“He’ll call or email you if he needs anything,” she continued. “And when you know what he needs, you’ll be prompt in getting it to him.”

“What does that usually entail?” I asked, confused. Would I be a glorified errand girl? I didn’t really imagine Myra as that, but I could’ve been wrong.

“Digitizing, mostly,” she said. “Even if Shepard Shipments started as an Internet retailer, it kept loads of paper data on hand prior to the advent of cloud computing.”

It was cute to see a little old lady up on her knowledge of technology—until I remembered that I only had a cursory understanding of these kinds of things. A lot could happen in a year off the grid, not paying attention to news and advancements and the like. A person could get completely consumed by, say, figuring out how to put food in her mouth and gas in her tank.

“When you’re not scanning and filing online, you’re getting Mr. Shepard whatever he needs, doing whatever he says, and being his eyes, ears, hands, and brains out here,” Myra continued.

“His brains?” I repeated, confused. “I don’t understand. Isn’t he the president of this company?”

“That’s right.”

“How am I supposed to think like that?” I asked, feeling faint. I needed to change out of these pantyhose—and maybe just escape this entire situation. I wasn’t cut out for this. There had been some kind of mistake. There was no way on God’s green earth that I was qualified to think like the president of a successful global business.

“Mr. Shepard doesn’t come out here,” she said, nodding meaningfully at the closed door. “When that door opens, it’s because you’re going through it, taking him something he’s asked you for, or you’re coming out of it, having delivered whatever he asked. He doesn’t come out here. He doesn’t interact with anyone in person. You’re the physical extension of him when you’re out here. You might find yourself delivering folders or messages to other people. Once, several years ago, I fired somebody for him.”

I shook my head, utterly overwhelmed. “It just seems like a lot of responsibility,” I admitted. “Why wouldn’t the head of a company want to be out here with the people helping make everything happen?”

Myra leaned close. “You’re going to learn very quickly that Mr. Shepard has reasons for desiring his privacy,” she said, her voice lowered. “He’s a good man, regardless of what anyone says. Always keep that in mind—no matter what.”

I didn’t know how to question that strange aside. I hadn’t heard anyone say anything about the president of this company besides Myra. Was there something there? Something I should know about?

“Anyway,” she said, probably looking to head off any follow-up questions I might have popped, “every day, someone brings a box of documents that need to be digitized.” Myra patted the top of a large cardboard container taking up much of the desk. “Your goal, to stay on schedule for what the company has in mind, is to get through a box a day. I’m thinking we’ll be able to do two, since there’s two of us for now.”

I lifted the top off the box in question and gave a low whistle. It was packed to the brim with a mess of hanging folders, file folders, and loose sheets of paper.

“We probably shouldn’t get too ahead of ourselves,” I remarked. “That’s a lot of digitizing.”

“It’s not difficult,” Myra insisted. “It’s just time consuming. I volunteered to be one of the employees helping with this transition. It’s enormously important that we get all parts of the company firmly in the twenty-first century.”

She proceeded to teach me the process of scanning, labeling, and filing away each piece of paper in the box. For a single file folder containing related records, it was easier. The scanner would just whip the pages through in one bundle. It was the random, floating sheets of records that required the most painstaking work.

At least I had something to do with my hands. I was unreasonably nervous, under the impression that I was under some kind of extreme scrutiny. In my previous incarnation working as a stripper, I hadn’t minded the eyes on me because I could stare right back. That’s how I made my money, making those connections. But this feeling was different. I glanced furtively around as I ran some files through the scanner, working while Myra trotted off to the break room to get a couple of cups of coffee.

Nobody across the office was paying a bit of attention to me, all of them engrossed in their computer screen or talking to one another. A few looked up as I passed my glance over them and smiled.

Someone was watching me, but I didn’t know who or where they were. My skin crawled with the sensation.

The phone at my elbow rang loudly—once, twice, three times. I looked around for Myra, but she was nowhere in sight, still on a jaunt for our caffeine fix. I checked the display and blanched. “Shepard, Roland,” it read. The president of Shepard Shipments was calling right now, and the person he wanted wasn’t here. What was I going to do?

The phone rang three more times while I stared at it as if it were a wild animal threatening my physical safety, willing Myra to swoop in and save the day. Then, I answered.

“Hello?” I winced at my own voice. I sounded like a frightened child.

“How many goddamn rings does it take for you to answer the fucking phone?” Roland exclaimed, his voice deep, ever so slightly hoarse, and very, very angry. “And is that the best you can manage for a professional greeting? Hello?”

My face had to have been scarlet. “I’m so…I’m so sorry,” I stuttered. “I was…this is my first day, and Myra stepped away from the desk, and I wasn’t sure…”

“Wasn’t sure about what?” he barked.

“I wasn’t sure what to do,” I was forced to squeak.

“You weren’t sure what to do when a phone rang?” he demanded.

“Um, I wasn’t sure what to do when it was the president of a big company calling,” I whispered.

“You answer it!” The bellow made me jump and nearly drop the phone, which I was sure wouldn’t have gone well either.

“Okay.” I doubted he could hear me over his angry breathing.

“If you think you’re competent enough to do so, bring me a copy of the Times and a cup of coffee,” he snapped and slammed down the phone.

I was all too eager to replace my own receiver, standing quickly and looking around. Times. Coffee. A newspaper and a cup of coffee. I could do that. And coffee was where Myra was. She could help me figure this all out, help allay my unreasonable fucking fear of a billionaire on a telephone.

I reached the break room easily enough without too much delay, but Myra was nowhere in sight. Had she gone back to our desk? I craned my neck to check, but didn’t see her there. Where had she gone?

With shaking hands, I poured a large cup of coffee, slopping it over the sides and onto the counter. Dammit! Couldn’t I do anything right? I mopped up the spill with a paper towel and looked around. Would they…would they maybe keep the newspaper in here? There were snacks galore, reminding me that I was hungry, and plenty of community drinks in the refrigerator, but not a single sheet of newsprint.

Wasn’t this company working toward going completely digital? Couldn’t Roland Shepard turn on a computer to read the day’s news?

I carried the coffee out of the break room, the hot liquid sloshing around, jumping out and dotting the carpet from time to time, and hunted for Myra. Where in the hell was she? Did she leave me on purpose? Was this some twisted part of the training? I didn’t see the old woman anywhere, but, then again, she was awfully short. It would be easy to overlook her in my panicked scan around the office.

No Myra, no newspaper, and a rapidly decreasing mug of coffee from spilling so much of it. I was not doing very well on my first day.

I finally approached the receptionist at the front of the office, a woman sitting at a desk by the elevator I’d come up here on.