Work for Hire (3 page)

“It didn’t work last year, so I doubt it will work now,” I advised.

Lauren had tried to force the issue back then by skipping all her finals and flunking out. Her father had personally made sure she showed up for the make-ups.

“Yeah, whatever,” Lauren said as she dropped the pan back on the stove.

I eyed the pan, then swiftly moved to mix up some new eggs and milk.

“Get me some butter or oil,” I directed.

“Butter?” Lauren demanded. “Whatever for?”

“For the pan,” I said, “so the eggs don’t burn.”

Lauren frowned. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. What about my diet?”

“Lauren,” I sighed. “You can’t scramble eggs without fat. That’s why you burned the other ones.”

“Easy for you to say,” she grimaced. “You’re Miss Tall and Skinny. Not all of us can eat like pigs and have nothing to show for it. If I eat even an ounce of butter, I look five pounds heavier. I don’t know how you do it. If I didn’t know better, I’d say
you
had some serious eating issues. It’s just not natural to eat so much and be
that
thin.”

I walked to the fridge and got the butter myself.

“Luckily, you do know better.”

I spread the butter on the pan and poured in the eggs. When they were done, I dumped them on a plate and slammed the dish down in front of Lauren.

My frustration over my finances was coming out in an unexpected way.

Lauren took the plate as I stormed out of the kitchenette. “What’s wrong with you?”

I hesitated before I sprawled out on the couch. I fished out a remote and turned on the television. “Sorry for yelling. I think I might be moving soon.”

“Moving?” Lauren sat Indian-style on the floor next to the couch and balanced the plate on her legs. “Why? We don’t always get along, but it’s not that bad.”

“It’s not you,” I confirmed as I flipped through the channels. “They increased the rent, and I’m coming up short. If I don’t figure something out soon, I’ll have to move back with my parents.”

Lauren forked a mouthful of eggs.

“These are good,” she hummed and took another bite. “How short?”

I stared at the TV, but when nothing caught my eye I flicked it off again.

“A few hundred a month.”

Lauren stretched her legs, leaned against the couch, and twirled the fork.

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” she said. “I’d give it to you, of course, but my father put me on a budget after my last credit card bill. He thinks I’m being spiteful. Why don’t you borrow the money from someone?”

I glowered. All Lauren would have to do in a similar situation was call her daddy or a family friend, and the money would be there that very day.

“I can’t. It’s too late for student loans, and no one else I know well has that sort of extra cash on hand,” I admitted.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Lauren winked. “I’m sure Markus would be willing and able to give it to you.”

I grimaced.

Markus.

Yes, as the heir to the Powers department store fortune, he did have the money and, yes, he would give it to me without hesitation. But that was the rub. I couldn’t ask him. Because despite my best efforts, Markus had
feelings
for me.

During our first year of law school, Markus had publicly declared his undying love and devotion. He was a romantic who believed he had found his life’s one true mate, and all because my name was the numerological equivalent of his lucky number. Fate, he called it. Mumbo jumbo was more like it. Which was too bad because Markus looked decent. He was super smart. And there was all that family wealth. By anyone’s standards, he was a good catch. But it was hard dealing with a full-grown man who saw me as a cosmic goddess of perfection, especially when said goddess was anything but perfect. It was embarrassing, and annoying.

So why
, I thought as I contemplated Lauren’s suddenly stiff smile,
bring up Markus? Unless …

I flashed back to the last few times Lauren, Markus and I hung out together. She had been unusually giddy. Come to think of it, Lauren never went anywhere with me if Markus wasn’t invited. Could it be? Could Lauren have feelings for him? In a convoluted way, her crush made perfect sense. She knew he liked me and was, therefore, technically unavailable. Lauren always went for the unattainable. Case in point: her Hollywood ambitions despite her father’s objections. Feelings for Markus would be right up Lauren’s alley.

Something to consider—later. Because right now, I had a problem Lauren wasn’t going to solve.

“Thanks,” I said, my voice wry as I got up to leave.

“Sorry,” Lauren puffed, and threw her plate on the couch. “Tekla, come back. Listen, I have an idea. How about getting a job?”

