Ignite Me (The Annihilate Me Series) (11 page)

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

The first text
arrived just as I was about to leave to meet Zack to collect Blackwell’s dry cleaning
and her daily heap of roughage.

It was eleven
sharp and I was exiting the building at a brisk pace when I heard a chime I
didn’t recognize coming from the depths of my bag.
 

I stopped in
the middle of the lobby and frantically pulled out the phone I’d been given
earlier.
 
Since I’d been too busy
getting a tour of Wenn to set the sounds that would indicate whether I’d
received a voice message, an email, or a text message, I wasn’t sure what I had
waiting for me when I looked at the phone.

It was a text
message.
 
And it was from Brock.

I turned on the
phone and read it:
 
“Sorry if I came
off as a jerk earlier.
 
I didn’t
mean to ignore you when I stepped into the office.
 
But with Barbara standing there, and
after learning what she’d said to you about us, it was best for me to just go
to my office and shut the door.
 
Otherwise, things would have become heated, which I know you don’t
want.
 
I hope we can work this out,
Madison.
 
Text me.
 
—Brock.”

Why was he
tempting me like this?
 
And why was
he contacting me on this phone?
 
Hadn’t he heard me this morning?
 
Not getting to know him better wasn’t what I wanted, but it was nevertheless
what had to be done.
 
So I deleted
the text, clicked off the phone, dropped it in my bag, and hurried toward
Wenn’s exit, where Zack was waiting for me curbside beside the ridiculous
limousine Blackwell demanded I be driven in.
 
I had only an hour to pick up her dry cleaning
and her salad.
 
If I failed at each,
she’d use her fork to stab me.
 

“Hi, Zack,” I
said.

“Morning,
Madison.
 
Dry cleaners and a salad
today?”

“You’ve got
it.
 
And as someone near and dear to
us would say,
tout-de-suite
!”

 
*
 
*
 
*

This time, Zack
and I got the job done with eleven minutes to spare, which flooded me with the
sort of relief I needed today—particularly after the hell that had been
yesterday.

Unless she
found something wrong with her salad, I couldn’t imagine her finding fault with
my performance thus far today.
 
But
since this was Blackwell, who the hell knew?

Armed with the
bag from Le Salade in one hand and her ridiculous load of dry cleaning
carefully draped over my other arm, I hurried toward Wenn’s entrance, took one
of the elevators, and despite the repeated stops on the way up, I still had
four minutes to spare when I stepped out onto our floor.

Now, compose
yourself.
 
Don’t let her see you
looking harried.

And I
didn’t.
 
By the time I reached her
office, it was noon on the dot, I’d collected myself, I’d made certain that her
clothing—sheathed in plastic wrap—was stacked neatly in such a way
that it wouldn’t slide off my arm, and then I went to her open door, where I
found her flipping through the latest edition of
Vogue
.

“Ms.
Blackwell?” I said.

She looked at
me over the top of the magazine before she put it down on her desk.
 

“Madison.”

“I have your
dry cleaning and your salad for you.”

“Why do you
make it sound as if I’m in some sort of assisted living?
 
‘I have your dry cleaning and your salad
for you.’
 
Are you to give me my
pills next?”

I just blinked
at her.
 
“I’m sorry?”

She rolled her
eyes at that and with a florid sweep of her hand, she removed her glasses,
tossed them onto the magazine, and then leaned toward me.
 
“It was a joke, Madison.
 
Relax.”

“Is there any
place in particular where you’d like me to put your clothes?”

“About my
‘clothes,’” she said as she stood.
 
“Why are you carrying them like that?”

And now what
have I done wrong?

“Like what?”

“Over your arm
as if they somehow just decided to collapse over it.”

“I . . .”

“Do you have
any idea what you’re holding on that arm, Madison?”

“Yes,” I
said.
 
“Well, no, not
completely.
 
But I can assume.
 
I know you love Chanel and a good deal
of what I’m seeing here looks like Chanel, so I can only imagine that all of
this is very expensive.”

“Define
‘expensive.’”

“I read
Vogue
,”
I said.
 
“If memory serves, I
believe that a Chanel suit costs several thousand dollars.”

“Define ‘several
thousand dollars.’”

“I’m not
sure.
 
Seven or eight?”

“Seven or
eight?
 
Really, Madison?
 
Seriously?
 
I wear couture, not something off the
rack.
 
How would you feel if I told
you that you were carrying over 250 thousand dollars worth of Chanel right
now?
 
Suits that you’ve deemed fit
to just slump over your arm in ways that might bruise the fabric?”

“Bruise the
fabric?”

“Yes, bruise
the fabric.
 
It happens.”

“I had no
idea.”

“The proper way
you should be holding my suits is by the hangers themselves.
 
That way, they’ll be allowed to drop
freely and hang as they were meant to be hung.
 
After all, isn’t that how you were given
them when you picked them up today?
 
Didn’t Rosalind, whom I’ve been going to for years because she owns the
city’s best dry-cleaning service, give them to you by their metal hooks?”

“She did,” I
said.
 
