Odd, I thought. "You want another?"
She shrugged. "If I have to in order to sit here." I said it wasn't that busy yet, and she nodded silently a couple times before chocking her head. "Do you recognize me?"
I looked at her for a couple seconds. Not a regular, more a downtown type, thirty-ish, wearing a jacket that matched her skirt and camisole, nude stockings, and knee-high boots with two-inch heels, the sort of outfit that Kutter tended to favor these days, and that's what did it. "You work with Katey; I saw you at trivia a couple weeks ago."
She named and and reached out her hand. "Yes! I'm Annette Grayson, and I need to talk about your son!"
My brain froze as I shook her hand. "Nice to meet you, but, uh..."
"Katey's your son Kutter, right, and you're Aidan? I don't have the wrong Emilia, do I?"
"No, that's me, but how?"
She grinned nervously. "I stayed at the Inn about ten years ago, just before starting college. Spent a few years as a couple different guys until I get back to my real life, putting it on the blog, though I basically stopped once my life got normal and I figured this maybe shouldn't be the first thing someone sees when they Google me. Then my friend Jordan forwards me one of your posts talking about Katey's boss Ms. Grayson like 'this you?' and I'm like holy shit, we've had a teenager running our office for the past seven months!"
I give a pinched grin. "Well, you could have had me."
She shall as she shrugged. "I mean, her social media skills were a lot better!" She paused for a second. "Is it weird that I'm calling her 'she' and 'Katey'? I mean, I try to respect everyone's identity--"
"They'll be shes for the next few weeks."
"Right. Anyways, it just made me more impressed with her, and as you know, we all love her, and, well, the boss wants to promote her to social media manager for us and two other imprints."
That stopped me kind of flat. "Oh. Wow."
"I know, right? And I can't think of any reason he'd believe for why he shouldn't! Katey has been fantastic and deserves this, but the next Katey could be a cranky septugenarian who just gave up her landline a year ago. I don't know how much you know about the publishing business, but that could be a huge hit to us."
"So, what are you saying, that you want Kutter to stay?"
"No, of course not! If anything, you should probably convince her to give two weeks' notice before she's offered the job. I mean, I'm her boss, but I'm terrible at that part of the job - the last time I suggested that someone might want to investigate an alternate career track given how volatile publishing is, we nearly wound up in arbitration - and, I don't know, maybe as her dad you've got some easy of putting it that makes her feel more mature..." She groaned and looked at the ceiling for a moment. "I sound ridiculous."
I shrugged. "It's hard not to sound ridiculous when talking about that place." She was looking at her glass, so I asked if she wanted another beer or something stronger.
"Oh, this calls for whiskey." I obliged, and she downed it and twisted her face. "I shouldn't be dumping this on you, this is part of my job, not yours, but you know what the fucked up thing is? I would totally keep Katey on, even knowing what I know. How irresponsible is that?"
I didn't have an answer, and enough other people were coming in that i couldn't stick by her part of the bar and talk to her. A couple drinks later, she left, putting a fifty-dollar tip under her coaster.
I've got no idea how to talk to Kutter about this. It feels like it should be straightforward, but who knows how she's going to take it?
-Aidan/Emilia
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