Margot: A Novel (9 page)

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schedule in for the day, will you?” I nod, and as I turn to walk
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out, I hear the sound of Joshua’s giant sigh, floating past me.
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As I reach my desk, I sigh, too.
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Bryda Korzynski, I think, she is just like that night in the
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annex, that burglar. For a moment Peter held on to the knife,
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tracing a circle in the air with his voice. And then the moment
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passed. And once again we were safe.
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At least, for a little while longer.
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Chapter Twelve
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At lunchtime, Shelby and I take the elevator down
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to the lobby, where she purchases a ham sandwich from the
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cart, and then I follow her out to the sidewalk, where she sits
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on the bench and pulls a box of Kent cigarettes from her
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satchel. Shelby has told me this is her favorite brand because
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it is also the brand Marilyn Monroe smokes. The sun is shin
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ing, and the feel of it on my face is still, even now, like bril
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liance.
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“Here.” Shelby hands a cigarette to me, and I roll it around
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in my fingers. Another time, another place, one that I do not
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like to go back to.
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I hand the cigarette back to her. She shrugs, lights her
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own, takes a puff, and leans back against the bench and
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closes her eyes as if she is dreaming. “You know what I don’t
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get,” she says to me, holding her pale freckled arm out with
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the cigarette dangling loosely from her fingers, as if wishing
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to catch the rays of late-April sunlight and smoke them.
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“What’s that?” I ask.
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“Joshua and Ezra.”
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“What’s not to get?” I say.
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She shrugs. “I mean, I would never work for my father if
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he treated me like that. Why doesn’t Joshua just go work at
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some other law firm?”
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“I don’t know,” I say, but I am thinking that it is not as easy
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as Shelby thinks, that Shelby’s missing sense of duty to her
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father might not be an American thing, but a Gentile one.
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“Who can you trust if you can’t trust your own father?” I swal
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low the words as I say them, worried they might choke me.
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She shrugs. “Did I tell you I’m missing a glove?” she asks.
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And there she goes, with the attention span the size of a
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pinhead.
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“A glove?” I murmur.
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But I am thinking about the way Ezra yelled at Joshua, not
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so dissimilar to the way my mother and sister used to yell at
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each other. You have to love someone to yell at them so
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intensely; you have to care so unbelievably much that your
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anger explodes and burns across the sky like the Soviet’s
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Sputnik
I’ve read so much about. My sister always thought
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they fought because Mother hated her, but I knew better.
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“I think Ron took the glove,” Shelby is saying now.
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“What?” I shake my head. “Why would he do that? To give
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to his hussy?”
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She laughs. “No. To find my ring size, silly.” She holds the
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cigarette in her left hand, out in the sunlight, as if admiring
a diamond. “And besides that. What you said about trusting
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one’s father, it reminded me.” I’m surprised that she has
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brought the conversation back full circle—I have misjudged
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her attention span after all.
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“Reminded you of what?” I ask.
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“My father is acting funny. I think he knows something. I
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think Ron has already asked him if he can marry me.”
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“But what about his hussy?” I ask her.
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She shrugs. “I’m sure it was just all a big mistake.” She
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smiles and takes a drag on her cigarette, but I wonder, how
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can she be so sure? She seems so excited about her missing
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glove, and I do not want to burst her delicate bubble, so I do
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not press her further. Instead I find myself thinking again
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about the woman’s voice on the phone last night, and in the
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sunlight, now, I wonder if she might be a mistake as well. Did
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I simply dial wrong?
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Shelby crushes her cigarette with her foot and grabs on to
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my hand. “Can you imagine it?” she asks me. “Me as some
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body’s wife?”
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“No,” I say. “I cannot.” I smile at her, so she will know I am
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teasing. Because in truth, I can see Shelby as someone’s wife.
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I believe Shelby would be much like that Donna Reed, who
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Ilsa had me watch on TV with her one evening when I was
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there at her house for dinner, bright and charming and hos
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pitable and capable of running a busy household. Much like
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the Margie Pelt, of my fantasy world.
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“Oh, hush,” Shelby says, but she smiles too, so I under
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stand she is not really cross. She stands and throws the
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remains of her sandwich in the trash. I do the same with my
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apple core. And then Shelby takes my arm so we can walk
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back inside the building together.
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My father is a good businessman, just like Ezra Rosen
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stein. Even now, I imagine him in Switzerland with his new
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wife, spending his days drowning in correspondence from the
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book he edited and put out into the world, and which, I imag
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ine, has made him a millionaire several times over.
