The Frenchman (Crime Royalty Romance Book 1) (35 page)

Freddy had been a significant resource over the past few years. He often gave us rides to the Niagara Falls Methadone Clinic, occasionally to get groceries, and helped out with money when necessary. My mother said, “He damn well owed her,” when I had asked her once why he bothered. As with most things she uttered in the last few years of her life, I did not inquire further.

Freddy was the one who found my mother’s corpse on the kitchen floor. Overdose was the final coroner’s ruling.

I sighed through my nose, crossly, and checked the time again. This prospective employer was now running 10 minutes late. By the time he interviewed the two women seated across from me, it would be another 20 minutes, at least, before it was my turn.
Unacceptable
. I thought about leaving, but immediately acknowledged that would be unwise, since my dilemma
is
my inability to find a job in Sydney. I was officially a beggar, not a chooser—a situation I had not anticipated when I decided to move away from America that day in our trailer.

Rain pattered the thin roof, and Freddy’s cigarette smoke congested the humid air. (I’d asked him 28 times to refrain from smoking inside the trailer.) He just stood there, against the kitchen counter, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a smoke to his lips, staring at me. People are often confused by me. I do not know how to respond on these occasions, but I always recognize the telltale dead air. He asked about my plans, and, as ABBA’s “The Dancing Queen” played from Muriel’s beachside bedroom into my highway-side living room, I heard myself say, “I am moving to Sydney.”

“Sydney? In Florida?”

“Australia,” I whispered. My logic slid into place like a well-oiled machine, because that’s how my brain works, or rather how my mother would explain it to people when I was younger. “Oh, Charlie? She don’t think like the rest of us. She’s so smart she don’t bother with things like emotions. She’s a limited edition, well-oiled machine.”

The truth is I do have a higher than average IQ when it comes to certain subjects, such as math and languages. However, I struggle with fields that require creativity and interpretative assumption making, like reading emotions and navigating nuances of social interactions. I am on the lowest-end of a spectrum of unique development disorders that no one really understands well. “A very mild case of PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified),” stated the doctor’s report from second grade, which I found tucked among mother’s belongings, long forgotten. That explained why I had only gotten Cs in certain classes yet won the math award every year, and, perhaps, why I had had no lasting friends until I met Beatrice (B) Moody in the sixth grade advanced program.

B never stares at me strangely. And, since inserting herself in my life, she has taken on the role of filling in the gaps of silence for me when she is present.

Take my current situation: I suspected that if she was seated such that she faced two rivals for a job opportunity, she would have found a way to break the figurative ice. I eyed the two women, and my surrounds, and realized I was pursing my lips. Since body language is a powerful communication tool, and I was in need of a positive job-hunt development after two weeks of searching in Sydney, I released them. The effort did not help to put me at ease. I prefer at least one day’s notice to prepare for a job interview.

The Wikipedia article I had managed to read on my phone before I arrived here said that Mr. Jace Knight was a lucrative international hotelier and a jet-setter. Certainly, by the looks of the Sydney Plaza offices (and lobby, which I had passed through in order to reach the employee offices in an adjacent, attached building), Mr. Knight had no problem spending money. The chair I sat in was leather, the walls, glossy marble. I felt distinctly out of place, a first for me, which struck me as . . . unsettling—
yet again
.

Ever since arriving in Australia, I had found myself in the unpleasant position of being what some might describe as a “doubter.”

For example, unlike B, who had been headhunted out of college by the government (she is an excellent computer engineer), I had dropped out of college in my first year, unable to work, study, and support both myself and my mother. Given the spare time I had between job interviews, I had found myself questioning whether I had made the right decision to sacrifice college.

Mother and I had an agreement she would not take drugs without me present. Why she would break her agreement, and use far more than even the most inexperienced addict would use, could only lead me to believe she had done so on purpose. When I had said as much to B on the morning of the funeral, she had said, “Charlie, you know full well how people do things no one’ll ever understand. And for the record, it’s the other way around. She failed you.”

That was not a satisfactory response.

Nothing about what had happened was satisfactory.

And I felt it then, severely, sitting on our sofa in our trailer park, like a nasty sunburn or a head cold.

I was twenty-four. Older than Muriel in many ways, just not in life experience.

In that moment, Australia showed itself to me, the way a symbolic logic formula unfolds for me—gracefully, effortlessly.

If
I had enough money to make the move after I sold the trailer and the lot,
and
I had no further obligations to fulfill here,
then
I could truly start over.

More importantly, I could start differently. I could put effort into the things that I knew, thanks to pop culture media resources and B’s constant harping, composed a proper young woman’s life. A job that satisfies and enriches. A home to call my own. A man who takes me on dates, cherishes me and perhaps wishes to mate with me for life. These were all rites of life I had never desired or pursued simply because they were not possible when I was burdened with my mom.

The opportunities presented themselves much the same way I imagine the screenwriter had wanted Muriel to feel them, and in such a way that I felt moved to achieve them. It was not clear to me what the consequence of not achieving these goals would be. Only that, for the first time, my future was mine.

However, post-move, I had lost all confidence in my original decision. Had B been right: was my logic handicapped at the time by the experience of losing my mother? Or were “spontaneous” decisions by nature poor decisions? For now, it was all too clear how I had failed to take into account other factors that would impact my future beyond a change of location and the local university’s credentials (which I researched should I someday manage to save enough money to attend; as I have told B, repeatedly, I do not agree with acquiring debt). Namely, why was it I could not seem to land a job in Sydney? I had years of administrative experience on my resume.

