Executive Assistant

Rina Santarpia, Executive Assistant to Les Childs, the Director of the Foundation to Serve Refugees (FSR), a major international relief organization, needed a raise. Seated at the desk with the phone cradled against her shoulder, she waited for Les to return from his meeting with Vincent Chu, CFO, Stewie Eisenberg, COO and Charles Martin, Chairman of the Board.

“You wouldn’t have to borrow my bra if you picked yours up from the floor and put it in the laundry. And if you took the white lacy one, I swear to… Bye,” Rina whispered to her 15-year-old daughter, Jade, and hung up as Les swung past her desk.

“Les. Excuse me, Les? We were scheduled to talk this morning. Your crisis in Aleppo call with the European Roma Rights Centre is scheduled for 9:45 and it’s 9:38.”

“Whenever you’re ready,” he said as he walked into his office.

Using the hand mirror in her top left drawer, Rina reapplied her lipstick. She fluffed up her fine black hair and practiced a confident smile. The reflection of a needle-nosed woman stared back at Rina guardedly. Her thin lips reluctantly sank to their natural pout. As if she didn’t have enough on her mind without also wanting to be attractive. Rina took a deep cleansing breath and went in.

Boyish at 50 and six years younger than Rina, Les was staring at his notes, deep in thought as usual. He looked up. “Please take a seat,” he said amiably.

His desk was strewn with manila folders, the excess of which were stacked on the couch next to his soccer trophies, diplomas, and photographs of him shaking hands with famous people. The walls were oddly bare except for three small pictures: Albert Einstein; an autographed poem by Seamus Heaney; and an ancient photograph of Les, Peter Gabriel and Natalie Merchant with their arms around each other. A good, even great man, but so disorganized, one of the myriads of reasons he needed her. She pushed a mismatching chair up as close to his desk as it would go, smoothed down the back of her pencil skirt, and sat.

Stay calm, she told herself. She straightened up in her chair. “I need another raise, Les.”

“Already? Didn’t you get one fairly recently?”

“As you know, this April I’m here 16 years. I’ve gotten four cost of living raises, 2008, 2010 and 2016, 2022. And I got a 2% increase last year. But recently,” she tried composing her voice, “my financial obligations have changed. I’ve made it possible for you do your job. I give 110%.” She stopped to breathe. Her glance fell on the gift from his mother still in its box on the desk from a month ago. She knew, because she’d peeked inside, it held a crystal paperweight etched with dolphins, along with a little card saying Congratulations on the dinner dance fundraiser. Love, Mom. Next to the box was a picture of Les’s family, two fair-haired toddlers on his wife’s lap. His wife, an ex-intern, looked like one of those young Irish actresses whose name she couldn’t think of. Rina looked up. “I need a $7,000 raise as soon as possible.” Her eyes shot down to her lap. “I deserve one,” she added quietly.

“I’m very happy with your work, Rina. You do an outstanding job. But as you know, Vincent has just completed an across-the-board salary review and a survey of what people in comparable organizations are earning and according to him, you’re at the top of your range. It would be unfair to give you a raise without raising the salaries of the rest of the administrative staff.”

“My job is different. You’ve said so yourself. The Foundation has grown at an enormous rate. You’ve taken it from a 56-million-dollar organization to double that in the last year. The money is there.”

“The money we’ve raised is tied up in restricted funds. You know that.”

She’d anticipated this. “Meet me halfway, okay? A $3,500 increase.”

Les leaned forward in his chair and spoke softly. “I’ll go to bat for you, Rina. I’ll go back and talk to Vincent again to see if there’s wiggle room. But I need to respect Vincent and Stewie’s opinion. It would be inappropriate for me not to listen to their advice.”

Rina crossed her legs. The fabric of her skirt hissed against her stockings. If she were the brilliant Executive Director of a foundation that raised and gave away hundreds of thousands every year, she wouldn’t need Vincent or Stewie for every goddam decision and if he liked her enough, he’d just do it. He was the boss, wasn’t he?

“How’s Jimmy doing?” said Les.

Rina and Jimmy had separated four months before. Their separation contract was 43 pages. The months of negotiations had driven her blood pressure up to numbers that left her breathless. Her doctor had warned her that hypertension could lead to stroke, heart failure, kidney failure. And after all the fighting with Jimmy, she’d lost the house. She and Jade had moved to an apartment above a laundromat.

“What? Oh, he’s fine.”

“And Jade?”

“Jade’s fine too. Will you let me know as soon as possible?”

