What A Girl Wants (15 page)

Hayley noticed that he was speaking as if her getting the job were inevitable. Staring first at the support post and then at the pile of wood, she couldn't quite pin down exactly what she was supposed to be feeling.

She clasped her hands together in front of her because they'd started to shake, and took a deep, steadying breath. “Does this job involve a lot of stress?” She made it sound joking, but she wasn't really joking.

“Oh. No, of course not. You've been in the on-line magazine biz. You know we've got deadlines, but between you and me, working on this content isn't exactly rocket science.”

He elbowed Hayley in that way that made it seem like they were buddies or something, members of the same non–rocket scientist club. “Well, do you have any questions?”

Hayley knew she was supposed to have questions. Any self-respecting interviewee came prepared with questions—questions thought out carefully to make one look intelligent, interested but not overeager, perfectly oriented for the job. She should ask questions if she wanted an offer.

For a moment Hayley couldn't breathe. She'd been so busy preparing for her date with Grant, she'd never gotten around to preparing any questions. Her heartbeat accelerated, and the idea of finishing up the interview as quickly as possible took on even greater appeal.

Hayley pulled her references sheet out from her portfolio and said, “No, I think I understand exactly what the job is all about. I have my references here if you'd like them.”

George waved the document away. “Oh, that's not necessary. Audra Banks recommended you personally. When would you like to start?”

A pain ripped through Hayley's stomach, a pain so sharp that she actually made an audible distressed sound. The toxic combination of Mountain Dew and espresso was absolutely churning inside her.

“I'm sorry, I didn't catch that,” George said. “
When
would you like to start?”

Audra. It all made sense now. Audra had actually gone and sealed the deal before Hayley'd ever stepped foot in the door.

Damn her.

There was just supposed to be an offer. Just an offer. And it was supposed to come over the phone while Hayley was at home so she could listen as the answering machine picked it up. And then she was supposed to decide if she really wanted the job.

You need to make a decision, Hayley. Just make a decision. Yes or no?
She clutched her portfolio up against her unsettled stomach and stared at George.

“Yes.” Everyone was making it so damn easy, and she needed cash flow. “The answer is yes.”

George gave her a curious look, and Hayley remembered that she hadn't actually answered his question.

She had the sweats now, and was feeling totally suffocated by the time she heard herself say, “Next Monday?” Her voice sounded tinny and very far away.

“Perfect. It's as good as done. Let me just ping your new manager. She'll come negotiate salary with you.”

Hayley forced a smile and leaned her full weight against the doorway of George's cube while he typed out an instant message.

And as she stood there, feeling as if she were within an inch of death, a tiny fluffy white poodle marched down the hall and trotted past the cube door, its red, rhinestone-studded leash trailing behind it on the floor.

Hayley closed her eyes. Maybe it was a mirage. She felt like shit—maybe she was having caffeine-induced hallucinations and the poodle was just a nightmarish vision.

“Aww,” George said. Hayley quickly opened her eyes. George was looking over his shoulder and making a purring sound, of all things. “Did our little doggy just go by? That's Killer. Get it?” He laughed. “You'll love him. We all do. You do love dogs, don't you?”

He asked in that way that dog lovers did, like if she said no it meant she must be an ax-murdering, sexual deviant, antienvironmental unacceptable excuse for a human being. Like she should be taken to the supply closet and shot dead with a staple gun.

This was a no-win situation. If she said, “Sure, I love dogs,” she'd have to fake it for her entire term of employment, which was too exhausting to contemplate. If she said, “I hate dogs,” she might not get the job.

The thought did occur to her that choosing the second option would essentially provide her with her last chance for escape off a train that was picking up some serious steam as it left the station.

The trouble was, she didn't care for the image of her lying in a cloud of dust on the railroad tracks, while a white poodle stood on its hind legs barking at her from the caboose.

“Hayley, is that you? What a pretty name!”

Hayley's head snapped up. Her eyes narrowed as she watched a woman who put the “perk” in “perky” practically skip down the hall toward her.

Just this one look and Hayley could see that the woman practically screamed “this manager installed by venture capital firm to assure financial integrity.” She looked totally out of place in a conservative navy suit and white pumps. White pumps! Audra had some nerve dissing
Hayley's
people.

“I'm Eileen Stone. I'll be your new manager. This is very exciting. Let's go get you all official, why don't we?”

Hayley almost dry-heaved right there.

She stumbled out of the cube without even a good-bye to George, and followed Eileen, who was apparently following Killer.

