Rodney was waiting at a table by the window, just inside the doorway. With him was Mr. Right, the cute guy I'd seen on the subway. I hadn't been imagining that they knew each other. They both stood as I entered. "Katie!" Rodney greeted me, his tone warm and friendly, with none of the smarmy oil he'd had in our previous encounters. "Good to see you. And I'd like you to meet Owen Palmer, one of my colleagues."
Owen, who was just as cute as I'd remembered, actually blushed as he shook my hand. He didn't quite meet my eyes, ducking his head a little bit instead. Most guys who look that good are pretty confident about it, but his shyness was absolutely adorable. If he was part of this company, this job was looking better and better.
"Please have a seat," Rodney said. "Can I get you something to drink?"
"A cappuccino, please," I said. I normally didn't let myself buy the pricier coffee beverages, but it looked like he was paying, so I might as well indulge myself.
He headed off to the counter, which left me alone with Owen. It looked like conversation was up to me, for he seemed to be trying to read his fortune in the nutmeg sprinkles on the top of his own cappuccino. "So, do you live around Union Square?" I asked. "I noticed you yesterday at the subway station."
He blushed again, then looked up at me with a shy smile, almost meeting my eyes this time. "Yes, I do," he said, the first words I'd heard him speak. He had a pleasant voice.
"It's a great area, isn't it? I've lived around there a year, and I don't think I've even begun to explore it." I laughed. "Boy, I sound like a tourist, don't I? No native would gush this much."
Still blushing, he smiled. In spite of his dark, almost black, hair, his skin was fair, so the blushes really showed. Poor guy. I wondered how he survived in business.
Maybe he was a real demon in writing. He couldn't cope with meetings, but his memos were killers.
Rodney returned to the table and placed a small swimming pool of cappuccino in front of me. Seriously, I could have used it as a hot tub. I promised myself I wouldn't drink all of it, not if I wanted to sleep that week.
He took his seat, waited for me to take a sip, then said, "I'm sure you have a lot of questions."
"Yeah, about a zillion. All of them, in fact. Your e-mails weren't very informative.
You didn't even tell me what kind of company you're with."
The two men exchanged a look I couldn't read, then Rod turned back to me and said, "It's hard to fit that kind of information into an e-mail."
"It's also difficult to describe our business in a way that doesn't sound alarming,"
Owen added, in the first full sentence I'd heard him speak. It seemed he did okay when he was on a business footing. Maybe he just didn't know how to talk to women.
Then I realized what he'd said about the business sounding alarming. Sex slavery, I knew it. I cleared my throat so my voice wouldn't crack and said, "Urn, what business are you in?"
They looked at each other again. Owen said, still in business mode, "We research and develop products that facilitate convenience for a specific population, as well as monitor and supervise the use of our products in the public marketplace."
That didn't tell me much, other than that it didn't sound like I was going to be shipped off to some South Seas isle to be a tribal ruler's love slave, unless that was the population they provided convenience for. A sex slave could be a convenience.
But I didn't get that vibe here. No one would use business buzzwords to describe sex slavery. "Like software?" I asked, hoping I was in the right ballpark.
Owen smiled and blushed. "Yes, very much like software, but our business predates the computer industry by many decades."
"I see," I said, even though I didn't, not really. But I didn't care much what business they were in as long as it wasn't immoral, illegal, or dangerous to me. I barely knew what the company I currently worked for did. "And what would my role in all this be?"
Rod leaned forward, made eye contact with me and held it for a second before he said, "You'd be more in the administration end of things. You wouldn't have to concern yourself with the actual products, just the running of the business itself.
You'd function in an advisory capacity to our executives."
I wasn't sure what I could advise anyone about, unless it was which fertilizer to use on which kind of plant, how to know just when to pay the bills to maximize bank interest while not making a late payment, or where to put commas in a memo, but I knew the business code phrases as well as anyone did. "In other words, I'd be an administrative assistant, like I am now."
Owen looked down at the table and shredded his paper napkin with his fingers.
"Sort of, but not really," he said.
"This particular position is unique to our company," Rod said smoothly as he flashed a smile at a tall blonde entering the coffee shop. She eyed him appreciatively in return. I suspected he'd have her phone number before she left. He returned his attention to me. "It's difficult to describe this position, although it does involve some of the usual administrative functions. But believe me, this is a job you were bom for.
You'll never find another job that so uniquely suits your abilities."
"But how do you even know what my abilities are?" Only then did I remember the resume in my briefcase. This wasn't going like any other job interview I'd ever been on. "I do have a resume with me," I said as I bent to retrieve it. "Sorry, but I only made one copy."
Rod took it from me, skimmed over it absently, then handed it to Owen, who studied it more intently. "You certainly have an impressive record," Rod said, "but that's not why we want you. We've already thoroughly screened you and determined that you have the attributes we need for this position."
"Oh, so that's why you've been stalking me." Out of the comer of my eye I saw Owen grin, a totally unself-conscious grin that said, "You are so busted." If he was adorable with his blushes and shy smiles, now he was downright gorgeous. I would have been willing to scrub toilets to work in the same building with this man, but I tried to get my libido under check. That was no way to go about finding a job, even if men had been using that method to hire secretaries for ages.
"Testing you," Rod corrected.
I pondered that. Maybe it had been an emperor's new clothes deal, where the fact that I didn't join the crowds to swoon over Rod counted as something. I'd proven that I wasn't easily swayed by peer pressure, but I'd also proven that appearances did apparently count with me—although it was more Rod's smugness and oily manner that had turned me off.
"But why me?" I asked after a while. "I'm just so ... so ordinary. There are probably hundreds—thousands, even—of people in this city with exactly the same qualifications. Okay, maybe not who have worked in a feed-and-seed store, but you see what I mean."
"You'd be surprised how rare the truly ordinary is," Owen said softly. It was the kind of thing Yogi Berra would have said, but Owen made it sound profound and mysterious. I squinted at him in confusion, and he continued. "You have a unique perspective, a way of looking at things, that we find valuable."
"Oh, I get it," I said with great relief. "You're looking for a reality check."
His face lit up, and I fell just the least bit in love with him. "Yes! Exactly."
Now everything made a lot more sense. Some big corporation actually wanted my small-town honesty and common sense, instead of looking down on me because I grew up west of the Hudson River. I still wasn't sure how they'd found me in the first place, but I was sure big companies had all the resources they needed to find the right people.
"So, would you like to pursue this further?" Rod asked. "Things can get a little complicated from this point. Our executive team would have to interview you, and of course we'd tell you more about who we are. We would expect some discretion on your pan, in return. We operate out of the public spotlight, so we'd ask that you not discuss our business matters with anyone else."