I'm sitting there in the office reading the paper, tapping my foot. Dara stops typing, asks me to stop. I tell her it's the same as her typing, just background noise. She goes full-on dame, starts complaining that at least her typing is regular, but my foot tapping, there's no pattern, and it's driving her crazy. I put my feet up on the desk, lean back in my chair. I think back to around 6 years ago, when she never woulda gone full-on dame, not to me.
Don invited me down to the docks for lunch, and by invite, I mean he told me I was coming. Had a nice spread, big fat deli sandwiches. While I was munching on corned beef on rye, Don told me his little angel was starting college, he wanted her working part time to keep her out of trouble, keep her busy. Then he asked if I needed a secretary.
I looked at Don like he just asked me to smack him in the face. Don, I said, you have any idea what it is I do? He told me he knew exactly what I did, follow cheaters, serve process, find some missing jewelry, down too much Wild Turkey. He figured his little girl would have plenty of time to do her school work in the office, point I couldn't argue with. More than that, I couldn't argue with Don Leggett.
I told him she could come by for an interview come Monday, but she'd actually have to wanna work. If I was gonna pay someone, she'd have to earn it. Before then, last I saw her, Dara had some thick coke bottle glasses, made her eyes look like saucers. She was one of them gangly kids, trying to sort out who they'd become by tripping over everything in the process. She had some plastic video game thing in her hands, didn't speak over a whisper when I asked her questions. Figured she'd grow out of it, or make a great librarian.
Imagine my shock when that gawky kid walked in my office, six inches taller, no glasses, hair pulled back, come right up to me and shake my hand. Her hand was all dead fish, and I knew she was still the same kid. Gave her a seat. She fumbled for her resume, near tearing it pulling it out of her leather folder.
Tell you what, looking over what she did in high school made my head spin. Back in my day, when people were stupider, we learned the three Rs, reading, writing and arithmetic. She learned that, and she was learning computers. Explained why kids couldn't talk to people, spending all their time talking to computers.
We talked about that for a while. Couldn't get how you could talk to something wasn't alive. She said it was more like telling a smart pet what to do. I told her it seemed like Star Trek, and she laughed. Finally, we had something to talk about, but after a couple minutes, I found out they made a bunch of shows after the one with Kirk, Spock and Bones.
I started asking her about secretary work, filing, taking calls, all that. I didn't tell her then there wasn't a filing system, just my shoeboxes with receipts and invoices [No, I found this out soon after. How considerate of Trace. -Dara]. She didn't say much, didn't have any experience with real work.
She was starting to get all dame like, looking out the window, sweating, all that. I told her what her dad told me, asking her if she wanted to be my secretary. Give her credit, she looked me in the eyes, told me she didn't, but her dad wasn't gonna pay for college unless she found a job. Wish I had that problem when I was her age.
Never expected her to man up. I was already for her to feed me some lie about really wanting the job. Woulda told her we'd work out some excuse for Don, she'd show up every once and a while to call him from here, I'd give her a few bucks. Instead, I picked up her class schedule, told her she could show up after class, she'd get minimum wage, same as me.
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