“Yes, we’ll talk at the beginning of the week. I should know something by then. I’m meeting with Vincent Monday morning.”

Rina stood and pulled the stack of papers to be scanned and filed from his outbox. “I’ll see you in the Board Room at 11:30,” she said, turning to go. “Thank you,” she added tersely.

***

Seated around the conference room table were eight impressive-looking businessmen and two women, one in grey cashmere, the other with bottle-blonde hair and expensive cheekbones. Rina’s gaze fell on Les. Surely, he would come through with her raise. They were discussing Syrian refugees, specifically asylum seekers and the need for more pro bono lawyers. Rina was furiously typing.

• 6.8 million Syrians are refugees
• 6.7 million people displaced within Syria. more than half of the country’s population—11.1 million people need humanitarian assistance

Les said the focus needed to be on internal humanitarian law. The discussion veered off to the Venezuelan refugee crisis, then the conflict in the Tigray region in Ethiopia and the displacement of more than 54,000 Ethiopians, then the 14 million Afghans needing food assistance.

Venezuelans? Ethiopians? Afghans? The whole world was being uprooted. Rina scanned the agenda to see if she’d missed something.

A footnote at the bottom read:

*Ariana Grande may stop by 🙂

It was Rina’s idea to add the smiley face to the agenda and Les had approved it.

Suddenly there was a stirring in the room.

Rina looked up. Her mouth dropped open.

Against the glass wall by the door, looking simply adorable in a cropped yellow hoodie, cut-off short shorts, and high-top red Converse sneakers, stood Ariana Grande. She clasped her hands together with a bright smile and gave a slight bow to the group. As if it wasn’t enough Ariana Grande was a masterpiece of tiny perfect curves and sang like a canary, a doer of good deeds with a net worth of 180 million. Rina kept typing.

• AG interjects something about people being vulnerable when their homes have been destroyed.
• A report on repatriation is passed around.
• 1:00 pm meeting adjourned.

Everyone positioned into parting cliques. Les, Charles, Stewie and Vincent clustered around the starlet. Her bodyguard moved aside. Photos were snapped. Hugging her laptop, Rina turned toward the glass doors but not before stealing a look at all that luxurious hair and those enormous, candied, upturned eyes.

***

At 5:30 pm Rina placed her pumps in the left bottom drawer, pulled a pair of socks over her stockings, and laced up a pair of grungy sneakers. Outside on the street, a lady in a dirty tan overcoat muttered and flapped her rumpled cardboard sign: I’m homeless. I have 2 nefews at home I have to feed. My husband dyed. I would appriciate your help.

How could she have she left 2 little children home alone? What if they were hungry? Rina thought.

The minutes were due on Charles’s desk by Monday, the rent due on Friday. She had $10.35 in her purse, $5,000 in her savings account. And if Jimmy didn’t come through with the money for Jade’s braces, she would have to call her attorney. $175/hr., $3.50 a minute for every phone call. She owed him two grand. There was no one she didn’t owe right down to Jade for back allowance. Then she was going to have to pay for the goddam divorce.

“What do you want to eat tonight? Hello, Jade? I’m speaking to you. Don’t you have any homework?” Rina said, stepping over the heap of clothes on the floor in her daughter’s room. A YouTube video blared from the laptop on the white vanity. Rina had seen it before. Beyoncé’s alter ego — Yoncé — and it was repulsive. She slapped down the laptop cover. Jade lay on her bed like a pin-up girl, eyes lasered in on her phone. Hair in a French braid, each nail painted a different color. She wore the same tie-died hoodie she always wore at home and a pair of faded jeans covered in messages written in different colored ink, homework, friends names, names of bands. There were huge rips in both knees. Hot pink tights peered through the slits. Where are my sweet child’s knobby knees, thought Rina. Jade seemed to be heading downhill, so self-critical, so empty, none of the spark or delight that had been there only a few years before.

“Do you have any homework?”

“No homework.”

“Stop texting when I’m speaking to you.”

“I’m not texting,” said Jade not looking up. “I know what you’re going to say.”

“How can you know what I’m going to say, when I don’t even know?”

“You’re going to ask if I’ve studied for my geometry test.”

“Well, have you?”

“Yea, Mom.”

“You need 100% to offset the last lousy grade.”

“All you care about is my grades.”

“Someone has to. Can you stop texting or TikToking or whatever and look at me?”

Jade looked up with a fake gap-toothed smile, showing top and bottom teeth, as if she were four and had been told to smile. The acne on her forehead was getting worse. Her eyes darted back down to her phone.

