arms. “And what about me made you say, ‘I want that to be my assistant?’”
We stare at each other for a long minute.
“That?” Paul asks. “Denham, why do you think I hired you?”
I run my fingers across my lips and look past him, at the window, but I don’t really see anything there. I’ve been asking myself the same question since he told me I had no hope of moving up and every time I get close to the answer that feels the most plausible, I have to shut that part of my brain off. “I don’t know.”
“You sure about that?”
“I mean, come on, Paul. I was like, this little kid compared to everyone else at your lectures and if it wasn’t that you thought I could … that you thought I could—” Write. I can’t even say it. “Then it has to be because I have this—because I look fucking tragic, that’s all.”
He stares openly at my scar, but I’ve more or less put it on the table, so I can only blame myself for how bad it feels.
“It was a car accident, you said? Took out your whole family?”
It’s only come up once before, briefly, awkwardly, when I started here, after one of Lauren’s intrusive lines of questioning. I was snappish about it because I didn’t know That’s Just the Way Lauren Is. I remember the fleeting silence that followed, not being able to meet a single pair of eyes until an hour or so later, when it felt far enough away.
No one ever brought it up again.
“Yeah.”
“That’s really—rough.”
“Yeah.”
“Look, Denham, as much as I handed you a job, I didn’t hand it to you because I felt sorry for you. Lauren was pulling double duty forever, and it wasn’t fair to her, and I’d been interviewing for an assistant for over a month—”
“So you were desperate,” I finish.
“That’s not it either. Would you let me talk?” he asks, laughing a little. “You know, that was the main reason I pegged you for the job. You wouldn’t let me talk in my lecture. Every time I said something, you had your hand in the air. Because I usually coast on these things. People come, they don’t engage. You kept me on my toes. I thought if she’s game, she’ll keep me on my toes. And I was right.”
I swallow hard. I know Paul thinks he’s giving me a compliment, that there’s nothing inherently wrong with what he’s saying, but it’s hard to hear myself recast in a role I never envisioned for myself. And I feel stupid for not realizing it was all I was being offered all along. I change the subject because I can’t bring myself to thank him for making me feel so worthless.
“You gonna get that wall repainted?”
“Lauren wants me to keep it. Says it looks like blackout poetry.” He pauses. “I hate it. But I’ll let her enjoy it until the New Year. Maybe. Probably not.”
I leave him to his work and go back to mine.
The phone rings as soon as I sit down.
“SVO. Paul Tindale’s office.”
This time, the silence on the other end feels more like a puzzle piece fitting into place. I turn away from Lauren and bring my mouth closer to the receiver, lowering my voice.
“Casey?” I pause, listening to the breathing on the other end of the line. “Look, if this is someone from The Project—”
They hang up.
It’s the first time they’ve hung up on me.
I put the phone back in the cradle and get back to work, opening the feedback inbox, sifting through the usual bullshit. One email from Facebook catches my eyes.
Arthur Lewis wants you to join the group THE TRUTH ABOUT THE UNITY PROJECT.
“Oh, shit,” I say softly.
Lauren glances at me. “What’s up?”
“Uh—nothing. Thought I deleted something I shouldn’t have.”
It seems to satisfy her. I click the link and wait for the tab to load.
The page’s banner image knocks the wind out of me. It’s one of the pictures from the series Arthur showed me on his phone … Bea is in this one. She stands close to Jeremy, gazing at something to her left. I enlarge the image and study it in the way I couldn’t sitting across from Arthur in the bar without giving something of myself away.
When I was a kid, there was no one more beautiful to me than Bea. She reminded me of the princesses in Disney movies; the light always catching her just right, bringing out the sparkle in her warm