Page 1 of His Assistant

1

SOFIA

The woman at the security desk looks at my shoes before she looks at my face, and she doesn’t seem particularly impressed. I pretend not to notice. They’re clean. That should count for something, right?

They’re also a knockoff designer brand I scored on clearance. The left one pinches the side of my foot something awful, but fashion is pain, right? They match the navy slacks and cream blouse I picked out for my interview, so I breathe through it.

I desperately need this job. So, I don’t mind the way the security guard is side-eyeing me. It’ll be worth it later when she’s scanning my employee badge.

“Sofia Bellini,” I tell her as I step up to the desk. “I have a nine-thirty interview with the hospitality division.”

She checks her screen. I keep my shoulders straight and my hands still, even though I want to grab the edge of the desk for balance. After a few excruciating seconds, she prints a badge and slides it across.

“Twenty-sixth floor,” she says in a bored voice.

“Thank you!” I squeak out.

She nods once, already looking past me to the next person waiting to get in.

The lobby is so large I’d call it cavernous. It’s bigger than the cathedral I grew up attending in Queens, and for years I thought that was the biggest building in the world. Dad didn’t take us into Manhattan much. This place has marble floors, brass trim, and floor-to-ceiling windows. It feels wrong to scuff it in my knockoffs.

Vieri Holdings isn’t my usual scene. It’s a far cry from my Queens apartment, where the water pressure is pitiful, and my father’s repair shop with the cracked front window.

This place screams luxury and old money. There are floral arrangements taller than children going through puberty here. They probably cost more than my rent, too.

I head for the elevators and try not to tally the price of everything I see. It’s an unfortunate force of habit. My phone buzzes in my pocket just as the doors open, and I pull it out to read the message.

Good luck, sweetheart. Everything here is fine.

It’s from my dad, and I know for a fact that everything is not fine. The garage is not fine. It hasn’t been fine in a long time. His health isn’t fine either. His blood pressure is a constant headache to his doctor. His debt is not fine. It’s the main reason I made the trek on the subway this morning.

I wish it worked that way. I wish just saying things were fine would make them so.

I step inside the elevator with a woman in a pinstriped suit who’s barking into her phone like there’s no one else in the cramped space. Two men follow her in. One smells like expensive cologne. At least $500 an ounce, if I had to guess.

The woman presses thirty-two. One of the men presses forty. I press twenty-six. At least, I think I do.

My phone buzzes before the doors close.

Dad: Don’t worry about me today. Focus on you.

It would be a lot easier to focus on me if he’d stop texting. I don’t mean to feel as annoyed as I do, but my nerves are complicating everything else. I take a deep breath and type out a response.

Me: Love you. I’ll call after.

By the time I look up, the doors are open, so I step out, thinking it must be my floor. Only, too late, I realize the woman in the pinstriped suit is still yelling into her phone two feet ahead of me. The doors close behind me before I can get back in and try for the right floor.

“Of course,” I mutter.

I jab the down button and wait impatiently. This stupid little mistake is going to make me late to my interview. I turn my phone off just to make sure I don’t make another dumb error.

Somewhere down the hall, a woman yells, “No, no, no, that is not the revised deck.”

A man answers, “It was in the folder.”

“The wrong folder, Bruce.”

“I didn’t name the folders.”