Rina sighed audibly. “You’ll never guess who was at work today.”

“Who?”

“Guess.”

“I give up.”

“Ariana Grande.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You never believe anything I say but it’s true.”

“Okay, it’s true. Can you just please leave me alone.”

Of course, Jade was angry. She was 15 years old. Her mother had kicked her father out and she had no idea why. It didn’t take a shrink to understand, but understanding didn’t make raising a teenager any easier. Rina left the room, taking perverse pleasure in kicking through her daughter’s clothes as she walked out.

She’d been married to Jimmy for 17 years until the night she smelled a strange, cheap perfume on the collar of his shirt. How long have you been seeing her, Jimmy? she’d shrieked. How long?! There’s no easy way to say this, he’d said. The light in the kitchen wouldn’t stop flickering. Some kind of electrical problem they’d been meaning to take care of, like headlights flashing by when you’re hunkering down in a dark alley. How fucking long, Jimmy? A couple of weeks, said Jimmy. Do you love her? she’d asked softly. Yes, he whispered back.

At first, she’d kept quiet because there still might be the slightest chance he’d come back, and later it was the fear she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from losing her shit in front of Jade, which would only make matters worse for them both.

***

At 9:30 that night Rina removed her watch, her wedding band, and the necklace from Jimmy with a charm of a little girl. She hung up her skirt and blouse and climbed on her stationary bike with the Healthnews brochure she’d taken from the office and began pedaling. “Stress has been shown to be a significant contributing factor in recent studies. It is believed that, under stress, the body can produce hormones that encourage the production of LDL, so-called bad cholesterol that can accelerate heart diseases.” Her own LDL was 190/mg/dL, which put her in the “very high” range. The newsletter slipped from her hand. For a few seconds the breeze from the front wheel of the bike kept the paper aloft like a miniature magic carpet. Rina imagined passing the homeless woman on the way to her new job at Goldman Sachs. She grunted and pumped her legs harder. Coming home by limo in a Barami suit and a Madison Avenue haircut. Jade and Les clutching hands in excitement at an awards dinner where she was the keynote speaker, because she’d been a relief worker in a Syrian refugee camp who’d led barefoot women from overcrowded tents back into homes where they could protect their children. Jade never barging into the bedroom to torment her with demands when Rina was on the bike. The lost cell phone. The frozen computer. What can you expect me to buy at the mall with only $40, Mom? She never meant to call Jade a spoiled brat when Jade complained about her best friend getting the newest iPhone for good grades. She never meant to always be angry at the one person who mattered the most. She meant to say not getting what you want sucks but she was on the bike pedaling, trying to stop thinking about her debt, trying to forget her clogged arteries and the ache in her lower back.

***

The next day Rina worked steadily, drilling out correspondence, scanning emails, coordinating meetings and lunches, and answering the phone. She drank bottled water and ate pasta from a Tupperware container hidden in her second drawer. At 1:00 pm took the shoebox out from under her desk and laced up her new high-top red Converse for her daily walk. She’d secretly ordered the sneakers online along with a yellow hoodie she would bestow on Jade if she aced her test. By the end of the day, she might have her raise. By the end of the week, she would know if there was a drop in her blood pressure.

At 3:30 pm a tension headache crackled on the top of her head. She trudged across the office to the kitchenette for a cup of coffee. (Two was her absolute limit.) Empty pot. Rina tugged open a few cabinet doors looking for filters. What was the use? Waiting for this coffeemaker to start dripping was like waiting for Jade to offer her a hug.

Back at her desk there were five messages on her voicemail, all for Les. She didn’t need to look up to know someone was hovering in her area.

“Can I help you with something?” she said, flipping through the notes for her minutes.

“Les called me in. I was just waiting for him to get off the phone,” said Vincent Chu.

“Oh,” said Rina, wishing she was the kind of person who had a witty remark ready to roll off her tongue. Just then, Les buzzed her.

Charles was on the line. He was flying to his house on Sanibel Island and wanted the minutes emailed by 5:00 pm. By the time she hung up with Charles, Vincent vanished behind Les’ door.

Rina opened a new Word document and banged out the minutes. More than 70% of Syrian refugees are living in poverty, with few prospects of returning home. Some people don’t want to go back. They can’t return in safety. They want basic services — good schools for their children. They want their health. Their pride. Their dignity. Some people want to make their own way in a new place. They want too goddamn much typed Rina. And with one keystroke, she deleted it all.

