Page 6 of Voyeur

I sit down at his desk, flipping on the small lamp. The smell of pipe smoke is still fresh in the room, as if the wood soaked it into its core. It feels as if he could walk in at any moment, telling me to get out of his favorite chair.

He used to say his favorite chairs were the ones he made money in, this being one of them.

“I’m going to get in bed, Em. Lock up when you leave?” Mom says. She’s standing in the doorway in her plush, green robe, hair askew. She’s got her glass of warm milk she always drinks at night while she watches The Late Show. It’s nice to see that her routines live on… without him.

“I will. Goodnight, Mom. I love you.” I pretend to blow her a kiss as we always did, and she catches it and puts it on her cheek. Sometimes, she’d place them in her pocket. Rainy day kisses, she’d call them.

I find the E’s in the yearbook and strike out. I grab my senior book, starting with freshman year, and finding only the section with the last names nearest hers.

There she is.

Carina Eder. Bold type. Her large, awkward smile shows braces, probably freshly placed. Her hair is shoulder length and matted. Her shirt looks like it’s years old, and ill fitting. Massive, thick glasses sit on the end of her nose. They show overuse with the tape that’s visible and clearly holding them together.

I still don’t know her.

The only years I’d played football were these. My high school football career had come to a halt when Father decided business school was the direction I was going. I tried to beg him, make him see that football scholarship could be the way I go to school. But being that we had money—plenty of it—he wouldn’t hear of it.

Oh, Carina. Who are you?

I keep running my finger over her picture, wishing it was in color. The traces of this version of her are long gone. She’s filled out and filled in all the awkward cracks of childhood. And done so beautifully, if I might add.

In this photo, her body looked like neglect. Or the telltale markings of a child uncomfortable in their own skin. No, I can see it in her eyes. Even though she smiles at the camera, her eyes swim with sadness. They’re vacantly staring at a lens that’s too one dimensional to capture the full vibrancy of Carina Eder.

I want nothing more than to find the next book and search for her, but I graduated this year… I trail off in thought as I recall that my brother, Jace, was a freshman the year after I graduated. I fly from the seat, pulling his yearbook out and finding the sophomore version of Ms. Eder to see how she changed over the course of her first year in high school.

I find her, and fun my finger across the color photo of her. Apparently, it had only taken one more year for them to not cheap out and get color yearbooks. Just my luck, too.

She’s in a yellow sundress with a rose print plastered on it. Like before, it shows years of use, probably a hand-me-down. I wonder if she has siblings. I find myself wanting to know it all. I want to know where she got this dress, why she chose it for picture day, what memory this photo conjured for her. I want to fucking know her for some reason.

It’s unnerving, but I’m trying to ignore the idiocy of what I’m doing now and revel in the triumph of completing my mission.

Her smile is bright, her braces have pink and purple rubber bands on them, but her eyes are the darkest shade of blue, devoid.

What’s the matter, little rose bud?

The thought startles me back to reality. I can’t do this. I can’t be pining after a member of my staff. We have a strict ethical code at Stanner Enterprises: no staff relationships.

I somehow had forgotten that I can’t touch her, not while she works for me. I’d hired the one woman who has ever piqued my interest in my entire life.

I wonder how fast I’m allowed to fire her.

CHAPTERTHREE

Carina

Igot the job. I got the job.

The mantra repeats in my head like a static charge. I’m so thankful, but I didn’t want to showhimthat. Of course, I’d called Conner—someone not so stuck up that they never noticed me. He’d told me there was a spot he was having trouble filling. Even though he knew it was below my station. Conner saw my qualifications and askedmeif I was sure I wanted the job.

The salary was less than I was earning at the publishing house, sure, but it would pay the bills and leave plenty left over for me to do as I wished. Being as criminally introverted as I am, I don’t do much. Though, the left-over cash from working as Stanner Enterprises’ advertising editor would allow me a fair amount of money to order books off Amazon with.

“Carina, wait up!”

My finger had almost pressed the button to call the elevators, but almost doesn’t count.

Inhale; exhale.

I turn around, tugging my lips upward as is societally necessary. If you don’t smile, people think you’re a bitch. Which, I’m not. I’m not used to being acknowledged. It’s a new thing for me.

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