I should do more information-gathering.

“Excuse me,” I addressed the last remaining interviewee. “Did you get a job description for this position?” The woman, whose skin was dangerously bronzed, and whose features met today’s conventional standards for “beautiful,” shook her head at me.

She made a derisive quiet noise as she half-smiled and glanced away.

Undecipherable
.

I understood her lack of response to mean she did not wish to engage in further conversation, and leaned back in my chair.

While I had anticipated that moving to Australian would make me feel, on occasion, like a stranger in a strange land, I expected the experiences to dissipate over time. I may have been wrong about that, too.

The truth was, moving to Sydney, which was indeed a vibrant, wonderful place to live, had posed
a whole series
of unanticipated challenges that were, frankly, testing my coping skills greatly.

Take Miss Moneypenny: she had had to be quarantined for an additional two weeks after my arrival. (It was a lucky coincidence that she had already had her rabies shot six months before mother died; she required a blood test six months post-shot, and even then there had been a 42-day waiting period for the import permit.) While the befuddlement I experienced being without her may strike others as silly, that cat was the only living being I had successfully developed an attachment to, other than my mother and B. Her absence felt perhaps how one might feel finding oneself unzipped in a public venue.

Then there was the extended stay facility I had checked into: it was expensive, and finding an affordable apartment with a viable long-term roommate was exceedingly difficult.

At least I had a positive development yesterday on an apartment interview. A young man named David Stemper, studying medicine, renting a lovely two bedroom apartment in the heart of Sydney’s business district, was in need of a quiet roommate. Other than the fact that David stared at my breasts several times (which is entirely unacceptable according to social norm but does not ruffle me as I’ve been told it should, perhaps because I am not self-conscious), I was certain we would make suitable roommates. I found myself anticipating a call in the next day or two, and took the opportunity to check my email one more time.

Nothing.

Upon an offer, I would, of course, clearly outline the non-fraternizing policy I had decided would be necessary with any roommate of the opposite sex. B, who checked in with me twice a day since I moved (I had come to look forward to the routine of that), had warned me off doing this, suggesting instead I consider a “roommate with benefits” policy. I reminded her, yet again, that I planned my first experience of sexual intercourse to be with a man who met Cosmopolitan magazine’s checklist: “Is he eligible stick-it material.” This was partly because I did not wish to contract an STD, and mostly because the three romance novels I had read (for research purposes) showed me that sex could lead to love and love could lead to a lifetime commitment. I did not want to find myself tied down to a “boy toy” or a “dead beat.” David did not yet have a full-time job, nor did he own a home.

I checked the time. The last interviewee had headed into Mr. Knight’s office four minutes ago. I suspected he was rapidly speeding up his process as the interviewee before her took only seven minutes. With approximately three minutes to go before it was my turn, I was brought back to the most pressing challenge of all: landing a clerical and/or personal assistant job that would provide an acceptable livelihood.

I had signed up to a temp agency the day after I arrived because I deemed breadth of experience the most efficient way to make inroads in the marketplace. However, after six interviews, I had had just one day of work at a law firm that did not mind an American answering phones. The experience was mind-numbingly boring.

Minutes away from my seventh interview, I was forced to admit I was less than positive about this prospect, and with reason beyond the employer’s inefficient questioning skills.

When I had expressed concern to the temp agency director, Miss Alyssa Reid, about the position being full-time and permanent (I was hoping for casual work so I had time to decide on fit), she said, “Don’t worry. Mr. Knight goes through assistants like chewing gum.” I asked if that was because he had high standards, hoping perhaps the job had proved challenging. Miss Reid laughed, and said, “Yeah, you could say that.” Upon deeper probing, she admitted that Mr. Knight’s last personal assistant, Rena Kemp, who worked at the agency, had left suddenly. A quick scan of Miss Kemp’s Twitter feed indicated she had not left on ideal terms.

The interviewee emerged from Mr. Knight’s office with a flushed face. I wondered if his high standards involved physical characteristics. My competitors could have been twins. They were endowed with genes that society deemed ideal for mating—lithe, blond, breasts that defied human nature.

My physical characteristics were opposite. I was hourglass shaped, pale (I had not thought through my increased skin cancer risk moving here), and brunette. Men find me attractive, mind you, because they watch me with strange looks on their faces, frequently approach with some inane comment or question, and ask me on dates. It used to happen back in the Niagara Falls Library where I worked for three years and eighteen days, at the bus stop, in the grocery store, at the mall, and so on.

“Your go,” she said, breathless, on her way out. Her eyebrows were raised at me in such a way to give me pause: had we unfinished business? Her smile, as she walked by, was not unlike the smile da Vinci’s painted on Mona Lisa, which I have always found awfully self-satisfied.

That gave me just the motivation I needed. I may not have the right experience for this position, but I valued the location of Mr. Knight’s offices to my would-be new apartment.

I rose up with purpose, tugged down my gray pencil skirt, straightened my white blouse, and strode into Mr. Knight’s office with the intention of knocking his proverbial pants off. One of my mother’s often quoted sayings might have also have applied: “Go hard or go home.” (While most of my mother’s sayings were uttered in some inebriated state, they have merit when suitably applied.)