be"—she held her thumbs and forefingers an inch apart—"just so. You need someone who can organize your things and prepare it all such that you're able to go ahead and do everything because you don't trust anyone to do anything correctly. I am wonderful when it comes to handling egomaniac micromanagers. I have lots of experience in that arena and I don't notice the toxic air quality of being treated like I'm incompetent anymore. I adapt to shit situations shockingly well."
"Excuse me" was all I could manage. And then, "I am not an egomaniac micromanager."
She dropped her hands to her lap and gave me a patient smile. It was the kind of smile reserved for small, feeble, clueless things. "It's okay, honey. I understand. We don't have to use those words."
"The words are fine," I snapped. "They are fine and they don't describe my management style." I pointed to my screen. "Since you've pushed the issue, Miss Besh, I'd love to hear how your recent experience"—I blinked at the screen, forcing myself to reread the bullet several times for fear the whiskey was playing games on me—"managing a spirituality shop, whatever that is, would meaningfully contribute to my accounting practice."
"Let's start with the spirituality shop piece of this puzzle. It's Denver, my friend. People love their crystals and smudge sticks and tarot readings. Just because you're not pulling cards every day doesn't mean it's not a worthwhile business."
She tucked her hair over her ear again—eighteen—and this was the first time I noticed the tattoo on her inner forearm. The phases of the moon, of course.
"The worthiness of the business isn't my concern at the moment," I replied.
"But it is," she countered. "You said, 'a spirituality shop, whatever that is.' The implication was clear—my job was at a non-mainstream business and thus my experience is equally non-mainstream. You're discounting the possibility that I'm capable of managing a retail store and a staff of part-time clerks as well as tarot readers—who, by the way, are paid as independent contractors. You're skipping over the part where I handled scheduling and ordering and made sense of daily receipts such that the lights stayed on the entire time I worked there. I kept all of the cats alive too."
I wanted nothing more than to glance at my watch. I wanted to know which segment of this billable hour I was losing to a lecture on the goods and services of some new-age witchcraft emporium.
"While that is fascinating, none of it points to experience with SAP or Oracle," I said, taking another scan of her résumé. "I'm not seeing anything in here that gets at Sarbanes-Oxley or even an entry-level understanding of GAAP."
Nineteen.
"I know you believe those things are essential but I stand behind what I said about you doing all the work," she answered. "And I say that with love so don't get all offended on me now, uh"—she paused, frowned—"I don't know your name. You're elbow-deep in my life history and I don't know your name."
"Ash," I replied. "Ash Santillian." I tapped my keyboard to view the bottom portion of the résumé. "Tell me how your degree in"—I smothered a laugh—"archaeology will inform work on financial audits."
"You and your little snicker tell me you don't know much about archaeology." Zelda ran her hands over her denim-clad thighs. "It's not all Indiana Jones and raiding Egyptian tombs."
"Maybe not," I conceded. "But your primary research involves ancient death rituals and something called NAGPRA—"
"The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990."
"Right. Of course." I nodded because everyone knew that. "And why is it you aren't looking for a role more closely aligned with that study?"
"That's a long story and we don't know each other well enough for long stories."
Before I could argue with Zelda, the flight attendant stopped at our row to take drink orders. When I had a bottle of water on my tray table—no more whiskey for me, thank you—I asked, "What's the short version?"
She made a sour face at her can of Coke. "Most archaeology jobs are in academia. That direction wasn't on the horizon for me."
"And that's why you"—I scrolled the document again—"have spent the past ten years in graduate assistantships and retail and…summer camps?"
She hit me with a severe scowl. "Do not come for summer camp. You won't make it out alive if you think you can condescend to summer camp in my presence."
"All right," I drawled. "But the reality is I need someone who can build spreadsheets—"