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Authors: Samantha Strokes

Curved (2 page)

BOOK: Curved
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“Are you nervous still?” Angela said.

 

“Kinda,” I said.

 

Angela stopped me, holding onto my shoulders. She pressed her head against mine, whispering, “We’re powerful. We’re strong. We can do this. Repeat after me.”

 

It sounded so cheesy and we looked so awkward. Why did my girl have to do this to me?

 

Rolling my eyes, I repeated verbatim what she said.

 

“Louder,” Angela said, giggling.

 

“Angela.”

 

“I’m not letting you go until you say those words loud and clear for everyone to hear.”

 

Sighing, I said, “We’re strong. We’re powerful. We can do this.”

 

“Wrong order, but the right message. Close enough.” She let go of me, and as we hit the final stretch of sidewalk, we checked ourselves out and certified for each other with a once over that we were looking good.

 

Chapter 2

 

Placarm Rhodes had a draft that carried from its inner bellies and swirled all around in the lobby. The moment you entered, your hair would carry up, and so would your skirts, your purse. Better not wear a wig or toupee.

 

The receptionist greeted us as we moved on, which only startled me and electrified my heart to a jump. I waved at the receptionist, nervously shaking my head. Why did I shake my head? I don’t know. I had no idea about anything anymore.

 

Maybe Zena was right. Because deep down inside, I felt conflicted about working for Joseph. An investment banking office? Who were we helping? Why had I decided to go down this path? I guess I believed that making money would help others. That if I had money, I could help more people that if I didn’t. On top of all this, I was scared of being poor again. After having arrived at Columbia, my life changed dramatically, and I had been introduced to a new way of seeing the world. Yacht parties, block parties, subway parties. You name it. These people never struggled with, well, anything. Their lives were ultimately fabulous and continuously joyous. Never once could I count a frowning face in the crowds of events I went to.

 

Unlike the homeless people I dealt with all the time, the people of the rich were perpetually satisfied. Maybe not in terms of how much money they were earning, but in the basics of life. They had food, the best in the world. Shelter, the finest. Great clothes. Fantastic hair. All the whims and fancies you could ever desire, fulfilled.

 

I couldn’t ever see myself with a guy like Joseph. Angela and I might’ve teased each other about it—it was no rumor anymore that Joseph was handsome, because everyone knew—but the distance between us was great. We came from totally different worlds. How could we ever relate? It would be to farcical. So much of a stretch, as to be impossible.

 

At Joseph’s office, Angela and I prepared ourselves briefly to knock. She mimed the motion once before doing so, as if neither of us had ever approached a boss before.

 

Nerve-racking, really.

 

“Shit,” Joseph said from within. “No, no, no! I’m not going to agree to such a deal. Why can’t you fucking understand that? No, no, no!”

 

Angela and I squealed, exchanging glances to one another. Crap, he was angry.

 

“Not a good day for him, I guess,” Angela said.

 

“What should we do?”

 

“I’ve had so many meetings already with your people,” Joseph said, his voice lowering to a growl. Because Angela and I were nosy bitches with no shame, we pretty much eavesdropped. Giggling the entire time, we were on the edge of running away like scared little girls, but we couldn’t help ourselves. We just had to know what was going on. Angela smiled slowly, pointing at the door with one of her lacquered nails.

 

“Maybe he’s talking about Antonio?” I said.

 

Angela nodded. “Another deal with them, probably.”

 

Antonio was our competitor. Lindsay worked for them. They were the second largest investment bank in Manhattan, and thusly, the second most prestigious in the world.

 

Maybe that’s why Lindsay hated me.

 

“No,” Joseph screamed. “I’m not having that. I’m not. You take those advertisements down right now. They’re stupid, wrong, and false.”

 

After a beat, we heard Joseph slam his phone down on the table. Angela and I gasped.

 

Damn. Someone had gotten him really angry. And that someone could only be Antonio.

 

Investment banking always had people’s tempers flaring. It was the name of the game, you get angry, I get angry. We do a deal. In the end, both of us make money regardless. It’s just a matter of how much money either of us will make, since these businesses are so large and can’t fail.

