Chloe Warren and I
had been emailing for about a week by the time we got together for coffee
at—where else in Seattle?—Starbucks. She was one of three contenders for the
position I’d put up on Craigslist, but so far I liked her best. I was just
hoping it stayed that way and that her light work history wasn’t going to be a
red flag.
I arrived early
and grabbed at a table at the back, savoring my massive sugary latte. I’d been
to this Starbucks enough times, they’d stopped judging me when I ordered three
types of syrup and four pumps of each. Oh, no one had ever given me a nasty
look or made any comments, but I can feel emotions so I know when people are
thinking disparaging things about my addiction to sugar.
Chloe walked in,
did a quick survey of the café and knew immediately that it was me she was
meeting. I watched her approach, unaware who she was at first, but perked up as
she slid into the chair across from me.
“Chloe?” I asked.
She nodded, grinned and reached across the table to shake my hand.
“I did a little
google-stalking before coming by. You should probably work on that if you want
to be taken seriously by your future clients.”
I frowned, trying
to figure out what she could have found that would make me unappealing as a
therapist. “I’ve never taken any nude pictures, so I don’t know what you mean.”
Chloe snorted,
shrugged. “It’s nothing overtly bad, but your Facebook picture is you cramming
your face with cake.”
“I like cake. And
to be fair, it should probably be my driver’s license picture, too. In fact, I
don’t know why I’m not eating cake right now. It’s what I do.”
Chloe laughed and
jerked her thumb toward the counter. “Excuse me, will you? I’m going to grab a
drink. I’ll make it quick.”
“Go ahead.”
She was up and across
the restaurant in a flash while I pulled my phone out and googled myself. I
didn’t find too much, but when I really considered what Chloe had said, I
realized she was right. I’d changed my picture to one of my bird Sonny by the
time she got back to the table.
“Here you go,” she
said, sliding a plate with a cheesecake brownie in front of me. “It’s not cake,
but it’s the closest they had.”
“You’re hired,” I
said without thinking. Chloe laughed, taking a sip of her drink.
“Easiest job
interview ever.”
I snorted around a
bite of the brownie and shook my head as I eagerly ate. Chloe was patient,
looking around the restaurant idly while I worked my way through the fudgy
bite.
“Man, this thing
is no joke.” I took a slurp of my drink to help work it down and then sat up
straight, pushed the brownie aside so I wasn’t tempted to go for it again. So
far I was making a bang-up impression on a potential assistant. “Right now you’re
top of the heap, but there are two other people I’m looking at. Your work
history is a little light, and I couldn’t get ahold of the publishing house you
listed.”
“Yeah, they went
under at the end of last year. I’ve just been kind of floating around for about
six months. I had some money saved up, decided Seattle sounded great and now
here I am. I need to start working soon, though, and I’m great at what you
listed in your ad. I did a lot of everything at my last job.”
I nodded, keeping
myself tuned into her emotions as she spoke. She wasn’t lying, that I could
tell. So far, I liked her quite a bit.
“The kicker is
going to be insurance companies,” I said when as she sipped her drink. “They
can be pretty cold and try to wiggle their way out of everything, even things
they claim to cover.”
“Oh, I can handle
anything.” Chloe smiled, and I felt a bit of smug nostalgia poke through her
cheer, like she was thinking of something difficult she’d overcome in the past.
“Insurance companies got nothing on my old boss. Trust me.”
I did trust her,
though that’s not difficult to do when you can tell if someone’s lying or not.
And, hell she’d bought me a cheesecake brownie. I was guessing we were going to get
along just fine.
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