“I don’t judge people on how young or old they are per se, but I do find that young people your age generally don’t know how to answer the phone properly,” Ken Dolan said. “Nor take a message correctly, when it comes to that. All of this texting and electronic media are damaging the basic but important communication we need, especially in a business that depends on customers feeling properly addressed.”
“I suppose it’s how you’re brought up, too,” I said. “My mother set a good example for me when it came to people-to-people relations. I’m probably as frustrated by some of the careless and sloppy talk we get on the phone these days as you are. I’m not Miss Perfect, but I think I know when to put my own interest on hold and service the priorities of other people. It’s a matter of self-survival, anyway, isn’t it?”
He stared at me a moment and then smiled. “Self-survival?”
“I’ve had to fend for myself more than most lately, Mr. Dolan. You tend to grow up faster when that happens. My age and my appearance are somewhat deceptive, but then again, there will be women who come in here looking for this position who will be older and might even appear to be responsible and mature but who will be just as deceptive.”
His mouth opened a little, and then he laughed, holding his smile. “I’m beginning to understand what my aunt saw.”
I shrugged. “I won’t make any claims about myself. Your aunt would surely say the proof is in the pudding, anyway.”
He nodded. “You read her right. I like it when I meet someone, young or old, who has some good perception.”
“Survival,” I emphasized. “When you don’t have much of a safety net, you had better be right about people you meet the first time.”
“You’re a very pretty girl, Lorelei. Do you see that as an advantage or a disadvantage?”
“Depends. With men, it’s usually an advantage. Most women see me as a threat,” I said, and his eyes brightened.
“You don’t sound conceited, but you don’t back away from a compliment, either.”
I shrugged. “What is true is true, Mr. Dolan. Why put on false humility? Besides, I don’t want to tell you that you’re wrong the first time I’ve met you.”
He laughed so hard I thought he would have a pain in his stomach. “Where do you come from again?”
“I’m from California, but we lived in other places.”
“And you have no family here or in Boston?”
“I’m on my own, Mr. Dolan. I’m responsible for myself.”
“What brought you here, I mean, this place in particular?”
“It looked like a good place to start anew. I was tired of big-city commotion. I suppose I’m a little too old-fashioned for most of my contemporaries, but I want to have a solid beginning and be somewhere where people are more substantial. I know I can succeed here.”
He nodded, his eyes warming with his appreciation of me. “I like your determination and confidence, Lorelei. Unlike most of the young people your age I have met, you seem quite centered, but what do you know about plumbing supplies? I like all of my employees, even those who do nothing but drive trucks, to know something about what we do and have for our customers. Questions and complaints come rushing in here daily.”
“All I can tell you, Mr. Dolan, is that I am a quick learner, and I know that when I don’t know something, I should turn to someone who does and not try to fool anyone, especially a customer of yours.”
“Hmm . . . well, I’ll see about your getting the full tour and tutoring. In the meantime . . .”
He got up and went to his desk to pick up his phone and buzz Michele Levy. “Michele, I want you to try something for me. I want you to give Lorelei Patio all
of the paperwork you have left to do today. That’s right. Just point it out on the computer and describe it quickly. Show her how to use the phone system. Then go take a break. Go to the lounge, and return in two hours. She’ll be right out.” He hung up and looked at me. “That okay with you, some pudding?”
“I hope there will be proof in it,” I replied.
He laughed.
I stood up. “Is that your daughter in the nurse’s uniform?”
“Julia, yes. She works ER at the hospital here. I couldn’t get her into the business. She told me she preferred human plumbing to steel and copper. Don’t know where she gets it. I get woozy at the sight of blood.”
“Most people do,” I said. “We have to appreciate those who don’t.”
He liked that; he liked it very much.
I thought that was something ironic that Daddy would have said with a smile hidden in his lips. I imagined I would spend the rest of my life thinking of things that he would have said. The longer I was away, the deeper was my understanding of what Ava meant when she told me I could never escape who and what we were.
Maybe she couldn’t, I thought, but I could.
I hoped.
I stepped out of the office. Michele Levy looked up at me with an even bigger smile of surprise than when I had first arrived with Michael Thomas.
