Brave by Tammara Webber
His BMW sedan was immaculate. There wasn’t so much as a balled-up napkin in a cupholder or a leaf on a floor mat. This surprised me not at all.
“Nice car,” I said. “Nice, really clean car. Remind me not to ever let you see the interior of mine.” Mine wasn’t that bad—I could still turn up my nose at Joshua’s big SUV that looked like a staged version of his life: I shop here. I eat here. I have nice clothes. I work out.
Isaac’s car gave no such clues.
“Now I wanna see it,” Isaac said, pressing the ignition.
The AC blew gently, and a talk show came through the speakers. I recognized the NPR host, who was discussing a film built on the fictional premise that humans only use ten percent of their brains at any given time, leaving ninety percent untapped. They played an audio clip of the film, but the guest—a psychologist from Princeton—was not swayed by Morgan Freeman’s authoritative performance. He called bullshit on the ten percent myth, stating the fact that we use one hundred percent of our brains. The host, laughing, said he didn’t feel like that was true. Even though my psychology classes had debunked the fairy tale of that unexploited ninety percent, I could relate. Boy howdy, could I ever relate.
Isaac turned the sound down. “Your office is amazingly tidy, considering it’s got about the same usable space as my car. Tidy and welcoming even. Can’t help but believe your car’s interior is comparably well-ordered.”
I sensed a trap even as I tried not to gloat at his praise. My office was tidy and tastefully decorated—something I had accomplished on the weekends, outside of working hours: smoky gray walls, graphite-toned furniture softened by fabrics in deep amethyst and plum. I’d traded the original too-big desk and bookcase for smaller pieces that complemented the space—what there was of it—instead of overpowering it.
“And not a Beanie Baby in sight.”
That smartassery earned a soft laugh, and I was grateful he was too busy merging onto 114 to watch my response. I felt like I was melting into his buttery leather seat. I’d never had that sort of reaction to a sound before. It was disconcerting and uncomfortable, because all I wanted was to do whatever I had to do to hear it again.
“So, um, where are we going?”
“Art studio.”
“Oh?”
He didn’t rise to the conspicuous desire for further information in my Oh?
“Whose studio? Where?” I left off the And why? because I was beginning to sound like a four-year-old.
“A friend. In Fort Worth.”
Hence the clear your schedule request, I guessed. This was not an enjoyable drive in and of itself. The scenery was ass and the roads were perpetually congested and full of road-ragey people who might or might not have a concealed handgun under the front seat. We were going to be in this car half an hour in either direction, barring traffic on the multiple freeway interchanges—and there was always construction-triggered traffic somewhere if not numerous somewheres.
My burning curiosity over why in hell’s name we were driving into Fort Worth to see some mystery artist was bubbling up like a chemistry experiment gone awry. If he didn’t start talking soon, I was going to rupture something vital trying to hold it in. He’d told me this impromptu excursion had something to do with the Anderson home’s issue, which was just a polite way of alluding to the catastrophe I had caused with the help of my judgment-deficient big brother.
All of that was before I could rationally address the fact of spending an hour trapped in a car, alone, with Isaac Maat, the most intimidating, attractive man I’d ever met. I’d always been partial to gregarious, approachable guys. I had never found an intimidating man attractive, or an attractive man intimidating—until now. I didn’t know what to make of it. He made me uncomfortable, but I couldn’t tell if that discomfort was because he seemed to think so poorly of me as an employee or because he was immune to any reciprocal attraction. Ouch and ouch.
I gave myself a mental shake. I didn’t have time for this nonsense. We had a bigger obstacle to leap than my wounded feelings. A priceless (to Sheila Anderson—but worth fifty thousand to her husband) piece of art had been disfigured, and I couldn’t imagine how adding another artist to the mix would solve that.
“So we’re meeting with an artist friend of yours? You said this little field trip concerned the Andersons’, um, issue.” I started to ask why we needed an artist but answered my own question and went momentarily speechless as my heartbeat became heavy and slow. “Are we hiring an artist to recreate the damaged section?” My voice sounded like it came from outside my body.
Sheila Anderson would never allow such a thing. I’d known women like her all my life, and I would be hollered right out of North Texas for the suggestion. Her sweet-tea-sipping, hobby-gardening, arts-supporting, gracious-society-lady façade would fly right out the window. My ears began buzzing in anticipation of the ass-chewing I was going to get.
“Not exactly,” Isaac said.
“What?” I wasn’t sure I heard him over the panicked hum of blood swishing through my head as if it was trying to convince me to run.
“Recreate—no, I don’t think so. Most artists aren’t about aping someone else’s creation, certainly not right on top of the original. They might draw inspiration or pay homage, but she’ll have her own vision—or not. Let’s see what remedy she suggests, if anything, before we freak out or give up.”
“Too late,” I muttered, staring out the window.
“Hmm?”
“Nothing.” I was dead. I was so dead, and Isaac with me—of his own misguided volition.
