The Assistants Read Free Page A

was roughly only two lost arguments to Robert.
    And it wasn’t even his money, was the thing. It was the Titan Corporation’s money, and Titan had billions—literally billions and zillions of dollars. Could anyone really blame me for not giving this minuscule-to-them-yet-life-changing-for-me amount of money back to the Titan Corporation?
    It had already been three weeks since the reimbursement check was issued to me, and nobody had missed it. Nobody had missed it! Meanwhile, I could have fostered a family of Cambodian children for what I was paying in interest alone on my student-loan debt each month.
    One click.
Pay in Full.
That was it, that was all it took, and it was done. I was free.

2
    D AYS OF anxiety-induced nausea, accompanied by acute acid reflux, passed. Every time Robert called me into his office an angel somewhere would lose its wings and I would throw up a little bit in my mouth. I thought I would feel a great sense of relief once I deposited the check and paid off my loan—and there was an initial rush—but then, instead of relief, what followed was more worry. Except it wasn’t the low-level, all-pervading, quiet hum of money-related worry I was accustomed to. This was more concentrated and pointed, like an in-your-face cystic pimple. Instead of
Shoot, rent’s due this week, is there enough in my
account?
or
Fucking-a, Time Warner raised their rates again?
, it was:
I stole
. Robert asking me when his peak-lapel tuxedo would be back from the cleaners?
I stole.
Robert asking me to research the political donations made by his three o’clock appointment?
I have no morals.
Robert just back from Georgia, dropping a bag of peaches ontomy desk because he knew how much I loved them?
I could
take my own life.
    Then Emily Johnson summoned me up to the forty-third floor.
    For most purposes, our office on the fortieth floor could have been considered the building’s top floor. The three floors above us were all business-related—the bean counters—strategically positioned to remind every employee below them that these folks were watching, omnipresent, like an all-knowing god from above. Forty-three was Corporate Governance’s floor, composed of barely used rooms filled with plush couches that were reserved for the tight buttocks of Titan Corporation board members. And it was T & E’s floor.
    What is T & E, you ask? Not to be confused with T & A (Google it; NSFW),
T & E
stands for “Travel and Entertainment.” At some companies it might stand for “Travel and Expenses,” which makes a little more sense, but Titan higher-ups were generally more entertainment focused. It would have made the most sense if everyone simply called it BE, short for “Business Expenses,” because on the most basic level that’s what these reimbursements were supposed to be for—expenses you incurred while conducting business. But such an acronym was probably way too metaphysical for everyone involved.
    Anyway, the forty-third floor looked exactly like you’d expect it to. All slick brass and polished wood. It smelled like nothing. Like if nothing were a scent that could come in a bottle, it would smell exactly like the forty-third floor. And it was quiet, so quiet they pumped in white noise from overhead vents. For privacy, supposedly, but I think it was to keep people from going ballistic over the impossible nonexistence of the place, to keep the operatingofficers and bookkeepers from disappearing into its cool vacuum, convinced they were invisible.
    The director of Travel and Entertainment was a middle-aged man who wore a bow tie every day and listened to opera with headphones on inside his office. His final approval had to be stamped on every expense account filed within the building—even Robert’s. But it was his assistant who actually waded through all the forms and approved them with the loopy script of Bow Tie’s signature, while he