“What job?” I grumbled, grabbing the plate off the couch and walking with it to the kitchenette’s sink. If I didn’t wash it, Lauren would let it dry there for weeks. “How am I going to find one that will pay me enough, but won’t require a huge time commitment? I don’t know of any. Do you?”

“Actually,” Lauren replied, following me and dragging the word out like an emcee about to announce a surprise guest, “my aunt—my mother’s sister—owns this tutoring agency. It’s very exclusive, so it pays well—something like $150 an hour, I think. That’s good, right? She doesn’t advertise, so as not to attract the wrong type of candidates. It’s just word of mouth. It’s very difficult to get hired, but I’m sure she’d take you on if I asked her, as a favor.”

“Tutoring?” I turned on the faucet and let the water run. “You mean like test preparation?”

“No.” Lauren watched as I rinsed, dried and placed the plate back on the shelf. “Not that sort of tutoring. I meant private, individualized tutoring for some of the best families in New York. Like helping some rich kid out with homework a couple of hours a week. Like with me; I had a private tutor all throughout high school. It’s easy money—trust me.”

“I don’t know,” I hedged. Mom had always warned me there was no such thing as “easy money.”

“Oh, come on, Tekla. What’s your alternative? It’s this or moving out. What will it be?” Lauren reached for the phone and handed it to me.

“Here’s the number. Call my aunt. What do you have to lose?”

So I called.

CHAPTER 2

T
HE HEEL
of my right shoe slid down a subway grate and lodged there.

I tried to wrest it out without doing too much damage to the leather. The black heels were my favorites, and I didn’t want to ruin a pair of skinny stilettos that made my legs look like a showgirl’s.

Still, I was in a hurry. It was quarter to nine on a sticky Monday morning, and I had a nine o’clock appointment with Ms. Jacobs, Lauren’s aunt and the owner of Elite Educational Services. Hopefully she’d be my future employer. I was still a ten-minute walk away from the Upper East Side office—maybe five if I speed-walked—but the shoe wasn’t budging. Like a boat about to sink, it was half-submerged in the sea of New York City Transit cross-bars, leaving me stranded in a wave of harried pedestrians and about to be late for my appointment with the one woman who could solve all my financial woes.

Not a good consequence.

So I yanked hard, heel be damned. In the scheme of things, I could always buy another shoe, especially if I scored the job.

With the extra jerk, my foot slipped out, but the shoe stayed where it was.

My toes hovered inches above the grate. I balanced on one leg like a stork on the lookout for dinner.

What to do? I sighed, gave in, and hoping to avoid most of the grime, gingerly stepped with my bare toe on the subway grate. With both feet somewhat stable now, I bent over to retrieve the shoe. But just as the heel began to give way, a whistle pierced my concentration.

“Hey, baby!”

My head turned automatically. A man was hanging out of a truck’s open window, waiting for his red light to change. His hair and sweatshirt were dotted with white paint. Probably in construction.

“Pssst,” he hissed in my direction.

Was he talking to me?

“Yeah, you,” he said as he winked at me. “Nice ass.”

I bolted straight up.

“Jerk,” I muttered under my breath as I tried to pretend I hadn’t seen him. I intensely watched the other cars lining up behind his, too embarrassed to bend over again until he drove away.

“That’s a mighty pretty dress you have on there,” he continued, clearly unperturbed by my complete lack of interest or response. “Red’s your color, baby.”

I glanced down at my dress. I knew I shouldn’t have worn it. Red just invited all sorts of unwanted attention. But Lauren had insisted.

“My aunt appreciates an attractive and young-looking tutor,” she had said as she dragged the dress out of the back of my closet. “They’re much easier to place than the staid teacher types. Teenagers don’t want to deal with boring grannies after school. And this dress is perfect. Young, hip. It screams of a successful tutor, and contrasts nicely with your dark hair. Very dramatic.”

Uncertain what to wear, I had asked Lauren for help: Lauren was related to the boss, and had had a tutor herself, so who better? But wearing a red dress to a job interview?

“Don’t you trust me?” Lauren had teased. “Besides, aside from the color, the dress is downright conservative: no cleavage, and it goes way past the knee. With a cardigan, it could almost pass for a suit.”

Yeah, sure. Even with the length and coverage, the dress did sort of cling. Still, I had bowed to Lauren’s better judgment.

“Yup, looking
red
-hot,” the driver snickered in my direction as he finally drove away, laughing at his own wit.