Why had he done it? Why had he taken responsibility for a disastrous comedy of errors that he’d tried his best to prevent and that should have rested squarely on my idiot brother and me? He could have remained silent and let us deal with the consequences. But he hadn’t.
chapter
Twelve
We merged onto 121 and came to a halt before we’d gone half a mile. An orange sign on the shoulder read RIGHT LANE CLOSED AHEAD. In the distance, a huge flashing arrow obstructed our lane. Isaac heaved a dispassionate sigh and put on his turn signal. We scooted forward a foot or so at a time until someone waved him into the center lane. He lifted a hand in appreciation, inched over, and stopped again.
People were calling into the talk show coming through his speakers, but he’d reduced the sound, and with construction equipment tearing up asphalt just ahead, the voices were nothing but a low, unintelligible drone.
I picked at a nub on my skirt. “In case it hasn’t been obvious, I’m really sorry about this whole situation, which wouldn’t have happened if we’d followed procedure. You were right.”
He was silent so long I almost thought he was going to leave my apology lying there between us, but after two months of working for him, I’d learned he was seldom in a hurry to respond. Isaac Maat did not react. He did not sound off. He did not shoot from the hip—not without plenty of reflection. He’d only lost his temper once, over something that made total sense, and even then he’d been low-key. He thought things out, considered every point from various angles, before revealing his opinion. I wasn’t used to that kind of constraint. It drove me a little nuts.
“You’re used to getting your way, aren’t you?” He stared straight ahead, and his calm tone and composed profile gave no clue as to the level of disapproval he meant to convey. The question itself accomplished that, unaided by scowls or indignant discourse.
Of course the owner’s daughter is spoiled. Haven’t I been battling that perception from day one?
But I’d obliterated any gained ground when I discounted Isaac’s foresight about that wall and had his mandate dismissed. Because I had been so determined to play the hero to every client, and as the owner’s daughter, I could.
I could, so I had.
My defensiveness melted to expose the insecurity at the core of it. “I suppose I am. Why did you agree to hire me? Or were you even given a say?” Or did you say no but were overruled?
Consent was a funny word, with shades from coerced to enthusiastic. I couldn’t envision the latter as Isaac’s reaction to the thought of supervising the owner’s daughter.
“I remember you, my first day. Before we met. You were watching from the second floor when my father and I came in.” I thought about the tentative smile I’d given him—the one he’d snubbed. I hadn’t known why then; I’d had no idea who he was. “You looked dead opposite of someone who’d happily consented to my being there.”
He glanced at me and back at the road. “I said I agreed to oversee the position. I didn’t say anything about happily.” Before I could reply, he added, “You didn’t even have an informal interview, let alone the sort of thorough assessment and scrupulous vetting expected for such a direct, client-impacting position.” His jaw was tight, but his tone had a guilty ring to it.
“So interview me now.”
His mouth twisted in a smirk half-visible to me since his eyes were on the road. “Bit late now, don’t you think? Horse already out of the barn and all?”
I decided not to object to being inserted into a horse analogy. “Interviews go both ways, you know. I had no idea what I was getting into. Not really.”
“Poor you, forced to accept a professional job and competitive salary right out of school.” He shook his head. “All right then, tell me about your prior work experience.”
I sat straighter in my seat, as if it were perfectly normal to be interviewed in a car for a job I’d been doing for two months. “In college, I was a hostess for an Austin steakhouse. By the time I left, I’d been there three years and was the hospitality lead. I coordinated weekly scheduling for all the hosts and even sat in on interviews for new hires. When I turned in my notice, I recommended the best person to replace me. They took my suggestion, and I trained her myself the last month I was there.
“Before that, I worked at a funky little clothing shop downtown. I loved shopping there and thought it would be a cool place to work. I didn’t know the owner was an inept micromanager who thought every employee was out to steal merchandise or just loaf around. I hung on for four months, until I got written up for chatting with a friend who’d come in to shop. Her mom was neighbors with the head chef at Perry’s; that’s how I got the hostess interview. And in high school, I worked for Delia’s, a retail clothing chain.”
“I’m familiar, actually. My cousin worked for the one in Arlington during high school and college. You were in Southlake?”
“Yeah. It was a fun job. Grueling some days and boring others, but I liked my coworkers, and I loved the discount. Major perk, except I spent most of my paychecks there. We all did. Your cousin too, I guess.”
“Jasmine was paying her own car payment and saving for college as soon as she turned sixteen. Helping her mama out with bills here and there. She didn’t have much left over for shopping sprees.”
“Oh.” I kept making assumptions that turned out to be off base. I’d never imagined that people who were as educated as Isaac, as well dressed, well spoken, and driving a nearly new BMW had ever been less fortunate. “Were y’all close?”
Our eyes connected briefly. “Sure. We’re family.”
“Leo is family, and we are not close.”
I wasn’t sure that any of us were close. I felt a deep-rooted allegiance to them, which seemed to be the gist of what Isaac meant. But maybe it wasn’t. A teenager who contributed to household bills and expected to pay her own college tuition? Those were foreign concepts to me—responsibilities I couldn’t imagine within my own life, even though I knew people did it.