“Killer, baaabbbby.” Eileen made little kissing noises, too, as she and Hayley trailed behind the dog all the way to a conference room.

Once inside, Eileen picked Killer up, set him in the middle of the table, opened her file, and gave Hayley a brilliant smile. “We're just pleased as punch to have you join our little team, aren't we, Killer?”

Hayley's lip curled with disgust, but it did occur to her that if Killer was a purebred maybe he wouldn't be as stupid as Ponzi. This was some consolation.

After all, Hayley liked to think she wasn't an unreasonable person. With all the strength she could muster in her weakened state, she made eye contact with the poodle . . . and did her very best to produce a friendly smile.

While Hayley and Killer eyed each other, Eileen had been discussing salary and benefits for the last twenty minutes. Hayley could barely listen to what she was saying. Her stomach was like a
boiling cauldron, and somewhere between the employee kitchen and George's cube, she'd acquired the attention span of a toddler.

“Well, I guess we're in complete agreement, then.” Eileen pushed forward the employment contract and held out a pen.

Huh? Oh. Whatever.

Hayley reached across the table for the pen, and suddenly Killer leaped forward, poodle fangs bared, and went for Hayley's hand.

“Goddammit!” Hayley snatched her hand back. “For fuck's sake, just toss me the goddamn pen, will ya?”

For a moment she thought she'd blown it, and she reeled back in a bizarre wave of relief and self-loathing. But then she remembered that Audra apparently held this company in the palm of her hand. She knew it and Eileen knew it.

Clutching Killer to her chest with a look of abject fear trained on Hayley's face, Eileen very slowly surrendered the pen and rolled it across the table.

Hayley's heart must have been beating at twice the normal speed when she picked up the pen in her fist and gave Killer a withering glare.

An unstable mental patient with hostages, indeed.
Ha!
Then, holding her churning stomach with one hand, she signed the contract with the other.

Thirty minutes later Hayley stepped outside the building with a new employee folder crammed with information about the benefits of working for Mouth-to-Mouth Recitation. She took off her shoes and leaned against the side of the building in the shade for a little while.

When people started to leave the building for lunch, Hayley finally peeled herself off the wall and walked toward the bus stop, shoes in hand. She was shaking and practically hyperventilating by
the time she got there, and babbling to herself to boot. “It's okay, Hayley, baby steps.”

Bottom line was that it was always better to look for a different job while you still had one. That's what everybody always said.

So, this was actually a good thing. Yeah, a good thing. Even if it did feel really, really wrong. Which it did.

I
t was a calculated move, having Grant pick her up at her house. Not that Hayley'd had a whole slew of these incidents to compare as of late, but normally when she was going out on a date with a virtual stranger, she'd take the precaution of meeting him at a safe place and driving herself there.

But Grant was different.

First of all, he was a public servant, a man working for the good of the community. A law enforcement officer, for God's sake. If you were going to trust a stranger to be a good guy, you might as well trust a police detective.

Second of all, there wasn't much a reasonable guy would try to do on a first date that Hayley didn't want to do with Grant, so it wasn't like there was going to be a problem in that department. Sure, she had mad money, but she wasn't too concerned about not having a getaway car, all things considered.

What Hayley
was
concerned about was the fact that she was so freaking nervous. Now that career progress was once more derailed
by landing a job exactly like the one she'd had before, the significance of the date had taken on distorted proportions.

She'd spent the balance of the week working herself into such a frenzy that she'd gotten to Friday evening thinking that if she and Grant didn't end up having sex when all was said and done, she'd have to up and move to Spain and have a go at things there.

With all that in mind, Hayley took special care with her looks, making sure that she felt secure in that department, at least.

She picked out a black skirt and top, and made it special by adding a black beaded sweater that hit right at the waist. She considered wearing the stilettos; she really wanted to, just to get that extra boost in confidence, but she was afraid of stepping in nacho cheese spread at the game and settled on a pair of slides instead.

Last but not least, Hayley dug her black CK baseball cap out of the closet and stuck it in her purse, just in case. And with forty-five minutes left to go, she sat on the bed and waited for the doorbell to ring, obsessing as to whether or not she was overdressed.

When Grant arrived, he was wearing a lightweight barn jacket, khaki pants, a cream-colored button-down shirt, and a pair of those cute, rugged shoes with the lug soles. He just looked adorable—so J.Crew catalog delicious that Hayley wanted to drag him into her kitchen and brand him on the ass with a giant smoking “HJS.”

