Felicity is a Classics graduate hired to organize Mission Critical, Ben Etxina’s new investigation business in San Francisco. Her intended interview is across the street at the Tuition Aid Advising Center, but she arrives at Ben’s nearly empty office and accepts his offer instead.
Ben describes her as about five feet one inch tall, with a buzz cut, narrow waist, curving hips and small hands. She wears a fitted pink thrifted shirt and several rings. She calls herself organized and says her father is a sheriff’s deputy and her mother works in corporate textile logistics for H&M. She and Ben exchange Latin jokes after discussing her degree.
The proposed job at the advising center combines reception, sales and office management. Ben instead offers operational-support work at a $90,000 annual salary, with a month’s pay if she leaves within the first three months. She observes that this sounds like an incentive to quit. He describes it as insurance while looking for another job.
Felicity begins at a laptop on Ben’s brick-and-plank desk before there is a chair. She accesses his accounts, summarizes messages and agrees to price office supplies before spending. Her responsibilities include furniture, internet, client organization, retrieval of Ben’s Glock from his sister Rosalita and the return of books he stole from a Phoenix library. Ben asks her to arrange his evening flight to Mexico City and to sort incoming cases while he is away.