intended for me and if I’m lucky, maybe it won’t ever be.

Louisa shuts the door and comes to sit at the conference table. She’s holding a folder like I am, but hers is chock full of stuff. There’s a cup of white pens with the WTA logo splashed across them in red and she takes one, opening the folder to reveal a few blank sheets of paper. She takes the paper out and tells me, “I’m old-fashioned. Still a note taker. If I don’t have a pen in my hand and paper, I don’t feel quite right.”

She might be trying to make me feel more comfortable, which I appreciate, but I can’t relate to what she’s saying. I haven’t used a pen to write anything in ages because my phone is so much faster to type on, and now I’m too nervous to come up with a response to what she’s told me, so I say something completely mundane. “This room is beautiful, with the view of downtown?”

It comes out like an awkward question. God. At least I’m interviewing to be her assistant and not one of her actors. Because saying something that dull would probably have me crossed right off the list.

Louisa glances out the window. She’s beautiful, somewhere in her mid-to late thirties with brown skin and eyes, black-framed glasses that catch the light, and hair that’s pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck. “You see that bakery down there,” she says. “You should stop there on your way out.”

“Do they have good gluten-free options?” I ask, regretting it as soon as it leaves my mouth. Heat comes to my cheeks. I’m a fake—it’s official. I haven’t eaten gluten-free a day in my life.

Louisa’s eyes light up and I feel worse. I try to tell myself it’s not a lie: I didn’t say I was strictly gluten-free, I just asked about options.

“They do!” she says. “The gluten-free banana muffins are to die for. And there’s this bread made from almond flour, no oats or anything like that.”

“I’ll try it,” I say, knowing I won’t, because I don’t really have the kind of cash where I can just buy expensive baked goods. I’d bet the amount Louisa spends on a snack would cover what Sean and I pay for dinner. Pasta with tomato sauce, tuna fish, mac and cheese, tofu scramble—it’s amazing how little you can spend on that kind of stuff at the grocery store compared with what the New York eateries charge.

“So, June,” Louisa says, staring at me. “Tell me a little about yourself.”



“Oh,” I say, my hands smoothing my skirt even though I’m trying not to fidget. “Well, I should be honest and tell you that I want to be an actress.”

Oh my God. What have I done?

Louisa’s eyes widen.

I let out a breath. Oh no. “I know that probably makes you not want to hire me,” I say quickly. “But I wanted to be honest about it. Actually, I didn’t realize I was going to tell you that before it came out of my mouth—that’s actually more honest. But lately, well, especially since getting to New York, I feel more like a fake. I keep saying things I think other people want to hear.”

I’ve lost this now, this thing I wanted so badly. It’s like a fistful of flowers dropped on a roadside, something so beautiful you promised yourself you’d hold on to until you got to a safe place but you couldn’t do it.

Louisa doesn’t say anything.

“I do want to be an actress,” I say, more thoughtfully this time. “But I also need a job and I’d like it to be one that I care about and that I’m good at. I’m really interested in seeing behind the scenes of the business, even though, of course, I wish I could be acting right away. But I’m really interested in WTA and I’m really impressed by what you all do here, particularly what you do here. So while I don’t want your job, I’m actually pretty organized and I think I could be a great assistant to you so you can do your job better. I like details. I like knowing what makes people tick, and I also genuinely like to see other people do well, like you and your clients.”

Louisa is so quiet I’m not sure what to do. I’m suddenly exhausted, as though telling the truth has zapped me of everything I’ve been holding tight in my chest the past few weeks.

“It’s funny you say that,” Louisa says slowly.

“Which part?”



“The part about feeling like a fake here in New York,” Louisa says, “especially among all of this.” She gestures into the ether of the conference room. She sits taller, and a tiny gold necklace twists over her collarbone. “I had a fertility treatment this morning before coming here,” she says. She glances out the window to the same clouds I saw before, but now they’re tinged with gray like a storm’s coming. “And I’m wiped and irritable from the hormones. But I have to come to work and be all the things I’m supposed to be for my clients. So, I’ll tell you what, June. Let’s keep this interview going and we’ll go over some things. Because it might be really nice for me to have an assistant who’s honest with me and whom I can be honest with.”