Page 35 of I Need You to Read This
“Come in,” she calls out, looking up from her computer, surprised to see Jonathan’s face peer around the edge of the doorframe.
“Jonathan! Hi.” She stands up.
“Can I talk to you?” Jonathan asks, looking sheepish.
“Yes, come in.” Alex starts to move another chair closer to her desk, but Jonathan makes an uncomfortable face, glancing around the office and then averting his eyes.
“Would you mind somewhere else?” He gestures at the hallway.
“Of course.” Alex follows him all the way down the hall until they reach the door to the old stairwell.
“This okay? There’s no one ever back here.”
“Sure,” Alex says, swallowing her fear of the staircase and following Jonathan through the fire door. Once they are on the landing, he turns to her apologetically.
“I’m sorry. Her—your—office still makes me feel really strange. It seems too soon to be in there with someone else somehow. I know that isn’t nice for you to hear probably, but every time I set foot in there, I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack.” The admission doesn’t make her feel bad; she’s grateful to have Jonathan sharing anything with her.
“Were you and Francis close?” Alex asks. She hasn’t ever consideredJonathan’s relationship to Francis, but working at the front desk, he would have seen her every day. She wonders what he might be able to tell her about Francis’s last days.
“I loved her,” he says quickly. “There was a time when I felt like nobody but her understood me. She cared for me, too, but honestly, it was more me needing her than her needing me. I think I felt almost betrayed when she died.”
Alex reaches out and places a hand gently on his shoulder. He doesn’t flinch.
“It’s so hard to lose the people who care for us. Or to see them replaced?” she says meaningfully.
Jonathan gives her a crooked smile, knowing he’s being called out. He leans over and crosses his arms on the banister.
“You tried to make things hard for me,” Alex says, unsure she can trust him. “When I started here.”
“Just a little.” He scrunches up his nose. “She was my favorite person in the universe. And I didn’t like how Howard did it—so publicly. I didn’t think Francis would have liked that.”
Jonathan has been mean to her out of loyalty to Francis? Even if it made her life harder, Alex can kind of understand that. She allows herself to lean against the banister next to him. “I know. I was angry about the whole thing, too, honestly. I didn’t know her personally like you did, but it felt off to me. The entire reason I filled out the application was to see what kind of screening they were using to choose her replacement. Well, that and a bottle of wine,” she admits.
“You hate-applied.” He smirks.
“You know, I think I did.” Their laughter bounces through the stairwell.
“I’m glad you’re the one who got the job, Alex. I’m sorry for being a dick. She was like an aunt to me. It’s why I had a hard time accepting you.”
“I can imagine,” Alex says, self-doubt blooming in her chest. “EvenIhave had a hard time accepting me as her replacement.”
“You’re doing great,” Jonathan says. The unexpected kindness of him saying so makes her want to cry.
“I feel like a mess. Francis seemed so calm, so together. Whereas I’m a”—she gestures at herself helplessly—“a total disaster. Who am I to give advice?”
Jonathan shakes his head. “Oh, please. Whatever image you have in your head of Francis, please just erase it. She was so far from having it all together. She had a bad temper sometimes. She swore like a sailor. And she could be impossible.” He smiles at the memory. “Living some perfect life wouldn’t have made her good at her job though, Alex. Empathy. The ability to imagine yourself in anyone else’s life. That’s what you have in common. I didn’t want to admit it, but I could tell even before you turned in that first column that you were going to be good at this.”
Now Alex is tearing up. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. Anyway, I owe you for earlier. In case you couldn’t tell, Regina absolutely hates me.”
“Yeah, what is up with her?” She wipes her eyes on the sleeve of her shirt.
He sighs and rests his head on his arms for a moment. “Well, there was this one time I really fucked up.”
“You!” Alex says in mock horror.
“Yeah.” He cringes, lowering his voice to a near whisper. “I know. This was bad though. It was last year, just before Francis… I was making a dinner reservation for him at one of his favorite places. It was at this old hotel bar he likes to go to that is still somehow impossible to get a table at, but I kept calling and pulling every string and I finally snagged a spot for two.”