Behind her, Les’ door was still shut. Rina’s head throbbed. The real Rina was supposed to be healthy, gorgeous, kind, and financially secure. She had a husband who loved her, a child who still talked to her. She did not anticipate disappointment, then scream and storm out when it occurred. Her whole life had spiraled around this sequence, from the time she’d been ten and expected to be the sister chosen to go to Italy with her father to visit the relatives. She’d designed it that way, inflicted it upon herself from the start. Rina felt something drip from her nose. A drop of blood landed on her skirt. By the time she yanked opened a drawer to grab some tissues, another drop of blood splashed onto the keyboard. “Shit. Goddam it,” she yelled loud enough for the women in Development to look up. She blew a storm of blood into one tissue after another, wiped her notes, smearing blood across the pages.

Five minutes later, while she was checking herself in the mirror, dabbing her nostrils with a wet tissue, Vincent Chu emerged from Les’s office.

“You okay?”

“Does it look like I’m okay?” said Rina as she marched into Les’ office.

“Please sit down. We had a long talk. We conferenced with Stewie.”

“What did he say, Les?”

“The best I can do is give you a $1,500 increase. Vincent and Stewie both agreed we can’t possibly go any higher. As I said before, you’re at the top of your range.”

Rina glared at the picture of his wife and their blonde children. Saoirse Ronan. Remembering the ridiculous name gave her a flash of satisfaction.

“Jimmy and I are getting a divorce. We’ve been separated for four months. Money’s very tight. And Jade is sick.”

His brow furrowed. “How sick?” asked Les, clearly alarmed.

She couldn’t sustain the lie. “It’s nothing. She’ll be okay. Look, I could really use that raise right now.”

His baby blue eyes were full of pity. “I’m sorry to hear about Jade.”

“So can I get the $3,500?”

“Sit down, please.” He sounded irritated.

“Why can’t you give me the $3,500 and be done with it, Les? It’s not going to break the Foundation. No one has to know. It can be our little secret.”

“Rina, please sit,” he said clearly annoyed.

Rina thumped down into a chair.

“Please try and calm down,” Les said, more gently. “Listen, I want to do what’s in your best interest. Even if I were to give you the $3,500, there’s no place higher you can go. If you have to leave, I understand. I don’t want you to stay if you’re struggling to make ends meet.”

“I’m not some crazy homeless woman. I just need a raise. And I want it. I want a fucking raise.” Tears sprang from Rina’s eyes. I’m a real mess now, she thought. Once you cry in the office, even an international foundation where people work to make a difference, it’s over.

“Do you know what,” she said, straightening up. “You and Vincent have obviously made up your minds. Well, I’ve made up mine too. I’m going to law school so I can be a brilliant lawyer just like you. I’ll be just like you, Les. I’ll say no but make everyone think I’m saying yes.”

Back in her cubicle, Rina blew her nose again. She turned on her voicemail, shut down her computer and walked away, slouched over her Converse shoebox. Soft rock wafted faintly from some of the cubicles she passed, floating up to the ceilings and exposed pipes. From far off she heard her desk phone ring but she kept plodding towards the exit. Outside she stopped to read the homeless woman’s misspelled sign. When the woman looked up, Rina snarled at her.

At home she kicked off her pumps, tugged off her skirt and sat down at the kitchen table in her slip. She picked at the plastic flower in the vase on the table wondering what to do now that she’d humiliated herself out of a job. A job she’d loved. Then she filled the sink and dunked her blood-stained skirt into the sudsy water. An anguished half cry rang out from Jade’s room.

“Jade?” Rina banged on the bedroom door. “Are you okay?” she asked, opening the door.

Jade yanked down the sleeve of her hoodie and hid her other hand behind her back but not before Rina caught a glimpse of the blood.

“What are you doing? What’s behind your back? What in hell is going on?” said Rina grabbing Jade’s arm and pulling up the sleeve.

“Oh my god,” Rina yelled. “What have you done?”

The inside of Jade’s forearm was covered in blood. Rina ran into the kitchen and grabbed a dish towel to wrap around her arm. Whatever Jade had used to cut herself was no longer in her other hand. The cut, thank goodness, wasn’t deep. She led Jade into the bathroom, turned on the faucet and held her arm under the water until it ran clean.
“How long have you been doing this?” said Rina scanning her daughter’s forearm and noticing the two straight appallingly white hash marks and one jagged scar. “What have you done? Look at me.”

Jade stared up at her mother with blank eyes. “Talk to me!” said Rina, wrapping the dish towel around Jade’s arm, fear making her heart beat wildly.