“Leo…” Isaac glanced at me, and we both laughed.
“Is an entitled tool and always has been. Please don’t judge me by him. I’m unimpressing you enough on my own.”
“I try to judge people on their own merits.”
Too bad for me that my actions had caused a very recent dumpster fire.
“So how did you reach a managerial position at an upscale restaurant? And you must have been part-time?”
“It was more of an honorary title. I think I made fifty cents more per hour.” Working at Perry’s felt like a million years ago, but it had only been three months since my last shift. “I was good at keeping reservations straight while handling walk-ins. Seating tables—grouping them for large parties and breaking them back into four-tops for parties of two to four—is like a puzzle. I prided myself on low wait times even on busy nights. When they asked if I’d be in charge of the hosting calendar, I agreed because it gave me the power to take whatever nights off I wanted.” I laughed. “I didn’t consider the fact that everyone else would come at me with their own schedule requests and would be pissed off if I said no.”
“I have to admit, I’m surprised.”
“That I was good at something or that I was so gullible?”
“That you worked in high school and college—something many of your peers don’t do.”
Ah. “Because rich kids don’t work?”
He shrugged. “That’s the sort of thing interviewers are discouraged from prying into.”
“True, but that doesn’t keep an interviewee from spilling her guts, especially when the interviewer is biased about her work history, or the fact that she has any work history, in this case.”
“Touché.”
He didn’t ask another question, so I elaborated.
“Growing up, Daddy told all of us—Leo and I have two middle brothers—that we might have a cushy life because of his money, but it was his money, and if we wanted to live high on the hog as adults, we would have to figure out how to earn it for ourselves.”
I didn’t share the fact that I only knew these instructions by heart because they’d been drilled into my brothers. My way of earning it had been geared toward socializing in the “right” circles and marrying well someday, even if that objective hadn’t been explicitly stated. My brothers’ attractiveness was never remarked on; my academics were never exclaimed or fretted over. Their jobs were encouraged to foster work experience; mine were for shopping money. One plus one equals two.
“So what’s your ‘high on the hog’ aspiration? Where do you see yourself in five years?”
I forced a small laugh. “I can’t believe you asked me such a clichéd interview question.” I hadn’t shared my goals or wishes with anyone in a long time. I wasn’t sure what he would think of them, and for some reason what he thought mattered. A lot.
“Are you avoiding answering me?” He arched a brow, making light of the turn the conversation had taken. But when his dark eyes found mine, they were wide and curious.
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
“Well. My future probably isn’t in construction.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
I scowled.
“Not because I want rid of you—”
“Really? Even after the Anderson issue?” I deepened my voice ominously, as though narrating an apocalyptic doomsday chronicle.
He rolled his eyes. “You made a mistake—albeit a monumental one—and you apologized.”
“Albeit? Who even says that? How old are you?”
“Age is definitely not an appropriate interview question, Ms. McIntyre.”
“I’m not the one conducting the interview, Mr. Maat. You can’t ask me how old I am. I don’t think the reverse is true.” I wasn’t sure why I needed to know. Just that I did. “I’m twenty-two.”
He was silent for half a minute, and for the dozenth time in this conversation, I was sure I’d pushed too far. And then: “Twenty-six.”
“Whoa. Really?”
“Yes, really.” His profiled brow lowered, but he didn’t turn to look at me. ??
“I thought you were older. Mature. Set in your ways. Like, at least thirty.”
“I’m not thirty, and I’m not set in my ways.”
“So you say.”
He frowned and stared straight ahead, and I repressed a laugh. Isaac Maat didn’t like being called a stuffed shirt even though he so was one.
“Back to your non-construction five-year plan…”
For some reason, not telling him wasn’t an option, but I took a deep breath and prepared for a response somewhere between mild ridicule and derision. Isaac Maat wouldn’t dissemble. He would tell me what he really thought.
“I had hoped to be out of graduate school in five years.”
“Psychology?”
“How did you know that?”
“When you were hired, I was curious about your field of study—how your skills or training might fit the job description and the corporate culture at JMCH. I asked Hank, but he wasn’t certain of your degree. He said, ‘Something-ology, I think. Sociology? Anthropology? Psychology? Maybe Philosophy?’” Isaac’s vocal imitation was spot on.
I hid my face behind my hands and mumbled, “Oh, Uncle Hank.”
“I asked if you’d minored in business at least. He said he didn’t think so, which I confess I found alarming. But after you admitted to psychoanalyzing our clients and operating as if what you discussed with them was protected by doctor-patient privilege? I deduced that your degree was most likely in psychology.”
His Wharton degree, his vocabulary, and the meticulous reports he generated for Hank made his intelligence clear, but that was deductive reasoning on another level.
At the same time, I’d been ten feet away and one door down from him for forty hours per week. “Why didn’t you just ask me about my degree?”