Tolyan lifts a finger, indicating silence. “I can’t keep an eye on you if you don’t stay close, and I can’t quit my own job.”
Right. I can’t imagine him chirping, “Welcome to Coffee Heaven. Do you need help or are you ready to order?” with the extra-perky smile specified in the employee manual.
“So you’re going to apply for an internship at the Pryce Family Foundation. Which means you need a résumé by tomorrow afternoon,” he says, like that’s a reasonable deadline. “I’ll send it over for review.”
“Um. I can’t… I don’t even know what to write on it,” I squeak.
He raises both eyebrows. “You’ve never written one?”
I shake my head. “Retail and food service jobs don’t usually ask for one.”
He purses his lips briefly.
“But if you can give me some pointers…”
He stares at me like I just asked him to film himself doing ballet in a pink tutu. “Google it.”
“Haven’t you written one?” The man has a real job. A career.
“No. Nobody hires me for my résumé.”
If people hire him because they met him at fancy events like the one from yesterday, probably not. The man exudes high-level confidence.
“But even if I write one, it doesn’t mean I’m going to get the position. My job history is pretty spotty.” Moving constantly has that effect. “And I never went to college,” I add with a small cringe. These days, everyone wants a college degree or equivalent experience. I don’t think retail counts. And so many people think not going to college means either I’m stupid or there’s something wrong with me at some fundamental level. Like I’m too lazy to go or whatever.
Tolyan makes a small dismissive movement with his fingers. “We’ll worry about college later.”
“When? Before or after I’m done working on the résumé?”
He gives me a piercing look. “Later, as in when you’re interested in going.”
I don’t think he understood what I meant. I’m not thinking about attending college right now or anytime soon. I meant being a high school graduate with my kind of experience isn’t going to cut it, so I need to find something else to make myself look like a decent candidate. But I shut my mouth. The more I talk about it, the more pathetic I’ll appear. I don’t want him to pity me any more than he already does. I do have a bit of pride left.
“I’ll work on it tomorrow morning.” I don’t have a shift scheduled at the café tomorrow, and I want to look up a few samples online and think about what I’m going to put down. To be honest, I think it’s going to be a futile effort unless he can pull some strings to get me hired. And even then I might still have to work part-time at the café and the hotel catering to make money. Most internships are unpaid.
He shakes his head. “You have to go shopping tomorrow.”
“I do?” Since when? And why?
“Yes. You can’t dress like that for work. Or, really, anywhere,” he adds.
I look down. “What’s wrong with my clothes?” They’re clean, not stained, and cover me modestly enough. And there’s no point in splurging on office clothes when I’m not even sure I’m going to get a position.
He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. A frown creases his forehead like he’s struggling to find words. It’s the first time I’ve seen the man nonplussed. Finally he says, “They just won’t do.”
“But—”
“Just because I can’t articulate female fashion doesn’t mean it’s not true. Remember my condition, little fawn. Buying new clothes isn’t that difficult or distasteful.”
Fine. It hurts like hell to even think it, but I’ll use some of my savings on clothes. A couple hundred bucks should do. The rest I need to keep, just in case.
Because without money, you can’t pack up and flee. You can’t dream of one day—
Okay, stop. Tolyan said he’d help. I don’t have to be so fatalistic about all this. Maybe I can spare a bit more than two hundred bucks.
“Now. You’re going to give me your bucket list,” he says, then takes a slow sip of his vodka.
The abrupt shift in the conversation makes me pause for a second. “My bucket list?”
“Don’t you have one? Everyone does.”
“Um. Yeah, I guess…?” I say to humor him, since I don’t know if everyone has one. I certainly don’t. “But…most people aren’t too interested in what’s on other people’s lists.”
“I am in yours. We can’t appear to be happy enough to lure Roy out otherwise.”
“Oh. Um…” I think for a second. I haven’t actually made a list. I didn’t have the bandwidth to think about those things. So I gather my thoughts and try to imagine all the things I want to have and do when I’m free of Roy. “I want a real job that can make a difference in the world. Maybe help people. Like other women who are in bad situations and have no one to turn to. That would mean a lot to me.” As soon as the words leave my lips, I flush. It sounds ridiculous. I sound ridiculous. Like a person on an airplane bragging they can put oxygen masks on other people before putting on their own during an emergency. I can’t even take care of myself, much less someone else.
“A noble goal,” Tolyan says with a slow nod. “Go on.”
He doesn’t think it’s ludicrous? I blink a few times. Let’s see… What else do I envision when I think of my future? “Go to college. Make friends and hang out. Maybe get a boyfriend.” I smile, then shrug a little, to shake off the sense of awkward vulnerability coming over me. Tolyan is the first person I’ve shared my hopes and dreams with in a very long time.
He’s studying me a bit too intently, like a cop trying to force a reluctant witness to spill everything. “Anything else?”
I shake my head, trying not to laugh at the ridiculous imagery of Tolyan in law enforcement. “No.”
“No vagabonding around Europe? No trip to Disney World?” He frowns a little. “Everyone seems to want that.”
I laugh. “No, nothing like that. I just want to have a normal life, you know?”
Something soft flickers in his pale gaze, then disappears fast. “All right, then. We’ll work with what we have.” He goes into another room briefly and returns with a laptop. “You can use this.”
“You aren’t worried I might go snooping around in your files?” I ask as I boot it up. The machine’s sleek and light. I haven’t touched a laptop this new in years. The last time I had one was four years ago. I dropped it on a concrete sidewalk when one of Roy’s goons ran over a guy who was nice and had flirted with me a few times.
“It isn’t even password protected,” Tolyan says as the screen goes straight to the main desktop. “Obviously, it doesn’t contain anything sensitive.”
I look down at the menu. “At least it has Word.”
He gazes at me. “You know how to use that, right?”
“Yes.” I didn’t go to high school in the Dark Ages.