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Even before the war, we always lived well, and after we
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were hiding, he worried about his business, Opekta, a com
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pany that distributed pectin used to make jams. One time
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there was an important meeting down in the office below us,
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and he wanted nothing more than to attend. “Why don’t you
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listen at the floor?” I suggested, and his wide smile was my
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reward. The space was too tight for him, though; he grew
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cramped, so I offered to listen for him. Of course, my sister
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insisted on coming along. She fought so much with Mother,
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but Father was hers; she couldn’t give him to me, even for a
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moment.
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I strained my ears and forced myself to record the conver
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sation, boring as it was. All the talk about the price of pectin
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and importing and such. I recorded it in shorthand in a note
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book.
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My sister fell asleep, her head lounging against my knee,
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and I dared not move for fear I’d startle her awake, she’d
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make a noise, and we’d be discovered. Finally, she awoke, and
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sat up, and she immediately grabbed the notebook, and off
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she went to find him.
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“Pim,” she said cheerily. “Oh, Pim, we have conducted
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business on your behalf today.” Father kissed and hugged her
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and read the notes, that he seemed to assume were her notes,
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and I thought they meant a lot to him because he mumbled
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things to himself and took down some notes of his own to tell
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Mr. Kuglar the next time he came up.
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“Did I do well, Pim?” my sister asked.
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“Indeed you did,” he told her, smiling at her, and only her,
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as if he had forgotten that I was even in the room. He kissed
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the top of her head. “Indeed you did, my little Anna.”
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I think of that moment even now, when I think about my
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father, as I often find myself doing. I have written him a letter
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in my head many times in the past few years. He is my father,
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the only piece of my family left, and when I realized he was
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alive after I discovered my sister’s book, I had the urge to
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reach across the ocean and pull him back to me. But when
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ever I sit down and try to write the words I think, I find
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myself looking through my sister’s book again, and I cannot
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bring myself to commit a single word to paper.
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The problem is this: I am not his daughter anymore. I am
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not even a Jew. And if he were to know I am still here, I would
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not go back. I could not. I do not want the world to know me,
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as they know him, and my sister.
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And also, there is something else. I think of how he looked
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right past me that morning, just at her and her only. Father
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and I did not fight. We did not yell. But still, it was so clear to
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me, even then, how he felt about my sister.
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I am still afraid of many things in my American life, but
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what I am most afraid of now is how my father might look at
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me if he were to know what I have done. If he were to know
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the truth about what happened with the two of us, me and
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my sister, just before the very end.
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Chapter Thirteen
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On Thursday morning, Joshua buzzes me into his office
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and asks me to shut the door behind me. “I want you to do
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something for me, Margie,” he says. “But you can’t mention it
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to anyone else here, especially not my father, or Miss McK
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inney.”
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“Okay,” I say slowly, not sure yet whether to be excited or
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upset about what he is going to ask of me. My brain is foggy
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again, since I’d stayed up late last night, then fallen into rest
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less sleep after dialing P. Pelt’s number once more, just to
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make sure I had not, indeed, made a mistake dialing. The
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same woman answered, and I’d hung up. Then I’d called the
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operator back to double-check I’d written the number down
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right. I had.
It still could be a mistake,
I’d been telling myself
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as I’d been tossing and turning in bed all night. Though what
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kind of mistake, I cannot wrap my brain around now.
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“I’m going to write down the address,” Joshua is saying
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now, and I realize I have missed a bit of his instructions.
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“The address?” I ask.
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“Miss Korzynski’s address,” he says, and my heart falls
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into my stomach, a place it is so often used to tumbling. “I
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want you to stop by and see her after work today. Find out
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how many others she thinks will join her suit. Get their
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names and contact information and bring them back to me,
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okay?”
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“But your father . . .” I say, my voice breaking.
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“Don’t worry about my father,” he says quickly. He picks
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up his pen, writes Bryda’s address on the yellow legal pad on
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his desk, tears the sheet off, and then holds it out to me.
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I hesitate before taking it, because I do not want to seek
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out Bryda Korzynski, to watch the way her brown eyes call me
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a liar by looking through me. Maybe she looks at everyone
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that way. Maybe her eyes are dead too.
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“Couldn’t we just call her instead?” I finally say.
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He shakes his head. “Let’s keep this all out of the office, all
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right?” He pauses. “And besides, it’s always better to do these
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things in person.” He thrusts the paper closer to me, and I
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have no choice but to take it from him. “I’d like to get the ball
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rolling. Leave a little early this afternoon so you’re not working
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any later than usual, all right?” My whole body tells me to say
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no, to run out of his office, to quit my job and move back to
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the safety of Ilsa’s house in Levittown. But I love working here,
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in this office, for Joshua, and I cannot really imagine leaving
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it all behind just because of one crazy woman. I have survived
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