The temp agency sent me to Mercer Development on a Tuesday. I remembered because I'd spent Monday convincing myself I could survive another week without picking up a new assignment, eating peanut butter out of the jar, and watching YouTube videos about people who renovate vans and live in them full-time. Like that was a real, survivable plan. Like I was one inspired afternoon away from converting my 2009 Civic into a lifestyle.
Then my bank sent me a notification: –$43.11. I called the agency when they opened at 7am.
"We have a placement starting tomorrow. Real estate development firm, midtown. Filing, data entry, maybe some reception coverage. Two weeks minimum. Does that work?"
"Beggars can't be choosers," I said, like I knew what any of that meant.
Silence.
"Yes?" I tried again.
The building was nicer than anywhere I'd been. 12th floor. Glass everywhere, the type of modern office where even the conference rooms have walls you can see through. No brojobs here ... that's what got me fired from the last temp job. It was the kind of place where people had actual plants on their desks, not the fake crap from Target, though they'd probably call it "Targé" here. One woman near the window had an entire little garden on her sill, with gravel and everything. I showed up in the only button-down I owned, white and from Goodwill that was too big in the shoulders because it had probably belonged to a guy who was broader than me ... which could be most guys. My khakis I'd ironed that morning with a pot of boiling water because I didn't own an iron. The crease was uneven. One leg looked fine, the other had this weird double-line thing going on. I left it. The temp agency had said they could help with clothes, but I couldn't bring myself to ask for that.
The office manager was Dina. Short hair, reading glasses on a beaded chain, and walked like she was late to something even when she wasn't. She showed me the copy room, the supply closet, and the kitchen. The good coffee was a Breville espresso machine that looked like it cost more than two months' rent. The bad coffee was a Mr. Coffee that nobody cleaned. You could see the ring of brown inside the carafe from across the room. I'm not sure why they had two if one was bad.
"That's you." She pointed at a desk near the back of the main floor. "Filing in the blue bins, scanning in the yellow. Phone rings at your desk, take a message. Do not transfer anyone. You'll send them to the wrong person, they'll be upset, I'll hear about it, and we'll both have a bad day." She looked at me pointedly, and I nodded quickly.
So, I filed. I scanned. I took three messages for people whose names I wrote down phonetically because I couldn't spell them and didn't want to ask twice. The handwriting on the Post-its was bad. Nobody came to collect them for hours.
The office was maybe 30–40 people. It was an open floor plan with some private offices along the walls, and a big corner office in the back, glass on two sides, that you could see from almost anywhere on the floor.
Most people didn't look at me. A few smiled the way you smile at a new cashier at the store. Polite. Not curious. One guy around my age, sharp jaw, one of those haircuts that looked like it cost $60 and needed maintenance, watched me from a desk across the floor for a few seconds. Then he went back to his laptop. I didn't think about it. He was cute, but I wasn't going to be here long.
I didn't meet Graham Mercer until almost 3:00.
Dina walked me to the corner office. The door was open. He was on the phone, leaned back in his chair with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled to the elbows. Silver hair. Not all-the-way gray, but the kind of silver that used to be dark and gave up gradually. He had a face that looked like it had been places. Lines around his eyes that weren't from squinting at a laptop. Jaw you could set a level against. I noticed these things the way you notice them about anyone. The way you take in a room. That's what I told myself. "You're not going to be here long," I reminded myself again.
The man held up one finger. Not rude. Just a gesture that assumed you'd wait. And you did. Because he was The Boss.
When he hung up, he came around the desk. He moved like a man who was used to being big and had stopped thinking about it. Not bulky. Just solid, and comfortable with it. "You're the temp." It was a statement, not a question. This was a man who looked like he knew everything that went on around the office.
"Drew." We shook hands, and his grip was warm, firm, and dry. Mine was probably not. He held the handshake for maybe a half-second longer than normal. Maybe. I was nervous and I might have been counting wrong.
"Graham Mercer. Welcome to the chaos." He smiled and the lines around his eyes creased deeper. "Dina treating you okay?"
"She showed me where the good coffee is."
"Then she likes you. She doesn't show everyone." He was still looking at me. Not staring, just ... looking. Attentive in a way that felt unusual for a man meeting a temp. Like he was actually registering that I was there. "What were you doing before this?"
"College." And then, because I'm apparently incapable of not saying too much: "I dropped out. Maybe 8 months ago."
He nodded. Didn't make the face. Most people made the face. Not a face, but the face. The one that was half pity and half judgment, and they never tried very hard to hide either one. He just nodded, like I'd told him I was from Ohio or something. Just a fact.
"How old are you?" he asked. Casual. Like checking the weather.
"Twenty."
His mouth did something. Not quite a smile. Just a small movement at one corner, like he'd heard something that confirmed a guess he'd already made. My eyes glanced over to the bottle of what looked like expensive alcohol on a recessed shelf. His eyes went down my shirt – the Goodwill button-down with the too-big shoulders – and back up. Quick. The kind of look that probably didn't mean anything. The kind of look I replayed 4 times on the bus.
"Let's keep him past the initial two weeks," he told Dina. "See how it goes."
She made a note on her tablet. We left. I went back to my desk and filed for 2 more hours and kept thinking about how he'd said, "Let's keep him,"" before I'd done anything to keep. I'd been there a whole 6 hrs. I'd filed maybe three bins. The scanning was slow because I kept jamming the feeder. What was there to keep?
At 5:15, the office started to thin. Laptops closed, bags grabbed, the shuffling sounds of people done for the day. I was getting my backpack, which had a broken zipper and a coffee stain on the front pocket from a spill a few months ago, when I looked toward the corner.
His office was still lit. Just his, Graham Mercer's. The rest of the floor was going dark around it. He was at his desk with glasses on – the reading kind, wire-framed – and he was making notes on something with a pen. Not a laptop. A pen, moving across paper. He'd loosened the tie at some point. The collar of his shirt was open just one button, and I could see the hollow at the base of his throat.
Three seconds. That's how long I looked.
Then I went to the elevator, rode it down, walked to the bus stop, got on the 5:37, and I sat in a window seat with my backpack on my lap. The bus smelled like diesel and someone's takeout. I stared out the window at the buildings going by and I replayed those 3 seconds. The glasses. The pen. The open collar. The light from his desk lamp making the silver in his hair almost white.
And the look. The eyes going down and back up, quick, nothing. Just checking something. Just seeing what the shirt looked like. People do that. The look ... the one he gave me when I was in his office. Down and up. The motion in the corner of his mouth.
By the time I got to my stop I'd replayed them all, maybe 10 times. I walked the four blocks to the house where I rented a basement room from a couple I'd found on Craigslist - it probably wasn't legal, but they probably weren't charging me market rate for a legal apartment. It worked. Even though the carpet smelled like the previous tenant's dog. The ceiling was low enough that a tall person would have to watch the pipes. I wasn't tall, so it was fine, but it still felt like being underground ... because it was underground.
I ate a granola bar for dinner because the peanut butter was gone and I didn't get paid until Friday. I lay on my mattress, which was on the floor because I didn't have a frame, and I stared at the ceiling, which had a water stain shaped like a mitten.
I thought about the 3 seconds.
I told myself it was nothing. New job, new faces, you notice people. That's all it was. Noticing.
I told myself that until I fell asleep. I even almost believed it.
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