Temping Is Hell by Cathy Yardley

you really think that old guy meant he was going to kill you if you talked?
    Doesn’t that sound a little crazy?
    She stepped in, eager to kick off her low-heeled pumps, call Prue, and convince her to grab a drink. Lord knew she needed one—and she needed to talk to her best friend even more.
    “Felix, goddamn it, you owe me.”
    Kate froze in the act of dropping her bag on the floor. That was her father’s voice. What was he doing home at this hour? He should’ve been on shift down at the police station.
    And why was he yelling at Uncle Felix?
    “Rita and I loaned you money to keep that cockamamie publishing company afloat,” he said, his voice low and ragged. There was a pause. “Yeah, I know you went under. I know you declared bankruptcy. But I’m not a goddamned bank, Felix. You don’t just get say ‘whoops, too bad’ to your family .”
    Kate winced. They’d loaned her uncle money? She loved Felix dearly—had worked closely with him for four years and loved the work that he was trying to do. Loved the books that they had put out, the people they had helped.
    That said, nobody knew better than Kate—you should never loan Felix cash. She’d learned that the hard way—four grand in savings forked over to keep him afloat, which resulted in her moving home with her parents. And now, her father was complaining about also loaning Felix money?
    God, she hated irony.
    “Don’t do that,” her father growled. He sounded like he was on the kitchen phone; she could hear the thud of his shoes, knew he was pacing with the cordless. “Don’t throw Katie in my face. Nobody twisted your arm. You didn’t have to hire her.”
    Kate found herself rooted to the spot.
    Was her uncle claiming that he had been forced to hire her?
    He wouldn’t have had the company as long as he did if I hadn’t been working there! Her heart pounded with the indignity of it… even as a little knot of doubt started to tighten in her stomach.
    Had her uncle lied to her, as well? She’d thought she was making a difference. She’d made all sorts of improvements to his systems, worked with his suppliers when none of them had wanted to deal with his tantrums and antics. But despite all that, the company had gone under.
    Had she simply been deluding herself about her own competence? And worse—had her uncle encouraged her delusion because her parents had paid him to?
    “In fact,” her father continued, “it would’ve been better if she’d gotten a real job instead of acting like a flunky to you hippie weirdos. Maybe then she’d understand what it means to actually make a living in the real world!”
    Kate gasped inaudibly at the slap of her father’s careless words as her eyes stung with tears.
    Do they really think I’m that useless?
    Of course, she’d just gotten fired from her latest temp job, although obviously she would have quit anyway. She had good reason—her torn shirt was a testament to that, plus the whole “talk and you’ll be sorry” threat. But the bottom line was, she had been struggling to get just a temp job for six months. And she wasn’t exactly thriving outside of a family-owned company.
    What, exactly, did that say about her?
    She heard her father sigh heavily. He sounded closer. She backed toward the front door, out of his line of sight.
    “Felix, you know ordinarily I wouldn’t be asking you for the loan back,” he said wearily. It was true. Her father had often said he’d jump off the Bay Bridge before he asked Felix for a thing. “But right now, I’ll just say it. I got laid off. Goddamned budget cuts, and they’re forcing me to retire. The twenty-five thousand dollars Rita and I loaned you would come in really handy right now, because… well, I’m afraid we’re going to lose the house.”
    Kate leaned against the front door, blood rushing in her ears.
    Twenty-five thousand? He’d loaned Felix twenty-five thousand ?
    And they might lose the house ?
    Nausea swirled in the pit of her stomach in