It’s not hard for him to fit in with the senior guys. He’s so easy to get along with, and there’s none of the tiptoeing you have to do with the female or minority employees. God, they’re all so prickly. But not good old Rob. He’s just more . . . comfortable to be around.
“As you know,” he repeats; then he clears his throat and tries to get it together with a fierce glance in my direction. I smile.
“As you know, our calculations show there are a shit-ton of fantastic opportunities for you right now.”
Jeremy Browning blinks. Several times.
“Quite a few of the entities we approached were very interested in the high value and low cost that you’re offering.” He frowns again. “All three of the largest school systems in the state . . .”
The client clears his throat.
“Sorry,” Rob says, “I do have the numbers right here.”
Others in the room are beginning to shift and squirm. The whole client team looks toward the partners. They look toward each other. I wait a few more seconds. Then a few more.
“Pardon the interruption,” I say, just as Mr. Browning is tensing to open his mouth. “Robert and I ran the numbers, and we’re predicting district cost savings of over fifteen percent just on frozen processed chicken alone. Frozen raw chicken? Well, that gets even better, and, believe me, the school districts we approached were very excited.”
I flash a smile at the table and dip my head toward Rob. “I apologize, I don’t have Robert’s notes, but let me sum up the numbers for you on the board.” I stand and spin to the whiteboard behind me, snatching up a pen to immediately start jotting down the costs I’ve memorized along with the offers we’ve predicted we could pitch for years one through three.
“These are just rough estimates, of course. We can move forward with a deep dive before negotiations begin, but we all agree that North Unlimited is offering an ideal arrangement, and of course everyone is looking to cut costs, especially in non–education-related expenses. Reduced school funding only works toward your advantage in this environment. I even got a hint of interest from the state college system.”
“Whoa,” the president of North Unlimited breathes. “That would be unbelievable.”
It is unbelievable, because this is absolutely untrue, but who could know that? Four weeks from now, if anyone asks, I’ll glumly inform them that it didn’t work out.
“Obviously, the laws governing raw chicken imports create quite a complication, but that’s why you’ve hired us. So . . . do you think your supplier in Brazil could handle an order increase of three hundred percent? Because those are the kind of numbers we’re looking at.”
“Absolutely.” His supplier isn’t really in Brazil and the owner of North Unlimited is a goddamn scammer, but what do I care?
“So this should be our starting point with the first school districts,” I finish, poking the marker hard into the board. “You’ve indicated that we can afford to budge quite a bit from here, but I’m not sure we’ll have to. They’re excited by your assurances about the product being all-natural and minimally processed at that price point.” I swing back to smile at the clients. “We can definitely open with a two-year contract. What do you think?”
I don’t care what they think, of course, just like I’m not actually sorry for interrupting good old Rob. But I need to be likable as well as capable and confident. What a tightrope.
The room has relaxed, thrilled that someone stepped in to avert disaster. Rob is slumped into a loose lump of puzzlement on the other side of the table, thinking, What just happened?
The clients jump in with questions. I answer most of them, though I bite my tongue occasionally to let others at the table share in the triumph. We’ve got ourselves a plan now, and there’s profit to be had by all.
Half an hour later, I’m the one shaking hands with everyone in the room as they file out, though Rob has rallied enough to make a game effort of it. Still, quite a few people manage to slip by him with eyes locked on the doorway and hands occupied. The partners don’t bother avoiding his eyes. They clap my shoulder and say good job, and then they walk past him with lips curled.
“Thanks, Robert,” I say as I breeze through the door, the last to leave him standing there. “I’ll type up a summary of the details we covered and cc you on it. Don’t worry.”
“Oh,” I hear him murmur behind me. “Yeah, great.”
He won’t be fired, though once I start dropping hints about him and the mournful receptionist, he might become too much of a liability to keep around. But for now his job is safe; he’s just lost his golden-boy shine, and I’ve stolen it to rub all over myself.
Jane really saved the day, stepping in like that. Did you see her pull those numbers out of the air? What an asset she is in times like these.
Good old unflappable Jane.
I leave the door of my office open so I can catch snatches of conversation from the hallway as people buzz by. Rob closes his door with a hollow thunk that shivers over my excited nerves.
Grinning, I get out my phone to send a text. Meet me for a drink at The Train Car? 5:30?
Yes, he responds immediately.
They have individual bathrooms there. We can go in together and lock the door. ☺
Luke is a nice, quiet guy. Modest and kind. But I can get him to do anything. I make him nervous, but he feels alive, and isn’t that what really matters?
I hope it is, because that’s all I’ve got.
CHAPTER 2
The problem with having sex early in the evening is that it frees up too many hours for things like talking. This is my first committed relationship, and it’s the thing I hate most about it, that moment when he says “Jane . . .” in that serious tone.
“Nope,” I respond.
Luke looks startled by that and twists on the couch to face me more fully. “Pardon?”
“Nope,” I repeat.
“But I didn’t ask anything.”
“Well, I’m reading.”
“Oh.” He pauses for only a moment before trying again. “I just wanted to talk about something with you while we have the time.”
I don’t have the time. I’m in the middle of a book, and I just said that. But if I push him off now, he’ll bring it up later when I’m trying to fall asleep, and that will be even worse. I’ll say something that hurts his feelings because I’m tired and not being careful.
Then again, even if he brings it up later, I could distract him with sex because he’ll be fully recovered.
But I’ve hesitated too long, and Luke takes that as acceptance. “We’ve been dating for a year now, and it’s been great.”
Well, here it is. This is why I hate talking. It never leads to anything good, like food or sex or action movies. It leads to this: Luke is breaking up with me.
I’ve known it would come eventually. I’m not the marrying type. I’m not even the girlfriend type, because I have a kind of . . . disability. I’m not capable of experiencing a full range of emotion, and most emotions I can’t pull off at all, but that’s not my fault.
That’s the thing no one wants to acknowledge about sociopaths. It’s not my fault. I didn’t choose this.