Free The Last Word by Lisa Lutz

background reports for the major
     clients on my desk in the morning. I assumed this was all a phase that would pass,
     and since we were getting by, I chose to ride it out.
    Then a slew of past-due bills began sliding through the door, and notices from the
     IRS and EDD (who the hell are they?). Apparently the payroll taxes were not being
     paid. Other than me, all the employees were receiving their checks as usual. I simply
     handwrote my usual check and figured that refusing to write my paycheck was my mother’s
     only form of fiscal dissension. I was foolish enough to believe that even in our hostile
     work environment we could maintain the status quo.
    I had always put the bills on top of my mother’s desk. She had always put them in
     her top right-hand drawer until she paid them. The first part had remained the same;
     the second part had not. One morning when I questioned Mom about whether the bills
     were being paid, she opened her desk drawer to reveal a bountiful stash of unopened
     envelopes and said, “Is that what those are?”
    “Mom, why aren’t you paying the bills?” I asked, trying to remain calm.
    “I thought you were,” Mom said.
    I was lucky to get an answer.
    “That was always your job.”
    “Maybe in the old days, when your father and I had a say in how the company was run.”
    “You still have a say,” I said.
    “Well then, I think—and your father agrees—that you should take over all the fiscal
     duties. You should certainly understand the financial responsibilities of running
     a company. Wouldn’t you agree?”
    I didn’t disagree. However, I didn’t actually know how the payroll was handled, nor
     was I educated on our accounting software. I asked my mother if she could train me
     on the financial protocol.
    “Of course, dear,” she said. “How does June of next year work for you?”
    So that’s when I officially took over all of the fiscal responsibilities for Spellman
     Investigations. If I didn’t understand something, I looked it up on the Internet.
     If I wasn’t sure if there was enough money in the account to pay a bill, I checked
     the balance and calculated how many checks hadn’t cleared. Every night I read the
     manual for the accounting software and it put me right to sleep.
    Between the “bookkeeping” and the client billing, this added another fifteen hours
     to my workweek. With my parents’ hours trimmed at least 50 percent and the limitations
     of delegation to Demetrius (refuses to do surveillance) 13 and Vivien (too green for most jobs), I was working seventy hours a week and getting
     paid the same as before. Given the rampant disrespectand the fact that I was being held hostage by my employees, you must understand that
     I was itching to fire someone. When my father’s computer caught a virus from what
     was obviously a dodgy online game, and it spread throughout the office, I phoned Robbie
     Gruber, our disagreeable computer consultant, to repair the problem.
    He arrived two hours late, soaked in an obscene body spray, which was only camouflaging
     an odor so rank you didn’t mind the body spray. Every computer has access to the server,
     but Robbie sat down at my desk, pulled out a bag of Cheetos, and while annihilating
     our computer virus, chomped on his snack nuggets, licked his fingers, and finger-painted
     my keyboard with his DNA and yellow dye #4.
    “How much?” I asked when he was done.
    “One fifty.”
    “Your rates have gone up by fifty percent?”
    “You no longer get the friend-and-family rate.”
    “Why is that?”
    “You know why.” 14
    “I’m deducting thirty bucks for a new keyboard.”
    “I might not be available the next time you call.”
    “I won’t call. You’re fired.”
    “Al, Olivia. Good luck with your new arrangement,” Robbie said as he wadded up his
     dead bag of Cheetos and headed out the door. He twisted his beefy torso to throw the
     junk food carcass into the trash bin and missed, sending a cascade