Page 22 of Dear Adam
“Hey,doyouknowwhere the paper clips are?” Glenda, my assistant back in California, asks. I set my phone on Aly’s counter and hit the speaker button so I can use both hands to hang a light fixture in the hallway.
“Glenda, I don’t even use paper clips. Why don’t you know where they are?” I say, annoyed.
I hired Glenda based on her highly impressive resume, which I’m now suspecting she printed off Google and swapped the name. In fact, she doesnothave incredible organizational or problem solving skills, nor do I believe she’s ever even opened QuickBooks, let alone knows how to use it proficiently. She does, however, have the same pair of pants in five different colors that she likes to rotate throughout the week. She always wears them clear up to her chin with a different printed button up shirt each day. She’s in her early-sixties, never married as far as I know, and incredibly bad at her job. Somehow though, she’s weaseled her way into my life, and though I’m reluctant to admit, I don’t know what I’d do without her.
“Well do you know where the stapler is, then?” she asks.
“Why do you even need a stapler, Glenda?” As my office manager, she should really know where all of this is. I take a deep breath to calm my rising impatience.
“Teenie emailed me a recipe this morning, and I want to keep the pages together,” she answers matter-of-factly.
“There might be one in my left desk drawer,” I tell her, eager to get off the phone. “Wait…you talked to my mom? Why?”
“I tried to call you four times this morning and you wouldn’t answer. I looked through some of your discharge papers from the hospital and found your mom’s number as your emergency contact. I thought maybe she might be able to get a hold of you,” she says, like it’s the most normal thing in the world to look through your boss’s private documents.
“Glenda…” I say through gritted teeth. “Those papers were on my dresser in my bedroom. Why were you in there?”
“I already told you! I needed to get a hold of you and you weren’t answering!” I hear some clanking, and she utters a curse word under her breath. “Your stapler is jammed.”
“What was so important that you called me four times this morning, Glenda?” I ask, my voice rising ever so slightly, on the verge of losing my mind.
“Oh, right!” she says. “You received a letter in the mail that you are past due on your rent for the building here.”
“How much?” I ask. She tells me the number, and I sigh as I run my hands through my hair. “Okay. I’ll figure something out. Who was that addressed to?”
“You, duh,” she says.
“Glenda, it’s a federal offense to open someone else’s—” I start.
She pretends to not hear me and says, “Your mom said you went on a date this morning! She said the girl is just the cutest little thing. She’s going to email me a picture of her later if she can pull her on the FaceButt app. Why didn’t you tell me your mom was so nice?”
I dash toward my phone on the counter and fumble around, trying to take it off speaker. The second Glenda’s voice cuts off, Aly pokes her head around the corner. She’s got paint in her hair, and she's holding a wriggling Pretzel. Hank trails behind, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, stars in his eyes as he stares at Pretzel.
“I’m going to take them out,” she whispers and goes out the back door.
“I’ve got to go,” I say to Glenda with a sigh. “Call me only if youreallyneed me, okay?”
Around midday, we take a break from working to sit on Aly’s back deck and eat. It’s a gorgeous early summer day, with cotton candy clouds overhead and cargo ships pulling in and out of the harbor. She made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and I don’t have the heart to ask how she managed to make the simplest food in the world taste so terrible.
One look around her kitchen earlier might explain things, though. She had exactly one pot, one pan, and a salt and pepper shaker which tells me she either doesn’t love to cook or just doesn’t know how. Her fridge even rivaled that of the most eligible bachelor I know,me, holding only a case of strawberries, a half-gallon of almond milk, and a jar of grape jelly which I’m beginning to think is expired.
She looks over at me. “Do you not like grape jelly?” she asks, her brows drawn in concern at the barely-eaten sandwich in my hand.
“Ilovegrape jelly,” I tell her and quickly shove another bite in my mouth.
Right as I'm wondering how I’m going to stomach the rest of my sandwich, Hank comes up from behind me and snatches it from my hand.
Problem solved.
“How’s the bathroom painting going?” I ask quickly, before she can notice.
“I should be finished in the next hour or so. I know you’ve only been helping me for a day, but I feel like we’ve accomplished a lot,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear. My mood instantly shifts. I don’t want to think about our time together ending. “Thanks for putting the cabinet doors back up in the kitchen. Once I order a new stove, I think we can check that room off the list.”
I nod, and reach for another chip. “Everything okay?” she asks. “You seem a little quiet.”
I want to ask her how much of my conversation with Glenda she overheard. If Aly heard Glenda refer to surfing this morning as adate, I might never forgive her. While surfing had been nothing short of incredible, I don’t think either of us would classify it as a date.
The water was cold enough to make goosebumps dot across my flesh and the waves were perfect height, curling over at just the right time. I was enthralled by how effortless Aly made catching each one seem. Her confidence and grace were mesmerizing, and it was hard to peel my eyes off her for more than a second. The distraction had me flailing in the water, looking like I’d never surfed a day in my life.
