The Kissing Game Read online

As the town car makes its way down Market Street, I read.

  Knowledge of work: outstanding.

  Communication: outstanding.

  Teamwork: outstanding.

  Decision Making: meets expectations.

  Expense Management: not applicable.

  Independent work: outstanding.

  Leadership: not applicable.

  Client responsiveness: outstanding.

  Personal appearance: outstanding.

  Employee Strengths and Accomplishments: Caroline’s performance has improved immensely over the past year. I believe it has taken time for her to fill in the big shoes required in becoming my assistant. She has survived a trial by fire. In this regard, she has gone to great lengths to ensure her tenure at the firm. Even though I would prefer that she worked around the clock, she always arrives early for work and puts in more hours than her peers. In this vein, her dedication to her job is without question. I can leave the office at any time for a court appearance or client meeting and know that when I return Caroline will have made certain that my clients’ needs were met with utmost care. All my clients are on a first-name basis and feel comfortable communicating with her. Unlike her peers, Caroline does not consider any task beneath her and merely operates as an important unit within a group effort. She will do any task necessary, including picking up lunch or accompanying me on important client meetings. Caroline is more than an assistant. She is an invaluable asset to me and the firm. I consider her work more important to me than the work of my associates; if Caroline were to ever leave this position, I fear I would need to hire two, maybe three, assistants to fill her shoes.

  When the town car stops in front of my apartment, I have already read the evaluation three times and my stomach feels queasy from carsickness.

  All I can think is—when did he write this? Before or after?

  Chapter 6

  “No dio alas a los alacranes."

  God did not give wings to scorpions.

  It’s after 9:30 when I exit the town car and bear the weight of my thoughts up the stairs to my apartment. As I trek towards my door, I can see into Ted’s apartment. Three guys sit around Ted’s kitchen table, likely his law school buddies. The table is covered in empty plates and immense books that seem useful only for squishing large bugs. The four seem to have given up on studying and opted for talking instead. Ted is laughing.

  Before I can get inside my apartment, I hear my cell phone ringing in my backpack. After unlocking my door and tossing my stuff on the couch, I answer the phone.

  “Look,” Henry says as if he needs to whisper from his own apartment. “I just called to let you know that I’m proud of you. You’re my new hero.”

  With the phone in my hand, I slink down on the couch.

  “You there?” Henry asks.

  “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “What?”

  “It’s just that, I don’t know. Robert gave me my review, and it’s really nice. He went on and on talking about what an amazing assistant I am.” My apartment is an inventory of silence. I hear Henry breathe. Why is breathing always amplified on the phone?

  “Well, you know why he’s doing it, don’t you? He’s scared to death you’re going to get him fired for the elevator incident. He’s doing whatever it takes to make you happy. The dude has brains. Whatever you do, don’t think he means it, don’t think he’s Mr. Nice Lawyer all the sudden. You know he’s not.” Henry sounds like a brother to me. I can picture him on the other end of the line wearing his sweater vest. Something about Henry reminds me of a big sweet cat. I talk more to Henry, Cory, and Todd than I do my own brother, who’s always too busy with his own college life.

  “You’re right. I know. But I was wondering if you know anything about Robert’s background. You’ve worked at the firm longer. Did you hear he got a scholarship to Stanford and that he was a foster child growing up?”

  “No. He came in all bright and shiny like the other Stanford law grads. They’re all the same to me. Why? How’d you find out?”

  “Oh, doesn’t matter. It’s a long story. Anyway, how’re you doing?”

  We spend twenty minutes discussing Henry’s failed attempt at seducing an intern. I’m on the verge of giving him the talk about throwing away all his sweater vests just before he reminds me: “You know, tomorrow could be ridiculous, if the tape arrives. The mail is pretty fast in these parts. I don’t know what’ll happen, but you can bet you’ll be called into meetings. Partners will grill you. Just be cool. Be yourself. They’ll all love you. Everyone knows Robert’s an ass anyway. In the end, you won’t even remember Robert’s name. He’ll be history and you’ll be working for someone else, onward and upward.”

  “I guess so,” I say.

