Wish Upon a Star. Olivia Goldsmith

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ much more than an educated clerk. Of course none of the secretaries were called secretaries, either. They were ‘Administrative Assistants’ (though they all expected gifts and flowers on Secretaries’ Day). But the two groups had something important in common: there was nowhere for either analysts or administrative assistants to advance to within Crayden Smithers. After a decade of service you weren’t promoted to investment banker. At best, you might get Joan’s job. Not that Claire wanted it. Joan was the sphincter muscle in the bowels of Crayden Smithers.

      That evening at five to five she was almost finished compiling a statistical table – she hated typing statistics – and stayed until a quarter after to get it done. It was unusual because, unlike the secretaries, the analysts had scheduled hours and usually left on the dot of five. Only Joan had to stay on to complete paperwork and arrange for temps or overtime work.

      Now, as Joan put on her coat, she eyed Claire. ‘Don’t stay past six,’ she warned.

      Claire smiled and nodded. The rule at Crayden Smithers was that an hour or more of overtime guaranteed a car service ride home. Of course, a ride to Tottenville meant going through Brooklyn, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and half of Staten Island. It was a two-hundred-and-ten-dollar fare in a chauffeured Mercedes. ‘We don’t have the budget for that,’ Joan told her as she walked out the door.

      ‘I know,’ Claire called after her. There, alone for the first time in more than eight hours, she took a deep breath. The commute this evening would be less brutal than at peak hours, though the wait would be longer. Getting to Tottenville after rush hour was the slow hour – or maybe two or three. Ferries, trains and buses didn’t run frequently. Everyone in Tottenville called Manhattan ‘The City’ – even though Staten Island was part of New York. Staten Islanders felt forgotten and inferior to the other boroughs. They were always coming up with new resentments and plans to secede. Her father had always said the place was too small to be a city but too large to be an asylum. Despite the four hours a day, lots of people made the long commute because they wanted to live in what seemed like – and what had once been – a small, waterside town within the New York City boundaries. But for Claire it was all tiresome, with nothing much waiting for her at either end.

      Now she decided she would stop in a diner near the ferry terminal, have a salad for dinner, and then, she thought guiltily, maybe pie à la mode. Well, with or without dessert she wouldn’t go home until the rush was completely over. She was too tired to fight the crowd, for the long wait to board and perhaps having to stand for the whole ride. If she waited that would also mean she wouldn’t have to eat with Jerry and her mother. Now she’d be able to read while she ate, another guilty pleasure. She looked down into her bag. She had her knitting, and beside it was The Passion by Jeanette Winterson. Claire was almost halfway through, at that delicious place where she felt compelled to go on reading yet didn’t want the book to end. She felt herself looking forward to her modest evening, her little dinner, a special dessert (she would have the pie) and her book as company.

      She sighed. She often wanted to read on the ferry but if she was with Tina – and she almost always was – it was impossible without offending her. That was one of the reasons she carried her knitting. Tina teased her, but it was something to do while Tina nattered on.

      Claire finished the statistics, hit the print button and gathered up her belongings while the document rolled into the waiting basket. She was just putting on her new coat – a light green one that she thought complemented her eyes – when Mr Wonderful, Mr Michael Wonderful Wainwright himself, stepped into the room. It was a jolt because no matter how good he looked in her daydreams he was so much better in reality. He was slightly taller than Claire, his posture perfect, his chest broad and taut through his dress shirt. Mr Wonderful’s light blond hair was shiny in the fluorescent light of the office. As he surveyed the room with his hazel-colored eyes he almost looked through her. Claire froze then reminded herself to continue putting her arm into the sleeve of her coat. ‘Where’s Joan?’ he asked.

      ‘Joan’s left for the day,’ she told him, sounding more calm than she felt. She was afraid she’d begun to blush. She looked away from him, down at her bag. She picked it up and placed it carefully on her chair. Something to do. Keep busy and her eyes to herself. She also had to change into her sneakers but was embarrassed to do it in front of him.

      She figured he’d leave then, but was startled by a loud thumping noise. She looked up to see Mr Wonderful had hit Joan’s desk with a thick document. ‘Shit!’ he said. Then he turned back to her and smiled. His smile was devastating, if not sincere. As irresistible as a frozen Mars bar in July and probably just as bad for her. ‘You don’t know where the Worthington numbers are, do you, Karen?’

      ‘Yes,’ she said. She went to the printer bin and held out the still-warm pages. ‘They’re here. And it’s Claire.’

      ‘Claire?’ he asked and looked down at the report in her hands as if she was talking about the document.

      ‘My name,’ she said. ‘Not Karen. It’s Claire.’

      He reached for the print-out then looked into her face as he took the pages from her. ‘Of course. Claire,’ he said. ‘I was so panicked over this damn thing that I forgot. Excuse me.’ The closest Michael Wainwright had come to panic, Claire thought, was probably the day he feared he wouldn’t get into the right eating club at Yale. She just nodded and went back to her desk expecting him to go.

      She picked up her tote bag, took out her sneakers and was about to sit down to put them on when she realized Mr Wonderful was still there. He was paging through the stats, then he looked right up at her. One of the shoes slipped out of Claire’s hand and bounced on the floor.

      ‘Look, Ka – uh, Claire,’ Michael Wainwright said. ‘I already know I’ve made a couple of mistakes in this thing. We’re meeting on it tomorrow morning and I’ll look like a total fuck-up if I don’t have it right.’ He paused. She was afraid to reach for her dropped shoe so she just stood there, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

      Michael Wainwright walked over to her, bent gracefully to the floor and, with the report in one hand and her sneaker in the other, offered her the shoe with a princely flourish. She reached for it and he, as if in return for the favor, raised his eyebrows in a faux pleading look. ‘Do you think you could stay just a little while longer and make a couple of corrections for me?’

      Of course. Some prince. But her hand actually tingled, holding the old sneaker that his hand had touched. She told herself she was a very foolish girl, then nodded her head because her neck seemed to work, though her tongue didn’t.

      ‘You will?’ he said in a voice that sounded less than surprised. ‘That’s great.’ He turned and shuffled a few pages, scribbling with a red pen. Claire struggled out of her coat and stowed her purse – along with the errant shoe – under her desk. She glanced up at the clock. It was already five-forty and she doubted she’d be out by six but she wouldn’t forget Joan’s directive about the car service. Claire wondered if it had gotten a lot colder, and how often the buses from the ferry ran after seven.

      ‘Hey,’ Michael Wainwright said. ‘Take a look.’ She stood beside him and looked at the papers spread in front of her. ‘Here are my corrections,’ he said, pointing to more than a dozen pages slashed with red. ‘And could you check my tabulations and change this to a bar chart?’ To her concern the changes looked like the kind of statistical work which was painstakingly slow to correct. And if she changed the layout of the chart, it would need reformatting. And that would probably alter the pagination of the rest of the report. Then she’d have to page preview the entire thing before she printed it out, just to be sure there were no widows or orphans.

      ‘Can you do it?’ he asked, and it was, of course, impossible to say no. СКАЧАТЬ