Definitely Against Policy, page 3
“Yuka, it’s not our business,” said Ikeda. “You embarrass him.”
“It is our business. Eri-kun is unhappy and that breaks my heart. Surely we must know someone suitable.” She turned back to Eli in appraisal. “You’re handsome and nice. You should shave, but clothes are neat. You have a car and a job. Have you tried a matchmaking service?”
A matchmaker? Mortified, Eli drained his cup and searched for a polite escape. “I haven’t, Yuka, because I don’t need to.” Mind flailing wildly, he thought of Mary. “I’ve started seeing someone, as a matter of fact.” Not a lie. He’d seen her that day, on the street, in the office, clever but vulnerable, cutting that ludicrous cake.
“Oh?” Yuka lunged at the information like a pit bull on a prime rib. “What’s her name?”
“Mary.”
“She sounds Japanese.”
“Mary with a ‘y’, not an ‘i’. I don’t know her family background.”
“You don’t know?”
Eli shook his head.
“Is this girl real?”
“Yes. Definitely real.” With long dark hair, wire-rimmed glasses, expressive gray eyes, milky skin, full lips, and a heart-melting smile.
“Okay. You must bring her here,” Yuka demanded.
Ikeda looked pointedly at the clock and yawned, a conversational life preserver that Eli grabbed by remarking on the lateness of the hour and opening his phone to pay.
Outside Takamatsu, he paused on the sidewalk and double-checked the time. Ten-thirty. A bitter wind off the lake had blown away the urban miasma of vehicle exhaust and sewer fumes. He inhaled the fresh air to clear his sake-soaked head. Was it too late to text Mary tomorrow’s plan? Nah. If she wanted sleep, she’d have her phone off and his text would find her in the morning.
Thumbs working as he walked, Eli messaged. —We’ll start at Roaster’s at 8. What’s your pleasure.— Holy shit. Your pleasure? He sounded like a gigolo sexting a client. Better send a clarification. —I mean, what’s your coffee order?—
—I could really dig a large tea. Earl Grey. No milk, no sugar. Thanks.—
He closed the exchange with a straight-forward, un-flirtatious yellow thumbs-up and walked home.
Chapter Three
Eli sat at a small table at a window facing onto Lakeshore. Eight-o-six. If Mary had to drink cold tea, it was her own fault. He sipped his espresso and watched a streetcar roll to a stop, that dreadful ad still stuck on its side. Mary exited by the rear door and hurried to the café in a baggy gray pantsuit—basically a frumpy office burqa, perfect for teaching Sunday school, wrong for real estate, and a travesty on a healthy, curvy young woman. Maybe Jonquil could take her aside, have a word. An image of Mary floating around the sales office in a shapeless boomer smock arose in his mind. He couldn’t ask Jonquil. Someone else…
“Sorry I’m late.” Mary took the chair opposite and pushed her foggy glasses up over her head.
Eli nudged her tea toward her.
“Thanks.” She fished a small coin purse from her canvas rucksack.
“There’s no need,” he said. “The tea’s a work expense.”
“Really?”
“Really.” As if he’d bother claiming a paltry eight-dollar expense, but it was better she not feel indebted. “You should start keeping your receipts so you can claim expenses yourself.”
“I can do that?” Her face lit with delight as she put her coin purse away and hung her rucksack on the back of her chair.
Eli looked at his watch. “As of eight-o-seven.”
Ignoring his rebuke, Mary tested her tea, frowned, and set the cup back on its saucer. “Thanks for yesterday, Eli. For being supportive. And paying for the cake.”
“Another business expense,” he murmured dismissively.
“I’m glad we’re meeting here,” she said. “The atmosphere in the office is intolerable. I feel as if Claudia is plotting to defenestrate me.”
“She’s pretty angry.”
“I deserve it.”
Mary did, but Eli shook his head anyway. “We can hide from Claudia here, and then visit the site. Synergy’s hooking up a portable office for us and we’ll be working out of there.”
Mary nodded.
“Did Claudia tell you what your duties would be?” he asked.
“No. She just wanted to get rid of me. I think she chickened out of firing me and pawned me off on you.”