  Just then I hear a knock on my door.

  “Henry, someone’s at my door. I’ve got to let you go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  When I hang up, I have a feeling about who’ll be at the door, and I’m right. There he is, my serial killer neighbor, Ted, standing there, the moon over his shoulder, with a tinfoil-covered plate in his hand and three guys standing behind him. They look like friends ushering their buddy into the honeymoon suite on his wedding night. They have teenager grins though they must be in their twenties. Ted stands taller than all of them and looks a little red-cheeked. One blonde peeks around Ted’s shoulder to get a better look at me.

  “Hi,” I say to the four.

  “Thought I’d bring up your steak before these moochers ate it first,” Ted says, holding the plate out for me.

  I take it. It feels warm.

  “Thanks,” I reply, glancing at the eager four who make no motion to leave. “You all want to come in?”

  “Sure!” says the blond who hustles past Ted and into my living room. I stand back to let them in while the blond plops down on my couch. One by one, the others meander in, too.

  “Have a seat,” I offer. A stocky Hispanic man sits on my couch next to the blond. A lanky Indian man sits at my kitchen table, but Ted just stands there looking apologetic for invading my apartment at 9:45 PM with a band of wannabe lawyers.

  “I just wanted to drop off the plate. We don’t need to make ourselves all comfortable,” Ted asserts, a scolding eye at his friends. They almost seem to be sucking their teeth at me, as if they’re waiting for something important to happen. Perhaps they were bored downstairs.

  “No, it’s fine, make yourselves at home. I never get to hang out with lawyers or prospective lawyers, so this is a real treat,” I say, smiling. The sarcasm is not lost on Ted who smirks an apology at me. After I put the plate into the fridge, I sit down at the kitchen table with Ted and the lanky Indian guy.

  Ted points to him and says, “This is Martin. He’s studying to be a patent lawyer.”

  Martin shakes my hand. It feels like a sauna. He winks smartly at me. “Got my degree in engineering. Next logical step is patent lawyer. I’m gonna to work for Google someday,” he proclaims in a voice that sounds like that of a kid.

  “Oh, cool.” I nod.

  “And that’s Kenny,” Ted says, pointing to the blonde. Ted sounds as if he’s the most mature of the group. “He’s going to be a litigator, of course.”

  “Of course,” Kenny says, with a wave of his hand. He looks like a privileged boy who hasn’t had to do much standing up in his life, as if the world was just meant for him to lie down on.

  “And that’s Enrique.” Ted points at the Hispanic man who sits at the edge of my couch, as if the furniture is too flowery for him. He seems slightly older than the rest. “He’s studying criminal defense,” Ted explains.

  “If you say, ‘of course,’ I’m going to come over there and kick your ass,” Enrique says to Ted.

  In spite of the fact that they’re wearing jeans, t-shirts, and tennis shoes, they all have that cleaned up lawyer look about them. It must be a kind of illness that sweeps over all law school students and turns them from normal people into lawyers. Or maybe it’s just me. I’ve developed radar, a sixt
h sense.

  This group represents the most people I’ve ever had in my apartment at once, and despite the fact that I’m somewhat exhausted from my day, it’s nice to have the distraction from my thoughts. However, I’m kind of starving. I want to break out the steak and eat it in front of them, but I opt to wait.

  “Caroline works at Milton and Burns,” Ted explains, “She’s an assistant to a partner over there.” At the word partner, Ted gestures with his hands, holding them on the sides of his head to indicate that my boss has a huge head.

  I wonder how he knows that Robert is a big-headed partner. Perhaps Ted’s smart and likely deduced this information during his brief encounter with Robert. Robert has a way of exuding importance in the same manner a bull points its horns at you.

  “I hear that firm is a sweatshop. They work new associates 90 hours a week, put them in Kleenex-boxes for offices and pay them in Kleenex with the promise of partnership that’s never come’n. I wouldn’t work for Milton and Burns if you paid me a million a year,” Kenny says, lounging on my couch. I have the urge to offer him a pillow and a blanket. He looks as if he’s been invited to a sleep-over.

