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Waters, get used to that sort of
proposition." She sat up and pushed the contract across the desk, flipping
to the second page. "Now, here's the section about separate property..."
     
    *
     
    By the time I got home and had a
shower, I was full of vim and vinegar and ready to take on the world, and Anton
Waters in particular. I wasn't going to take any of this lying down. Wrapped in
my threadbare bathrobe with a Hello Kitty towel smothering my wet hair, I
called Empire Capital and demanded to speak to Anton Waters.
    This didn't go over so well, until
I remembered that I was apparently a VIP in the Empire empire and gave my name.
    "Oh!" The poor
receptionist sounded like she was going to have a very peppy heart attack, and
I felt bad. But not very. She was part of the Evil Empire. She was the enemy.
"Yes! Of course, Miss Dare!" The phone line clicked and my ears were
flooded with baroque music. It lasted only a few moments before Arthur's voice
came on the line.
    "I'm so sorry, Miss
Dare," he said smoothly, "but Mr. Waters is out of the office. Let me
give you his private cell so you may reach him."
    "I... oh." I was taken
aback. I'd worked as a receptionist before, and let me tell you, in some places
giving out someone's private cell number is tantamount to committing ritual
hari kiri in the workplace. If you wanted to fast-track yourself to getting
fired, give out a private cell number. The only explanation that I could come
up with was that Waters had left specific instructions to give his number to me
if I called.
    Unnerved, I wrote down the number,
thanked Arthur, and hung up.
    Having to call a second number was
less exciting than the first call. The courage I'd mustered from my meeting
with my lawyer—and I had to give it to my father, being able to say 'my
lawyer' was pretty exhilarating—was fast dwindling. Hearing the lower-level
monkeys at Empire Capital— my sort of people—chirp excitedly at me did
not help.
    With a gulp, I dialed Anton's
number, turned on the speaker, and put the phone out of reach so I wouldn't
accidentally hang up, take a taxi to the airport, and buy a one-way ticket to
Belize. After only two rings, the phone clicked, and his rich, deep voice
answered: “Waters.”
    For a moment I was tongue-tied. All
the things I'd meant to say got tangled up and I couldn't sort through them
fast enough to decide which I should start with. The silence got longer and
longer. I knew this tactic. He was waiting on the other end of the line,
waiting for the person who called him to fill up the silence. He was
Anton Waters. He didn't have to talk if he didn't want to, and he certainly
wasn't going to waste precious words asking someone something twice.
    “Why is everyone at your company so
nice to me?” I finally blurted. Hey, it was better than nothing.
    “Ah, Miss Dare,” he said. “I was
wondering when you would call.”
    Uuuuuugh. He was such a twat. Such a movie-cliche twat. And I wanted to fuck him really badly, and I
might actually maybe perhaps marry him. I should have gone to a shrink instead
of a lawyer.
    “That's nice,” I said. “Why is
everyone so nice to me?”
    “I told them we may be getting
married,” he said.
    I couldn't hold in my indignant
shout. “What?” I hadn't even told my closest friends, and he'd probably
sent out a company-wide memo about it.
    “It wouldn't be good for their
health if they found out after the fact,” he said. “Katy, my front desk
receptionist, already called Arthur yesterday and apologized for being rude to
you when you first walked in. I gather she was very contrite.”
    It took me a moment to realize what
he was referring to. “Oh. Well,” I said awkwardly, “I wasn't really dressed for
visiting.” The only place my work clothes were fit for visiting was a street
corner, and even then I'd need a nice cardboard sign to complete the ensemble. Will
make poor life decisions for food.
    Nervously I fidgeted with the towel
I had wrapped around my head.