Page 76 of Over Her Dead Body

EMMA

The first time Celeste told me there were a hundred girls waiting for my job, Reid was downstairs trying to hide a bottle of champagne from security.

I was twenty-three and working the reception desk, where I answered phones and watched other people do the job I wanted. I had not applied for the junior specialist position. It opened that afternoon. By five, it was mine.

Celeste had delivered the news as though apologizing for an administrative error.

The salary was barely enough to cover rent. The hours were worse. I had never wanted anything more.

Reid stood when I entered the lobby, the neck of the bottle protruding from a paper bag.

“Did you get it?”

“I got warned.”

“That sounds less celebratory.”

I glanced toward the elevators. “She spent ten minutes explaining how replaceable I am.”

Reid followed my gaze. “Before or after she gave you the job?”

“After. It’s important not to let the new hires become unruly.”

Reid handed me the bottle. It cost eleven dollars and was cold enough to make the paper damp.

“She says there are a hundred girls waiting for my job.”

“Then why did she give it to you?”

I curled my fingers around the damp paper. “Because I already work here, know nineteenth-century European painting, and don’t cost enough to resent.”

“Still sounds like she picked you.”

“You have a dangerously simplistic understanding of employment.”

Reid smiled. “You got the job.”

He said it as though that settled the matter.

“The girl I’m replacing was fired. I liked her.”

His smile faded. “That does make this harder to celebrate.”

The girl had repeated something private about a client over lunch. Someone at the next table recognized the name. What she said made its way back to the house.

“So don’t do that,” Reid said when I explained the situation.

“I believe that was the lesson.”

We took the champagne home because drinking it in the lobby seemed like an efficient way to find out how quickly one of the hundred girls could replace me.

Our apartment was six hundred square feet if the landlord had measured generously. We ate takeout on the floor because we were saving for a table. Every spare dollar went into an envelope in the kitchen drawer with TABLE written across the front.

Reid poured the champagne into two water glasses.

“To being cheap enough to hire,” he said.

I touched my glass to his. “Every girl’s dream.”