  Enrique snorts at Kenny. “What do you have to worry about? You’ll be working for your parents’ firm. It’s not like you’ll ever have to have a real job,” Enrique says. “And you already live in Pacific Heights in a mansion.”

  “It’s not a mansion. It’s only 5,500 square feet,” Kenny defends, gesturing with a limp hand. He turns to me. “So who do you work for?”

  “Robert Carver. He’s a partner in real estate.” I feel the need to take a deep breath after saying his name.

  “I don’t know him,” Kenny replies sleepily.

  “Yeah, you wouldn’t want to. He’s a complete jerk,” Ted explains to Kenny before turning to me. “And poor Caroline has to work for him.”

  Ted’s eyes are a pretty blue, not nearly as pretty as Robert’s. I notice slight muscles bulging under the arms of his t-shirt. Looks like the serial killer works out. He also smells freshly washed all the time, as though he takes two showers a day. This only fuels my serial killer thoughts: why would he need to take two showers a day?

  “Robert Carver – is that Robert Carver from Marshall High?” Enrique asks, his brown eyes seeming squinty.

  “I don’t know what high school he went to.” I shrug.

  “The Rob Carver I knew in high school was a badass. He was a senior when I was a freshman. He used to get straight A’s but had no friends, the complete nerd type, but if you made the mistake of crossing him, he’d make you wish you hadn’t. My buddy saw him beat the crap out of a jock who made the mistake of teasing him. The dude was a ball of crumpled muscles lying on the basketball court when Rob was done with him. People called him Rob back then. Tall, dark hair, mean eyes?”

  “Blue eyes?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” Enrique says, “never looked close enough.”

  “Yeah, it’s not really masculine to know another guy’s eye color,” Ted chastises me.

  “What else did you know about this Rob guy?” I ask Enrique.

  “Might not be the same guy, but the Rob I knew dated one of the hottest girls in high school, Katie Gallagher, for about a week, and when she broke up with him for another guy, the guy ended up being locked in the school janitor closet for the whole weekend, till the janitor came back on Monday. Luckily there was water and stuff in there and it wasn’t hot that weekend. Otherwise, who knows what would’ve happened to the guy. Rob never got caught. The guy kept his mouth shut. What was the guy’s name? Kevin Delah-something. I remember Rob used to wear his hair perfectly combed, slick-like, and his clothes always made him look too overdressed for school, not suits, just nice shirts all the time. Looked freshly pressed. Anyway, what was that guy’s name?” Enrique pauses to think about the name of the guy in the janitor’s closet. All of us gaze at him waiting for him to continue, except Kenny, who pulls out his fancy phone.

  “Here,” Kenny says, tapping his finger on the screen. “Let’s look him up. Robert Carver,” he says, pressing the touch-screen. “Is that him?” He hands Enrique the phone to look at the picture on the screen.

  “Yeah, that’s him,” Enrique states, holding the phone. Looks older, but definitely him. He’s got a scar on the inside of his elbow, supposedly got it during the scuffle with Kevin. Rob was smart, could do stuff that none of the school staff or teachers ever found out about. I know I never wanted to make him mad.”

  Kenny takes back the phone and holds it up to me. “Is that your boss?” he asks.

  “Yeah, that’s him.” My mind is suddenly filled with images of fist fights and janitor closets. For a flash second, I wonder how it would feel to be locked in one for an entire weekend.

  “Ah, Caroline, Teddy boy here came over to ask you—” Kenny starts.

  “Shut the hell up, you toady!” Ted interrupts him.

  My eyes jump between Kenny and Ted. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Ted swats his hand in front of his face, as if a gnat annoys him. “We gotta go.” Ted rises swiftly. “Come on, boys, got some studying to do if you ever want to call yourselves real lawyers,” he announces as if he’s their general. “Just wanted to drop off your steak. The losers here were eyeing it. I’ll see you around, Caroline.” Ted heads toward my door. All I see is the back of him. Why is he in such a hurry? People to kill later, Ted? Enrique and Martin follow closely. Kenny moves as if he’s being dragged.