“But there must be fourteen
suits here.
 
They’re heavy.
 
I’m not sure that I could have gotten
them to you if I had to hook them over my fingers.”

“Then I suggest
you take yourself to Wenn Fitness,” she said.
 
“It is part of your benefits package,
after all.”

“In fact, I
plan to start going there tonight.
 
Straight after work.”

“And that
concerns me how?”

I just stared
at her, not knowing what to say because whatever I said when it came to this
woman seemed to be the wrong thing to say.
 
So I stood there and decided to wait for what would come next.

“Give me the suits,”
she said.
 
“By their hangers.”

I put the paper
bag from Le Salade on the edge of Blackwell’s desk, slipped my fingers through
the thick bunch of metal hooks, and lifted the clothes carefully off my
arm.
 
I held them out to her, she
took them from me with an exasperated sigh, and then she went to a door on the
right.
 

When she opened
it, I saw that it was a closet, and piece by piece, she delicately put each
suit on the rack in such a way that no article of clothing touched the other
one, despite the plastic wrapping.

“Consider that
another lesson learned,” she said when she was finished.
 
“Later, I’ll inspect each suit for any
damage that might have been done.
 
Let’s hope there isn’t any.”

“I’m sorry, Ms.
Blackwell.”

“I have zero
time for apologies.
 
As for my
salad, at the very least, I expect
that
to be perfect.”

And it
was.
 
After I’d removed it from the
bag and revealed it to her, she picked through the leaves, gave me a brisk nod,
and then watched me as I applied the olive oil and balsamic vinegar to it from
the small plastic cups.

“Why is your
hand shaking?” she asked.

Because you
terrify me.

“I’m not sure,”
I lied.
 
“Probably because I haven’t
eaten yet.”

“Ah, but the
question is whether you have time for that,” she said.
 
“How far along are you with the list I
gave you earlier today?”

“I’m just over
halfway through it.”

“More than
halfway?” she said with a clear note of surprise in her voice.

“Yes, Ms.
Blackwell.”

“Well, that’s something.
 
And by the way, it does appear that you
are capable of learning, because you just poured precisely the right amount of
oil and vinegar on my salad.
 
So, at
the very least, you can leave here happy knowing that.
 
As for my suits?
 
Don’t you ever treat them like that
again.
 
Are we understood?”

“We are, Ms.
Blackwell.”

She sat behind
her desk and, for a moment, I thought I saw her expression soften just before
it tightened again.
 
“I warned you
that this wouldn’t be easy, Madison.
 
Margaret herself found that out.
 
But look at her now—the director of human resources.
 
Do you have that within you?
 
Can you succeed as she did?
 
I’m still unsure.
 
That said, I’m not against you.
 
I’m hoping that you’ll prove me wrong.”

I plan to.

“That’s
enough,” she said.
 
“Close the door
behind you.
 
Take a fifteen-minute
break to get some food into you, and then finish the list.
 
When you’re done, see me at the end of
the day.
 
And then we’ll assess.”

*
 
*
 
*

Since I’d
brought nothing with me to eat, I went into the break area, chose a bottle of
water and what was probably a day-old tomato and mozzarella sandwich from the
vending machine, and then I went back to my desk, where I saw that Brock’s
office door was open.

Had he also
heard that exchange between Blackwell and me?
 
Had everyone else on the floor heard me
getting reamed out by her again?
 
It
was likely, and the idea that they might have heard it was nothing short of
humiliating.
 

Once again, I
had to wonder whether coming to New York had been the right choice for me.
 
Whether spending all of that money on a
Harvard education would one day lead to more than just fetching salads, dry cleaning,
and the like.
 
I had a mind for
business that was going unused, and I was not happy about it.

But I wasn’t
alone.
 

Like most Ivy League
schools, Harvard cultivated an eclectic group of students from various
backgrounds.
 
Sure, the school was
peppered with the elite, but Harvard accepted many people who came from rural
or humble backgrounds just like mine—all in the name of diversity.
 

I respected my
alma mater for that, and because I had bonded with a group of friends not
unlike me while I was there, I also knew from keeping in touch with them that
many were going through the same work-related issues that I was experiencing.
 

When we left
Harvard, all of us had naïvely thought that we’d paid our dues and that doors
would just spring open for us.
 
Not
only were we wrong about that, we also didn’t know how difficult and
competitive the job market was in New York.
 
What most of us knew now was that if you
came to New York City with a Harvard degree, it raised few eyebrows, because
the city was already riddled with highly accomplished students from a host of
high-end universities who were fresh to the marketplace and eager for work.

But I refused
to give up on my dreams.
 
I had to
believe that one day I would get my break.
 
Would it be with Wenn?
 
I
certainly hoped so.
 
But if nothing
moved forward for me after a year, I’d just have to take another hit and move
on to another job.

When I sat down
at my desk, I looked across the way and saw that Brock was looking at me.
 
He mouthed the word “sorry” to me.
 
I managed a quick smile that hopefully
conferred that I was fine before I looked away from him, cracked open my bottle
of water, and started to eat so I could get on with my day.