The Assistants Read Free

cup of coffee or riding the L train, I’d slip into daydreams about how my life would change for the better if I let myself keep the reimbursement money. I could have savings, I thought. I could start hoarding my money in one of those things they call a
savings account
. All at once I would become less anxious and more generous. Maybe I’d get a dog—one of those adorable new mixed breeds, like a Cheagle. Maybe I’d start going to the gym with all the extra time I’d have not debating between eating the slightly off leftover burrito in the fridge and splurging on some groceries from C-Town; between getting the cavity in my molar filled and having that funky paramecium-shaped mole on my back looked at. And, sure, I could get one more wear out of this pair of socks before I go to the Laundromat. And look at this sheath of aluminum foil, it’s still good as new, I’ll just give it a little rinse. No. No more of that. Instead, I could be living the good life of enjoying dire necessities
and
bountiful comforts. I could pay my phone bill
and
go to the movies
on the same day
.
    The next thing I knew, I’d come to in Canarsie.
    This is the last stop on this train. Everyone please leave the train.
    Something had to happen. I had to rip up that damn check!
    Okay, fine
, I told myself.
I’ll do it.
    Back in the safety of my bedroom now, blinds drawn, check in hand, I was poised to end this thing once and for all. But maybe I would just, you know, take a picture of the check first. Not a selfie or anything, just a snapshot. And not the kind that disappears thirty seconds after you take it, or whatever—just an old-fashioned photograph, to remember the check by.
    And then I remembered that app on my phone, the one where all you have to do is click a photo of a check and—poof—it’s deposited into your bank account.
    Damn you, technology.
    Technology made it so easy to deposit that check, I could have done it by accident.
    It wasn’t an accident—but it could have been.
    First I had to open the magical check-depositing app and log on with my username and password. Then I had to snap a picture of the check’s front and the check’s back.
Make sure the entire check is inside the box and touch the camera icon when you are ready.
    Was I ready?
    No, but the novelty of this process was so fascinating that I continued on anyway. Depositing a check with my phone? Who knew I’d ever see the day? It was just unreal enough to feel imaginary.
    It wasn’t an accident when I logged on to my student-loan account either. But that was the cunning whimsy of technology at work, too, because if I actually had to leave my house at any point—or even just sit down at my desk and write out a physical check, and stuff that check into an envelope, and walk that envelope to the mailbox to mail it—I don’t think I could have done it. But quietly typing alone in my dark bedroom felt so innocuous, so anonymous, and even potentially undoable. There’s something devastatingly permanent about dropping a letter into a public mailbox, isn’t there? The way the envelope is in your grasp one minute, and then it’s gone, followed by that heavy metal lash of the door. You open the door again just to make sure, as if in the history of all letters there was ever one that didn’t make it down. And thenthere’s that split second of panic.
Did I remember the stamp? The return address? It’s too late now.
    But just clicking Send? There would always be
Cancel
.
Edit/Undo.
    I stared at the words on my computer screen—
Pay in Full
—for a long time before making the decision. Earlier in the day, Robert had had an argument with his wife about whether the peppers growing in their garden were jalapeños or habaneros. He turned out to be wrong, so he had me run out to buy her the diamond bracelet she’d had her eye on from Tiffany. Total cost: $8,900.
    So $19,147