 

“Should we knock?” I whispered. “I’m scared.”

 

“Girl, you’re always scared,” Angela said. “I’ll do it on three.”

 

She counted, but before her hand could even land for one, Joseph called us in. “I’m waiting for you in here,” he said. “I know you’re standing out there. Open the door.”

 

Angela squealed again. I cupped my hand over my mouth. Looking up, I thought that he must’ve been watching the two of us on camera. Gripping the doorknob, Angela pushed forward with me behind, my heart quickening as we saw him. How could I not be nervous? Without him paying me, I had very little in the way of supporting myself. His temper could flare at any moment and against me.

 

Our heels clicked on the real marble floors. The echo carried upwards and outwards as we entered. Joseph’s floor was the topmost one, with a full panoramic view of Manhattan inclusive of the bay front properties a couple avenues down. The window stretched up to the ceiling, where handcrafted moldings lay. Near his desk, there were three or four chairs, which Angela and I picked apart to sit in.

 

I scraped my heels against the floor. Anxious, I wanted our initial meeting to be over. This always happened: he would call us up, we would meet, and then go over the day’s agenda. We were supposed to be shadowing him, intently, but I could hardly focus. Doing my job right the first time involved so much of my headspace, that I had no mental power to really think about other topics.

 

“I’m glad the two of you made it early,” Joseph said, his voice traveling from one side of my ears to the other. His tone raked my flesh raw was goosebumps. I shivered in place, arching my eyebrow, scooting my chair closer. God, why was I such a fool? I fell for guys like this too much, but whenever I stared at his chiseled jaw, his muscular chest prodding out from his tailored dress shirts—God, I got wet. Just his voice made me crazed, a fiery sensation cutting my thighs with a leap to my crotch. Crossing my legs, I licked my lips, and kept my thirst to myself. I mean, this guy had quite the temper. And I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of it. Or did I? “I’ve designated a couple tasks for you to go through. Both of you.”

 

Angela and I exchanged glances. I wondered what we were going to do. Especially after his outrage. Normally, when he got caught up in heated deals, he put us on the backburner, which we both kind of enjoyed. Those days were much easier than the normal ones where he gave us thousands of Excel spreadsheets to go through. My guess was more of the latter than the former.

 

“We’re ready for whatever,” Angela said, nodding. “Will you be needing help with anything else?” I could tell she was trying to broach the subject of what he was yelling about.

 

Joseph shrugged his shoulders, his hair gleaming in the light. My cunt tightened together, my clit throbbing under the weight of my thigh—I had crossed my legs one over the other, but the pressure only heightened the pleasure of sitting down in front of Joseph.

 

Why couldn’t I have a less sexy boss? Then I could focus more on what was important.

 

“Antonio decided to run a recent campaign,” Joseph said, swiveling his computer monitor around so that we could see the screen directly. He typed silently, stewing in his thoughts. When he reached a login screen, he entered his password and email, along with other credentials. In the interim, Angela and I let our eyes rove around the room aimlessly. What was she thinking about?

 

Without saying another word, Joseph clicked on a video, and then an advertisement played on the monitor. Big and bold, Antonio swam up from the bottom of the screen, his suit and tie just as immaculate as Joseph’s. Tall and muscular, it wasn’t any stretch of the imagination to see him as a quarterback in college.

 

An American flag wavered across the screen, slowly fading and allowing Antonio to surface at the forefront. He smiled, the tune of Yankee doodle playing in the background.

 

“Do you want Placarm Rhodes off-shoring more jobs to random people abroad? Do you care about keeping jobs here in Manhattan? Well I’ll have you know—Placarm Rhodes isn’t abiding by any of those rules.”

 

I knew where this was going. Angela’s eyes twitched, her lids falling over to shut out the sight she was seeing. I averted my gaze, because I hated these crossfire politics—they could get so nasty, and the last thing I wanted was to be embroiled in a massive scandal.