Really the only hitch was that he picked her up in an SUV. The problem wasn't just that Hayley recognized SUVs for what they were: evil, gas-guzzling, vision-obstructing vehicles created in the deepest bowels of hell.

No, it was more that she couldn't actually get in the vehicle without his help. The car was too high; her skirt was too tight. Not
that she couldn't appreciate the physical contact it required to get the job done, but Hayley decided that if Grant ended up being her boyfriend, the SUV was the first thing about him she was planning to change.

But then again, he wasn't going to end up being anything of the sort if the date completely sucked. And with that disturbing thought, Hayley surreptitiously smooshed her lips together to make sure her lipstick was evenly distributed. She wasn't going to leave anything to chance.

Uglioto's was about fifteen minutes away, and, to his credit, after circling the nearby streets once for parking, Grant drove straight to the valet. No nonsense. So far, so good. He obviously wasn't a cheapskate.

As the valet wrote out the ticket, Grant turned to her and said, “So it's family-style. Hope that's okay.” Hayley gulped, and his hand froze in midair as he reached to turn the car off. “
Is
that okay?”

She'd forgotten about that—that Uglioto's was family-style. Hayley smiled brightly. “Yeah, that's just fine. That's great.” She looked around curiously as they walked into the restaurant and waited for the hostess to escort them to their table. Family-style. It
was
cozy in here, with the white or red linen tablecloths and tiny votives throwing off an intimate glow.
Hmm.
Maybe he was indicating his interest in developing a committed, long-term relationship.

Hayley glanced up at Grant. With her luck? Nah. More likely it was just his way of flushing out any strange eating habits on her part early on in the mating dance. Oh, God, the pressure. Something like that could be the difference between “go” and “no go.”

Grant seated Hayley, then took his own chair. “You seem a little unsure about the family-style concept. I'm really not a picky eater, so you can go ahead and decide on something for both of us.” He seemed taken aback by Hayley's startled reaction at that comment and added, “Or we can just order separately.”

“No, it's great. It's just that it, you know, it, uh, makes you think.” Hayley smiled and spread her napkin out on her lap.

“What does it make you think about?” He looked suspicious.

“Oh. Oh! Whoa, whoa. No, it doesn't make me think about having a
family
.” Hayley snorted a laugh, then flushed. “No, it's just that there are implications. In terms of the process of us ordering something to share.”

He seemed to find that quite amusing. “Like what? This sounds interesting.”

Hayley looked at him carefully. Did he really want to know or was he just making conversation? Oh, well. They had to talk about something. “Well, let's say, for example, that you ask me to choose”—Hayley picked up her menu and glanced at the choices—“and I insist on . . . here, I insist on eggplant parmigiana because it's the only vegetarian dish on the menu.” She looked up at him. “Well, that right there could be a double turnoff.”

“For who? Me?” He picked up his menu and had a look.

“Right. Well, you or any other guy. Because everybody knows men think eggplant is just about the vilest substance there is, and because unless you're vegetarian, you'll realize immediately that the filet mignon you're so fond of will become a lightning-rod issue throughout our entire relationship.”

He glanced at her over the menu. “Our entire relationship?”

“Right, well, of course, that only matters for the long term,”
Hayley quickly assured him. “Obviously, we aren't worried about having a
relationship
just yet, and besides, I'm not vegetarian anyway. There's more, of course, but I think you get the picture.”

“Yeah, I get the picture.” He looked the tiniest bit deer-in-headlights, like he thought it was funny but he wasn't sure how serious
she
was.

Hayley was mortified. Her smile faded and she buried her face in a glass of water.

“Everything okay?” Grant asked.

Everything was not okay. The fact was, she wanted him to like her. If she was going to make progress, him liking her was basically a requirement. He
needed
to like her. As simple as that.

Okay, not quite so simple. She also wanted hot sex, a notion that seemed increasingly foreign, in spite of how often she'd been bandying the term about in conversation with her friends.

Of course, there was no way she was going to say any of these things to Grant. Especially not the part about how this simple date was inextricably tied to her quest for self-improvement and personal momentum. He'd think she was a Hare Krishna or something and leave the table. People just didn't say things like that.

And now she'd gone and scared him by talking about relationships! He must think she was crazy. Quickly, she went for damage control. “You know what, I just think it's really best to be honest. I mean, this dating stuff is bad enough, with all the built-in awkwardness and people not being themselves. So I'm just going to come right out and say it.”

