The Assistants(66)

Little girl. He didn’t say, Move along now, little girl, but that’s what he meant.

“Well, I hate to break it to you, Robert.” I put my hands on my hips. “But I came here to tell you that I’ve got it all on paper. And on disk. Hard copy or digital, which do you think the Feds would prefer?”

Robert stepped off his machine and we stood face-to-face—well, as close as we could get to face-to-face considering our height difference. “Now what in the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the dustup twenty years ago, when that big Swiss bank entered into a deferred prosecution agreement—” I paused, astonished by myself and my recall ability. “You remember that, don’t you? That list of tax evaders you were supposed to be on? I’ve got the proof you should have been on that list.”

Robert was unsuccessfully trying to hide his panting. This man whose daily prescription medications I knew by heart, whose daughters’ birthday presents I always picked out, whose salads I laced with quinoa because of its phytonutrient benefits.

“I know,” I said. “You were younger back then, less wise. Maybe it was the first and only time you screwed up, made a bad decision, drifted just slightly over the line. Believe me, I get it.”

Robert put his hands on his hips, like I had mine, and bored his eyes into my eyes. He brought his body in so close that I thought he might literally be sniffing me out, like a lion would do before pouncing.

I stood very still. There was no way I was going to be the first to break eye contact this time.

“You don’t have shit,” he said finally.

I was impressed by how he said it. His tone. He was no longer speaking to me as his assistant, or even as a woman. But as an unexpected adversary.

“I promise you, Robert, I am not bluffing. Let Emily go and you won’t have to find out for sure.”

He remained stunned for a few seconds and then laughed again. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“I am not kidding you,” I said, and turned to go, praying my shaky legs wouldn’t give out on me.

“Who do you think you are,” he said to my back, “coming in here and making demands like this?”

Who did I think I was?

I stopped, considered turning back around, but then thought better of it. Let him think I was bluffing.

“Go ahead and underestimate me some more,” I said while walking away. “I dare you.”





29




I WAS STILL SHAKING when I turned the key to my apartment door. I dropped my messenger bag on the kitchen floor and fell onto my bed with my sneakers and jacket still on.

That so didn’t go according to plan.

I hadn’t intended to walk in there and threaten Robert, but I also hadn’t intended to be so insulted by his total lack of belief that I could—what? Steal from him? Shouldn’t I have been glad he found it hard to believe I’d be capable of that?

But that wasn’t it. It was the way he doubted my intelligence and my drive. My ability to manifest (as The Oprah Magazine would say). Somewhere along the line I’d started believing in myself and I wanted Robert to believe in me, too.

Walking out of the rich people’s gym the way I did, I didn’t know if Robert would call my bluff or not—even though it wasn’t actually a bluff. I did have in my possession enough documentation to send him to prison. But I didn’t want to manifest him into a cell, or even one of those country-club prisons they made special for wealthy white men, where they get to wear chinos and play shuffleboard and then write a memoir about it that gets made into a movie after they get out. I just wanted Emily to come home.

I checked my phone to be sure Emily hadn’t called. She had not, but I did have a text from Wendi: We’re coming over.

Jesus, what now?

I brought my laptop onto my bed with me and checked the latest news about the site. I Googled the Assistance and what I found was inevitable, I guess—word of Emily’s arrest had finally reached the Internet.

Assistance Cofounder (the Hot One) Hauled Away in Cuffs, said BKmag.com.

Girl Who Founded the Assistance May Be a Thief, said Gothamist.

The first commenter asked the question on everyone’s mind: “The hot one? Or the other one?”

We weren’t looking good in the public eye, with my getting fired and now Emily in a cell. All the posts I read mentioned that Emily hadn’t been charged with anything yet, but this seemed to only stir more curiosity. A lot of people were asking questions, and if there was one thing I understood about the Internet, it was that multiple questions posed in all caps were basically the same as answers.

Then I began typing my own name into Google. T-i-n-a-f-o-n-t-a—and Google tried to help by finishing my search for me:

Tina Fontana fired, it suggested.

Tina Fontana thief.

Tina Fontana lesbian.

My buzzer buzzed just in time.

On my doorstep, Wendi, Lily, and Ginger were waiting to be let in.

“What, do you guys travel in a pack now?”

They’d come from the office and were dressed accordingly. Ginger in a cobalt-blue skirt suit, Wendi in a black hoodie, and Lily in her favorite pink cardigan with cartoon giraffes on it. Someone should really start enforcing a dress code upon the entry-level staff at Titan.

I led them to the kitchen table and brought my computer out from the bedroom. “Have you seen the Internet in the last few hours?”