 

“Joseph Videl, yes, right here in Manhattan, New York, is doing precisely what I’ve mentioned. He’s off-shoring jobs.” And an image of migrant workers flashed across the screen. “He’s making a point of mocking our nation!” And an image of Joseph rose up from around Antonio, showing Joseph at parties while beggars starved in the streets. “He’s making a nuisance out of business here in New York, stalling plans to enact better rights for workers, which ultimately hurts us and you…”

 

Joseph cut off the video. He turned the monitor around, a breath escaping from his lips like a long whistle through a valley.

 

“He’s making crap up,” Joseph said. He placed his hands over his abdomen, trim and lean hands, a tight waist. I turned my gaze outside to the horizon beyond, attempting to listen to his exact words. My body kept reacting to his apparel, the way his voice lingered in my mind. He was angry and I was turned on. “I can’t stand men like him, because these are the men who don’t do business properly. They’ll go behind your back, right when they think they can take advantage of you. That’s precisely why I was so pissed earlier—Antonio thinks he’ll be giving airtime to blast his nonsense over every radiowave and television station here in New York.”

 

“Well,” Angela said, pressing her lips. “Will he?”

 

“No,” Joseph said. “I’ve got my lawyers on my side. But this is just one of many random attacks I’ve faced in the last couple of weeks.”

 

“Sounds like he’s running a political campaign,” I said.

 

“Yeah,” Joseph said. “The word is that he’s going to try this very year.”

 

“Scary,” Angela said, probably to gain Joseph’s favor. I glanced over to her, and her back was straight, her legs pinned upright. Never before had Angela been so attentive. I needed to take some tips. “What are you going to do?”

 

“Fight him,” Joseph said, grinning. His teeth were white and straight. Naturally so, since his jawline was a perfect knife edge and even on both sides. Perfect male beauty. He turned his eyes to me, noticing my drifting, probably. “What do you think I should do, Ophelia?”

 

I stuttered. Then I found my voice, although as fast as it had arrived, it disappeared. “I—I—I—uhm, well, I’m not really sure. You’re taking care of things already, I think. Very well, I might add.”

 

Joseph cackled. He leaned back with one palm flat on his arm rest. “You don’t have to be so stiff with me,” he said, “neither of you do. You’re like old secretaries. There’s way more time in the future for both of you to age up—c’mon.”

 

I let my shoulders slacken, my body relax. Still, my lungs felt like they could be punctured if Joseph only brushed his hands over my chest.

 

“I wouldn’t worry too much about him,” Joseph said, “because anyway, both of you have lots of files to go through. Math. I hope you remember how to do macros as well.”

 

Investment banking looked glamorous in the movies. Deals, sexy lives, and tons of glamour. But the grunt work, the associate level work, always adhered to rote memorization of skills, data entry, and teleconferencing. Boring. Not wanting to sound entitled, I never complained about my job, although it couldn’t be any more boring, honestly. We never did exciting, high level artistry with the numbers we had in front of us. Instead, we performed basic accounting, checked the math of other departments, and created endless macros for Excel spreadsheets. God, I get flashbacks still.

 

“I’ve already attached the necessary documents and forwarded them to your email addresses. Check them on your phones now, so we’ll be on the same page if I need you.”

 

Pulling out my phone, I scanned my inbox, seeing that we had over 100 files. Damn.

 

“Get to work, ladies,” Joseph said, his glittering blue eyes catching my attention. “I’ll see you in a couple moments, yes?”

 

“Of course,” Angela said, lifting her chair slightly so it wouldn’t scratch the floor. She stood closer to his desk, extending her arms, shaking his hands. Doing the whole interview charade, even though we weren’t even interviewing. “We’ll be waiting for you, oh, yes we will.”

 

She’s overdoing it, I thought, putting my hand over my eyes. I grabbed her wrist, before she embarrassed herself any further; but Joseph seemed to be amused, crossing his arms, giving both of us eyes. My heart stopped, its beat off-timed and thumping. I stayed in that space, that intangible space between two people—when Joseph gave me his eyes, I gasped.

BOOK: Curved
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