The Assistants (20 page)

I let myself lean into him. There was so much I needed to say, but unlike the inappropriate moment I had chosen to blurt out that I loved him, I recognized now wasn't the time. “Does this mean you're willing to give me another chance?” I asked.

He kept holding me, letting his authoritative grasp speak for him. It said: a man of such decency and intelligence would never clutch so tightly to anything without value.

“If you'll give me another chance,” he said.

I really let loose then with the crying. I couldn't help it. I was a girl sobbing into her boyfriend's sleeve on a public street. But only for like a minute, and then I got my shit together.

“I'll explain the whole story from the beginning,” I said, wiping my face dry. “But please believe me when I tell you, I never intended to do anything so incredibly illegal.”

Kevin exhaled another long smoky breath. “I think I understand why you did what you did,” he said. “Don't forget, I know what goes on at Titan and what Robert's like. You think I haven't had any revenge fantasies of my own?”

“No. I don't.”

“Well don't be so sure. I'm not as wholesome as you think.”

“Yes you are, and that's what I love best about you.” I moved in for a kiss, but he pulled back.

“That is so
not
what you love best about me.”

“It is.” I placed my hands on both sides of his handsome face. “It just took losing you to make me realize it.”

Then he let me kiss him, kissing me back tenderly enough for my whole body to loosen.

After a moment, he paused and said, “I have something to tell you.”

Immediately my mind went to:
He slept with some other girl while we were broken up
. Already I was deliberating whether I was going to be okay with it, or if I was only going to pretend to be okay with it. Before I could decide, he said, “I quit my job today.”

“What? You quit Titan?”

He nodded. “I think I'm ready to move into public service. The nonprofit sector. Maybe I can come work for you, if you're hiring.”

I loved this man, I truly did. And he loved me, all of me, the real me.

There was a December chill in the air, but I felt warm. Look at where I was. Look at who I'd become.

I rested my forehead on Kevin's. “Funny enough,” I said, “I am looking for an
assistant.”

I
T
'
S BEEN
about six months now and people are still talking about the Assistance. The site has more followers than Taylor Swift's Twitter feed, and we've given away nearly three million dollars in donations. Three million dollars of student-loan debt, obliterated. We did that.

Our humble DUMBO office space is small, but it does have hardwood floors and one exposed-brick wall. It's no Titan building, but it's ours, and I even have an office with a view. The Realtor referred to it as an “urban view”—it's basically just a bunch of decrepit buildings and what I'm pretty sure is a water tower, but who needs to stare at the Brooklyn Bridge all day anyway?

Our staff is where we really excel.

Kevin oversees all things legal. He still wears a necktie to work every day, but only because that's how he's comfortable. And, yes, we did do it in my office one day after everyone else had gone
home and that is totally in accordance with our sexual harassment policy.

Lily manages our accounting. She's chilled out a bit. Sometimes she even forgoes her Lean Cuisine meals and joins the rest of us for lunch at AlMar or Superfine. Her cardigan with giraffes on it is still in common rotation and that is totally in accordance with our dress code.

Wendi is in charge of digital everything and anything that has to do with a computer. A video of her band's most recent single, “Kiss Your Stock Options Good-bye, I'm Going to Set You on Fire Now,” has developed a cult following among a newly forming anarchist subset of Assistance members, a fierce and loyal superfan group who call themselves the WendiChanimals. You can recognize them by the two pink horns dyed into their bangs.

Ginger runs PR, which suits her much better than being a legal assistant pursued on the regular by an in-heat Glen Wiles. It's incredible how no longer having to worry about getting your ass grabbed can really free up a girl's mind. Ginger transformed herself into a self-taught public relations maven faster than you can say
end-user deliverables
. She regularly lectures the rest of us on the importance of our horizontals and verticals (insert sex joke here) and our target media. I used to think Ginger was just a mean girl all grown up; now I know it for a fact—but mean girls make excellent publicists, especially when they're smarter and more determined than any mean man you've ever met.

Emily has done everything possible to milk her five minutes of fame. She has finally (like Diane von Furstenberg) become the woman she always knew she wanted to be. Her main responsibility is coordinating the nonprofit's fund-raising (i.e., asking rich people
for money, which she naturally rocks at). But she's also turned herself into a much-sought-after public speaker. At the moment, she's preparing her talk for a TEDx event, which she's hoping to parlay into a guest spot on the
Ellen
show, which she's hoping to parlay into her own show—a reboot of
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
called
Emily Johnson's Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams
. What sort of accent she would put on for such a show is still up for debate.

I mostly keep quiet, running the less glamorous behind-the-scenes aspects of the nonprofit. Holding meetings, making decisions. And I'm surprisingly
good
at it. After the long and complicated route to getting here, I've finally arrived at a place disarmingly simple: I'm happy. Because it feels good to do something positive with my days.

My assistant is a brilliant, fresh-faced young woman just out of college. After a year of her dedicated service (not to mention keeping us up-to-date on the coolest new apps, the latest bands we've never heard of, and the correct pronunciation of words like
GIF
), we'll pay off her $72,000 student-loan debt, in full. Then we'll promote her.

