27. Lilah
27
LILAH
A week later I sat outside the Blackwell Falls town hall in the passenger seat of the Rover, Jude at the wheel. I smoothed my skirt and inhaled, trying to calm my nerves.
“You’re going to be great,” he said. “You’ve got this.”
I didn’t need him there but I was glad he was anyway. He and Nolan had taken to driving me around everywhere even though I was perfectly capable of driving myself. They’d made up excuses — they were bored, they wanted to get out of the house, they had a stop to make anyway — but I knew it was because they were keeping an eye on me.
It should have been annoying, but after what had happened in Greece, it was actually kind of comforting, and I rarely pushed back, happy to have their company and protection.
Just in case.
“I’ve never had an office job before,” I said, looking at the brick building at the center of town that served as the offices for the mayor and miscellaneous town functions.
The police station was right next door, and I thought of Brandon Miller, sitting behind the wall of glass, pretending he was a nice normal guy.
“Doesn’t mean you can’t do it,” Jude said.
“That’s true.”
“Although,” Jude said, “if you want to skip it, you know we can cover your expenses until things go back to normal.”
I reached for the door, suddenly eager to get out of the car. I’d already had this conversation with Nolan. I wasn’t having it again with Jude.
“I’m good,” I said, getting out of the car.
“Good luck,” he said as I shut the door.
I walked up the pathway leading to the building. The weather was perfect. Warm and balmy. Daffodils and tiger lilies lined the sidewalk, giving the utilitarian building a quintessentially small-town appearance.
What would it be like to work in a place like this instead of a seedy motel or a dive bar or a grimy chain restaurant? It was the kind of normal other people probably took for granted, but I felt a little burst of optimism as I reached for the glass door, imagined coming to work every day in decent clothes, getting coffee from the break room, sitting at a desk instead of being on my feet for eight hours at a time.
I told the greeter — an older woman with gray hair wearing an assortment of beaded necklaces — I was there for an interview with the Mayor’s Office and she checked her list, then directed me to the second floor.
I passed a handful of people coming down the stairs and when I got to the second-floor landing, I saw a sign pointing one way down the hall for the planning department, pet licensing, the tax office, and records. A second sign pointed me in the other direction for the Mayor’s Office.
I emerged from the hall into a lobby with a handful of potted plants and a generic unmanned desk, its surface empty, the lights on a phone blinking as it rang.
I looked around, but no one was there, and it didn’t look like anyone was coming. I waited for almost a full minute, thinking maybe someone would answer the phone from another room, but it just kept on ringing, so I finally walked over to it, hesitated, then picked it up.
“Uh… Blackwell Falls Mayor’s Office, how may I help you?”
“Hi, this is Rosie from the Chamber of Commerce office calling for Meredith.” The voice on the other end of the line was crisp and businesslike.
I hesitated, then saw the hold button on the complicated phone system. “May I put you on hold for a moment?”
“Of course.”
I pressed the hold button and set down the receiver.
“Who are you and what are you doing?”
I spun around and came face-to-face with Mayor Maxwell. I’d only seen her a handful of times, always in news articles about local events, town elections, and budget discussions, but she looked more or less the same: a fifty-something woman with styled shoulder-length brown hair and makeup that looked polished but not overdone.
“I’m… Lilah?” Oh god, why did I say it like it was a question? Like I didn’t even know my own name? “Sorry, I have an interview at one, but no one was here and the phone was ringing, so…”
She lifted a perfectly groomed eyebrow. “You answered it?”
“Um… yes.”
Her gaze sharpened with something like interest. “Who is it?”
“Rosie from the Chamber of Commerce, asking for Meredith,” I said.
She marched to the phone, picked up the receiver, and pressed a button. “I’ll transfer you now.”
She pressed another button and set down the receiver. “Have you been a receptionist before?”
I shook my head. “No.” I hesitated, then decided to just get the hard part over with. “I’ve actually never had a job in an office before.”
Mayor Maxwell sat on the edge of the greeter’s desk. “What kinds of jobs have you had?”
“Waitress, bartender, maid,” I said. “That kind of thing.”
“Ever been fired?”
I thought about the Dive, then the motel. “Twice actually.”
My face heated.
“How come?” She sounded genuinely curious.
“I was fired from the motel during the last big storm of the season. I was stuck on the mountain and the roads weren’t clear in time for my shift.”
“Ever missed a day before that?”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t… Well, the truth is, I couldn’t afford to miss work. Can’t. Can’t afford to miss work.”
“And the bar?”
I thought about lying, but I’d been honest so far and I hadn’t been dismissed yet.
“My boss was a creep.”
She held my gaze, her brown eyes sharp. “The phones aren’t usually crazy here, but they do ring throughout the day. We also need someone to file — paper copies and digital archives — and to make coffee, order office supplies, that kind of thing. Think you can pick it up?”
I didn’t have to think about my answer to this one. “Yes.”
“Can you work twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday from nine to five?”
“Yes.” I could hardly breathe, didn’t dare hope I was actually going to get this thing.
“Great, you’re hired.” She flashed me a warm smile. “Assuming you want it.”
“I want it.”
She laughed. “You haven’t asked about the pay.”
“Is it at least minimum wage?”
“A bit more,” she said. “With opportunities for advancement if you’re good at the job.”
“I want it,” I said again.
She pushed off the desk and extended her hand. “Welcome to the team, Lilah.”