The Assistants(41)
“Uh-uh.” I shook my head like a toddler. “I hardly have any contact with her at all.” Though the Titan security-camera feed from the previous weeks would have reported otherwise.
“Good,” Robert said. “If she does start bothering you at all, asking you questions, anything like that . . .” Robert stared deep into my eyes, still with his leg up. “Because you know there are a lot of people out there who would like to see me hurt, so I can only surround myself with people I can trust.”
“I don’t want anything to do with Margie Fischer,” I said. “I’ll come to you immediately if she—”
“Good.” Robert stepped back and took his balls out of my face. “That’s all I wanted to hear. Now go on home.” He turned toward his office.
Finally, I exhaled. What the hell was that about? I shut down my computer and prepared my escape from the building. At least it wasn’t Emily he was asking about—or anything I’d done. But, still, whatever had prompted that could not be good for any of us.
I checked for my keys, wallet, phone; glanced one last time at Robert, whose eyes were glued to the many flashing flat-screens in his office; and headed for the elevators—and by the time I reached them, an idea had formed: Could I pin all this on Margie Fischer and get out unscathed? And even if I could . . . could I?
It was me and Dillinger heading down in elevator C, but all we did was nod at each other and then stare dead-eyed ahead. How much would I allow this situation to change me? I wondered. It seemed to have changed me already, but in many positive ways. I was becoming more assertive, figuring out how to be in charge of stuff—but was there a point of diminishing returns? Was I about to cross over into being a truly hardened criminal, a Tony Soprano, a Walter White, a Martha Stewart, willing to take out anyone in order to save myself?
The elevator door opened and Dillinger let me exit first. No man who worked for Robert would ever exit an elevator before a woman. It was both gallant and totally annoying.
No. I came into this a halfway-decent person, and that’s how I’d leave it. Margie Fischer didn’t mean much to me, and she did harass Emily and me that day at Michael’s, and she’d told Lily about us, and there was that one time she scolded me for sniffing the cafeteria half-and-half, but I couldn’t just throw her to the dogs. She was doing the best she could, like everyone else. She meant well, just like me. I meant well, didn’t I?
On the way down the escalator to the main doors, I tried to calculate how many more weeks we had before I’d shut everything down. A complicated equation filled my mind: 3 of us contributing (me + Ginger + Wendi) + 1 signing/approving (Emily) + 2 who it was safe to assume would keep their mouths shut from here on out (Margie + Lily) = X.
The sun and heat of the outside struck my face.
X = Approximately four weeks. Also known as one month.
One month, thirty days, the amount of time it takes for the moon to complete its lunar cycle; for rent to be due again; to form a new habit (according to The Oprah Magazine). But I wouldn’t let it be enough time to turn me into a sociopathic, amoral misfit. I had no interest in becoming an antihero—or a villain, for that matter. Even if Martha Stewart had somehow managed to find her way back.
17
SOMEHOW, SUMMER FINALLY began giving itself over to the fall. A drop in the temperature, oranges and browns where there had been green, a light jacket added to my V-neck sweater and button-down. I’d never made it to the beach, I realized, probably because I was too busy worrying all the time—I’d worried Ginger’s debt all the way down to four figures, which as far as I was concerned was way better than ending the summer with a suntan and a brag-worthy vitamin D count. Sure, Kevin had tried for a trip out to Southampton, and then Montauk, and then Fire Island, but on account of not owning a bathing suit that wasn’t part T-shirt, I always talked him into al fresco tacos and frozen margaritas instead.
Today, Kevin had big plans for us that would not be deterred by any talk of guacamole. In the full spirit of the change in season, he’d thrown on a shawl-collared sweater, rented a car, and driven us an hour upstate to an apple orchard.
“It’s McIntosh season,” he explained as we waited in line to purchase empty plastic satchels and pay the entry fee. “The quintessential New York apple. Later we can bake a pie.”
Is this what Kennedy-like families did to ring in autumn? They picked apples and baked pies instead of taking down air conditioners and installing storm windows?
I’d never been apple picking before. It was unclear to me how we would reach the apples. Weren’t trees tall? Would we have to climb? But I kept quiet, and soon we were riding on the back of a flatbed truck out to the fields. We were surrounded by children—a group of fourth-or fifth-graders on a school trip—at least half of whom were shorter than I am, so I assumed some system for reaching the apples had been worked out in advance.
When the truck came to a halt, Kevin and I jumped down and made an effort to move in the opposite direction of the children. The dirt beneath the rubber soles of my Converse felt soft, almost powdery. And the fruit on the trees hung low. The air smelled sweet, like a lollipop. (Sweet as stolen honey, Robert would have said.) We were only about sixty miles out of Manhattan, but we may as well have been in . . . what state was known for its apples? Washington? Or was New York known for its apples? Is that why we were the Big Apple? I always thought that was a nickname that had something to do with prostitution.