Personal Assistant.4

Living up to the title of this blog, I tell you what. This thing almost has a trajectory.

My boss still touched me too much. We were working a lot—I had notes and files and emails to prove that my presence wasn’t completely unnecessary—but he’d massage my shoulders or the back of my neck while he looked over my notes. Even at dinner, when his wife and two children were there, Mr. Baker would touch my foot with his or rest his hand on my thigh under the table. His hand went to the small of my back whenever he passed behind me in the kitchen.

It wasn't as though we went entirely unnoticed. "Ken just follows you around everywhere," I overheard Regina tell Mr. Baker when they were relaxing in the living room. She sounded amused. "He's like a puppy."

Stuart laughed in response. "Kenneth is a dedicated soul."

Why did that make my blood boil? Perhaps I had made a mistake. I should have told Stuart that I was content to work my way up the ladder. I should have gone to the Christmas party and met Regina before the promotion ever came up. I should have taken one look at the family photo sitting on my boss' desk and gotten my ass to another job. Dedicated soul.

***

"Hey, Ken?"

The voice came from below the balcony. I looked over the railing to see Mackenzie in a swimsuit with a towel over her shoulder.

"Hey."

She shifted uncomfortably. "Will you come swimming with me? I can't find Graham, and Mom and Dad are still in bed."

My face formed an apologetic expression before a polite refusal could leave my lips, and Kenzie's shoulders slumped.

"Nevermind."

Poor kid. Her friends didn't have awesome boats to take her wakeboarding. "Let me get my suit on," I said. "Do you know where I can find a beach towel?"

"I'll get you one," she replied excitedly.

Kenzie didn't talk much on the short walk to the dock, but her mouth dropped when I removed my shirt.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I said, kicking off my sandals.

"Are you in a gang?"

"Nope." Not anymore.

"Mafia?"

"Ha. No."

"Yakuza?"

"What’s that?"

"Then why all the tattoos?"

I looked her in the eye and used my best wise old man voice. "Because I was a stupid teenager, and I didn't think about what these would look like to an employer, or when I get old and wrinkly."

She squinted at me, probably trying to visualize me as a raisined old man. "That's still a ton of tattoos," Kenzie replied. "Do they all mean something?"

"Some, not all." I put my hands on my hips. "Are we swimming, or what?"

***

Graham was by himself on the dock and I didn't want to make Mrs. Baker suspicious, so I went to sit with him.

"Are you old enough to drink this?" I asked, holding up an extra beer.

He glanced up at me. "Almost," he said with a smile. "Not until October. Did you bring a backup?"

"Er…"

Graham chuckled. "No, no, it's fine. I'll take the beer." He reached for it, but I pulled the bottle back.

"Nope. You already gave yourself away."

"Come on," he cajoled, grabbing at it again. "My parents let me drink."

Holding the beer out of reach, I retorted, "I do not know if that is true." It probably was. "Nevertheless, I’m not your parent, so I'm not letting you have this. I'll go get you a soda or something."

Laughing, Graham pulled me back down by the forearm. “Relax, bro. I’m good.”

I shrugged. “More for me,” I said, even though I didn’t really mean it.

We sat in friendly silence for a moment and watched the calm ripples of the wind over the lake. Graham dipped his heels in the water, a slow splish splosh that blended into the chirps and hoots of the night. Eventually he snickered to himself.

“What?”

“I think Kenzie has a crush on you,” he informed me.

“Ah,” I replied, leaning back on my elbows, “is that why she’s so mean to me? Trying not to let on?”

“Probably,” he said with a sideways glance at me. “She told Mom you have some pretty crazy tattoos.”

That I did. “Byproducts of a misspent youth.”

“Yeah, but Kenzie said they were cool. She never tells my mom anything is cool.”

I shook my head. “Your poor sister.”

Graham laughed. “Now my mom is wondering what sort of prison tats you got going on.”

“She might get an eyeful if I ever go swimming again.” 

“Dude, you are so secretive.”

My head practically snapped up. “What?” He’d said it so easily, as though he knew the secrets he claimed I kept.

“No, I just mean that you haven’t said anything about yourself. My mom showed you an entire photo album, and all you did was ask questions.”

“Oh.” I thought about that for a moment. It was true; I didn’t really like to talk about myself, but that was because I didn’t feel there was much to say.

“I mean,” Graham continued easily, “I don’t know how old you are, or your last name, or where you went to college."

I relaxed a little. Those were easy enough questions to answer. “I’m twenty-two, my last name is Record, like the button on your phone, and I didn’t go to college.”

His shock was flattering. “Seriously? You don't look old or anything, but I thought you were thirty because of the way you talk. Like, a lit major or something.”

Shaking my head, I raised my beer can to my lips. “I started listening to these public domain recordings of old books. At first I had to look up about every other word, but eventually you get used to hearing adjectives like lugubrious and soporific.”

“Use those in a sentence,” was Graham’s swift rejoinder.

“You seemed fairly lugubrious in your solitary repose, but I am now cognizant that it was simply the waves’ soporific effect. Ergo, what I had perceived as lugubriousness was, in fact, languor.” I bowed to Graham’s sarcastic slow clap.

“You’re a fucking showoff.”

I just grinned and changed the subject. "Do you go wakeboarding a lot?"

"Every chance I get," Graham replied. "You'll have to get out there sometime."

Shaking my head, I said, "Nah, I've never been, and I don't want to hold everybody up."

"It's easy if you don't have an ego."

"I am as you said—a fucking showoff."