Page 94 of Analysing Her Assets

“I told you I love you. I quit Peaks. I asked you for trust. I didn’t ask anything else from you, Tamar. Just honesty and trust. Wherever I’m going, you’re not coming!”

They reached the ground floor, and he stomped out into the lobby. Tamar didn’t follow. She stayed in the elevator, and the last thing he saw was her pale face as the doors automatically closed and the elevator was called elsewhere.

45. Tamar

Before going down with Giddy for his evening stroll, Tamar wore her warm red shoes, fished out her seldom used Uniqlo, the one that belonged to her mother and she had worn less than ten times. Winter had finally descended on Tel Aviv. It was so cold outside that there was frost on the pavement, almost giving the illusion of snow.

Giddy loved the weather. It made sense, she guessed, as wolves that he resembled came from colder climates. He tugged the leash and wagged his tail, wanting to run.

“I’m cold, Giddy. A short walk, that’s all.”

She waited for the cold air to seep into her bamboozled mind and lend a hint of clarity to a day that was otherwise hazy and surreal.

After Gideon left, she rode back to N’s office where Ada from HR was already waiting. Tamar had been suspended until the end of the year. Keynan told Ada he would send a company-wide email announcing that he annulled the analyst competition and the special bonus, since the proceedings were tainted. Tamar would stay on the payroll, but an internal investigation was opened. If she were found guilty, she would have to pay back the bonuses she got from the last couple of years.

She headed back up the stairs with Giddy, where, to her horror, she met her landlady. Mrs. Elron never came around. Tamar truly believed she could keep Giddy a secret from her forever. But she should have expected it. Shit arrived in heaps.

“Is this your dog?”

“I’m walking it for a friend.”

“Then why are you headed upstairs?” asked Mrs. Elron, her sharp eyes on Giddy who gave her his lopsided canine smile, convinced she was a friend.

“I needed to pee,” Tamar answered.

“Can I come inside with you? Just to check there aren’t any dog things?” asked Mrs. Elron, who was nobody’s fool. Tamar looked at the hard face, the last in a day of hard faces. The betrayal by Yelena, Nathanela’s disappointment in her, Gideon’s accusations. She couldn’t bottle anything inside anymore. She started crying. Deep, uncontrolled sobs, followed by heaving air. She gasped, coughed, spluttered, tears running down her cheeks, wetting her water-resistant coat. She couldn’t control her outburst, but letting it all out was a relief, even if it didn’t soften Mrs. Elron’s mouth.

“Stop it, Tamar! Stop it.”

Giddy sat on his hind, pointed his snout to the stairway’s ceiling, and keened together with his mistress.

“I can’t!” Tamar hiccupped the truth.

“You’ll receive a letter from my attorney, do you hear?” Tamar couldn’t stop hiccupping. “I have every right to evict you on the grounds of breaching your contract. Crying won’t do you any good!”

She entered her beloved apartment, and she was still sniffling when she filled a pail with water and perfumed it with pine smelling floor detergent. Without being told to, Giddy snuck to her bedroom while she hoisted his poof and toys on the sofa.

Evicted.

She would have to go back to her father’s overcrowded apartment. Another daughter who couldn’t make it on her own. She hadn’t even told Tally the news yet. The bank wouldn’t like it that the main collateral, the future chief analyst of Peaks, was out of a job.

She mopped her living room floor, breathing in the green-smelling water.

Giddy sat at attention, in her bedroom, panting slightly, watching her clean. He liked the pine smell too. He would be okay. Gideon would take him. She’d gotten so used to Giddy greeting her when she came home, happy to see her always, but the way things stood between her and Gideon, she wouldn’t feel comfortable visiting her dog there very often.

“I’m going to miss you,” she told him.

Afterwards, she turned on her laptop and brought up the accursed excels. Her puppy laid his warm, heavy head on her lap, as she stared at the numbers till she had more tears in her eyes. But there was nothing there that popped up. Nothing more than what she’d already found.

There were knocks on her door. Tamar didn’t answer, expecting the horrible Mrs. Elron.

“Shhh, Giddy, it’s the dog police.”

Her clever dog whined quietly but knew to stay silent. His warm body and familiar canine smell comforted Tamar, and she ignored the increasingly loud banging on her door.

“Tamar! Open up! It’s Marina. The pizza is getting cold!”

Marina and Noga stood on her doorstep.

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