King of Wall Street(4)

“Sometimes. Until you’ve proved yourself. But once you have, he’ll back you completely. He gave me this job knowing I was a single mother, and he’s made sure I’ve never missed a game, event, or PTA meeting.” She cracked open a can of soda. “When my daughter got chicken pox just after I started working here, I came into the office anyway. I’ve never seen him so mad. When he spotted me, he marched me out of the building and sent me home. I mean, my mom was looking after her, she was fine, but he insisted I stay home until she was back in school.”

I swallowed. That didn’t sound like the Max I knew.

“He’s a really good guy. He’s just focused and driven. And he takes his responsibility to his employees seriously—especially if they have potential.”

“I don’t see him taking his responsibility to not be a condescending asshole very seriously.”

Donna chuckled. “You’re there to learn, to get better. And he’s going to teach you, but just saying you did a good job isn’t going to help you.”

I grabbed a napkin from the old-fashioned dispenser at the edge of the table and wiped the corner of my mouth. How had today helped me other than wrecking my confidence completely?

“If you had known how today’s meeting would play out, what would you have done differently?” Donna asked.

I shrugged. I’d done good work, but he’d refused to acknowledge it.

“Come on. You can’t tell me you’d do things exactly the same.”

“Okay, no. I would have printed out the sources and brought them into the meeting.”

Donna nodded. “Good. What else?” She took another bite of her sandwich.

“I would have probably tried Max’s contact at the WTO a few more times—maybe emailed him. I could have tried harder to pin him down. And I could have sent the whole thing to proofreading.” We had an overnight service, but because I’d worked late on it, I’d missed the deadline to send it. I should have made sure it was ready in time.

I glanced up from picking apart my sandwich. “I’m not saying I didn’t learn anything. I just thought he’d be nicer. I’ve wanted to work with him a long time. I just didn’t imagine I’d fantasize about punching him in the face quite so often.”

Donna laughed. “That, Harper, is what having a boss means.”

Okay, I could accept that Max was nice to Donna, and Joey, by the looks of things. But he wasn’t nice to me. Which only made everything worse. What had I ever done to him? Was I being singled out for special treatment? Yes, my report could be improved, but despite what Donna said, I hadn’t deserved the reaction I got. He could have thrown me a bone.

Now that my expectations of working with Max were well and truly shattered, I had to concentrate on getting what I could from the experience and moving on. I’d go through my report and make it perfect. I’d take everything I could from working for King & Associates, make a ton of contacts, and then after two years I’d be well placed to set up on my own, or go and work directly for a bank.

* * * * *

How I’d talked my best friend, Grace, into moving me into my new apartment, I had no idea. Growing up on Park Avenue, she wasn’t raised for manual labor.

“What’s in here, a dead body?” she asked, a sheen of sweat on her forehead catching the light in the elevator.

“Yeah, my last best friend.” I tipped my head toward the old pine blanket box at our feet and the last thing in the truck. “There’s room for another.” I laughed.

“There’d better be wine in the refrigerator.” Grace fanned her face. “I’m not used to being this physical with my clothes on.”

“You see, then you should be grateful. I’m expanding your horizons,” I replied with a grin. “Showing you how us ordinary gals live.”

I’d been staying with Grace since I got to New York from Berkeley almost three months ago. She’d been fantastically understanding when my mother shipped all my things to her apartment in Brooklyn, but now that I was making her help me move everything into my new place, her patience was running out. “And I’m too poor for a refrigerator. And wine.” The rent on my studio was horrific. But it was in Manhattan and that was all I cared about. I wasn’t about to be a New Yorker who lived in Brooklyn. I wanted to milk this experience for everything it was worth, so I’d sacrificed space for location—a small Victorian building on the corner of Rivington and Clinton in Lower Manhattan. The buildings on either side were covered with graffiti, but this place had been recently refurbished and I’d been assured it was full of young professionals, being so close to Wall Street. Professional what? Hitmen?