  “Nice meet’n ya, Caroline,” Kenny gives me a little exaggerated bow, which earns him a slap on the top of his head from Enrique. They file out my front door one at a time. I watch them walk down the steps.

  “Thanks for the dinner,” I call out as they descend. As soon as I close my apartment door, I hear Kenny yell, “Ted wants to take you out for real dinner!” And then laughter.

  For a moment, I contemplate dinner at a restaurant with Ted. What would that be like? Since we’re both on a budget, it probably means we’d go to some excellent dive place, where the Chinese food or Mexican food is so authentic that we’d feel as if we’re transported to a different country, albeit poorer than our own. We’d sit over some plastic table in the bad side of San Francisco. The view out the restaurant window would be the greasy car-repair shops with their broken signs, the small markets with recently killed animals hanging upside down in the window, the flies collecting outside, the second-hand clothing shops with their weird smells—all lining the streets below the apartments, where children watch cartoons and yell obscenities out the window at passersby.

  I try to think more about Ted, but my mind is contrastingly electric and exhausted. After eating and readying for sleep, I lie in bed. The streetlight through my bedroom window gives black-orange shapes to my soon sleeping mind. All night long I dream I’m late for work and that Robert expects me. To get to work I must cross a desert quaking with lightning while thunder-beads of rain pummel me and the wind blows gritty, wet dust into my mouth. Once through the desert rain, I cross the mountains, where the rocky skyline is pockmarked with soft orange fires. After navigating around bands of flames, I see the sudden severe skyline of San Francisco. Above my office building, the moonlight shines through a vapory dust. Wet, dirty, exhausted, I have only one dreaming thought: “I hope I’m not too late.”

  In the morning, I wake to the livid sound of my phone ringing. Bleary panes of morning light huddle in one circle on the floor as I grab for my cell phone.

  “Hello?” Blinking, I note the clock perched on my nightstand reads 6:03 AM.

  “Caroline,” says the strangely bearded voice.

  “Robert?”

  “Sorry to call so early.”

  I sit up in my bed, my mind a wagonwheel of strangeness.

  “I have an emergency,” Robert says. “I need you to take care of rescheduling my calendar this morning. I’ve got meetings lined up from 8:15 throughout the day and I can’t get in to work today. You’ll need to head in early and take care of it.” />
  Could Henry have been wrong? Could the head partner have received the video footage already? Impossible! The bluish morning outside my window suddenly feels painful in my eyes.

  “Why?” I wince, waiting for Robert’s answer.

  “It’s my dad,” he answers. Robert’s voice sounds if he’s just swallowed something too large for his throat. “He’s at San Francisco Memorial. Doctors aren’t sure yet what’s wrong with him but I’ll be there most of the day.”

  Standing up, I hold the phone to my ear with my shoulder. I yank underwear, bra, and work clothes out of my drawers and closet.

  “Yeah, of course, I’ll get ready now and head over. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thanks,” he says, and I’m about to hang up, when he adds, “I really appreciate it.”

  My commute to work that morning is barren and bright. At that hour, my bus is almost empty, but like a mutant kingdom where the few lone nightshift workers make their way home. Some look like changelings awakened to the troubled dream of daylight. Others look tattooed, pierced, and mangled, as though they’ve partied all night and bought back dead things in their bags. The train ride is jerky and empty, seeming without purpose or destination.

  Soon I arrive at my desk on the 22nd floor, where few of the high rise office lights bleach the interior dark of the building. After setting down my things, I step into Robert’s office, where I open the dry brown leather calendar he keeps on his desk. I don’t bother to turn the light on. Although his office is dim from the window shade, the fogless summer light outside makes the room bright enough. From Robert’s notes on his calendar, I see his morning is full of meetings with clients. I head to my desk and call all the clients, leaving messages on both office and cell phones and following up with emails.

  By the time I’m done, the phone rings. It’s the secretary from our client at 555 California. She’s panting.

  “Your copy guy lost one of our boxes!” she huffs, as if we’ve killed puppies or stolen babies. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” I attempt to calm her by telling her this never happens (which is a lie; it happens often at this firm) and that we always know where our files are (also a lie) and that I’ll call her back as soon as I can.