Page 81 of His Good Girl

Avery

By the second day of new employee training, I had learned that boredom could be weaponized.

I spent the morning in a conference room with three other new hires, a laptop, a legal pad, and a training platform that congratulated me every time I answered a question correctly, as if I were a golden retriever with moderate reading comprehension. At one point, a cartoon padlock wearing glasses explained secure document disposal to me, and I stared at it with the hollow-eyed despair of a woman who had once believed adulthood would contain better graphics.

Benjamin checked on me twice before lunch, which was either kindness or surveillance depending on how much generosity I was willing to grant a man who had told me, without blinking, that my note-taking posture ‘lacked conviction.’

The first time, he appeared in the glass doorway shortly after nine, holding a coffee cup and wearing the expression of someone who had interrupted a minor crime.

“Are you retaining information?” he asked.

“I have never known more about workplace document classification.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the answer you deserve.”

His mouth did its tiny almost-smile again. I was beginning to live for those, which probably meant onboarding had damaged me psychologically. He set the coffee beside my laptop.

“Dana says caffeine improves compliance.”

“Does Dana say that, or do you?”

“Dana says nothing she cannot defend in court.” He glanced at the training screen. “Ah. Vendor ethics.”

“Yes. I’ve learned not to accept diamonds from subcontractors.”

“Good. We lost three promising interns to bracelets in ‘18.”

“That didn’t happen.”

“Not with that attitude.”

The second time, he brought a stack of forms and a warning not to make faces at the sexual harassment module because the training software sometimes recorded engagement through the webcam.

I looked at him. “That cannot be true.”

“No. But for three seconds you sat up straighter, and that was valuable to me.”

“You’re a terrible person.”

“Yes, and now you’re alert.”

He left before I could decide whether or not to throw a pen at him, which was how Benjamin survived most social interactions, I suspected.

The Hartwell situation moved around the office like a weather system. No one explained it to me directly, but I caught fragments. Dana passed by at one point saying, “If anyone uses the wordopticsin my presence again, I will resign and become a beekeeper,” to which Benjamin, without looking up from his tablet, answered, “You would bully the bees.” It made me laugh into my sandwich, which made Dana look at me as if laughter was an invoice she had not approved.

By two in the afternoon, my brain had softened into a paste of acronyms and policies. By three, I had passed four assessments, including one in which I correctly identified that accepting a luxury weekend from a contractor was inappropriate, even if the contractor had a charming dog. By four, I had begun writing increasingly elaborate notes in the margins of my legal pad just to stay alive.

Do not click suspicious links.

Do not accept diamonds.

Do not pout.

Do not think about Callum’s hands.

The last item appeared before I could stop it. I stared at the words, then scratched them out so hard the pen tore the paper.