Fringe Benefits Read online

  “You will find this to be a quiet situation, for the most part,” he said. “I travel a good deal. I require someone to watch the office, answer the phones, generate any reports I might require, maintain the files, be here to receive deliveries. You should not find it too taxing.”

  “I shouldn’t?” I asked. It was hard to tell for certain, but had he just offered me the job in about the most oblique way possible? “That is, did you need to ask me anything else before—”

  “No,” he cut in. “Your experience is adequate. Your test results are better than those of any of the other candidates. When can you start?”

  Now was the time to ask about those “additional duties” he’d mentioned in the online ad, but somehow I found I didn’t have the courage to broach the subject. The dismal balance in my checking account seemed to prevent me from saying anything except, “Oh, right away, if you need me.”

  “I do,” he said, and for a second it seemed as if he really focused on me. Those blue eyes were sharp as laser beams. Then he went on, “Tomorrow morning should be be fine. If you can be here at 9 a.m.?”

  “Of course,” I replied automatically, although my head was swimming. It wasn’t supposed to work this way, was it? After all, you went in for an interview, delivered your spiel, then went home and sweated it out while the employer involved decided whether or not you fit the position. You didn’t have a job handed to you with all the ease of a takeout order…especially a job that paid more than both my parents made in a year.

  But that seemed to be how Van Rijn was handling this particular situation. He added, “We can take care of the necessary paperwork in the morning. I have a meeting now I must attend.”

  “Well—thank you very much, Mr. Van Rijn,” I said. Usually in the past this had been the point in the conversation when my new boss told me it was fine to address him by his first name, but Van Rijn made no move to do so.

  “You will be paid bimonthly,” he said. “I regret my operation is small, and I cannot offer you direct deposit as so many other employers do these days. This should not be a problem?”

  I shook my head. Some sort of betraying dismay at the wait for my paycheck must have crossed my face, though, because he gave me another one of those scalpel-like stares and asked, “You are in some difficulty?”

  Heat flooded my cheeks, but I forced myself to meet his gaze. “Work has been a little spotty lately.”

  Without speaking, he went to the desk, unlocked the top drawer, and pulled out a ledger of large business-sized checks. Then he retrieved a pen from his inside breast pocket and filled out the check before tearing it off the pad and handing it to me. “An advance on your first week.”

  He’d given me the entire two grand. Rent, electricity, phone, gas—all taken care of with one week’s pay. Voice shaking a little, I said, “I don’t know how to thank you, Mr. Van Rijn—”

  “You will do good work for me. That is all the thanks I require.”

  I gazed up into his face. Maybe as time went on I’d get better at reading his moods. Right then all I could see was a sort of blank courtesy. Certainly there was nothing in his expression to make me think he had intended any sort of subtext in his reply.

  “You can count on me,” I said, and flashed him a quick smile. That smile usually had a definite impact on the male half of the population, but Van Rijn only gave me a brief, abstracted nod.

  “No doubt I shall. But now I must be going—”

  “Oh, right. Of course.” I rose from the desk chair and gathered up my purse and portfolio, along with the precious check. A quick glance at my watch told me it was barely ten-thirty. Plenty of time to get to the bank and deposit the money so it would have time to clear before I wrote my own rent check. “Tomorrow morning at nine, then.”

  He said, “Tomorrow, yes.” Then he moved to the door, holding it open so I could walk past him, out into the light and heat of a muggy August morning. Under the glaring sun, my little Toyota looked shabbier than ever. I thought I saw Van Rijn give it a quick, disapproving glance, but maybe I was just imagining things. At any rate, he nodded at me once more before he disappeared back inside the building.

  And that, it appeared, was that. I retrieved the car keys from my purse and got into the Corolla, wincing a little as the overheated interior surrounded me. The air conditioning had crapped out at the beginning of the summer, and I’d never been able to scrounge together the funds to fix it. Well, I had the money now, although maybe with a salary like I was going to be pulling in, it might be better to just buy a new car altogether instead of putting any more money into this one. My thoughts danced with possibilities. What a difference having money made! Right now I was so grateful toward Van Rijn that even the possibility of certain “additional duties” didn’t faze me.

  Not that I was too worried about those extracurricular activities, now that I had met him. He seemed too impossibly correct to ever make an improper advance. No, most likely those “additional duties” meant such depraved acts as picking up his dry cleaning or fetching his lunch.

  The hot air streamed in through the open car windows, and suddenly I threw back my head and laughed as a new song came on my car radio. Yes, right then I really did love L.A.

  Two

  “So, is he good-looking?”

  “Who?” I set down my chopsticks and picked up an egg roll.

  Leslie gave me an incredulous look. “Your new boss. The guy with the Maserati.”

  Of course Leslie had known right away what the car was when I described it to her. Leslie had two older brothers who owned a hot rod shop out in the Valley, and she was just about as car obsessed as they were. Despite the fact that she didn’t earn much more than I, she drove a perfectly restored ’70 Corvette and hyperventilated if so much as a drop of tree sap touched its sacred surface. Needless to say, if we ever drove someplace dubious, it was my Corolla that got pressed into service.