As ever, Mary stated the unvarnished facts without batting an eyelash. “You’re probably right,” he agreed. He watched her face for signs that her banishment had upset her and saw none. Genuinely curious, he asked, “How do you feel about working with me?”
She returned his scrutiny with her beguiling gray eyes. “I’m fine with it.” She paused and took a breath. “My concern, Eli, is time. After I left the temp agency, I stayed on at Hill because being a receptionist takes very little brainpower, pays adequately, and the hours suit me. I’m juggling grad school with work, and now that I’m in exile from reception, I don’t know what to expect. I don’t want to let you down, but I’m behind academically and I know how hard you work.”
Very hard. He’d bootstrapped himself from a neglected child of a hyper-religious dirt farmer to a top-selling agent in a high-volume brokerage. Before he could think of anything reassuring to say, Mary asked, “How do you feel about working with me?”
“Uh, excited,” he hedged. What a lie. He felt conflicted. After weeks of effort, he’d earned her friendship and hoped for more. Now, as his subordinate, she’d be his responsibility, and he was nervous as hell. He couldn’t risk compromising the In-Spire contract with misunderstood teasing, with flirtatious innuendo gone awry, and he’d miss their banter. He had an intense crush on her, but she was off-limits now.
“Really?” Her face broke into a dazzling smile. That heart-melting smile he tried to coax from her daily. Those days were over.
“Really,” he repeated hastily. “We can work around your schedule.” He was promising the impossible. The sales office would be open on weekends and evenings. Late nights were inevitable.
“You’re sure? Because I must prioritize my dissertation above all else.”
“I’m sure,” he declared gallantly.
“I’m so grateful. Working with you is going to be way more interesting than being stuck at the desk in reception.”
Eli swallowed the last of his coffee to brace himself for the day—and the weeks—ahead.
****
Mary stared through a plexiglass window into the third circle of hell, a deep, litter-strewn pit of slushy puddles reserved for the souls of gluttons in Dante’s schema. An excavator shoveled scoops of mud into a dump truck. Three men in fluorescent vests and hardhats stood on the opposite bank, a high fence of chain link and plywood to their backs. Presumably shouting over the noise of machinery, one of the men amplified his words with sweeps of his arms, while the other two men huddled over a clipboard.
Eli spoke over the low rumble. “They’ll start pouring the foundation in April. There’ll be three underground parking levels and a floor for janitorial and maintenance equipment. Once the foundation is in, the rest of the project will go up fairly quickly. Some units will be ready for occupancy in late fall of next year.”
“Three hundred and sixteen, you said?”
“That’s right. Plus bike and stroller storage, a pool, sauna, and gym, and a common room with a fireplace and bar on the main floor. A rooftop garden, solarium, another party room and patio, and two penthouses at the top. There’ll be three hundred fourteen regular units sandwiched in the twenty-five floors between. That’s the meat in the middle.”
“Laundry room?” Mary appreciated the coin-op in her building that saved her a weekly trip to the laundromat.
A shadow of bewilderment briefly passed over Eli’s face, then he chuckled. “Each unit will have its own front-loading washer and dryer. Top of the line. No quarters.”
“Oh.”
“And a refrigerator with icemaker, a range, dishwasher, built-in microwave, and unit-controlled air conditioning and heating.”
No need to block a draft with a rolled-up towel in winter, to angle a fan over the bed in summer. Mary murmured, “All the comforts of home.”
“Because it will be home for our buyers,” said Eli. “Well, most of them. And that’s how we’ll sell it, even to investors. Gives them a warm, fuzzy feeling to imagine themselves in their cozy investment before they flip it or rent it on Airbnb.”
Mary looked up at Eli. “You said, ‘we’ll’. Who is ‘we’?”
“You and I.”
“But I’m not a sales agent, Eli. I’m not qualified. I have zero experience in convincing people to part with their money.”
“You don’t need a realtor’s license to show people around a model unit or to hand out brochures. You just smile, be friendly and helpful, behave like the neighbor they hope to meet in the elevator, get their contact info, and I’ll follow up.”
“Be the perfect hostess?” Mary said sarcastically.
