47.

Monica arrived on my first morning at work and pulled a beaten-up Goodnight Moon out of her purse after I handed Ian to her. I wondered if she thought we didn’t have enough books in the house, and if she was going to read him Goodnight Moon because she wanted him to nap all day. I headed to the subway, thinking about Will colluding with Monica to steal Ian, traveling with him for miles, across borders. How would I get him back? I imagined my legs moving through water, or running in slow motion in the air like in a dream. I wondered if I’d ever hear from Will again.

Pullman Capital was in a tall, narrow building on Sixth Avenue, or Avenue of the Americas, depending on your mood. When I got to reception, the guy behind the desk phoned someone named Sue and motioned for me to take a seat on a black leather couch. After a couple of minutes I picked up the front section of the Times, just to peruse the headlines, because I hated getting interrupted in the middle of a story, like I always do in a doctor’s office. A few more minutes went by and I caved and started at the back with an obituary about a children’s book illustrator, which made me wonder when I should start reading to Ian. I finished the article and still no sign of Sue. Hopefully this is what the job will be like, I thought. Hopefully they’ll just install me in some cubicle and forget about me and I’ll be free to crochet under the desk. I’d take my six hundred dollars a week after taxes and save it toward a production deal with the women in Brooklyn. If they left me alone, I could actually ramp up production to two or three bikinis a week, sell those and prove to Dad how lucrative it could be. But I was interrupted.

“Thea Galehouse?” A boxy woman in a black pantsuit and glasses with beaded croakies stood by the reception desk.

“Hi, yes, that’s me, nice to meet you.” I stood up, straightening my too-tight Gap pencil skirt.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Sue. So follow me. We’re going to need you to help out in client services, if that’s okay.” Sue pushed through both glass doors, giving us a wide berth, and led me to a room with a bunch of long, wide tables, the same size as the lunch tables at school, pushed into a large U. She launched into a synopsis of the meaning of Pullman Capital and explained, in incredibly unspecific terms, what I’d be doing there. Every second or third seat had a computer screen, and some of the screens had men sitting in front of them, but most did not.

“Why don’t you have a seat here and make yourself comfortable,” said Sue, exiting the room in long strides across the carpet. “You can hang up your coat in that closet, and Malcolm will be with you soon.”

Now I had nothing to read. I noticed that my spot at the U didn’t have a phone. I hoped I had cell reception but wasn’t optimistic because the room was windowless. What if Monica needed to reach me? A guy next to me was enunciating something into his phone, and at first I couldn’t figure out why I was having trouble understanding him—I thought maybe it was another language—but then I realized he had a speech impediment that made him lose all of his s sounds. Each time he said “Seabrook,” it sounded like “Heabrook.” He also talked very fast and it made me sure that only those who had an intimate relationship with him could understand what the hell he was saying. I prayed he wasn’t my boss because I would definitely offend him.

He was, of course.

“You’re Hea? Nie to meet you,” he said, wheeling over to me. “I’m Malcolm. Terrific you’re here.”

“Hi,” I said. It looked like his tongue was missing. I was immediately, painfully conscious of trying to act normal in front of his disability, positive he could tell. But he was gallant. Later on, someone alluded to the fact that he’d had cancer in his jaw.

“I’d like you to tart, if you would, with organi-ing hom of our pre-entation folder,” he said.

I nodded, relieved I understood.

“We have heven department at Pullman Cap, each of which is repre-hented in the folder. You’ll find a page for each of the heven loaded on and in-hide that con-hole over there.”

I spun my chair toward the console in the corner. The job would require getting up and down a lot.

“Come.” He got up and motioned me to the presentation station.

Together we put a folder together, taking a packet from each pile and sliding it in.

“Not the moht eck-hiting thing, but we need them deh-perately,” he said, throwing his arms dramatically in the air.

“No problem.” I smiled, wondering how many folders I’d have to put together before I could work on the bikini under the desk.

“Fabulouh,” he said, exiting the room.

I wondered if I could cheat and bring seven little stacks back to my chair and stuff them into folders from there. Surely Malcolm didn’t expect me to stand at that console all day. I’d do five or six standing up, get my bearings, and then bring it over to the desk, where I’d do twenty or so, and then I’d crochet three or four rows on my lap under the desk.

I opened drawers, looking for an empty one to hold my bag. Someone snickered behind me.

I turned around and saw a guy with jaw-length, shiny black hair slumped in his chair, his shirttail hanging out. “We’ll need ten thousand of those today,” he joked with a pronounced English accent, flicking back his hair. “And they all need to be FedExed. We’ll get you the list.”

I shot him a dirty look.

“What’s your name?” he asked, grinning.

“Thea. What’s yours?”

“Daniel,” he said. “Good luck. You’ll be at it for decades. Careful of paper cuts. Nice top, by the way.”

“Thank you,” I said, trying not to appear embarrassed or antagonized.

“Paisley always makes me think of the Beatles,” he said.

“It’s my mother’s,” I said as I glanced at the door, half expecting Malcolm to appear and shush us.

“She must be very chic,” he said, flipping the pages of a huge loose-leaf binder.

I’d never heard a boy say “chic.”

“She’s into clothes,” I said, pulling my sore, blistery heel out of the black flat I hadn’t worn in months.

“Into clothes?” he drawled in a cheesy American accent, flicking his hair out of his face yet again.

“She enjoys shopping for and purchasing women’s wear. She’s a fashionista. That better?”

I got up and went to the stacks at the console. Men, no women, came into the room throughout the morning, mostly to check the computer screens or to buzz someone on the intercom, and then they’d leave. I sat and stuffed, listening to Daniel on the phone—he was talking to someone named Elle who was having a party and wanted him to bring a bottle of Pernod, and to someone named Cass, who I took to be his girlfriend in London.

“Fly here this weekend, babe,” he kept saying. “Study for it on the flight. I can’t bear it, darling … you know I can’t … I’ve got no money.” At twelve-thirty he let out a loud yawn. “Thea, let’s trot out. I’ll take you to meet Mr. Spaghetti.”

I went with him down Fifty-Sixth Street to a guy standing in front of a takeout place with a platter of tomato bruschettas.

“So I have this mental picture of you in my head,” Daniel said, taking a bruschetta off Mr. Spaghetti’s tray and spilling it down his chin as he ate it. “Tell me if I’m right. You had a breakdown during your, what do you call it here? Sophomore year, so you’ve dropped out to take some time to collect yourself, to ‘find yourself’ as you Americans say, and since someone owed Daddy a favor, you’re now biding your time in the hallowed hallways of Pullman Capital. Am I right, darling?”

“Why do English people call everyone darling?” I asked, popping a bruschetta into my mouth as we stepped into the takeout place and onto the long line. I was tempted to just tell him my True Hollywood Story but wasn’t ready to part with the idea of free-and-easy Thea yet.

As we paid, he motioned to the cashier, saying, “See that woman? She’s mad for me.” The receptionist in the front hall of Pullman was also mad for him. On the way back he let me listen to a dance track on his iPod, made by a guy from some club in Dubai or St. Bart’s. “I like my music long,” he said, and something about the way he thumped his head back and forth reminded me of a turtle. He told me he was living in the East Thirties for six months, on some kind of break from Oxford.

We got back to our desks and ate. He pointed a breadstick in my direction.

“No, thank you,” I said. He smiled over some secret little joke to himself and turned back to his desk.