  “What does that matter?” I replied, wishing I felt quite as detached as my prim tone might have implied. If I really didn’t care about Mr. Van Rijn’s looks, would I have retained such a clear memory of those piercing blue eyes?

  Leslie made an exasperated noise and lobbed a packet of soy sauce at my head. “You’re such a dork.”

  The packet did make contact about an inch above my left ear, but since it didn’t explode on impact and really didn’t hurt (much), I decided to shrug it off. Leslie had a tendency to play rough—a legacy of growing up in Testosterone Central, probably.

  I made a point of finishing my egg roll before replying, “Seriously, I really didn’t notice. I just wanted to make a good impression.”

  “Well, I guess you did.”

  We’d gotten together to watch a romantic comedy on DVD, but since the movie had turned out to be neither all that romantic or comedic, Leslie had apparently decided it would be far more entertaining to wring every last drop of information out of me. The TV still blared away in the background, even though neither one of us was paying much attention to it.

  Leslie picked up her bottle of Tsing Tao beer and took a swig, then said, “So you didn’t notice anything. Yeah, right.”

  “He’s a lot older than I am.”

  “What, like geriatric older?”

  Despite myself, I grinned. “No, not geriatric. Maybe around forty?” I shrugged and sipped at my glass of plum wine. I’d drink beer if there wasn’t anything else to be had, but I liked wine better even if I didn’t know much about it. The plum wine had been a splurge with some of my newly acquired riches.

  “Sixteen years isn’t that big a difference.”

  “Leslie, you are such a yenta.”

  “Ha. You didn’t even know what that word meant until you met me.”

  “True.” There was a small Jewish population in Billings, but none of my friends back home had been Jewish. Not that Leslie was exactly practicing. As she liked to say, she was more of a cultural Jew than a religious one. A contradiction, like so many other things I had encounte
red in Southern California. A girl who could rebuild a transmission while swearing like a sailor in Yiddish was something completely outside my experience. “Anyway, the guy’s my boss, Leslie. You think I’m going to screw up a great opportunity by trying to make it personal?”

  “I guess you have a point.” Leslie shoved her empty beer bottle aside, then got up and went to the refrigerator for another one. Her eyes widened a bit as she surveyed the newly acquired items filling up the previously barren space. “Someone’s been shopping, I see.”

  You don’t know the half of it, I thought. Much-needed food to fill up my empty refrigerator first, and then a guilty but oh-so-joyous trip to the Glendale Galleria, where I’d scoured the sales racks for items to help me make a good impression at my new job. Even with two grand in my checking account and a promise of much more to come, I’d spent less than a tenth that. Still, now I had a few new skirts and tops, and a fabulous pair of black peep-toe pumps. To be perfectly honest, that gorgeous front office at Pyramid Imports had intimidated me a little. I didn’t want to look shabby in contrast to all those beautiful antiques.

  I told Leslie, “Well, I knew you were coming over and stocked up.”

  Even though her apartment in the same complex was a little larger and the place we usually got together to watch movies or just hang out, her A/C was currently on the fritz, and the management company didn’t seem to be in any real hurry to fix it. Now that I knew I could afford the bill, I had the wall unit in my own apartment going full blast. The cold air filling the room felt delicious, and it was wonderful not to have to change immediately into a tank top and a pair of shorts the second I walked in the door just so I wouldn’t die of heat prostration. I’d halfway expected Leslie to comment on my new wardrobe when she showed up, but then again, Leslie knew a lot more about carburetors than she did fashion trends.

  “And I appreciate it,” she said. “I’m a fiend for free beer.” She popped off the cap and scowled at the television set. “Man, this movie is lame.”

  I nodded. I liked a decent rom-com with the best of them, but this one was just more recycled “meet cute” and witless banter that both leads seemed to be phoning in. Giving it up for a lost cause, I retrieved the remote and shut down the DVD player, then turned off the TV. “Well, now I know why I didn’t bother to go see it in the theater.”

  “Besides, your life is getting more interesting than a movie anyway,” remarked Leslie. Abandoning the dinette set where she’d been consuming the last of her takeout Chinese, she came over to the sofa and put her feet up on the old hope chest I used as a coffee table. “Van Rijn, huh? Dutch?”

  “I think so. The business has a second office in Amsterdam.”

  “Wonder if he’s got a cute office assistant stashed away there, too.”

  The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. But I supposed if he maintained a satellite office in Europe, then Van Rijn must have the staff to support it. “I guess so. He didn’t really explain very much about the business. He just wanted to make sure I was computer literate enough to manage everything.”

  “And that you had a good rack, I suppose.”

  “Jesus, Leslie!” I had had time over the past six months to get used to my friend’s somewhat coarse outlook on the world, but every once in a while I still managed to be shocked by something she said.

  “Oh, tell me he wasn’t checking you out.”

  The funny thing was, I didn’t think he had been. I was used to men looking at me; it didn’t require an advanced degree in psychology to determine whether a guy was giving me the once-over. “Well, if he was, he was sure a lot more subtle about it than anyone else I’ve ever seen.”

  Leslie lifted a dubious eyebrow. “Perfect gentleman, huh?”