“What did you do?” she asked in a near whisper, gazing at the inner office door.
“Told the truth,” I said.
She shook her head. That answer made no sense to her. “Bring that chair over,” she said, indicating a chair on the right, “and we’ll begin.”
I know she was pleasantly surprised at how quickly I picked up on the software they used. It wasn’t brain surgery. Actually, I held myself back a little, maybe a lot, because I was afraid she might be spooked by my intelligence and instinctive abilities.
While she was away, I completed all of the work she had set aside and answered five phone calls, two of which Mr. Dolan was waiting for. He asked me to get back to each of the other three and was on the final call when Michele returned. She looked over what I had done and then looked up at the clock.
“I don’t understand how you got all that inventory done this quickly and wrote those letters, too.”
“Computers aren’t such a mystery,” I said.
“I don’t mean the computer.” She seemed suspicious and even a little resentful, jealous.
No one likes to be easily replaced, I thought. I should be more humble, go slower. “Well, you left very good instructions,” I told her, which seemed to help.
Mr. Dolan suddenly opened his door and stepped into the outer office. “So?” he asked Michele. “Do I have her go to the business office and give them her social security number, or what?”
“She’s done it all, Mr. Dolan, and quite well.”
He nodded. “Why don’t you go home, then, Michele? Lorelei can finish the day here. Come back in the morning for a few hours to be sure she has a handle
on it all,” he added, turning to me, “although I have no doubt she will.” Mr. Dolan winked at me and returned to his office.
“I don’t know who you are, Lorelei Patio, but you’ve gotten off to the best start of any employee since I’ve been here. Don’t do anything to ruin it,” Michele said.
She had started to gather her things when a young man I recognized from his photo as Mr. Dolan’s son entered. To me, he looked as if he had just gotten out of bed. He paused, looked at the two of us, and smiled.
Wiping his long pecan-brown hair away from his eyes, he asked, “Who is this, Michele?”
“A possible replacement for me, Liam,” she replied.
“My father hired you to replace Michele?” he asked me, his smile widening.
Liam had his father’s eyes and was even more handsome—and not simply because he was younger. His features were perfect, like the face of a Greek statue where so much care was taken to keep everything in proportion. He had that unshaved look and was at least an inch taller than his father. Although not as athletically built, he was tight and slim. At the moment, his khaki shirt was opened low enough to show his chest hair and a gold Cuban-link necklace that looked at least fourteen-karat. I couldn’t help but be drawn to the sexual energy in his eyes. There was a sweet but strong masculine aura radiating from him. I could deny many things about myself, perhaps, but not the underlying lusts that shaped who and what we were. If we were to succeed for Daddy, we had to generate raw sexual energy as well as, if not better and stronger than, any
other young woman. Liam looked like a young man who could comfortably satisfy my desire. His smile was awash in his self-confidence, and yet there was something boyish and innocent about him that kept him from appearing too arrogant. I could imagine him crying with grateful joy at the pleasure he would find in my kiss, my embrace, my ultimate act of love.
“He’s trying me out, yes,” I said.
“I wouldn’t have to try you out. I’d hire you immediately,” he said with a softness that helped me easily imagine his lips brushing my neck and following the line of my collarbone to the small of my throat until I gasped and he pressed his mouth to mine. I could feel a stirring under my breast when I imagined this. It was as if a sleeping serpent had slowly lifted its head and flicked its tongue to taste the raging desire that had come so close.
Neither of us shifted our gaze away from the other until we heard Mr. Dolan’s office door open. He stood there glaring out at his son. If anger could take the form of tears, he’d be drowning in them, I thought.
“Hey, Dad. Congratulations on your choice of secretary. Didn’t know you had such good taste anymore.”
“Never mind your stupid remarks, Liam. Why didn’t you tend to the Sheinman account? I had to send Michael over there this morning, and he had other things to do today that were equally important.”
“Oh, I had a bad night, Dad. Matter of fact, I just managed to get out of bed.”
“What for?” his father asked, backed up, and slammed the door.
Michele looked at me and continued to gather her things a little faster.
