mouth.
Everything's going to be fine, I say silently to myself. You are going to be fine.
15
Jacqueline
I make my hand into a fist, pressing my fingernails tightly into my palm but I put it behind my back slightly just so it is out of sight. As I walk through the entryway leading to Vasko's office, there's another receptionist up front and she asks me to sit in the chairs to wait, but as soon as she makes the phone call, a man appears wearing a T-shirt, slim cut suit pants, and covered in sweat.
He has a nicely toned body and he looks like he's just been working out. He introduces himself as Dillard Vasko. We shake hands and he invites me inside to a huge glass office. There's a couch at one end and a desk at the other. In the corner, there's a treadmill, explaining the sweatiness.
"Come in, come in.” He waves me over. "Sorry about this."
Vasko pulls on his pale turquoise shirt and I watch the way the muscles in his body flex as he moves.
Why hadn't Dante mentioned how good looking he is?
Vasko’s hair is cut short, he has a nice tan, and when he moves, picking up my resume off his minimalist desk that's shaped like an airplane wing, I can see how the muscles in his arms bulge and flex in a very attractive manner.
He motions to the plush fabric chair across from him as he sits down.
“Do you want anything to drink or eat?” he asks, pointing to the bar with not just alcohol but a bowl full of apples, pears, and apricots in the corner.
I want to say no to everything, but my mouth is getting dry and I ask him for water just in case I start to cough.
"Of course.” Vasko walks over, grabs a bottle and hands it to me, pouring himself some coffee into his stainless steel mug. "So tell me about your experience, Jacqueline. You had a glowing recommendation from your boss."
"Yes, I really enjoyed working there," I say, launching into my fake job position and rattling off all the facts about the startup that Dante had me memorize.
We talk a little bit about that before he asks me about my theory of organization. I don't exactly know what he means, but I turn the conversation to my approach to organization, sprinkling in some words from the job application to fill in the gaps. Through it all, I try to be as personable and attentive as possible.
"My main goal is to be the best assistant I can be," I say confidently, broadening my shoulders. "That's the only thing I want to do. I know that you have to spend all of your time making big decisions. I want to take as much off your plate as possible."
“Yes. Well, when you put it that way, how could I say no?" Vasko smiles. "Of course, I do have other people to interview."
I nod, avoiding biting my lower lip. I ask Vasko more about his business and he tells me about expanding his line of work from microprocessors to other computer components.
I don't lie about the fact that I don't know much about this, but that doesn't seem to concern him because my job is mainly focused on answering calls, getting him scheduled for meetings, and other types of work that aren’t focused on hardware or software.
"So what do you like to do in your spare time, Jacqueline Archer?" he asks, leaning back in his chair.
My name sounds odd on his lips along with the fact that he says my last name in addition to my first, but I let it go.
"Well, I like to write and read," I say carefully, treading around my background in journalism.
In fact, Dante thought it would be best if I didn't mention my master’s in journalism at all and just my undergraduate work as an English literature major.
"You know, you'd probably find it hard to believe, but I was an English major, too," he says with a little bit of a smile. "I went to University of Washington. I guess I wasn't sure what I wanted to do afterward, but I was really into all of this exciting stuff going on with startups and computer science, so I pursued a master's degree in that."
"Computer science?" I ask. "Don't you need to have a whole bunch of math and computer science undergraduate courses for that?"
"Oh, no, just the business aspect of it. I got an MBA but with