Grant leaned forward with a pained expression on his face. “You're not going to ask me if I'm your boyfriend now, are you?”

“No!” Hayley was horrified. How embarrassing. Although . . . was the idea
that
offensive to him? “I just wanted to say that I think
we should keep it simple and eat something like lasagna, and not read anything into it.”

“Lasagna sounds great.” He smiled casually, but Hayley still felt uneasy.

After they'd ordered, with salad to start and a bottle of red wine, there was a silence that Hayley didn't know what to do with, so she tried to fill it with conversation he could relate to better. “My friend Suz, the one I was with at Fred's memorial service? She's been trying to get me to do the Citizen's Police Academy with her.”

Grant nodded. “She's the one who went into the confessional at Fred Leary's memorial service and was praising Jesus at the top of her lungs?”

“Oh. Well, I was outside and didn't hear that part. Sounds like her, though.”

“She's interested in policework?”

“She's interested in policemen.”

He laughed. “Got it.”

“You know, speaking of Fred Leary, I still don't know how he died.”

“No foul play, if that's what you're asking. Natural causes. The heart, I think.”

“God, that's more depressing than suicide or murder.”

Grant's eyebrows arched.

“Well, at least somebody's making a conscious choice in those scenarios.” Hayley laughed and then stopped suddenly. Okay, he must think she was a real sicko now. She cleared her throat. “Er, I guess what I mean is that there's something particularly sad to me about Fred working himself to death.”

Grant just nodded.

Nice going, Hayley. You're such a downer. You just totally turned him off.
“Sorry, that was kind of maudlin. There's such a thing as being too honest, I guess.” She laughed a little too loudly, then turned to her food and just started chowing down like there was a time limit or something.

This is turning into a disaster. I suck at this.
Finally she put her hands in her lap and just stared at her plate as she chewed on a bite of lasagna. She'd been so fixated on the idea of getting a date with Grant, it hadn't really occurred to her to worry about what would happen once she was on it.

“What's going on under there?” Grant asked.

“Excuse me?”

Grant pointed to her lap, and Hayley held up her napkin and looked at it in surprise. She'd twisted it into a knot. “Oh, this? Oh. Nothing.”

“Mmm.” He nodded. “We've gotten off to a bit of an odd start, don't you think?”

Hayley smiled weakly.

“I wonder why that is.” He contemplated a wad of cheese at the end of his fork.

Was he going to analyze how bad the date was right in front of her? Hayley shuddered and he looked up at her.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

“No, I'm disgusted.”

He put the fork down on the plate without taking the bite. “You're disgusted?”

“This isn't working. I'm saying stupid, sick things. I'm talking about dead people.”

Grant looked at her curiously. “You know, I don't offend as easily as I think you think I do.”

“Oh. Okay.” Hayley nodded. What else were you supposed to say to a statement like that?

He studied her for another long moment. “I've noticed that you have kind of a twisted sense of humor, but the minute you realize you might be laughing at something inappropriate, you make yourself stop laughing.”

“You think I have a twisted sense of humor?” How disconcerting. Would that be a compliment or an insult?

“Yeah, I do. You can take that as a compliment,” he said, gesturing casually with his fork. “I don't like boring women.”

Hayley's eyes widened in surprise.
Well, that answers that question
. She chewed on her lower lip, then cocked her head and said with a smile, “I don't recall that I've given you that many examples of my twisted sense of humor.”

“Oh, there've been a couple of good ones. Like the first one about Fred's corpse. Before things got out of hand.”

“Oh, right. About smelling Fred versus the engineer.” Hayley giggled into her hand. “I wasn't exactly joking. You thought that was funny, did you?”

“Yeah. But I was busy being concerned about you. Those wide swings in emotion . . . I didn't want you to go into shock.”

Hayley pulled back. Was he trying to say that he thought she was moody? Didn't he know a man was never supposed to call a woman moody?

“I was unusually put-upon that day, I think you should know,” she explained defensively. “And I also think you should know that I'm really not that squeamish. It was merely the fact that I actually
knew
Fred that made me so emotional. I think I'd be really good around an anonymous dead body. I could be quite capable, take charge, all that.”

She didn't want to belabor the point or seem overanxious to show him that she could relate to his job. But she wanted him to understand that she could handle these things.

“You know, maybe we should talk a little more about what happened. Clear the air,” he said suddenly. “Maybe that's what's”—he waved his fork in the air, trying to find the right words—“between us.”