I bent over again and finally wedged my pump out. Damn. The metal grate had sliced through the heel’s leather like a hot knife through butter.

I fingered the damage. There went my favorable first impression. If Ms. Jacobs were anything like Lauren, she would surely mark me down for my less-than-perfect appearance. Strike one against me.

I slipped the shoe on and rushed forward, dodging pedestrians and traffic along the way. I was six blocks from Ms. Jacobs’s East 82nd Street office, and could probably make it in the five minutes remaining before my appointment time only if I ran for my life. Granted, the high heels and sweltering summer heat would make that more difficult and me far less attractive, but as long as I didn’t break a leg in the process, I should arrive in time.

Exactly four minutes later I stood panting by the entrance to Ms. Jacobs’s building. A doorman opened the door.

“May I help you with something?”

The older man gleamed in his navy tailored uniform, polished shoes and white kid gloves.

“I have an appointment with Ms. Jacobs,” I gasped. “She’s expecting me.”

He looked me up and down, quirked an eyebrow as if he found that last bit highly doubtful, and picked up the house phone right before he gestured me through to the lobby.

“You may go up,” he informed me a second later. “It’s the penthouse suite.”

I could literally feel his eyes tracking my every step to the elevator, as if I would deface the lobby if he somehow lost sight of my form.

When the elevator’s doors closed behind me, I managed to catch my breath, cool off and turn down the volume on my cell phone. Nothing made a worse impression than a phone going off in the middle of a conversation.

As the doors opened in front of me, I moved forward and paused in front of Ms. Jacobs’s front door. There I straightened my dress and knocked.

“Just a second,” a female voice shouted through the heavy wood.

Her voice had to compete with a host of enthusiastic yelps and barks.

“I hope you’re not afraid of dogs,” a small blonde woman greeted as she opened the door and held off what looked like three balls of white fur with her foot.

The woman I assumed was Ms. Jacobs was short, the top of her head barely reaching my shoulder. She probably didn’t even top five feet.

She was also very thin, even thinner than Lauren. Her face was baby smooth, devoid of any wrinkles or blemishes. Probably Botox. She wasn’t overly attractive, but she was well groomed in dark gray slacks and a light gray silk shirt. A cloud of Chanel Number Five engulfed her and assailed my nostrils every time she moved. A large diamond solitaire—at least three carats—gleamed on her third left finger.

“Not at all,” I assured her, but doubted the truth of that answer when two little dogs nipped at my ankles and the third scratched away frantically at my pantyhose.

“Daisy, Lily, Rose, down,” the woman called out as she shooed the dogs away from me. The little pests circled back around, their nails tapping away on the hardwood floor.

“They get excited when we have guests,” she explained. “Usually the maid keeps them in the kitchen, but I guess they got away from her. I’m Patricia Jacobs, by the way. But you can call me Patty. And you must be Tekla. My, my. You’re as pretty, tall and skinny as Lauren said. Lucky you! I should introduce you to my son Henry. He favors exotic girls like you. No dainty blondes for him. Remind me to give you his number. What are you, a size zero?”

“Two,” I automatically corrected, somewhat dazed by the rapid change in subjects.

“Zero, two; nowadays, it’s the same thing,” Ms. Jacobs said as she gave me a once-over. “Come in, come in. I’ll just get rid of these little monsters. Oh, what a nice dress. But you got dog hairs all over you! Don’t worry. They’ll come off in a snap. What happened to your shoe?”

I glanced at my feet and winced.

“Ahh, I had a little mishap on a subway grate.”

“Don’t you just hate when that happens?” Ms. Jacobs chirped as she led me past a foyer and into a spacious sitting room filled with—if my meager college art history knowledge was correct—French rococo, neoclassic, empire and Victorian pieces, along with a few contemporary ones. Nothing seemed to match, and especially not the plush rose velvet chairs with the Pollock-like painting of colorful dots, swirls and drips. Priceless antiques and abstract expressionism. This looked like no office I had ever seen. Come to think of it, it downright resembled an apartment, albeit a very eclectic one. Why wouldn’t someone who headed a multi-million dollar operation—because that’s how much Lauren had boasted her aunt made—have her own office? Or, at the very least, a dedicated home work space?