Hand-Me-Down. Lee Nichols

felt for Emily—and still wanted to stab her in the eye with my fork. She had a career she loved. She was famous enough to get mentioned on NPR—though, I’m pleased to say, not on SNL. She had Jamie, who doted on her, and Zach, who was a great kid. Yeah, she wasn’t a dangerous young mind anymore, but she had the perfect life. Well, Charlotte had the perfect life. But Emily’s was first runner-up.

      Still, because I’m a good sister, I made sympathetic noises and kept my fork to myself. I even paid for lunch—treating Emily as a reward for finishing her book.

      She gave me a quick hug outside the restaurant. “You won’t forget Charlotte’s gift? The place is called Tazza.”

      I wrinkled my nose.

      “Just buy it, Anne.”

      “Okay, okay. But if I come down with medieval squirrel-pox, it’s your fault.”

      “What are the symptoms?” Emily asked. “Irritability, lack of ambition, fear of commitment— Annie, you’ve already got a terminal case.”

      After the EMTs arrived to remove my fork from Emily’s forehead, I rushed back to my job at Parsons Realty. I tried not to take long lunches, even though I’d been dating the owner, Rip Parsons, for six months. Knowing where the boss sleeps at night (the right side of the bed) is pretty good job security.

      I’d been working there for eight months, and considered the longevity of both relationship and job fairly impressive. The longest I’d worked anywhere was at the dot-com, a little-used search engine called The Ask It Basket. A name even lamer than “Rip,” but the company had been started back in the days when all you had to say was, “It’s a company on the World Wide Web. Which is on the Internet. Which is a global network of computers,” and millions dropped into your lap.

      I’d worked three years at The Ask It Basket. My job title was Coordinator of Technology, but my business card said Geek Wrangler. I basically translated requests from management into geek-speak and back again. If a manager asked: “Why are the coders three weeks behind deadline?” I’d ask the geeks: “Would you stop downloading porn and get to work?” Or if the coders said, “Seagate’s got a brand-new campus, with a video-game room and everything,” I’d tell my boss: “They want free Mountain Dew and fruit leather.”

      Then I’d sold my stock. But you weren’t supposed to sell stock, you were supposed to spend hours online every day, watching it go up and up and up and up. Selling stock was a betrayal worse than corporate espionage or claiming that Bill Gates wasn’t actually Rosemary’s Baby. I became persona not-entirely grata, and quit shortly thereafter, clutching the meager proceeds of my stock sale close to my heart.

      Then I spent a depressing year watching the stock go up and up and up and up.

      Then down. Wheeeee!

      Everyone had thought I was crazy to sell, but after the dotcom crash I felt like Warren Buffet’s love child with Suze Orman, despite having sold a year early and spending nearly everything. Still, Dad was so impressed he said I should become a stockbroker. Instead I convinced Wren to hire me at Element—the clothing boutique she managed. We’d been best friends since working together at Banana, so she sort of had to hire me. Sadly, I was so bad at selling clothes that she sort of had to fire me three months later. But at least she wept while giving me the pink slip, so I forgave her.

      After Wren fired me, I starting doing temp work—which I loved. Every job was a new job. I worked for an interior designer, the community college, a sheet music business, and World of Goods, a nonprofit. A local title company hired me permanently, and I stayed six months before I realized I’d paper-cut my throat if I had to type one more set of title instructions.

      Right on cue, Rip Parsons had wandered into the office. A little flirting, an extra-long lunch, and I had a new job. He wanted an assistant, but I insisted on “office manager,” because it sounded almost reputable. Plus, I figured it was a good way to explore the possibility of becoming a Realtor (who basically mints money in Santa Barbara) without actually taking the courses and test.

      A couple months later—a little more flirting, a few dinners added to the lunches—and I had a boyfriend. Rip had short brown hair and green eyes and I liked his arms, muscular from tennis, with the hair bleached blond from the sun. He looked faintly like Peter Gallagher, and on paper seemed like a jerk—a too-handsome young Realtor, a smarmy salesman. But he was lovely, super kind and always caring.

      So, sure, I was twenty-nine and working behind the front desk of a real estate company—my career peak apparently long past—but at least I had a wonderful boyfriend.

      Actually, getting boyfriends had never been a problem for me. I have a system. Wanting them after a few months was tougher.

      There was Matthew. I broke up with him when he said, “Because I’m Matthew, that’s why,” once too often. There was Billy from Banana. My “dumping” him at Emily’s party had somehow ignited his interest, but I dumped him for real after he admitted he fantasized about Charlotte when we had sex. I didn’t mind him doing it, but couldn’t forgive him admitting it. Then Doug, the creative genius behind The Ask It Basket. I broke up with him when he started a porn-only search engine, called The Beaver Basket. There had been Mason, the public defender who was great fun when drunk, incredibly tedious when sober. Nick, the portrait artist with the trust fund who I had to leave because he wore Mary Janes. Arthur, the world’s sexiest plumber who liked laying pipe a bit too much. Alex, the wannabe screenwriter who asked me to give him “notes” about his lovemaking.

      And Rip. Who had just buzzed me from his office. I hated that buzzer—sounded like I’d said the wrong thing on Family Feud—and had warned Rip not to touch it. Now he only buzzed to annoy me.

      I opened the door to his office. “What?”

      He grinned.

      “I’m on a deadline, Rip. The ads are due.”

      “Guess who just sold Knox Tower.”

      I looked at him. “No!”

      “Yes!”

      “Oh, my God! That’s fantastic. Who? When?”

      The Knox Tower wasn’t a tower. It was an old lodge in the Santa Barbara mountains, with 360-degree views of the valleys below and the distant crystal blue of Lake Cachuma. A rich socialite of the Great Gatsby type—though named Knox, I presume—had hosted lavish parties there until it burned down into ruins, many decades ago. It was never rebuilt, and the land and rubble had been on the market since. For millions.

      “Just now,” Rip said. “That was the buyer on the phone.”

      “Who is he?”

      “Super rich L.A. contractor. CEO of Keebler, Inc.”

      “Keebler? Like the elves?”

      “If you meet him,” Rip said, “that’s the first thing you shouldn’t ask. Anyway, he’s big into low-impact, green construction. Fell in love with the place.”

      “I thought you couldn’t build up there.”

      “Green construction, Annie. He’s gonna put up tents. Or yurts or something, a cistern, solar energy, the whole deal.”

      I shook my head. “Will it actually close?”

      “I spoke to the lender. It’s a go.” A gleam came into his eyes. “I’m thinking I deserve a reward.”

      “Oh, is that what you think?”

      “Mmm-hmm.” He put his hands on my hips and pulled me close. “That was a good movie last night.”

      We’d watched Secretary on video. “You want me to play your secretary?”

      “You are my secretary.”

      I nipped his ear. “Office manager.”

      “Even better.” He nuzzled me. “Besides, you told me you liked spanking.”