“I only tried it once or twice. I swear it, Mom,” said Jade, tears spilling down her cheeks.

“He had an affair right under my nose. What was I supposed to do? Let him stay? Is that it?”

“No. I don’t know. It’s not that. It’s just… It’s everything.”

“Let me see your other arm,” said Rina pushing up Jade’s other sleeve. It was clean, smooth, not a mark on it.

“I’m calling your father.”

“No, please. You don’t have to call him,” begged Jade.

“I’m calling him and we’re taking you to the hospital.”

“No, he can’t know. It’s so embarrassing.”

Rina was suddenly so dizzy she was seeing double, so tired she thought she might faint.

“Mom?”

She steadied herself against the lip of the sink, breathing slowly. In and out, waiting for her mind to clear. “Okay, fine, we’ll figure it out in the morning,” she said, resigned.

“Thank you, Mommy.” Jade hugged Rina so tight, it felt as if she had saved Rina from dying. Rina held on, never wanting to let go but as soon as Jade released her, she ducked away into the kitchen to hide her own tears.

“Where are you going?”

“Into the kitchen,” stammered Rina. “I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”

“I’m not hungry.”

With her back to her daughter, Rina wiped her eyes. “You’ve got to eat. We both have to eat something.”

In the kitchen she instinctively pulled all the knives, butter knives too, from the dish drainer and threw them in a bucket under the sink.

Jade sat at the table with her knees drawn to her chest, picking at her grilled cheese, the dishtowel drooping off her arm. Neither of them said a word.

Sure, she’d read about girls cutting themselves, but she had no context for how it could be happening to her daughter. Jade was smart. She had friends. There was a boy she liked. How had she not noticed her daughter’s pain?

Jade stood up and took her plate to the sink. “Why is your skirt in here?” she said, holding the sopping wet fabric.

The day flickered by. The bloody nose. Her tantrum in Les’s office. The homeless woman. “It’s nothing.”

“That doesn’t answer the question, Mom.”

“You’re right; now I sound like you. I had a stupid bloody nose.” Jade nodded with a tiny hint of a smile. “Tomorrow we’re going to deal with whatever is going on with you.”

Jade nodded again, retreated into her room, and closed the door.

***

That night Rina dreamed her face was a lovely oval, the skin taut against her cheekbones. Her thick straight hair was coiled around her head like a crown. Her lips were full and moist. She was gazing out through the sparkly eyes of Ariana Grande, settling into the body and soul of Ariana, a true alter ego. In the dream she looked inside herself, past the superficial layer of beauty, and saw the armor around her bruised and swollen heart. A hideous heart, twice as big as a heart was supposed to be.

She jolted awake. Jade, only daughter for God’s sake. Her child was going through hell.

She tiptoed into her daughter’s bedroom. Jade was asleep on her back, one arm dangling over the side of the bed, the other bent at the elbow above her head. Rina gently placed Jade’s arm on the bed. She pulled up the blanket, remembering how her grandmother would rub her back after a temper tantrum. Then she settled herself onto the floor in a nest of clothes, leaned her head against the edge of the mattress, lifted her arms and laid them on top of the bed, clasping Jade’s forearm with both her hands.

She woke at 5 am. Her body was stiff, her arms numb. She felt gross. Wrung out. She texted Les, saying Jade was sick and she couldn’t make it in.

Back in her room, the dusky sky began to brighten. It was two small steps from the bed to the bureau. She eyed the mess of empty and half empty pill bottles of Beta blockers and Vasodilators.

Rina mounted the bike. Climbing on was a hateful thing but now she needed it. She gripped the handlebars. Her slack heavy legs began working.

How did refugees endure the separations, the beatings, the exodus and exhaustion? Year after year and war after war, they carried on. She could not get her mind around their suffering, which was real suffering. She would pay more attention to Jade, be vigilant at all times. She would apologize to Les, get her job back, and find herself a second job, if necessary, be kinder to people that had less than her. She would find a clinic, the best there was, and get Jade the therapy she needed. Rina had already tried group therapy (they were all a bunch of Looney tunes) and yoga (too much pressure on her skinny wrists), but she would find herself a good shrink too.

Rina’s hands were clammy. She was panting. Perspiring. Her Ariana Grande sneakers whirling on the pedals so fast it was as if she were fighting off an attacker. The oxygen and nutrients were flowing through her body, her thin arteries opening. Her heart was getting stronger, beating softer. Shrinking back to its right size.

 

 

 

Image by Lộc Nguyễn on unsplash.com, licensed under CC 2.0.