Page 52 of Perfect Assumption
There’s one more thing I learned tonight. There are worse things in life than death.
It’s the way Angie reacted to me. Christ, that tonight tops the list of the worst feeling ever. My stomach still clenches over the anguish lingering on her face when I left her at my sister’s.
I sit forward on the sofa in my home office and berate myself again. Maybe if I hadn’t acted like such a jackass before… But then I pick apart the events of the evening, from the moment we walked in the door and she held my hand to our time on the dance floor, and realize nothing would have stopped her reaction. “I came up behind her and slid my arm around her waist. It was that millisecond…” Before she started struggling.
I want to hurl.
I managed to catch a glimpse of her broken eyes.No, not broken. Shattered,I correct myself. Then for her to inadvertently confirm it… I toss my drink back and let the burn combat the acid trying to crawl its way up my stomach.
It was merely a guess that Angie was a victim of sexual assault. When she confirmed it, I felt an anger so pure course through me, I didn’t know how to deal with it. Instead of comforting her, I’m the one who needed reassurance—from her. Knowing nothing about what happened to her, possibly damaging her healing further, this extraordinary woman offered me an olive branch I certainly don’t deserve.
“How did I not realize there was something intrinsically wrong all these years?” Then I answer my own question. “Idiot. Because you refused to let yourself get to know her. You took one look at her two years ago and realized she was everything you could ever want—a sexy as fuck, dedicated, family-oriented woman whose loyalty can’t be questioned. Unlike your own.”
She’s everything I’ve tried so hard to demonstrate to everyone around me over and over that I can be. And tonight, I damaged some of her hard-earned serenity. I don’t know how I’m certain of that, but I am. I hate myself even more than I usually do, and that’s normally quite a bit.
I lean forward and press the leaded crystal against my forehead. “What happened, Angie? How can I help you? How can I fix this? Us?” I suddenly remember Carys saying Angie was staying at her place tonight because Angie lives outside the city. “Did someone assault you on the train? Goddamn, we have enough money to send a car daily to pick you up.” Feeling like I can finally do something, I surge to my feet and make my way to my desk.
But when I try to access Angie’s personnel file, I find it’s password protected. “Damnit, Carys,” I curse my sister, now knowing why it likely is. Reduced to sending Carys an email with my recommendation, I outline my thoughts and mark it as high priority. At the end, I type,It would have helped to have had some background on our employee so I didn’t cause any kind of lasting damage to our working relationship.Then I press Send.
Let my sister noodle on that one.
“What else can I do?” I ask aloud. Angie does so much for us, it’s almost inconceivable. Between me, Carys, and David, every single day she manages the office for three high-functioning legal personnel as well as dealing with the idiosyncrasies of all the celebrities who contact us. She’s a consummate professional—excluding the antics Becks normally drags her into.
Airplane fights using Post-its.
Becks making a chain of paperclips between his nose ring and his earring that ran under his arm. And finding no sympathy from Angie when he got it caught on his suit jacket.
Angie daring Becks to go scrub the bathroom while she was taking notes for Carys and me during a conference call for Wildcard only for him to come out with a full face of her makeup.
And for the first time, I find myself laughing aloud when I think of some of them, knowing he did it to put a smile on her otherwise somber face. But Angie? Tonight was the first time I heard her laugh. What would it take to make that happen regularly?
Suddenly, I have an idea.
I wince as I set the alarm on my phone for much earlier than I normally arrive at the office. Angie’s always been at our beck and call. Maybe if I grovel while showing my gratitude for everything she does, she’ll laugh again.
If not, she can laugh at the fact I’m groveling for anything. Especially for her forgiveness for even momentarily sending her back into the darkness.
* * *
“Listen,you have to know who I’m talking about. She’s about five nine, gorgeous red hair. Probably orders a massive amount of food every time she comes in,” I argue with the counter person.
“Mister, if you knew how many people come through the door who might meet that description,” the young girl tries to reason with me.
Desperately, I try to think of another way to get Angie’s order when she always knows ours. “Listen, she always orders us the same thing. Croissants, egg sandwiches. Three different kinds of lattes. Well, four if Becks is going to be there,” I mutter to myself, or so I think.
“Wait? Are you talking aboutAngie?” the salesperson exclaims.
I close my eyes in relief. “Yes! Then you know what she drinks?”
“If you’d only have said her name.” I feel reprimanded by a girl easily ten years younger than me as items begin to race across the register screen in a shorthand computer code known only to those experienced with this kind of software. But I recognize words like “latte” and “skim,” which makes me relax. “Angie’s the best. Super nice. Even if we’re in the middle of a rush, she just steps aside and lets us process everyone else orders. Are you one of the people she works for?” Her head tips to the side quizzically.
“Yes.”
“You’re lucky to have her. She pointed out a few things that could be changed to make us more efficient just to be nice. I thought our owner was going to genuflect at her feet. He owns a chain of places just like this. Offered her a job on more than one occasion.”
Something curdles in my stomach at the idea of Angie ever leaving LLF. Whipping out my credit card, I hand it over to pay for the bill, all the while wondering if Angie was ever interested. Now that I’ve seen parts of her I never knew existed before last night, I hunger to know more about her.
Even something as stupid as her coffee order.