“With the mostest,” Eli replied unironically. He looked away and gazed over the pit. “A hostess wearing a flattering blouse, nice shoes, make-up.…”
“Pardon me?”
“What you’d wear to a social engagement. Dress like that. It’ll help sales.”
How dare he. How dare he dictate what she should wear to work. Her face burned with livid shame. “I wear jeans and band T-shirts to social engagements. Will that be all right, papa?” she said sharply.
Still facing the window, he shook his head. “No jeans. Go upscale. Think faculty wine and cheese, an evening at the theater.” His voice was smooth. “You know—a nice dress. High heels.”
“Like Claudia wears?”
“Exactly. And tasteful jewelry.” Eli looked at her and swiftly looked away again, as if he’d glimpsed the shadow of Medusa.
Suppressing her outrage, she spoke in clipped tones. “My suits are modest and professional. They’re a reflection of my personality and I’m comfortable in them.”
He shrugged. “They’re not you. They’re bland. They’re the oatmeal porridge of business attire. You’re interesting, Mary, and we’ll do better sales-wise if you up your spice level.”
“Up my spice level? You mean, dress like a hooker? We could spin a Donna Summer platter. I could lip sync and strut around the model suite in a catsuit and, as you put it, make the buyers feel as if it’s their home and it’s sexy time.”
“You’re being absurd.” He sighed.
“Am I? This portable is not a ‘men’s club’.” She made angry air quotes around the words. “I’m an academic, not a sex worker. And besides, even if I agree to your demand—”
“Not a demand, Mary. Only a suggestion. I’d rather wear a sweater, jeans, and sneakers, yet here I am in my battle fatigues.”
“I can’t afford a whole bloody new wardrobe.”
This time Eli turned directly toward her, his expression disarming, his arms open as if surrendering. “I’m sorry. You look fine, Mary Rose. Shipshape in all respects. However, we’re working on commission.”
“You are. I’m not.”
“You could be.”
“Oh?” she said slowly, brow arched with suspicion at his change of tack.
“I’ll give you a cut of my commission if you pay attention to my counsel and follow my methods. You’ll make way more money here than you would in reception.”
So this was how it happened. How pimps talked girls into turning tricks, into writhing naked at a pole or in a male lap. Ten bucks for a peep, twenty for a grope, halfsies between the manager and the talent. An admixture of disappointment and nausea welled from the core of her being.
Eli read her like a book, or a tabloid headline, and his hand shot up like a stop sign. “Whoa. Slow down. We’re selling condos, a residential lifestyle, not you, Mary. Every job has a uniform. Every buyer is drawn to an aesthetic, an image, a story. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Okay. I get what you’re saying,” she conceded. Her labor and time for her cut; her clothes and hairstyle akin to The Illustrated Works of Molière on the coffee table and the pre-drunk yet corked wine bottles in the rack under the kitchen counter in the model suite.
“Good,” said Eli. “You deserve to be rewarded fairly for learning the theory and applying it.”
Though he mocked in the language of scholarship, his statement had appeal. Gabriel could recommend her for an untenured professorship in an obscure college, help her publish in a pretentious journal with a tiny, nitpicking readership; Eli could solve her money problems. And furthermore, he wasn’t asking her to abandon the ivory tower for the condo tower. He wasn’t demanding an either/or.
“Money won’t be a stressor in your life after we’ve made a few sales,” he added. “In the meantime, you can borrow my credit card for your work-related expenses.”
“I get paid tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll manage.”
For an endless moment, neither spoke as they mentally moved their chess pieces. Mary peered up at Eli and blinked, as if seeing him for the first time. If there were a Klassen school of philosophy, it would center on the belief that penury and wealth were choices—as were misery and joy, meanness and generosity, lack and abundance, receiving and giving. Look into those dreamy dark eyes and there was the soul of a giver. She surrendered the board with a subtle nod. An acknowledgment that he’d closed the deal.
“First lesson?” Eli asked.
“Okay,” she replied hesitantly.
He stepped forward, eased off her jacket, and set it over a folding chair. Next, he removed her glasses. A faint smell of soap, musky and masculine in the overheated room, lingered on his hands. “Two buttons. That’s all,” he said softly as he unfastened her shirt just below the collar. She felt his breath on her forehead and her heart fluttered with the unexpected, but not unwelcome, intimacy.