  Her tone indicated she was joking, but I answered Leslie with the truth. “Yeah, perfect gentleman—maybe the first one I’ve ever met.”

  “Wow. Should I alert the media?”

  “No, but you can pass me that bottle of plum wine.”

  For a second Leslie just stared at me, and then she laughed and handed me the requested wine. I grinned as I took it and poured myself a cautious glass. Just a little bit more, by way of celebration. The last thing I needed was to show up at my first day of work with a hangover. Leslie didn’t seem to think twice about downing the greater part of a six-pack on a weeknight, but I knew I didn’t have that sort of tolerance.

  Still chuckling, she leaned over and retrieved the remote. “Well, if we’re drinking, then we might as well watch the last part of American Idol. Then you can tell me everything they’re doing wrong.”

  I sighed mentally but decided it wasn’t worth the argument. As soon as Leslie had found out I could actually sing, she’d wanted to drag me to every karaoke bar in town. “Guys just love hot chicks with good voices,” Leslie had said. “You’ll be swimming in free booze.”

  It was mostly true. At any rate, I didn’t have to pay for my own drinks too often. Never mind that it took those free drinks for me to get over the agonies of self-consciousness which seemed to take hold whenever I sang in front of people. And that, I’d flatly told Leslie early on, was why I’d never try out for Idol, even though she certainly wasn’t the first person to broach the subject. If I’d had my way, singing would be reserved for the shower and the car.

  Well, at least I had the wine to get me through the aural agony of the next half-hour. Leslie loved the early parts of the show, the ones with all the crazy contestants and their equally crazy notions of what constituted good singing. I would have been happy to never watch another episode in my life. But there was something obscurely comforting about having Leslie laughing there on the couch, feet up and beer bottle in hand. At least this way I wouldn’t spend the last night before I began my new job sitting alone in my apartment and brooding over what the next day might bring. No doubt my mind would have manufactured scenarios much worse than what reality would end up providing.

  Still, I couldn’t help shivering at the thought of spending an entire day alone with the mysterious Mr. Van Rijn.

  The next day promised to be just as hot as the one the day before. But even though the interior of my car was already uncomfortably warm at just past eight-thirty in the morning, I kept the windows rolled up. I didn’t want to show up for my first day of work with my hair blown all out of place.

  As I pulled into the parking lot at Pyramid Imports, I spotted a brand-new white Mercedes sitting in the space next to Van Rijn’s Maserati. I wondered who might be visiting the office before it was even open for business. Then again, it was possible Van Rijn had set up a meeting for nine and the mysterious visitor had just come early.

  Since I didn’t have a key and the door was locked when I tested it, I rang the buzzer, just as I had the day before. Again Van Rijn opened the door within a few seconds of the chime sounding.

  “Good morning, Mr. Van Rijn,” I said.

  “Good morning, Katherine,” he replied, formal as ever.

  I looked past him into the front office but didn’t see anyone. But maybe his visitor was waiting in his office, which I thought was farther back in the building. Frowning a little, I went to my desk and set my purse on the floor behind it.

  Van Rijn followed me and said, “The computer is ready for you. I have set up a temporary password, which no doubt you will wish to change. Your email account is also ready. You see there a stack of letters I need prepared.” He pointed at a sheaf of papers covered in a neat, precise hand. Well, at least I wouldn’t have too much trouble transcribing his writing. My last boss had handwriting so bad half the time I had to guess at his letters’ contents purely through context.

  “Great, thank you.” Feeling awkward, I looked past Van Rijn to the door to his office. “I don’t want to keep you from your visitor—”

  For a split second he appeared puzzled. Then he smiled ever so slightly, just the faintest lift at the corners of his wide mouth. “You refer perhaps to the car?”

  “Well, yes—I assumed y
ou had someone here for a meeting.”

  In response, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a set of keys, which he laid on the desk on top of the stack of letters. “For your use.”

  The words didn’t register at first. “Excuse me?”

  “I have a reputation to maintain, Katherine. It would not do for your dubious vehicle to be seen here. And so, the car.” At my continued shocked silence, he added, “It is a company car, registered to the business. But you will have the use of it—and this as well.” From the same pocket he produced a gas card, then set it next to the car keys.

  I found my voice. “So what should I do with my car?”

  “We can store it here, if you do not wish to get rid of it right away. I will show you.” He gestured for me to follow him, and we exited the front office and went down a short corridor that terminated in a single door. “The warehouse area.”

  He opened the door. I saw a cavernous space filled with packing crates of various shapes and sizes. For a second all I could think of was the enormous government warehouse from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but once my brain cells began firing again I realized of course this place was much smaller than that. Still, it was pretty impressive. Pyramid Imports was sort of like an iceberg—the bulk of it was hidden from the casual observer.

  “We have shipments coming and going most days,” he went on. “But there is always some space available. If you will drive your car around to the back here, we can put it in an obscure corner where it will be safe. Will that suit?”

  It would be beyond stupid to protest. “Of course, Mr. Van Rijn. It’s very generous of you to offer to store the car here.”

  He shrugged, an elegant lift of broad shoulders beneath the exquisitely cut jacket. “It seems the simplest solution. Shall we, then?”