“You’d think he’d be in a better mood after meeting you,” Liam told me. He didn’t look even slightly shaken by his father’s rage. “I know I am.”
I returned to the paperwork. I wasn’t looking to get into the middle of this, especially so soon. Fortunately, before he could say another word, the phone rang.
“Dolan Plumbing Supply, Mr. Dolan’s office,” I said. “One moment, please.”
I buzzed Ken Dolan.
“A Mr. Marcus on the line, Mr. Dolan. Okay.” I returned to the phone call. “Mr. Marcus, Mr. Dolan is in a meeting. Could he call you back in an hour or so? Yes, sir. I’ll make a note of it. Thank you.”
Michele smiled at me. Liam just stood there gaping as if I had accomplished some major feat. How bad were the other applicants? I wondered.
“You need anyone to show you around, you drop into my office,” Liam told me. “I’d better go see if Pam is still awake,” he told Michele. “My father deliberately assigned her to me. She’s a week away from social security, so he thought she would be safe.” He worked up a charming smile mainly for my benefit.
He waited for some reaction, but neither Michele nor I responded. We watched him go, and then she turned to me. “I hope you have a steady boyfriend, Lorelei, or he’ll hit on you until you see him in nightmares.”
“He’s not my type,” I said, even though the feelings I was sensing at the base of my stomach were telling me he was, as Ava would say, prime prey.
“What’s your type?” she asked with a skeptical smile. I knew she was thinking that I would be interested in the boss’s son for obvious reasons.
“Healthier.”
“Healthier?”
“In mind and body,” I said, and she laughed before looking at the door to be sure he was gone.
She turned back to me, looking more serious. “I’m sure you’ll get an earful from Mrs. Winston, but as you can see, Liam and his father are usually at the tip of double-edged swords. Liam dropped out of college last year before they threw him out. You might know already that Mr. Dolan’s wife ran off and left him with the children years ago.”
“Yes, Mrs. Winston did tell me that much.”
“Well, you can see the result of that when it comes to Liam. He’s nothing like his father. He doesn’t have any sense of responsibility. You don’t even have to be an amateur psychiatrist to see that he’s acting out because of all his pent-up anger. Julia’s completely different. You will have trouble believing they had the same mother.”
“Children are most often different in the same families,” I said. She didn’t realize it, of course, but I was saying it more like a prayer than a fact. If there was anything I wanted to be true right then, that was it.
She looked at me oddly, obviously not expecting me to be so calm and sound so wise. “You haven’t been to college?”
“Not yet,” I said. “I might start in a year or so.”
“You seem a lot older than you claim to be. At some
point, that’s true for every woman, but it looks true for you already.”
“It’s not time that matters; it’s what experiences you have within that time. My father always said that,” I added, smiling to myself.
“Well, he’s obviously a very wise man.”
“Men are men,” I said, quickly remembering the story I was giving about my family.
“What’s that mean?”
“They might come up with some wisdom from time to time, but they don’t always think first and then act. They’re led about on a leash of testosterone most of the time, especially my father.”
She laughed. “Well, Liam won’t disappoint you there. He has quite the reputation.” She looked at Mr. Dolan’s closed door and leaned toward me. “The inside joke here is that he would go home with the right pipe fitting if he couldn’t get a date.”
“If he’s depending on a date with me, he’ll empty out the warehouse,” I said.
She laughed so hard she had to hold her stomach. “You’ll have me give birth right here.”
“Oh, don’t do that. Go home.”
“I almost wish I could be a fly on the wall these next few weeks.”
“It’s not worth your curiosity, Michele. Believe me,” I said.
She nodded, obviously impressed with me but still a little skeptical. “We’ll see. I’ll see you in the morning and spend more time with you. I’ve lived here most of
my life, so if you have any questions about anything in Quincy . . .”
“Thank you. Have you and your husband chosen a name for your soon-to-be-born son?”
She started to speak and then stopped. “I didn’t tell you I was having a boy. I haven’t told anyone here that, not even Mr. Dolan. We didn’t want anyone to know we had broken down and given in to find out. We haven’t even told our family. My mother would carry on about ruining the surprise. I know my grandmother would. She says all this technology takes the romance out of our lives.”