“There.” He stepped back and admired her minor transformation as if he’d painted a masterpiece. “Now you look like a fun-loving, upwardly mobile, young professional. A typical resident of In-Spire at Forty Navy Street.”
“Do I?”
“You do.”
Eli cleared his throat and spoke in a Texas accent, “Ma’am, I’m relocatin’ from Dallas, and I have scads of cash. More than I can spend, I’m ’fraid. So much, the bank has informed me that I oughta get rid of some of it, there bein’ no room in the vault, and I’m huntin’ for a hidey-hole for me and the missus.”
“In Toronto?” Mary laughed.
He winked. “Anyway, I was wonderin’ if you sell condos in this here mobeel home.”
“We do…umm…”
“Name’s Randy. Randy Dyck. With a ‘y’.”
“Randy? You’re joking.”
“Yes, ma’am. Course I am.”
Mary tried to stifle her laugh and accidentally snorted. “We have a range of sizes from studio to our four thousand square foot penthouse suite.”
“Ma’am, I’m from Texas.”
“You wish to see our largest unit?”
“You betcha!” Eli broke into an appreciative laugh and became himself again. “Well done, Mary. You’re a natural at sales.”
“Am I?”
“You are.” Eli opened his laptop case. “And you’re also a student. Here’s some information about In-Spire.” He withdrew a file of paper documents and handed them to her. “I’ll email you a link to the website and a username and password for the sales portal. There’s more information there. We’re not ready for showtime and won’t be for a few days. You might as well go over everything at home and make some progress on your university stuff, too.”
“But it’s only eleven.”
“It’s the calm before the storm, Mary Rose.” Eli’s voice trailed off ominously. “The calm before the storm.”
****
Mary hadn’t asked him what “a cut of the commission” meant. She was so trusting, so naive, so confident he wouldn’t cheat her or treat her unfairly. And he wouldn’t. Au contraire. He’d give her a reason to strive.
Now alone in the portable, Eli found his phone and sat on the folding chair. Jesus. It was as low as a toddler’s seat at a Sunday school craft table. He was practically crouching. The sooner he could get some decent furniture and get the Wi-Fi hooked up, the sooner he could sell some condos. He stood, scrolled through his phone, and paced under the fluorescent lights.
Who was he kidding? The sooner he could call Mary into work and see her again.
He wasn’t imagining their mutual attraction. It was real. Mary’s face betrayed every emotion she felt. In a single morning, she’d run the gamut and taken him along for the ride. At 7:59, he vowed to maintain a professional, hands-off relationship with her. By 10:45, he was unbuttoning her blouse. It wasn’t even noon on the first day of their collaboration and she was all he could think of. Mary tilting her head just so. Mary gazing into his eyes. Mary brushing a strand of hair from her face, cheeks blushing pink. Mary giggling. When she parted her full lips in a barely audible sigh as he fussed with her clothing, he could have kissed her. Instead, he retreated to his cool, hands-off default mode. Whether wise or cowardly, he was as frustrated as a priest at an orgy.
Ping. Phone. It was Jonquil Herrington, antidote to his sexual torment.
“Hello, Jonquil.”
“Eli, hi. Thought I’d check in. We missed you at the office this morning,” she gushed.
“I’ll be by later.”
“How’s our Mary?”
“Fine.”
“I’m soooo relieved. After everything that’s happened, I’ve been quite worried about her. Young women are so sheltered at university, with safe spaces and trigger warnings. Emerging from the security of the classroom into the real world of frontline sales must be quite a shock for her.”
“You could call Mary yourself, Jonquil. Express your support. Take her under your wing.”
“I promise I will,” Jonquil tittered. “You know, Eli, I’m here for you, too. The market’s volatile. My offer still stands. If you need advice—”
“Thanks.”
“From someone who’s ridden the ups and downs. Someone who’s been around the block and seen it all.” Though she modulated her tone, he detected a plea. “What I’m saying is, I’m quite overscheduled, but I have some availability this week.”