Yesterday, she buzzed me while I was going over a spreadsheet and staring out my window at the water tower.

“There's someone here to see you,” she said. “It's . . .” Her voice dropped off.

Fearing she'd passed out, or suddenly come down with a nasty bout of narcolepsy, I went to the doorway.

She was fine. But standing across from her, with his hands on her desk, was—I understood why her voice had dropped off.

“Robert.” His name caught in my throat, too.

“Tina,” he said. “Or should I call you Ms. Fontana now?” He pointed at the doorway I'd emerged from. “That your office?” He marched toward it.

“Yes.” I followed him inside and closed the door behind me. “Please, have a seat,” I said in the freakiest role reversal of my entire life.

I sat at my desk.

Robert was dressed in a gray Armani suit, white dress shirt, and navy-blue knit necktie—which I recognized as his uniform for when he had a meeting with the board or a public appearance. Did he put on his best clothes just to come see me?

“It's been some time,” he said, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing his ankles above his freshly shined shoes.

I brought my voice down to a whisper. “If you're here about the documents, you don't have to worry.”

“No, no I'm not,” he said.

“Because if I were going to—”

“I know.”

He shifted in his chair, loosened his necktie. “You've done really well for yourself, Tina. It's good, it's good. I'm proud of you.”

A knot formed in my throat. As if the one he loosened from his neck had passed directly into mine.

“I never meant to hurt you,” I blurted out.

He leaned in, hands on his knees, and I became terrified in an old and familiar way.

“I'm not much of an admirer of in-your-face attitudes,” he said. “But I have to concede that y'all put a pistol ball in me. I've got a certain amount of respect for that.” He leaned back in his chair again.

I could tell that he was yearning to put his leg up on the desk. But he couldn't, because it was my desk.

“Anyhow, I'd call us even. What do you say?” He extended his hand for a shake.

I took his hand firmly in mine. “
Even
I'm not sure about,” I said. “But you've got yourself a truce.”

“Well aren't you just tough as a boiled owl!” Robert tugged hard on my hand, like he didn't want to let it go so easily. “Is that a bottle of Herradura Añejo I'm looking at back there?” He nodded at the shelf behind me.

“It is,” I said, without having to turn around. “But it's strictly for after five p.m.”

“Fair enough, fair enough.” He laughed and then stood up. “I suppose I should get going.”

The knot in my throat dropped with a pang to my heart. I didn't want him to leave.

“I guess I could make an exception,” I said. “This one time.”

He smiled the way he used to whenever he got his way and sat back down.

I felt better. I felt calm, calmer than I'd ever felt in my life. I reached for the bottle. “But you're slicing the lime,” I
said.

Thank you to my agent, Kerry Sparks, who boarded an airplane with the first ten chapters of
The Assistants
in her carry-on luggage and landed a few hours later ready to take a chance on me, and to everyone at Levine Greenberg Rostan, especially Tim Wojcik and Lindsay Edgecombe.

Thank you to my editor, Kerri Kolen, who is everything I could ask for in a collaborator and partner in crime (her proficiency in the late-'80s oeuvre of Shelley Long is just a bonus), and to Ivan Held, Alexis Welby, and the entire Putnam publicity team.

Thank you to Amy Einhorn, who saw the potential in an early version of
The Assistants
when no one else did. And to Dana Spector at Paradigm, who believed very early on that this book could make a fun movie.

Thank you to David Granger for pretty much every good thing that's happened to me in the past five years. I will be forever grateful to you, David. And to Tyler Cabot, who wishes he could be a
jerk but is one of the best guys I've ever known. Thank you also to Joanna Coles and all of my talented coworkers at
Cosmopolitan
for their support and encouragement.

For being the sole reader of countless drafts of this manuscript and my trusted confidant, I'd like to thank Victoria Comella. I'd also like to thank Summer Smith for her advice and guidance. Courtney Gillette and Emily Moore, you've helped me become a better writer and a better person.

For their friendship (and patience when I disappear from the face of the earth for days, weeks, and sometimes months at a time), I'd like to thank Shellie Citron, Tiana Peterson, Mary Barbour, Elyssa Kilman, Ana Saldamando, Laura Lampton Scott, Joanna Greenberg, Penny Citrola, Amy Badagliacca, Lisa Jusino, Natalia Chiemi, and Alison O'Connell.

Thank you to all of my friends and former coworkers at the East Meadow Public Library and the Great Neck Library, especially Susan Newson, Harriet Edwards, and Frances Jackson. Thank you to my former teachers Priscilla Gray and Cynthia Eagle. Thank you, Richard Strauss, for saving my life on a weekly basis.

Thank you to everyone at the Blue Stove, especially Jackie Zebrowski—you make my every day better. R.I.P Verb Café—you'll live on in my heart forever.

To Helen Pennock . . . Helen, I could not have done this without you. Thank you for helping me through the hardest times and for making the good times even better. I love you so much.

And finally, to my family: my father, Frank Perri, and sisters, Francine Azzariti and Maria Balsamo, and in loving memory of my mother, Angela Perri, who always told me I should write a book someday.

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