I almost looked away, just to find relief from the intensity of his eyes, but I didn’t. Why did he still seem irritated?
“If you want to come by next Monday, you can start then.”
“Okay.”
He got to his feet. “I’ll walk you out.”
And just like that, the weirdest job interview I’d ever had was over.
“Sure. Thanks.” I got up, quickly, because he was already heading for the French doors. He opened the door and walked right out into the backyard.
So, apparently he did go outside.
I hurried to keep up. He wasn’t rushing, but the man’s legs were definitely longer than mine. I followed him around the house, to the driveway, in silence. When we got there, he stopped, so I did too.
“What time should I be here on Monday?” I asked him.
“Sometime before ten is good. I usually dive pretty deep into my work in the afternoon.”
“How about nine o’clock?”
“Sure.” He looked at the empty driveway. “No car?”
“I don’t have one.”
“I’ll get you one,” he said, and pulled out his phone.
“It’s okay. I usually take transit.”
He looked at me, and I could tell something was wrong. He looked irritated again.
“It’s not a problem, I promise,” I added quickly. “I’m reliable, punctual, and I can get around just fine. I live right downtown—”
“I’m getting you a car. I insist. It’s on me.” He was thumbing around, on a taxi app probably, and I didn’t want to make a big deal about it when I’d barely even started working for him yet, so I didn’t.
“Thank you,” I said.
When he was done booking the car, he tucked his phone away and walked me halfway up the driveway. Then he stopped by the palm trees, and sat down on one of the big rocks that lined the edge of the driveway. To wait with me, I presumed.
So I sat down on a rock kind of next to him.
He didn’t say a word, so I didn’t either.
After a minute, I pulled out my earbuds and held them in my hand so I was ready to pop them in when the taxi got here. He still didn’t say anything. I wondered if I should make conversation or not.
About what?
After the longest silence I’d ever experienced with another human being sitting so close to me, he said, “You really took the bus to get here?”
“Yes.”
Had the man been living in his gated mansion with the three-car garage for so long he’d forgotten that regular people did regular things like ride the bus?
“You listen to music on the bus?”
“Yeah. There’s not much else to do. Sometimes I read.”
“What do you listen to?”
“All kinds of things.”
“What do you listen to the most?”
I looked into his eyes. I wondered if this was still part of the job interview process. Like if I got this wrong, would he be changing his mind about hiring me?
“Well, I guess I’m supposed to say something cool like Billie Eilish or Twenty One Pilots or Halsey. And those would all be true. But honestly, I have a Metallica fetish. And my secret weakness is love songs by female vocalists who I can sing along to in the shower.”
“Like who?”
“Like… do you really want to know? I can’t sing, so it’s not like I can pull it off.”
He considered that. “What are we talking about? Céline Dion and Whitney Houston?”
“More like Ann Wilson and Avril Lavigne.”
“Avril Lavigne, huh?” He took that in. Or maybe he was trying to picture me singing “Sk8er Boi” into a shampoo bottle.
“Hey, when I was ten she was huge.”
“You like Heart?”
“I like Ann Wilson. And, if you really need to know, Dolly Parton.”
His eyes crinkled a bit. It wasn’t exactly a smile, though. “So, let’s see. She likes Metallica and Dolly Parton.”
“Yup.”
“You know, I used to try to figure people out by the kind of music they listen to. I’m not sure it works. Especially when you come at me with Metallica and Dolly Parton.”
“What can I say. I once gave myself minor whiplash from banging my head so hard to ‘Whiplash.’ And ‘Jolene’ makes me cry every time I hear it.”
A car eased to a stop outside the gate, and he got to his feet. “Your ride.”
I got up. It wasn’t a taxi. It was a silver luxury sedan. The driver, a strapping, salt-and-pepper-haired man in dark dress clothes, got out and came around to open the rear door.