Company - Max Barry [2]
This isn't the dullest thing Stephen Jones has ever read, but it's close. Oddly, it makes no mention of training packages, the selling of which is, as he understands it, Zephyr's main purpose. Then he realizes that a short man with dark hair and glasses is standing a few feet away, staring at him. “Jones?”
“Yes!”
The man's eyes flick over Jones's new suit. One of his hands wanders down to where his own shirt is stuffed awkwardly into his pants and tries to fix it. “I'm Freddy. Nice to meet you.” He extends his free hand, and they shake. Freddy's watery blue eyes look huge behind his glasses. “You're younger than I thought you'd be.”
“Okay,” Jones says.
Freddy looks at his shoes. Then he glances at the reception desk, at—if Jones is not mistaken—the empty chair behind the EVE JANTISS nameplate. “Do you smoke?”
“No.”
“I do.” He says it apologetically. “This way.”
“It's a good department.” Freddy sucks at his cigarette. It is a fine day: the clouds are high, there is a light breeze, and the gray Zephyr tower even seems to be emitting reflected warmth from the grid of tinted windows. Freddy's eyes follow a blue convertible inching toward them through traffic, then jump to Jones. “I mean, once you get used to things.”
“I'm ready for a steep learning curve,” Jones says, employing a phrase that came in handy during his job interviews.
“You're Roger's sales assistant. You have to process his orders, type up his quotes, file his expense forms, that kind of thing.”
“What's he like?”
“Roger? Oh . . . nice.” Freddy's eyes shift.
“Ah,” Jones says. “So . . . he's not?”
Freddy glances around. “No. Sorry.”
Jones snickers. “Well, I don't plan on being a sales assistant forever.”
Freddy says nothing. Jones realizes that Freddy has probably been a sales assistant forever. “Roger's got a job for you, actually. He wants you to ask Catering how many donuts they gave our department this morning.” In response to Jones's expression, he hurries on: “See, we get morning snacks; some days it's fruit, some days cookies, and occasionally, rarely, donuts. This morning there was an incident.”
“Okay. Sure thing.” Jones nods. This may not be a glamorous assignment, or make much sense, but it is his first task in the real business world, and by God, he's going to perform it well. “So where's Catering?”
Freddy doesn't answer. Jones follows his gaze until it intersects a midnight blue Audi sports car entering the Zephyr lot. The bulk of Zephyr's parking is subterranean, but there are a few valuable ground-level spaces, and the Audi slides confidently into one of these. The driver's door pops open and a pair of legs climb out. After a moment, Jones registers that the legs are attached to something. The something is Eve Jantiss.
She looks as if she is just stopping off at Zephyr on the way to an exclusive nightclub opening. Her hair, long, tousled, and honey-brown, bounces off exposed tan shoulders. Two delicate straps appear to play no functional role in suspending a thin, shimmering plum-colored dress; more mysterious forces are at work. She has lips like big sofa cushions, the kind of ancestry that probably includes nationalities Jones has never heard of, and liquid brown eyes that say: Sex?
Why, what an intriguing idea. In the nights between his job interview and now, Jones has occasionally wondered if he wasn't building Eve Jantiss up in his head, remembering her as more attractive than she really is. Now he realizes: no.
“Morning,” she says, clacking past on high heels. “Hi,” Jones says, and Freddy says something like, “Muh.” Jones turns and sees Freddy practically dribbling love. Freddy's gaze is fixed on the back of Eve's head, not flicking up and down her body. Jones feels suddenly sordid. He was checking her out: Freddy's infatuation is pure.
When the